<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><?xml-stylesheet href="http://www.blogger.com/styles/atom.css" type="text/css"?><feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom' xmlns:openSearch='http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/' xmlns:georss='http://www.georss.org/georss' xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7300151955110962556</id><updated>2011-11-27T17:10:23.222-08:00</updated><title type='text'>ADOPEPHOTOSHOP</title><subtitle type='html'></subtitle><link rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://adopephotoshop.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/7300151955110962556/posts/default?max-results=100'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://adopephotoshop.blogspot.com/'/><link rel='hub' href='http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/'/><author><name>SANKET CHAVAN</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06001563956296116928</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><generator version='7.00' uri='http://www.blogger.com'>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>1</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>100</openSearch:itemsPerPage><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7300151955110962556.post-5560602399294815087</id><published>2008-08-12T02:08:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2008-08-12T02:09:34.321-07:00</updated><title type='text'>ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS</title><content type='html'>ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS&lt;br /&gt;Tips and Tricks from the Experts&lt;br /&gt;Contents&lt;br /&gt;F-stop corrections 1&lt;br /&gt;Creating Metallic Type 3&lt;br /&gt;Smoke 7&lt;br /&gt;Creating the Magical Mirror Effect 11&lt;br /&gt;Creative Photo Cropping 14&lt;br /&gt;Lightblast! 19&lt;br /&gt;Total Contrast Control Using Two Images 23&lt;br /&gt;Digital Light Painting 27&lt;br /&gt;Woodcuts 30&lt;br /&gt;Photo Filters to the Rescue 34&lt;br /&gt;Gif Animation: Swipe Effect 37&lt;br /&gt;Working with Lens Blur 41&lt;br /&gt;Looking Through a Glass 44&lt;br /&gt;Rain Drops 49&lt;br /&gt;On the following pages, Photoshop experts in photography, graphic design, video, and Web design share some of&lt;br /&gt;their favorite tips. To see more Adobe® Photoshop® and Adobe ImageReady® tips visit the Photoshop Expert Center:&lt;br /&gt;http://studio.adobe.com/expertcenter/photoshop.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS&lt;br /&gt;F-stop corrections&lt;br /&gt;Bruce Fraser Adapted from Real World Photoshop, by David Blatner and Bruce Fraser. Bruce Fraser is coauthor of the award-winning Real World&lt;br /&gt;Photoshop series, and of Real World Color Management, all from Peachpit Press.&lt;br /&gt;Here is a simple way to adjust exposure in the f-stop increments that is second nature to photographers. The key to&lt;br /&gt;this technique is that the Screen and Multiply layer blending modes, at an opacity of 38%, produce an effect very&lt;br /&gt;similar to lightening or darkening by one full f-stop. (For half-stop adjustments, use 19% opacity, for one-third stop&lt;br /&gt;use 13%, and so on.) In this example, we’ll darken the image by one stop.&lt;br /&gt;1.Create an f-stop correction layer.&lt;br /&gt;If you’re working on a flat file, duplicate the Background layer by choosing Duplicate Layer from the Layer menu.&lt;br /&gt;If you’re working on a layered file, create a new layer by choosing New &gt; Layer from the Layer menu, then press&lt;br /&gt;Command-Option-Shift-E (Mac) or Control-Alt-Shift-E (Windows) to merge the contents of all visible layers into&lt;br /&gt;the new layer while leaving the underlying ones intact.&lt;br /&gt;2.Apply a global f-stop correction.&lt;br /&gt;Select the newly-created layer in the Layers palette, then set the blending mode to Multiply and the opacity to 38%.&lt;br /&gt;This darkens the image globally by one stop.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3.Add a Layer Mask.&lt;br /&gt;The global correction makes some of the vegetation along the waterline too dark. To back off the correction locally,&lt;br /&gt;you first need to add a Layer Mask by choosing Add Layer Mask from the Layer menu. In this case we used the Reveal&lt;br /&gt;All option, but choose the option that requires the least amount of painting—if you want to correct a small area, it’s&lt;br /&gt;more efficient to choose Hide All, and paint the correction in, rather than choosing Reveal All, then painting the&lt;br /&gt;correction out.&lt;br /&gt;Note that when you add the layer mask, it automatically becomes targeted in the channels palette, and the&lt;br /&gt;background and foreground colors are automatically set to Black and White, ready for editing the layer mask.&lt;br /&gt;4.Constrain the correction.&lt;br /&gt;With the foreground color set to Black, use the Brush tool set to a soft-edged brush to paint out the correction in the&lt;br /&gt;areas where you don’t want it applied. In this case, we painted with an opacity of 33% to reduce the correction along&lt;br /&gt;the waterline to 1/3 stop.&lt;br /&gt;5.Experiment.&lt;br /&gt;This technique lends itself to numerous variations. Once you’ve constrained the correction to the desired area of the&lt;br /&gt;image, you can vary its strength by changing the layer’s opacity—for example, if you decide that you need a two-stop&lt;br /&gt;correction, increase the opacity from 38% to 76%.&lt;br /&gt;You can also experiment with different techniques for constraining the correction. If the area to be corrected or the&lt;br /&gt;area to be protected is easily selectable, you can create the selection before adding the Layer Mask, then use the Reveal&lt;br /&gt;Selection or Hide Selection options, respectively. If you want to constrain the correction to a specific tonal range, you&lt;br /&gt;can use the Blend If options in the Layer Styles dialog box to limit the correction to the desired tonal range. For small&lt;br /&gt;local corrections, you can use the History Brush, with the source set to the current image state, and the Brush Mode&lt;br /&gt;set to Screen or Multiply—this method is particularly useful for making delicate corrections with the History Brush&lt;br /&gt;set to very low opacities in the 3% to 10% range.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Creating Metallic Type&lt;br /&gt;Bert Monroy Adapted from Bert’s monthly segment on the TechTV show Screen Savers. Bert Monroy is considered a pioneer of digital art. He is the&lt;br /&gt;co-author of the first book ever written on Photoshop. Bert is an accomplished artist, teacher, lecturer and author of many books.&lt;br /&gt;The effect in this exercise is as widely used as the drop shadow. Metallic type can be found in car ads, CD covers, and&lt;br /&gt;movie logos. A glance through any magazine will produce a myriad of examples. There will be many intermediate&lt;br /&gt;steps to this exercise. Keep in mind that the end result is not really what is important here but rather the steps. These&lt;br /&gt;steps with a minor alteration—as the use of a different color—will provide the solution to many other situations.&lt;br /&gt;1.Create a new file.&lt;br /&gt;Create a Photoshop file large enough to contain the full logo you are about to create.&lt;br /&gt;2.Add a gradient.&lt;br /&gt;Add a linear gradient from top to bottom with the Gradient Tool, using any colors you wish.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3.Add type.&lt;br /&gt;With the Horizontal Type Tool, enter the name you want to use for your logo.&lt;br /&gt;4.Warp text.&lt;br /&gt;In the Type Options bar, click on the Create Warped Text icon. Here you can choose whichever effect and amounts&lt;br /&gt;you want. I chose the Rise effect with a small percentage for the Bend. Click OK.&lt;br /&gt;5.Create a path.&lt;br /&gt;Create a path from the type by going to Layer &gt; Type &gt; Create Work Path. The new path can be found under the Path&lt;br /&gt;palette. The original text layer can now be discarded or turned off.&lt;br /&gt;Using the Direct Selection tool, the path can be modified to any shape you wish. Additional points can be added to&lt;br /&gt;create distortions or mutated shapes as the extended portion of the “C”.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;6.Fill path.&lt;br /&gt;Once you have the path completed, create a new layer and fill the path with a color. This can be done in many ways.&lt;br /&gt;I prefer to simply click on the Fill Path button at the bottom of the Path palette. Which color you use is irrelevant&lt;br /&gt;because you will be overriding it later.&lt;br /&gt;7.Add drop shadow.&lt;br /&gt;Double click (Mac) or Alt-Double click (Win) on the layer in the Layers palette with your logo to bring up the Layer&lt;br /&gt;Style dialog box. Steps 7–10 will be done in this dialog box.&lt;br /&gt;In the Layer Style dialog box, choose Drop Shadow. Adjust it however you wish.&lt;br /&gt;8.Add bevel and emboss.