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The Photoshop Blog offers Photoshop news and Photoshop tips.This is the most recent feed available as of 02/04/2012 at 05:35 PM
Free Photoshop Brushes — Bubbly Doodles
Here are today's free Photoshop brushes from Janita: Bubbly Doodle Brushes - Set name: Glimmer (brushes in set: 22) All the illustrations in these brushes were drawn by me while I was endlessly bored on a rainy university morning. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Fluffy Feathers - Free Photoshop Brush Set
Here is today's free brush set from Janita: Fluffy Feather Brushes. All the feathers in these were scanned from images I found in scrapbooking stores. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Shooting Neon, Tips and Tricks From Night and Low-Light Photography Photo Workshop Book
Neon signs are bright; that is part of their charm and part of their usefulness. The brightness also makes it more difficult to shoot the sign than it would seem. You do have choices: You can expose for the whole scene, which will most likely overexpose the neon; you can expose for the sign, which can underexpose the rest of the scene; or you can combine different exposures into a single frame to get the exposure right for both the scene and the neon sign. The aperture that you use will also affect the way the light bleeds on a neon sign. This bleeding of the light is called halation and it relates to how the light can spread beyond the proper boundaries in a photographic image. As you change the aperture, the spread of the light changes; there are no right or wrong apertures, and knowing this means you can change the look of the light and the image by using different apertures. To get the neon sign to stand out against the background, just follow these steps to underexpose the image slightly. The first step is to find a sign that is relatively isolated so that the composition will allow the sign to stand by itself. Read full article... (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Free Photoshop Brushes - Butterflies
Here are today's free brushes: Butterfly Brushes. Set name: Glitterflies (brushes in set: 20) All images were handmade. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
New Liquify Tool And Background Save Option Highlighted in Latest Photoshop CS6 Preview Video
Here's another Photoshop CS6 preview video: Here's an early look at a popular Facebook fan request — the ability to do a background save on a large file that would NOT make Photoshop slow down, and a new, very powerful liquify tool that allows large brush sizes and is very snappy. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
HD Video - How To Create Movie-Poster Credits In Illustrator
This week Deke shows you how to use a secret Asian-language text setting to create authentic-looking movie credits in Illustrator. The trick is exploiting the Warichu feature which is designed for stacking characters within a single line of type. In this technique, Deke reveals how the feature allows you to gracefully stack two words one on top of another, adjust the size, create a character style that saves those settings, and then apply your character-style down the line to all the people who helped make your imaginary movie possible. Any designer or budding movie promoter who’s obsessed with typesetting (and doesn’t that include most of you?) knows that the standard movie credits in a promotional poster stack the two-word job title before the linear presentation of each contributor’s name. So text that initially looks like this... ... ends up looking like this: If you were inspired by Deke’s Designing an Indiana Jones-style logo technique from December 2011, then this technique will allow you to create some credits at the bottom of your poster that will convince your audience that you know how to properly hype your latest entirely theoretical but professionally promoted cinematic endeavor. And if you’d like specific instruction on putting the two techniques together, check out the Two ways to place a pixel-based image movie from the Illustrator and Photoshop chapter (chapter 21) of Deke’s Illustrator CS5 One-on-One: Advanced course. You can get a free 7-day trial to the lynda.com Online Training Library. A credit card is required to ensure uninterrupted access to lynda.com, if you choose to remain a member after your free trial ends. There is no long-term commitment required, and you can cancel any time. After signing up for the free 7-day trial to the lynda.com Online Training Library you'll gain access to over 60,000 video tutorials instantly. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Free Photoshop Brush Set From Janita - Doodles
We'll be releasing a free set of Photoshop brushes every day for the next twelve days. These are exclusive sets from us that were designed by the talented Janita from Seishido. Janita's brushes are tinged with an air of whimsy, often featuring delicate feathers, gossamer wings and dreamy clouds. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Get 50% Off Lightroom 3 - Discount Set To Run For All Of February
You can save 50% off the standard price of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 in the Adobe North America Store. No coupon code is necessary. The discount will be applied when products are added to the shopping cart. Offer starts February 1, 2012 and ends March 5. The following Euro stores are also offering the same 50% off special: UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 is an intuitive digital darkroom and efficient assistant designed for serious amateur and professional photographers. Easily manage, edit, and showcase all your images. Lightroom integrates tightly with Adobe Photoshop software and supports more than 275 camera raw file formats, as well as JPEG, TIFF, and PSD images. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
