Adobe Photoshop CS

Adobe Photoshop CS Tips and Tricks from the Experts i ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS Tips and Tricks from the Experts Contents F-stop corrections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 Creating Metallic Type Smoke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 Creating the Magical Mirror Effect Creative Photo Cropping Lightblast! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 Total Contrast Control Using Two Images Digital Light Painting Woodcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30 Photo Filters to the Rescue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34 Gif Animation: Swipe Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37 Working with Lens Blur Looking Through a Glass Rain Drops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49 On the following pages, Photoshop experts in photography, graphic design, video, and Web design share some of their favorite tips. To see more Adobe® Photoshop® and Adobe ImageReady® tips visit the Photoshop Expert Center: http://studio.adobe.com/expertcenter/photoshop. Adobe, the Adobe logo, Photoshop and ImageReady are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. Windows is either a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Macintosh is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the United States and other countries. Flash is a trademark of Macromedia, Inc. ©2003 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. 1 ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS F-stop corrections Bruce Fraser Adapted from Real World Photoshop, by David Blatner and Bruce Fraser. Bruce Fraser is coauthor of the award-winning Real World Photoshop series, and of Real World Color Management, all from Peachpit Press. Here is a simple way to adjust exposure in the f-stop increments that is second nature to photographers. The key to this technique is that the Screen and Multiply layer blending modes, at an opacity of 38%, produce an effect very similar to lightening or darkening by one full f-stop. (For half-stop adjustments, use 19% opacity, for one-third stop use 13%, and so on.) In this example, we’ll darken the image by one stop. 1. Create an f-stop correction layer. If you’re working on a flat file, duplicate the Background layer by choosing Duplicate Layer from the Layer menu. If you’re working on a layered file, create a new layer by choosing New > Layer from the Layer menu, then press Command-Option-Shift-E (Mac) or Control-Alt-Shift-E (Windows) to merge the contents of all visible layers into the new layer while leaving the underlying ones intact. 2. Apply a global f-stop correction. Select the newly-created layer in the Layers palette, then set the blending mode to Multiply and the opacity to 38%. This darkens the image globally by one stop. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 2 F-stop corrections 3. Add a Layer Mask. The global correction makes some of the vegetation along the waterline too dark. To back off the correction locally, you first need to add a Layer Mask by choosing Add Layer Mask from the Layer menu. In this case we used the Reveal All option, but choose the option that requires the least amount of painting—if you want to correct a small area, it’s more efficient to choose Hide All, and paint the correction in, rather than choosing Reveal All, then painting the correction out. Note that when you add the layer mask, it automatically becomes targeted in the channels palette, and the background and foreground colors are automatically set to Black and White, ready for editing the layer mask. 4. Constrain the correction. With the foreground color set to Black, use the Brush tool set to a soft-edged brush to paint out the correction in the areas where you don’t want it applied. In this case, we painted with an opacity of 33% to reduce the correction along the waterline to 1/3 stop. 5. Experiment. This technique lends itself to numerous variations. Once you’ve constrained the correction to the desired area of the image, you can vary its strength by changing the layer’s opacity—for example, if you decide that you need a two-stop correction, increase the opacity from 38% to 76%. You can also experiment with different techniques for constraining the correction. If the area to be corrected or the area to be protected is easily selectable, you can create the selection before adding the Layer Mask, then use the Reveal Selection or Hide Selection options, respectively. If you want to constrain the correction to a specific tonal range, you can use the Blend If options in the Layer Styles dialog box to limit the correction to the desired tonal range. For small local corrections, you can use the History Brush, with the source set to the current image state, and the Brush Mode set to Screen or Multiply—this method is particularly useful for making delicate corrections with the History Brush set to very low opacities in the 3% to 10% range. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 3 Creating Metallic Type Creating Metallic Type Bert Monroy Adapted from Bert’s monthly segment on the TechTV show Screen Savers. Bert Monroy is considered a pioneer of digital art. He is the co-author of the first book ever written on Photoshop. Bert is an accomplished artist, teacher, lecturer and author of many books. The effect in this exercise is as widely used as the drop shadow. Metallic type can be found in car ads, CD covers, and movie logos. A glance through any magazine will produce a myriad of examples. There will be many intermediate steps to this exercise. Keep in mind that the end result is not really what is important here but rather the steps. These steps with a minor alteration—as the use of a different color—will provide the solution to many other situations. 1. Create a new file. Create a Photoshop file large enough to contain the full logo you are about to create. 2. Add a gradient. Add a linear gradient from top to bottom with the Gradient Tool, using any colors you wish. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 4 Creating Metallic Type 3. Add type. With the Horizontal Type Tool, enter the name you want to use for your logo. 4. Warp text. In the Type Options bar, click on the Create Warped Text icon. Here you can choose whichever effect and amounts you want. I chose the Rise effect with a small percentage for the Bend. Click OK. 5. Create a path. Create a path from the type by going to Layer > Type > Create Work Path. The new path can be found under the Path palette. The original text layer can now be discarded or turned off. Using the Direct Selection tool, the path can be modified to any shape you wish. Additional points can be added to create distortions or mutated shapes as the extended portion of the “C”. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 5 Creating Metallic Type 6. Fill path. Once you have the path completed, create a new layer and fill the path with a color. This can be done in many ways. I prefer to simply click on the Fill Path button at the bottom of the Path palette. Which color you use is irrelevant because you will be overriding it later. 7. Add drop shadow. Double click (Mac) or Alt-Double click (Win) on the layer in the Layers palette with your logo to bring up the Layer Style dialog box. Steps 7–10 will be done in this dialog box. In the Layer Style dialog box, choose Drop Shadow. Adjust it however you wish. 8. Add bevel and emboss. Click on Bevel and Emboss. Choose Chisel Hard for the Technique and pump up the Depth. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 6 Creating Metallic Type 9. Add gradient overlay. Select Gradient Overlay. Click on the gradient to bring up the Gradient Editor. Choose the gradient type that looks like the reflections used in metallic type. When you choose a particular gradient it appears in the Editor box. You can now adjust the gradient in any way you want. Clicking the paint wells below the gradient allows you to move their position or change their color in the settings area. Clicking below the gradient where there is no well will automatically insert a new well. The wells along the top of the gradient control opacity. 