Photoshop Help

[Wilse]

Have a problem? Ask your questions here!! It will get answered by anyone that knows it ASAP, so don't be afraid. Tutorials will also be posted to help fellow GFX Artists get more advanced.

[Wilse]

by Rkid

So, you have Photoshop but you don't really know how to work it? Or you've been interested in making some cool designs and showing them off to everyone else? Well...keep reading and you'll see how easy it is to get started!


Introdction

Now if you already have photoshop, and haven't really messed around with it, that's one thing you should do before I tell you anything. Just open up photoshop, goto to File > New... Now set the dimensions (width and height) by typing in a number. For now, just type in the box next to "Width:" 500, do the same for "Height:"...same number, 500. Now make sure that each box to the right's of those numbers are "Pixels", not inches or anything else. The last things to check before you click "Ok" are make sure the "Mode" is "RGB Color" and make sure under "Contents", "White" is selected. Now go ahead and click Ok.

Now take about 5, 10, 15 minutes...how much ever time you want and just explore the program. Try out some of the icons and all, just to get some feel of the Photoshop enviroment.

The Basics

Alright, I'm to lazy to actually type every single thing and what it does out so, some credit for this goes to Wilse on IOW for posting it, but most of the credit goes to N-Sane.net (this site also has a lot of other tutorials)


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------




Marquee Tool
The marquee tool selects areas within a layer. It is capable of selecting an elliptical, square, single column, and single rows.

Move Tool
The move tool can move around all objects within a layer. To move entire image, Flatten the layers by selecting Layer > Flatten Image.

Lasso Tool
The lasso tool can select areas within in a layer that can’t be reached with the marquee tool.

Magic Wand
The magic wand is an automatic selection tool. It selects everything in the layer.

Cropping tool
This tool changes the size of the image. To use, Select the area you want to crop and then press enter.

Slice Tool
Makes Guidelines.

Heal Brush Tool and Patch Tool
The patch tool is another form of the heal brush. It is in the options for the heal brush. The Heal Brush deletes the high contrast of a picture and is used when retouching a photo. To use, hold down alt while clicking on the source (an area that looks like what you want the damaged part to look like) and drag the mouse around the damaged picture to repair it.

The patch tool fixes damaged parts of a picture by blending the damaged part with a better one. Just use the patch tool to select part of the image, then drag the selection to another part of the image. This will combine the selections.

Pencil tool and brush tool
Draws or paints a line. Same as the pencil or brush tool in paint. Change the color of the paint brush by clicking on the color picker.

Clone Stamp Tool and Pattern Stamp tool
The clone stamp tool duplicates part of the image. Hold down alt while clicking to choose the part of the image which you want to duplicate. Drag the mouse over the damaged area.

The pattern stamp tool can create and save a pattern you want to use over and over again. To make a pattern, use the marquee tool or the lasso tool to select part of the image. Go to Filter > Pattern Maker and click generate. Click on the floppy disk underneath the Tile History called Save Preset Pattern. This will save the pattern. Do not push OK unless you want to fill the entire image with that pattern. Press cancel and select your pattern from Pattern on the top center of Photoshop. Drag the mouse over the area with the pattern stamp tool to edit the picture.

History Brush Tool and Art History Brush
The history Brush tool can go back and undo certain changes in a picture. To delete everything you did since the opening of the picture simply drag the history brush over the area to be repaired. The history brush works best when transforming snap shots. Using the snap shot will only change certain parts of the picture and can go back in editing to change major errors. To make a Snap Shot, save the picture then click on the small camera on the bottom of the history window. The snap shot will be saved once it is named. If you click on a previous snap shot, you can edit a previous version of your picture. Click on the last snap shot then use the history brush tool to undo the editing to make the unedited section look like the previous snap shot.

The Art history Brush tool can artistically undo an image and warp the original picture. Click on the top snap shot and chose what kind of brush to use on the top of the window under Style. Click on the area you want to edit with the art history brush.

Eraser tool
This can erase part of the photo in a certain layer. To erase everything in a certain area to make it white, flatten the image or go through every layer to delete that part.

Paint Bucket
Makes an area one color. To edit all layers at one time, click on All layers at the top of the window.

The Blur tool, Sharpen Tool, and Smudge Tool
To use, drag over part of photo you want to edit. The hardest part of this tool is selecting the right strength, brush size and mode. This tool is capable of blurring part of the image, undoing the blur with the sharpen tool, and slightly liquefying with the smudge tool.

