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132 PAGES! Master every tool in the Photoshop toolbar Adobe Photoshop Every tool explained! Unleash the full power behind every icon in the Photoshop toolbar 132 pages of easy-to-follow tutorials and expert advice to help develop your Adobe Photoshop skills

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Page 1: Photoshop

132 PAGES! Master every tool in the Photoshop toolbar

AdobePhotoshopEvery tool explained!Unleash the full power behind everyicon in the Photoshop toolbar

132 pages of easy-to-follow tutorials and expert advice to help develop your

Adobe Photoshop skills

Page 2: Photoshop
Page 3: Photoshop

Start up Photoshop and what do you see? Well,besides the menu options along the top of thescreen, you’ll see a Toolbar that’s chock-a-block

with icons. You’ll probably recognise some of these,such as the ‘T’ that designates the Type tool and thepaintbrush icon that unlocks the various Brush tools.But do you really know what the rest of these iconsmean? … Honestly? The chances are that – like manyPhotoshop users across the world – you’re only using afraction of the program’s full potential, but this secondissue in the Photoshop Focus Guide series will changeall that, helping you make the most of all the tools atyour disposal.

Even professional designers often admit to beinghopeless with the Healing Brush and dodgy with theDodge tool, but there’s really no reason for any of thetools to be a mystery. This issue will help you get morefrom the Clone, Gradient, Paths and Effects tools, toname but a few. You’ll find expert tips and advice forworking more efficiently with each of the tools, as wellas tutorials to demonstrate exactly how to carry outuseful image-editing tasks. In the final section you’llfind a step-by-step guide that brings together all theskills you’ve learnt, showing how to create a strikingPhotoshop image.

And let’s not forget the CD thataccompanies your FocusGuide. On here you’llfind a library of stockimages (worth £1,990),plug-ins and video trainingtutorials to enhance yourenjoyment of Photoshopfurther still!

Have fun!

Polish up your knowledge…

Unravel the mysteries of the Photoshop Toolbar andits resident icons.They’re not as scary as they look!

3ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES – FOCUS GUIDE

Welcome

Page 4: Photoshop

Editor Dan McNamaraArt Editor Simon Bleeze

Writer Simon DanaherProduction Clive Somerville

Jonathan PalmerCover image Chris Stocker

New Media Co-ordinator Matt GallimoreProduction Co-ordinator Diane Ross

Group Publisher Dave Taylor Publishing Director John Weir

Distributed through the UK Newstrade by Seymour Distribution,

86 Newman Street,London W1T 3EX

Overseas Distribution by Future Publishing Ltd.

Printed in the EU

Future Publishing Ltd 30 Monmouth Street, Bath BA1 2BW

www.thefuturenetwork.plc.uk

We recommend that you always maintain

an up-to-date backup of your hard disk data.

Future Publishing does not accept any

responsibility for disruption, damage and/or

loss to your data or computer system that

may occur while carrying out procedures

described in this publication.

Future Publishing is part of The Future Network plc.The Future Network produces carefully targeted specialist magazines andwebsites for groups of people who share a passion.We aim to satisfy theirpassion by creating titles that offer superb value for money, trustworthyinformation, multiple ways to save time and money, and are a pleasure toread or visit. Today we publish more than 80 magazines and over 30magazine websites and networks from offices in four countries. Thecompany also licenses 32 of its titles resulting in over 60 local editions ina further 23 countries.The Future Network plc is a public company quotedon the London Stock Exchange (symbol: FNET).

Non-executive Chairman Roger Parry

Chief Executive Greg Ingham

Chief Operating Officer & Managing Director, UK Colin Morrison

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Tel +44 1225 442244 www.thefuturenetwork.plc.uk

Bath • London • Milan • New York • Paris • San Francisco

All contents © Future Publishing Ltd, 2003All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in aretrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the priorpermission of the publisher.

Websites mentioned in this publication are not under our control. We are notresponsible for the contents of these sites or any changes or updates to them.

None of the information in this guide is intended as legal advice.The articles arefor information purposes only.

4 FOCUS GUIDE – ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES

Page 5: Photoshop

With so much to say aboutAdobe Photoshop it’s been

difficult to cram all the informationthat we wanted to include into thisFocus Guide. That’s why you’ll findthe special icons that occupy themargins so very useful.