How To Change A Photo's Mood Using Photoshop's Apply Image
Here's a Photoshop tutorial from Photoshop Daily, by Simon Skellon. There are many ways to alter the contrast and mood of an image in Photoshop. Try this one using Apply Image. Apply Image can produce variations of contrast that other adjustments just aren’t able to offer. This particular method may not be the most commonly practised one, but shouldn’t be dismissed. Read more... (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Grains Of Sand Magnified 250 Times Reveal Beautiful Delicate Structures
Have a look at the amazing photos of magnified grains of sand at the Uk Daily Mail site. "Viewed at a magnification of over 250 times real life, tiny grains of sand are shown to be delicate, colourful structures as unique as snowflakes. When seen well beyond the limits of human eyesight, the miniature particles are exposed as fragments of crystals, spiral fragments of shells and crumbs of volcanic rock." Read the full article. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Photographing Light Trails — Tips and Tricks From Night and Low-Light Photography Photo Workshop Book
Here is an excerpt from Chapter 8 from Night and Low-Light Photography Photo Workshop, excerpted with permission from John Wiley and Sons, Inc. The book is available in stores and through online retailers nationwide. Here’s a link to a multi-retailer sales page. Author Alen Hess is a professional event and concert photographer whose subjects have included The Grateful Dead, Bruce Hornsby, John Legend, Robin Williams, and many more. The basics of photographing light trails are simple: Use a shutter speed long enough that the lights in question turn from points of light into trails as they move through the frame. There are three different types of captures in this section: the first is where the camera is stationary and the subject is moving, the second is where the camera moves along with the subject creating a background that seems to be made up of streaks of light, and the third is to use the zoom on a lens to create trails from a stationary light source. Read more... (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
6 Abstract Lines Photoshop Brushes From Bittbox
Another nice set of free Photoshop brushes from Bittbox: The source for these was a microscopic piece of pollen. Up close the strands looked like barbed wire. After photographic it, I brought the images into Illustrator and Live Traced each one, so the edges are very defined. Each brush is 2500×1800, hope you enjoy. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Topaz Releases Star Effects, A Lighting Enhancement And Star Creation Plugin - Plus Discount Code
Topaz Labs has released Topaz Star Effects, a Photoshop Plug-in that manipulates and enhances light sources to create radiant lighting and star effects. Using a leading-edge technology that automatically recognizes light sources, Topaz Star Effects provides a fast and effective way to creatively embellish points of light in an image. Topaz Star Effects retails for $29.99, and will be discounted to $19.99 until 2/15/12. Simply enter coupon code TopazStars. Topaz Star Effects is the most customizable and inclusive star filter out there right now. With adjustments like star type, glow, ring flare and color controls, the program allows for users to create effects from realistic sun flares and glowing water to more obvious, artistic additions," said Nichole Paschal, Senior Marketing Specialist for Topaz Labs. "Plus the ability to selectively add and remove these effects, in a single click, is easy to understand and an important aspect to Star Effects." "With an advanced detection algorithm powering Star Effects, we have developed a simple and intuitive way to recognize hundreds of light sources at once, along with the choice to selectively amplify sources. Star Effects has the most comprehensive tool set available, allowing for users to create both natural, accurate renditions or more dramatic, graphic effects," said Dr. He Yang, Senior Software Designer at Topaz Labs. The comprehensive and customizable tool set in Topaz Star Effects offers a simple and intuitive workflow that results in quick enhancements to your light sources. It is a plug-in that works with a variety of host programs including Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Aperture, iPhoto and Lightroom. Topaz Star Effects retails for $29.99, and will be discounted to $19.99 until 2/15/12. Simply enter coupon code TopazStars. You could spend hours in Photoshop selecting multiple light sources and fiddling around with multiple settings, layer styles and blending modes. Or you can enjoy a more simplistic and user-friendly process using Star Effects, which automatically detects light sources allows you to quickly select how many or how few of those light sources to enhance. Star Effects also includes a highly comprehensive toolset, offering the most flexibility and control for customizing your effects. Using the adjustment sliders, you can instantly change the appearance and characteristics of your selected light sources. Key user benefits include: Topaz Automatic light source detection - seeks out the light sources in your image. Added flexibility via the selective brush used to individually select or de-select light sources. Star type selection with options like traditional, starburst, cross star, hollywood star and more! Star Stack-a-bility via the Apply button which allows you to stack multiple effects. Added adjustment controls for color, temperature, secondary spikes, glow and ring flares - for a customizable workflow. And much more... (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Shooting Street Scenes, Tips and Tricks From Night and Low-Light Photography Photo Workshop Book