10. Adjust the angle. Once you have the gradient you want, click OK to exit the Editor. Back in the Layer Style dialog, adjust the Angle so the gradient intersects the logo at the right angle to simulate the reflections in the metal. 11. Add Stroke. Finally, choose Stroke to add an edge to the logo. Click OK to exit the Layer Styles dialog. You are now done. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 7 Smoke Smoke John Paul Caponigro Adapted from Adobe Photoshop Master Class (Adobe Press) by John Paul Caponigro. John Paul Caponigro is an internationally recognized fine artist. He exhibits, lectures, and teaches workshops extensively. His clients include Adobe, Canon, Epson, Apple, Imacon, GretagMacBeth, Sony, and Kodak. For more information see www.johnpaulcaponigro.com. It’s used in sacred ceremonies. It’s used to cleanse. It’s linked to the spirit world. It makes breath visible. It’s a sign of danger. Fire precedes it. It’s pollution. It stops breath. Smoke is a powerful symbol. Compositionally, smoke is extraordinarily flexible. It can be thick or thin, heavy or diffuse, contained or scattered, simple or complex. You can draw a line in any direction, linking two objects or creating a new focus of attention. You can literally draw the eye to any point in an image along any path. The complexity and variety found in smoke effects gives you an extraordinary degree of artistic license without compromising realism. That said, if you plan to incorporate the effect into your work, it pays to closely study the appearance smoke in the real world. There’s a logic to the way smoke unfurls. It’s tighter and more energetic closer to the source, more diffuse and calmer when it’s further away. It billows, curls, and twists in undulating arcs, rarely making a sharp turn. While it can drift quickly or slowly, it rarely descends; it usually ascends. It’s amazing to me that something so complex can be so easily rendered by hand, using Photoshop. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 8 Smoke 1. Draw and distort a line. Starting with a Background layer filled with black, use the Paintbrush to paint a white line on a new layer in a Layer Set entitled Smoke. Then, distort the line. Use the Smudge Tool to pull through, push out of, wiggle, or twirl portions of the white line until a desired effect is achieved. The more you distort the line the more blurred it becomes. Use the History Brush to selectively undo distorted areas as desired. 2. Refine the effect. Use Liquify (Filter > Liquify) to create further distortions. Unlike the Smudge Tool, Liquify will not introduce blurring with distortion. Use Liquify’s Reconstruct Tool to undo distortions selectively. Unlike using the History Brush, the Reconstruct Tool allows you to pick a transitional state between undistorted and fully distorted. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 9 Smoke 3. Build up a more complex effect. Repeat as many times as desired keeping separate elements on separate layers. 4. Reposition the elements. Use the Move Tool to reposition select elements. Use Free Transform (Edit > Free Transform) to scale or distort select elements. 5. Create a halo. Turn off the Background Layer. Create a new layer and place it at the bottom of the Smoke Layer Set. Hold the Alt and Ctrl keys (Windows) or Option and Command keys (Mac OS) and select Merge Visible. This copies all the visible information from multiple layers onto the one layer you have targeted, without flattening your image. Use the filter Gaussian Blur to blur this layer. Lower its opacity as desired. Repeat if necessary. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 10 Smoke 6. Optionally, add noise. At the top of the Smoke Layer Set, create a new layer filled with 50% gray, set to Overlay mode, and filter it with either Noise or Grain. Reduce Opacity and Saturation as desired. 7. Import the effect into a new destination. Drag and drop the Smoke Layer Set into a new destination. Modify position and opacity as desired. Further distortion may be desired. Elements within a single Layer Set can be shuffled and recombined to create multiple effects that have varied appearances. 8. Conclusion. For added realism you may combine these effects along with photographs of smoke. Any file of smoke photographed on a black background can quickly generate yet one more element (albeit an element with a great deal of complexity) for your final effect. Starting with the photograph, load any channel of the photograph as a selection (click the selection icon in the Channels palette), using any selection tool drag and drop the resulting selection into a desired destination, create a new layer, Add a Layer Mask, and fill the layer with white. Scale, distort, reduce opacity of this layer mask—in short, modify as desired. Experimentation is not only required here, it’s highly enjoyable. You will quickly find yourself enchanted by smoke. While captivated by that enchantment, you may find that new source of power and poetry will enter your images. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 11 Creating the Magical Mirror Effect Creating the Magical Mirror Effect Rick Sammon Adapted from one of the 107 lessons in Rick Sammon’s Complete Guide to Digital Photography, Rick’s 22nd book. Rick Sammon is the host of the Digital Photography Workshop on the DIY network and is a guest host of the Canon Photo Safari on the Outdoor Life Network. Rick also writes the weekly photo column for the Associated Press and teaches digital photography workshops around the world. See www.ricksammon.com. “It’s all done with mirrors” is a popular saying among professional magicians. Well, these days, digital photography artists are using mirrors, of sorts, to create magical effects on their computer monitors. Basically, a mirror image is one in which one side of a frame is perfectly mirrored (reflected) on the opposite side of the frame—side to side or top to bottom. In Photoshop, we use Canvas Size, Copy and Paste to create the effect. It’s that easy! This mirror image of a sunrise on a mountaintop in China (where there is no lake) is one of many mirror images I have had fun creating. Okay! Let’s take a look at how easy it is to create the magical mirror effect in Photoshop. 1. Start with a vision. The first step is to start with a picture, or perhaps more accurately, a vision of your final mirror image. I started with a picture of a sunrise I took on a mountaintop in China. (I actually used a copy of the image because I never work on my original files. A good idea!) 2. Open the Canvas Size dialog box. In Photoshop, we can increase the Canvas size (actual working area) of an image by going to Image > Canvas Size. In this screen shot, we see the actual size of my original image. When we first open Canvas Size, the center box in the tick-tac-toe grid is shaded. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 12 Creating the Magical Mirror Effect 3. Increase Canvas Size. The next step is to increase the Canvas Size (again, the actual working area). We increase the Canvas Size by moving the shaded box into any of the other boxes—and then typing in a new height and/or width dimensions. Because I wanted to increase the height of my Canvas Size on the bottom side of my picture, I moved the shaded area to the top middle box. Then I typed in the new Canvas size—which, for ease of use, was a bit more than double the height of my original photograph. After I approximately doubled the height of my image, my new working area (new Image Size) looked like this. 4. Create a flipped image of your original. Creating a flipped image of your original is easy. Start by using the Marquee Tool to select the original image area, the sunrise in this case. Then go to Edit > Copy. Next go to File > New. When the new document is created, it will be exactly the same size of your copied image. Now go to Edit > Paste. Your image will be pasted into the new document—on a new layer. To flip the image (vertically in this case), go to Edit > Transform > Flip Vertically. Now the image will be flipped. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 13 Creating the Magical Mirror Effect 5. Create the Magical Mirror Effect. To create the Magical Mirror Effect, use the Move tool and drag your flipped image into the blank area of your original image. Now carefully line up both images so they look perfectly mirrored. Next flatten your image by going to Layers > Flatten. 6. Conclusion. An optional and fun thing to do with some vertical mirror images (you can create horizontal mirror images, too) is to create the effect that your original image is reflected in water. Here is how it’s done. Select the mirrored part of your image (lower half) using the Marquee tool. Now go to Filters > Distort > Ocean Ripple. Play around with the Ripple Size and Ripple Magnitude until you are happy with the effect. Click on OK. Now go to Select > Deselect to deselect the area on which you have applied the Ocean Ripple filter. Finally, use the Crop tool to trim your picture to your liking. Most pros agree that Photoshop has changed the way that we not only make pictures—but the way we see potential images. Now that you know about the magical mirror effect, you may see way-cool potential mirror images in your travels. Good luck! Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 14 Creative Photo Cropping Creative Photo Cropping Ben Willmore Adapted from Adobe Photoshop 7 Studio Techniques by Ben Willmore, and from www.digitalmastery.com. Ben Willmore has been involved in digital imaging since its inception. He brings this knowledge to the public through seminars, conferences, books, magazine articles, tips, videos, and CD training products. In this technique, I’d like to show you how I use scanned images or paint with artistic brushes to creatively crop photographs. Warning: This technique is addictive. After using this technique a few times, you might get bored with rectangular photographs. 1. Scan a high contrast image. You can use any image that contains primarily black and white (and not many shades in between). One way of making such an image is to spill ink onto watercolor paper and then scan it. But for my example, I used a large brush, dipped it in black ink and then painted on watercolor paper to create the image. Once the ink was completely dry, I scanned it as a grayscale image. As an alternative, you can paint with one of the creative brushes that appears at the bottom of the brushes palette in a grayscale document instead of scanning an image (although I think it turns out much better with scanned images). Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 15 Creative Photo Cropping 2. Add a layer mask. Now we need to prepare the image we’d like to crop. So, open any photograph you’d like to use, double-click on the Background Layer to change its name and then choose Layer > Add Layer Mask > Reveal All. The layer should now have two preview thumbnails in the Layers palette. The one on the right is the Layer Mask you just created. 3. Paste the image into mask. Now let’s get our scanned image into that Layer Mask. Open the scanned or painted image, choose Select > All and then Edit > Copy. Switch to the image you’d like to crop, Option-click (Mac), or Alt-click (Windows) the Layer Mask preview image in the Layers palette to make it fill the main screen and then choose Edit > Paste. If the pasted image is overly large or small compared to the document you pasted it into, then you’ll want to choose Edit > Free Transform and pull on the corners to scale the image. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 16 Creative Photo Cropping 4. Invert the mask. In a Layer Mask, black causes areas of the layer to become hidden and white causes areas to show up, which means that what we have now would hide the majority of our photo. So, choose Image > Adjustments > Invert to make the image a negative, which should cause the layer to only be hidden on the edges. 5. Adjust the mask. Next, lets make sure the primary areas of this image are pure black and pure white, otherwise you’ll be able to see through the image in the middle (grays=semi-transparent). To do that, choose Image > Adjustments > Levels and pull in the upper left and upper right sliders until the middle of the scan is solid white and the edge of the image is solid black. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 17 Creative Photo Cropping 6. View the result. Now to see how all this has affected your image, Option-click (Mac), or Alt-click (Windows) on the Layer Mask preview image in the Layers palette to hide the mask and show your image. It should be cropped so that it only shows up within the shape of the ink that was in our scan. 7. Create texture. I think we could make it look even more interesting by adding texture to the photograph. Since the last thing we copied was the scan of that paint, you should be able to just choose Edit > Paste to get a new layer that contains the original scan. If you ended up scaling the image the first time you pasted it in, then you can choose Edit > Transform > Again to scale this version the same amount. After doing that, choose Filter > Stylize > Emboss, use the default settings, and click ok. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 18 Creative Photo Cropping 8. Apply texture. Now to apply the texture that the Emboss filter pulled out of the image, change the blending mode menu at the top of the Layers palette from Normal to Hard Light and then choose Layer > Create Clipping Mask. If that doesn’t add enough texture, then try choosing Filter > Texture > Texturizer to the layer you embossed. 9. Spice it up a bit. If you’re still hungry for more effects, then click on the layer that contains the photo (not the texture) and experiment with the choices found in the Layer > Styles menu (I like Drop Shadow and Bevel and Emboss). All it takes is about an hour of free time and a quick visit to the art supply store to create literally dozens of creative crop shapes. You don’t have to be an artist, heck, just spill paint on the paper—it will look more interesting than a rectangular crop job. I can barely draw a stick man and look what I came up with. And since the Photoshop creative brushes can be used as a substitute for all those art supplies, your possibilities are truly endless. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 19 Lightblast! Lightblast! Richard Harrington Excerpted from “Photoshop for Nonlinear Editors”, ISBN 1-57820-209-4, Copyright © 2003, CMP Media LLC. All rights reserved. Richard Harrington is an experienced Editor and Motion Graphic artist and the owner of RHED Pixel (www.RHEDPixel.com) a visual communications company. Harrington has several industry certifications including: Apple Certified Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor, and holds two Adobe Certified Expert certificates. Looking for a way to give some extra “life” to a logo or type treatment? The two most common techniques to help a logo standout are a glowing edge or a drop shadow. This is based on the principle of type on pattern, which says that a contrasting edge makes it far easier to see something when it is positioned over a busy or moving background. But why be ordinary? By backlighting an image, we can dramatically offset it from its background. This technique works with almost any logo or type treatment. 1. Position the logo. Position the logo where you want it on screen. Be sure to use a safe title area document if you are working in video. Use alignment tools to center the logo if needed. Note: You can open a new document with title safe and action safe guides showing. Choose File > New, and then choose a preset video document that matches the standard used by your video editing system. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 20 Lightblast! 