As you leaf through the pages,you’ll find a range of attractivesymbols, each of which denotes anextra nugget of knowledge. Theicons enable you to identify exactlywhat kind of information you’redealing with – for a full guide to

icon categories, see below. Thesehandy hints, tips and shortcuts arealways relevant to the topic that’sbeing discussed, and will help youdevelop your Photoshop skills thatlittle bit faster.

Our writers are always experiencedPhotoshop experts who regularlycontribute to our sister magazines,such as Computer Arts and DigitalCamera Magazine. So you can restassured that all the information they provide is both authoritativeand thoroughly tried-and-tested.

Finding your way

Read this Guide from beginning to end or dip in and out as you please. Either way, our icons will prove indispensable…

5ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES – FOCUS GUIDE

Icons explained

On your CD-ROMSome of the software that we refer to may beincluded on your bonus CD. Every now and then we remind you of this by flagging up the disc iconand listing what’s on it. Handy, eh?

Top tipsThis indicates an expert tip. Anything shelteredbeneath this icon is guaranteed to reveal a usefulhint about using Photoshop’s extensive range oftools, palettes and features.

Further informationWe’d like to tell you absolutely everything, butthere’s just not enough space. Instead we refer you to other useful resources, such as websites and specialist books for further reading.

ShortcutsCarrying out common tasks again and again canget a little tedious. Our handy shortcuts show youhow to carry out these tasks with a few deft key-presses, saving you lots of time and effort.

Take noteYou’ll find a number of these nuggets of knowledgescattered throughout the Guide.They’re crammedwith useful information that complements themain text perfectly.

Watch out!The skull and crossbones sign means proceed with caution.You’ll find some important pointsoutlined below this icon, which you should certainly take seriously.

LinksWhen we refer to a website, we may pull out theweb address in the sidebar to make it easier for you to read and remember.

Page 6: Photoshop

6 FOCUS GUIDE – ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES

Contents

CONTENTSSelections

1 SELECTION TOOLS IN PHOTOSHOP 10Making selections is the core of Photoshop’s way of working.There are a variety of tools you can use for the purpose, so here’s how to get the most out of them

BASIC SELECTION TOOLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12THE LASSO TOOLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14THE MAGNETIC LASSO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15THE MAGIC WAND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16QUICK MASK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18WORKING WITH THE QUICK MASK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19SELECTIONS, MASKS AND CHANNELS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20SLICES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Navigation and manipulation

NAVIGATING AND EDITING YOUR IMAGES 22Getting around inside an image is important if you are to work quickly and efficiently.This chapter covers the view navigation tools and shortcuts for managing your workspace2PANNING AND ZOOMING IMAGES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24THE NAVIGATOR PANEL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25VIEW MANAGEMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26MOVE, ALIGN AND DISTRIBUTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27THE MOVE TOOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28DIRECT AND PATH SELECTION TOOLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30VECTOR SHAPES AND MULTIPLE PATHS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

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Contents

Brushes and Pencil tools

USING THE BRUSHES AND PENCIL TOOLS 32This chapter introduces you to Photoshop’s more arty tools, the Brushes.But as you’ll discover, you can use these versatile tools for far more than just painting3THE BRUSH TOOL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34USING BRUSHES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35EXPLORING THE BRUSHES PALETTE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38THE BRUSHES PALETTE IN DETAIL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39SCATTERING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40TEXTURES AND DUAL BRUSHES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41THE HISTORY BRUSH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42USING THE HISTORY BRUSH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43ART HISTORY BRUSH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

4THE RUBBER STAMP (CLONE) TOOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48REMOVING UNWANTED ELEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49CLONING SKIN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50THE HEALING BRUSH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51THE HEALING PATCH TOOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

5THE PAINT BUCKET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56MORE FILL OPTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58THE GRADIENT TOOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59THE GRADIENT EDITOR PANEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61USING GRADIENTS CREATIVELY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62GRADIENT STYLES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63GRADIENT MASKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64MASKS AND SELECTIONS IN DETAIL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65MAGIC AND BACKGROUND ERASERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Cloning and Healing tools

USING THE CLONING AND HEALING TOOLS 46The Cloning and Healing tools in Photoshop offer an elegant way to fix damaged photos,correct bad scans and generally clean up your images. And they’re great fun to use