The Dodge tool, Burn tool, and Sponge tool
To use any of these tools, just drag it over the image. The dodge tool can lighten an image, the burn tool darkens it, and the sponge tool soaks color out of the image.

Type tool
Puts text in a picture. Click on the picture with the type tool and select a box the size of the area you want to add text. Type in the box then adjust the size of the text box.

Pen Tool
The pen tool can make lines and be used with shape tools to create different shapes. To create lines, use the pen tool to create anchors (the little boxes on a line) and change the shape of the line by moving around the anchors.


Shape Tools
Creates shapes in the image. The custom shapes tools can create all shapes in the shape section located at the top center of the Photoshop window.

Annotation tool
This can create notes and sound effects in an image. The only difference between the note tool and the text tool is that the note comes up in a little white box and when the note is too long for the given space, there will be a scroll bar. This is usually used in PDF formats and Acrobat Documents.

The audio Annotation tool can add audio notation to the picture. To use, click on the audio notation tool and press start. Record your voice with the microphone then press stop. You can import the audio by File > Import > Annotations. Make sure the file you import is a PDF file or a FDF file.

Eyedropper tool
Samples a color from the picture, color swatches, or the color picker. To use, click on the color on the image you want to take and right click.

Hand Tool
Moves around image within an object. Is used with the zoom tool when you want to adjust the section of picture you want to look at.

Zoom tool
Zooms in on part of the picture for closer editing.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Wilse]

By Wilse

Text Styles: Go to layer -> Layer styles and you have all the different ways to make ur text or anything look good on it, muck around with them and see what they do!

(If you want styles send me a PM or post here with ur email address so I can send as an attachment!)

Borders: Lots of people have different ways of doing this, here is mine, flatten the image in the layer toolbar thing (I Think), then select all with the rectangular marquee, and then right click to bring up stroke, choose the color and width and ur done, you can try two together to get a good looking border, then u r done....

[Wilse]

By myers

Blending Better>
---------------------
1.select the image you want to blend
2.take the marquee tool
3.with the marquee tool, scroll the pictures edge with it
4.right click on it
5.go to Feather
6.set the value to 10
--------------------------

[Wilse]

By R_A_V_E_N_kID

Start out with a pretty good size image, 400x400 pixels, White Background, now fill the image with your paintbucket tool black, to do this just press D then press your paintbucket. Now once you have done this, go to your paintbrush tool, size=2 px, and select a color that you want this blast to be, or you can just pick white and adjust the colors at the end. Now start from the center , and draw lines going out, try to make them straight if you can. Once you have a lot of these lines go to Filter....Blur....Radical Blur. Amount = 100 , Zoom , Quality = Best and press OK. Tada, there you go. Now to make this a little better as a blast, just press Ctrl and F, or go to Filter....and click Radical Blur at the top. To adjust the colors go to Image....Adjustments.....Hue and Saturation or Color Balance. Tinker with the colors to get it just right. Here's an example i made.....

[Wilse]

By Wilse

Polygonal Boxes
u make a new layer, get the grid up (ctrl+'), and use a polygonal lasso, make whatever shape you want, then fill it, then it's the same as text effects, layer -> layer style, blending options is a good place make fill opacity zero, so then u can have it a bit transparent with other effects, just use bevel and emboss or whatever you want, should be done! Sorry if it's hard to understand

Blending

Blending is easy, with the layer you want, u go the layers pallete at the bottom right, and next to the opacity there is a drop box that syas normal, in there u can choose different blending options, the best are: the section with overlay, soft light etc.

Easy Cutting

Now people do this in different ways, depending on bgs there is an easy way to do so, with the magic wand, this will select the same color throuout the picture then all u do is press delete, if u want one section to be selected instead of the whole thing, tick the contigious box, then this will stop the selection of the area when it gets to another color, if the bg color is close to the picture color, just use the eraser tool arounf the picture then use magic wand, experiment a bit to get best (tolerence helps)

[Wilse]

By Wilse

Put together a Box selection whether polygonal or just rectangular marquee, and fill it with a color in a new layer. Now take this and go to the Blending options which will have all the Bevel and Emboss etc. Now set the Fill to 0%.
Give the box a Gradient Fill with both ends transparent and the middle a color of your choice, then set the gradient fill and set it at 180 degrees or 0 degrees.

done!

