photoshop

March 9, 2011July 23, 2017

FoxGuide: Get Photoshop like Guides inside your Firefox browser

I know it’s pretty uncomfortable going back to Photoshop repeatedly to use the ‘guide’ to see if you have alignments in place. And then thinks a developer who comes out with a Firefox add-on “FoxGuide”. But what to do if you need to use guides easily while looking at the preview of your design in Mozilla Firefox, FoxGuide comes to rescue.

FoxGuide displays horizontal and vertical lines on your web pages exactly like in Photoshop. You can move the lines and even remove them pretty easily just the way it is done in Photoshop. Hence FoxGuide let you organize different objects on your web page easily and give a better feel.

Features at a glance

Guides for a particular page are restored automatically even after you close the tab / browser.
Transparency of the ruler and guide colour are adjustable.
The 10000 pixels long rulers make sure you don’t fall short of it.

Link: FoxGuide

February 8, 2011July 23, 2017

How to Convert a Photo into Pencil Sketch [Photoshop Tutorial]

In this tutorial lets see how to use photoshop to convert a photo into a pencil sketch masterpiece. There are numerous ways to do it in Photoshop, but i will show you the easiest way to get the best result.

So lets start with good a picture.

Step1: Duplicate the image layer.(Shortcut key Ctrl+J)

Step2: Make sure the duplicate layer is selected and go to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate. You can refer image below.
(Shortcut key Ctrl+ Shift +U)

This will make the photo Black and White.

Step3: Again duplicate the desaturated layer and then go to Image > Adjustments > invert.

Step4: Now change its blend mode to color dodge from layer panel option.

Step5: Here comes the final step go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.

Adjust the settings as per your photo. I have given 2.7 pixels radius.

So here is the Final result. Check out pencil sketch below.

Hope you found this tutorial useful. Do drop in your view and ideas through your comments.

December 21, 2010July 23, 2017

[Photoshop trick] How To Discard Certain Part of an Image

As you can see the below image, I am going to make the left image look like the image in the right. It looks like a difficult one but not only the Graphic Designer Anyone who knows Photoshop a bit will be able to edit the image as shown below, in just 2-steps.

In below image I am going to discard certain part from the image without affecting its beauty. It’s a simple tutorial you can do it easily.

First take an image in Photoshop and copy the layer for backup.

Select the part which you want to drain out from the image. You can use quick selection tool or Lasso tool to make selection, here I used Lasso tool.

Go to Edit menu select Fill(Edit –> Fill), you will get the following window pop up make sure Content-Aware is selected click OK.

And its done, isn’t it a child’s play?

More Examples :

Try this out for yourself, and let me know if you like the tutorial please share your view through the comments.

December 14, 2010July 23, 2017

How To Look Younger Using Soften Skin Effect – Photoshop Tutorial

Photoshop Actions is a series of task that you can save for reuse, it will perform the saved actions on just click of a play button.

In this tutorial I will show you 2 things, first how to use Actions to make the task simpler and second is using action how one can achieve soften skin effect in Photoshop. The following Action uses Gaussian blur to soothe the skin.

First of all Download Photoshop Action file.
Open the mentioned path at your computer(C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS5\Presets\Actions).
Create a new folder in preset say smooth-skin.
Paste the above downloaded file into smooth-skin folder.
Restart Photoshop.
Go in Window menu click Action(Window –> Action).
As you can see in the below image click on the top-right aero of the action panel to load actions.
Set proper path for loading the action(C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS5\Presets\Actions\smooth-skin).

You can see the Action in the Action panel but do not apply it now.

Duplicate the layer for comparison.

Now the most important part, Select Selection tool and Click Add selection tool.

And select eyes and lips as shown in the below image to keep it unsmudge.

Select Layer –> Inverse (Cntrl + Shift + I) inverse selection so that Action is applied to the image except eyes and lips.

Select Action and then Play it.

After you applied the Action it will look like as shown in the image below.

Adjust radius as per your requirement, here I selected 0.9 px. You can increase the radius to make it smoother. And here is the final result.

Link : Download action file.

Do drop in your views through the comment.

December 7, 2010July 23, 2017

[Tutorial] How to create Glass Effect in Photoshop?

