Top Tip Tuesday

Capturing Details with Refine Mask

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Last week on TipSquirrel, I introduced the Masks Panel, and today we’re going to take a closer look at an old feature that is new again with CS5. A few versions ago, Adobe introduce the Refine Edge command, and in Photoshop CS5, the Refine Edge gains some incredible new capabilities, and also becomes integrated...

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Using the Photoshop Masks Panel

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In the past several tips I’ve explored ever more deeply into the art of creating selections. Of course, one of the primary uses of selections is to create a mask, in order to non-destructively hide part of our layers to create composite images. Today, we’ll look at a feature added in Photoshop CS4, and...

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Selecting with Color Range

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One of the most powerful and useful tools for creating a selection in Photoshop is also the most often ignored and the least understood. In fact, it generally isn’t even regarded as a tool at all, because it doesn’t appear in the tools panel. And when you use it, instead of a tool icon,...

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When Selections Define Your Image

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Over the past few weeks, I’ve discussed various basics of creating and selecting areas of your image, and today, we’ll have a bit of fun with it – to give you an idea of the power that is at your fingertips. Beware – for your image is not what it seems to be! Today,...

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Photoshop Selection Power Tips

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Over the past two weeks, we’ve looked at Selection Basics and Selection Techniques using Photoshop CS5, and we’ve developed a fundamental framework of understanding about selections, masks and channels that will allow us to work quicker and more effectively with our favorite imaging program. To recap the key points from the previous two sessions,...

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Photoshop Selection Techniques

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In last week’s tip, I presented some Selection Basics in Photoshop that were intended to get you thinking about selections in new ways and with a better understanding of what was happening. In particular, we learned that: A selection is a channel A mask is a channel Whenever we save a selection or create...

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Selection Basics in Photoshop

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Way back in my early days of learning Photoshop, selections were a mystery to me. Sometimes they made perfect sense, and other times they were nothing but a source of frustration. This cloudy understanding of selection basics came to a head as I was working through a tutorial that suggested that I “load the...

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Half-Sketch Half-Photo Morph with Photoshop

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Today’s tip comes to you courtesy of my wife, Carol, who liked the image you see below well enough to hang it on a wall in our house. That’s saying a lot to me, since I have over 30,000 images in my library to choose from! We’re going to take a photo, and create...

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Working with type on a path

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Back in the days before Photoshop CS, type on a path was the domain of Adobe Illustrator. With CS, and every version since, Adobe added type on a path to the arsenal of tools available to Photoshop users. However, this nifty capability is under-used and is often confusing at first – but with a...

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Day into Night with Photoshop

Day into Night with Photoshop

  Here’s a fun effect and a way to change perspective on reality… using Photoshop adjustments to turn day into night. The difference is mostly a matter of temperature and illumination, after all, and with a picture captured in the daylight you have all the detail you could ever want in a night picture....

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Zoomify your Panoramas in Photoshop

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Over the past few version updates, Adobe has given us a Photoshop capable of creating some magnificent large images using the Merge to Panorama feature. Creating these images can give you quite a sense of accomplishment, but then how do you include these images in your portfolio? If you’ve creates a panorama that is...

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Jack-O-Lantern in 3D (Part 2)

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Last week on TipSquirrel, I started a project to create a 3D scene of a Jack-O-Lantern, together with some spooky text. This week, as promised, we will finish this project by adding some light effects, building on my tip from two weeks ago on Lighting a 3D Model in Photoshop CS5. Here’s the scene...

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Jack-O-Lantern in 3D (Part 1)

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Almost exactly one year ago, I posted my first tutorial on TipSquirrel – carving a Jack-O-Lantern using layer styles. And, since it is that time of the year once again, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit that theme – this time, using Photoshop CS5’s new 3D features, building on the...

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Lighting a 3D Model in Photoshop CS5

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In the past few weeks on TipSquirrel, I’ve explored some of the new ways to create 3D models with Photoshop CS5, and touched on adding materials to your 3D objects to give them a more photo realistic appearance. Today, we begin exploring the final piece of the 3D puzzle, the technique that lends a...

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Working with 3D Materials in Photoshop CS5

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Over the past couple of weeks, my tips have focused on new and interesting ways to create 3D objects with Photoshop CS5. However, the objects we’ve created have all been a bit cartoonish, with solid colors and no texture. Today, we’ll take a look at some ways of working with materials, which will give...

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