[Wilse]

By Wilse

After downloading the font, open the zip it is in or if it is just the .ttf file do the following:

Select it and put it in c:/WINDOWS/Fonts folder or just look for it, install it in there adn it will be a selectable font all over your computer.

[Wilse]

By Curtisdude

I recently learned how to remove certain things from images. I wrote my own version, since the place I learned it was sort of complicated. The image I will use for this tutorial is this:



First, select the zoom in tool (the one that looks like a magnifying lens) and drag a square around the image you want to remove (in this case, the kangaroo) like this:



Then select the lasso tool, shown here:



Select a part of the image next to the kangaroo so it looks natural.



Then, go to Select -> Feather, or CTRL+Alt+D.:



Feather it 5 pixels:



Then, press ctrl + alt (to copy) and drag the selection over a part of the place you want to remove (in this case I chose the head):



Keep doing that until everything is removed. Be sure to get the shadows and everything that is a part of the kangaroo, too. If something looks out of place, just undo it and feather it more (most likely 6-10 pixels). This is what mine looked like:

[Wilse]

By Wilse

Make a new layer and fill it any color
Then set fill opacity at 0%
And go to stroke in Layer -> Layer Effects, and select stroke, then make it an inside or center stroke, works better that way, then u make it any color u want, and it's eaily done....

[Wilse]

By Curtisdude

make a new document 12 pixels x 12 pixels and an invisible background. then zoom in and fill it with black. then select the single row selection button and delete every other row. do the same thing with the single column selection. when you are done, go to edit -> define pattern and name it grid. to use it, open up a new document and go to edit -> fill and choose the pattern

[Wilse]

How to Mask Layers
Written by: Nastazio


1. Open your File, and get an image you wish to mask....

2. Next make sure your image is a layer above a backround canvas of any color, use one that will help you keep track of what you're doing.

3. Select the layer you want to mask then click on the layer mask button (The cirlce inside of the square).

4. After you have your layer mask go to the top left of photoshop and click on the brush and select the second brush icon on the top toolbar, Select the "Airbrush Soft Round 50% Flow"

5. Brush out the sections of the image you want to mask. You can see what you brushed in the layers menu. This is a softer eraser that helps for blending..

You use this when you have some pictures that you want to blend together...try it and experiment...Plz post what you can do too :wink:

Thanks,
Wilse

[Wilse]

By Curtisdude

1. Download the brush file
2. Open Photoshop
3. Open the brush window(Window->Brushes)
4. Click load brushes or something like that and pick the ones you want (Note: you can only load one at a time)
5. Click the brush tool on the toolbar

[Wilse]

Okay that was a huge Transfer of the main tutorials from the IOW thread, feel free toa sk any Photoshop Questions and our GFX makers wil lanswer them for you.

Thanks,
Wilse and Drunky

[jujade]

Ok, i dont know where to put this but i guess ill put it in here.

RavinKid is running around (like a fatboy runs after the ice cream truck) telling EVERYONE how to save their banner using this method.

1. Go to >Save to web, and select PNG 8.

Now, im not saying that way doesnt reduce its size and uploads faster while at the same time keeping its great looking quality. However, has anyone noticed how ****ing horrible and a-****ing-nnoying it is to see it loading online? Not only that but its quality really doesnt seem to be as good as for example.....Mine. Im not being conceided here, i am telling the 1000% truth. Now you want to know a way to save it RIGHT, READ BELOW!!!

1 . Go to >FILE>SAVE AS, and save it has a GIF file!!!

Not ONLY does GIF reduce the size majorley, but it also keeps the quality picture perfect (ever looked at one of my sigs? Beutifull ;),) AND it.........Well **** lol.

Now getting a picture perfect sig aint no cake walk, There are very limited uploading sites that is GIF uploadable (You will have to search for one.) However, do the best things in life come easy? Lol i dont think so :p

So there ya go, finally IOW's GFX makers will know how to properly save banners...

Jujade! ;)

P.S. RavinKid, no offence man, i like ****ing with the mods ;)

[R_A_V_E_N_kID_3_3]

Well you have a point there but each file type has good strong points, but sometimes, they have weak points.

JPG - The quality is usually very good but as Wilse has told me before, if it's too complex, as in too many things going on, then when it's uploaded it will blur slightly because of the complexity.

GIF - The quality on this file type is good but sometimes you will get that effect where the color is well, sketchy if you will. Also like the .jpg, if it is too complex, it will blur when uploaded.