Here is an excerpt from Chapter 8 from Night and Low-Light Photography Photo Workshop, excerpted with permission from John Wiley and Sons, Inc. The book is available in stores and through online retailers nationwide. Here’s a link to a multi-retailer sales page. Author Alen Hess is a professional event and concert photographer whose subjects have included The Grateful Dead, Bruce Hornsby, John Legend, Robin Williams, and many more. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Sneak Peak At Photoshop CS6 And Camera Raw - Video Reveal
This video from Senior Product Manager Bryan O'Neil Hughes, reveals an early look at some of the things the Photoshop team is working on for Camera Raw and Photoshop CS6, including a much darker interface. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
How To Create Type In Photoshop That Inverts What's Behind
You've probably been there. You're working with a high-contrast photo or composition, with lots of lights and darks, and it’s your job to lay text over it. Readable text. So, do you choose dark text or light? Either one risks becoming unreadable when it hits an object behind it that doesn’t provide enough contrast. And please, whatever you do, don’t compromise with that medium gray text that’s completely unsatisfying no matter where it lands. This week’s free technique from Deke that shows you how to conveniently set up your type so that it automatically inverts everything behind it. By setting up your text this way, you no longer have to make the compromised choice to leave the text in some state of questionable readability, or the tedious choice to stop and manually reset text color as you move it around. By using a blend mode and a couple of well-placed adjustment layers to mathematically tell Photoshop what you want it to do when, you’ll create automatically reversing yet entirely editable text. And for members of the lynda.com Online Training Library, Deke has an exclusive movie this week, Creating auto-inverting line art, in which he shows you how to do the same inverse effect with line art (in this case a signature). The steps in this technique are similar to those discussed in Deke’s free tutorial, but require you to additionally separate and invert the lines that make up the image. You can get a free 7-day trial to the lynda.com Online Training Library. A credit card is required to ensure uninterrupted access to lynda.com, if you choose to remain a member after your free trial ends. There is no long-term commitment required, and you can cancel any time. The free trial allows access to over 60,000 video tutorials instantly. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Assorted Free Textures For Photoshop From Bittbox
From Bittbox: Today's grab bag of textures contains a couple old book covers and three other various textures. Each one will add a different dimension to your designs. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
5 Free Fabric Photoshop Brushes
A nice set of 5 free Photoshop brushes from Bittbox: This collection of five subtle hi-res fabric brushes will add some natural surfacing to your work. Each brush is 2500×2500. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
5 Free Cracked, Peeling Wood Textures - Plus Photoshop Tutorial Digital Diorama "Living Room"
Shutterstock blog has a Photoshop tutorial that shows youhow to create a surreal "living" room with blue-sky walls, a turbulent sea floor, and an antique clock sun. It's a good way to also learn how to use textures. In step 3 you add textures to the walls to give them a grungy feel. And so I've included the latest from Bittbox as well: 5 free hi res wooden board textures. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
All About Perfect Layers 2 - The Perfect Add-on To Lightroom
Perfect Layers 2 is a fast, easy and affordable way to create layered files outside of Adobe Photoshop. Perfect Layers is an application that allows photographers to combine multiple images from Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Apple Aperture, or any application, into a single-layered file. As photographers do more of their work in Lightroom or Aperture, Perfect Layers has evolved to support these changing workflows. Perfect Layers 2 is available as standalone product for $69.95 and as part of the Perfect Photo Suite 6 for $299.95. When purchasing at the onOne website, use our discount code - PSSPPT06 - for an instant 10% discount on all products, including upgrades. Perfect Layers can be used to blend multiple exposures together or build composite images. New capabilities have been added to version 2, including a Retouch Brush to remove blemishes and dust spots, a file browser that quickly finds and provides access to the right files, and flexible preview options that show changes being made side by side with the original image. Perfect Layers was developed and designed along with industry thought leader Scott Kelby as an application that would deliver the power and benefits of layered images to users working primarily in Lightroom or Aperture. The simplicity of Perfect Layers and the tools provided allow