Animating in Photoshop

In Photoshop CS3 (and CS4, I'm assuming) you can make simple animations. Older versions of Photoshop usually came with ImageReady, which you can animate with in much the same fashion as CS3. Here's a quick little tutorial on it.


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Adobe in a Job

Even if you don't want to create graphics, edit photos, or code websites for a living, it can still help you get a job. I hope. I'm applying for a job at my local icecream parlor. The application says to do something creative, so I used Photoshop to create what I hope is an interesting application.

(I scratched out all my info, so it might look a little weird.)

Mixed-Media on Threadless

I've mentioned Threadless before. Its a website where artists submit T-shirt designs, and every week a few are picked to be printed. I also mentioned Mathiole in my post about mixing medias. Well, he's got a new shirt design out on Threadless this week! Check it out.

Transparent PNGs in Photoshop

This is a nice little tutorial to show you how to create images that have transparent backgrounds. This is occasionally very useful in web-design, particularly if you want an image over a div or table that holds content that changes often.

All you have to do is create your image like normal, and then when you go to save it select 'Save for Web & Devices'. Then select 'PNG-8' from the drop-down menu. And then select the color(s) you want to make transparent and click the transparency icon under the color table (the one on the far left). And then just click 'save'.

There are two things you need to look out for. Firstly, make sure you don't have any of your background color in your actual image, or else it will become transparent as well. Secondly, be sure to make your background color close to the color of whatever you plan on putting behind the image.

The following images are both PNG-8s. The first has a white background set to be transparent, the second, a dark blue. You'll notice that you can still see a little white around the first image.

Smudge Style

This is an interesting "painting style" you can use in Photoshop to make your images more expressive. Its very simple, in theory, but very hard to master and make good. I am not very good at it, so I'll just show you the general idea and let you experiment.


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The photo I used to trace is by LucieG Stock.

Image-Hover Tutorial

This is a tutorial showing you how to make image hovers using HTML and CSS. This can help you make the navigation on your site more spiff. There are many other ways you can build on this coding to make it more complex, interesting, and creative. Plus hovers are just fun to play with.


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Small-Scale Photography

This has no direct relation to Photoshop or other Adobe programs, but I thought I'd share it with you anyway. Recently I've been setting up small photo-shoots, putting an abstract painting in the background and some item that I've found or made in front of it. I don't know why, but I find this very fun. Just thought I'd share the idea with you. Here are a couple of examples.





And I promise I'll come up with some new tutorials soon. = D

Mixing Traditional and Digital Media

One thing that I've started to do recently is trying to mix my traditional paintings with digital artwork. Basically, you scan - or take a photo of - one of your paintings. Then you can import it into Photoshop and incorporate it into one of your digital pieces. You can either use it for something simple like a textured background, or do something really complex.

This is an example of a painting that would make a good background.


And this, I've been working with on-and-off for a while. It uses the watercolors in a much more active way. (Its obviously not done yet.)


Here are some examples of amazing mixed-media works.
Be Smart
Seasick Symphony
Color-Blind

Just Showing Off

I admit it, I love showing off my work, whether its a painting or a website layout, paint or pixels. I did this the past week. Its India ink on Bristol board. Which is not really board. It's more of paper. It was loosely based off of Wu Guanzhong's 'The Banyan Tree'.

Using your Talent

By now you may be getting to the point where you're wondering what you can do with your new-found Photoshop talent. Well, there are always the obvious: doing graphic design work, either for payment, or for your church or baseball league. But you can also use Photohshop to make T-shirts, clocks, and any number of things that you can sell online. If you want to print them yourself, you can use Etsy. Etsy is nice because you get to pick the prices and interact directly with the customers. And it only costs $.20 to post an item. Or you can use a service like CafePress or Zazzle. They allow you to upload your graphics and put them on any of their products. People can then purchase them through the site, and you get a small cut of the profit. And then there are the sites like Threadless and Infectious that pay you a pre-set price for your designs, if they make the cut. But if you don't care about monetary gain, but want to show off your mad skillz, I recommend deviantART.

"Share the Love"

This is a little illustration I've made for a contest Infectious is having. The goal was to create an image to be used on a laptop cover that had to do with blogging. Hope you can tell what I was trying to get at with it.

Hiatus

I'll be taking a little break from this blog for a week or two. But don't fret, I've found lots of links to good tutorials and other interesting things to keep you occupied while I'm gone. Be sure to check them out.

w3schools has lots of good tutorials, resources, references, and examples. It can teach you anything about HTML, CSS, Javascript, and much more. This will help a lot if you're into Dreamweaver.