&lt;br /&gt;Click on Bevel and Emboss. Choose Chisel Hard for the Technique and pump up the Depth.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;9.Add gradient overlay.&lt;br /&gt;Select Gradient Overlay. Click on the gradient to bring up the Gradient Editor. Choose the gradient type that looks&lt;br /&gt;like the reflections used in metallic type.&lt;br /&gt;When you choose a particular gradient it appears in the Editor box. You can now adjust the gradient in any way you&lt;br /&gt;want. Clicking the paint wells below the gradient allows you to move their position or change their color in the&lt;br /&gt;settings area. Clicking below the gradient where there is no well will automatically insert a new well. The wells along&lt;br /&gt;the top of the gradient control opacity.&lt;br /&gt;10.Adjust the angle.&lt;br /&gt;Once you have the gradient you want, click OK to exit the Editor. Back in the Layer Style dialog, adjust the Angle so&lt;br /&gt;the gradient intersects the logo at the right angle to simulate the reflections in the metal.&lt;br /&gt;11.Add Stroke.&lt;br /&gt;Finally, choose Stroke to add an edge to the logo. Click OK to exit the Layer Styles dialog.&lt;br /&gt;You are now done.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Smoke&lt;br /&gt;John Paul Caponigro Adapted from Adobe Photoshop Master Class (Adobe Press) by John Paul Caponigro. John Paul Caponigro is an internationally&lt;br /&gt;recognized fine artist. He exhibits, lectures, and teaches workshops extensively. His clients include Adobe, Canon, Epson, Apple, Imacon, Gretag-&lt;br /&gt;MacBeth, Sony, and Kodak. For more information see www.johnpaulcaponigro.com.&lt;br /&gt;It’s used in sacred ceremonies. It’s used to cleanse. It’s linked to the spirit world. It makes breath visible. It’s a sign of&lt;br /&gt;danger. Fire precedes it. It’s pollution. It stops breath. Smoke is a powerful symbol.&lt;br /&gt;Compositionally, smoke is extraordinarily flexible. It can be thick or thin, heavy or diffuse, contained or scattered,&lt;br /&gt;simple or complex. You can draw a line in any direction, linking two objects or creating a new focus of attention. You&lt;br /&gt;can literally draw the eye to any point in an image along any path.&lt;br /&gt;The complexity and variety found in smoke effects gives you an extraordinary degree of artistic license without&lt;br /&gt;compromising realism. That said, if you plan to incorporate the effect into your work, it pays to closely study the&lt;br /&gt;appearance smoke in the real world. There’s a logic to the way smoke unfurls. It’s tighter and more energetic closer&lt;br /&gt;to the source, more diffuse and calmer when it’s further away. It billows, curls, and twists in undulating arcs, rarely&lt;br /&gt;making a sharp turn. While it can drift quickly or slowly, it rarely descends; it usually ascends. It’s amazing to me that&lt;br /&gt;something so complex can be so easily rendered by hand, using Photoshop.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1.Draw and distort a line.&lt;br /&gt;Starting with a Background layer filled with black, use the Paintbrush to paint a white line on a new layer in a Layer&lt;br /&gt;Set entitled Smoke. Then, distort the line. Use the Smudge Tool to pull through, push out of, wiggle, or twirl portions&lt;br /&gt;of the white line until a desired effect is achieved. The more you distort the line the more blurred it becomes. Use the&lt;br /&gt;History Brush to selectively undo distorted areas as desired.&lt;br /&gt;2.Refine the effect.&lt;br /&gt;Use Liquify (Filter &gt; Liquify) to create further distortions. Unlike the Smudge Tool, Liquify will not introduce&lt;br /&gt;blurring with distortion. Use Liquify’s Reconstruct Tool to undo distortions selectively. Unlike using the History&lt;br /&gt;Brush, the Reconstruct Tool allows you to pick a transitional state between undistorted and fully distorted.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3.Build up a more complex effect.&lt;br /&gt;Repeat as many times as desired keeping separate elements on separate layers.&lt;br /&gt;4.Reposition the elements.&lt;br /&gt;Use the Move Tool to reposition select elements. Use Free Transform (Edit &gt; Free Transform) to scale or distort select&lt;br /&gt;elements.&lt;br /&gt;5.Create a halo.&lt;br /&gt;Turn off the Background Layer. Create a new layer and place it at the bottom of the Smoke Layer Set. Hold the Alt&lt;br /&gt;and Ctrl keys (Windows) or Option and Command keys (Mac OS) and select Merge Visible. This copies all the visible&lt;br /&gt;information from multiple layers onto the one layer you have targeted, without flattening your image. Use the filter&lt;br /&gt;Gaussian Blur to blur this layer. Lower its opacity as desired. Repeat if necessary.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;6.Optionally, add noise.&lt;br /&gt;At the top of the Smoke Layer Set, create a new layer filled with 50% gray, set to Overlay mode, and filter it with either&lt;br /&gt;Noise or Grain. Reduce Opacity and Saturation as desired.&lt;br /&gt;7.Import the effect into a new destination.&lt;br /&gt;Drag and drop the Smoke Layer Set into a new destination. Modify position and opacity as desired. Further&lt;br /&gt;distortion may be desired. Elements within a single Layer Set can be shuffled and recombined to create multiple&lt;br /&gt;effects that have varied appearances.&lt;br /&gt;8.Conclusion.&lt;br /&gt;For added realism you may combine these effects along with photographs of smoke. Any file of smoke photographed&lt;br /&gt;on a black background can quickly generate yet one more element (albeit an element with a great deal of complexity)&lt;br /&gt;for your final effect. Starting with the photograph, load any channel of the photograph as a selection (click the&lt;br /&gt;selection icon in the Channels palette), using any selection tool drag and drop the resulting selection into a desired&lt;br /&gt;destination, create a new layer, Add a Layer Mask, and fill the layer with white. Scale, distort, reduce opacity of this&lt;br /&gt;layer mask—in short, modify as desired.&lt;br /&gt;Experimentation is not only required here, it’s highly enjoyable.&lt;br /&gt;You will quickly find yourself enchanted by smoke. While captivated by that enchantment, you may find that new&lt;br /&gt;source of power and poetry will enter your images.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Creating the Magical Mirror Effect&lt;br /&gt;Rick Sammon Adapted from one of the 107 lessons in Rick Sammon’s Complete Guide to Digital Photography, Rick’s 22nd book. Rick Sammon is the&lt;br /&gt;host of the Digital Photography Workshop on the DIY network and is a guest host of the Canon Photo Safari on the Outdoor Life Network. Rick also writes&lt;br /&gt;the weekly photo column for the Associated Press and teaches digital photography workshops around the world. See www.ricksammon.com.&lt;br /&gt;“It’s all done with mirrors” is a popular saying among professional magicians.&lt;br /&gt;Well, these days, digital photography artists are using mirrors, of sorts, to create magical effects on their computer&lt;br /&gt;monitors. Basically, a mirror image is one in which one side of a frame is perfectly mirrored (reflected) on the&lt;br /&gt;opposite side of the frame—side to side or top to bottom. In Photoshop, we use Canvas Size, Copy and Paste to create&lt;br /&gt;the effect. It’s that easy!&lt;br /&gt;This mirror image of a sunrise on a mountaintop in China (where there is no lake) is one of many mirror images&lt;br /&gt;I have had fun creating.&lt;br /&gt;Okay! Let’s take a look at how easy it is to create the magical mirror effect in Photoshop.&lt;br /&gt;1.Start with a vision.&lt;br /&gt;The first step is to start with a picture, or perhaps more accurately, a vision of your final mirror image. I started with&lt;br /&gt;a picture of a sunrise I took on a mountaintop in China. (I actually used a copy of the image because I never work&lt;br /&gt;on my original files. A good idea!)&lt;br /&gt;2.Open the Canvas Size dialog box.&lt;br /&gt;In Photoshop, we can increase the Canvas size (actual working area) of an image by going to Image &gt; Canvas Size.&lt;br /&gt;In this screen shot, we see the actual size of my original image. When we first open Canvas Size, the center box in the&lt;br /&gt;tick-tac-toe grid is shaded.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3.Increase Canvas Size.&lt;br /&gt;The next step is to increase the Canvas Size (again, the actual working area). We increase the Canvas Size by moving&lt;br /&gt;the shaded box into any of the other boxes—and then typing in a new height and/or width dimensions. Because I&lt;br /&gt;wanted to increase the height of my Canvas Size on the bottom side of my picture, I moved the shaded area to the&lt;br /&gt;top middle box. Then I typed in the new Canvas size—which, for ease of use, was a bit more than double the height&lt;br /&gt;of my original photograph.&lt;br /&gt;After I approximately doubled the height of my image, my new working area (new Image Size) looked like this.