I have been asked by many people via comments, and directly, how I get the clear skin effect on my *Portraits...
I have been asked by many people via comments, and directly, how I get the clear skin effect on my Portraits / . So, as I am now a leader in the Photoshop Help group, along with my good buddy Faizan Qureshi – I thought I would kick off my participation with this brief tutorial on how it is done. / / This was done in Photoshop CS2, but as the effect only uses the standard Photoshop tools, most if not all versions of the program will suffice for this tutorial. / / First things first, you will need a file to work on. The settings in this tutorial are based on the low resolution starting image here, and if you use higher resolution images – the settings will be different. / / You may right click and save the starting image below and use it to work through this tutorial to practise – you may also upload your finished work into your portfolio for feedback and to show others how you did – You MUST not, however, place the image for sale, or use it for any other purpose other than this tutorial, without my permission / / So, follow the steps and have some fun with this. / / 1. Save the image below and open it in Photoshop / / Starting Image / / startmodel / / / 2. On the toolbar on the left hand side, click on the healing tool / / healing brush tool / / Use the following settings for the healing brush / / healing brush tool settings / / / 3. Zoom in on the model so that you can see imperfections on the skin. Hold Alt on your keyboard and click on an area of skin close to an imperfection once – release the mouse and the Alt key / / healing brush step 1 / / / 4. Click the mouse again over the imperfection that you want to hide, once / / healing brush step 2 / / / 5. Repeat the last two steps until you have removed all the imperfections, until the image looks similar to the one below. / / model after healing brush applied / / / 6. Down on the right hand corner of the Photoshop workspace – you will find the layer pallette – Have a look – you will notice that there is one layer called background, or Layer 1 in the pallette at the moment. / / The Photoshop layer palette / / / 7. Go to the menu bar running across the top of the workspace – click on the word – Layer, then click on Duplicate Layer. A box will appear, just click OK. Notice that a new layer, called layer 1, or background copy now appears in the layer pallette above the background layer. Make sure that this top layer is highlighted/selected / / 8. Just above the highlighted layer, there is a drop down menu [which probably has the word Normal in it at the moment]. Click that drop down menu and click on multiply. / Multiplying the layer / / / your image will go very dark like the one blow. Model after multiply / / / Still working on this same layer / / 9. On the menu bar running across the top – click on the word Filter, then on Blur, then on Gaussian Blur – a box will appear. Change the settings to that below and click OK to apply the effect. / / Blur settings / Your image will now look like the one below / / model after blur applied / 10. Go to the top menu again, and click on the word Layer, then on New Adjustment Layer, then on Levels – a box will appear. Adjust the settings to that in the image below. / / Levels adjustment settings / / / Your image should now look like the one below / / Model after the levels adjustment / / / Note here that you now have 3 layers in the layer pallette. You will need to be working on the MIDDLE layer [see below] for the next step, so make sure it is selected. / / Selection of the middle layer for the next step / / / 11. On the toolbar on the left, click on the History Brush to select it history brush tool / / / On the top toolbar menu, set your brush to a small soft brush [so that you can fit it into the corner of the eyes], and set the opacity to 25 / / All in one stroke [thats important with low opacity] paint over one eye totally to bring the detail and brightness back out. Repeat for the other eye, and then for the lips. / / The effect is quite subtle here, but it will make a big difference at the end of the tutorial and will give life to your model. / / Your image should now look similar to the one below / / model after history brush / / / 12. Now go to the menu up the top and click on the word Layer, then click on Flatten image – this will result in you having one layer in your layer pallette again. / / Ok – so your model has great skin now, but she is a bit on the bright side. We are going to darken her up a bit, but if we just do it now, she will likely turn orange with the current saturation level. so we need to adjust it a little. / / 13. Go to the menu up the top and click on the word Image, then Adjustment, then Hue/Saturation – a box will appear. change the settings to that below. / / hue/saturation settings / / / The image should now look a better colour model after hue/saturation settings applied / / / Now lets darken her up / / 14. Up to the top menu again – click on the word Image, then Adjustment, then Levels – the levels box will appear. Change the settings to that in the image below. / / Levels adjustment settings / / / Your image should now look much darker / / model after levels adjustment applied / / / Finally – we need to bring out highlights and for this we use the dodge tool. / / 15. Over on the toolbar on the left, click on the dodge tool to select it / / dodge tool / / / Use a soft large brush [about the size of her whole cheek], set the opacity to 18 and work on highlights in the drop down menu [up the top]. Click and drag once across the eye area, then once down the models right cheek to brighten these areas up. / / Your image is now complete and should look something like this / / finished model / / / I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. The settings will be slightly different with other images of different resolutions but the methods will be the same. When adjusting levels blur etc on other images, use the sliders to get similar looking effects to what you used here and the effects will work nicely for you. / / Good luck everyone, Please come back here and let me know how you got on.
Because of my Nostalgia series I received a few inquiries about …
Because of my Nostalgia series I received a few inquiries about the “Painted with light” technique. About what it is and how it works. So, I decided to write a small article about it. This way, everybody who is interest in it can read it. I will not claim to be an expert in this technique, nor will I pretend that it’s something I discovered myself. It’s an old technique in the experimental photography. Rather then writing a complete tutorial on the technique I’ll try to reconstruct the path that lead me to where I’m today in the wonderful world of “painting with light”. At the end I’ll describe my own application of this lighting method in still life photography. First things first. Like many of you I’d never heard of “Painting with light” until I bumped into the work of Emil Schildt. Emil is an experimental photographer who’s experiments go in many directions. I’d like to try more of the things he has done, but, at the moment I’m still in the painting with light phase. Although Emil’s subjects are completely different from my own (his are nude models mostly), he was a huge inspiration for me. So, before you continue, check out his work in the painted with light category. (While you’re at it, check out the rest too, it’s worth a peek!). You will see that it really has a painterly feeling. Naturally, in Emil’s case, this feeling is enhanced by his other techniques, such as his special printing methods and so on. It’s this feeling that I was after in my lighting. What really got me experimenting was Emil’s description of his used techniques. Here is his painting with light tutorial. Based on this tutorial I started to experiment. In those days I was still shooting analogue and I quickly stopped again. The reason was simple. I had little spare time for my hobbies and practicing a new technique on film, having do develop them and mostly just see that it didn’t work out, having to start over again… Let’s just say it was discouraging and I wished I had a Polaroid camera. There was something better then Polaroid though: digital. When I bought my first digital camera I pick up my experiments again. The camera wasn’t really suited for it: long exposures resulted in more noise and enough dead pixels to fill up the sky with stars. But those problems where nothing Photoshop couldn’t handle and now I could experiment freely, see the results instantly and adjust my technique according to what I saw. I don’t know if it’s because the subjects are different, or because I’m jut not Emil, but I started to disagree on a number of things in his tutorial. I started to develop my own technique, or better said, my own work flow. Thinking of it that way, which is totally different from what I was thinking when I started writing this, I’ll end up writing my own tutorial anyway as I now see the differences with Emil’s tutorial that I had already forgotten. My work flow: / - Where emil advices to use a light bubble with a reflector, I advice to go for a flashlight. I suited my purposes better. Of course I’m working on a totally different scale. If you’re a model photographer I think you will have to stick to Emil’s advice. But if your subjects are smaller, like my still lifes, well, I preferred a shielded light source which produces a beam which is easier to aim with an to concentrate on one part of the image. - I don’t think I need to say this, but to be complete: you will need a tripod. - My first active step is simple yet takes up most of my time. It’s setting everything up. I start with a quick arrangement of my subjects on a table or whatever I’m using. I’m not carefully composing yet. Just putting the items in more or less the position I want to have them. This will usually changes ten times or more, but that’s not that important now. Right now, I’m looking for the angle mostly, for how to set-up the camera on the tripod. - Once the camera is up on the tripod I start to very carefully arrange my items and to really build up the composition. Of course, while doing this, the change is big that angle and crop are slightly adjusted again. All of this has little to do with the technique we are discussing, so let’s move on. - If this is the first time you are using this technique with this combination of tools (camera and light source) you will have to set up a balance between your camera and what you want to achieve. Now I’m mostly talking about the settings and amongst those most of all about white balance. Of course if you should raw you have the ability to edit the white balance later on and then it’s not so important. I wanted a very warm feeling so I leave my white balance to auto which results in a warm, reddish glow from my flashlight. It’s that combination, light source and white balance, that will dictate the colors and general mood. If you change your light or camera, you will have to search for the right settings again so try to stick to the same equipment as much as possible. When I bought my new camera and specially when I started to shoot in raw I totally lost direction and it took me a while to get the results I wanted again. On the other hand, once you used the same combination for a while, getting the results you want will go a lot smoother as you can know what to expect. - According to the size of the subject, the distance to it and so on, you will have to decide on a diafragm setting and a shutter speed. For the ISO value I would stick to the lowest one your camera has to reduce noise to an absolute minimum. The big advantage of digital is that you can do a few trial runs to see if you set up your aperture and shutter speed correctly. If not, don’t change your aperture ! You need that to pick the DOF. The big difference here is that Emil’s shooting models that have to sit still, so you want the fastest shutter speed possible. But my still lifes aren’t going anywhere, so I adjust the shutterspeed and keep the DOF where I want it. - Now, to make the actual picture, or to do your trial runs, I said the camera on “timer”. I make the room pitch dark, which is very important as you don’t want any light source then your own interfere with your image. I use my flashlight to find the camera again, push the shutter, and wait for the timer. - It’s here that the fun starts. Trust me, you will need a whole bunch of trials before getting it right. Work out a “path” for your light source to follow. Try to get the lightning right in one smooth motion. You can also hesitate with the light source on certain points of your composition to highlight them. You can move slowly or very fast to achieve different effects. Just be creative! Remember one rule of thumb though: keep moving the light or it will burn a spot into your image. If you want to highlight something, for example, make a slow circular motion to get a soft edge. Of course, it’s totally possible that you want that burned in spot, like I said: be creative. Just think of it this way: / your flashlight is your brush, light is your paint. - Repeat this, over and over again, until you get what you want, until you have your path worked out, the way the strokes of light have to be applied just right. - You are shooting digital, don’t be afraid of Photoshop or similar programs. Photoshop is your friend, even more accurate, Photoshop is your darkroom. Not all digital cameras give good results on longer, darker exposures like I already mentioned. So it’s possible that you will need a lot of Photoshop work to correct noise and dead pixels but I use it for a little more then just that. - At this point, I have several images which I like, but you will see this happening too: picture 1 has the light just right on item 1, picture 2’s background is far better lit and picture 3 has a spot of light on this tiny detail that non of your other picks have. I’m just giving an example here. I think you can guess my next step, right? I’m going to melt those 3 images into one where I have the light exactly the way I want it, everywhere. I’ll do this using masks mostly. Hiding bits from one image, showing bits from another, until everything is just right. I already mentioned the noise work (no longer necessary for me with my K10D) and the removal of dead pixels and do some other small adjustments like a little dodging, burning, small color corrections etc. Just like I would do in my darkroom in the ol’days. That’s it! That’s all there is to it. By now you should have one beautiful painted with light image. By way of inspiration, I hope, I’ll show you one of mine again. If you want more, check out my Nostalgia series update: this tutorial continues here Now available as a calendar /
I just answered a question in a certain group forum, and it occurs to me that it may be useful to others. Feel free to ask any questions….
I just answered a question in a certain group forum, and it occurs to me that it may be useful to others. Feel free to ask any questions. So here goes: General rule-of-thumb: expose to the right. What that means, is – use your histogram and get your exposure to the right half without hitting the far right edge. Anything clipped (blown, over-exposed) will be data lost for good. The same goes for black clipping (under-exposed). The reason exposing to the right is better then to the left, is that recovering data/detail from dark areas creates noise – whereas the reverse does not. A little rule that may help you with exposure: / Sunny 16 Basically what this catchy-named rule means, is this: / Given a bright and sunny day outdoors, correct exposure for any scene will be f/16, 1/100 SS, ISO100 (also known as ASA) Working up and down with this you can adjust to suit. For example – a slightly overcast day: / f/11, 1/100, ISO100 (1-stop wider aperture) / or / f/16, 1/50, ISO100 (1-stop slower SS) / or / f/16, 1/100, ISO200 (1-stop more sensitive film/sensor) If you have a specific requirement with SS (stop motion, blur, etc), adjust the other parameters to compensate. To stop your hand motion blur, use the reciprocal of your focal length. Example: 100mm needs at least 1/100th SS. Crop bodies need to be multiplied by the crop. (ask if confused) / If your subject is moving, double SS. If you are also moving, triple it. / Of course using a tripod (and you should whenever feasible) changes this. With photography, each numerical value doubles. / ISO: 100/200/400/800/1600/3200 / SS: 25/60/125/250/500/1000/2000/4000/8000 Aperture can be remembered by using this system: / Use two numbers (f/1 & f/1.4) and double them as you go. f/1, f/2,f/4,f/8,f/16,f/32 / f/1.4,f/2.8,f/5.6,f/11,f/22 Now put them together and you have your full range of full-stop apertures :) Some cameras will list 1/2 or even 1/3 stops. f/1, f/1.4,f/2,f/2.8,f/4,f/5.6,f/8,f/11,f/16,f/22,f32,f/44 Aperture effects Depth of Field (DoF), which is the distance between the closest area in acceptable focus, and the furthest. Choose your aperture to suit your subject/scene. Adjust the other two parameters accordingly. A larger aperture number means a tighter aperture – which means less light. If you ever come up to a situation that has a very high dynamic range (DR) and can’t wait for better light – bracket your shots. That is, expose +/- from the above settings. You can then either decide what you like best, or even combine exposures. (ask how). Of course – if you are a street/candid/journalistic/wildlife style photographer, then you may only get one chance. Which is more the reason to learn the above. There are various filters available to help shoot skies and landscapes – or any scene that has defined high dynamic range. Circular polarisers, graduated neutral density filters – ask. Using additional lighting such as flash adds another element to the equation, and other rules apply. The above is a basic guide to correct exposure for everyday and natural conditions. Hope this helps some people. Feel comfortable in asking anything, or contributing.
A few people have asked me about my method for reformatting images for greeting cards (see my previous journal entry...
A few people have asked me about my method for reformatting images for greeting cards (see my previous journal entry), so here is an explanation of what I do. This is not the only approach, nor is it probably the best, but it seems to work OK for me. You need to be willing to do a bit of arithmetic (a calculator is useful!), and you need some image-editing software for resizing your image, and for adding borders (I use Photoshop). BACKGROUND INFORMATION In this old forum thread Justin French explains the basic details of card sizing. The main points we need to know are: Cards are C6 size, 114 mm by 162 mm (4.49 inches by 6.38 inches). Cards are printed at 200 dots-per-inch resolution. One inch is equal to 25.4 mm. A little bit, 1-2 mm, gets trimmed from three sides of the image when printed. The fourth side which is the “spine” of the card does not get trimmed. DESIGN PROCESS First, you need to decide how you want to “frame” your image on the card. This will vary depending on the shape and content of your original image, and what kind of effect you are looking for. As an example, for this photo I decided on a centered framing with a thin white line around the photo and then a thicker black border extending to the edge of the card: For this photo, the image is centered horizontally but is higher than center vertically, and it has a black outline then a wide white border: The borders can, of course, be any colour you like, they can be thick or thin or patterned or whatever, the only thing to remember is that a small amount will get trimmed when printing, so don’t put anything important too close to the edges of your final design. THE DETAILS My aim is to produce an image that is exactly the right size for a card when printed at 200 dots-per-inch (DPI). I find it easiest to work in pixels, so let’s restate the card size in pixels: 114 mm is 4.49 inches which is 898 pixels (at 200 pixels-per-inch). 162 mm is 6.38 inches which is 1276 pixels (at 200 pixels-per-inch). So we want our image to be arranged appropriately within a “box” sized 898 by 1276 pixels. If we take Justin French’s post at face value, we would then add an extra 1-2 mm (13-25 pixels) around three edges, with the expectation that this extra portion will be trimmed during printing. However, I have found that doing so does not quite work as expected – it tends to produce an image which is just slightly off-center. Instead, I have found that it works better to arrange the image within a box sized 910 pixels by 1276 pixels, and then to add 12 pixels to the short dimension and 24 pixels to each side in the long dimension. The final image will end up being 922 pixels by 1324 pixels. This sounds complicated in words, so here is a diagram: In the diagram above, I have resized the image to an appropriate small size, added a thin border, then added white space to each side and to top and bottom so that the overall size is 910 pixels by 1276 pixels. Then finally I have added another 24 pixels of white space to the top and bottom, and 12 pixels to the right hand side. (I’m saying “white space” but it could well be “black space” or any other colour, of course.) I have found that a good size for a thin border is three pixels, and a good offset from the edge of the card is 100 pixels (which is half an inch, or 12.7 mm). Of course, you can use different numbers if you like in order to achieve a different end result. AN EXAMPLE To make this a bit clearer (I hope) here’s what I did with Tulip Glow: This starts off as a square image, and I want it centered horizontally on the card. I decide on a three-pixel thin black border, and I want it offset from the edges of the card by 100 pixels on the left and right, so thats 2×3 + 2×100 = 206 total pixels of border. The target card width is 910 pixels, so my image must be resized to 910 – 206 = 704 pixels wide. Using Photoshop, I go to Image -> Image Size and set 704 pixels as the width, making sure that “Constrain Proportions” is ticked. I click “OK”. My core image is now the right size, 704 pixels square. Next, I add a three-pixel black border by going to Image -> Canvas Size, tick the “Relative” box, and enter “6 pixels” into the Width and Height boxes. Make sure the “Anchor” is set to the center so that the six extra pixels are added equally on all sides, giving a three-pixel border. Set the “Canvas extension color” to Black and click “OK”. The thin border is done, and our image is now 710 pixels square. OK, next we want to extend the canvas out to the edges of the card, using White this time. Again, go to Image -> Canvas Size and enter 200 into the Width box. This will add 100 pixels of white on both the left and right sides. Set the “Canvas extension color” to White and click “OK”. The total width of the image is now 910 pixels, as desired. Now we want to add more white to the top and bottom, but this time we want more white at the bottom than at the top, to give a pleasing balanced design to the card. Our image is currently 710 pixels in height, but our target height is 1276 pixels. So we have to add 1276 – 710 = 566 pixels. We might choose to add, say, 200 pixels to the top and 366 pixels to the bottom. We do this by using Image -> Canvas Size twice more. First, put 200 pixels in the Height box, and set the “Anchor” to the bottom square to force the newly added pixels to appear on top of the image. Then repeat, putting 366 pixels in the Height box and setting the “Anchor” to the top square, forcing the new pixels to appear at the bottom of the image. We now have our nicely formatted card image … sized at 910 pixels by 1276 pixels. To finish off, we need to add a little bit more to the top, bottom, and right sides, which will mostly be trimmed off during printing. So, using Image -> Canvas Size twice more, add 24 white pixels to the top and bottom, and 12 pixels to the right, and it’s all done! Get the card printed, and everything should be nicely centered and professional-looking. DISCLAIMER There is one thing that Justin mentions in his forum post that I linked to at the beginning of this Journal, and that is that RedBubble could, at any time, decide to change the way the cards are printed. If they do that, then of course it is possible that the way the cards are sized and trimmed will be different, and these instructions may no longer work well. Anyway, I hope this is understandable and helps in some way, Yours, prbimages.
