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Discovering Newbie Information on Photoshop
Added: (Wed Jul 09 2008)
Ever wanted to do abstract art? Well with computers it can be quite simple. Start by creating a new file with black as background color. Select gradient tool. Select radial mode as gradient style. Create a new layer and apply the gradient. Apply another gradient several times as shown below. Change the layer mode to "Color Dodge". Repeat the above steps again to create more disco loops. Create duplicate of both disco layers and merge the duplicate layers. From "Filter" menu select "Distort>>Wave". Press Ctrl+U to open hue/saturation window. Change the layer mode to "Screen". There you have it creating disco balls with photoshop.
So first you need to pick out a photo. Now create a new Photoshop document 150x150 px with a #725F3B background. Drag the photo over to this document. Next, we need to make this photo look old. So, de-saturate 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 Hue Saturation. 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.
The basics of photoshop, well one major thing is learning how to save your picture history. Start by opening a file you've been working on or create a new file. Then go to Edit> Preferences> General. Check off "History Log". You then have three options to choose from. I will describe what each of them do. To begin, let's choose "Metadata". You then have three options with the "Edit Log Items". Start working on your file by creating layers, adding fills or gradients, using filters, etc. Then go to File> File Info> History. Notice how it keeps track of each step you take. Save this file and close it. Then open it back up again. Notice that the history is still there! Let's look at the second option for the history log. Go to Edit> Preferences> General. Choose "Text File" this time and save the file to a folder of your choice. I chose to save mine to the desktop. Again, work on your file by creating layers, adding fills or gradients, using filters, etc. Now go to wherever you saved your text file and open it. Notice that it keeps track of each step you take! The final option for the history log is "Both". This option saves your steps in both the History section as well as the text file. So there you have it. Three different ways to save every step you take during a design process without losing the information when closing the file. Enjoy!
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.
Ever wondered how to create an oil painting effect to a picture, well heres how: Click on Filter> Distort> Glass and apply the following settings to your photograph. Distortion -- 2 Smoothness -- 5 Texture -- Canvas Scaling: -- 75% Next, click on Filter> Artistic> Paint Daubs and apply the following settings to your photograph. Brush Size -- 2 Sharpness -- 4 Brush Type -- Simple Go to Filter> Brush Strokes> Angled Strokes and apply the following settings to your photograph. Direction Balance -- 18 Stroke Length -- 4 Sharpness -- 2 In this last step, you want to click on Filter> Texture> Texturizer and apply the following settings to your photograph. This creates the appearance that your painting was done on canvas. To do this, we're going to go: Texture -- Canvas Scaling -- 65% Relief -- 6 Light Direction -- Top Right. Since every photograph is different, you can slightly tweak the Photoshop filter settings above to suit your photograph or taste.
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