&lt;br /&gt;4.Create a flipped image of your original.&lt;br /&gt;Creating a flipped image of your original is easy. Start by using the Marquee Tool to select the original image area,&lt;br /&gt;the sunrise in this case. Then go to Edit &gt; Copy.&lt;br /&gt;Next go to File &gt; New. When the new document is created, it will be exactly the same size of your copied image.&lt;br /&gt;Now go to Edit &gt; Paste. Your image will be pasted into the new document—on a new layer.&lt;br /&gt;To flip the image (vertically in this case), go to Edit &gt; Transform &gt; Flip Vertically. Now the image will be flipped.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;5.Create the Magical Mirror Effect.&lt;br /&gt;To create the Magical Mirror Effect, use the Move tool and drag your flipped image into the blank area of your&lt;br /&gt;original image. Now carefully line up both images so they look perfectly mirrored. Next flatten your image by going&lt;br /&gt;to Layers &gt; Flatten.&lt;br /&gt;6.Conclusion.&lt;br /&gt;An optional and fun thing to do with some vertical mirror images (you can create horizontal mirror images, too) is&lt;br /&gt;to create the effect that your original image is reflected in water. Here is how it’s done. Select the mirrored part of&lt;br /&gt;your image (lower half) using the Marquee tool. Now go to Filters &gt; Distort &gt; Ocean Ripple. Play around with the&lt;br /&gt;Ripple Size and Ripple Magnitude until you are happy with the effect. Click on OK. Now go to Select &gt; Deselect to&lt;br /&gt;deselect the area on which you have applied the Ocean Ripple filter.&lt;br /&gt;Finally, use the Crop tool to trim your picture to your liking.&lt;br /&gt;Most pros agree that Photoshop has changed the way that we not only make pictures—but the way we see potential&lt;br /&gt;images. Now that you know about the magical mirror effect, you may see way-cool potential mirror images in your&lt;br /&gt;travels. Good luck!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Creative Photo Cropping&lt;br /&gt;Ben Willmore Adapted from Adobe Photoshop 7 Studio Techniques by Ben Willmore, and from www.digitalmastery.com. Ben Willmore has been&lt;br /&gt;involved in digital imaging since its inception. He brings this knowledge to the public through seminars, conferences, books, magazine articles, tips, videos,&lt;br /&gt;and CD training products.&lt;br /&gt;In this technique, I’d like to show you how I use scanned images or paint with artistic brushes to creatively crop&lt;br /&gt;photographs. Warning: This technique is addictive. After using this technique a few times, you might get bored with&lt;br /&gt;rectangular photographs.&lt;br /&gt;1.Scan a high contrast image.&lt;br /&gt;You can use any image that contains primarily black and white (and not many shades in between). One way of&lt;br /&gt;making such an image is to spill ink onto watercolor paper and then scan it. But for my example, I used a large brush,&lt;br /&gt;dipped it in black ink and then painted on watercolor paper to create the image. Once the ink was completely dry,&lt;br /&gt;I scanned it as a grayscale image. As an alternative, you can paint with one of the creative brushes that appears at the&lt;br /&gt;bottom of the brushes palette in a grayscale document instead of scanning an image (although I think it turns out&lt;br /&gt;much better with scanned images).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2.Add a layer mask.&lt;br /&gt;Now we need to prepare the image we’d like to crop. So, open any photograph you’d like to use, double-click on the&lt;br /&gt;Background Layer to change its name and then choose Layer &gt; Add Layer Mask &gt; Reveal All. The layer should now&lt;br /&gt;have two preview thumbnails in the Layers palette. The one on the right is the Layer Mask you just created.&lt;br /&gt;3.Paste the image into mask.&lt;br /&gt;Now let’s get our scanned image into that Layer Mask. Open the scanned or painted image, choose Select &gt; All and&lt;br /&gt;then Edit &gt; Copy. Switch to the image you’d like to crop, Option-click (Mac), or Alt-click (Windows) the Layer Mask&lt;br /&gt;preview image in the Layers palette to make it fill the main screen and then choose Edit &gt; Paste. If the pasted image&lt;br /&gt;is overly large or small compared to the document you pasted it into, then you’ll want to choose Edit &gt; Free&lt;br /&gt;Transform and pull on the corners to scale the image.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;4.Invert the mask.&lt;br /&gt;In a Layer Mask, black causes areas of the layer to become hidden and white causes areas to show up, which means&lt;br /&gt;that what we have now would hide the majority of our photo. So, choose Image &gt; Adjustments &gt; Invert to make the&lt;br /&gt;image a negative, which should cause the layer to only be hidden on the edges.&lt;br /&gt;5.Adjust the mask.&lt;br /&gt;Next, lets make sure the primary areas of this image are pure black and pure white, otherwise you’ll be able to see&lt;br /&gt;through the image in the middle (grays=semi-transparent). To do that, choose Image &gt; Adjustments &gt; Levels and&lt;br /&gt;pull in the upper left and upper right sliders until the middle of the scan is solid white and the edge of the image is&lt;br /&gt;solid black.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;6.View the result.&lt;br /&gt;Now to see how all this has affected your image, Option-click (Mac), or Alt-click (Windows) on the Layer Mask&lt;br /&gt;preview image in the Layers palette to hide the mask and show your image. It should be cropped so that it only shows&lt;br /&gt;up within the shape of the ink that was in our scan.&lt;br /&gt;7.Create texture.&lt;br /&gt;I think we could make it look even more interesting by adding texture to the photograph. Since the last thing&lt;br /&gt;we copied was the scan of that paint, you should be able to just choose Edit &gt; Paste to get a new layer that contains&lt;br /&gt;the original scan. If you ended up scaling the image the first time you pasted it in, then you can choose Edit &gt;&lt;br /&gt;Transform &gt; Again to scale this version the same amount. After doing that, choose Filter &gt; Stylize &gt; Emboss, use the&lt;br /&gt;default settings, and click ok.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;8.Apply texture.&lt;br /&gt;Now to apply the texture that the Emboss filter pulled out of the image, change the blending mode menu at the top&lt;br /&gt;of the Layers palette from Normal to Hard Light and then choose Layer &gt; Create Clipping Mask. If that doesn’t add&lt;br /&gt;enough texture, then try choosing Filter &gt; Texture &gt; Texturizer to the layer you embossed.&lt;br /&gt;9.Spice it up a bit.&lt;br /&gt;If you’re still hungry for more effects, then click on the layer that contains the photo (not the texture) and experiment&lt;br /&gt;with the choices found in the Layer &gt; Styles menu (I like Drop Shadow and Bevel and Emboss).&lt;br /&gt;All it takes is about an hour of free time and a quick visit to the art supply store to create literally dozens of creative&lt;br /&gt;crop shapes. You don’t have to be an artist, heck, just spill paint on the paper—it will look more interesting than a&lt;br /&gt;rectangular crop job. I can barely draw a stick man and look what I came up with. And since the Photoshop creative&lt;br /&gt;brushes can be used as a substitute for all those art supplies, your possibilities are truly endless.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Lightblast!&lt;br /&gt;Richard Harrington Excerpted from “Photoshop for Nonlinear Editors”, ISBN 1-57820-209-4, Copyright © 2003, CMP Media LLC. All rights&lt;br /&gt;reserved. Richard Harrington is an experienced Editor and Motion Graphic artist and the owner of RHED Pixel (www.RHEDPixel.com) a visual communications&lt;br /&gt;company. Harrington has several industry certifications including: Apple Certified Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor, and holds two Adobe Certified&lt;br /&gt;Expert certificates.&lt;br /&gt;Looking for a way to give some extra “life” to a logo or type treatment? The two most common techniques to help a&lt;br /&gt;logo standout are a glowing edge or a drop shadow. This is based on the principle of type on pattern, which says that&lt;br /&gt;a contrasting edge makes it far easier to see something when it is positioned over a busy or moving background. But&lt;br /&gt;why be ordinary? By backlighting an image, we can dramatically offset it from its background. This technique works&lt;br /&gt;with almost any logo or type treatment.&lt;br /&gt;1.Position the logo.&lt;br /&gt;Position the logo where you want it on screen. Be sure to use a safe title area document if you are working in video.&lt;br /&gt;Use alignment tools to center the logo if needed.&lt;br /&gt;Note: You can open a new document with title safe and action safe guides showing. Choose File &gt; New, and then choose&lt;br /&gt;a preset video document that matches the standard used by your video editing system.