PNG-8 - The quality on this is also good most of the time but like you said jujade, it can take sometime to load but if it is saved without a transpareancy, it won't take as long. Also there's a slight grain that you get on the image when you save it as this file type.

PNG-24 - This is probably the biggest of them all and will take a long time to load, especially if you're on dial up (like me). The quality for this saving method is usually very good.

There's a short rundown on each of the file saving methods, the one you use, should be up to you.

Now since this thread hasnt gotten much activity lately, I think I'll add a quick tut...

Dotted Lines
This technique is quiet simple and easy todo.
-Get out the 1 pixel square brush or any other 1 pixel brush.
-Goto Window>Brushes
-From there, goto "Brush Tip Shape"
-Set the "Spacing" to whatever you like but make sure that it's enough to draw a dotted line.
-Now click on your document where you want the dotted line and hold down SHIFT to make it straight and drag your mouse over to however long you want the line to be.

And there you have it! You can do a lot of different things with this by adjusting the spacing or the size of the brush or both. :winkok:

[The-Noodle]

Just quickly, anyone know where you can get the SummerSlam font?

[R_A_V_E_N_kID_3_3]

ht tp://www.webfontlist.com/pages/station.asp?ID=10495&x=Fonts

The font really isn't called "Summerslam" though, the name of the font is Canaith.

If you don't know how to install the font, just ask.

[The Great One]

Saving as a .gif does not keep the picture quality good, i did and people said it looked grainy, and the quality wasn't as good as a .jpeg file, so save them as a .jpeg file! :wink:

[The-Noodle]

OK thanks a lot RK, appreciated ...

[Sunshine]

Tutorial #1: How to add a bit of glow.
I saw someone ask for a glow method. Well, it's really easy. Right click the layer you want to glow and click duplicate layer. Now take the top layer and go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Set it to 5 pixels and press ok. Now change the blending mode to Overlay or soft light. Which ever one you like better. Sometimes, it'll make pictures darker and harder to see, but have no fear. When that happens, go to Image>Adjustments>Brightness/Contrast. Fiddle with the two bars to see how you like it. After you like what you see, merge the two layers together. Heres an example:

Another example. These kinds of pictures will get "dreamy" effects to it.


The quality of your pics usually determine the quality of your glow.
Tutorial #2: How to color your images.
This one is pretty easy as well. Right click the layer you want to color and click blending options. Click and check Color Overlay. That should open up a submenu. Change the blending mode to Color and change the color box to whatever color you want. After that, fiddle around with the opacity bar to fit your liking. You can make it so theres only a fade of the color, or have a whole bunch. I did it around the middle. Heres an example:


Any questions/comments, please reply.

[Chaos]

I just downloaded Photoshop and everytime I try and run it, it comes up saying that I need to close Internet Explorer, even when its already closed and it's bugging me because i've deleted and installed it at least three times and it keeps coming up the same.

Did anyone else have that problem?

[Sunshine]

Which version you download?

[Chaos]

Photoshop CS3, and I tried the extended one as well but both were fucked.

[Sunshine]

Did you buy it, or "borrow" it?

[JDK]

URGENT HELP NEEDED!

You know that tool in PS7. The first tool at the top of the left hand side, the rectangle that enables you to cut any size rectangle out of an image if u click and drag it about? Yeah? Well I can't do that, for some reason when I click it, a wide, short rectangle appears, and when I hold down the left click button as if to make it bigger or smaller, it just moves the rectangle all together. Please help.

[Sunshine]

On the toolbar, click and hold the short wide rectangle button until a sub-menu appears and then click the regular "Rectangular Marquee Tool". You currently have it set to "Single Row Marquee Tool".

[JDK]

Nope. I do have it set to rectangle. I've clicked single RMT, and it is just a straight line, however the thing I'm trying to explain isn't a straight line, its a small, very wide rectangle.

EDIT! Fixed :) Cheers anyway sunny.

[Sunshine]

Hrmph, that's strange. Can I get a screencap?

[JDK]

Another question. I'm making a music magazine cover for a media project. I'm doing a feature on Lennon/McCartney, and I want to sort of Blend/merge the faces together, so how do I make an Image transparrent, so the image behind it becomes more visable?

[Snowman]

Select the layer you want to make more transparant.

Then locate the opacity.



Click the blue arrow and drag the bar until you reach the value you want.



That's how you roughly change opacity, but there are more advanced ways to blend.