Photoshop’s Pen Tool: The Comprehensive Guide

An outstanding tutorial from PSDTUTS.com

The Pen Tool makes appearances across almost the entire Adobe product range. Its function and behavior varies depending on the application, but by mastering it youll find you work quicker, smoother and with better results. This guide will give you a comprehensive basis for working with the Pen Tool in Photoshop.

3 ways to sepia tint a photo in Photoshop

I want to show you 3 ways to sepia tint an old black and white photo in PhotoShop.

How to Create a 3D Text Photo Manipulation

In this intermediate-level graphic design tutorial, you’ll learn how to realistically superimpose a beautiful three-dimensional text object onto a living room scene with the help of Illustrator and Photoshop.

Create a Zoomed In Effect in Photoshop

This tutorial will walk you through a simple process of giving a zoomed-in effect for your illustrations. This can be used in numerous ways, but primarily for designing instructional visual material.

Silhouettes Creation Using Adobe Photoshop

by: Blur Loterina

Do you want your image to have that commercial look? If you want to learn how to make a stunning background like what you always see on posters, follow these simple steps.

When you read a magazine, try to focus on the ad pages. Can you see cigarette ad with valleys and lakes for a background? Or a waterfall that was set behind a bar of soap? These images are called silhouetted images. When you say silhouette, it means that an image does not have a background of its own. It uses either text or other images as its environment. But before you can make this kind of image in Photoshop, you will have to create a Clipping Path first.

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Photoshop Fundamentals: Create a Blueprint Effect

The Photoshop Fundamentals: Create a Blueprint Effect tutorial leads you through the process of giving your images a striking blueprint effect. Try Now>>>

Photoshop Toning Techniques

In Photoshop Toning Techniques, Leslie Alsheimer shows how to emulate the toning of traditional processes as well as utilize a new spectrum of creative toning possibilities. Try Now>>>

Dodging and Burning Done Right

Dodging and burning have their roots in the film days, and involve the selective lightening and darkening of parts of a photo. Because of that, there happen to be Dodge and Burn tools in Photoshop, but their effect is very much a permanent and destructive one. That said, I love using the concept of dodging and burning to really lead a person through the photo by lightening the areas I want them to focus on and darkening the parts of the photo that I don’t. That’s where this technique comes in, because it gives you all the flexibility of working with dodge and burn layers without any of the permanent effects. Try the Tutorial>>

Cool Photoshop Tutorial: Planets in Universe

Here's a cool Photoshop technique that creates planets in the universe.

Ever wonder how images like planets in the universe are done in Photoshop? Here's a short basic technique. Check it out>>

Photoshop: Auto Close Crop

The Contact Sheet Tip of the Week
By Lesa Snider King:


When cropping images closely for use on the Web, it’s easy to nick drop shadows and the like. Next time, choose Image > Trim. In the resulting dialog, determine which pixels to zap—transparent or the color at the top left or bottom right of the document—and press Okay. Photoshop does the close cropping for you.

Lesa Snider King, The Graphic Reporter, is iStockphoto's Chief Evangelist.

Lighting Without Lights: Creating HDR Images in Photoshop

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Photoshop Fundamentals: Using the Pattern Stamp Tool

This creative tool allows you to paint on an image using pre-defined patterns. You can use the patterns that are already in the Photoshop pattern libraries or you can create your own patterns, like the yellow rose in this tutorial. When you click on the Pattern Stamp tool from the Photoshop toolbar, the options for the tool will show across the top of the screen. The options bar allows you to change the brush and brush size. You’ll then pick the rose pattern created earlier in the technique, select a layer and start painting.

On to the Tutorial

Creating Fallen Snow in a Landscape Using Photoshop

Here is a very simple way of creating fallen snow on a landscape. It doesn't work for all landscapes, but when it does it is surprisingly effective. Graphics.com Forum

Photoshop: LightRoom Web Gallery

The Contact Sheet Tip of the Week
By Lesa Snider King:

If you own Adobe Lightroom, you can quickly create and upload a web photo gallery to share with friends and family (or prospective clients). Oh yes, you can make Lightroom do all the work for you. Just click the Web button at the top right, choose a design template, then tweak the color palette, gallery description, etc. using the panels on the right. Scroll all the way to the bottom, and you'll see an option for uploading to your FTP server. Simply enter the information once, then save the gallery as your own template. The next time you create a gallery, choose your template from the listing on the left, change the gallery description and FTP directory (if necessary) and click Publish.

Lesa Snider King, The Graphic Reporter, is iStockphoto's Chief Evangelist.

Web Domination Using Photoshop

If you're familiar with Photoshop, you're probably eager to toy with its many features. In this article, we'll cover some of the basic tasks that Photoshop users should master, such as resizing and rotating documents and layers, working with masks, creating curves and custom shapes, working with transparent images, and more! Sitepoint.

Photoshop Fundamentals: Using the Color Halftone Filter

This effect features one of Photoshop’s Pixelate filters—Color Halftone. The Pixelate filters clearly define a selection by grouping or clumping pixels of similar color values in cells. The Color Halftone filter simulates the effect of using an enlarged halftone screen on each channel of the image. It surrounds the image with technodots. You’ll also use two other filters to create our 'halo' effect—a Blur filter and a Distort filter. The Gaussian Blur filter adds low-frequency detail and produces a hazy look. The Twirl filter rotates a selection more sharply in the center than at the edges. View Graphics.com

Creating Cross-processing Effects in Photoshop

By Katrin Eismann & Sean Duggan
Excerpted from The Creative Digital Darkroom (O'Reilly)
Dateline: March 15, 2008
Version: Photoshop CS3
View: Graphics.com
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Photoshop Tutorial - How to make a Planet

Here is a great tutorial where you can learn how to make an awesome planet with photoshop. View at Flash Enabled Blog

CREATING A WATER DROPLET

Just as you see above, this tutorial will teach you through a visual presentation as to how we can make real water droplets on any surface. They've also attached the photoshop PSD file for us to download and check:) Click here Stock.xchng

Photoshop: Quick Background Swap

The Contact Sheet Tip of the Week
By Lesa Snider King:

If you want to swap a white background for something more colorful, don't waste time creating a selection. Place the colorful background on top of the layers stack and change its blending mode to Darken. Magically, wherever the two layers intersect only the darkest areas remain. Use a layer mask to complete the swap if necessary.

Lesa Snider King, The Graphic Reporter, is iStockphoto's Chief Evangelist.