It’s easy to get caught up in Photoshop’s selection tools, thus forgetting that there are other interesting, though less mentioned, methods lying in wait. Take the Type Mask, for example. When is the last time you heard it mentioned? Exactly.
Instead of setting actual text, the Type Mask tool creates a selection of text (marching ants) [...]
Often times getting to the black points of portraiture in order to create black and white versions can involve some amount of witch-hunting via the Levels, Curves or other means. Seeking out contrasts, finding midtones, and isolating highlights can be a calculating task. Here is a quick method to bypass this RGB hunt.
Step 1 – [...]
A simple method to mask out a figure, apply a ‘threshold’ effect and reapply variant Brush, Shape or Type textures for a grunge focus affect.
Step 1 – Starter Image
To begin, copy/paste the following image into Photoshop. Or you can right click; choose Save Image from your browser context menu, save it to a location on [...]
Here’s a super-simple technique for enhancing the most important bits of any portrait: the eyes. It’s a quick and painless way to make the eyes really stand out and take on a slightly sultry and burning look.
Arrange your workspace
Step 1:
Pop open the photo and immediately duplicate the background layer by pressing Command + J [...]
In video, this effect is referred to as a bleach bypass or a skip bleach effect. It’s a neat effect that can really make a photo pop, and we’ll use channels to make it all happen.
Why use channels?
All images are comprised of three colors; red, green, and blue. Of these three “channels”, if you will, [...]
New to Photoshop CS3 is the Clone Source panel with the ability to clone or heal from 5 different source points. Using that same Clone Source panel, here is a quick way to create a mirrored reflection without relying on manual transformations.
Step 1 – Open Image
To begin, copy/paste the following image into Photoshop. [...]
Here’s a creative type effect that pulls the fill of the type right out of the photo itself. More than that, by using clipping masks to create this effect we can lighten or darken the type’s fill, all in an editable and movable way.
I like text that emanates right out of an image, with the [...]
Creating a painted look with an edge mask will make you sit up and pay attention. It involves using a seldom-used set of brushes together with the Brush tool in order to paint the edges of a photo. It’s a quick and easy way to give your photo a very creative edge. And because we’ll [...]
Every so often, Adobe introduces a Photoshop feature so impressive that I feel like dancing when I write about it. The Refine Edge dialogue is just such a feature. When compositing images, nothing does a better job of controlling edge location and softness.
Although Refine Edge can be applied to a selection, the “marching ants” make [...]
I resently wrote here describing the same topic.Howver, I felt that there is a better way to do that.
This technique involves combining two images into the same document and using a Gradient mask to fade one image into the other. Last but not least, we’ll zap the color from the bike shot in [...]