photographers to be able to quickly do what they want to without having to wade through dozens of tools they will never use. To further streamline workflows, Perfect Layers can be used as a standalone application and has been integrated into the new Perfect Photo Suite 6. OnOne has been making excellent plugins for years and continues to lead the pack with their innovative and friendly user interfaces. Plugins are meant to reduce the work load, and Perfect Layers is going to be a huge time-saver for professional photographers who need the extra power of layers to edit quickly and efficiently, as they are often under severe deadlines. And Perfect Layers will also open up the door to more creative endeavors — including stunning visual effects and complex photo montages. Key benefits of Perfect Layers 2 include: Retouch Brush: Remove dust spots, blemishes and other distractions in your image quickly and easily with the new Retouch Brush. Quick touch-ups and edits to your image are made very simple with this new tool. File Browser: Quickly find the images you want with the visual File Browser, which provides a filmstrip or light table style view of a folder. Several browser tabs can be opened at once so that multiple elements for a project can be found and opened easily. Flexible Preview Options: See a real-time preview of the changes you are making to an image side by side with your original image before you apply the changes. There are five different ways to view the mask to make adjustments and judge quality. Masking Brush: Control how much of each layer is visible with the Masking Brush created originally for PhotoTools 2.6 and FocalPoint 2. Similar to using a layer mask, the Masking Brush can be used to reveal or hide selected areas of a layer. The layer masks created by the Masking Brush are non-destructive and can be re-edited with Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. If you use a Wacom pressure sensitive tablet, you can even control the brush size or opacity by how hard you press while painting the mask. Masking Bug: Create gradient masks for making vignettes and graduated filter effects with the Masking Bug from PhotoTools 2.6. As with the Masking Brush, the Masking Bug is nondestructive and can even be re-edited with Photoshop or Photoshop Elements later if desired. Blending Modes: Bring the power and creativity of blending modes to Lightroom and Aperture with Perfect Layers. Control brightness, contrast and color of your images and adjust opacity to control the strength of the effect as you blend layers to get amazing and highly stylized effects in your image. Color Fill Layer: Create new layers filled with a solid color. Perfect Layers includes presets that simulate common color correction and black and white conversion filters. The built-in masking tools can be used to selectively place and control the strength of these color fill effects. Additionally, the Color blend mode is especially useful with Color Fill Layers to give images a special effect. Perfect Layers Requirements Operating System — Mac OS X 10.5 or 10.6, Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7. Optional Host Application — Adobe Lightroom 2 or 3, Apple Aperture 2.1 or 3. Processor — 2 GHz or faster Intel Core 2 Duo or equivalent. Display — OpenGL 2.0 Capable video card with 256 MB of dedicated VRAM at 1280x800 and millions of colors or higher. Perfect Layers Online Video Tutorials You can fnd a collection of online video tutorials for Perfect Layers at the onOne site. Topics include: Getting Started, Supported Files, Perfect Layers and Lightroom, Perfect Layers and Aperture, Blending Duplicate Images, Exposure Blending, Swapping Heads, Changing Skies, Texture Blending, Blending to Control Color and Contrast, Using Color Fill Layers, Combining Multiple Lights, Focus Stacking, Creative Composites. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
How To Turn A Photo Into A Line Drawing In Photoshop - HD Video Tutorial
This week Deke shares one of his most asked-for techniques, how to turn an ordinary portrait into a line drawing. It seems that when people encounter wonderful photo-realistic line drawings out in the wild, they immediately equate said photo-realism with Photoshop. And, if nature didn’t endow you with the ability to draw, then applying some careful Photoshop effects to a well-chosen photo is indeed the way to go. In this week’s free movie, you’ll see how to take a photographed portrait, apply the Photocopy filter and then adjust and finesse your drawing with the Levels command, Gaussian Blur, a little hand-work (you’re calling it a “drawing” after all), and finally some advanced layer effects. The result is a technique that can work on any well-defined portrait. For example, check out how this unsuspecting photo booth poser in the upper image can become the proto-Nagel woman you see in the lower image below (while doing some fairly wonderful things to my chalkboard in the process). For members of lynda.com, Deke has an exclusive movie in the Online Training Library this week called Adding a crosshatch shading pattern that really sells the illustration effect. By the time you go through Deke’s meticulous steps, you’ll take this dramatic photo on the left and turn it into the deadly (but awesome) line drawing on the right: You can get a free 7-day trial to the lynda.com Online Training Library. A credit card is required to ensure uninterrupted access to lynda.com, if you choose to remain a member after your free trial ends. There is no long-term commitment required, and you can cancel any time. The free trial allows access to over 60,000 video tutorials instantly. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Here are today's free Photoshop brushes from Janita: Bubbly Doodle Brushes - Set name: Glimmer (brushes in set: 22) All the illustrations in these brushes were drawn by me while I was endlessly bored on a rainy university morning. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Fluffy Feathers - Free Photoshop Brush Set