*I recently had several requests for instructions on how to add buttons like the ones in my profile...
I recently had several requests for instructions on how to add buttons like the ones in my profile. Rather than send individual bubblemail messages, I’m posting it in my journal in case someone else would like to add buttons to their RB profile. BUTTON INSTRUCTIONS Tip: print out this page and put it beside the computer before you start. You can make your own buttons or you can use a site called ButtonGenerator. If you decide to use this site and not to pay for a membership, you will need to add a link back to the site. I made all of mine 125X26 to give you some idea of the size of the ones on my page. This size allowed 3 buttons side-by-side. Make all your buttons and then save them in a folder on your computer. Then you will need to upload each button to your RB image gallery and use the “Hide” feature so that no one sees them but you. Once you have them uploaded you will need to right-click on each one to get the url address html code in the properties box. Example: http://images-0.redbubble.net/img/art/size:ularge/view:main/1407403-1-autumn-button.jpg Then go to “Edit Your Profile” to copy the image html code AND the tag html code – it will look like this (without the spaces): ! http://images-0.redbubble.net/img/art/size:ularge/view:main/1407403-1-autumn-button.jpg ! : http://www.redbubble.com/people/patmonty/art/everything/tags/autumn [REMEMBER NO SPACES. I had to add spaces so you could see the html code. If I had not added spaces, the button would have appeared in the journal instead of the code.] The last word in the html code is the “tag” word. In the example above it is autumn. You will need to put one space between each set of button html code. If you have a lot of buttons the language is long and wraps around forever. But with one space between each button html code, the buttons will sit next to other and then wrap to the next line. Now you will need to add the tag word to each of your images that will correspond to the buttons. Happy Button Making! UPDATE: Cool Text Graphics Generator is another good site for buttons. This tutorial was featured by the group, Tutorials on January 28, 2009. CLICK HERE FOR ALL TUTORIALS BY PATRICIA / Add Buttons To Your Profile Page / How to make a calendar / Downsizing those example images on your profile page / Adding Examples (Card, Laminated, Matted, etc) To Your Profile / Add photos to your profile description / Adding emphasis to your text / Plus more tutorials!
I have written this tutorial more for the new bubblers that have recently joined. But if you have been around the site for awhile and st…
I have written this tutorial more for the new bubblers that have recently joined. But if you have been around the site for awhile and still haven’t yet attempted to put a link in your profile, image description, or bubblemail, this should help. FOR THE COMPUTER SAAVY: Put quotation marks around the words you want to be the link. Then type a colon. Copy and paste the url address for the page, image, etc. that you want to link to. No spaces anywhere in the code. BEGINNER STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS: I would suggest printing these out to have next to the keyboard. It will be easier than switching back and forth to this screen. -Type the words you want to be the link: Bubblesite for Patricia -Put quotation marks around the words: “Bubblesite for Patricia” -Add a colon at the end: “Bubblesite for Patricia” : -Then add the url address for the page/photo you want to link to: http://patmonty.redbubble.com/ -It should look like this (without the space): “Bubblesite for Patricia”: http://patmonty.redbubble.com/ -I put a space after the colon so the html code would be visible in this journal. Take out the space and waa-laa! It becomes a link! Bubblesite for Patricia NOTE: In a bubblemail, it becomes a link after it is sent. In a comment, it becomes a link after the comment is added. In a journal or profile description, the clickable link is only seen in the public view. If you have problems or questions, please don’t hesitate to let me know. Patricia CLICK HERE FOR ALL TUTORIALS BY PATRICIA / Add Buttons To Your Profile Page / How to make a calendar / Downsizing those example images on your profile page / Adding Examples (Card, Laminated, Matted, etc) To Your Profile / Add photos to your profile description / Adding emphasis to your text / Plus more tutorials!
WOW… so far we’ve had 570 favouritings and 8,224 views since uploading this journal. Hope it helps :) !http://i248.photobucket…
WOW… so far we’ve had 570 favouritings and 8,224 views since uploading this journal. Hope it helps :) Hi Everyone This would be the most FAQ I receive from other bubblers, ie, how do i enhance my profile, how do I create a link, how do I display my products on the page…. It’s so easy, very simple, just a few steps away – anyone can do it, you can do it!! Be encouraged! As I receive lots of requests for assistance about enhancing the front profile page of your red bubble homepage, I have decided to take some time to describe and explain in a step by step tutorial the various methods. / a) I always begin by opening up two tabs/windows / b) Open the ‘edit your profile page’ or the ‘edit your description’ box in the first tab/window / c) In the first window where you are editing your description, type an exclamation mark ! / d) Click to open the other tab/window / e) Go to the public view of the image whose product you wish to display / f) Click on the BUY/PREVIEW NOW button / g) You will notice there are a range of products here for you to choose from eg, card preview, print preview, laminated print preview, matted print preview / h) Click one of these options to view the product / i) Once you have chosen which product you’d like to add as a preview, right click on it and select ‘copy image location’ / j) Return to your first opened tab/window and paste the ‘copied image location’ right beside the exclamation mark / k) Add another exclamation mark after the pasted image location, leaving no spaces / YOU NOW HAVE DISPLAYED YOUR PRODUCT You can go on to make this a clickable link if desired. / l) Add a colon right next to the exclamation mark / m) Click on the second tab/window and press the back button at the top left hand side of your browser twice until it returns to the public view of your image / n) click in the url website address box at the top of your computer to highlight it / o) right click to copy the address / p) return to your first open tab/window and paste the copied url address beside the colon / YOU NOW HAVE A CLICKABLE LINK to the page from your product preview display This is very similar to how you would display a tshirt, but the tees are a littler easier, you do not need to go to the BUY/PREVIEW as you can copy the image location of your tshirt for display just by going to the main page where your image is located… bypassing that step, the rest is pretty much the same. for example below is a clickable text link / Click here to see my Calendars when you create the link it should end up looking something like this / a) I always begin by opening up two tabs/windows / b) Open the ‘edit your profile page’ or the ‘edit your description’ box in the first tab/window / c) Type one set of inverted commas / d) Type in the text, eg, “link to my website” , or “click here” / e) Type another set of inverted commas at the end of your text / f) Type a colon : / g)Click on the second tab/window and go to the website you want your text linked to / h) Right click in the url box at the top of the screen to highlight the url/website address or another page on red bubble where you are linking your text to a work of art etc / i) Paste the address right beside the colon / j) there should be no spaces whatsover / k) Click on the button to Save your changes / l) Go to preview and check the link has worked and is clickable / m) If not – recheck that you haven’t left any spaces, etc for example below is a clickable image link / It should look something like this / a) as above / b) as above / c) Type in an exclamation mark ! / d) Click on the second tab/window and go to the image you wish to add and make clickable / e) Because most images on RB are now protected with clear gifs, you cannot just copy the image itself, you will need to click on the preview/buy button to view the products, such as cards and prints, unless it’s a tshirt…which you can copy… once you’ve chosen product you wish to display….. / e) Right click on the image and choose the ‘copy image location’ option an click on it / f) Return to the first open tab in the editing box / g) Paste the image location right beside the exclamation mark / h) Type another exclamation mark, directly after the image location / i) Type a colon / j) Click on the second tab/window and go to the url address of the page your image is on / k) Click on the address to highlight it / l) Right click to copy the address / m) Return to your first tab/window and paste the url address beside the colon / n) Click to save your changes / o) Click to preview / p) You should have a clickable image link / q) If not, return to your editing and check you have left no spaces anywhere here’s an example of a clickable thumbnail / Here’s what it should like like to you / a) as above (open the edit your profile box in my bubble) / b) as above (open it up at my bubble and go to Art) / c) return to the edit your profile box / d) insert an exclamation mark / e) Click on the second tab/window / f) Locate the small thumbnail you wish to display in your profile from your Art or TShirt Section Listings in your My Bubble area / g) Right click on the small thumnail and click on copy image location / h) Click on first tab and paste the image location right beside the exclamation mark / i) Insert an exclamation mark directly after the url / j) Insert a colon directly after the exclamation mark / k) Click on your second tab/window / l) Go to the thumbnail and click on the thumbnail / m) Go to the url/website address of your image and click in the url box to highlight url address / n) Left click to copy the address / o) Return to your first tab/window (edit your profile) and past the url address directly beside the colon leaving no spaces whatsoever / p) Save your changes / q) Go to view publick view of your work / r) You should now have a clickable thumbnail / s) If not go back to edit your profile and check you’ve left no spaces and recheck your steps PS – if you wish to add a whole heap of thumbnails repeat the process, leaving one space between each thumbnail Here’s an example of a Banner / Here’s an example of what it would look like to you / I have added some nice banners to the front of my Profile Page, and folks often ask how this is done. If you have software like Photoshop and are family with it, then it should be fairly easy. I create a banner in Photoshop, using a simple rectangle shape, keeping it rather small in size …. approx 500×70 pixels (or 6×9 cm) something like that should fit fairly well in the space. I then save my file. I opened a Photobucket account especially so that I could create banners and save them to Photobucket (a free online Photo storage facility). Photobucket is very easy to use, simple and self explanatory. Once you have opened your account there you can upload your banners from your Photoshop saved files. Once you have saved your banners there, you can click on the Direct Link button beneath your thumbnail, to automatically copy the image location address. To make your banners appear in the ‘Edit your Profile’ area, or in your Description Boxes, you only need to do the following: a) as above / b) as above / c) In the edit your profile or description box, insert an exclamation mark / d) click on the second tab where you will have your Photobucket opened up / e) click on the Direct Link in Photobucket to copy the address of the banner you’ve created / f) Go to your first tab/window and paste the Direct Link image address directly beside the exclamation mark / g) Type in another exclamation mark directly after the Direct Link address / h) SAVE your changes / i) Go to View public profile / j) You should now have a beautiful new banner visible on your page / k) if not, recheck your steps and make sure you’ve left no spaces You can make your banner clickable by additionally adding a colon after the exclamation mark, and adding the url of the page you wish to link the banner to. / See example below: / / or / click here to view my tshirts In order to do this you must tag all similar works with a word, by going to edit your art work, and adding the tag to your other tags and saving your work, once you have adding the appropriate word to each of your works, to categories them… you can begin making sets to take customers to sets of your work… you can use a banner or text or an image link to do so for the first part… sandwiching the text/image/banner between two exclamation marks as we have done above. You will need to use an address like this for tshirt collection, but insert your own name instead of karin, and your own tag word, I have used tee, after the equal sign, eg / http://www.redbubble.com/people/karin/clothing?tag=tee so, you add whatever tag word you like at the end after the equal sign,and then be sure to add the tag word, in my case it’s tee, to all your tshirt designs in the tag section, (via editing) and remember to click save or if it’s an artwork collection, you would use the address below for art collections, but you need to insert your own name instead of karin, and your own tag word relative to your particular collection, in my case it’s whales, or baby, or beach, etc… : / http://www.redbubble.com/people/karin/portfolio?tag=whales so now it looks like this below, but be sure to take out any spaces, insert your own banner url address, add the colon, and your tee or portfolio address, using your own red bubble user name and your own chosen tag ! http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg188/karinlouisetaylor/JUNEBANNERSwhales.jpg !: http://www.redbubble.com/people/karin/portfolio?tag=whales From now on you will see the button below displayed on my Profile Page here at Red Bubble, and this will link you directly back to this page for further/future refence. / For more information or further enquiries please click on the following links: / Please do not hesitate to email support@redbubble.com if you are having trouble or needing help of any kind, they are only too happy to help with your enquiries HOW TO ADD THE ABOVE BUTTONS TO YOUR OWN PROFILE PAGE TO HELP OTHERS FIND HELP FAST I would actually be grateful if you added the above assistance buttons/banners and links to your own Profile Pages to spread the word to others, and make access to help more easily available to newcomers and everyone on the bubble…. spread the love around…. / You’ll find out how to do this in the Tutorial…. :) How to add the banners to your own profile page..to help other bubblers have easy access to help and assistance and spread the word around a) Open two tabs/windows in your browser / b) Click on ‘Edit your Profile” / c) Click on the second tab/window / d) Go to this journal page here / e) Scroll down until you get to the button/banner / f) Right click on the banner/button / g) click on copy image location / h) Return to the first open tab/window to ‘Edit your Profile / I) Type in an exclamation mark ! / m) Paste the image location right beside the exclamation mark leaving no spaces / n) Type in an exclamation mark right after the image location / o) Type in a colon directly beside the exclamation mark / p) click on the second window/tab and go to the url box of tutorial page to highlght the address / q) paste the url right next to the colon (leave no spaces whatsoever) What you’ve typed should look a lot like this below, without the spacing….. you musn’t leave any spaces….. if you prefer you can simply copy and paste this below information into your ‘Edit Your Profile’ box and just by removing the spaces you will have created a clickable image/banner link to the Tutorial / ! http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg188/karinlouisetaylor/bannerEnhanceYourProfile.jpg ! : http://www.redbubble.com/people/karin/journal/1964545-tutorial-how-to-enhance-your-profile Underneath is the coding to copy and past the other two buttons / ! http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg188/karinlouisetaylor/BANNERTUTORIALS.png ! : http://www.redbubble.com/people/karin/journal/1469814-linking-and-enhancing-your-profile-on-red-bubble ! http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg188/karinlouisetaylor/BANNERFAQ.png ! : http://www.redbubble.com/groups/redbubble/forums Just don’t forget to remove those spaces between the exlamation marks and colon thank you for time time in reading this…. and I would be absolutely thrilled if you shared this information with your friends…. and anyone who needs help! Have a smiley sorta sunshiney day! / Karin THE END PS / ADDITIONAL TUTORIALS BY OTHER BUBBLERS FOR ASSISTANCE WITH LINKING, ADDING THUMBNAILS, ETC Dave Pearsons Hacks / Craig Shillington’s Contribution / Gracey’s Contribution / Paul Gibbon’s Contribution / Jo’s Contribution / Webgrrl’s Contribution / BevB’s Contribution / Kimberley Palmers’s Contribution / Photegenic’s Contribution PLEASE NOTE IF YOU ARE NOT USING MOZILLA FIREFOX AS A BROWSER AND CAN’T LOCATE THE COPY IMAGE LOCATION when you right click on an image, there is another way to do it…. *what you can do instead is this…. / Right click on the image / Click on properties / Copy the URL address you see there / Paste the URL address from the properties in between the two exclamation marks / and then just follow the rest of the instructions – i hope that helps..i just tried it out using the other browser and it worked find for me….
Karin Taylor, Jo O’Brien, Stuart Chapman, Lance Jackson, Ragman, Mark German, Steven Lippis, Simone Byrne and myself have added some v…
Karin Taylor, Jo O’Brien, Stuart Chapman, Lance Jackson, Ragman, Mark German, Steven Lippis, Simone Byrne and myself have added some very useful tutorials and links for those members who’d like some help in learning a few extra tricks to make their time on the bubble easier. I have this link in my profile, so it’s going to be easy to find. I’ll add to it as I learn of new helpful information. How to enhance your profile Text formatting Where to get help/critique/FAQ Help on how to sell your work How to TAG your work effectively Inserting image links easily with Stuart Add category lists How to make smoke photos Digital Infrared info Ragman’s excellent advice on all things arty farty Mark German’s fantastic photographic techniques Steven gives an explanation on how to utilise a flash modifier My experience with Neutral Density Filters My hints on shooting at the beach Explaning focal lengths for digital Polarisers – a visual experiment
Adding a slide show to redbubble Ok not really a slide show but it is very close, It’s an animated gif image. / You can see one ”...