2. Duplicate the logo layer. Make a copy of the logo by duplicating the layer: choose Layer > Duplicate Layer. Name the duplicate layer Light 1. Place the copy above the original logo. 3. Blast it! Apply the Radial Blur on the duplicate layer (Filter > Blur > Radial Blur). Set the amount to 100, the Blur Method to Zoom, and the Quality to Good. Click OK. 4. Fill it. Load the default colors by pressing D. Load the layer named Light 1 by Cmd + clicking (Mac OS) or Ctrl + clicking (Windows) its thumbnail in the layers palette. Fill the selection by pressing Option + Delete (Mac OS) or Alt + Delete (Windows). Deselect the layer by choosing Select > Deselect. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 21 Lightblast! 5. Extend it. Repeat the blur/load/fill cycle until your rays are the desired length. You can run the last filter again choosing Filter > Radial Blur (the top menu item), this applies the last filter with its last previously used values. In the example (which is for a video) I repeated the cycle three times to achieve my look. Depending on the resolution of your composition you may need to run the combination more or less times. 6. Color it. On the blurred layer named Light 1, apply the Color Overlay layer style by choosing Layer > Layer Style > Color Overlay. Select the desired color and adjust opacity to taste. You should get a real-time preview of your work if the Preview box is checked. Click OK. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 22 Lightblast! 7. Build it. Move the glow layer, light1, behind the logo by dragging it below the logo layer in the Layers palette—so the beams shoot past. You may choose to place a background image behind the logo. Optionally, you may also choose to place an additional copy of the beam layer on top. Adjust the opacity to make the color look like it has wrapped around the logo. 8. Composite it (optional). If you want to key the image in a video application you will need to create an alpha channel to store the transparency of the glow: Turn off the visibility icon for all layers that you don’t want included in the alpha channel. Then make a new (empty) layer and make sure it is selected. Choose Merge Visible from the Layer’s palette submenu while holding down Option (Mac OS) or Alt (Windows). The resulting layer contains all of the merged elements while leaving the originals behind. Cmd + click (Mac OS) or Ctrl + click (Windows) this new layer’s thumbnail to load the selection, and then turn this layer’s visibility icon off. Switch to the channel’s palette and click on the Save Selection as Channel icon at the bottom of the palette. Once the alpha channel is created, you can release the selection by choosing Select > Deselect. In the Layers palette, turn the background layer on and fill it with the same color as your glow. This will ensure that you have clean edges in your alpha channel by avoiding any stray color data in the glowing areas. Be sure that you have only one alpha channel in your document. Then choose File > Save As and save a copy of the file in a format your NLE system recognizes such as PICT or TARGA. Make certain that the Save Alpha Channels box is checked so the alpha channel will be embedded. 9. Conclusion. This is one of several techniques for enhancing logos and type for video that can be found in the book entitled Photoshop for Nonlinear Editors by Richard Harrington. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 23 Total Contrast Control Using Two Images Total Contrast Control Using Two Images George DeWolfe Adapted from The Digital Fine Pint Workshop by George DeWolfe. www.georgedewolfe.com. George DeWolfe is Senior Editor for Camera Arts and View Camera magazines and teaches digital photography workshops worldwide. He studied with Ansel Adams and Minor White and holds an MFA in Photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology. His prints are in major national and personal collections. Contrast is the supreme technical problem in photography. In traditional print photography the major limiting component is the range of the paper, or 5 f/stops of detail from highlight to shadow. It was for this reason that the Zone System was invented—to manipulate the exposure and development of the negative to fit the print. In the darkroom there are also different contrast grades of paper or different variable contrast filters to adjust contrast. In Photoshop, I use the following technique to correct and adjust the overall contrast of digital images. The technique uses 2 digital files from a digital camera mounted on a tripod, one of which has been taken for the highlights and the other that has been taken for the shadows. The 2 images are combined together in Layers using a Layer Mask and Curves into one seamless image containing the highlights of one, the shadows of the other, and a good blend of midtone values. 1. Combine the 2 images and crop. Open both underexposed and overexposed images into Photoshop. Click and drag (using the Move Tool while holding down the Shift Key) the underexposed image on top of the overexposed image. This puts the underexposure on a layer on top of the overexposure (which becomes the Background). In the Layers palette, select Layer 1 and set the Blending Mode to Difference and align the 2 images with the Move Tool, if necessary. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 24 Total Contrast Control Using Two Images Crop the images here. (Cropping the image here at the first step keeps the images aligned if you have moved Layer 1 even the slightest amount). Save the image (File > Save As) as Combo and close the 2 original images without saving them. Return to Normal Blending Mode. 2. Make a Layer Mask and paste the background layer into it. On Combo make a Layer Mask (Layer > Add Layer Mask > Reveal All) on Layer 1. Select the Background Layer (Select > All) and Copy (Edit > Copy). Hold down the Option/Alt key and click on the Layer Mask (the document window should turn white). Paste the Background Layer (Edit > Paste) into the Layer Mask (it will be pasted as a Black & White mask). 3. Make a new window. Go to Window > Arrange > New Window for Combo.psd to see the effects of the mask. You will not be able to see the actual picture because you will be working on the mask. This is the reason for making the New Window. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 25 Total Contrast Control Using Two Images 4. Blur the mask. Click on the Layer Mask and Gaussian Blur (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) the mask to a 5–50 pixel Radius. You want to blur enough to get rid of all texture and detail. 5. Adjust the mask contrast with curves. Select Image > Adjustments > Curves and adjust contrast and brightness of the mask until the image looks correct in the New Window. You do not want to use a Curves Adjustment Layer here because you are still working on the Layer Mask. Close the New Window after you’ve finished adjusting with Curves. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 26 Total Contrast Control Using Two Images 6. Flatten the image. Deselect and Flatten the image (Layer > Flatten Image). 7. Conclusion. The great thing about Photoshop is that we have much more control in adjusting the overall contrast than we do in traditional photography because we can use both Black & White and Color images. This technique frees your photography and enables you to capture any extreme lighting situation with ease. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 27 Digital Light Painting Digital Light Painting Dave Montizambert Adapted from www.softwarecinema.com’s CD tutorial Digital Light Painting by Dave Montizambert. Dave Montizambert, a successful working commercial advertising photographer, is an international photo/digital educator and author. www.montizambert.com Digital light painting is a powerful Photoshop technique that can be used to turn lifeless images into works of art. In fact it is the digital equivalent of a photographic lighting technique called painting with light. Painting with light needs to be executed in relative darkness so that a small handheld light source can be used to paint light energy over a subject during a long exposure. This painterly lighting effect works well on subjects that are stationary but falls short on animated subjects such as people. Light painting people usually renders static looking results. Digital light painting has major advantages over painting with light. It is not a “blind one way” process—the painting effect is visible as you create it, you can modify it at any time, and you do not have to work in darkness. This technique works best with flat lighting so frontal lighting is most favorable—all highlight and shadow will be created in Adobe Photoshop. 