Here is today's free brush set from Janita: Fluffy Feather Brushes. All the feathers in these were scanned from images I found in scrapbooking stores. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Shooting Neon, Tips and Tricks From Night and Low-Light Photography Photo Workshop Book
Neon signs are bright; that is part of their charm and part of their usefulness. The brightness also makes it more difficult to shoot the sign than it would seem. You do have choices: You can expose for the whole scene, which will most likely overexpose the neon; you can expose for the sign, which can underexpose the rest of the scene; or you can combine different exposures into a single frame to get the exposure right for both the scene and the neon sign. The aperture that you use will also affect the way the light bleeds on a neon sign. This bleeding of the light is called halation and it relates to how the light can spread beyond the proper boundaries in a photographic image. As you change the aperture, the spread of the light changes; there are no right or wrong apertures, and knowing this means you can change the look of the light and the image by using different apertures. To get the neon sign to stand out against the background, just follow these steps to underexpose the image slightly. The first step is to find a sign that is relatively isolated so that the composition will allow the sign to stand by itself. Read full article... (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Free Photoshop Brushes - Butterflies
Here are today's free brushes: Butterfly Brushes. Set name: Glitterflies (brushes in set: 20) All images were handmade. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
New Liquify Tool And Background Save Option Highlighted in Latest Photoshop CS6 Preview Video
Here's another Photoshop CS6 preview video: Here's an early look at a popular Facebook fan request — the ability to do a background save on a large file that would NOT make Photoshop slow down, and a new, very powerful liquify tool that allows large brush sizes and is very snappy. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
HD Video - How To Create Movie-Poster Credits In Illustrator
This week Deke shows you how to use a secret Asian-language text setting to create authentic-looking movie credits in Illustrator. The trick is exploiting the Warichu feature which is designed for stacking characters within a single line of type. In this technique, Deke reveals how the feature allows you to gracefully stack two words one on top of another, adjust the size, create a character style that saves those settings, and then apply your character-style down the line to all the people who helped make your imaginary movie possible. Any designer or budding movie promoter who’s obsessed with typesetting (and doesn’t that include most of you?) knows that the standard movie credits in a promotional poster stack the two-word job title before the linear presentation of each contributor’s name. So text that initially looks like this... ... ends up looking like this: If you were inspired by Deke’s Designing an Indiana Jones-style logo technique from December 2011, then this technique will allow you to create some credits at the bottom of your poster that will convince your audience that you know how to properly hype your latest entirely theoretical but professionally promoted cinematic endeavor. And if you’d like specific instruction on putting the two techniques together, check out the Two ways to place a pixel-based image movie from the Illustrator and Photoshop chapter (chapter 21) of Deke’s Illustrator CS5 One-on-One: Advanced course. You can get a free 7-day trial to the lynda.com Online Training Library. A credit card is required to ensure uninterrupted access to lynda.com, if you choose to remain a member after your free trial ends. There is no long-term commitment required, and you can cancel any time. After signing up for the free 7-day trial to the lynda.com Online Training Library you'll gain access to over 60,000 video tutorials instantly. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Free Photoshop Brush Set From Janita - Doodles
We'll be releasing a free set of Photoshop brushes every day for the next twelve days. These are exclusive sets from us that were designed by the talented Janita from Seishido. Janita's brushes are tinged with an air of whimsy, often featuring delicate feathers, gossamer wings and dreamy clouds. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Get 50% Off Lightroom 3 - Discount Set To Run For All Of February
You can save 50% off the standard price of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 in the Adobe North America Store. No coupon code is necessary. The discount will be applied when products are added to the shopping cart. Offer starts February 1, 2012 and ends March 5. The following Euro stores are also offering the same 50% off special: UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 is an intuitive digital darkroom and efficient assistant designed for serious amateur and professional photographers. Easily manage, edit, and showcase all your images. Lightroom integrates tightly with Adobe Photoshop software and supports more than 275 camera raw file formats, as well as JPEG, TIFF, and PSD images. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