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2.Duplicate the logo layer.&lt;br /&gt;Make a copy of the logo by duplicating the layer: choose Layer &gt; Duplicate Layer. Name the duplicate layer Light 1.&lt;br /&gt;Place the copy above the original logo.&lt;br /&gt;3.Blast it!&lt;br /&gt;Apply the Radial Blur on the duplicate layer (Filter &gt; Blur &gt; Radial Blur). Set the amount to 100, the Blur Method&lt;br /&gt;to Zoom, and the Quality to Good. Click OK.&lt;br /&gt;4.Fill it.&lt;br /&gt;Load the default colors by pressing D. Load the layer named Light 1 by Cmd + clicking (Mac OS) or Ctrl + clicking&lt;br /&gt;(Windows) its thumbnail in the layers palette. Fill the selection by pressing Option + Delete (Mac OS) or Alt + Delete&lt;br /&gt;(Windows). Deselect the layer by choosing Select &gt; Deselect.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;5.Extend it.&lt;br /&gt;Repeat the blur/load/fill cycle until your rays are the desired length. You can run the last filter again choosing Filter &gt;&lt;br /&gt;Radial Blur (the top menu item), this applies the last filter with its last previously used values. In the example (which&lt;br /&gt;is for a video) I repeated the cycle three times to achieve my look. Depending on the resolution of your composition&lt;br /&gt;you may need to run the combination more or less times.&lt;br /&gt;6.Color it.&lt;br /&gt;On the blurred layer named Light 1, apply the Color Overlay layer style by choosing Layer &gt; Layer Style &gt; Color&lt;br /&gt;Overlay. Select the desired color and adjust opacity to taste. You should get a real-time preview of your work if the&lt;br /&gt;Preview box is checked. Click OK.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;7.Build it.&lt;br /&gt;Move the glow layer, light1, behind the logo by dragging it below the logo layer in the Layers palette—so the beams&lt;br /&gt;shoot past. You may choose to place a background image behind the logo. Optionally, you may also choose to place&lt;br /&gt;an additional copy of the beam layer on top. Adjust the opacity to make the color look like it has wrapped around&lt;br /&gt;the logo.&lt;br /&gt;8.Composite it (optional).&lt;br /&gt;If you want to key the image in a video application you will need to create an alpha channel to store the transparency&lt;br /&gt;of the glow:&lt;br /&gt;Turn off the visibility icon for all layers that you don’t want included in the alpha channel. Then make a new (empty)&lt;br /&gt;layer and make sure it is selected.&lt;br /&gt;Choose Merge Visible from the Layer’s palette submenu while holding down Option (Mac OS) or Alt (Windows).&lt;br /&gt;The resulting layer contains all of the merged elements while leaving the originals behind. Cmd + click (Mac OS) or&lt;br /&gt;Ctrl + click (Windows) this new layer’s thumbnail to load the selection, and then turn this layer’s visibility icon off.&lt;br /&gt;Switch to the channel’s palette and click on the Save Selection as Channel icon at the bottom of the palette. Once the&lt;br /&gt;alpha channel is created, you can release the selection by choosing Select &gt; Deselect.&lt;br /&gt;In the Layers palette, turn the background layer on and fill it with the same color as your glow. This will ensure that&lt;br /&gt;you have clean edges in your alpha channel by avoiding any stray color data in the glowing areas.&lt;br /&gt;Be sure that you have only one alpha channel in your document. Then choose File &gt; Save As and save a copy of the&lt;br /&gt;file in a format your NLE system recognizes such as PICT or TARGA. Make certain that the Save Alpha Channels box&lt;br /&gt;is checked so the alpha channel will be embedded.&lt;br /&gt;9.Conclusion.&lt;br /&gt;This is one of several techniques for enhancing logos and type for video that can be found in the book entitled&lt;br /&gt;Photoshop for Nonlinear Editors by Richard Harrington.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Total Contrast Control Using Two Images&lt;br /&gt;George DeWolfe Adapted from The Digital Fine Pint Workshop by George DeWolfe. www.georgedewolfe.com. George DeWolfe is Senior Editor for&lt;br /&gt;Camera Arts and View Camera magazines and teaches digital photography workshops worldwide. He studied with Ansel Adams and Minor White and holds&lt;br /&gt;an MFA in Photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology. His prints are in major national and personal collections.&lt;br /&gt;Contrast is the supreme technical problem in photography. In traditional print photography the major limiting&lt;br /&gt;component is the range of the paper, or 5 f/stops of detail from highlight to shadow. It was for this reason that the&lt;br /&gt;Zone System was invented—to manipulate the exposure and development of the negative to fit the print. In the&lt;br /&gt;darkroom there are also different contrast grades of paper or different variable contrast filters to adjust contrast. In&lt;br /&gt;Photoshop, I use the following technique to correct and adjust the overall contrast of digital images. The technique&lt;br /&gt;uses 2 digital files from a digital camera mounted on a tripod, one of which has been taken for the highlights and the&lt;br /&gt;other that has been taken for the shadows. The 2 images are combined together in Layers using a Layer Mask and&lt;br /&gt;Curves into one seamless image containing the highlights of one, the shadows of the other, and a good blend of&lt;br /&gt;midtone values.&lt;br /&gt;1.Combine the 2 images and crop.&lt;br /&gt;Open both underexposed and overexposed images into Photoshop. Click and drag (using the Move Tool while&lt;br /&gt;holding down the Shift Key) the underexposed image on top of the overexposed image. This puts the underexposure&lt;br /&gt;on a layer on top of the overexposure (which becomes the Background). In the Layers palette, select Layer 1 and set&lt;br /&gt;the Blending Mode to Difference and align the 2 images with the Move Tool, if necessary.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Crop the images here. (Cropping the image here at the first step keeps the images aligned if you have moved Layer 1&lt;br /&gt;even the slightest amount). Save the image (File &gt; Save As) as Combo and close the 2 original images without saving&lt;br /&gt;them. Return to Normal Blending Mode.&lt;br /&gt;2.Make a Layer Mask and paste the background layer into it.&lt;br /&gt;On Combo make a Layer Mask (Layer &gt; Add Layer Mask &gt; Reveal All) on Layer 1. Select the Background Layer&lt;br /&gt;(Select &gt; All) and Copy (Edit &gt; Copy). Hold down the Option/Alt key and click on the Layer Mask (the document&lt;br /&gt;window should turn white). Paste the Background Layer (Edit &gt; Paste) into the Layer Mask (it will be pasted as a&lt;br /&gt;Black &amp;amp; White mask).&lt;br /&gt;3.Make a new window.&lt;br /&gt;Go to Window &gt; Arrange &gt; New Window for Combo.psd to see the effects of the mask. You will not be able to see&lt;br /&gt;the actual picture because you will be working on the mask. This is the reason for making the New Window.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;4.Blur the mask.&lt;br /&gt;Click on the Layer Mask and Gaussian Blur (Filter &gt; Blur &gt; Gaussian Blur) the mask to a 5–50 pixel Radius. You want&lt;br /&gt;to blur enough to get rid of all texture and detail.&lt;br /&gt;5.Adjust the mask contrast with curves.&lt;br /&gt;Select Image &gt; Adjustments &gt; Curves and adjust contrast and brightness of the mask until the image looks correct&lt;br /&gt;in the New Window. You do not want to use a Curves Adjustment Layer here because you are still working on the&lt;br /&gt;Layer Mask. Close the New Window after you’ve finished adjusting with Curves.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;6.Flatten the image.&lt;br /&gt;Deselect and Flatten the image (Layer &gt; Flatten Image).&lt;br /&gt;7.Conclusion.&lt;br /&gt;The great thing about Photoshop is that we have much more control in adjusting the overall contrast than we do in&lt;br /&gt;traditional photography because we can use both Black &amp;amp; White and Color images. This technique frees your&lt;br /&gt;photography and enables you to capture any extreme lighting situation with ease.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Digital Light Painting&lt;br /&gt;Dave Montizambert Adapted from www.softwarecinema.com’s CD tutorial Digital Light Painting by Dave Montizambert. Dave Montizambert, a&lt;br /&gt;successful working commercial advertising photographer, is an international photo/digital educator and author. www.montizambert.com&lt;br /&gt;Digital light painting is a powerful Photoshop technique that can be used to turn lifeless images into works of art. In&lt;br /&gt;fact it is the digital equivalent of a photographic lighting technique called painting with light. Painting with light&lt;br /&gt;needs to be executed in relative darkness so that a small handheld light source can be used to paint light energy over&lt;br /&gt;a subject during a long exposure. This painterly lighting effect works well on subjects that are stationary but falls&lt;br /&gt;short on animated subjects such as people. Light painting people usually renders static looking results. Digital light&lt;br /&gt;painting has major advantages over painting with light. It is not a “blind one way” process—the painting effect is&lt;br /&gt;visible as you create it, you can modify it at any time, and you do not have to work in darkness. This technique works&lt;br /&gt;best with flat lighting so frontal lighting is most favorable—all highlight and shadow will be created in Adobe&lt;br /&gt;Photoshop.