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Articles by Jeremy Schultz (Page 17)
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Your Photoshop History Doesn’t Have To Be History Anymore
Have you ever created something cool, only to later forget how you did it? With History Log, you’ll have it down on paper or disk
With Photoshop CS and CS2, you can create a log of your file’s history (the commands and settings you applied to it since it was last opened). It’s a feature I’ve heard almost no mention of, but it’s definitely there. If you’re in a profession like forensics and you need to get down on paper (or metadata) all the steps you took in enhancing a crime-scene photo, or if you just have a killer technique for color-correcting a batch of images and want to give the process to the rest of your department, this may be helpful.
Read more on Your Photoshop History Doesn’t Have To Be History Anymore…
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Photoshop Jargon: Paths To Illustrator
“Paths To Illustrator” is an item under the File -> Export menu that will output any paths from a Photoshop file to a new Illustrator file. Users have the option to output a single path or all paths in a document.
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Removing Backgrounds, Part 3: The Magnetic Lasso Tool
The third installment of my four-part series sheds light on the peculiar, misunderstood Magnetic Lasso tool
In the first and second installments of the Removing Backgrounds series, we studied the Background Eraser and Magic Eraser tools and saw how one edited pixels according to color, the other according to color and value. Now we are breaking into new territory with a study of the Magnetic Lasso tool, which was introduced to Photoshop in version 6 but as far as I can tell never really caught on with users because of its (allegedly) finicky nature and complex settings. But like the Background Eraser and Magic Eraser tools, the Magnetic Lasso tool was designed to tackle a particular problem and if you know when to use it and which settings are best it can be a valuable tool to have.
Read more on Removing Backgrounds, Part 3: The Magnetic Lasso Tool…
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Photoshop Jargon: Conditional Mode Change
“Conditional Mode Change” is an option under the File -> Automate menu, and its function is to convert the color mode of one image to another. The Conditional Mode Change dialog box gives the user options to convert some, all or none of the possible color modes, as well as to select the destination color mode.
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Customizing Your Photoshop Workspaces
It’s been around awhile, but with Photoshop CS2 the ability to customize and save your workspace has become a lot easier
If you’ve used Photoshop awhile you’ve surely settled into the layout of palettes that works best for you. I like to keep my Layers and History palettes nice and large at the top-right, with my Character and Paragraph palettes below, Paths and Channels palettes at the bottom-right and all my other palettes docked in the well.
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Removing Backgrounds, Part 2: The Magic Eraser Tool
Part 2 of our four-part series shows how the Magic Eraser tool brings the Magic Wand and Eraser tools together
In Part 1 of my Removing Backgrounds series, I used the Background Eraser to remove a blue sky from behind a red lighthouse, which was all the easier because the Background Eraser erases according to color, not value or details. Those details would have made it very tough for the Magic Wand tool to do the same thing or, as I’m about to show you, the Magic Eraser tool, which is what we are working with in this installment of the series.
Read more on Removing Backgrounds, Part 2: The Magic Eraser Tool…
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Photoshop Jargon: Wet Edges
“Wet Edges” is an option in the Brushes palette, and creates a watercolor effect by migrating color from the center of a brush stroke to the edge, which is what happens in natural watercolor due to surface tension. In Photoshop the Wet Edges effect creates more color on the edges of a stroke, and less in the center.
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Supernova: Using The Lens Flare Filter
It’s one of the coolest filters ever, but applying it to an image can be tricky. Here’s a tip to make it easier.
The Lens Flare filter, which creates the lens flare you get when light hits a camera lens at odd angles, may be my all-time favorite filter. The dialog box doesn’t confuse me with strange labels like Threshold (or have no labels at all, like the confounding Offset filter!). And for little work I can create an awesome-looking flare that seems to belong in the movies. It can really add drama and impact to an image! But there are some downsides: The Lens Flare filter works only on RGB images and, like other filters, the Lens Flare filter alters the pixels so once you use it, there’s no way to tweak the settings.
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Photoshop Jargon: Button Mode
“Button mode” is activated from the Actions palette’s pull-out menu and alters the Actions palette display from a list view to a button view. You can click an Action’s button to execute it.
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This first of a four-part series covers how to remove backgrounds using a seldom-used variant of the Eraser tool
Figure 1: The Background Eraser icon.It’s buried in the toolbar and I don’t see many users working with it, but the Background Eraser tool is an interesting little piece of Photoshop engineering that can help you out when you’re caught with certain kinds of backgrounds that other tools can’t touch (or can’t touch without mangling the foreground object you’re trying to preserve!). This article is the first in a four-part series that will cover four tools that you may not be aware of and will help you solve some tough situations.
Read more on Removing Backgrounds, Part 1: The Background Eraser Tool…
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Photoshop Jargon: Radial Fill
“Radial fill” is an option of the Gradient fill tool that fills the gradient in a pattern of concentric circles rather than a linear application. The foreground color is used in the center of the gradient and the background color is used on the outer edge.
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Photoshop TV Reviewed: Good But Not Great
The mix of two parts goofy humor to one part Photoshop bothered me a bit
I just got through watching the first two episodes of NAPP’s Photoshop TV (click here for the main Web site or click here to subscribe via iTunes). The comments on the Photoshop TV Web site are all exceedingly positive, but I have to say that I was underwhelmed. Each episode is 30 minutes long and in that time you’d think they would have at least five or six good tutorials and a chunk of news, but there’s usually only three tips and some news (not necessarily in-depth) and the rest of the time is spent joshing around, telling goofy jokes, forgetting lines or spying on the slightly annoyed NAPP staff with Dave Cross’ Dave Cam. Now I know that goofy humor is part of what makes Scott Kelby, his books and NAPP popular, but there can be such a thing as too much.