How To Change A Photo's Mood Using Photoshop's Apply Image
Here's a Photoshop tutorial from Photoshop Daily, by Simon Skellon. There are many ways to alter the contrast and mood of an image in Photoshop. Try this one using Apply Image. Apply Image can produce variations of contrast that other adjustments just aren’t able to offer. This particular method may not be the most commonly practised one, but shouldn’t be dismissed. Read more... (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Grains Of Sand Magnified 250 Times Reveal Beautiful Delicate Structures
Have a look at the amazing photos of magnified grains of sand at the Uk Daily Mail site. "Viewed at a magnification of over 250 times real life, tiny grains of sand are shown to be delicate, colourful structures as unique as snowflakes. When seen well beyond the limits of human eyesight, the miniature particles are exposed as fragments of crystals, spiral fragments of shells and crumbs of volcanic rock." Read the full article. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Photographing Light Trails — Tips and Tricks From Night and Low-Light Photography Photo Workshop Book
Here is an excerpt from Chapter 8 from Night and Low-Light Photography Photo Workshop, excerpted with permission from John Wiley and Sons, Inc. The book is available in stores and through online retailers nationwide. Here’s a link to a multi-retailer sales page. Author Alen Hess is a professional event and concert photographer whose subjects have included The Grateful Dead, Bruce Hornsby, John Legend, Robin Williams, and many more. The basics of photographing light trails are simple: Use a shutter speed long enough that the lights in question turn from points of light into trails as they move through the frame. There are three different types of captures in this section: the first is where the camera is stationary and the subject is moving, the second is where the camera moves along with the subject creating a background that seems to be made up of streaks of light, and the third is to use the zoom on a lens to create trails from a stationary light source. Read more... (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
6 Abstract Lines Photoshop Brushes From Bittbox
Another nice set of free Photoshop brushes from Bittbox: The source for these was a microscopic piece of pollen. Up close the strands looked like barbed wire. After photographic it, I brought the images into Illustrator and Live Traced each one, so the edges are very defined. Each brush is 2500×1800, hope you enjoy. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Topaz Releases Star Effects, A Lighting Enhancement And Star Creation Plugin - Plus Discount Code
Topaz Labs has released Topaz Star Effects, a Photoshop Plug-in that manipulates and enhances light sources to create radiant lighting and star effects. Using a leading-edge technology that automatically recognizes light sources, Topaz Star Effects provides a fast and effective way to creatively embellish points of light in an image. Topaz Star Effects retails for $29.99, and will be discounted to $19.99 until 2/15/12. Simply enter coupon code TopazStars. Topaz Star Effects is the most customizable and inclusive star filter out there right now. With adjustments like star type, glow, ring flare and color controls, the program allows for users to create effects from realistic sun flares and glowing water to more obvious, artistic additions," said Nichole Paschal, Senior Marketing Specialist for Topaz Labs. "Plus the ability to selectively add and remove these effects, in a single click, is easy to understand and an important aspect to Star Effects." "With an advanced detection algorithm powering Star Effects, we have developed a simple and intuitive way to recognize hundreds of light sources at once, along with the choice to selectively amplify sources. Star Effects has the most comprehensive tool set available, allowing for users to create both natural, accurate renditions or more dramatic, graphic effects," said Dr. He Yang, Senior Software Designer at Topaz Labs. The comprehensive and customizable tool set in Topaz Star Effects offers a simple and intuitive workflow that results in quick enhancements to your light sources. It is a plug-in that works with a variety of host programs including Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Aperture, iPhoto and Lightroom. Topaz Star Effects retails for $29.99, and will be discounted to $19.99 until 2/15/12. Simply enter coupon code TopazStars. You could spend hours in Photoshop selecting multiple light sources and fiddling around with multiple settings, layer styles and blending modes. Or you can enjoy a more simplistic and user-friendly process using Star Effects, which automatically detects light sources allows you to quickly select how many or how few of those light sources to enhance. Star Effects also includes a highly comprehensive toolset, offering the most flexibility and control for customizing your effects. Using the adjustment sliders, you can instantly change the appearance and characteristics of your selected light sources. Key user benefits include: Topaz Automatic light source detection - seeks out the light sources in your image. Added flexibility via the selective brush used to individually select or de-select light sources. Star type selection with options like traditional, starburst, cross star, hollywood star and more! Star Stack-a-bility via the Apply button which allows you to stack multiple effects. Added adjustment controls for color, temperature, secondary spikes, glow and ring flares - for a customizable workflow. And much more... (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Shooting Street Scenes, Tips and Tricks From Night and Low-Light Photography Photo Workshop Book