&lt;br /&gt;1.Darken the image.&lt;br /&gt;Open a correctly exposed version of the image, and then choose Layer &gt; New Adjustment Layer &gt; Curves. To darken&lt;br /&gt;and flatten the contrast of the image, two points of the composite curve are altered; the highlight value 255, which is&lt;br /&gt;at the extreme top end of the curve, is dragged down to 107. Value 64 (the 25% point near the bottom of the curve&lt;br /&gt;called the 1/4 tone), is pulled down to value 14. These figures will differ from image to image.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2.Paint the layer mask.&lt;br /&gt;Click on the Curves Layer mask in the Layers palette. Choose black as the foreground color then paint with a low&lt;br /&gt;flow setting over the image with the airbrush attribute selected on the paint-brush to create a gradual build up of&lt;br /&gt;black on select areas. These black areas hide the affect of the darkening Curve allowing the normal exposure&lt;br /&gt;background image layer to show through. To keep the brushed in lighting really soft edged, I use 5% or less flow&lt;br /&gt;pressure for the airbrush for a gradual build-up. This digital light painting technique looks like you are painting light&lt;br /&gt;right onto the subject!&lt;br /&gt;3.Additional effects.&lt;br /&gt;Notice how the digital painting gives the image a haunting ethereal look. To push it even further in this direction&lt;br /&gt;I usually add the following:&lt;br /&gt;Softening: Filter &gt; Blur &gt; Gaussian Blur &gt; Radius—I used 7 pixels on this 2587x1896 pixel image.&lt;br /&gt;The grain effect: Filter &gt; Noise &gt; Add Noise &gt; Amount 21 &gt; Distribution: Gaussian &gt; Monochromatic.&lt;br /&gt;The bluish red color shift effect: Create a New Adjustment Layer by Layer &gt; New Adjustment Layer &gt; Curves. In the&lt;br /&gt;Curves dialog box select the red channel. Drag 194 to 208, 128 to 160 and 64 to 88. Select the blue channel then drag&lt;br /&gt;125 to 153.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;4.Conclusion.&lt;br /&gt;Digital light painting is a piece of photographic history in the making, for it transforms Adobe Photoshop from a&lt;br /&gt;post production tool into a lighting tool—we capture images of our subjects digitally then open them into&lt;br /&gt;Photoshop immediately to start light painting while the subject is present and the set is still setup. This avoids&lt;br /&gt;compromise since we can tweak the set, subject, or lighting and recapture the image if necessary.&lt;br /&gt;Light painting people in Adobe Photoshop is a perfect example of improving on a traditional technique digitally.&lt;br /&gt;It provides complete freedom to capture moving breathing subjects with all their moods and expressions and still&lt;br /&gt;create the painterly painting with light effect. It is hard to imagine painting with light now that I can create a superior&lt;br /&gt;product with a lot less blood and sweat and turn it out faster.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Woodcuts&lt;br /&gt;Sherry London Adapted from Sherry London’s online Photoshop courses provided by Education to Go (http://www.ed2go.com). Sherry London&lt;br /&gt;(http://www.sherrylondon.com) is the author of numerous books on Photoshop, Illustrator, Painter, and After Effects, including Photoshop 7 Magic with&lt;br /&gt;Rhoda Grossman. She also writes for Photoshop User magazine and teaches online Photoshop courses for Education to Go (http://www.ed2go.com).&lt;br /&gt;The woodcut look is always popular. It’s a common technique in Illustrator, but it is both easy and fast to do in&lt;br /&gt;Photoshop as well. You can find many ways to alter and add to this technique, but here’s how to create a basic&lt;br /&gt;woodcut image using a photo as the base image.&lt;br /&gt;1.Prepare the image.&lt;br /&gt;Choose Image &gt; Duplicate &gt; OK to make a copy of the original image. Never work on your original—only work in&lt;br /&gt;the copy. You may close the original image now and leave the copy open.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2.Prepare the Layers.&lt;br /&gt;Drag the Background layer of the image to the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. The new layer is&lt;br /&gt;named Background Copy. Double-click on the layer name in the Layers palette and replace the default name with&lt;br /&gt;Woodcut layer.&lt;br /&gt;3.Change the Blend Mode.&lt;br /&gt;Change the Blend mode of the Woodcut layer from Normal to Multiply by clicking on the word “Normal” at the top&lt;br /&gt;of the Layers palette and selecting Multiply from the drop-down menu. The image looks dark, but by changing the&lt;br /&gt;mode to Multiply now, you will be better able to preview the filters and commands that you will use.&lt;br /&gt;4.Apply High Pass.&lt;br /&gt;Choose Filter &gt; Other &gt; High Pass and set the Radius to 1.6. Click on OK. I use this setting consistently as it preserves&lt;br /&gt;a lot of detail in the image. Because of the Multiply mode, you don’t really see the High Pass filter on the image, but&lt;br /&gt;the filter has made the Woodcut layer into a low-contrast grayscale image.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;5.Change the Woodcut layer to black and white.&lt;br /&gt;Choose Image &gt; Adjustments &gt; Threshold. The default Threshold Level is 128. You could accept this amount, but I&lt;br /&gt;usually like to cut the amount of black over the image to no more than 127. Drag the Threshold Level slider to 127&lt;br /&gt;and click on OK. This step actually creates the woodcut look. The Multiply blend mode enables you to see and judge&lt;br /&gt;the result on your image. The more you lower the Threshold Level, the less “woodcut” you will see.&lt;br /&gt;6.Blur the Background.&lt;br /&gt;Make the Background layer active by clicking on its thumbnail in the Layers palette. Choose Filter &gt; Blur &gt; Gaussian&lt;br /&gt;Blur with a Radius of 6.3. Click on OK. You will need to adjust this setting to your own preferences based on the&lt;br /&gt;amount of softness that you like and the size of the image. Larger size images need a higher radius to obtain the same&lt;br /&gt;amount of softness.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;7.Conclusion.&lt;br /&gt;Adjustments abound in this technique! You could completely change the image in the background because the&lt;br /&gt;woodcut provides the image detail. You can use the Levels command to lighten the background layer if it is too dark.&lt;br /&gt;You can vary the setting of the High Pass filter to create a woodcut with less detail in it. I frequently use the Filter &gt;&lt;br /&gt;Noise &gt; Dust &amp;amp; Scratches filter with a Radius of 20 and a Threshold of 0 in place of the Gaussian Blur filter. On many&lt;br /&gt;images, Dust &amp;amp; Scratches does a better job than the Gaussian Blur filter of preserving the original image colors.&lt;br /&gt;You can produce finer detail by applying the technique to an image that is larger than you need and then using the&lt;br /&gt;Image &gt; Image Size command to resample the image to a smaller size. The image shown below makes all of these&lt;br /&gt;changes. Finally, you can save all of your steps as an Action to apply with one click.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Photo Filters to the Rescue&lt;br /&gt;Katrin Eismann www.photoshopdiva.com. Katrin is 1/3 artist, 1/3 educator, and 1/3 author. She received her BFA degree in Photographic Illustration&lt;br /&gt;from the Rochester Institute of Technology and her MFA degree in Design from the School of Visual Arts. She has co-authored: Web Design Studio Secrets,&lt;br /&gt;Adobe Photoshop Studio Secrets, Real World Digital Photography, and authored Photoshop Restoration and Retouching and is presently working on a new book&lt;br /&gt;Photoshop Masking &amp;amp; Compositing.&lt;br /&gt;How often have you picked up your photos from the photo finisher only to be unhappily surprised by the color? You&lt;br /&gt;think back to the scene and don’t remember the shadows being blue or that the room light was orange while you were&lt;br /&gt;taking the pictures. Your eyes see light as neutral, i.e. they balance all light to white. But color film can’t adapt to the&lt;br /&gt;light—it captures the light as it really is. For example, on a bright sunny day the shadows will turn out blue (as seen&lt;br /&gt;on the left side of picture 1) or in pictures taken in fluorescent light everything will look green (as seen on the left&lt;br /&gt;side of picture 2). Professional photographers use color conversion and light balancing filters while taking color&lt;br /&gt;photographs to compensate for undesired color casts that working at certain times of day, at higher altitudes, or in&lt;br /&gt;artificial lighting situations may cause. Additionally, photographers use warming or cooling photo filters to subtlety&lt;br /&gt;enhance a photo’s mood or color rendition.