Free Adobe Photoshop – Photoshop Tips

Wouldn’t it be cool to create abstract art? Want to create a mysterious lady that is fire, follow these step by stepy instructions: Start by opening an image of a model in an interesting pose. Create path surrounding her body using pen tool in path mode. Ctrl+Enter the path to get the selection. Hide the image layer. Create a new layer and fill with a solid yellow color. Select gradient tool. Create a gradient. Duplicate the layer. Enable lock transparency pixels form the layer palette. Select multiply as gradient mode from the options bar at top. Apply the gradient several times. Change the layer mode to “Linear Light”. Duplicate layer. From “Filter” menu select “Liquify”. Select forward warp tool and apply on this layer from down to upwards to create an effect of flames. Change the layer mode to “Pin Light”. Select the background layer. Apply the same gradient that we used in the lady silhouette on the background layer. From “Filter” menu select “Render>>Difference Clouds”. Reapply this filter a number of times. Press Ctrl+U to open hue/saturation window. Duplicate the layer. Change the layer mode to “Linear Light”.

So first you need to pick out a photo. Now create a new Photoshop document 150×150 px with a #725F3B background. Drag the photo over to this document. Next, we need to make this photo look old. So, desaturate the image, then use the Add Noise filter with the following settings. Now we need to darken and color the picture using the Levels and HueSaturation. It looks a little rough, so you use the Blur filter and repeat. Not bad. But it’s a little boring with the picture so static. Let’s liven it up by adding some degraded stripes and shifts. Let’s begin with the stripes. Create a new layer and paint it black. Use the Grain Filter.Now change the Blending Mode for Screen. This will be one of the shots. To create the other 5 shots you need to repeat the procedure: create the new layer, paint it black, use the Grain Filter with slightly changed values and change the Blending Mode for Screen. And there’s a much easier way to do this. Duplicate the layer with the stripes and then repeat the use of the last filter. Do that 5 times. Don’t be afraid of too much noise. We will correct it in Image Ready. To make the correction make all layers with the Grain invisible. Then in the Animation Panel push the button Duplicate current frame 10 times. Make visible the first layer with Grain for the first shot. Now the second layer – for the second shot and etc. The seventh shot leave with the sixth visible layer, the eighth with the fifth, and so on in a reverse sequence. Now we’ve got some movement, but it is very quick. Select all the shots and then set delay time to 0.1 sec. Almost done. The last thing I’d like to add is a shift for a couple of the shots. Select the sixth shot (where the shot with Grain repeats), select the layer with the picture and shift it for several pixels below and to the right. Then select the next seventh shot and shift it for several pixels to the right. Save it – and enjoy the results.

With photoshop we can reduce the weight of the PDS up to 75%. This is something to think about, if we can reduce so much the information in a PSD it would be because this format is not very optimized, right?. Most people think that’s why there are files with compression, TIFF or JPG but they agree that keeping the original files in PSD format is much more comfortable than working with TIFF (i don’t think we need to compare it with JPG). Well, how can we do this? Something as simple as hiding the layers before saving the file, if after that you compress it with Winrar or Winzip you will save a lot more. Here you have the information of the experiment: Normal PSD: 49,2 MB PSD saved with the hidden layers: 38,9 MB PSD saved with the hidden layers and zipped: 11,5 MB The new version of Photoshop CS3 is out and we still have the same problem we will have to wait a little more. Now, if you have to send a PSD via ftp or email you have no choice than doing this.

When using your brushes it is essential to organize your them: The Preset Manager: Go the brushes palette on the left and click on the tab that says brushes. Click the small black arrow that appear when you click the brushes tab. A menu will appear with the option “preset manager”. Or go to “edit” > preset manager. When you click that option the preset manager will appear. Here you can organize your brushes. You can load several sets into the pallet, rename the brushes to something you will easily remember and create your own sets of various brushes. You can also delete brushes. Not only can you organize your brushes in the preset manager but also your swatches, gradients, styles, patterns, contours, custom shapes and tools.

Do you want to recolor this white rose into a red one. It is quite easy, start by opening the image you want to recolor. Then choose the color you would want on your image. I took a dark red color. After that you choose a hard 70px or so brush. Make a new layer and choose linear burn as the blending mode. Leave opacity at 100%. Start brushing but leave the small details for now… Now choose a small 10px or so hard brush and start brushing details. Still not perfect though. Let’s use a little blur by going to Filters > Blur > Blur more around 3 times to fix the hard edges.After that add some noise. Go to Filter > Noise > Add noise and do 2,50% Gaussian with Monochromatic noise checked.

Something fun to do is create a 3D comment.Let’s start by creating a new 300200 document in Photoshop.Take out your Paint Bucket Tool (G) and paint the background a dark deviant green color. I used #37433A for my background. Switch over to the Custom Shape Tool (U). Select this quote shape from the huge custom shape dropdown. Once you have it selected, plug in these custom shape settings into your document. Now change your foreground color to a gray, and click anywhere on your document to add the shape. Go to Edit -> Transform -> Perspective and give the shape an angle. This is achieved by clicking the top-left point and dragging it directly down a little bit. We don’t want to overdo the perspective, so drag it only a short distance. Duplicate the custom shape’s layer. Once you’ve duplicated it, we want to select the bottom shape layer. Hold down shift on your keyboard, and hit the right arrow once. Next we want to let go of shift, and just punch the up arrow 2-3 times. This will position the bottom shape to the right and above the top shape. Change the bottom layer’s blending mode from Normal to Hard Light. Right click on the top shape layer and select Blending Options. Now give the shape a gradient overlay to add depth to the shape and make it come out more. Now we need to add some text to the document. Take out the Horizontal Type Tool (T). With a round 36px font selected, type out comment in your document. Be sure to set anti-aliasing so the text doesn’t look all jaggy and ugly! Firstly, we need to rasterize the text layer. Once you’ve done that, you’ll need to repeat the Perspective transformation that we used on the shape itself. We’re aiming to match the angle the shape has already, so try to get it as close as possible! Duplicate the text layer. Select the bottom of the two text layers. Now hit right and down on your keyboard 2 times each. This will position them 2px down and to the right from the upper text layer. Change the font color of the bottom text layer from black to the background’s color. Again, I used #37433A in my example. There you have it, a sweet 3D Comment Icon.

Folow these instructions to add a contemporary frosted pixel overlay to your photos. Open a picture into Adobe Photoshop. Next, press Ctrl+J to duplicate the layer. Change the blending mode to Overlay. Go to Filter> Pixelate> Mosaic and in the Mosaic Photoshop filter settings, set ethe pixels to the size that you want the squares to be. Then, press Ctrl+J to duplicate the top layer and change the blending mode from Overlay to Multiply. Now go to Filter> Stylize> Find Edges. Press Ctrl+Shift+U to desaturate the outline so that they don’t have any color to it. Go to Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur and add a little gaussian blur to the outline which will add the frosty effect.