1. Darken the image. Open a correctly exposed version of the image, and then choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves. To darken and flatten the contrast of the image, two points of the composite curve are altered; the highlight value 255, which is at the extreme top end of the curve, is dragged down to 107. Value 64 (the 25% point near the bottom of the curve called the 1/4 tone), is pulled down to value 14. These figures will differ from image to image. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 28 Digital Light Painting 2. Paint the layer mask. Click on the Curves Layer mask in the Layers palette. Choose black as the foreground color then paint with a low flow setting over the image with the airbrush attribute selected on the paint-brush to create a gradual build up of black on select areas. These black areas hide the affect of the darkening Curve allowing the normal exposure background image layer to show through. To keep the brushed in lighting really soft edged, I use 5% or less flow pressure for the airbrush for a gradual build-up. This digital light painting technique looks like you are painting light right onto the subject! 3. Additional effects. Notice how the digital painting gives the image a haunting ethereal look. To push it even further in this direction I usually add the following: Softening: Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur > Radius—I used 7 pixels on this 2587x1896 pixel image. The grain effect: Filter > Noise > Add Noise > Amount 21 > Distribution: Gaussian > Monochromatic. The bluish red color shift effect: Create a New Adjustment Layer by Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves. In the Curves dialog box select the red channel. Drag 194 to 208, 128 to 160 and 64 to 88. Select the blue channel then drag 125 to 153. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 29 Digital Light Painting 4. Conclusion. Digital light painting is a piece of photographic history in the making, for it transforms Adobe Photoshop from a post production tool into a lighting tool—we capture images of our subjects digitally then open them into Photoshop immediately to start light painting while the subject is present and the set is still setup. This avoids compromise since we can tweak the set, subject, or lighting and recapture the image if necessary. Light painting people in Adobe Photoshop is a perfect example of improving on a traditional technique digitally. It provides complete freedom to capture moving breathing subjects with all their moods and expressions and still create the painterly painting with light effect. It is hard to imagine painting with light now that I can create a superior product with a lot less blood and sweat and turn it out faster. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 30 Woodcuts Woodcuts Sherry London Adapted from Sherry London’s online Photoshop courses provided by Education to Go (http://www.ed2go.com). Sherry London (http://www.sherrylondon.com) is the author of numerous books on Photoshop, Illustrator, Painter, and After Effects, including Photoshop 7 Magic with Rhoda Grossman. She also writes for Photoshop User magazine and teaches online Photoshop courses for Education to Go (http://www.ed2go.com). The woodcut look is always popular. It’s a common technique in Illustrator, but it is both easy and fast to do in Photoshop as well. You can find many ways to alter and add to this technique, but here’s how to create a basic woodcut image using a photo as the base image. 1. Prepare the image. Choose Image > Duplicate > OK to make a copy of the original image. Never work on your original—only work in the copy. You may close the original image now and leave the copy open. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 31 Woodcuts 2. Prepare the Layers. Drag the Background layer of the image to the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. The new layer is named Background Copy. Double-click on the layer name in the Layers palette and replace the default name with Woodcut layer. 3. Change the Blend Mode. Change the Blend mode of the Woodcut layer from Normal to Multiply by clicking on the word “Normal” at the top of the Layers palette and selecting Multiply from the drop-down menu. The image looks dark, but by changing the mode to Multiply now, you will be better able to preview the filters and commands that you will use. 4. Apply High Pass. Choose Filter > Other > High Pass and set the Radius to 1.6. Click on OK. I use this setting consistently as it preserves a lot of detail in the image. Because of the Multiply mode, you don’t really see the High Pass filter on the image, but the filter has made the Woodcut layer into a low-contrast grayscale image. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 32 Woodcuts 5. Change the Woodcut layer to black and white. Choose Image > Adjustments > Threshold. The default Threshold Level is 128. You could accept this amount, but I usually like to cut the amount of black over the image to no more than 127. Drag the Threshold Level slider to 127 and click on OK. This step actually creates the woodcut look. The Multiply blend mode enables you to see and judge the result on your image. The more you lower the Threshold Level, the less “woodcut” you will see. 6. Blur the Background. Make the Background layer active by clicking on its thumbnail in the Layers palette. Choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur with a Radius of 6.3. Click on OK. You will need to adjust this setting to your own preferences based on the amount of softness that you like and the size of the image. Larger size images need a higher radius to obtain the same amount of softness. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 33 Woodcuts 7. Conclusion. Adjustments abound in this technique! You could completely change the image in the background because the woodcut provides the image detail. You can use the Levels command to lighten the background layer if it is too dark. You can vary the setting of the High Pass filter to create a woodcut with less detail in it. I frequently use the Filter > Noise > Dust & Scratches filter with a Radius of 20 and a Threshold of 0 in place of the Gaussian Blur filter. On many images, Dust & Scratches does a better job than the Gaussian Blur filter of preserving the original image colors. You can produce finer detail by applying the technique to an image that is larger than you need and then using the Image > Image Size command to resample the image to a smaller size. The image shown below makes all of these changes. Finally, you can save all of your steps as an Action to apply with one click. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 34 Photo Filters to the Rescue Photo Filters to the Rescue Katrin Eismann www.photoshopdiva.com. Katrin is 1/3 artist, 1/3 educator, and 1/3 author. She received her BFA degree in Photographic Illustration from the Rochester Institute of Technology and her MFA degree in Design from the School of Visual Arts. She has co-authored: Web Design Studio Secrets, Adobe Photoshop Studio Secrets, Real World Digital Photography, and authored Photoshop Restoration and Retouching and is presently working on a new book Photoshop Masking & Compositing. How often have you picked up your photos from the photo finisher only to be unhappily surprised by the color? You think back to the scene and don’t remember the shadows being blue or that the room light was orange while you were taking the pictures. Your eyes see light as neutral, i.e. they balance all light to white. But color film can’t adapt to the light—it captures the light as it really is. For example, on a bright sunny day the shadows will turn out blue (as seen on the left side of picture 1) or in pictures taken in fluorescent light everything will look green (as seen on the left side of picture 2). Professional photographers use color conversion and light balancing filters while taking color photographs to compensate for undesired color casts that working at certain times of day, at higher altitudes, or in artificial lighting situations may cause. Additionally, photographers use warming or cooling photo filters to subtlety enhance a photo’s mood or color rendition. 