&lt;br /&gt;1.Which filter to use and when.&lt;br /&gt;The Image Adjustment layer Photo Filters in Photoshop mimic the filters that professional photographers use to&lt;br /&gt;correct for color temperature contamination and shifts. The two primary types of color compensation filters are&lt;br /&gt;warming and cooling. The warming filters are orange to amber in color and subtract blues and cyan. The cooling&lt;br /&gt;filters are blue in color and subtract red, green, and yellow.&lt;br /&gt;The 85 filter is a warming filter. Amber in color; use it to accentuate the warm rendition of a sunset or sunrise and&lt;br /&gt;to enrich skin tones.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The 81 filter is a milder warming filter. Pale amber in color; use this filter to remove blue tones in photos taken on&lt;br /&gt;overcast days or to clear up bluish shadows in sunny scenes. It is also ideal to add warmth to portraits.&lt;br /&gt;The 80 filter is a cooling filter. Blue in color; use it to correct pictures with strong yellow to orange color casts created&lt;br /&gt;by taking the picture in tungsten or candlelight.&lt;br /&gt;The 82 filter is a milder cooling filter. Use it for waterfalls or snow scenes to turn them slightly blue, emphasizing the&lt;br /&gt;coolness of the subject.&lt;br /&gt;2.Make the shadows neutral.&lt;br /&gt;The picture of the Portuguese church was taken on a bright, fall afternoon and as you can see the shadows are too&lt;br /&gt;blue and unattractively cool. To compensate for this I used the Photoshop Photo Filter Adjustment layer.&lt;br /&gt;Click Layer &gt; New Adjustment Layer &gt; Photo Filter. Click the Filter radio button and select Warming Filter (81) to&lt;br /&gt;neutralize the blue shadows. Adjust the density slider—in this example I used a density of 20%.&lt;br /&gt;Changing the layer blending modes can accentuate the color correction effect and by changing the blending mode&lt;br /&gt;to overlay, softlight, or hardlight you can achieve excellent results very quickly as seen here.&lt;br /&gt;From left to right—no correction, 81 with 20% density, and 81 with 20% density set to softlight blending mode.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3.Correct fluorescent lighting.&lt;br /&gt;Pictures taken in office environments or museums often turn out green, which is caused by the fluorescent light.&lt;br /&gt;You can create your own custom Photo Filters to correct for problem lighting.&lt;br /&gt;Sample the offending color (in this example, the green color). Create new document of 10 pixels by 10 pixels and fill&lt;br /&gt;it with the sampled color.&lt;br /&gt;Choose Image &gt; Adjustments &gt; Invert. Return to the color contaminated image and choose Layer &gt; New Adjustment&lt;br /&gt;Layer &gt; Photo Filter. Click the color radio button, click on the color square, and use the Color Picker to sample the&lt;br /&gt;inverted color from the 10 by 10 pixel file and then click OK.&lt;br /&gt;4.Conclusion.&lt;br /&gt;All in all, the Photoshop Photo Filters offer a subtle power to improve images. Since the Photo Filters are Image&lt;br /&gt;Adjustment Layers you have the additional advantage of being able to adjust their strength with the layer opacity,&lt;br /&gt;layer blending modes, and control where the corrections take place with layer masks. We’re not suggesting that you&lt;br /&gt;take bad pictures on purpose—but now you will be able to improve those photos that didn’t turn out the way you&lt;br /&gt;expected.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Gif Animation: Swipe Effect&lt;br /&gt;Michael Baumgardt Michael Baumgardt is Germany’s most respected and well-known author on Web Design and Desktop Publishing. With over 17&lt;br /&gt;books published in Germany and the United States, he is one of the top experts in his fields and his book “Web Design with Photoshop” is regarded as the&lt;br /&gt;book on the subject. It has been translated and published worldwide. Many of the techniques that he developed are today used by Web Designers and made&lt;br /&gt;their way into Photoshop.&lt;br /&gt;Need to create a banner ad that grabs the viewer’s attention? One of the easiest ways to this is to swipe between two&lt;br /&gt;images. With this technique, your file size won’t be much larger than simply switching images.&lt;br /&gt;1.Create a layer set.&lt;br /&gt;In order for this technique to work, all your layers need to be in layer sets. For each swipe effect, you need one layer&lt;br /&gt;set. If you are planning to swipe back to the first image, you need to copy the first layer set by using the Duplicate&lt;br /&gt;Layer Set command in the Layers palette pop-up.&lt;br /&gt;2.Add layer masks.&lt;br /&gt;Each of the layer sets (except the bottom one) needs to get a layer mask. Select the layer set and click on the layer&lt;br /&gt;mask icon at the bottom of the Layers palette.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3.Unlink the layer masks.&lt;br /&gt;The trick behind creating a swipe effect is to animate the layer mask independently from the content. In order to do&lt;br /&gt;this, the layer mask and the layer need to be unlinked by clicking on the chain icon between the layer and the layer&lt;br /&gt;mask.&lt;br /&gt;4.Fill the first layer mask.&lt;br /&gt;The next step is to make the layers transparent by filling the layer mask with 100% black, which completely masks&lt;br /&gt;the content. Start with the top layer (so that you can actually follow what is happening) and select the layer mask by&lt;br /&gt;clicking on it and then filling it with the Paint Bucket or use Edit &gt; Fill.&lt;br /&gt;5.Fill the second layer mask.&lt;br /&gt;Select the second layer mask and fill it with black. The bottom layer should now be visible since the two layer sets&lt;br /&gt;above have layer masks that are transparent. Open the Animation palette (Window &gt; Animation) and create a new&lt;br /&gt;frame in the Animation palette. It is important that you leave the second frame in the Animation palette active before&lt;br /&gt;you move to the next step. If it is not active, just click on it and then go to the next step.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;6.Animate the layer mask.&lt;br /&gt;Click on the layer mask of the second layer set (in this example the middle one) and change to the Move Tool in the&lt;br /&gt;Tool palette. You can now move the layer mask while holding the Shift key (to constrain it to a horizontal movement),&lt;br /&gt;but even easier, hold the shift key and hit the right arrow key until the layer mask is moved all the way to the right.&lt;br /&gt;7.Move the second layer mask.&lt;br /&gt;With the last frame (in the Animation window) selected, make two additional key frames by clicking on the New&lt;br /&gt;Frame icon at the bottom of the Animation palette. Select the last frame before you continue, then select the layer&lt;br /&gt;mask of the top layer in the Layers Palette. Again, switch to the Move Tool and use the arrow key to move the mask&lt;br /&gt;to the right. In the process, the bottom layer should gradually become visible again.&lt;br /&gt;8.Tween the keyframes.&lt;br /&gt;In order to create the animation, you have to create the frames in between the frames. This is done with the Tween&lt;br /&gt;command that will automatically insert the frames. Select the first two frames and then call the Tween command in&lt;br /&gt;the palette’s pop-up menu. Any number of frames can be inserted, but in general you want to keep it to 10–20 frames.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;9.Tween the last two keyframes.&lt;br /&gt;Select the last two keyframes and repeat the same procedure. This will complete the loop and if you, indeed, would&lt;br /&gt;like your animation to loop, make sure that “forever” is selected in the Animation palette.&lt;br /&gt;10.Set the delay and run the animation.&lt;br /&gt;You’ll likely want to pause your animation a little bit after every swipe effect. Select the last frame after the swipe is&lt;br /&gt;complete and change the delay to 2 seconds. Then select the very last frame in the animation and set that also to&lt;br /&gt;2 seconds. To preview your animation, click on the Play button. It’s best to preview the animation in the browser by&lt;br /&gt;hitting the Browser Preview button in the Tool palette, because only there will you get an accurate idea how fast the&lt;br /&gt;animation plays.