Adding a slide show to redbubble Ok not really a slide show but it is very close, It’s an animated gif image. / You can see one My Bubblesite These images can also be linked / Doing this will require you to have software that can make an animated gif image. / And of coarse I know of a free software program that can be used and this tutorial will explain how to do this using this free software. The free software is called / unfreeze and you can Get it here / Once downloaded and installed on your / computer we are ready to go. The first step is to get the images you want to include in your slide show, I am going to use my redbubble images set in frames for my bubblesite homepage. Sign-in to your redbubble account Click “My Bubble” then “Art” find the image you want to include and click the “show public view” Now click the “buy/preview” button / Select the product format you want to use Card, Laminated print, etc.. Then save the image to your computer. Internet Explorer users “Right Click” the image and select “Save Picture As” / Firefox users “Right Click” and select “Save image as” / And choose a location on your PC where you can find it easily. / You can use as many images as you want, but remember you want them to visit your gallery so keep the number of images to a minimum. / I’m going to use 8 images for now. / You can re size your images if you like the Unfreeze software will resize your images to fit in a 375 pixels(high) X 360 pixels(wide) box but the software will not center the image. For those that want their images centered in the box, Use your photo software to edit the images / The software program (unfreeze) that I recommended above requires the images to be in gif format. Doing this in your photo software may be different than mine. But I will open the image in my photo software “Paint.net” and then click the “Save as” option and change the format (type) to gif ( Graphics Interchange Format).They will be saved in the same folder that I put the ones I downloaded from the bubble. Once the images are in the gif format. We are ready to create the animated gif (slideshow) Open the folder where your gif images are located Start “unfreeze” a small window will appear / Drag your images into the white window Then set the delay on the right, I used 60, Make sure the “Loop animation” box is checked Now click the “Make Animated Gif” button Give it a name and Click “Save” To make the images change slower add more than one of the same file The image that I created here was made using three copies of the same image,delay set to 90 / Example: drag and drop “image1.gif”,then do it again drag and drop “image1.gif “ This one has four of the same images and delay set to 60 Now the image can be uploaded to a web site, since Redbubble does not support this file type. You can use “Dropbox” / which is a free file store, share, sync software Get it Here it allows you to have 2 gig of file storage for free. Plus when I change the slide show gif I just created dropbox will take care of the rest. / So changing my slide show is as easy as making a new one and saving it using the same location and name on my pc as the one I’m using now. / Now Insert the new image on your bubblesite or profile / Use the image location (web address,web url) with a ! before and after the image location / For more on Linking images etc. see this post How to Customize Redbubble / And your done. / You can also include these in your description boxes these have been reduced in size A great way to promote your calendars on your bubblesite remember these images can be linked to the buy page. / Happy Bubbling / Dan / Get the Firefox and Internet Explorer Tool bar for Redbubble Here / See more info See all my How-to’s Here Includes “Framed image on Bubblesite home page”, “Adding Calendars to your bubblesite”, “feedjit Live Traffic Feed”, “Using tags on Redbubble”, “Add a visitor counter to your bubblesite or profile page” and More © D R Moore This written work cannot be reproduced or posted on the web without my written permission
Here is the Table of Contents for my How-to’s on Customizing your redbubble profile and bubblesite. / redbubble does not allow you to post…
Here is the Table of Contents for my How-to’s on Customizing your redbubble profile and bubblesite. / redbubble does not allow you to post “HTML” (webcode) but here are ways to add things and get the custom look to make your profile stand out from the rest… Working with text [Formatting] / The basics of formatting text More…... redbubble Formatting [Text wrapping images] / Learn how to use tables to text wrap your images, align text / and more… Creating Links Etc…on redbubble / The basics of creating clickable text and images post them on your profile, in forums or on your bubblesite Adding Calendars to your bubblesite / Here is a way to add a calendar to your bubblesite with a link to the buy page Using Small Product Previews Quick (Redbubble) Search Bookmarklet Repeat post Time Saver Framed image on Bubblesite home page feedjit Live Traffic Feed Edit your Slideshow widget. Edit your Sales Widget… Using promotional image Banner Using tags on Redbubble Using a Paypal button on redbubble Add a Slide show to your Redbubble Profile/Bubblesite Visitor counter on your bubblesite or profile page Mapco visitor counter on your profile/bubblesite Redbubble toolbar / Host or Co-Host Tutorials Featuring the easy way Need more Help? / Chat with me on Skype User Name / envelope150 Happy Bubbling (with Bling Bling) / Dan
Here’s the basis for my Vintage effect rose just posted … I …
Here’s the basis for my Vintage effect rose just posted … I did go on and add a few frills (see my paragraph at the end) but the whole outcome hangs on this simple process: While this is aimed at PS / CS2 / CS3 users I’m confident you’ll find this doable in Elements also. 1. Make a DUPLICATE LAYER of your image (control J) / 2. In the Image menu, go to Adjustments and across and down to Gradient Map / 3. This should show you pretty little boxes of colour! Click on the one which has darker grey in top LH corner, decreasing to white in lower RH corner. Click OK / 4. Across to the top right of your Layers Pallette, click on the tiny arrow next to Opacity. / 5. Move the slider till the image suits you … maybe halfway? / 6. Go to Image menu / 7. Down to Adjustments and across to Photo Filter. / 8. Choose the Sepia filter, and adjust the sepia density. Click OK. / 9. Back to Image menu / 10. Down to Adjustments and across and down to Brightness/contrast / 11. Fiddle the sliders a tiny bit to get the contrasty look that you’d like. Click OK This is basically it – you’ll need to flatten the image before saving. However there are many more variations you can use once you are comfortable with this process. Try adding a different filter other than Sepia, or some tasteful light with the Render filter. Try doing another duplicate layer with Gaussian blur and erasing the blur at maybe 50% from the main focus of the shot (as I did with my rose) … then of course flatten again before you save. Please point me to your image if you use this – I’ll be interested to see how you go!!!
I typed all this out for Ben, who asked for some help, since he doesn’t live near any beach, and didn’t want to waste his time when he fi…
I typed all this out for Ben, who asked for some help, since he doesn’t live near any beach, and didn’t want to waste his time when he finally made the long trek. Thought others might appreciate the info. I use my Canon 5D with Lee ND grads, mostly the darkest ones, for sunrise. I’ve never tried to shoot the ocean much after an hour or so after sunrise, and not been all that successful, unless it’s a cloudy day. You’ll need a tripod and cable release. The tripod just needs to be stable, and the cable release working. Then I set my camera on AV and start shooting with aperture at around f/8 or so while it’s dark, and closing it down as the light gets stronger, with ISO mostly 50….. There’s no formula I use, other than using AEB, to see if I can snag one that gets the sky right, then I look for the one with the right wave patterns. Sometimes I combine the two, sometimes I run them through photomatix. Sometimes they’re perfect. I use my 16-35mm nearly ALL the time when shooting seascapes, very rarely I’ve used the 70-200, and that’s only if there’s a detail that’s worth getting, like the shipwreck or some waterfalls over rocks from the surf…. Here the light is generally best till around 20mins after the sun goes down, or 30 mins before the sun comes up. If you have clouds, wait longer after sunset….you’ll probably get better colours. If you have clouds in the morning, you might be able to shoot longer after the sun comes up too, especially if the light breaks through…. The IR filter can come in handy once the light is stronger….here in Qld we have strong light for 12 hours a day or more, even in winter….IR is a blessing! I’ve never used a yellow filter….and wide angle with polarisers just don’t give good results, imho. Just keep checking your screen and moving around for different viewpoints. Everything will depend on how much water movement you prefer. This is a case of personal taste, and with practise you will work that out. Setting your camera on AV and using AEB will give you the three different exposures to see which works best, then you just adjust your aperture to slow it down, or speed it up….or add more filters…the darker it is, the longer the exposure…. Be careful of getting too close to the waves, and watch out for slippery rocks, they can be extremely dangerous! Here the tide surges more dangerously an hour before high tide. Make sure of tide times before you go, and be certain you have a way to escape from the beach if the tide is coming up….Rogue waves can, and do cause problems….try to go with someone who has local knowledge…. Wash your tripod off when you leave the beach, and again when you get home. Other than that, have fun!
Below are links to my tutorials. This journal is being published so that a new button on my profile page...
Below are links to my tutorials. This journal is being published so that a new button on my profile page will link back to this journal. It will make it easier for anyone who is searching for any of my tutorials as it eliminates the need to scroll through the archives in my journal listings. This tutorial page will be updated as new ones are added. Reply to Comments the Correct Way FAQs for Group Challenges Adding Images to a Group Search for a Specific Group Bubblesite or Personal Image Gallery Making Links Add Photos to Your Profile Add Buttons to Your Profile Page How to Make a Calendar Tee Shirt Helpful Hints Adding Emphasis to Your Text Adding Example Work (cards, laminated, etc.) to Your Profile Page Downsizing Example Images on Your Profile Page Resize Images for Printing Using Photoshop Resizing Images to Print Business Cards Promote Your Work This tutorial list was featured in the group, Tutorials on January 28, 2009. Journal updated on 03-27-2009 / Journal updated on 05-21-2009 / Journal updated on 06-15-2009
I posted this a while ago but had to put it away until it was published in a magazine…well that magazine (Australian Digital Photograph…
I posted this a while ago but had to put it away until it was published in a magazine…well that magazine (Australian Digital Photography & Design) comes out next week (I think) so here you go…this is what I do….. HOW TO Shoot INFRARED IMAGES Characteristics of infrared photographs are deep black skies, bright white foliage and sometimes bright blue skies. Often quite mundane scenes can be transformed into extraordinary images when captured with infrared. / To achieve the effect, you need to use a lens filter that can block visible wavelengths of light, while allowing infrared (IR) light to pass through. The most readily available filter that can do this is an R72 screw-type filter. HOYA is the most popular but you can also purchase Lee and Cokin filters which act in the same manner. / All DSLR cameras are capable of detecting varying degrees of infrared light but manufacturers put permanent infrared blocking filters over the sensor to stop the infrared light penetrating. However, they still let some light through, so by placing an IR filter over your lens you will be able to capture these escaping wavelengths and thus a surreal image. / The downside to these IR filters is that they actually let in very little light of any kind so long exposures are necessary. Some cameras are more sensitive to IR than others but because you will have an exposure that it several seconds long a tripod is a necessity and a shutter release is optional. / Your IR filter will cut all visible light so the viewfinder will be rendered useless when it comes time to compose a shot. All images will need to be composed before the filter is attached. Point and shoot Digital Cameras are usually capable of seeing through the filter as the filters used to block the IR wavelengths are not as strong as those of the DSLR. So in many cases the filter can be attached when composing the image. As you will have a long exposure (of up to 20secs perhaps) still subjects are the easiest thing to shoot. Most successful IR shots are of landscapes. / An unedited IR imaged will take on a red hue and look un-useable, but this is just because you have not set a Custom White Balance (CWB). By attaching the filter and taking a shot of green grass and setting this as the CWB you will vastly improve your image. In doing this you will allow for mid-tones and whites to appear. Of course you can always adjust the white balance in Photoshop later. / All infrared images will need some post processing in Photoshop to get the best out of them. The simplest technique is to convert the image to Black and White and increase the contrast a little. This will achieve the classic infrared look achieved by infrared film. However, digital cameras can create false colours and can produce a surreal effect. Trees can be blue, the sky can be yellow and the ground red. .................................................................................................................................................... HOW TO PROCESS AN INFRARED IMAGE TO GET A SURREAL WINTERY FEEL. Step 0 — Bringing your file into Photoshop / Download your images – if RAW, convert (to tiff or jpeg) and bring into Photoshop. Note: Exposure and White Balance will make a difference on your final result, so there might be some trial and error – in general I set a Custom White Balance by attaching the R72 filter to the camera and shooting green grass. / Step 1 — Auto Levels / I always adjust the levels before progressing further. This will swing the colours significantly. SHIFT+CTRL+L is the shortcut for this process. If you have a good shot, tree leaves and clouds will appear close to White in colour and the sky will take on a yellow tinge. / Step 2 — Channel Mixer (Swap Red & Blue Channels) / From here on it is about shifting colours. If you want Blue sky you will need to swap the Red and Blue colors in your image. It is easiest to do this with the Channel Mixer. Image>Adjustment>Channel Mixer. / Set Red to 100% Blue / and set Blue to 100% Red. Leave Green 100% Green. / You could probably get a similar effect using Hue/Sat function to shift Hues, but Channel Mixer is MUCH easier. Step 3 — Levels (Clip Back and White Points) / Select IMAGE>ADJUSTMENTS>LEVELS and adjust the White and Black points. It seems beneficial to clip the Black point a bit and perhaps even the White point a little depending on the image exposure. Boosting midpoint may help as well (or may not). Input might be something like: 15, 1.10, 250 (for Black, Mid, and White) but this will be image dependent and you will have to tweak the settings. Experiment! / Step 4 — Hue/Sat (Adjust Sky & Cloud Color) / At this point your image should be pretty close, but you will probably want to further adjust Hue and Saturation. IMAGE>ADJUSTMENS> HUE & SATURATION. You can change individual colours by using the drop down menu in the EDIT box. To make the trees look whiter I reduced the saturation of all REDS in the image. / Step 5 — Brightness/Contrast / Now adjust the brightness/contrast of the image to bring out the colours just a bit more. IMAGE>ADJUSTMENT>BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST. In this image I increased the contrast by 5. / Step 6 – Noise Reduction / A feature of classic infrared film images is the film grain. If you are not a fan of the noise produced by your long exposure then use a NOISE REDUCTION FILTER to remove any excess noise. / Step 7 – Burning / If some parts of your image are not as dark as you would like use the BURN TOOL to bring them out a bit. In this image some of the tree trunks are a bit pale for my liking so I am going to burn them slightly, especially the ones reflected in the water. Make sure that you set the Range to SHADOWS and the Exposure should be set very low. I have set it to 5. / And there you have it – a fully processed Infrared image.