1. Which filter to use and when. The Image Adjustment layer Photo Filters in Photoshop mimic the filters that professional photographers use to correct for color temperature contamination and shifts. The two primary types of color compensation filters are warming and cooling. The warming filters are orange to amber in color and subtract blues and cyan. The cooling filters are blue in color and subtract red, green, and yellow. The 85 filter is a warming filter. Amber in color; use it to accentuate the warm rendition of a sunset or sunrise and to enrich skin tones. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 35 Photo Filters to the Rescue The 81 filter is a milder warming filter. Pale amber in color; use this filter to remove blue tones in photos taken on overcast days or to clear up bluish shadows in sunny scenes. It is also ideal to add warmth to portraits. The 80 filter is a cooling filter. Blue in color; use it to correct pictures with strong yellow to orange color casts created by taking the picture in tungsten or candlelight. The 82 filter is a milder cooling filter. Use it for waterfalls or snow scenes to turn them slightly blue, emphasizing the coolness of the subject. 2. Make the shadows neutral. The picture of the Portuguese church was taken on a bright, fall afternoon and as you can see the shadows are too blue and unattractively cool. To compensate for this I used the Photoshop Photo Filter Adjustment layer. Click Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Photo Filter. Click the Filter radio button and select Warming Filter (81) to neutralize the blue shadows. Adjust the density slider—in this example I used a density of 20%. Changing the layer blending modes can accentuate the color correction effect and by changing the blending mode to overlay, softlight, or hardlight you can achieve excellent results very quickly as seen here. From left to right—no correction, 81 with 20% density, and 81 with 20% density set to softlight blending mode. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 36 Photo Filters to the Rescue 3. Correct fluorescent lighting. Pictures taken in office environments or museums often turn out green, which is caused by the fluorescent light. You can create your own custom Photo Filters to correct for problem lighting. Sample the offending color (in this example, the green color). Create new document of 10 pixels by 10 pixels and fill it with the sampled color. Choose Image > Adjustments > Invert. Return to the color contaminated image and choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Photo Filter. Click the color radio button, click on the color square, and use the Color Picker to sample the inverted color from the 10 by 10 pixel file and then click OK. 4. Conclusion. All in all, the Photoshop Photo Filters offer a subtle power to improve images. Since the Photo Filters are Image Adjustment Layers you have the additional advantage of being able to adjust their strength with the layer opacity, layer blending modes, and control where the corrections take place with layer masks. We’re not suggesting that you take bad pictures on purpose—but now you will be able to improve those photos that didn’t turn out the way you expected. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 37 Gif Animation: Swipe Effect Gif Animation: Swipe Effect Michael Baumgardt Michael Baumgardt is Germany’s most respected and well-known author on Web Design and Desktop Publishing. With over 17 books published in Germany and the United States, he is one of the top experts in his fields and his book “Web Design with Photoshop” is regarded as the book on the subject. It has been translated and published worldwide. Many of the techniques that he developed are today used by Web Designers and made their way into Photoshop. Need to create a banner ad that grabs the viewer’s attention? One of the easiest ways to this is to swipe between two images. With this technique, your file size won’t be much larger than simply switching images. 1. Create a layer set. In order for this technique to work, all your layers need to be in layer sets. For each swipe effect, you need one layer set. If you are planning to swipe back to the first image, you need to copy the first layer set by using the Duplicate Layer Set command in the Layers palette pop-up. 2. Add layer masks. Each of the layer sets (except the bottom one) needs to get a layer mask. Select the layer set and click on the layer mask icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 38 Gif Animation: Swipe Effect 3. Unlink the layer masks. The trick behind creating a swipe effect is to animate the layer mask independently from the content. In order to do this, the layer mask and the layer need to be unlinked by clicking on the chain icon between the layer and the layer mask. 4. Fill the first layer mask. The next step is to make the layers transparent by filling the layer mask with 100% black, which completely masks the content. Start with the top layer (so that you can actually follow what is happening) and select the layer mask by clicking on it and then filling it with the Paint Bucket or use Edit > Fill. 5. Fill the second layer mask. Select the second layer mask and fill it with black. The bottom layer should now be visible since the two layer sets above have layer masks that are transparent. Open the Animation palette (Window > Animation) and create a new frame in the Animation palette. It is important that you leave the second frame in the Animation palette active before you move to the next step. If it is not active, just click on it and then go to the next step. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 39 Gif Animation: Swipe Effect 6. Animate the layer mask. Click on the layer mask of the second layer set (in this example the middle one) and change to the Move Tool in the Tool palette. You can now move the layer mask while holding the Shift key (to constrain it to a horizontal movement), but even easier, hold the shift key and hit the right arrow key until the layer mask is moved all the way to the right. 7. Move the second layer mask. With the last frame (in the Animation window) selected, make two additional key frames by clicking on the New Frame icon at the bottom of the Animation palette. Select the last frame before you continue, then select the layer mask of the top layer in the Layers Palette. Again, switch to the Move Tool and use the arrow key to move the mask to the right. In the process, the bottom layer should gradually become visible again. 8. Tween the keyframes. In order to create the animation, you have to create the frames in between the frames. This is done with the Tween command that will automatically insert the frames. Select the first two frames and then call the Tween command in the palette’s pop-up menu. Any number of frames can be inserted, but in general you want to keep it to 10–20 frames. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 40 Gif Animation: Swipe Effect 9. Tween the last two keyframes. Select the last two keyframes and repeat the same procedure. This will complete the loop and if you, indeed, would like your animation to loop, make sure that “forever” is selected in the Animation palette. 