Get more done with Photoshop

A fun idea to do is create an abstract picture, you can do anything you want to it. One fun idea is the add a fire look to a picture, here is a step by step way to do it: First thing's first, get a nice stock photo. I used a stock photo of an eye from deviantART.First of all I opened the photo and resized it to 75% of it's original size. 1. After you've opened your photo up, duplicate the background layer then apply Filter > Distort > Twirl and use the default setting. That should have just distorted it slightly. Now change the layer mode for your duplicated layer to Lighten. That will have made the eye look a little bit alien-like. 2. Now brighten up the picture a little bit by adding in a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Brightness/Contrast...) Now this is the part where you choose the fiery color for your photo. Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map. I changed the layer mode for this layer to Linear Light and lowered the opacity to 85%. 3.Ok, here are some nice optional effects.Before adding effects like these, you'll probably need to flatten your image (Layer > Flatten Image) then duplicate the one remaininglayer. First, I applied Filter > Artistic > Rough Pastels with the default settings. Now change the layer mode for this layer to Lighten and maybe lower the opacity if you see it need sit. I lowered the opacity to 70%. 4. To finish this tutorial off, I flattened all the layers, applied Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen, faded the sharpen to about 40% (Edit > Fade) then I added in a little bit of tech and grunge.

In this example we will take picture of the Planet Earth (round), and reshape it into a Square! 1. First, open starting image. In this case, I'll reshape picture of our Planet EarthOne of the things i will do is to play with a shadows a little, so to give our object sense of dimensionality. 2. Second, we will start by simple reshaping, as it is usually easiest thing to do. Go to "Filter -> Liquify" and start morphing. Don't be frustrated if it is not perfect, as it is not the point of this step, but try to make it similar to the picture below. 3. Now that we have made our basic shape, we need to take care of the second part. If you have any shiny parts on you'r picture, you should flatten them out by using "healing brush".As we do not have that type of problem, we can move to next step. 4. Here, it will be helpfull if you draw you'r square outlines on new layer on top of original picture, as to give you some guide in future steps.Also, don't worry if the picture doesen't fit perfectly into the square. 5. Now this step is going to further emphasize the role of light in completing the cubed effect. Using the guide layer above, get the polygonal lasso and select a single face of the cube as shown.Next get the eye dropper and take a midtone color from that area. Next get the paint bucket tool and fill in the selected area on a new layer above the Planet earth. Do the same for each face on the cube. As you usually don't need to blur top face, you can go to "Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur". When you are done blurring change the layer mode to "Overlay" and this will allow the detail of the image to show through while maintaining your adjustment to the light. Final step is to load the image back into the Liquify Filter and adjust the cube once more so that all of the faces fit the dimension of a cube. After that, you can see the final result! Excellent!

What we want to do is create a fractal. I use Apophysis but you can use any fractal program. Once you have a fractal you like open it up in Photoshop. To start off what we want to do is duplicate our fractal layer. So take your fractal layer and drag onto the new layer button. Then go to Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur and insert any settings between 4 - 9. Each fractal is different so it will take some experimentation find the right one for your fractal. Then set your blurred layer on Linear Light. This will make the colors more vibrant and will make it brighter and seem to glow. Your fractal should look something like this now. Now duplicate your blurred layer. And take the layer settings and put it on Soft Light. This should add to more of the glow feeling. Yours should look something like this: Now I wanted to make my fractal look even brighter because its an angel and angels are known to be very bright. So make a new layer. Fill it black. Now go to Filter> Render> Lens flare. Then blur your Lens Flare. Finally set your Lens Flare layer on Color Dodge and move it so the Lens Flare is in the middle of your fractal. Your fractal should look something like this: If you have ugly green heads take a white soft brush and brush over it. And you are done!

