Photoshop V7.0 > current version (CS/V8.0)

Due to the increasing popularity of the Paintshop Pro and PhotoFiltre forum, Uguel707 has requested that I open a thread to help bring the community together over Adobe Photoshop.

As many of you must already know, Adobe Photoshop is a cutting-edge graphics tool, who's versatility seems to have no boundaries. Whenever professional graphics editing needs to take place, you can be sure that Photoshop will be there...

It is my wish that in this forum we take a similar stance to that of Uguel707's, and that is to provide help for all aspects of image editing with regards to Photoshop. That way we can separate Photoshop queries from PSP and PhotoFiltre and make the forums a little more organised, if not for the users - for the moderators also.

As with the PSP and PhotoFiltre forum, each week we can assign a new theme for the topic of discussion (the theme may not last one week, or it may last more than one week). Being a very practical forum, you would be best having a copy of Adobe Photoshop preferable from version 7 onwards (otherwise some of the more advanced techniques may not be included in your copy). Where you get this copy of Photoshop is entirely up to you, but I am obliged to comment that there is a fully-working version available from http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/main.html, and also a trial version from the same site.

**Please note that I am not a professional, I do not have a qualification in Digital design as such, but I have studied various graphics programs and advanced techniques at University, and I have a wide but not complete experience with the Adobe Photoshop program. We are here to help each other.

Without further ado, let's begin the deliberations...

p.s. I'd like to thank Wilders Security forums for having a place where the community can come together to talk about non-security-related topics.

 

Sounds great to me !

Regards,
Jade.

 

As with every topic, the first place to start is with basics. So for the first week I would really prefer to not touch the more advanced methods of editing.

First of all, I will rely on you to do your own research because each theme will be made assuming that you all know how to make a new image/use the selection tool/cut/copy/manipulate the tool bars to the minimum degree. We can then talk about what we have achieved.

Making layers

Photoshop is mostly about using multiple images, to make a final image. These can be called layers (just think of a picture put ontop of another picture, to make another layer). It is very important to use layers, because sometimes we do not want to touch the original background layer, and sometimes we want to add things that may not necessarily have anything to do with the background layer. There are many reasons why we can use layers. What I want you all to do, is to get some images from the internet or your own collection, and make a collage in a new Photoshop document (.psd). You can alter the way that you make these layers appear, but try to keep it simple.

p.s. there is a layer menu in the bottom right of the Photoshop interface by default. There you can experiment with some of the tools that the program provides for layering.

Here's a simple layer that I made to a tornado background. I just copied and pasted the image of my face onto the background. The pasted image takes the form of a new layer and in the next theme we will be figuring out how to manipulate layers with filters and other effects.

 

I have some links to help guides/tutorials that might help:

http://www.adobe.com/products/tips/photoshop.html

http://www.mccannas.com/pshop/photosh0.htm

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshop

http://www.absolutecross.com/tutorials/photoshop/

 

Thank you `mishimasan`!
I will try your links...

Ok, I am at my first steps with Adobe Photoshop. Be good!
I downloaded 2 different pics and mixed them...

 

I also added a frame to the same pic.....
That was my homework for tonight.
Edit: Any idea for a theme?
I think an average of 2 weeks for a theme sounds good to me.
What do you think? But for now, let's practice!

 

And I did another one with these settings...
"luminosité'' is the last one in the fusion mode window.

 

After I finished my picture, I added a transparent frame.

 

Nice one Uguel. I really like the last image, nice colours.

So in the last image, what you did was cut out an image of Gwen Stefani, and make a new gradient layer using purple as the colour and reduced the opacity to 50% Or did you make an overlay?. Then you made the border by using the "inner bevel" in the blending properties for the gradient layer?

I think that the theme for this week should be summer. This will be relatively simple, and will most probably involve brighter images, and more vivid colours - although people are welcome to post more emotional, impressionist creations.

 

Here you go, three layers in total...two of them being pictures .




Regards,
Jade.

 

Are there three layers used in the actual image, or are you including the border as one of the layers? If I could guess, it would be the forrest as one layer, the person as another and the border as the last layer. Did you use an omni-directional light source towards the top of the layer 1 and 2?

It would be really helpful for the 'posters' to explain how they made their image, so that newcomers that view these pages understand better or gain more of an overall understanding of Photoshop and how to manipulate the program.

Thanks for your posts guys, I really appreciate it and I'm sure others do aswell.

 

Sorry mate, I'm used to just "doing" it as I am self taught mostly .....but I will remember to try and explain in the future . And yes, your assumptions are correct...amazing how after becoming familiar with any graphics program we can guestimate as to what was done and be spot on just about every time.

Regards,
Jade.

 

With this image, you may not think it has anything to do with Summer, but for myself it does. These are pictures of: my girlfriend at a fashion show in the summer, my dog posing for the camera on our sofa in summer with the sun shining on his face, and myself taking a massive swig of water after a night of drinking in the same summer... (the light was from a bed-side lamp blurred and enfuriated by a slight movement of the camera - something I love capturing when I can). These images are the three layers I used for my canvas, and blending them with each other is extremely simple. In the layer properties toolbar on the bottom right, there is a series of buttons on the bottom. When you have all of your images lined up on the canvas and you want to blend them, make sure that they overlap each other sufficiently, because now you are going to click on the "create layer mask" button. You must have your designated layer selected before you click this because it will assign the mask to that layer.

Now select the layer mask you just created by clicking on it in the layer properties menu in the bottom right (it should appear to be another layer but alongside the selected layer).