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Working with Lens Blur&lt;br /&gt;Martin Evening Martin Evening is a London based advertising photographer and noted expert in both photography and digital imaging. Martin is well&lt;br /&gt;known in London for his fashion and beauty work and also as the author of Adobe Photoshop for Photographers.&lt;br /&gt;This photograph shows a plant on a table on a balcony against a tropical backdrop, and I would like everything in&lt;br /&gt;the background to appear more out of focus. If I was to use the Gaussian blur filter, I could easily make the&lt;br /&gt;background appear blurred, but the overall result would not actually look particularly convincing. Here I want to&lt;br /&gt;introduce the Lens blur filter, which is new in Photoshop. Because with the Lens blur filter, it is now possible to create&lt;br /&gt;realistic-looking blurs that make designated areas of the image look as if they were shot out of focus.&lt;br /&gt;1.Define the outline.&lt;br /&gt;To start with I used the pen tool in Photoshop to draw a pen path around the leaves of the plant and table. I saved&lt;br /&gt;the work path as a new path and then converted the saved path to a selection. I then inverted the selection to select&lt;br /&gt;the outer area by going to the Select menu and choosing Inverse. The selection was then feathered by 2 pixels. And&lt;br /&gt;with the selection still active, I used New &gt; Layer Via Copy from the Layer menu (Command/Ctrl-J) to copy the&lt;br /&gt;selected area and place it on a separate new layer above the Background layer.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2.Creating a depth mask.&lt;br /&gt;I loaded the pen path as a selection again and clicked on the Save selection as a channel button in the Channels&lt;br /&gt;palette. This created a new alpha channel. I then drew another pen path to define the outline of the table edge minus&lt;br /&gt;where the flowerpot intersected the table and converted this to a selection as well. With the alpha channel active, I set&lt;br /&gt;the gradient tool to black as the foreground color, with the Reflective Gradient button selected in the tool options&lt;br /&gt;bar and the gradient tool in Screen blend mode. This created an alpha channel that could now be used as a depth&lt;br /&gt;map with the Lens Blur filter.&lt;br /&gt;3.The Lens Blur dialog.&lt;br /&gt;I then made the copied layer in the layers palette active, went to the Filter menu and chose Blur &gt; Lens Blur.&lt;br /&gt;The Depth Map section shows the alpha channel I just created selected as the source. The Blur Focal Plane value&lt;br /&gt;corresponds to the pixel value of the depth map mask. In this example, as the value is lowered the filter will gradually&lt;br /&gt;apply more blur to the image based on the tonal gradation within the alpha channel that is selected here. Basically,&lt;br /&gt;the depth map is being used to create a very shallow depth of field with the focus dropping off behind as well as in&lt;br /&gt;front of the plant.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Notice also the bright highlights in the dialog preview. These show as iris-shaped highlights that are controlled in&lt;br /&gt;the Iris section. You can pick an iris shape from the Shape menu and then use the sliders below to adjust the size,&lt;br /&gt;curvature and rotation. To determine where the highlights will appear boosted in the picture you need to set the&lt;br /&gt;Specular Highlights Threshold to a value slightly less than 255 and then adjust the brightness to produce the desired&lt;br /&gt;effect.&lt;br /&gt;4.Conclusion.&lt;br /&gt;If you compare the final result with the original image you will see that the blurred background certainly does look&lt;br /&gt;more convincing. The bright sky has made the light appear to flare around the trunks of the palm trees and the bright&lt;br /&gt;highlight points in the image have been boosted to form out-of-focus lens iris shapes. And by using a depth map,&lt;br /&gt;parts of the table appear just slightly out of focus as well.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Looking Through a Glass&lt;br /&gt;Doc Baumann Adapted from “DOCMA - Doc Baumanns Magazin fuer digitale Bildbearbeitung”, online-edition, Autumn 2003. Doc Baumann is a&lt;br /&gt;well-known author, journalist, Photoshop artist and art scientist in Germany. He has been using digital imaging since 1984 and writing about it since 1987.&lt;br /&gt;In 2002 he started his own magazine.&lt;br /&gt;Here is a technique for digitally adding a glass object in front of a scene and making it look like it was part of the&lt;br /&gt;original scene. The trick is to carefully photograph the glass, paying attention to the shine and shadows. Then, make&lt;br /&gt;the glass transparent and distort the scene that you see through the glass. The result is convincing, if not optically&lt;br /&gt;correct.&lt;br /&gt;1.Photograph the glass object.&lt;br /&gt;Photograph the glass in front a medium gray background—not white.Use lighting that gives the glass a three-dimensional,&lt;br /&gt;shiny appearance. You want the surface of the glass to be brighter than the flat areas that you’ll eventually see&lt;br /&gt;the background through.&lt;br /&gt;2.Create a mask.&lt;br /&gt;Use any tool you like to make a selection of the object. I worked with the brush in the Quick Mask to refine the&lt;br /&gt;selection. Save your selection to a new channel by choosing Select &gt; Save Selection.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3.Create a distortion texture.&lt;br /&gt;Duplicate the document by going to Image &gt; Duplicate and convert it to the grayscale mode (Image &gt; Mode &gt;&lt;br /&gt;Grayscale). Load the selection of the glass object (Select &gt; Load Selection), invert it by choosing to Select &gt; Inverse&lt;br /&gt;and fill with 50 percent gray. Deselect the glass (Ctrl+D on Win, Cmd+D on Mac), and then apply the Gaussian Blur&lt;br /&gt;filter (Filter &gt; Blur &gt; Gaussian Blur) with a small radius to make the image softer. Save it as a .psd file—you’ll use the&lt;br /&gt;file later as a glass distortion texture.&lt;br /&gt;4.Prepare your background image.&lt;br /&gt;Open an image you’d like to use for the background. To enhance the illusion of depth, blur the background image a&lt;br /&gt;little. Choose Filter &gt; Blur &gt; Gaussian Blur, and then set the Radius slider for the amount of blur you want. To allow&lt;br /&gt;a correct perspective for the object, I added a wooden plane under it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;5.Assemble the composition.&lt;br /&gt;Keep your background image open. Then, in your original glass image, load the mask as a selection (Select &gt; Load&lt;br /&gt;Selection). Choose Edit &gt; Copy, then in your background image, choose Edit &gt; Paste to paste the glass in front of the&lt;br /&gt;background scene.&lt;br /&gt;6.Set the glass layer blending mode to Hard Light.&lt;br /&gt;In the Layers palette, select the layer with the glass on it and choose Hard Light from the blending mode menu.&lt;br /&gt;Usually, you’ll get a good result just by setting the glass layer to Hard Light, but you can refine the result using the&lt;br /&gt;Blending options. In the Layers palette, double-click the thumbnail in the glass layer to open the Layer Style dialog&lt;br /&gt;box. At the bottom of the Layer Style dialog box, you can move the value sliders to make refinements. Press the Alt&lt;br /&gt;key (Windows) or Option key (Mac) to split the sliders set the range of values that are blended.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;7.Give the glass a green tint.&lt;br /&gt;If you want to tint the glass, duplicate its layer by choosing Layer &gt; Duplicate Layer. In the Layers palette, select the&lt;br /&gt;Lock transparent pixels icon, then fill the object with the color you like. Set the layer blending mode to Overlay and&lt;br /&gt;reduce the opacity until it looks realistic.&lt;br /&gt;8.Distort the glass.&lt;br /&gt;In the Layers palette, select the background layer, and choose Filter &gt; Distort &gt; Glass. Under Texture select Load&lt;br /&gt;Texture, and open the texture you prepared in step 3. Do not start with a selection! Scaling must be 100 percent;&lt;br /&gt;try distortion and smoothness until you like the result. Also see if Invert might do better. Additionally you can load&lt;br /&gt;the object as a selection on the background layer and experiment with the Displace-filter.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;9.Remove unwanted distortion.&lt;br /&gt;The Glass filter often produces artifacts at the borders. Eliminate them by loading the object as a selection on the&lt;br /&gt;background layer, invert it, mark a position in the history palette before the use of the filter and fill the selection with&lt;br /&gt;the history state.&lt;br /&gt;10.Finished glass.&lt;br /&gt;This is the resulting image. Though the distorted background does not really look like it would through this glass,&lt;br /&gt;most observers will not recognize this. It’s good enough to produce a convincing composition.