This is an older Tutorial I created while I was on Deviant Art…It proved to be very popular so I thought Id share it here with my favou…
This is an older Tutorial I created while I was on Deviant Art…It proved to be very popular so I thought Id share it here with my favourite Redbubblers :D / If you have any questions please feel free to post them here :) Below are some of my works in which Ive used this effect / Click images to go to full view
I’ve seen so many people still asking why they’ve still not sold any artwork on Redbubble! So I’ve compiled all my enterprising, marketin…
I’ve seen so many people still asking why they’ve still not sold any artwork on Redbubble! So I’ve compiled all my enterprising, marketing, sales and money-based articles written over the last two years. I really REALLY hope you enjoy reading and applying them into your sales-campaign. First, let’s take a look at you, the artist within. Wait, that sounds like the first article… 01. Defining the Artist Within / 02. I Have a Special Condition! / 03. Keep that Entrepreneurial Spirit Alive / 04. Two Crafty Ways to Become a High Profile Photographer / 05. Playing the Popularity Game Without Caring if You Win or Lose / 06. What Makes You Think Your Art is Good Enough? Here is the guts of this article, the really in-depth stuff that should help understand how to better use Redbubble in your venture to either make money or make a name for yourself: 07. Are You Selling More Artwork ? / 08. Helping YOU Make a Profit on Redbubble ! / 09. Pleasure from Profit from Pleasure / 10. Quality Marketing Equals Sales / 11. Selling Your Art Successfully / 12. Sell, Give, Donate and Use Your Skills / 13. My Marketing Strategy / 14. How to Sell Anything / 15. Selling My Artwork At Amended Prices / 16. Twelve Months on Redbubble The trick is to read each article, and then ask yourself: ‘How does this apply to my situation?’. I’m very sure you’ll find a way to incorporate the ideas I’ve used here to improve your situation and increase your sales! I look forward to hearing how much more sales you make over the next few months!! EDIT [11:32 PM 15/05/2009] / Some of you will now want to run an exhibition, gallery or stall of your artwork. For that I have compiled another list of links that should help you! / ... Running Sheet for Exhibitions Since this is my article, I have to get a few shameless-plugs in here somewhere. I have T-shirts for sale that will get you noticed! / ... Your Name on a PHOTOGRAPHER Shirt / ... Photographer Shirts / ... Redbubble Shirts for Artists, Writers and Photographers Postscript / I started writing simple tips that any Redbubble Artist could use. I don’t write them so much any more, but I keep them here for my own reminder. I hope you enjoy these two that relate to this post enormously: / ... Tip #001 / ... Tip #004
I don’t know whether anyone knows or not, but if you’re as mad about Photoshop as I’m getting to be you’re going to have a blast with thi…
I don’t know whether anyone knows or not, but if you’re as mad about Photoshop as I’m getting to be you’re going to have a blast with this site, “Photoshop Elements Menu” / http://www.photokaboom.com/_htm_menus/PSE_menu.htm Get Free downloads, and check out the tutorials.. You can never have too much information on Photoshop.. If you happen to find anything you think may be useful to others be it this website I’ve provided or another, please share the links here ;0) Check this out exert from the same site: Photoshop Elements /Move a Face Is this the right tutorial for you? The face you want to move could be in two situations. / Two Situations Situation #1 You have two photographs of the same group of people. The photographs were taken moments apart from each other. Grandpa Gumpo has a great expression in one of the photographs. In the other photograph, Grandpa Gumpo looks like a bee has just stung him. You want to cover Grandpa Gumpo’s bee-stung-face with his good-smile face. To do the above, go to File > New > Photomerge Group Shot. Don’t use Photomerge Faces. That’s for combining facial features to make a funny face. Situation #2 This tutorial is for the following situation. You have a photograph of a group of people. You want to add a person to the group that wasn’t in the group. Moving the face is easy. Integrating it into the group photograph is complicated. If you’re an intermediate user of Photoshop Elements, stick around. Beginners should come back later! 1 – Open the Two Photographs Let’s say you have a photograph of Uncle Fud. And, you have a photograph of a group of people, the destination for Uncle Fud’s face. 1) Open the photograph of Uncle Fud and the photograph of the group. / 2 – Select Uncle Fud 2) Double click on the thumbnail of the Uncle Fud photograph in the photo bin at the bottom of your screen. 3) Select Uncle Fud’s face and upper body. Hair can be difficult to select. You can select a few pixels of the background around Uncle Fud’s hair. Later, if necessary, erase these pixels of the background. 3 – Copy Uncle Fud 4) Press Ctrl + j. Uncle Fud is now on a new layer all by himself. 5) Rename this layer Uncle Fud. / 4 – Do You Need to Flip Uncle Fud? You may need to rotate the Uncle Fud layer horizontally, left-to-right. Do this if the lighting is different for Uncle Fud and for the group. Check Uncle Fud’s Light Direction Look at the lighting on Uncle Fud. Figure out where the light is coming from. Look at the shadows and highlights. Let’s say the light is coming from the left side in the Uncle Fud photograph. / Check the Group’s / Light Direction Next, look at the group photograph. Is the light coming from the same direction as in the Uncle Fud photograph? Let’s say the light is coming from the right side in the group photograph. When you put Uncle Fud into the group, he may look odd. He’s lighted from the left. Everyone else is lighted from the right. / Back & Front Lighting If one photograph has light was coming from behind—and the other photograph has light from the direction of the camera—there would be no need to flip Uncle Fud. 5 – Flip Uncle Fud Do the following, if necessary. 6) Make sure the Uncle Fud layer is selected (highlighted). 7) Go to Image > Rotate > Flip Layer Horizontally. Make sure you select: Flip Layer Horizontally—not Flip Horizontally. Uncle Fud has flipped. A person may look different when he or she is flipped left-to-right. However, correcting the difference in lighting probably outweighs any unnaturalness due to the flipping. This is even more true when the face is small in the group photograph. / 6 – Move the Uncle Fud Layer To move the Uncle Fud layer to the group photograph, do the following. 8) Make sure the Uncle Fud layer is selected (highlighted). 9) Press Ctrl + a. You’ll see the marching ants on the edge of the image. 10) Select the Move tool. 11) Click, and hold, on the large image of Uncle Fud in the center of your screen. Don’t click on the Uncle Fud layer in the layers palette on the right side. So, you’ve clicked on Uncle Fud in the center of your screen, and you’re holding the mouse button down. 12) Drag Uncle Fud onto the thumbnail of the group photograph in the photo projects bin at the bottom of your screen. 13) Double click the thumbnail of the group photograph in the project bin. The Uncle Fud layer is now on the top of the layer stack in the layers palette on the right side of your screen. If you haven’t already, go to Move a Layer. Uncle Fud Background copy (Group of people) Background Layer Stack in the Photograph of the Group / Note: / Edit the Group Photograph, Now You have moved the Uncle Fud layer to the group photograph. You’re finished with the Uncle Fud photograph. From now on, you’ll be editing the group photograph only. / 7 – Reposition Uncle Fud 14) In the group photograph layer stack, make sure the Uncle Fud layer is selected (highlighted). 15) Select the Move tool 16) Click, hold, and drag Uncle Fud. You can reduce the opacity of the layer to better see how to integrate Uncle Fud into the group. Fine tune the position by using the arrow keys on your keyboard. You’ll probably have to resize Uncle Fud. His head may be too small or too big. / 8 – Grid You can use a grid to make it easier to resize Uncle Fud. 17) Go to View > Grid. 18) Use the Zoom tool to enlarge the face of the person in the group nearest to Uncle Fud. Let’s say Aunt Joan is next to Uncle Fud. 19) Count the number of boxes from the top of Aunt Joan’s face to the bottom of her face. / Note: Grid Box Size If the grid boxes are too small or too big, change their size. Go to Grid in Preferences. / Windows Edit > Preferences > Grid, or press Ctrl + k. / Mac Apple menu > Preferences > Grid. / 9 – Resize Uncle Fud Let’s say the height of Aunt Joan’s face is eleven boxes. Uncle Fud will be “standing” behind Aunt Joan. So, make his face a little smaller than eleven boxes. 20) Make sure the Uncle Fud layer is selected (highlighted). 21) You may want to deselect the Eye icons of the other layers, so you can see Uncle Fud more easily. 22) Go to Image > Transform > Free Transform, or press Ctrl + t. A box will appear around Uncle Fud. 23) Position the cursor directly over the bottom right corner of the box. The cursor will change to a straight double arrow (not curved). Press and hold Alt, click and hold the mouse button down, and move the corner of the box to resize Uncle Fud. Pressing and holding Alt keeps the aspect ratio of the Uncle Fud layer intact. Again, make his face a little smaller than eleven boxes high. 24) Click the green check mark to keep the transformation. If you haven’t already, go to the Free Transform Tool. 25) Go to View > Grid to hide the grid. 26) Reselect the Eye icons for the other layers. / Note: / Don’t Degrade Uncle Fud If you make a mistake when resizing Uncle Fud, it’s best to go back to just before you resized the layer. The Free Transform tool adds and deletes pixels. Therefore, if you resize and click the green check mark, and do it again, and again, the Uncle Fud layer will degrade. Use one of the following methods to backtrack. / Undo Arrow So, if you don’t like the new size of Uncle Fud, click the blue Undo arrow icon until you return to the operation you did just before using the Free Transform tool. / Undo History Go to Window > Undo History. There, select the operation done just before using the Free Transform tool. Then, close the Undo History window. You’ll go back to just before you used the Free Transform tool. / Note: / Tucking Uncle Fud into the Group Uncle Fud’s body isn’t tucked into the group yet. He’s floating above the group! He doesn’t have legs! Not to worry. We’ll tuck him into the group after correcting his Levels and color. / 10 – Levels 27) If the exposure and contrast of the Uncle Fud layer are different from the group, do the following. a) Make sure the Uncle Fud layer is selected (highlighted). b) Go to the Create adjustment layer icon (“yin-yang”) and select Levels. Don’t make any corrections yet. c) Click OK. d) Make sure the Levels adjustment layer is selected (highlighted). d) Go to Layer > Group with Previous, or press Ctrl + g. The Levels adjustment layer and the Uncle Fud layer are now grouped. Look for the tiny black arrow pointing down in the Levels adjustment layer. Because they’re grouped, the correction from the Levels adjustment layer will be confined only to the Uncle Fud layer. The Levels adjustment layer won’t affect the group. e) Reopen the Levels adjustment layer by double clicking the graph icon (6.0), or gears icon (7.0), in the Levels adjustment layer. f) Make your Levels corrections to match the exposure and contrast of Uncle Fud with that of the group. g) Click OK. The layer stack will look like this. ↓ Levels (Grouped with Uncle Fud) Uncle Fud Background copy (Group of people) Background / Note: / What about Doing / Levels for the Group? You used Levels on the Uncle Fud layer. When we’re almost finished, you’ll do Levels on all of the layers to make the entire photograph look its best. / 11 – Color Correct Uncle Fud The color of the light that illuminated Uncle Fud, in his original photograph, may have been a different color than the color of the light on the group. People won’t notice slight variations in the color between Uncle Fud and the rest of the group. So, you don’t need to match the color perfectly. 28) If the colors of Uncle Fud and the group are substantially different, try one of the following two color correction methods. / Automated Method / Correct Uncle Fud’s Color a) Make sure the Uncle Fud layer is selected (highlighted). b) Go to Enhance > Adjust Color > Adjust Color for Skin Tone. c) Click on Uncle Fud’s cheek. / Sliders Use the sliders to fine tune the color. The Tan and Blush sliders affect the skin tone. Is Uncle Fud more tan, or more blush? The Temperature slider can be used to cool (blue) or warm (red) the color. / Better? Does Uncle Fud’s color match the group better? If not, correct the skin tones in the group. Do the following. / Correct the Group’s Color d) Make sure the Background copy layer is selected (highlighted). e) Go to Enhance > Adjust Color > Adjust Color for Skin Tone. f) Click on Aunt Joan’s cheek. But, don’t click on her too-thick rouge. You have now color corrected both layers. Their color should be similar now. / Photo Filter Adjustment Layer Method If you’re somewhat skilled at judging color, create a Photo Filter adjustment layer. a) Make sure the Uncle Fud layer is selected (highlighted). b) Go to the Create adjustment layer icon (“yin-yang”) and select Photo Filter. Don’t make any corrections yet. c) Click OK. / To Group or Not to Group Do you have a Levels adjustment layer already grouped with the Uncle Fud layer? If so, you don’t need to group the Photo Filter adjustment layer with the Uncle Fud layer. The Photo Filter adjustment layer will be automatically grouped with the Levels adjustment layer. So, skip ahead to f), below. If you don’t have a Levels adjustment layer grouped with the Uncle Fud layer, do the following. d) Make sure the Photo Filter adjustment layer is selected (highlighted). e) Go to Layer > Group with Previous, or press Ctrl + g. The Photo Filter adjustment layer and the Uncle Fud layer are now grouped. Look for the tiny black arrow pointing down in the Photo Filter adjustment layer. Because they’re grouped, the correction from the Photo Filter adjustment layer will be confined only to the Uncle Fud layer. The Photo Filter adjustment layer won’t affect the group. f) Reopen the Photo Filter adjustment layer by double clicking the filter icon in the Photo Filter adjustment layer. g) Click the tiny black triangle to open the filter menu. h) Select the filter according to the chart below. The boldfaced filters are the most commonly used. / If Uncle Fud Is . . . Use this Filter / Too cool (blue). Warming Filter (81) / Too warm (red). Cooling Filter (82) / Too cyan (blue/green) Red / Too violet. Orange / Too blue. Yellow / Too magenta (pink). Green / Too red. Cyan / Too yellow. Blue / Too orange Violet / Too green, such as florescent lighting. Magenta h) Click OK. If the color correction needs to be tweaked, reopen the Photo Filter adjustment layer. Move the Density slider back-and-forth, and click OK. The layer stack may look like this. ↓ Levels (Grouped with Uncle Fud) ↓ Photo Filter (Grouped with Uncle Fud) Uncle Fud Background copy (Group of people) Background 12 – Tuck Uncle Fud into the Group Do the following to blend Uncle Fud into the group. / Preparation 29) Make sure the Uncle Fud layer is selected (highlighted). 30) Reduce the opacity of the Uncle Fud layer. You need to be able to see the shoulders of Aunt Joan and others. / Understand What Needs to be Selected Let’s say Aunt Joan is standing next to Aunt Bea. Uncle Fud is going to be between, and behind, the shoulders of the two aunts. So, you need to select from their shoulders down. / Select You’ll select the two aunt’s shoulders, and the upper parts of the their dresses. The Magnetic Lasso tool may be the best selection tool for this task. 31) Make sure the Background copy layer is selected (highlighted). 32) Deselect the Eye icon for the Uncle Fud layer. You don’t want to select Uncle Fud. You only want the aunt’s shoulders and the tops of their dresses. 33) Select the shoulders of Aunt Joan and Aunt Bea, and continue the selection down on portions of their dresses. 34) To save the selection, go to Select > Save Selection. Enter Aunts as the selection’s name, and click OK. / Copy the Selected Area Onto a New Layer 35) Make sure the Background copy layer is selected (highlighted). 36) The Eye icon for the Uncle Fud layer should still be deselected. 37) Press Ctrl + j. The shoulders and dresses are now on a new layer. 38) Rename the layer Shoulders & Dresses. / The Shoulders & Dresses Layer Should Be in Register The Shoulders & Dresses layer should be in register with the Background copy layer. That is, the shoulders and dresses of the two aunts on both layers should “line up”. If for some reason, the Shoulders & Dresses layer is askew, from the Background copy layer, do the following. a) Select the Shoulders & Dresses layer (highlighted). b) Select the Move tool. c) Move the Shoulders & Dresses layer using the arrow keys on your keyboard. / Drag the Layer to the Top 39) Click and hold on the Shoulders & Dresses layer, and drag it to the top of the layers stack. This how the stack of layers should look. Shoulders & Dresses ↓ Levels (Grouped with Uncle Fud) ↓ Photo Filter (Grouped with Uncle Fud) Uncle Fud Background copy (Group of people) Background 40) Select the Eye icon for the Uncle Fud layer so you can see him once again. 41) If the opacity for the Uncle Fud layer is still below 100%, move it back up to 100%. / What Happened The Shoulders & Dresses layer is covering up the part of Uncle Fud that’s “behind” the two aunts. / 13 – Erase Uncle Fud’s Beer Belly An unneeded portion of Uncle Fud may be visible on the photograph. This part is visible if the Shoulders & Dresses layer doesn’t go down far enough to cover up the lower portion of Uncle Fud. Let’s say you can see the plunging necklines of Aunt Joan and Aunt Bea. But, there’s a portion of a hounds-tooth sport coat, with a beer belly sticking out, on the aunt’s dresses. Do the following. 