N.DESIGN studio has lots of good tutorials and resources for you Illustrator users.

And you can always find good tutorials on DeviantArt.

Simple Patterns

This is more of a suggestion or idea then a tutorial. It basically just demonstrates what all you can do with a simple filter.



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Photo-Merge

This is a really simple, but really helpful tutorial. Ever take panoramic shots and then have to go through each one and try to find where they match up? Well, with CS3 you don't have to. Just open up as many shots as you want, go to File - Automate - Photomerge and select your settings. If you already have all the images open, you can just select Add Open Files. Then, sit back and watch as Photoshop automatically lines them up to each other, and uses masks to hide the parts that are not needed. Here's an example.

I took these six images. . .


















And, using Photomerge, got this:

The Basics of Divs

This is a little tutorial to just kind-of give you a visual explanation of what a Div is. In short, what I'm trying to explain is that divs are basically two-dimensional boxes. They can be put inside each other, hold each other, and be combined in various ways. I will use divs in nearly all of my Dreamweaver tutorials.

Adding Interest to Text

This is a tutorial showcasing some of the ways you can make text more interesting. It also helps show you how to make it blend, or mesh, with an image.

Artistic Filters

This is not so much a tutorial as a reference. This is simply a list of all the artistic filters Photoshop has to offer, and what the result of them can be. To use one, simply go to Filters - Artistic, and find the filter you want to use. To view the full-sized photo, just click on the smaller photo.

This is the original.



Colored Pencil.



Cutout.



Dry Brush.



Film Grain.



Fresco.



Neon Glow.



Paint Daubs.



Palette Knife.



Plastic Wrap.



Poster Edges.



Rough Pastels.



Smudge Stick.



Sponge.



Underpainting.



Watercolor.



The photo I used belongs to Sourcow of DeviantArt.

Vector-Style Portrait

This is a tutorial to show you how to make a vector-style portrait using Photoshop. Vectors are usually made in Illustrator. It is, actually, impossible to make a true vector in Photoshop, but that's why it's called vector-style. I'll just be making a simple one, but you can use the same techniques to make a very complex piece. This is also good practice for using the Pen Tool. Trust me, you want to be able to use this thing well. It makes everything easier. If you'd like to view a larger version, you can find it here.





The photo I used in this tutorial is from Yellow-Stock of DeviantArt.


Here are some examples of really good vector-style pieces.
Motin45's
FKindgren's
Japanese-Whaleboy's
Rizart3's

Blends with Masks

Now, I don't know how many of you remember the "blend" craze, but it used to be that if you could make a decent blend, you could rule any teen graphic design community. I really don't know if blends are around anymore, but this will give you good practice with Layer Masks anyway. Oh, sweet nostalgia.



Untitled from Tyler Friend on Vimeo.

Dark Photos

Sometimes it's simple impossible to get a shot that's neither blurry nor dark without professional equipment. Dark photos can be very interesting, but most often they need tweaked a little. These are just a few ways to handle dark photos.
I'm going to start with this photo.



You can always try lightening it with levels [Image - Adjustments - Levels...], but that often causes graininess with very dark images like the one I'm using. If you want a similar affect, you can try changing the exposure [Image - Adjustments - Exposure...]. If you raise the exposure, it will look just the same as if you raise the levels. The difference is that Exposure gives you two other options. Fiddle around with the Offset and Gamma Correction.



This does not look good on this photo, but it could certainly work for others. Another approach is to not try to change the darkness, but change the sections that aren't dark. One way to do this is by raising the contrast and/or brightness [Image - Adjustments - Brightness/Contrast...].

School of Fish, with a Swish.

This a tutorial on how to make a school of fish, using a brush and a path. The same techniques can also be applied to many other things. Birds, stars, hearts, Smurfs, whatever.



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First tutorial - Custom Shapes with Pen Tool

This is a good tutorial to watch, even if you don't particularly want to make custom shapes. I'll probably use the pen tool to some extent in most of my tutorials, even if I don't use it to make custom shapes. Now is a good time to get familiar with it. And believe me, you can have a lot of fun with it. If you would like a larger view, here it is.




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Introduction

Welcome to my blog. Here you will find all sorts of fun Photoshop tutorials. They'll be on everything from using the pen tool properly, to making a flock of birds using a brush, to creating complex vector-style scenes. It should be easy for everyone - beginner or guru - to follow along. I'm using CS3, but most versions should work. If, for some reason, you are looking at this blog and don't have Photoshop, you can go download a thirty-day trial from Adobe's website.