In this tutorial, we are going to learn how to apply blending styles on simple text, for converting it into a glass effect using Photoshop.

Create a new file of size 500 x 400 pixels, and select a background image similar to the image shown below, as it is more effective than solid or any other types of images.
Now create a text layer, and write your text (Press shortcut key T to create a new text layer).
You can select font size and font family of your choice, I have used Rockwell as a font family and set it to font-size 120px.

As you can see in the image below, there is an option for blending in the layer palette. Select it to apply styles to your text.

We will select 5 different styles to get the desired effect. Refer to the parameters exactly as shown in the 5 images below. We start with the Drop Shadow.

Now set the Inner Glow style as shown in the image below.

Set the parameters for Bevel and Emboss.

Set Satin as shown in the image.

Set Stroke of size 1, and set the color #959595.

After applying the above blending styles, it should look something like this. Now you are just a step away.

On reducing the fill value to ‘0’ from your layer palate you are done with the glass effect!

As we have only applied blending styles to the text, we can change the text as desired.

Final Image

Do drop in your comments.

October 3, 2010July 23, 2017

How to apply Spotlight Effect on Image with Photoshop?

We have many options for various effects on an image with Photoshop. In this post I am going to tell you about how to apply a spotlight effect on an image.

Why use spotlight effect?

We can use spotlight effect for highlighting a part of the image. It is usually to show or draw attention to a particular part of the image. Sometimes spotlight effect can be used to complete give the image a different context. A good example is are the images below.

For this tutorial I have taken the example of the image below. This image is a little dark and I like to use darker images while using spotlight effect. This is because with spotlight a darker image seems to work better overall.

We are going to highlighted the face the girl in the image.

Select the image layer and go to Filter>Render>Lighting Effects.

After Lighting Effects box is displayed on your screen, keep the all value as per the image below. You can free to change these value as per the nature of the image.

Now you can see the face of the girl in the image is highlighted in comparison to the original image.

We can also change the spotlight color. This is used to create a different context to the image.

Go to Filter>Render>Lighting Effects and change the color. Just double-click on the color box and you can see the selected color box on your screen.

You are free to use any color for your Spotlight Effect. Here I use light Orange and Yellow color as you can see in the image below.

Below is how the image was after changing the spotlight color.

This does make the image a lot different from where we started. There are many creative ways to use spotlight effect with Photoshop. Do drop in your comments and views.

September 28, 2010July 23, 2017

How to create the Grunge Border Effect to Solid Color Box with Photoshop

In this post we are going to see how to create a Grunge Border Effect to Solid Color Box with using filter. We can see so many of Border Styles in Photoshop. I thought I will write on how to create Grunge Border Effect in a few simple steps.

First create a new file in Photoshop. Give background color like below image.

Then draw the box on the new layer. Go to Toolbar and select the Rectangle Tool (U)

This way we have finished creating a box. Here I given it a Lemon Yellow color. (see image below)

After that give it stroke of a dark shade of yellow. Just go to Layer Pallet >Layer Style > Stroke.

As you click on stroke you can see Layer Style pallet on your screen. Now keep your Stroke setting as shown in image below. Keep stroke size-1px, Inside.

You can see the solid color border to the box.

Now let’s see how to convert it into Grunge Border Effect.

Just go to Filter >> Stylize >> Diffuse. Click OK.
Now you can see the Diffuse box displayed on your screen. Just select the Normal option and click Ok.

Here we get the Grunge Border Effect Box. We create this effect by using the Diffuse Filter.

Now for some more finishing touches.

I applied Outer Glow to the image. Go to Layer Style and select the Outer glow option and keep your setting similar to the image below.

Now we have the Grunge Border Effect to a Solid Color Box with Photoshop.

In this way you can give a Grunge Border effect to the Solid Box within a couple of minutes. Do you have any alternative steps or methods with Photoshop? Do drop in your comments.

September 25, 2010July 23, 2017

How to create Text Effect using any background with Photoshop

We see many options and examples of Text Effect in Photoshop. In this tutorial I will share that how to create text effect by using any background.

Here I have this image of grass and I am going to create text effect on it as you can see in the image below.

First settle down on an image. I selected the image below.

Go to tool bar and select the Type Tool. You can use shortcut also just Press T key on your keyboard.