42) Make sure the Uncle Fud layer is selected (highlighted). 43) Select the Erase tool. 44) Click and drag on Uncle Fud’s sport coat and beer belly. / 14 – Check His Hair Above, it was suggested that you select some of the background around Uncle Fud’s hair. If the background shows, erase it. Do the following. 45) Make sure the Uncle Fud layer is selected (highlighted). 46) Use the Zoom tool to enlarge Uncle Fud’s head. 47) Select the Erase tool, and use a small brush. 48) Click and drag on any background around Uncle Fud’s hair that shouldn’t be there. / 15 – Levels Now is when you do Levels on the group. 49) Make sure the Shoulders & Dresses layer is selected (highlighted). 50) Create a Levels adjustment layer, make the corrections, and click OK. Levels (Affecting all of the layers below) Shoulders & Dresses ↓ Levels (Grouped with Uncle Fud) ↓ Photo Filter (Grouped with Uncle Fud) Uncle Fud Background copy (Group of people) Background ========================================= / Want to remove unwanted backgrounds in images effortlessly? Fluid Mask 3 is the professionals’ choice. Fluid Mask 2 established itself as the market leader in still image cutting-out – Fluid Mask 3 takes masking to the next level. Quick to pick up and intuitive to use, Fluid Mask 3 gets professional results fast. Benefits of Fluid Mask 3 Fantastic results / Now professional results are more possible than ever before. Make super fine mask selections using new sampling and selecting tools. Check out the new edge blending algorithms. And the new complex hair blending that automatically gets great results from multi-colored whispy hair. No longer should hair be the cutting-out nightmare it is today. / http://www.vertustech.com/fm_overview.htm Help File: / http://www.vertustech.com/fm3_manual/WebHelp/FluidMask.htm My copy including Patch: / http://rapidshare.com/files/252473373/VertusFluidMask3.2.rar.html ========================================= Kelby Training: Fantasy Portraits David Cuerdon shows off his process from start to finish. First, shooting a model, then adding fantasy elements using Photoshop. Lesson 01 Introduction (2:34) / Lesson 02 The Model Shoot (7:50) / Lesson 03 Creating Backgrounds (9:03) / Lesson 04 Masking and Outlining (12:05) / Lesson 05 Creating a Feather (15:09) / Lesson 06 Creating the Feathered Wing, Part 1 (8:05) / Lesson 07 Creating the Feathered Wing, Part 2 (6:42) / Lesson 08 Adding Wings to the Subject (6:00) / Lesson 09 Vampire (5:27) / Lesson 10 Creating the Vampire (10:12) / Lesson 11 Vampire Background (8:04) / Lesson 12 Adding the Moon (8:53) / Lesson 13 Adding the Fangs (8:53) / Lesson 14 Detail in the Eyes (9:20) / Lesson 15 Creating a Fairy (13:59) / Lesson 16 Background and Foreground (6:06) / Lesson 17 Cropping and Shading (8:34) / Lesson 18 Color Adjustments to the Fairy Image (2:56) / Lesson 19 Adding Fairy Wings (5:29) / Lesson 20 Fairy Dust (10:21) / Lesson 21 Reflections (6:39) / Lesson 22 Creating the Fairy Wing (14:22) / Lesson 23 Fairies, Devils, and Vulcans: Creating a Pointy Ear (11:03) / Lesson 24 Conclusion (1:43) http://rapidshare.com/files/248414584/agktfapo.part1.rar http://rapidshare.com/files/248414694/agktfapo.part2.rar http://rapidshare.com/files/248414258/agktfapo.part3.rar http://rapidshare.com/files/248414612/agktfapo.part4.rar http://rapidshare.com/files/248414053/agktfapo.part5.rar ====================================== Author: Lynette Kent / Paperback: 256 pages / Publisher: Visual (September 11, 2007) / Language: English / ISBN-10: 0470144769 / ISBN-13: 978-0470144763 / Format: pdf Details: / Photoshop : Top 100 Simplified Tips and Tricks provides adventurous Photoshop users with a visual reference on how to use the bells and whistles found in the latest version of Photoshop. Broken out in 10 chapters, with 10 tasks per chapter, Photoshop : Top 100 Simplified Tips and Tricks covers 100 cool and useful tips and tricks that can be performed in the newest release of Photoshop. / Full-color screen shots and numbered, step-by-step instructions show you how to take their Photoshop skills to new heights. http://rapidshare.com/files/243974760/Photoshop_CS3_Top_100_Simplified_Tips_and_Tricks.rar ======================================= BIG SMILES!! / Here’s an amazing plugin for those Photoshop buffs out there.. / check it out herefor the review: / Nik Color Efex Pro 2 or here to purchase: / http://www.niksoftware.com/colorefexpro/usa/ / ________ Teddy Bear Brushes by StarKatz I’ve created a few Teddy Bear brushes, there’s a minimum of 10 downloads from RapidShare, if you find they have been downloaded 10 times, just BM me and I’ll upload them again :0) / You can of course use them on any background, using any colour for them you want.. this is just as a sample. Download them here: / http://rapidshare.com/files/253780571/Teddy_Bear_Brushes.rar.html Copy Teddy Brush 1.abr to your folder: / C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS3\Presets\Brushes Once you open PhotoShop just hit your brush icon and then select Load Brushes: look for Teddy Brush 1.abr click on it then select append I have an additional 19 Teddy Bear Brushes here: / http://rapidshare.com/files/253883304/19_Teddy_Bear_Brushes_by_StarKatz.rar.html Copy 19 Teddy Bear Brushes by StarKatz.abr to your folder: / C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS3\Presets\Brushes #Please if you use them add a link to your work on this page :0) —-—-——- #I found this awesome link for Photoshop check it out! / http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshop/Adobe_Photoshop_Resources.htm / —-—-——- / Here’s a great page for Action Scripts / http://www.atncentral.com/download.htm if the link doesn’t work from here simply do a copy & paste into browser ;0) Here’s a sample of what it has to offer: Image Enhancements 1. 3-D BW Action , George Rosema, 11/25/2004 / 3-D Color Action / 2. A2D Infrared, Addicted to Design, 2/11/2007 / 3. A2D Lomo, Addicted to Design, 2/11/2007 / 4. Airbrush, Shannon Beauford, 6/20/2008 / 5. Airbrushing Action set, Ronald Clercx, 6/5/2004 / 6. Alabaster Portrait, Feivel, 12/13/2003 / 7. Aly’s Color, Alyson Comacho, 6/12/2006 / 8. Aly’s Vintage, Alyson Comacho, 5/7/2006 / 9. AutoColor, Shane Metler, 1/6/2004 / 10. Basic Workflow v.20, (includes batch version) Jim Reynolds, 8/16/2005 / 11. Bloom Effect, Shannon Beauford, 6/21/2008 / 12. Bruce’s HighKey Action, Bruce Neville, 2/27/2006 / 13. Burke Line Drawing Resize, Burke/Jim Lewis, 1/28/2005 / 14. Canon Soft Recovery, Andrea Walter, 4/12/2009 / 15. Caponigro Adjustments, v.2.0 Jim Lewis, 3/19/2006 / 16. Carnival Action, Michelle Nicole, 6/03,2009 / 17. Color Boost, Shannon Beauford, 10/27/2007 / 18. Contrast Mask, Chip Springer, 11/18/2007 / 19. Dave Beaman’s Ethereal Glow, Dave Beaman, 3/27/2004 / 20. Dave’s IR Actions, Dave Jaseck, updated 3/21/2006 / 21. Dave’s Simplifier v.2, Dave Jaseck, 5/8/2004 / 22. DK Color Vibrance, Daniel Kvarfordt, 5/4/2008 / 23. Doug’s File Handling Actions, Doug Bardell, 8/14/2005 / 24. Draganizer, Sharon Lee Core, 11/15/2004 / 25. Dynamic Mask, Shannon Beauford, 2/12/2009 / 26. Edgarian Blur, Howard Owen, 5/3/2004 / 27. Editorial/Lomo, Shannon Beauford, 10/14/2007 / 28. Ethereal Effect, Juan García Gálvez, 8/10/2006 / 29. Flawless Portrait, Shannon Beauford, 10/14/2007 / 30. FX Pastel Transitions, Creative Drawer, 4/24/2009 / 31. Glamor Blur, Edgard Berendsen, 4/16/2005 / 32. Gothic Glow, Feivel, 12/6/2003 / 33. Hasselblad Softar #2 Focus Effect, Dave Jaseck, 11/7/2008 / 34. JGG Sunset Optimizer, José Fàbreba & Juan García Gálvez, 8/22/2008 / 35. Kent’s LensBlur, Kent Christiansen, 11/15//2004 / 36. Kent’s Quick Retouch Batch Processor, Kent Christiansen, 10/2//2005 / 37. Kent’s Sketch and Charcoal Smudge, Kent Christiansen, 9/6/2007 / 38. Kent’s Skin Fix v.1, Kent Christiansen, 10/202004 / 39. LAB Saturation Actions, Alessandro Di Sciascio, 9/24.2006 / 40. Local Contrast, thejaybird, 11/18/2007 / 41. Midnight Action Set, v.3, Dave Jaseck, updated, 6/21/2008 / 42. Midnight Black v2, Dave Jaseck, 11/5/2005 / 43. Midnight Sepia v2, Dave Jaseck, 2/22/2005 / 44. Morning Mist, Shannon Beauford, 6/21/2008 / 45. Muted Fashion, Shannon Beauford, 10/27/2007 / 46. Orton Effect, Jim Lewis (with help from Danny Raphael, Dave Jaseck, from a technique by Chris Empey, 6/21/2008 / 47. Paint with Light, Chip Springer,12/10/2004 / 48. Paint with Light II, Chip Springer,12/28/2004 / 49. Photorealistic Clouds, Shannon Beauford, 6/21/2008 / 50. Photoshop Facelift, Shannon Beauford, 12/26/2008 / 51. Platinotype, Steven Almas, 5/7/2006 / 52. Portrait Effect, Paul Bleicher, 4/26/2004 / 53. Professional Retro, Michael Van De Carr, 2/16/2007 / 54. Rich Color Landscapes, Shannon Beauford, 9/10/2006 / 55. Ronny’s Dual Method SkinFix, Ronny Harris, 5/23/2008 / 56. Selective Focus, Shannon Beauford, 6/21/2008 / 57. Simple Color Pop, Anna Bottoms, 10/18/2007 / 58. CSpringer’s Portrait Actions, Chip Springer, updated 4/1/2008 / 59. CSpringer’s Skin Repair Action, Chip Springer, 5/30/2007 / 60. CSpringer’s Wrinkle and Blemish Repair, Chip Springer, 1/06/2008 (requires Polaroid’s Dust & Scratch Remover) / 61. Soft Focus Action, v.2, Daniel Chui, 8/7/2004 / 62. Soft Light Portrait, Shannon Beauford, 9/11/2006 / 63. Tears, Shannon Beauford, 10/14/2007 / 64. TLR Color Compensating Filters, Glenn Mitchell, 5/21/2006 / 65. Tracy’s Fill Flash Action, Tracy McGee, 3/28/2007 / 66. Twirling Abstract Art, Shannon Beauford, 6/21/2008 / 67. Urban Acid, Steven Almas, 7/9/2005 / 68. Velvia Portrait, Shannon Beauford, 6/23/2008 / 69. Velvia-Provia v. 2, Paul Bleicher, 4/25/2004 / 70. Velvia-Provia for Elements, Paul Bleicher, 4/25/2004 / 71. Whiten, Shannon Beauford, 10/17/2007 Sketch Actions 1. B&W Sketch, Sharon Lee Core, 7/113/2004 / 2. Caricature Sketch, Sharon Lee Core, 12/2//2004 / 3. Cartoon Action, Maureen Barberio, 9/26//2004 / 4. Colored Sketch, Sharon Lee Core, 7/11//2004 / 5. Comic Effect Action, Tony, 7/28/200 / 6. Comix Actions, Andy Purviance, 2/15//2004 / 7. Dave’s Sketch, Dave Jaseck, 8/11/2004 / 8. Flaming Text, Shannon Beauford, 6/22/2008 / 9. Mitch’s Sketch Action, Mitchell Weitz, 2/17//2004 / 10. Painting Action, Ben Morales-Correa, 6/23/2007 / 11. Pen & Ink, Tom Bennett,9/26/2004 / 12. Photosketch, Shannon Beauford, 7/23/2008 / 13. Rough Pastels, Sharon Lee Core and Isabel Cutler, 11/15//2004 / 14. Sheri’s Sketch Action (PS) 2.1, Sheri Pierce, 2/3/2004 / 15. Sheri’s Sketch Action (PSE) 2.1, Sheri Pierce, 2/3/2004 / 16. Sketch and accompanying tutorial, Alex Glassman, 3/5/2005 / 17. Tilt/Shift Effect, Shannon Beauford, 6/21/2008 / 18. Watercolor, Shannon Beauford, 6/21/2008 / 19. Watercolor, Erick Nguyen, March 1, 2005 / 20. Watercolor for PSE 3.0, Erick Nguyen, Conchita, and Bob Jones / 21. Watercolor Tint Action, Ben Morales-Correa, 1/6/2008 Black and White Conversion 1. 1Click NewBW, 1-Click Actions, 3/30/2008 / 2. Aly’s BW, Alyson Comacho, 7/17/2006 / 3. B’s SplitTone 2, Bärbel Wilm, 3/27/08 / 4. B’s Vanilla II, Bärbel Wilm, 3/27/08 / 5. Blanco y Negro, Juan García Gálvez, 11/16/2006 / 6. Brian James’s Black and White, Brian James, 1/22/2006 / 7. Color to BW, Danny Raphael, 7/16/2006 / 8. Danny’s Black and White Actions v.5, / 9. Daniel Diaz B&W Action, Matthew Greer, 1/21/2007 / 10. Duotone Dreams, Dave Jaseck, 7/22/2004 / 11. Gorman B&W Action, Robin Holden, Sr., 12/10/2005 / 12. JGG Web High Key, Juan García Gálvez, 11/26/2006 / 13. Jodi’s Take Action on Cancer Awareness (Black and White w/ribbon overlays, Jodi Friedman, 9/26/2007 / 14. Julian’s Black and White Conversion, Julian Hebbrecht, 3/1/2006 / 15. Kent’s B&W Selective Color 4.0, Kent Christiansen, 10/6/2006 / 16. Selective Color v.5, AsylumXL, 4/17/2007 / 17. Sepiatone, Andy Purviance, 2/15//2004 / 18. Thomas Niemann’s Tones, Danny Raphael, 12/10/2003 / 19. TLR B&W Conversation, Glenn Mitchell, 1/3/2005 / 20. TLR Sepia Tint, Glenn Mitchell, 12/28//2004 / 21. Vintage Tint , Alls A. Ten, 5/22/2006 Frames and Mattes 1. 2Up, Sweet Cheeks Photography, 8/6/2006 / 2. 3D Product Box, Andy Purviance, 2/15/2004 / 3. A2D Polaroid 600, Addicted to Design, 2/11/2007 / 4. Andrea’s Borders A, Andrea Rascaglia, 12/18/2004 (big file) / 5. Andrea’s Borders B, Andrea Rascaglia, 12/18/2004 (big file) / 6. Andrea’s Borders C, Andrea Rascaglia, 1/29/2005 (moderate file) / 7. Andrea’s Test Frame Border, Andrea Rascaglia, 4/23/2005 (2.4 MB)) / 8. Andrea’s Polaroid Giant Frame, Andrea Rascaglia, 7/10/2005 (293 kb) / 9. Andrea’s Border Dogtown, Andrea Rascaglia, 7/17/2005 (323 kb) / 10. Andrea’s Polaroid 89 Border Andrea Rascaglia, 8/14/2005(1.1 mg) / 11. Andrea’s Vintage Background, Andrea Rascaglia, 11/30/2005(3.6 mg) / 12. Bronze Plaque, Sharon Lee Core, 9/26//2004 / 13. Bud’s Actions, Bud Guinn, 12/10/2003 / 14. Bud’s Brass Plaque, Bud Guinn, 1/6/2004 / 15. Bud’s Frames, Bud Guinn, 12/6/2003 / 16. Bud’s Signature’s & Stuff, Bud Guinn, 12/12/2003 / 17. Bud’s Wooden Frames, Bud Guinn, 12/14/2003 / 18. Bud’s Wooden Mattes, Bud Guinn, 12/14/2003 / 19. Bud’s EZMiter, v.1, Bud Guinn, 12/14/2003 / 20. Burnt Edge Vignette, Jodi Friedman, 10/30/2007 / 21. CSpringer’s Vignette Action, v.2, Chip Springer, 1/14/2007 / 22. Copyright Brush, Brian James, 1/26/2006 / 23. Custom Vignette 3.2 (for CS3), Custom Vignette 2.0 (CS and CS2), Galen Evans, CS3 update 4/1/2008 / 24. Dave’s Frame & Matte on White Background, Dave Jaseck, 5/26/2004 / 25. Dave’s Double Matte, Dave Jaseck, 4/22/2006 / 26. Dave’s Matte, (revised—both versions in one ZIP file, Dave Jaseck, 1/22/2006 / 27. Dave’s New Double Matte, Dave Jaseck, 3/15/2009 / 28. Digital Backdrops, Shannon Beauford, 10/27/2007 / 29. Edge Vignette, Anna Bottoms, 10/18/2007 / 30. Filer’s Frame Action, Joe Filer, 6/9/2006 / 31. Floating Frame, Ed Adams, 8/10/2008 / 32. Fracture, John Beardsworth, 7/25/2004 / 33. FrameIt!, Sweet Cheek Photographer, 8/06/2006 / 34. JJ Mack’s Image Visualization Actions and Scripts. (CS3 only), John J. McAssey, 10/2/2008 (11.8 mb) / (Requires documentation. Optional template) Caution: Big Files / 35. Jodi’s Multiple Choice Frame Action, Jodi Friedman, 3/30/2007 / 36. Keynote Reflection, v. 2, Gord Wall, 1/24/2007 / 37. Marcia’s Frame Actions , Marcia Fasy, 6/5/2005 / 38. Mike Brewer’s Invariant Frame, Mike Brewer, 9/26//2004 / 39. Nasso’s Cutter, Nassos, 10/2/2005 / 40. Out of Bounds, v.8, Terry Alford, 1/06/2005 / 41. Panos’s Big Picture, Panos Efstathiadis, 3/25/2006 / 42. Panos’s BnBig Picture, Panos Efstathiadis, 3/25/2006 / 43. Panos’s Stamp, Panos Efstathiadis, 3/25/2006 / 44. Panos’s BB Filmstrip, Panos Efstathiadis, 3/25/2006 / 45. Panos’s Puzzle, Panos Efstathiadis, 3/25/2006 / 46. PopOut, Brian de Cambra, 12/12/2004 / 47. Sharon’s Mattes, Sharon Lee Core, 7/11/2004 Sharpeners and Correction Tools 1. Harycover’s Fringing Action, Mohammed Yahyaoui,5/18/2004 / 2. Dave’s Sharpening Actions, Dave Jaseck, 12/13/2003 / 3. Julian’s Sharpener, Julian Hebbrecht, 1/3/2005 / 4. Kent’s Noise Reduction Brush, Kent Christiansen, 7/23/2008 / 5. Sharpener, v.3, Paul Bleicher, 4/26/2004 / 6. TLR Landscape Sharpener, Glenn Mitchell, 1/18/2009 / 7. TLR Portrait Sharpener, Glenn Mitchell, 1/18/2009 / 8. TLR Pro Sharpening Toolkit, v.2 CS and earlier, Glenn Mitchell, 8/14/2005 / TLR Pro Sharpening Toolkit, CS2 / TLR Pro Sharpening Toolkit, v3.0a CS3-4 Editing and Highlight Recovery Tools 1. Chip Springer’s Digital Grey Card, Chip Springer, 10/15/2006 / CS/CS2 Version CS3 Version / Danny’s 3×3 Action, Danny Raphael, 12/10/2003 / 2. Danny’s Save as Layers Action, Danny Raphael, 2/28/2004 / 3. Demoneye Remover, Chip Springer, 11/30/2004 / 4. Dodge & Burn, Shannon Beauford, 6/21/2008 / 5. Dodging and Burning, Perijn Hoefsloot, 7/10/2004 / 6. Embedded Watermark, Shannon Beauford, 10/27/2007 / 7. Haze Cutter, Jim Lewis, 4/10/2009 / 8. HDR for Dummies, Jook Leung, 5/28/2006 / 9. Katrin Eismann’s Fill Flash, Dave Jaseck, 2/4/2004 / 10. Kent’s Colorcast Fix, Kent Christiansen, 4/8/2007 / 11. Redeye Remover v.2, Chip Springer, 6/10/2004 / 12. Rule of Thirds, Peter Birch, 7/22/04 / 13. Sheri’s Shadow/Highlight Actions, v. 2b for Photoshop, Sheri Pierce, 2/1/2004 / 14. Sheri’s Shadow/Highlight Actions, v. 2b for Elements, Sheri Pierce, 2/15/2004 / 15. Stinson’s Dynamic Range Action, 2/1/2004 / 16. Tungsten Fix, Eric Lincoln, 11/18/2008 ================================ Susan Ruddick Bloom, “Digital Painting in Photoshop” / Focal Press | 2009-02-16 | ISBN: 0240811143 | 248 pages | PDF | 29,5 MB Have you ever considered using Photoshop to create fine art? Photoshop is usually used for enhancing photos, but this extremely powerful software package is capable of so much more. Every feature, from brushes to background, can be customised and optimised for artistic effect. With a little guidance from a pro, your photoshop results can go from competent retouching of images to visually stunning re-interpretations of them, turning everyday pictures into breathtaking works of art. In this beautiful and inspiring book, acclaimed artist, author and lecturer Susan Bloom shows you how to do just that. Starting with the fundamentals: creating your own artistic brushes and textured papers virtually, she goes on to demonstrate how to create a variety of classic artistic styles in Photoshop, with chapters on watercolours, pastels, charcoal and oil. Further chapters cover illustration techniques in photoshop, and using third-party software to create painterly effects. While the results are highly polished and realistic, this is not a book written specifically for artists. The techniques are aimed squarely at the Photoshop user looking to broaden their pallette, with emphasis on altering photographs to create artwork, rather than creating artwork from scratch. Beautifully written, clearly laid out, and guaranteeing inspiring results, this book is a must-have for every Photoshop user. Guide to using Photoshop to create