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The Nikon D200 Is Coming
The camera made waves by accident, now will it make waves for real?
I just heard this on the October 31 episode of Photoshop TV: Nikon had apparently posted information on its brand-new D200 camera by accident, quickly pulled the page but not before the information was able to spread around the world. Doesn’t it seem the Internet always turns little mistakes like these into global rumor grist?
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Photoshop Radio Becomes Photoshop TV
Just in time for the video iPod, NAPP takes its show to the (little) big screen
You may no’t find it by actually visiting the National Association of Photoshop Professionals’ Web site (the “Photoshop TV” icon goes to the wrong domain!), but if you visit photoshopguys.com you’ll find Photoshop TV, which replaces Photoshop Radio as NAPP’s vehicle for bringing Photoshop tips and info to iPod users.
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Thanks to amateur digital photographers, we see dead people.
Digital photography has changed the world of Photoshop and photography in amazing ways, with designers, sales reps and even clients now able to grab their digital camera and take a product shot or portrait shot with the resolution to print in a fine magazine. Who needs professional photographers, now that a $500 camera can capture enough pixels for just about any computer application, which itself is only a few hundred dollars off the shelf, and that digital image can be used practically anywhere? Who needs professional photographers? Some might argue that we ALL are professional photographers.
Read more on ZOMBIES! or, How To Add Some Color To The Living Dead…
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SPOOKY! Building a Halloween Typeface in Photoshop
Here’s a fun Halloween typeface you can build right in Photoshop in five easy steps!
Step 1: Type something up in your favorite spooky font and kern it as needed. I used Manson in Figure 1.
Read more on SPOOKY! Building a Halloween Typeface in Photoshop…
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Dan Margulis’ Photoshop LAB Color
Dan Margulis’ new book focuses on Photoshop’s nuclear color space. But who is it written for—the novice or the expert?
A few weeks ago I wrote a very favorable review for Ben Willmore’e Up To Speed: Photoshop CS2, and one thing I really liked about the book was its specialized focus and in-depth coverage. Too many Photoshop books cover every teensy-weensy feature of the application and each with only a passing comment or paragraph. Now Dan Margulis, whose “Professional Photoshop” book has been the bible of color-correction for many years, has put out “Photoshop LAB Color: The Canyon Conundrum and Other Adventures in the Most Powerful Colorspace”. It sounds like a doctoral dissertation, but it’s actually a substantial book devoted to a single obscure menu item that almost no one understands or even pronounces correctly. However, as Dan spends much of the book trying to prove, LAB is a valuable “nuclear option” for the arsenal of any Photoshop professional.
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Space Monkey and Other Photoshop Easter Eggs!
Photoshop has a long history of Easter eggs and other oddities
Hold down the Command key (PC: Ctrl), select Photoshop->About Photoshop… and you’ll see this:
It’s the latest Photoshop Easter egg, those goofy little jokes software developers work into their products just for fun! Photoshop and ImageReady has had a long history of Easter eggs, and you can learn how to uncover some more in the earlier versions by clicking here.
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Tutorial: Manipulating Grayscale Images for Better Bitmaps
What do you do when you need a bitmap image but only have a grayscale image, possibly with midtones? Here are three techniques to get you good line art
My recent tutorial on eliminating jaggies from bitmap images was responded to by Mac Wizard,
Read more on Tutorial: Manipulating Grayscale Images for Better Bitmaps…
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Use Picture Package to Show Off Your Kids
Photoshop can create a set of printable pics with just a few clicks
I think Photoshop’s Automate menu (under the File menu) is wonderful. There’s lots of great tools for automating some useful things like web gallery creation and batching an executable action. Picture Package is one that you don’t hear much about, but if you have a newborn or new family photo and you just have to give your family some wallets or five-by-sevens, Photoshop has you covered.
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Apple’s Aperture Released, Will Compete with Photoshop for Pro Photo Market
The just-released application is designed for pro photographers—can it compete with Adobe’s prizefighter?
Apple Computer has just released Aperture, which will surely be a major competitor against Adobe Photoshop for the professional photography market.Read more on Apple’s Aperture Released, Will Compete with Photoshop for Pro Photo Market…
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A More Precise Curves
This quick tip is essential for retouching and color correction
The Curves dialog box (Cmd-M or Ctrl-M) is considered by many experts to be the best place to manipulate colors and values for color-correction purposes. The Levels dialog box takes second place in that race, but Levels is really just Curves with only three editable points—shadow, highlight and 50% midtone. Levels’ only advantage is its histogram, but since CS Photoshop has had its own Histogram palette so Levels is no longer necessary for reading histograms. But the fact remains that Curves is the place to go for precision and ease of use when manipulating color and value.
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This small volume is excellent for power users wanting to get 100% familiar with CS2
In the introduction to Ben Willmore’s “Up To Speed: Photoshop CS2″, Ben lists the three main classifications of Photoshop books today:
Read more on Ben Willmore’s “Up To Speed” Book A Great Resource…
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Russell Brown’s History of Photoshop
Who knew that Adobe got its start in a hut on Tatooine?
This crazy Star Wars-inspired QuickTime movie recently showed up on one of the Yahoo! user groups. It’s the “History of Photoshop” movie presented by none other than Adobe Senior Creative Director Russell Brown.
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Tutorial: Creating A Cast Shadow
Drop shadows are okay, but a cast shadow can make your photoillustrations come to life
I like shadows. They create depth and make your images stronger and more lifelike. PhotoSpin.com has a great tutorial available now for creating cast shadows, which are shadows that retain the shape of that which casts it.
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