In Digital art you can easilar create a "mac" style background. You can use these in all sorts of situations, including the obvious - your desktop as well as part of your designs or for corporate work (powerpoint presentations, flash work etc) in photoshop. BACKGROUND LAYER We begin with a blank canvas and then draw a subtle gradient across it. (I'm using a 1280x1024 canvas here) Don't be fooled by the black border incidentally, that's just photoshop. So anyhow I've chosen two orange colours that are very similar to each other to make a very subtle gradient indeed. Add a NEW LAYER Now take your Polygonal Lassoo Tool (shortcut key L) and draw in a rough triangular selection as shown. Then take a really fat soft brush (size 300 or so) and draw some faded in white with the edge of it, again as shown. Be careful not to make it too strong however. Set your white from step 2 to 'OVERLAY'. NEW LAYER Now again take your Polygonal Lassoo Tool and do a similar trinagle but back and against it (like shown). This time add some black. I actually used a gradient fill here using Black and nothing. You can get this type of gradient by selecting your gradient tool then dropping down and choosing the second one along: Set your black layer to Overlay & 34%. NEW LAYER Now use the Pen Tool and draw a nice looking curve. The secret to nice curves with the pen tool is dragging the handle a long way. Join the path back up so its one continuous blob, then right click and select "Make Selection" You should now have a selection of a nice curve (as shown). Once again use the gradient tool this time with White fading to nothing and add some white. Set this layer to Overlay and you should have something similar to whats shown. NEW LAYER And again grab the Pen Tool and this time make a new even more interesting shape. You can see the shape I created on the left Close the shape back in on itself so its one continuous path and again right click and choose "Make Selection" Now with your selection, grab that fat soft brush again (size 300) and add some Black just at the top on one side (as shown). Don't let go of your selection as we'll need it for the next few steps NEW LAYER Now choose a selection tool (doesn't matter which one) and hit the Down arrow key 10 times. You need to have a selection tool on or else you can move your selection around and instead Photoshop will try to move some of your artwork (since you are on a new layer it will give you an error) so make sure you've chosen a Polygonal Lassoo tool or one of the others. Now press CTRL-SHIFT-I to inverse your selection. Then with your soft brush (size 300) paint some black down the bottom as shown. When you're done set the layer to 'Overlay' and fade it back to 60% NEW LAYER Now press CTRL-SHIFT-I to inverse your selection again (back to the original) and this time paint some nice white as shown. Note that because we've moved our selection down back in Step 8, this won't quite align with the black. NEW LAYER Now grab your gradient tool, choose white to nothing and set it to 'Radial Gradient'. Then add a white light up the top left as shown. Set this layer to 'OVERLAY' Now at the moment the colours aren't looking quite right, if I was really energetic I'd go back to the beginning and start again with a different set of oranges, but instead we're going to do a quick adjustment NEW LAYER On the new layer add a fill of a good orange similar to as shown. Set the blending mode to "Colour" and opacity to 55%. This should adjust nicely. NEW LAYER Now once again use the usual method of using the pen tool to draw a nice curved selection (as shown) and then right click and choose "Make Selection Use the White - Nothing gradient and add a smooth white transition from left to right as shown. And set the layer to 'Overlay'. NEW LAYER As you can see we're getting close. Now create one final curved selection down in the bottom left add a white gradient fading to nothing (our favourite tool as you can see) and switch to 'Overlay'. For the final touches I added a tinge of black overlayed bottom right and a bit more white overlayed on the top left. But these are inconsequential changes. You might want to go through and polish yours up a little too at this point because other than that you're done!

While texturing you can add cool looking scan lines to your picture. This is easy enough: Open Photoshop and click on File > New and set the width to 1 pixel, the height to 3 pixels and set the "Contents" section to "Transparent" for this tutorial. You will have to click on View > Zoom In a few times so you can see the palette.Now, right click on the "Brush Tool" and select the "Pencil Tool" and at the top of the screen set your "Brush " to 1px, your "Mode" to normal and your "Opacity" to 100 percent. Take your "Pencil Tool" and click in the center of your new palette so the top and bottom third are still transparent. Go to Edit > Define Pattern and save your new image as a scan line pattern like the example below. Next, open any photo you want to add scan lines to. Click on the "Rectangular Marquee Tool" and drag it over the photo. Now right click on the photo and click on "Fill" and set your properties to the image below. The "Custom Pattern" will be the one you just created. You can set your "Blending" options to what appears best for your photo.

While texturing you can add cool looking scan lines to your picture. This is easy enough: Open Photoshop and click on File > New and set the width to 1 pixel, the height to 3 pixels and set the "Contents" section to "Transparent" for this tutorial. You will have to click on View > Zoom In a few times so you can see the palette.Now, right click on the "Brush Tool" and select the "Pencil Tool" and at the top of the screen set your "Brush " to 1px, your "Mode" to normal and your "Opacity" to 100 percent. Take your "Pencil Tool" and click in the center of your new palette so the top and bottom third are still transparent. Go to Edit > Define Pattern and save your new image as a scan line pattern like the example below. Next, open any photo you want to add scan lines to. Click on the "Rectangular Marquee Tool" and drag it over the photo. Now right click on the photo and click on "Fill" and set your properties to the image below. The "Custom Pattern" will be the one you just created. You can set your "Blending" options to what appears best for your photo.

Want to create a web 2.0 label? This is easy enough just follow the steps: Step 1) Create your canvas, I suggest a large size so you create lots of detail, the final image can be scaled down later. Step 2) The next step is to draw your shape, this can be any shape. Use the preset shapes in Photoshop or download some new ones off the internet. It doesn't matter what colour it is. Step 3) Next apply a layer style to the shape, I recommend using the Web 2.0 layers and gradients pack, here. Although you can make your own. Step 4) As well as this I suggest using a bevel and emboss. Use are large size and reduce the opacity of the shadow. Step 5) Add you text. I've used Trebuchet MS. Use the character palette to move the letters into a good looking spacing. Step 6) Again, use one of the white layer styles in the pack and apply this to the white text. Step 7) You now have a cool looking Web 2.0 label to add to your web pages. Step 8) One optional step that I suggest adding is a drop shadow, this adds a lifted effect to the label. Step 9) Flatten and remove the background and save as a .png. This can now be added to any web page.

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