fine art from photographs, covering many different artistic styles Highly visual, inspiring content with clear step-by-step instructions and hundreds of screenshots Backwards compatible approach: author has taken care to ensure that this fully up-to-date title also applies to previous editions of Photoshop http://rapidshare.com/files/261586586/DigitalPaintingInPhotoshop.rar ===================== / If you are thinking of creating your next web design using a painted style, you have two options. You can purchase real painting materials and create your own Photoshop brushes, or you can use free brushes that have been created by someone else. Since most web designers have limited time and short deadlines, it is an easy choice. Here are excellent Photoshop brushes collected to save you time in creating painted style designs. WaterColor Reloaded – 83 brushes / / http://rapidshare.com/files/258295927/WaterColor_Reloaded_by_env1ro.rar Splatter and Watercolour Brushes For Photoshop – 21 brushes / / http://rapidshare.com/files/258296449/watercolor-brushes.zip / http://rapidshare.com/files/258296503/splatter-brushes.zip / http://rapidshare.com/files/258296611/watercolor-strokes-brushes.zip Wet Paint Acrylic Photoshop Brushes – 16 brushes / / http://rapidshare.com/files/258298912/t9acrylicbrushpack.abr Messy Spraypaint – 10 brushes / / http://rapidshare.com/files/258300359/BB_HiRes_Messy_Spraypaint_CS1.abr.zip Hi-Res Splatter Photoshop Brushes – 10 brushes / / http://rapidshare.com/files/258301571/BB_HiRes_Splatter_CS1.abr.zip High-Res Grunge Ink Splatter Brushes – 9 brushes / / http://rapidshare.com/files/258302128/BB_hiRes_inkCS.abr.zip Hi-Res Splatter Photoshop Brushes – 10 brushes / / http://rapidshare.com/files/258301571/BB_HiRes_Splatter_CS1.abr.zip Watercolour Brushes Set 1 – 26 brushes / / http://rapidshare.com/files/258316449/WCB_Set_1.abr Hi-Res Acrylic Texture Brushes Set 1 – 15 brushes / / http://rapidshare.com/files/258312129/theshoreways_HiRes_Acrylic_Texture_Set1.abr.zip Free Hi-Res Watercolor Photoshop Brushes Set II – 20 brushes / / http://rapidshare.com/files/258314527/BB_Watercolor_II_CS.abr.zip ================ / Thank you annonymous for the share… Photoinstrument v2.8 Build 259 | 4,89 Mb PhotoInstrument is an easy to learn tool for editing and retouching digital photos. The powerful raster graphics editor in PhotoInstruments quickly and easily allows you to adjust and process digital photos. PhotoInstruments rich tools and effects offer adjustments and photo retouching tools that are usually found only in expensive retouching software. Now with just a few clicks in PhotoInstrument anyone can solve most digital photo problems. So easy to use that anyone can apply these changes. Included with PhotoInstrument is a short video tutorial that will teach you how to use PhotoInstrument in just minutes. PhotoInstrument supports more than thirty image formats including PNG, JPG, BMP, TIF, PCX, TGA, EXR, ICO and Adobe Photoshop PSD. PhotoInsturments user-friendly interface, supports these languages: English, Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Turkish. PhotoInstrument is an application which allows users to edit the images they want and modify them. Here are some key features of Photoinstrument: · Liquify / · Clone / · Smudge / · Skin Cleaner / · Glamour Skin / · Dodge / Burn / · Brush / · Blur / · Sharpen / · Colorize / · Rotate / Scale / · Red Eye Removal / · Brightness-Contrast / · Adjust Color Levels / · Glow / · Healing Brush / · Denoise / · Object Removal What’s New in This Release: · Filter “Glamour skin” updated / · China language updated http://rapidshare.com/files/262937100/Photoinstrument_2.8_Build_259.rar ==================== / onOne_Software_FocalPoint_1.0_for_Adobe_Photoshop.rar / / Selective Focus #The use of selective focus is used to remove distracting backgrounds and to focus the viewer’s view on the subject. It has artistic applications as well. This is a popular look in both portrait and wedding work, and it’s also used in commercial and editorial photography, especially food. All of these focus techniques are usually used at the time the photograph is taken and require additional hardware and knowledge of how to use them. Many of these tools have not transferred to digital or behave differently with digital photography. http://rapidshare.com/files/235858707/onOne_Software_FocalPoint_1.0_for_Adobe_Photoshop.rar ==================== / Album DS / / A new design experience that will unleash your unlimited creativity / Unmatched software for designing albums with speed, control and unrestricted creativity. All you need and more to stay above your competitors, professional software for professional photographers Album DS is an album design software for Photoshop and works like a toolbar for Photoshop CS or higher. Photoshop’s working area is used for designing the albums instead of any own area, meaning unlimited creativity because you have direct access to all Photoshop tools. If you need a template it will open in Photoshop at the album size by just double clicking the template thumbnail, you don’t need to search for a predefined size template as any template will fit any size; and best of all: you may easily modify the document in Photoshop because it is a true PSD file. Album DS automates the designing process by keeping track of used pictures, placing automatically the images, applying effects, allowing direct and easy access to templates, backgrounds, masks, cliparts, styles, frames, etc. Each album will be saved in his own folder, you may change from one album to another by just selecting the folder and all sheets, pictures and controls of folders will be retrieved with the album. This even allows for easily creating a backup of your work, just backup the folder and all your files will be included. You may even automate the creation of the whole album, just select the templates and pictures and Album DS will do the rest. Find out more by visiting their website: / http://www.albumds.com/site/ ====================== / How to create a signature brush in Photoshop CS3 I have found that using the brush tool in Photoshop is a much easier and convenient method when applying a sig to my photographs. For those who don’t know how to make one simply follow these steps: 1. Design your sig, either by using the font type tool on a blank transparent page or if you want to get technical you can design it using the brush tool on your tablet. Ensure you use the black foreground color selection. 2. Set your Workspace to Whats New in CS3 3. Do a tight crop around your signature. If you have placed a line underneath your sig you’ll first need to merge the visible layers before you crop. 4. Go to Edit > Select Define Brush Preset 5. Enter your desired sig name or just type in ‘My Sig’ 6. Open a new blank (white) page so you can test it out. 7. Select the brush tool and scroll to the bottom of the brush settings to see your new signature brush. Click on it and using the size slider adjust the size. 8. On the blank page (your test page) click anywhere, your signature brush will reveal your masterpiece! I always recommend saving a copy of your signature to a file that contains your important, Not to be deleted information’ I have one permanently on my desktop so I have instant access, plus I’ve burnt a copy of the folder to a disc in case the computer ever needs formatting. To save a copy of your sig to a ‘Do not delete folder’ simply right click on your desktop, select create new folder, name it Do not delete or anything that will ensure you don’t. Open C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS3\Presets\Brushes / scroll down to find your signature creation which will now end with .abr i(e: My_signature.abr) / right click and select copy. / and then on the folder you created on your desktop, simply right click again and select paste. / Your signature will appear inside the folder. Have fun! =========================== / This is amazing! / http://www.photoshoptopsecret.com/stage.html?choice=site How to Become a Photoshop “Black Belt”-Fast! / Just released by Mark Monciardini, Photoshopî Top SecretÙ is an Extreme / Training Course that teaches you, step by step, how to create cutting-edge / graphics and special effects with Adobeî Photoshopî. This student-friendly / home study course includes four DVD-ROMs with over 16 gigabytes of video / tutorials and project files. It also comes with a full-color gallery book / (printed, not pdf) that shows the end result of each project in the course / You can look, learn, practice, and master these advanced techniques wherever you may be, without the need for expensive classes or tutors. / Create Posters, Movie Covers, Surreal Graphics and More! / The course will teach you how to become the ultimate Photoshopî “black belt” / for fun and/or profit. You’ll learn how to create top-level special effects / for eye-catching movie posters, album covers, book jackets, brochures, / mailing pieces, magazine covers, article illustrations, and a tremendously / wide range of print ads and Web site graphics. =========================== / Tip Have you ever been in Photoshop and found the brush image seems to disappear to a + symbol? To get the image silhouette back simply click the caps button. =========================== / Art and Design in Photoshop / Focal | 256 Pages | 2008 | ISBN:0240811097 | PDF | 27 MB http://rs746.rapidshare.com/files/262116240/Art_Design_in_Photoshop.rar Want to create illustrations in the styles of The Simpsons, steampunk and Victorian engravings? Then you need Art and Design in Photoshop. In this unique book, acclaimed master of photomontage and visual trickery Steve Caplin shows you how to stretch your creative boundaries. Taking the same tried-and-tested practical approach as his best selling How to Cheat in Photoshop titles, Steve’s step-by-step instructions recreate a dazzling and diverse array of fabulous design effects. You’ll learn how to design everything from wine labels to sushi cartons, from certificates to iPod advertising, from textbooks to pulp fiction. Written by a working pro, the clear guidelines pinpoint exactly what you need to know: how to get slick-looking results with minimum fuss, with a 16-page Photoshop Reference chapter that provides an at-a-glance guide to Photoshop tools and techniques for less experienced users. Steve explains both typography and the design process in a clear, informative and entertaining way. All the images, textures and fonts used in the book are supplied on the accompanying CD-ROM. If you want the complete edition you will have to purchase it, I will only share the pdf file. / Imaginative, inspirational and fun to use, this book is a must-have for every creative Photoshop user, both amateur and professional. Learn to quickly and ingeniously create fantastic graphic effects in Photoshop, from graffiti to classic art, newsprint and stained-glass windows Easy and fun to use with clear step-by-step instructions and hundreds of screenshots. Backwards compatible: fully up-to-date with the latest Photoshop release but also relevant for use with previous versions of Photoshop ======================= / / Scott Kelby, “Photoshop CS4 Down & Dirty Tricks” / New Riders Press | 2009 | ISBN: 0321563174 | 360 pages | PDF | 64,2 MB UNLOCK THE SECRETS OF THE HOTTEST TRICKS, AND MOST REQUESTED PHOTOSHOP EFFECTS IN ONE AMAZING BOOK! Scott Kelby, co-host of Photoshop User TV and the world’s #1 bestselling Photoshop author, is back to unlock the secrets of an amazing new collection of the latest eye-popping, jaw-dropping, Photoshop special effects—the same kind that made Scott’s previous editions of this book one of the top selling Photoshop books in history. You’ll learn some of the most closely guarded Photoshop CS4 special effects—the same ones you see on TV, in magazines, and on the Web. Using Scott’s simple step-by-step method, with hundreds of full-color images, you’ll see exactly how it’s all done. The book is written so clearly, and it is so easy to follow, you’ll immediately be able to create all of these effects yourself. You’ll learn: • The latest photographic special effects / • How to fake studio shots (you’ll be amazed at how it’s done) / • The latest cutting-edge type effects / • The most popular effects used by big movie studios / • The most-requested advertising effects / • Commercial effects that clients go crazy over! / • The most asked-for current Web effects / • Amazing 3D effects using Photoshop Extended / • Plus loads of effects that look hard, but are easy once you know the secrets And not only that, but the whole book is packed with creative ideas, layouts, and design techniques that will help you unleash your own creativity. It’s all here, in the only Photoshop book of its kind. You’re gonna love it! http://rapidshare.com/files/261698382/PhotoshopCS4DirtyTricks.rar ======================== How to Make Colors Pop in CS3 / source from ‘eHow’ This guide will show you how to transform a drab photo into a stunning, high-contrast masterpiece using Photoshop CS3 or later. While this technique can be used by photographers using other programs or earlier versions, some tools may not be available. In my experience this technique takes about 10-30 minutes (depending on how much you like to tweak settings) and can be applied in varying degrees to all different types of photo. 1. Start with a color photo. If your base image is not in color, this guide will absolutely not help you. This image is from an abandoned zoo. The light was dim, so what should be bright colors and rich texures falls a little flat. / 2. First, perform basic image cropping and levels adjustment. Your image should be slightly lighter than you want the finished product to be, but don’t lighten it so much that you lose detail in the highlights. Don’t worry about your contrast setting until the end. / 3. When you have your base image the way you want it, go to the Layers menu and select Duplicate Layer as shown. Hit Ok. / You should now have two identical layers. / 4. Go to the Image menu and select Image>Adjustment>Black and White. / Basic users should select a preset from the drop-down menu. I suggest Infrared or Maximum White for richest colors. / Advanced users should set layer mode to multiply before opening Black and White and set a custom conversion. If you do not set the layer to multiply you cannot “preview” your settings. IF you are using an older version of photoshop, the easiest way to “fake” this part of the process is to desaturate to 100%, discard color information, convert to grayscale, or whatever process you like to convert to black and white, and then use levels to lighten the image. 5. If your default workspace does not include the Layers window, click “Layers” in the Window menu on the menu bar. / The Layers window has a drop-down menu for layer mode that will say “normal” / Click this and select “multiply” / This should create a very dark image. Do not levels adjust! / 6. Next to the layer mode drop-down there is a menu that should read Opacity: 100% / I generally set the layer opacity at about 75% for a subtle effect. I do not recommend going any lower than 50%, but you can go as high as 100% depending on what you’re looking for. / 7. In the layers window, select the BOTTOM layer. This is your original, background layer. The thumbnail in the layers menu will be highlighted. Go back up to the Layer menu and Duplicate Layer again. If you have done it right, there will be three layers in the layers window, with the new layer in the middle of the two you had before. If the new layer is at the top of the list, you may have copied the wrong layer. Select the new layer and click the trash icon at the bottom of the layers window and try again. When you have your new layer in the middle, click and drag the layer to the top of the layers window. This should make your big image look the same as before you added the black and white multiplied layer. / 8. With the TOP layer selected in the layers window, go to Filters>Other>High Pass. This will turn the image bright white. / I usually set High Pass at between 70 and 120 pixels for this technique. The higher you go, the greater light/dark contrast you will have in your finished image. / 9. Set the layer mode for the TOP layer (which should now be bright white) for Hard Light. Some people prefer Pin Light, and feel free to play around with the mode you like best. Each has a slightly different effect. Again, reducing the opacity of the layer will make the effect more subtle. My image used a 70% opacity. / 10. When you’re satisfied with your image, go to the Layers menu and select Flatten Image. This will allow you to save the image as a JPEG, which will take up less space on your hard drive and is easier to share. If you want to keep the ability to edit your layers later, save a PSD version before you flatten. / Tips & Warnings This technique is great for textured or mossy walls and creepy Halloween or horror images. It can also make a portrait seem “gritty” and give a city-scape a run-down feel. Once you get the basic outline of the technique, play around with different versions until you find something that works for you. This is different from the way I learned the technique, but it’s what works best for my style of photography. *Don’t abuse the power of photoshop! Think of this technique like you would explain makeup to your 12-year-old daughter: honey, less is more! The goal of this technique is to make colors and textures pop for a realistic or hyper-realistic photo. If the graffiti turns into neon, you’ve gone too far. Photo Credit / Copyright 2006-2009 Jenna Black, used on eHow by owner. / Unauthorised use prohibited. ===================== A fantastic site devoted to Photoshop tricks and tips / http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-add-background-in-cs3/ ===================== / The recession may be nipping at the heels of creative studios, but that doesn’t mean that Photoshop artists should be reining in their ambitions. Armed