10. Set the delay and run the animation. You’ll likely want to pause your animation a little bit after every swipe effect. Select the last frame after the swipe is complete and change the delay to 2 seconds. Then select the very last frame in the animation and set that also to 2 seconds. To preview your animation, click on the Play button. It’s best to preview the animation in the browser by hitting the Browser Preview button in the Tool palette, because only there will you get an accurate idea how fast the animation plays. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 41 Working with Lens Blur Working with Lens Blur Martin Evening Martin Evening is a London based advertising photographer and noted expert in both photography and digital imaging. Martin is well known in London for his fashion and beauty work and also as the author of Adobe Photoshop for Photographers. This photograph shows a plant on a table on a balcony against a tropical backdrop, and I would like everything in the background to appear more out of focus. If I was to use the Gaussian blur filter, I could easily make the background appear blurred, but the overall result would not actually look particularly convincing. Here I want to introduce the Lens blur filter, which is new in Photoshop. Because with the Lens blur filter, it is now possible to create realistic-looking blurs that make designated areas of the image look as if they were shot out of focus. 1. Define the outline. To start with I used the pen tool in Photoshop to draw a pen path around the leaves of the plant and table. I saved the work path as a new path and then converted the saved path to a selection. I then inverted the selection to select the outer area by going to the Select menu and choosing Inverse. The selection was then feathered by 2 pixels. And with the selection still active, I used New > Layer Via Copy from the Layer menu (Command/Ctrl-J) to copy the selected area and place it on a separate new layer above the Background layer. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 42 Working with Lens Blur 2. Creating a depth mask. I loaded the pen path as a selection again and clicked on the Save selection as a channel button in the Channels palette. This created a new alpha channel. I then drew another pen path to define the outline of the table edge minus where the flowerpot intersected the table and converted this to a selection as well. With the alpha channel active, I set the gradient tool to black as the foreground color, with the Reflective Gradient button selected in the tool options bar and the gradient tool in Screen blend mode. This created an alpha channel that could now be used as a depth map with the Lens Blur filter. 3. The Lens Blur dialog. I then made the copied layer in the layers palette active, went to the Filter menu and chose Blur > Lens Blur. The Depth Map section shows the alpha channel I just created selected as the source. The Blur Focal Plane value corresponds to the pixel value of the depth map mask. In this example, as the value is lowered the filter will gradually apply more blur to the image based on the tonal gradation within the alpha channel that is selected here. Basically, the depth map is being used to create a very shallow depth of field with the focus dropping off behind as well as in front of the plant. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 43 Working with Lens Blur Notice also the bright highlights in the dialog preview. These show as iris-shaped highlights that are controlled in the Iris section. You can pick an iris shape from the Shape menu and then use the sliders below to adjust the size, curvature and rotation. To determine where the highlights will appear boosted in the picture you need to set the Specular Highlights Threshold to a value slightly less than 255 and then adjust the brightness to produce the desired effect. 4. Conclusion. If you compare the final result with the original image you will see that the blurred background certainly does look more convincing. The bright sky has made the light appear to flare around the trunks of the palm trees and the bright highlight points in the image have been boosted to form out-of-focus lens iris shapes. And by using a depth map, parts of the table appear just slightly out of focus as well. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 44 Looking Through a Glass Looking Through a Glass Doc Baumann Adapted from “DOCMA - Doc Baumanns Magazin fuer digitale Bildbearbeitung”, online-edition, Autumn 2003. Doc Baumann is a well-known author, journalist, Photoshop artist and art scientist in Germany. He has been using digital imaging since 1984 and writing about it since 1987. In 2002 he started his own magazine. Here is a technique for digitally adding a glass object in front of a scene and making it look like it was part of the original scene. The trick is to carefully photograph the glass, paying attention to the shine and shadows. Then, make the glass transparent and distort the scene that you see through the glass. The result is convincing, if not optically correct. 1. Photograph the glass object. Photograph the glass in front a medium gray background—not white.Use lighting that gives the glass a three-dimensional, shiny appearance. You want the surface of the glass to be brighter than the flat areas that you’ll eventually see the background through. 2. Create a mask. Use any tool you like to make a selection of the object. I worked with the brush in the Quick Mask to refine the selection. Save your selection to a new channel by choosing Select > Save Selection. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 45 Looking Through a Glass 3. Create a distortion texture. Duplicate the document by going to Image > Duplicate and convert it to the grayscale mode (Image > Mode > Grayscale). Load the selection of the glass object (Select > Load Selection), invert it by choosing to Select > Inverse and fill with 50 percent gray. Deselect the glass (Ctrl+D on Win, Cmd+D on Mac), and then apply the Gaussian Blur filter (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) with a small radius to make the image softer. Save it as a .psd file—you’ll use the file later as a glass distortion texture. 4. Prepare your background image. Open an image you’d like to use for the background. To enhance the illusion of depth, blur the background image a little. Choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, and then set the Radius slider for the amount of blur you want. To allow a correct perspective for the object, I added a wooden plane under it. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 46 Looking Through a Glass 5. Assemble the composition. Keep your background image open. Then, in your original glass image, load the mask as a selection (Select > Load Selection). Choose Edit > Copy, then in your background image, choose Edit > Paste to paste the glass in front of the background scene. 6. Set the glass layer blending mode to Hard Light. In the Layers palette, select the layer with the glass on it and choose Hard Light from the blending mode menu. Usually, you’ll get a good result just by setting the glass layer to Hard Light, but you can refine the result using the Blending options. In the Layers palette, double-click the thumbnail in the glass layer to open the Layer Style dialog box. At the bottom of the Layer Style dialog box, you can move the value sliders to make refinements. Press the Alt key (Windows) or Option key (Mac) to split the sliders set the range of values that are blended. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 47 Looking Through a Glass 7. Give the glass a green tint. If you want to tint the glass, duplicate its layer by choosing Layer > Duplicate Layer. In the Layers palette, select the Lock transparent pixels icon, then fill the object with the color you like. Set the layer blending mode to Overlay and reduce the opacity until it looks realistic. 8. Distort the glass. In the Layers palette, select the background layer, and choose Filter > Distort > Glass. Under Texture select Load Texture, and open the texture you prepared in step 3. Do not start with a selection! Scaling must be 100 percent; try distortion and smoothness until you like the result. Also see if Invert might do better. Additionally you can load the object as a selection on the background layer and experiment with the Displace-filter. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 48 Looking Through a Glass 9. Remove unwanted distortion. The Glass filter often produces artifacts at the borders. Eliminate them by loading the object as a selection on the background layer, invert it, mark a position in the history palette before the use of the filter and fill the selection with the history state. 10. Finished glass. This is the resulting image. Though the distorted background does not really look like it would through this glass, most observers will not recognize this. It’s good enough to produce a convincing composition. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 49 Rain Drops Rain Drops Greg Vander Houwen Adapted from the website http://www.photoshoptechniques.com. Greg Vander Houwen is the creator of PhotoshopTechniques.com. He is one of Adobe’s “Digital Masters” as well as a member of their “Magnificent 7.” He is an artist at heart, an illustrator by trade. His work can be seen at http://www.netcandy.com/interact/. I was experimenting with some of the more advanced features of the Layer Styles dialog box and discovered some very handy techniques that can be used when you are creating transparent effects. The sequence for this “water” effect is done entirely in a single Layer Style. So once it has been created it can be saved and applied to any layer that has hard-edged opacity against a field of transparency. This also means you can paint on the styled layer and the effect will render “live”, so it’s pretty to watch. Recommended Font and Doc specs. The technique uses a number of pixel based filters and point based type so these specs are important to reproduce the effect. Image Specs: 1117 x 865 pixels at 266 dpi, RGB color. Font Specs: Present, Regular, 60 point. 1. Add a new layer above the layer you want to make wet and paint an initial drop shape. Now go to Layer > New > Layer... and click OK, or click on the Create a New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. This will create Layer 1. Press (D) for default colors so black is in the foreground color chip. Activate the Brush tool (B) and then in the Options Bar above, set it to a 19 pixel, hard edged brush, Normal, Opacity 100%. Now paint a bit of black on Layer 1 and wiggle your brush a bit as you paint. This will be the initial shape we will use to build the layer style on. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 50 Rain Drops Activate the Zoom tool (Z) and click on your paint drop to zoom in for a closer view. 2. Build the Layer Style by reducing the Fill Opacity. Double-click on Layer 1 thumbnail in the Layers palette to open the Layer Style dialog box. Go down to the Advanced Blending section and change the Fill Opacity to 3%. This reduces the opacity of the fill pixels but retains the shape of the paint on the layer. Note: This step will make the black you painted on Layer 1 almost disappear. 3. Add a small, intense, drop shadow. Click on the Drop Shadow name (not the check box) in the list of effects on the left side of the dialog box. In the Drop Shadow section to the right, set the Opacity to 100%, change the Distance to 1 px and the Size to 1 px. In the Quality section, click on the small down arrow to the right of the Contour curve thumbnail and select the Gaussian curve. It’s the curve that looks like a soft, sloping (S). 4. Add a soft interior shadow. Click on the Inner Shadow name in the list of effects on the left side of the dialog box. In the Structure section set the Blend Mode to Color Burn, the Opacity to 43%, and the Size to 10 px. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 51 Rain Drops 5. Add an additional interior shadow around the edge of the shape. Click on the Inner Glow name in the list of effects on the left side of the dialog box. In the Structure section set the Blend Mode to Overlay, the Opacity to 30%, and the color chip to black. To change the color chip, click on it to open the Color Picker, drag the cursor to black and then click OK. 6. Add a highlight and interior glow to the shape. Click on the Bevel and Emboss name in the list of effects on the left side of the dialog box. In the Structure section set the Technique to Chisel Hard, the Depth to 250%, the Size to 15 px, and Soften to 10 px. In the Shading section, set the Angle to 90, the Altitude to 30 and the Highlight Mode Opacity to 100%. Then set the Shadow Mode to Color Dodge, its color chip to white and its Opacity to 37%. This completes the Layer Style but don’t click OK just yet. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 52 Rain Drops 7. Save this Layer Style for future use. Click the New Style button on the right side of the Layer Style dialog box. This will open a dialog box where you can name it and then click OK to save. Note: After it has been saved you can find it under Window, Show Styles, in the last thumbnail position. Now click OK to leave the Layer Style dialog. In the Layers palette, click the arrow next to the Layer Style (f) icon to hide the style. Note: You can paint additional drops on Layer 1. Just makes sure your brush tool is active (B) and paint where you want the drops to appear. You can also use the Eraser to edit or remove existing drops. 8. Add a text layer to the document. Activate the Type Tool (T). In the options bar above, click on the Palettes button to open the Character palette. In the Character palette select your font. Set the color to black. Then click on the Paragraph tab and click on the Center Text button in the upper left section of the palette. Now click in the center of the document and enter your “Rain Drops” text. To reposition your type move your cursor beyond the text until it turns into a move icon, then click drag. To apply the text click the check mark in the upper right of the Options bar or press the Enter key (Mac), ControlEnter (Windows). This will render the Type layer, Rain Drops. 9. Add a new, white layer below the Type layer and then merge the Type layer. With the Rain Drops text layer active, create a new layer under it by holding down Command (Mac) or Control (Windows) and then clicking the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. This will create Layer 2. Fill Layer 2 with white by pressing the (D) key to load default colors. Then go to Edit, Fill, Background Color or press Command-Delete on the (Mac) or Control-Backspace (Windows) to fill with the Background color. Click on the Rain Drops layer to activate it. Go to Layer, Merge Down or press Command-E (Mac) or Control-E (Windows). This will remove the Rain Drops Layer as it merges down onto Layer 2. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 53 Rain Drops 10. Roughen the edge of the merged layer with a filter. With Layer 2 active go to Filter, Pixelate, Crystallize. Set the Cell Size to 10 and click OK. 11. Blur the roughened text/image. With Layer 2 active go to Filter, Blur, Gaussian Blur. In the dialog, set the Radius to 5.0 pixels and click OK. 12. Take the softened text image and harden the edge by adding contrast. With Layer 2 active choose Image > Adjust > Levels. In the Levels dialog set the Input Levels to 160, 1.00, 190 and click OK. Tutorial ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS TIPS AND TRICKS 54 Rain Drops 13. Load a selection from the text/image and delete the white areas. To load a selection from Layer 2 press Command-Option-~ (Mac) or Control-Alt-~ (Windows). This can also be done by clicking the Channels tab, then Click the Load Channel as Selection icon at the bottom of the palette. The selection loads with the white areas selected. Press Delete (Mac) or Backspace (Windows) to remove the white areas around the black text. Now deselect by Select > Deselect. 14. Apply our saved Layer Style to the black text layer. With Layer 2 active go to Window, Show Styles to bring up the Styles palette. Locate your saved Rain Drops Style at the end of the list of thumbnails and click it to apply the Style to Layer 2. Tutorial