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rain Drops&lt;br /&gt;Greg Vander Houwen Adapted from the website http://www.photoshoptechniques.com.&lt;br /&gt;Greg Vander Houwen is the creator of PhotoshopTechniques.com. He is one of Adobe’s “Digital Masters” as well as a member of their “Magnificent 7.” He is&lt;br /&gt;an artist at heart, an illustrator by trade. His work can be seen at http://www.netcandy.com/interact/.&lt;br /&gt;I was experimenting with some of the more advanced features of the Layer Styles dialog box and discovered some&lt;br /&gt;very handy techniques that can be used when you are creating transparent effects. The sequence for this “water” effect&lt;br /&gt;is done entirely in a single Layer Style. So once it has been created it can be saved and applied to any layer that has&lt;br /&gt;hard-edged opacity against a field of transparency. This also means you can paint on the styled layer and the effect&lt;br /&gt;will render “live”, so it’s pretty to watch.&lt;br /&gt;Recommended Font and Doc specs. The technique uses a number of pixel based filters and point based type so these&lt;br /&gt;specs are important to reproduce the effect. Image Specs: 1117 x 865 pixels at 266 dpi, RGB color. Font Specs: Present,&lt;br /&gt;Regular, 60 point.&lt;br /&gt;1.Add a new layer above the layer you want to make wet and paint an initial drop shape.&lt;br /&gt;Now go to Layer &gt; New &gt; Layer... and click OK, or click on the Create a New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers&lt;br /&gt;palette. This will create Layer 1.&lt;br /&gt;Press (D) for default colors so black is in the foreground color chip.&lt;br /&gt;Activate the Brush tool (B) and then in the Options Bar above, set it to a 19 pixel, hard edged brush, Normal,&lt;br /&gt;Opacity 100%.&lt;br /&gt;Now paint a bit of black on Layer 1 and wiggle your brush a bit as you paint. This will be the initial shape we will&lt;br /&gt;use to build the layer style on.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Activate the Zoom tool (Z) and click on your paint drop to zoom in for a closer view.&lt;br /&gt;2.Build the Layer Style by reducing the Fill Opacity.&lt;br /&gt;Double-click on Layer 1 thumbnail in the Layers palette to open the Layer Style dialog box.&lt;br /&gt;Go down to the Advanced Blending section and change the Fill Opacity to 3%. This reduces the opacity of the fill&lt;br /&gt;pixels but retains the shape of the paint on the layer.&lt;br /&gt;Note: This step will make the black you painted on Layer 1 almost disappear.&lt;br /&gt;3.Add a small, intense, drop shadow.&lt;br /&gt;Click on the Drop Shadow name (not the check box) in the list of effects on the left side of the dialog box.&lt;br /&gt;In the Drop Shadow section to the right, set the Opacity to 100%, change the Distance to 1 px and the Size to 1 px.&lt;br /&gt;In the Quality section, click on the small down arrow to the right of the Contour curve thumbnail and select the&lt;br /&gt;Gaussian curve. It’s the curve that looks like a soft, sloping (S).&lt;br /&gt;4.Add a soft interior shadow.&lt;br /&gt;Click on the Inner Shadow name in the list of effects on the left side of the dialog box.&lt;br /&gt;In the Structure section set the Blend Mode to Color Burn, the Opacity to 43%, and the Size to 10 px.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;5.Add an additional interior shadow around the edge of the shape.&lt;br /&gt;Click on the Inner Glow name in the list of effects on the left side of the dialog box.&lt;br /&gt;In the Structure section set the Blend Mode to Overlay, the Opacity to 30%, and the color chip to black. To change&lt;br /&gt;the color chip, click on it to open the Color Picker, drag the cursor to black and then click OK.&lt;br /&gt;6.Add a highlight and interior glow to the shape.&lt;br /&gt;Click on the Bevel and Emboss name in the list of effects on the left side of the dialog box.&lt;br /&gt;In the Structure section set the Technique to Chisel Hard, the Depth to 250%, the Size to 15 px, and Soften to 10 px.&lt;br /&gt;In the Shading section, set the Angle to 90, the Altitude to 30 and the Highlight Mode Opacity to 100%. Then set the&lt;br /&gt;Shadow Mode to Color Dodge, its color chip to white and its Opacity to 37%.&lt;br /&gt;This completes the Layer Style but don’t click OK just yet.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;7.Save this Layer Style for future use.&lt;br /&gt;Click the New Style button on the right side of the Layer Style dialog box. This will open a dialog box where you can&lt;br /&gt;name it and then click OK to save.&lt;br /&gt;Note: After it has been saved you can find it under Window, Show Styles, in the last thumbnail position.&lt;br /&gt;Now click OK to leave the Layer Style dialog. In the Layers palette, click the arrow next to the Layer Style (f) icon to&lt;br /&gt;hide the style.&lt;br /&gt;Note: You can paint additional drops on Layer 1. Just makes sure your brush tool is active (B) and paint where you want&lt;br /&gt;the drops to appear. You can also use the Eraser to edit or remove existing drops.&lt;br /&gt;8.Add a text layer to the document.&lt;br /&gt;Activate the Type Tool (T).&lt;br /&gt;In the options bar above, click on the Palettes button to open the Character palette.&lt;br /&gt;In the Character palette select your font. Set the color to black. Then click on the Paragraph tab and click on the&lt;br /&gt;Center Text button in the upper left section of the palette.&lt;br /&gt;Now click in the center of the document and enter your “Rain Drops” text. To reposition your type move your cursor&lt;br /&gt;beyond the text until it turns into a move icon, then click drag.&lt;br /&gt;To apply the text click the check mark in the upper right of the Options bar or press the Enter key (Mac), Control-&lt;br /&gt;Enter (Windows). This will render the Type layer, Rain Drops.&lt;br /&gt;9.Add a new, white layer below the Type layer and then merge the Type layer.&lt;br /&gt;With the Rain Drops text layer active, create a new layer under it by holding down Command (Mac) or Control&lt;br /&gt;(Windows) and then clicking the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. This will create Layer 2.&lt;br /&gt;Fill Layer 2 with white by pressing the (D) key to load default colors. Then go to Edit, Fill, Background Color or press&lt;br /&gt;Command-Delete on the (Mac) or Control-Backspace (Windows) to fill with the Background color.&lt;br /&gt;Click on the Rain Drops layer to activate it.&lt;br /&gt;Go to Layer, Merge Down or press Command-E (Mac) or Control-E (Windows). This will remove the Rain Drops&lt;br /&gt;Layer as it merges down onto Layer 2.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;10.Roughen the edge of the merged layer with a filter.&lt;br /&gt;With Layer 2 active go to Filter, Pixelate, Crystallize.&lt;br /&gt;Set the Cell Size to 10 and click OK.&lt;br /&gt;11.Blur the roughened text/image.&lt;br /&gt;With Layer 2 active go to Filter, Blur, Gaussian Blur.&lt;br /&gt;In the dialog, set the Radius to 5.0 pixels and click OK.&lt;br /&gt;12.Take the softened text image and harden the edge by adding contrast.&lt;br /&gt;With Layer 2 active choose Image &gt; Adjust &gt; Levels. In the Levels dialog set the Input Levels to 160, 1.00, 190 and&lt;br /&gt;click OK.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;13.Load a selection from the text/image and delete the white areas.&lt;br /&gt;To load a selection from Layer 2 press Command-Option-~ (Mac) or Control-Alt-~ (Windows). This can also be&lt;br /&gt;done by clicking the Channels tab, then Click the Load Channel as Selection icon at the bottom of the palette.&lt;br /&gt;The selection loads with the white areas selected. Press Delete (Mac) or Backspace (Windows) to remove the white&lt;br /&gt;areas around the black text. Now deselect by Select &gt; Deselect.&lt;br /&gt;14.Apply our saved Layer Style to the black text layer.&lt;br /&gt;With Layer 2 active go to Window, Show Styles to bring up the Styles palette.&lt;br /&gt;Locate your saved Rain Drops Style at the end of the list of thumbnails and click it to apply the Style to Layer 2.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7300151955110962556-5560602399294815087?l=adopephotoshop.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://adopephotoshop.blogspot.com/feeds/5560602399294815087/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7300151955110962556&amp;postID=5560602399294815087' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/7300151955110962556/posts/default/5560602399294815087'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/7300151955110962556/posts/default/5560602399294815087'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://adopephotoshop.blogspot.com/2008/08/adobe-photoshop-cs.html' title='ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS'/><author><name>SANKET CHAVAN</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/06001563956296116928</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry></feed>