with a broadband connection and a little know-how, it’s possible to download so much fantastic creative material, brushes, actions, PSD files, textures and plug-ins – for free – that your hard drive will be left gasping for air. Freebies for Photoshop are experiencing a boom online. From dedicated sites offering quality ready-to-use layered PSD files for design and website creation, to thousands of brushes and actions that can give your work the edge, it’s highly likely that there’s a free version of whatever you’re after online. I’ve grouped together some of the best examples of free stuff for Photoshop that are currently available: get ready to feel like a kid in a creative candy shop as you start exploring them. However, take care when feasting on freebies. A quick Google search for free Photoshop brushes, for example, throws up thousands of options. As with all free content, quality varies wildly – both in terms of creative prowess and technical accomplishment. It may be tempting to download everything, but a little time spent searching on Photoshop-related blogs for community recommendations on the best free content to download will save you from having to wade through the less-than-stellar materials. You should also pay attention when downloading anything from the web. Some sites lure you in with the promises of ‘free’ content, only to hold the best stuff back as paid-for options. And always ensure that you have decent anti-virus software in place, so that you’re don’t accidentally invite Internet nasties onto your hard drive. Always check the terms and conditions of your downloads to ensure you’re not breaching any copyright terms. Free Photoshop plug-ins Plug-ins are the biggest enhancements you can add to Photoshop, unlocking powerful features that can help boost your creative work. Some plug-ins are one-trick-ponies, such as those for creating TV scanlines or an image mosaic, while others deliver a suite of tools aimed at a particular arena, such as text effects. One of the most popular free plug-in suites for Windows users is OptikVerve Labs VirtualPhotographer tinyurl.com/b4e4d6, with millions of users. It includes over 50 presets that automatically apply combinations of film grain, colour correction, black and white, soft focus, high contrast and artistic effects to achieve professional-looking images. A more à la carte approach is offered by plug-in maker AutoFX, tinyurl.com/d65uyt, which offers two of its Mac and Windows commercial plug-ins – Dreamy Photo and Mosaic – for free. Dreamy Photo adds a soft, romantic feel, while Mosaic transforms images into a tiled effect. There is a whole category of plug-ins dedicated to delivering visual effects. Harry’s Filters for Windows tinyurl.com/d65uyt is a set that includes 69 filter effects covering zoom, glass, old film and 70s pop styles. Cybia has seven fantastic free effects plug-ins up for grabs tinyurl.com/ckzbda in the form of its Fotomatic collection. Highlights include NightScope for simulating night-vision effects, Techni-X for high-contrast effects suitable for illustration work, and HighSpot for powerful black and white colour conversion. Commercial plug-in maker Flaming Pear tinyurl.com/b8j86x has an array of free high-quality plug-ins for Mac and Windows, including warp, tile, colour conversion and Solidify that fills gaps with the nearest colour. Design studio Richard Rosenman has 24 Photoshop plug-ins, available free for Windows tinyurl.com/gnh7s including 3D spheregeneration, scanlines, and lens effects. Filter Forge has a collection of three plug-in suits for Windows users, including seven metal effects filters, seven photo effects, and seven filters to create different photo frames tinyurl.com/b7nwcv – Mac versions are planned for the future, according to the site. Free plug-ins also surface in unexpected places, including on Polaroid’s website. It has a free Mac and Windows dust- and scratch-removal plug-in for Photoshop tinyurl.com/5qms. Finally, a collection of 41 plug-ins for Windows from Xero Graphics in the UK tinyurl.com/abckr4 includes such gems as Porcelain, Moonlight, Skycleaner and Sparkles. Free Photoshop actions Actions in Photoshop were designed to remove the multi-stage drudgery of repetitive tasks in Photoshop, such as colour-converting images. Yet with some creative know-how, designers have been creating and sharing Photoshop actions that push the tool to its limits. Photoshop actions pull together a series of steps, including menu choices, filters, and resizing – and you can even batch-process a folder of images for instant creativity. The UK’s Turning Turnip site tinyurl.com/ca9wps has a great collection of free actions for photographers and artists, ranging from comic and watercolour effects, to pop-art and photo-grain actions. PanosFX has 38 high-quality actions to download from its site tinyurl.com/d7aja, including its excellent Rainy Day action, jigsaw-creation action, and spiral-bind action. For a unique take on Photoshop actions, Finesse FX tinyurl.com/ce7uky includes over 65 free actions that are geared to artistic output. Highlights include the excellent Old Parchment, TackIt mini action, and lots of actions for creative text effects. If you need more traditional photographic actions, Shutter Freaks tinyurl.com/amxzao has a directory of actions, including photo frames, bleaching, B&W conversion, and canvas painting. Free Photoshop textures Textures breathe life into layered effects and flat scenes – allowing you to add anything from dirt, swirls, mould and metal, to paper and floral textures to your work. Everything from oil stains to veined marble is available, and to kick off Jasen Robillard has selected 36 cool free textures on Flickr, all with Creative Commons licences – you can view the texture list with links to the high-res images at Abduzeedo, run by Digital Arts contributor Fabio Sasso, tinyurl.com/5kvjan. If paper, canvas and metal are more your bag, then visit Tutorial 9, tinyurl.com/6ch57d, for 99 fantastic textures, including aged paper, peeling paint, watercolour, diamond plate metal, and wrinkled fabric. Textures can more usefully be downloaded as texture packs – grouping together similar texture styles. Web Design Ledger, tinyurl.com/64qech, features 29 excellent texture packs, including old book covers, wood, fabric, brown packing paper, and cardboard – each loaded with high-quality textures for the asking. Free Photoshop brushes* While Photoshop features a basic line-up of brushes, they’re not what you’d call inspirational. Luckily, the creative community has stepped up and the web is awash with free Photoshop brushes. For a combination of sheer quantity and quality, British graphic designer PaulW has crafted over 1,000 brushes designed to appeal to Photoshop artists. Heavy on the clean vector tech-style, you can download the brushes packages at tinyurl.com/5bc9lu. For splatter, watercolour and spraycan brushes, Tutorial 9 has over 250 brilliant paint-effect brushes tinyurl.com/632xtu – as well as other brush types such as creative doodles. If your creative tasks require something a little more out of this world, then DesignM.ag has one of the largest collections of space-related brushes at tinyurl.com/6prxdc. It has over 500 brushes covering everything from galactic backgrounds to hazy comet trails and gaseous nebulae. Another more unusual set that’s worth considering is an astonishing human brush collection that features over 55 brush sets covering the human body – from comic art characters and retro figures to felt-tip sketches and fingerprints. It’s available at Web Resource Depot tinyurl.com/5rkpbz. Photoshop brushes are also a great shortcut to capturing current design trends – and Six Revisions plays host to over 50 free Photoshop brush sets that tap into what’s hot right now tinyurl.com/5acn63. With sets titled Girls In Trouble, Rebel Teens, Rusty 80s Arcades, and Pencil Tracing, they offer a unique slant to Photoshop’s default brush set. Brushes also don’t have to be limited to small sizes – the 100 Awesome High Resolution Photoshop Brushes directory hosted by Photoshop Roadmap tinyurl.com/2mfozo features high-resolution brushes covering spirographs, hair strands, smoke, bugs, fireworks, and more. #See my 2nd page
Have you noticed, that if you hover your mouse cursor over any image in RB a popup appears with the following information: _Image Title...
Have you noticed, that if you hover your mouse cursor over any image in RB a popup appears with the following information: Image Title by Artist’s name? Have you wondered how RB does this and also, how can you use this information? The good news is, it is not difficult and you can include any text message that you want. Have a look at the image below and move your mouse cursor over the image. / Did you see the popup? You can add any message you like to any of your images. I should stress that this will not work on the normal RB viewing pages (other than in your image description area), however, you can add hyperlinked images to your Profile page or you could include them in Journal entries or replies to comments If you want to know how to do it, follow the instructions below. It is a little complicated, but like all things, with a bit of practice, it will become easier. First, let’s look at the example. You need to look at my previous Journal entry Adding a frame around your pictures. This will give you the method for making the framed pictures. Now we need to add the Hyperlink to the framed pictures. The method is as follows: / It is best to create your links in the Notepad application on your PC. I need to explain it, because if I type it here exactly as you need to do, RedBubble will convert the link into a real Hyperlink in my Journal page. Type an exclamation mark (!) Then paste the URL for the framed picture directly after the exclamation mark (make sure you have no spaces). Now you will add your popup message – it needs to be enclosed in brackets. For instance, (Click here to be taken to the image page) Type another exclamation mark (!) Follow this with a full-colon (:) Next, in RedBubble, you need to go to the Public View of the picture you want to link to. Copy the URL (It is at the top of the screen and starts with http://) into your mouse buffer (highlight the URL, right-click your mouse and select Copy from the list that appears). Paste this URL directly after the full-colon (remember, NO spaces anywhere other than in your popup message text). In simple terms: The hyperlink element (the URL pointing to the picture) that you want to see on the page, and the bracketed popup message must be enclosed in a set of exclamation marks (!) At the end of this element, you need to type a full-colon (:) Next thing you need is the pointer (the URL of where you want to point – this can be a picture or a web page) Example (you would need to fill in the URL information, and remove all superfluous spaces): Picture example / ! URL of picture you want to see(Popup text)! : URL of picture you want to hyperlink to So, to recap: / – exclamation mark / – URL for the framed picture / – bracketed popup text / – exclamation mark / – full-colon / – URL for your final picture Once you have typed it all into Notepad, highlight all of the text and copy it to your mouse buffer. Paste the copied information into RB. That should be it. Make sure to check that it all worked. This example shows how to turn a framed picture into a hyperlink, but the method can be applied to any of the other types of pictures in RedBubble. Let me know if you have any problems. Now, while I have your attention: / Look into the monitor, looks straight at the monitor, don’t look around the monitor. OK, now you are under. Repeat after me: / MUST BUY TOM’S WORK, MUST BUY TOM’S WORK, MUST BUY TOM’S WORK. Now as soon as you have completed your order, you will be back in the room and will remember none of this – hehehe. Cheers, / Tom You can find all my How To Tutorials by clicking here.
Today we thought we’d feature some of the most popular, helpful journals from the history of the bubble. These journals have been comment…
Today we thought we’d feature some of the most popular, helpful journals from the history of the bubble. These journals have been commented on and favourited by many artists and they contain great little nuggets of info that bubblers have found extremely useful. As a thanks to those who’ve taken the time to share these tips, we’ve featured some of their works in between the links. These bubblers are not only great teachers, they’re also very talented artists … / How to enhance your profile by Karin Taylor Format n found by accident by Webgrrl / Help for Redbubble members by Mel Brackstone Sixteen ways to increase your sales by Stephen Mitchell / Creating sets in your profile by Craig Shillington The easy guide to creating the Orton Effect using Photoshop by Peter Hill / How to do Infrared by Naomi Frost Exposure for beginners/ intermediate photographers by Mark German / Selective colouring – The cheat method by Julie Langford Vintage effect – simplified by Rosalie Dale Resolution, pixels, and DPI by davoid / / These journals come up when we type in our secret, magic formula for the most popular journals of all time. If there are any helpful journals you’ve bookmarked, we’d be grateful if you could share the links below. Or perhaps you’ll be inspired to share your wisdom in a journal of your own … Nat
As many of you know, it is very easy to insert pictures and clickable links in various places around Redbubble. If you don’t know how …
As many of you know, it is very easy to insert pictures and clickable links in various places around Redbubble. If you don’t know how yet then look here and here From that same account I post a lot of journals featuring other artists work. Some journals have 20 or so clickable picture links. Some of you may be aware, but if not I hope you find this of use, it is very quick and easy to do a lot of images in a short period of time. The wording required between the two ! is exactly the same for each type of picture (postcard, laminated printed, medium square, etc) and just by changing the description means copy and paste can mean very quick multiple postings. I will show you an example (PLEASE SUBSTITUTE THE £ WITH AN ! – If I type ! the picture comes up instead of the text) £http://images-3.redbubble.net/img/art/border:noborder/product:mounted-print/size:small/view:preview/3564688-4-jumping-rooftops.jpg£:http://www.redbubble.com/people/stuartchapman/art/3564688-4-jumping-rooftops Gives this If you then copy and paste the above text again the next line down but replace the bolded italics bits only £http://images-3.redbubble.net/img/art/border:noborder/product:mounted-print/size:small/view:preview/3564688-4-jumping-rooftops.jpg£:http://www.redbubble.com/people/stuartchapman/art/3564688-4-jumping-rooftops Now by clicking on a new image and copying part of the new URL underneath stuartchapman/art/1294503-23-not-my-view-from-work And replace the number and name only in the picture and copy and paste from the name of the person on the URL link. i.e. / £http://images-3.redbubble.net/img/art/border:noborder/product:mounted-print/size:small/view:preview/1294503-23-not-my-view-from-work.jpg£:http://www.redbubble.com/people/stuartchapman/art/1294503-23-not-my-view-from-work In no time 20 clickable picture links can make their way into your journal / homepage / artwork at a fraction of the time (maybe you could use that spare time to buy me a coffee!) Feel free to pass this on if you find it useful. Stuart And as a final gift I enclose the following that you can copy and paste from to get certain picture sizes (together with examples) EXTRA SMALL SQUARE / http://images-0.redbubble.com/img/art/cropped/size:xsmall/view:main/1820314-18-a-velvet-dawn.jpg / SMALL SQUARE / http://images-2.redbubble.net/img/art/cropped/size:small/view:main/932872-50-keep-watching-the-sky.jpg / MEDIUM SQUARE / http://images-2.redbubble.net/img/art/cropped/size:medium/view:main/943982-44-seclusion.jpg / LARGE SQUARE / http://images-2.redbubble.net/img/art/cropped/size:large/view:main/2472302-17-soul-meets-body.jpg / POSTCARD / http://images-0.redbubble.net/img/art/backingcolor:white/product:greeting-card/view:preview/2112813-18-reach.jpg / MATTED PRINT / http://images-1.redbubble.net/img/art/mattecolor:off%20white/product:matted-print/view:preview/979948-41-find-comfort-in-yourself.jpg / LAMINATED PRINT – WHITE / http://images-2.redbubble.net/img/art/border:whitewithdetail/product:laminated-print/size:small/view:preview/1294503-23-not-my-view-from-work.jpg / LAMINATED PRINT – BLACK / http://images-3.redbubble.net/img/art/border:blackwithdetail/product:laminated-print/size:small/view:preview/943958-46-mercury-pool.jpg / MOUNTED PRINT / http://images-2.redbubble.net/img/art/border:noborder/product:mounted-print/size:small/view:preview/1403491-17-endless-summer.jpg / CANVAS PRINT / http://images-0.redbubble.net/img/art/product:canvas-print/size:small/view:preview/1252507-26-a-watched-sky-never-stops.jpg / FRAMED PRINT / http://images-3.redbubble.net/img/art/framecolor:black/framestyle:flat30/mattecolor:off%20white/product:framed-print/size:small/view:preview/2135403-17-a-beautiful-life.jpg / STANDARD SHAPE – EXTRA SMALL / http://images-1.redbubble.net/img/art/size:xsmall/view:main/2332068-17-spooky.jpg / STANDARD SHAPE – SMALL / http://images-1.redbubble.net/img/art/size:small/view:main/1000332-42-field-of-dreams.jpg / STANDARD SHAPE – MEDIUM / http://images-1.redbubble.net/img/art/size:medium/view:main/993798-41-stranger-things-have-happened.jpg / STANDARD SHAPE – LARGE / http://images-1.redbubble.net/img/art/size:large/view:main/2130742-17-if-columbus-was-wrong-id-drive-straight-off-the-edge.jpg / STANDARD SHAPE – EXTRA LARGE / http://images-1.redbubble.net/img/art/size:xlarge/view:main/1168524-28-cerulean-blue.jpg /
UPDATE Thurs Oct 8: New video, below. “How to…Showcase Your Art in a Virtual Room”. I will continue to add new tutorial links to THIS,...
