Choosing a group of colours can be a daunting exercise. OK, so there's some golden rules to follow, like "always choose from the same third of the colour wheel". Golden rules are made to be broken. Adobe has a colourful website to make this a bit easier. If you sign in you can download the … [Read more...]
Working with large files in Photoshop
Preparing artwork for huge exhibition spaces or large point-of-sale displays in Photoshop can be a nightmare and can use up precious processing time on your computer. And this is even if you have a Dual 2 GHz G5 Mac with 3 GB of RAM! But there's no need to keep the high resolution you would for … [Read more...]
Photoshop flame effect
Choose and bold sans serif for your type. This is Arial black. Rasterize Type. Rotate canvas by 90º clockwise. In order to get points coming from the top of the type it needs to be white out type on black on the same layer. Go Filters > Stylize > Wind from the left. Then invert and rotate … [Read more...]
Using the Quick Mask Mode in Photoshop
The Quick Mask Mode is a much overlooked method for making selections. In particular, "burning" or darkening skies more at the top of the image than at the horizon. To do this, go into Quick Mask Mode, either by clicking on the icon at the bottom of the tool bar or by pressing Q. Immediately, the … [Read more...]
Improving photos with Photoshop
This is about the very basics of improving landscape photography. For years I've been taking rather bland photos of both natural landscapes and cityscapes and then pushing those pixels to bits in Photoshop. One of the most important things to learn in Photoshop is selecting areas of pictures. For … [Read more...]
Cutting out
How do you cut out a high resolution photo? It depends on the picture of course. If you are cutting out a product – a mobile phone, say – then use the pen tool in Photoshop. Blow the image up big and follow the edge one or two pixels in using Bézier curves. Bézier is a town in the south of France … [Read more...]
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