Then type in the text which you want. Make sure to have the text big sized and bold. If you take smaller fonts, the text effect may not show up properly.

We have one image and two layers. One is the background or the grass layer. The other one is the text layer.

Creating Grass Effect to the text.

First select the background image layer and duplicate the layer.
For duplicating the layer just select the background layer and right-click on the layer in layer palate.
You can see this palate and click on duplicate layer. (You can also use shortcut for this one just press Ctrl+J.)

A box will pop to prompt you to duplicate the background layer as a copy. Click on OK.

Here we have two layers of background image. Now what we will do is select the text layer and then make an selection on the layer itself.

For selection just go into layer palate and hold Ctrl key and click on text layer’s white area as shown in image below.

After making selection on text layer go to Select >>Inverse and then click on it.
Now select the background copy layer which was below the text layer.
Now when we click Inverse and select background copy layer.

Press Delete and deselect the layer. Go to Select >> Deselect the layer selection.

We have three layers now and we need to hide the text and main background layers.
For hiding the layer go to layer palate and just click on eye icon of the layer.
We can see the background grass image cut out in the shape of the text. ( See the image below)

Now we give more style to the text layer. Goto the layer palate and click style icon at the bottom of the palate. (See the below image)

Click on Bevel and Emboss option and take values like I have in the image below.

Then go to the layer style again and select Drop Shadow.

Now select Outer Glow take values like in image below.

You are free to create different styles and values as you wish according to the image.

Go to the layer pallet and on the main background layer which was hidden all this while. Here we have our image.

Now we see our final result of Grass Text Effect. Did you like this tutorial? Do drop in your comments and views.

September 23, 2010July 23, 2017

How to Cut Object Image from the Picture with Photoshop

In this post we see how to cut an object image from the any picture image. There are many different ways to cutout an image in Photoshop.

Some tools are Lasso Tool or Magic Wand Tool. Here in this post I will show how to use the Pen Tool for cutting out the image. We can cut the image very quickly and cleanly by using the Pen Tool as compared to other cutting tools in Photoshop. This method is very useful to create rounded curves.

Here I have this Image for our tutorial. Now we are going to cut out this person’s image from the full image.

First of all go to Tool bar and select the Pen Tool.
Right click on it and you can see this tool palate.

When you select Pen Tool you can see Pen Tool properties at the top.
Select the Paths option for getting paths on the image. (see image below)

Select around the Object Image using the Pen Tool as shown in the image below.

Selection should go around image object we want to cut out as shown in the image below.

When we complete image selection just press Ctrl+Enter to join the two points of the selection.
Now we have selected the background image here to be cut out.

Now its time to remove background image. Just click on Select >> Modify >> Feather as shown below.

Here I have taken Feather Radius value – 1 pixel. This is basically to make the image soft.

After selecting feather Radius Value, delete the selected image part.

Here is the final image.

This way in a quick few steps I have managed to cut out a part of an image or cut out the background form an image. Do you have any more suggestions or tips? Do share them with your comments.

September 16, 2010July 23, 2017

Quick Tip: How to Create a Speed Effect in Photoshop

In this tutorial we will see how to create the Speed Effect with using Motion Blur Filter. The image is two parts where the motorcycle has been overlapped on the background.

#1. First take the Images

For this tutorial we need image of car or bike and another one should be on any road or any natural settings.

I decided to go with the image below. 😉

#2.Cut out the Bike Image

Cut out the bike image. You can cut it with the Pen tool.

Now the image looks like the one below.

#3.Drag the Bike Image

Now open the second image. Then drag the Bike Image on Road image. This way we have two images in the file.

#4.Here we go for our Speed Effect

Now lets go for our Speed Effect. Select the Layer of Road picture image and go to Filter> Blur> Motion Blur.

Now you can see this palate. Keep your Angle Value -34, Distance 10px for this one and click OK.

You are free to change Angle Value and also Distance value as per your picture’s specifications. At the end of it we get a effect like in the image below.

Then select the Bike image layer and go to Filter> Blur> Motion Blur keep Angle value -34, Distance 4px, after that make the selection around the wheels of Bike and go to Filter> Blur> Radial Blur keep your Amount value – 8, Blur Method – Spin, Quality – Good. Click OK. 🙂