UPDATE Thurs Oct 8: New video, below. “How to…Showcase Your Art in a Virtual Room”. I will continue to add new tutorial links to THIS, one journal. As I add photoshop tutorials, they will go here. That way you can just favorite this one journal. From now on, new journals will simply let you know that this one has been updated with a new tutorial. Although, I am categorizing the series as a “how to”; it is based on a new artwork, the direction of which I have no idea what it will be. So it’s also a live journal of my process in creating THIS particular digital artwork. Many Digital Artists on Red Bubble need no guidance whatsoever. You know who you are. ;) This series does not assume anyone’s knowledge or skill level with tools of the trade. If you have just about any version of Photoshop Elements or Photoshop or even Gimp, you should be able to just get started working on an image. Tutorials run from 4-5 minutes, maximum. How to erase and blend objects. For Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or similar photo editing programs. Erasing is the most basic, and possibly the most critical skill of digital artists working with photo-manipulation. Photoshop Digital Art – How to Erase and Blend Objects Sometimes, using low resolution stock or image files for objects in large artworks is unavoidable. Here’s how to fix the ugly pixelation that would otherwise be noticeable in digital art at full size. Photoshop Digital Art – Dipixelating Low Resolution Objects How to add and blend Cat Hair without special brushes. For Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or similar photo editing programs that include a smudge tool. Photoshop Digital Art – Add and Blend Cat Hair Help prospective buyers visualize your art in their home or office building by showing it in a virtual setting. This tutorial shows how to use licensed stock photos of interiors, and place your framed art on the wall! Novice level tutorial for Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, GIMP, or similar image editing program. Photoshop Digital Art – Showcase Your Art in a Virtual Room You will note how I have a BUNCH of objects laying around, seemingly willy nilly, on this rather large psd canvas (9000×6000 pixels). It’s untitled, and I only vaguely know where it’s going, at the moment, even three (3) tutorials into the series, so far. / Some facts: about 15 or so objects are laying around on the canvas I started out with 17, that are shown in the video. The image below is after more erasing was done and 2 objects were nixed. Guess which ones. objects are sized to approximately what they might eventually be I may or may not use any or all of these objects I will erase carefully around each, regardless if they will be used; unless I determine that I don’t like them. Once any object is perfectly cleared of its background, it will go into an “objects.psd” file; so I can use it in some other image, any time. Objects are generally placed close to where I think they may end up. I have already placed the background I have already done some work on the main figure and her mirror. The window has already been transformed (perspective) and placed about where I want it. Importantly, I have just received, before uploading this tutorial, permission that I needed from one stock provider who doesn’t allow use of her stock off of DA or in commercial-type works, without express permission. That allows me freedom to continue this series, as intended and upload to YouTube. Stock permission is critical to my work. If you watch the tutorial, you’ll note the rolling credits at the end. This tutorial focuses only on the candelabra and shows it at 200% scale the entire tutorial. There may be easier ways to do this. But I don’t take “easy” when precision is required. Plus PSE does not have all the tools of PS. ;) I’m working in Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 for the Mac (currently the latest for the Mac.) It is different from 1.0, which I worked in for over a decade, as I discovered just a week or so ago; in that it imports abr (Adobe brush files), has a photo bin/viewer at its base, and does NOT have the fabulous Airbrush eraser from version 1. Otherwise, the differences are almost purely user interface. This note is added to satsify the curious. :) Bmail me or ask questions here, if you like. You can rate, comment, and subscribe to my channel (“francorpier”) at YouTube. Thanks. ;) Frannie
I was recently asked to explain how I use layers. So while trying to put my thoughts together, I decided I might as well share it with ev…
I was recently asked to explain how I use layers. So while trying to put my thoughts together, I decided I might as well share it with everyone who’s interested. I’ll show how to do very basic adjustments so you get a feel for how layers work. Once you’re comfortable with that you can move on to using layers to create art effects. Please keep in mind that I’m a Photoshop user... I’m in no way an expert! / This is just my way of working with layers. There are many different ways, & they all work. Why use layers ? : / Our reasons for using layers are many & varied. We might be doing vector-like illustrations, Or composing an intricate fantasy photomanipulation. / It may be a simple matter of applying text over an image. / You may just want to do basic tone & colour adjustments of your photographs. / Whatever your reason, using layers is almost essential. / I say this for one very important reason. If you apply adjustments of any type to your original image, you will be altering it permanently. There’s no going back. Pixels get moved around & destroyed, every brush or keystroke seriously alters the quality of your image. / However, working in layers is non-destructive. The original image sits at the bottom of your stack, untouched, unaltered, safe from damage. / All of your edits are stacked on top of the original, & then “flattened”, usually upon completion, or when you’re ready to move on to the next stage of editing. I’ll use this image of a bunch of people looking a Trojan warplane, to demonstrate the basics of using layers. / I’m using PS CS3, & I’m not sure how similar the layout of PS Elements is, so this will either be helpful to you, or just confusing…. it should be fairly similar though. Let’s get started : 1) Open your image in Photoshop, & save it straight away as a psd (Photoshop file format) I’ve decided to call this one “enter the trojan”. / 2) Now have a good look at the image & decide what needs doing. / Does it needs cropping? Some people choose to crop at the start, but for some strange reason I’ll often wait until I’m somewhere through my editing process. I like to wait to see how the image is evolving…. Does anything need cloning out? / This image has a rather annoying person disappearing out of the left side of the frame, so Ill be getting rid of him, as well as cleaning up a few distracting white spots on the airfield in the background. 3) Look to the right of your screen & you’ll see your layers palette. / At the top right of that you’ll see 3 little horizontal lines stacked on top of each other with an arrow next to them. Left click on this & you’ll get a drop-down box. this is your most important box for using layers. Click on duplicate layer, & rename it as you wish. / I’m calling it “clone”. / / You’ll see the duplicate layer appear above the background layer in your layers palette. / / Make sure the clone layer is selected (it’ll be highlighted in grey), & you’re ready to work on that layer. / Now select your clone tool & go to work. All done? If you’re happy with your work make sure you save. Now, remembering what I said about your background (original) layer remaining untouched, here’s a little demo. / Do you see that little eye beside your “clone” layer? / Click on it…. Hello!! Your cloning has gone! Click on it again….. it’s back!!! / OK, we could have fun with this all day, but do you see how the background image is unchanged? Cool huh? Let’s move on…. I’ve got blown out highlights in my clouds which are a problem & the mid-tones are a bit too dark. / I’ll deal with the clouds first by using a curves adjustment layer. 4) All the way down at the bottom of your layers palette, you’ll see a toolbar. look for the circle that’s half black & half white. / This is the “create new fill or adjustment layer” button. / Click on it & select “curves”. / 5) Grab the little white dot on the line in the top right corner. Now drag it a smidgen down to the right. That should take care of the blown out clouds. / Click OK. / / Do you see you now have a curves layer? / (Because I use CS3, it automatically gives me a layer mask box on this layer. It’s that white box in your curves layer. But we’re not going to get into masks today) Now to fix the mid-tones. For this I’m going to add a Levels layer. / 6) Just like in step 4), click on the “create new fill or adjustment layer” button & this time select “Levels”. / 7) This will open a box with a levels histogram in it. / To lighten your mid-tones slide the grey arrow in the middle of the histogram to the left until you’re happy. / Click OK, & you’ll see your levels layer sitting above the curves layer. Now, what if you wanted to do some dodge & burn? / There’s a number of ways to dodge & burn, so I’ll show you one that I use quite often. 8) Remember those 3 little horizontal lines that you clicked on to duplicate the layer? (step 3) / Click on that again, & this time select “New Layer”. / 9) In the dialogue box, change the name to “dodge & burn”, / click on the “mode” dropdown box, & select “overlay”, / then check the box “Fill with overlay-neutral color (50% gray) / it should look something like this : / / Then click OK. You’ll now see a layer called “dodge & burn” in your layers palette. It should be on the top of the pile. If it isn’t, simply drag it to the top. / Any work you do to the top layer will be carried over to all the layers below. 10) Select your burn tool, set your range to Shadows, & Exposure around 20 (this will depend completely upon the type of image you’re working on), then get to work burning out the areas that you feel need deepening. 11) Then take your dodge tool, set your Exposure to around 20 & work over the areas that you think need a little more highlighting. I’ve decided this image needs a bit more saturation. 12) Go back to the black/white circle (as mentioned in step 4), & this time look for Hue/Saturation. / / Adjust your sliders as you see fit, then click OK. / At this stage I’m happy with my basic adjustments. It’s now at the stage where it’s ready for me to use it as a background image for something a little more creative. 13) If you haven’t been saving until now, you really must do it now. 14) Now we’re going to Flatten the file. / Go to those 3 little horizontal lines with the arrow again (step 3), & this time look for “Flatten Image”. / / Click on it. You’ll see that all your layers have been “flattened into just one layer, & it’s now become your new background layer. If you’re planning to print this, you’ll need to give it some sharpening. / There are so many ways to sharpen, but at the moment I’m a bit partial to using the “high pass” filter. 15) To do this you’ll need to use a duplicate layer (remember step 3?) / I’m re-naming it “High Pass Sharpening”. / 16) Go to your “filter” drop down box on your top tool bar, & select, “other”, “high pass”. / 17) Adjust your radius slider until you see a good amount of line detail while keeping the tones in gray. Click OK. / You’re probably wondering what’s happened to your image. We’ll fix that right now. 18) Look above your “high pass” layer, & you’ll see Opacity set at 100%, to the left of that the word “normal” in a drop-down box. / Click on that drop-down box & select “overlay”. / / Presto! You’ve got your image back, & it’s been sharpened. / Toggle the “eye” off & on to see the effect. 19) If it’s too sharpened for your taste, you can adjust the opacity of that layer. / Find the “opacity” slider above the layer, & adjust it as you like. / I’m setting this one to 50%. / 20) Save this as a new psd file ( I’m calling this one “enter the trojan HP sharp”), & flatten it as before. / 21) Now all you need to do is save it in the Format of choice. / I routinely save all my images as TIFF files, & then save again as JPEG. / Remember to do all you backups now so you don’t forget later. All finished! Now you have an image that is fine as is, or ready for you to get a little creative & do further editing. / The final image : / You might also want to look at Texturing an Image in Photoshop for Absolute Beginners for further editing ideas. [ One last point : I put a lot of time & effort into creating these tutorials. Please don’t disrespect me by claiming them as your own.]
THE EASIEST WAYS TO MAKE RAYS OF LIGHT A Photoshop Tutorial for beginners I have used Photoshop CS4 but it will work in earlier v…
THE EASIEST WAYS TO MAKE RAYS OF LIGHT A Photoshop Tutorial for beginners I have used Photoshop CS4 but it will work in earlier versions. This tutorial is an adaptation of ‘Creating An Underwater Scene’ by the truly wonderful Mark Monciardini —-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—— / As with anything in Photoshop, there are many ways to achieve the same end.Making rays of light is no exception. There are many ways to make these.This is the easiest and most effective way that I have found to do this. Essentially it is only four main steps to achieve this result… Steppleland Stock from Deviantart has kindly given permission to use the lovely start image. If you click on this LINK you can download the image. Make sure that you download the full size image and not just the thumbnail or the technique that you will be learning will not work properly. To do this click on the download button, and when the full size image shows, right click and use ‘save image as’. Please make sure that you tick the Add to Favourites button before you download, as a way of saying ‘Thanks’ for the use of the stock. Step 1 / Open the image and immediately create a new layer by clicking on the new layer icon at the bottom of your layers palate. Name this layer ‘Light Rays” / See below… / Step 2 Set colour palate to the default White foreground, Black background / Go to the menu bar and select Filter/Render /Clouds and hit ‘Enter’. / Your layer should now look like this… / Step 3 Go to your menu bar and select Image/Adjustment/Threshold and hit the ‘OK’ button in the little box that comes up. / Your layer will now look like this.. Step 4 Go to / Filter/Blur/Radial Blur When the box pops up, set Amount = 84 / Blur Method = Zoom / Quality = Good The arrow here shows you where the zoom will radiate from. You need to place the blur centre over your light source ie the sun or the moon, or where the strongest light is in the sky. In this image, we need to have the Blur Centre it in the top left hand corner. So, with your mouse, slide the zoom centre to the top left of the square box. / The dialogue box should look like this… Hit the OK button. Your image will now look like this. You are nearly there now! Step 5 Now set the blending mode of this layer to Soft Light (See image below) / Reduce the opacity to 77% / Reduce the Fill to 94% / (The reduction in opacity and fill is a personal preference. Just adjust them until you are happy with the effect.) / Step 6 Now add a layer mask to this layer by clicking on the layer mask icon at the bottom of your layers palate. (See image below) Now set your foreground colour to Black. / Set the background colour to White. Select a soft round brush 200px. / / With the layer mask selected, paint over the areas you want to hide with the black brush. Here I have painted out the rays over the tree trunk, to give the impression that the light is falling behind it. I also painted out the front foreground to set the rays further back in the image. If you go too far, change the foreground colour to White and that will bring the rays back. And that’s it!! How simple was that? / / Special thanks go to my dear friends LorraineCreagh &Francis / for their kindness and help in learning how to upload and post this tutorial. / xx /
I have written this tutorial in Photoshop CS4, but it will work in earlier versions too. How many times have you been out with your ca…
I have written this tutorial in Photoshop CS4, but it will work in earlier versions too. How many times have you been out with your camera, found a beautiful landscape, but the sky was uniform, dull or flat? It has happened to me more times than I can remember! As with everything in Photoshop, there are so many different ways to remove skies from a landscape. It is very simple to do this in Landscapes which have straight edges into the sky, like cutting around buildings etc. But it is much harder to cut out skies when there is a lot of foliage around. The normal lasso tools, the quick select tools and the ‘magic’ tools do not work too well. But there is an easy way. The length of time it will take will depend on how many colours are in your existing sky. This tutorial will show the steps needed to go from this image… to this… Lets get going! You can download the lovely start image from HERE / Do remember to use the download button so that you get the hi res version and to click on the ‘Add To Favourites’ button. This is courtesy for being able to use the image. Step 1: * With the start image open, *double click on the background layer so that it then becomes Layer 0. Re-label this layer as ‘Background’ by double clicking in the box that says Layer0. This sounds silly, but now we have changed the start image into a layer, it will enable us to move the layer around later. Click onto the New Layer Icon. This will place a transparent layer above Layer 0 . / It is now labeled as Layer 1. You can leave this as it is. / Slide your background layer above Layer 1. / This is what it will look like… Step 2 The next step is to select the area containing all the blue sky that you want to replace. You can use a variety of tools to do this, but the easiest one for this image is the Polygon Lasso tool. / All you are doing with this selection is making sure that you do not cut any pixels out of the image that you do not want to loose. This is particularly important where you have pixels in the foreground, which are the same colour as the sky. In this image there is lots of blue in the barn, which we do not want to cut. So, click onto your Background layer and start to make your selection. I have highlighted my selection in red, so that you can easily see it, but yours will look like a dotted line. You can see that I have gone just below the trees where sky shows through. You now need to SAVE this selection. Go to the menu bar and to Select/Save selection and save it as ‘1’. Step 3 Now you have saved your selection, go to the menu bar and choose Select/Colour Range. / A dialogue box will pop up. Select ‘Sampled Colours’ / Tick ‘Localised Color Clusters / Fuzziness = 104 (You can increase or decrease this depending on the colours in your image, but for this image 104 works well. / Select the Image button. You will see your image behind the dialogue box. / Now, with the little eyedropper tool, click onto an area of blue in the sky. / You will see a selection created of that particular colour. Go to the menu bar and select Edit/Cut. Now just repeat this process as many times as you need to, to get rid of all the shades of blue in the sky. / DO REMEMBER TO LOAD YOUR SELECTION EACH TIME. / To do this, go to *Select/Load Selection and scroll down until you come to ‘1’ / Then once again, Select/Colour Range…. Edit Cut. I took about 6 cuts to end up with an image like this Step 4 Whilst you have a transparent layer under your background image, it is sometimes hard to see if you have cut out all the unwanted pixels. So to do a ‘safety check’ you will need to fill Layer 1 with a white fill. To do this go to the Paint Bucket tool, and with white as your foreground colour, click on that layer and it will fill with white. / If you have any hazy blue areas showing, just go to your History Palate and dump the white fill into the dustbin. Then go back to your select colour range and cut out some more. Step 4 Now you need to choose a new sky. I have found a beauty, which you can download. Just click on the image. / / Again, if you download it please do remember to favourite it out of courtesy. You can choose any sky you like, but it should have the horizon roughly where the horizon is in your original image. The most important thing to remember is that when you choose your sky, you will need to ensure that the strongest light source in the sky fits with the brightest part of your start image. In the sky I have chosen, the strongest light source comes from the top left hand side of the sky. This fits with the brightest part of the start image – the highlights on the roof of the barn, so immediately the image is credible. If this sky were flipped horizontally, so that the light source was on the opposite side, it would not work at all. Step 5 / / You can skip this step if you wish Because the sky is so dramatic, and because the start image is lovely, I want to extend the canvas in order to balance out the different elements in the image. So to do this, simply highlight your bottom layer – Layer 1. / Go to the menu Bar and select Image/Canvas Size. / In the dialogue box, scroll down the width and height settings and change this to Percent. / In the Height box, alter the percent to 140. / Click OK. This will have transformed the size of your image. Go back to your background layer, and with the move tool, slide the image to the bottom of the canvas. Step 6 Open up your sky image, and go to Select/Select All / Then to / Edit/Copy / Go to your barn image now and select Layer 1 – the bottom transparent layer. / Go to Edit/Paste You will see that the sky you have imported is larger than the original image, so you will need to make it smaller. / On the sky layer, go to Edit/Free Transform and from corner of the image, shrink it to fit. Step 6 You will see now that there are a few annoying bluish leaves hanging around on the start image. So select the start image layer and create a layer mask. (see image below) With your foreground colour set as black, choose a soft round brush and on the layer mask, just paint them out. Do this until you are happy with the end result. If you paint out something by mistake, just set your foreground colour to white to paint it back in. Step 7 Just to unify the two parts of this image, select the background layer and on the menu bar, select Image/Adjustments/Colour Balance. Slide the Yellow/Blue slider towards blue. You can see what I have done here. Also, I felt the need to slightly darken the start image to fit better with the sky, so go to / Image/Adjustments/Levels and slide the middle slider slightly towards the right. You can see what I have done here. Step 8 This is the really clever bit, and it something I do whenever I merge any images together. You can use this technique in many photomontages to achieve a unified colour scheme. Create a new layer above the start image. / Select the Paint Bucket tool. / Click onto the foreground colour and when the dialogue box comes up type in 336633in the hash box. Like this… Then, with the paint bucket tool, pour this into the new layer. / Select Color Blending Mode and reduce the opacity to 20% (see below) Step 9 Repeat this process. Create a new layer and fill with color 333366 / Set blending mode to color and reduce opacity to 20% Step 10 Repeat this process on a new layer and fill with cc9966 / Set blending mode to Overlay and reduce opacity to 21% / Your screen should look like this… / This will have unified all the colors in the image. One final step… / Go to Select/Select All ... then….. / Edit/Copy Merged... then…... / File/New (no need to change any sizes here) .... then….. / Edit/Paste That will give you your final image. You can then save this as a .jpg file. / Your original .psd File with all its layers is the preserved, so that if you wish to go back and change any bits at a later stage – you can do so. I hope that you have enjoyed this tutorial. If you have, please let me know. Also – if you have found any bits too difficult, or which do not work please let me know too. I would love to see your final images too. If you want to show me, or ask any advice, but do not want to load your image for other to see, just upload it as normal, but tick the box ‘Hide From Public View’. You can then send it to me by Bmail, using the normal codes – !! either side of the url when you copy image location. / xx / Anna
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