Here is an excerpt from Chapter 8 from Night and Low-Light Photography Photo Workshop, excerpted with permission from John Wiley and Sons, Inc. The book is available in stores and through online retailers nationwide. Here’s a link to a multi-retailer sales page. Author Alen Hess is a professional event and concert photographer whose subjects have included The Grateful Dead, Bruce Hornsby, John Legend, Robin Williams, and many more. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Sneak Peak At Photoshop CS6 And Camera Raw - Video Reveal
This video from Senior Product Manager Bryan O'Neil Hughes, reveals an early look at some of the things the Photoshop team is working on for Camera Raw and Photoshop CS6, including a much darker interface. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
How To Create Type In Photoshop That Inverts What's Behind
You've probably been there. You're working with a high-contrast photo or composition, with lots of lights and darks, and it’s your job to lay text over it. Readable text. So, do you choose dark text or light? Either one risks becoming unreadable when it hits an object behind it that doesn’t provide enough contrast. And please, whatever you do, don’t compromise with that medium gray text that’s completely unsatisfying no matter where it lands. This week’s free technique from Deke that shows you how to conveniently set up your type so that it automatically inverts everything behind it. By setting up your text this way, you no longer have to make the compromised choice to leave the text in some state of questionable readability, or the tedious choice to stop and manually reset text color as you move it around. By using a blend mode and a couple of well-placed adjustment layers to mathematically tell Photoshop what you want it to do when, you’ll create automatically reversing yet entirely editable text. And for members of the lynda.com Online Training Library, Deke has an exclusive movie this week, Creating auto-inverting line art, in which he shows you how to do the same inverse effect with line art (in this case a signature). The steps in this technique are similar to those discussed in Deke’s free tutorial, but require you to additionally separate and invert the lines that make up the image. You can get a free 7-day trial to the lynda.com Online Training Library. A credit card is required to ensure uninterrupted access to lynda.com, if you choose to remain a member after your free trial ends. There is no long-term commitment required, and you can cancel any time. The free trial allows access to over 60,000 video tutorials instantly. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
Assorted Free Textures For Photoshop From Bittbox
From Bittbox: Today's grab bag of textures contains a couple old book covers and three other various textures. Each one will add a different dimension to your designs. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
5 Free Fabric Photoshop Brushes
A nice set of 5 free Photoshop brushes from Bittbox: This collection of five subtle hi-res fabric brushes will add some natural surfacing to your work. Each brush is 2500×2500. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
5 Free Cracked, Peeling Wood Textures - Plus Photoshop Tutorial Digital Diorama "Living Room"
Shutterstock blog has a Photoshop tutorial that shows youhow to create a surreal "living" room with blue-sky walls, a turbulent sea floor, and an antique clock sun. It's a good way to also learn how to use textures. In step 3 you add textures to the walls to give them a grungy feel. And so I've included the latest from Bittbox as well: 5 free hi res wooden board textures. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
All About Perfect Layers 2 - The Perfect Add-on To Lightroom
Perfect Layers 2 is a fast, easy and affordable way to create layered files outside of Adobe Photoshop. Perfect Layers is an application that allows photographers to combine multiple images from Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Apple Aperture, or any application, into a single-layered file. As photographers do more of their work in Lightroom or Aperture, Perfect Layers has evolved to support these changing workflows. Perfect Layers 2 is available as standalone product for $69.95 and as part of the Perfect Photo Suite 6 for $299.95. When purchasing at the onOne website, use our discount code - PSSPPT06 - for an instant 10% discount on all products, including upgrades. Perfect Layers can be used to blend multiple exposures together or build composite images. New capabilities have been added to version 2, including a Retouch Brush to remove blemishes and dust spots, a file browser that quickly finds and provides access to the right files, and flexible preview options that show changes being made side by side with the original image. Perfect Layers was developed and designed along with industry thought leader Scott Kelby as an application that would deliver the power and benefits of layered images to users working primarily in Lightroom or Aperture. The simplicity of Perfect Layers and the tools provided allow photographers to be able to quickly do what they want to without having to wade through dozens of tools they will