Add Some Drama with Photoshop
Today’s tip is a simple but powerful trick to create a more powerful mood within your photos, using Photoshop with just some adjustment layer and masking techniques. I first saw Eddie Tapp use a [More]
Articles by Michael Hoffman
About Michael Hoffman
Quick Sketch-up in Photoshop
This week brings us Photoshop World, three days of 100+ Photoshop, photography and lighting classes – taught by 35 of the best instructors on the planet. It is quite an experience, and if you ever [More]
Lightroom Color Labels
Lightroom provides a variety of different ways to help organize your catalog and your workflow, and color labels rank up there as some of the most useful features. Color labels have more capabilities [More]
Lens Corrections with Camera Raw & Lightroom
When Adobe released Lightroom 3, and Camera Raw 6 (as part of Photoshop CS5), the new lens correction feature was a great new feature that almost got lost in the shuffle. The new lens correction features can work automatically, recognizing many popular lenses and cameras (new lens profiles are being added constantly). But, to really kick this feature into gear, switch to manual mode, and behold the power of geometric anti-distortion! [More]
Dodge and Burn for Photoshop Drama
With the popularity of Photoshop plug-ins from companies like Topaz, On One and Nik, it’s easy to forget that much of the capability to create dramatic images already exists within Photoshop. It’s a little more work, but it’s fun, rewarding, and comes with no additional price tag! [More]
Photoshop PDFs – Creative, Sweet!
As part of the Creative Suite, Photoshop offers a very nice integration with other CS products, including one that you may have overlooked – Adobe Acrobat. Photoshop can create native Acrobat PDF [More]
Shadows/Highlights : A Hidden Photoshop Smart Filter
Here on TipSquirrel we’ve looked at Smart Objects and Smart Filters, but there are two commands “squirreled” away, that are available as Smart Filters – but aren’t at all obvious (hint: [More]
Text Chiselled in Stone with Photoshop
This week’s tip is a two-for-one, bringing you some classic techniques. We’ll create a nice stone texture, then carve some text in it using layer styles, as well as a few additional tricks. [More]
How to Make Photoshop Clipping Masks
In today’s video tip, learn how to create and use a clipping mask within Photoshop. Clipping masks can be used like a digital cookie cutter, to provide a quick and easy way to use the shape and [More]
Reflections in 3D, part 2
Today, we’ll finish up the image we started last week. We’ll start with the basic 3D text and postcard elements we created, add a 3D model of a wine glass, and finish off with some standard [More]
Reflections in 3D
Today we start a multi-part tutorial in creating complex 3D images in Photoshop 3D Extended. The image we’ll create was inspired by a magazine advertisement I spotted while “relaxing” on a recent airline journey. The interweaving reflections caught my eye, and the idea for a tutorial was born. [More]
HDR Finishing–Tips and Techniques
As we’ve seen in the past few tips on HDR, the process of combining and tone mapping the bracketed images is only a small part of the overall process. In today’s video tip, we will see some [More]
HDR Finishing : We’re Not Done Yet
Today, we wrap up the HDR Image that we started last week. As a recap, in Beyond Ordinary HDR, we introduced the idea that HDR isn’t an end in itself, just another tool that ought to be [More]
HDR Techniques : Prepare Now, Avoid Headaches Later
As we discussed in last week’s introduction to taking your HDR Beyond the Ordinary, using the HDR and Tone Mapping software is only one step in what should be a much bigger workflow. In today’s video tip, we look at ways of preparing your images for the HDR process – there are a lot of image artifacts and problems that can be removed from the equation before we even open up Photomatix, or HDR Efex Pro, or Photoshop’s Merge To HDR Pro. [More]
Beyond Ordinary HDR
HDR has been a hot topic over the past few years, although not everyone likes it. You’ve seen the images – the typical HDR image posted to the web is an over-processed, grainy, surreal image that [More]