Select the "gradient" tool from the toolbar, and make sure that the gradient tool settings are set to foreground to background. Now, drag the cursor from the start of where the layer below ends, to the end of the where the selected layer lies (this is difficult to show from just writing so I'll post one image just after to back this up). The selected layer should blend in with the layer below (please note, you should use a layer mask on the layer above if you wish to blend layers with each other, because the foreground to background gradient basically make the selected layer transparent where selected).

I used artistic filters on each layer to make them look different but yet interesting. I also enhanced the contrast on the middle layer (my girlfriend), and also changed the colour balance: pulled the yellow and red up. The reason for this is because the main piece that a person sees is the centre of a picture, so all attention is drawn to that spot, so if you can make the centre of an image more interesting it also makes it feel more comfortable.

 

Here is the example of how you should use the gradient "foreground to background" tool when you have the layer on the right selected. Just imagine that the rectangular marquee is showing how the layer on the left lies under the layer on the right, and the grey selection line shows where you drag from the right to the left with the gradient tool:

 

Okay `mishimasan`, I will give you the mains steps I did.


1. I opened my picture of Gwen, and then I promote it into a layer,
lets call it layer 1.

2. Then I added a new layer for the background. I added
pink and blue in it, not with the flood fill tool but with the gradient one next to it. I had it set in order to have the blue colour starting from the left and blurring into dark pink to the right. The only thing I did after I applied the colour was scrolling down the little window for the blending mode (kind of light effects) I tried all of them and I chose the last one called lumière in French is it luminance in English? I set the opacity to 87% This will be layer 2.
See screenshot below for light effects I applied.

3.Then I moved the pink background, layer 2, under layer 1.

4. With layer 1 highlighted, or Gwen, I erased all the background.

5. When I was satisfied with the results, I merged all visible layers and saved 2 copies, a .psd and a .jpg one.

In the end, I added a frame to the .JPG one
from a plugin called Filter Illimited 2.0. I installed yesterday in my plugin folder. It is a demo freeware and it works fine. You can get it for free at this address:


filters unlimited 2.0

They will ask you to register to download the freeware.
I just did so and it was easy.I never had any problem with
them; they didn't give my email address to other companies.

 

Ahh ok Uguel, thanks a lot for that description of what you did to achieve your desired effect. It's exactly what I'm looking for when people post their creations .

Ok, so lumière can also be called Luminescence.

About the filter, I'm sure it's a great filter and very fast for what you want it to do, but the problem still arises that filters are not very versatile and they don't teach you very much. Obviously, the more advanced equations for making mathematically-based effects using the Filter Factory or such alike would be more convenient in the published, stand-alone form. However, something like making a border can actually be very interesting if you use the 'Blending options' from right-clicking on the layer in the bottom-right. From here you can play around with various things to do with the layer in question, notably the 'Bevel and emboss' feature which I'm sure..... YOU, will love... Haha .

Get back to me when you've had a play around with it.

 

Here's the 'Blending options' interface in good-old plain English:

 

Oui, je le vois très bien,lol!

I will try those settings tonight...
but will it keep my border transparent too?
For I like to keep the border or frame transparent
for some images.

 

Yes, it should stay transparent, as long as you make the changes to the transparent layer. If you make a new layer and apply the embossing, of course it will be the same opacity as the new layer. Remember that the bevel and emboss does not create a new layer, so it will take on the characteristics of the layer that you apply it to. Capisch??

By the way, I fixed the list of links that I posted above with some great new ones. Thanks to Uguel, fast response here at Team Photoshop has never been quicker . I also would like to blame my University tutor as she posted those links in one of her papers for the allumni. Typical...

 

Thanks Mish!
Oh that teacher...we should scold her!!!

from Bowserman:

Wow, it is nice.
I like that view too.

 

Hi Uguel, and thanks .

I just made a Photshop action for you that will make a transparent border. Here is how to use it:


>Right-click and save the Transparent Border.txt to your desktop.

>Then change the .txt to .atn

>Now you can either copy the action to your Photoshop action folder, or simply load it from where it is from within Photoshop

>Now all yo have to do is press PLAY for the action. You will then be promted to open a picture. Choose the picture you want and then it will play again. I have enabled the dialogues (you get to choose) for the stroke width and the bevel/emboss/contour.


Enjoy!

Regards,
Jade.

EDIT: This was made with PhotoshopCS, so I don't know how it will go with PS6 and below. Let me know how it goes .

 

Hey, thank you very much.
...that is very nice.
I wil certainly have a look at it!

 

Haven't heard that one for a long time! Could this be your age showing Uguel?

OH WOW, now that really rocks! Here's what I was waiting for ladies and gentlemen, something that would really take me off my feet. Now I had no idea that Photoshop used scripts, but because of the many joys of the community I now know something extremely useful, without EVER having done any research on it! .

Thanks a lot for the info bowserman, and keep posting here pluh-eese.

 

OK! What happened was, that when I loaded it into an already-opened Photoshop session with an open image, it told me that this action was not supported by my current version of Photoshop.

I'm guessing you are using an older version? I am using the current version. This is strange as the scripts (actions) should be upwards compatible.

Boo hoo.

Anyway, I would love to hear how you made the script, as it is an extremely effective way of doing a lot of things with a drag-and-drop method.

 

Hmm, strange.

I am using PhotoshopCS so it should work for you. You don't need to have an image open to run it, it should prompt you to open one and automatically start.

From within PS, click on actions and at the top right there is a little button. Click on that and then choose LOAD ACTION. Then load the action I made. It really should work.

Regards,
Jade.