never use. To further streamline workflows, Perfect Layers can be used as a standalone application and has been integrated into the new Perfect Photo Suite 6. OnOne has been making excellent plugins for years and continues to lead the pack with their innovative and friendly user interfaces. Plugins are meant to reduce the work load, and Perfect Layers is going to be a huge time-saver for professional photographers who need the extra power of layers to edit quickly and efficiently, as they are often under severe deadlines. And Perfect Layers will also open up the door to more creative endeavors — including stunning visual effects and complex photo montages. Key benefits of Perfect Layers 2 include: Retouch Brush: Remove dust spots, blemishes and other distractions in your image quickly and easily with the new Retouch Brush. Quick touch-ups and edits to your image are made very simple with this new tool. File Browser: Quickly find the images you want with the visual File Browser, which provides a filmstrip or light table style view of a folder. Several browser tabs can be opened at once so that multiple elements for a project can be found and opened easily. Flexible Preview Options: See a real-time preview of the changes you are making to an image side by side with your original image before you apply the changes. There are five different ways to view the mask to make adjustments and judge quality. Masking Brush: Control how much of each layer is visible with the Masking Brush created originally for PhotoTools 2.6 and FocalPoint 2. Similar to using a layer mask, the Masking Brush can be used to reveal or hide selected areas of a layer. The layer masks created by the Masking Brush are non-destructive and can be re-edited with Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. If you use a Wacom pressure sensitive tablet, you can even control the brush size or opacity by how hard you press while painting the mask. Masking Bug: Create gradient masks for making vignettes and graduated filter effects with the Masking Bug from PhotoTools 2.6. As with the Masking Brush, the Masking Bug is nondestructive and can even be re-edited with Photoshop or Photoshop Elements later if desired. Blending Modes: Bring the power and creativity of blending modes to Lightroom and Aperture with Perfect Layers. Control brightness, contrast and color of your images and adjust opacity to control the strength of the effect as you blend layers to get amazing and highly stylized effects in your image. Color Fill Layer: Create new layers filled with a solid color. Perfect Layers includes presets that simulate common color correction and black and white conversion filters. The built-in masking tools can be used to selectively place and control the strength of these color fill effects. Additionally, the Color blend mode is especially useful with Color Fill Layers to give images a special effect. Perfect Layers Requirements Operating System — Mac OS X 10.5 or 10.6, Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7. Optional Host Application — Adobe Lightroom 2 or 3, Apple Aperture 2.1 or 3. Processor — 2 GHz or faster Intel Core 2 Duo or equivalent. Display — OpenGL 2.0 Capable video card with 256 MB of dedicated VRAM at 1280x800 and millions of colors or higher. Perfect Layers Online Video Tutorials You can fnd a collection of online video tutorials for Perfect Layers at the onOne site. Topics include: Getting Started, Supported Files, Perfect Layers and Lightroom, Perfect Layers and Aperture, Blending Duplicate Images, Exposure Blending, Swapping Heads, Changing Skies, Texture Blending, Blending to Control Color and Contrast, Using Color Fill Layers, Combining Multiple Lights, Focus Stacking, Creative Composites. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
How To Turn A Photo Into A Line Drawing In Photoshop - HD Video Tutorial
This week Deke shares one of his most asked-for techniques, how to turn an ordinary portrait into a line drawing. It seems that when people encounter wonderful photo-realistic line drawings out in the wild, they immediately equate said photo-realism with Photoshop. And, if nature didn’t endow you with the ability to draw, then applying some careful Photoshop effects to a well-chosen photo is indeed the way to go. In this week’s free movie, you’ll see how to take a photographed portrait, apply the Photocopy filter and then adjust and finesse your drawing with the Levels command, Gaussian Blur, a little hand-work (you’re calling it a “drawing” after all), and finally some advanced layer effects. The result is a technique that can work on any well-defined portrait. For example, check out how this unsuspecting photo booth poser in the upper image can become the proto-Nagel woman you see in the lower image below (while doing some fairly wonderful things to my chalkboard in the process). For members of lynda.com, Deke has an exclusive movie in the Online Training Library this week called Adding a crosshatch shading pattern that really sells the illustration effect. By the time you go through Deke’s meticulous steps, you’ll take this dramatic photo on the left and turn it into the deadly (but awesome) line drawing on the right: You can get a free 7-day trial to the lynda.com Online Training Library. A credit card is required to ensure uninterrupted access to lynda.com, if you choose to remain a member after your free trial ends. There is no long-term commitment required, and you can cancel any time. The free trial allows access to over 60,000 video tutorials instantly. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)