Gradients, Fills and Erasing

THE GRADIENT,FILL AND ERASER TOOLS 54Once you get more competent with Photoshop you’ll appreciate the importance of these utility tools.The Gradient tool in particular is essential for all manner of tricks and effects

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8 FOCUS GUIDE – ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES

Contents

6THE ‘FOCUS’ TOOLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70THE BLUR TOOL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71THE SHARPEN TOOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72THE SMUDGE TOOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73WORKING WITH THE SMUDGE TOOL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74DODGE AND BURN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75THE SPONGE TOOL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77USING DODGE AND BURN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78FOCUSING IN WITH DODGE AND BURN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

7THE TYPE TOOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82TYPE OPTIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84TYPE TOOL TIPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85USING THE WARP TEXT PANEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87RASTERIZING TYPE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88STYLED TYPE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

8USING THE PEN TOOLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92VECTOR SHAPES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95USING VECTOR SHAPES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96MASKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98VECTOR SHAPE DETAILS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Effects Tools

GETTING TO KNOW THE EFFECTS TOOLS 68Photoshop’s effects tools include Blur, Sharpen, Smudge, Dodge and Burn. Discover how best to use them to spice up your artwork, composites and photographic images

Text

WORKING WITH THE TYPE TOOL 80Creating text in Photoshop is quite easy to do, whether it’s for artistic effect or simply to addessential information.This chapter looks at the various options available with the Type tool

Vectors

WORKING WITH PATHS,VECTORS AND MASKS 90Photoshop has always used vector-based ‘paths’ to draw smooth shapes and outlines.Learn how the latest version has the ability to create shapes and masks with vectors too

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Contents

CD PAGES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120INDEX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124GLOSSARY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

9NOTES AND ANNOTATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102THE EYE DROPPER TOOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104USING THE EYE DROPPER TOOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105THE COLOUR SAMPLER. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106THE MEASURE TOOL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Miscellaneous tools and Utilities

ANNOTATIONS,NOTES AND THE MEASURE TOOL 100Along with the creative tools, Photoshop provides several tools to add accuracy, sound andvision to your work.These fall into two tool groups – Notation and Measurement tools

Essential information

CD PAGES AND RESOURCES 120Your essential guide to the software on your disc.Plus our handy glossary and index

10CREATING A MONTAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110FIX MISSING PARTS OF THE IMAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112USING THE PEN AS A BRUSH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113ADDING A BACKGROUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115APPLYING ARTISTIC DETAIL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118VECTOR SHAPE AND TYPE LAYERS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Artwork project

CREATING TOP QUALITY ARTWORK 108In this final chapter we’ll put together a piece of artwork using all the tools and options thatwe’ve looked at over the course of this Photoshop Focus Guide

Page 10: Photoshop

Chapter 1

SELECTIONTOOLS INPHOTOSHOP

In earlier versions of Photoshopthere was no Select tool – one

that looked like a traditional arrowcursor, that you would use to select‘objects’. Because Photoshop dealtprimarily with pixels, it made nosense to have a Select tool – therewere no ‘objects’ to select. Instead,the selection tools were default tools– ones you used automatically, tobegin editing.

In Photoshop 7.0 there is an arrowtool for selecting objects, since theintroduction of vector shapes (thosedrawn using a series of points or‘vectors’) made this necessary.Despite this, the selection tools, intheir many and varied forms, are still

In this chapter…

D i s c o v e r h o w t h eP h o t o s h o p s e l e c t i o nt o o l s w o r k

L e a r n h o w t o m a kea c c u r a t e s e l e c t i o n s

C r e a t e p a r t i a l o rg r a d i e n t s e l e c t i o n s

Making selections is the core of Photoshop’sway of working.There are a variety of tools youcan use for the purpose, so let’s take a look athow to get the most out of them

the main tools for doing 90% of thetasks in Photoshop.

Selections are an essential part ofunderstanding Photoshop’s methodsand central to the way the programworks – making a selection thenperforming an action on thatselection is the basic workflow. The better you become at Photoshopthe better you’ll become at makingselections and vice-versa.

No need for discretionWhat’s important to understand,though, is that selections are notnecessarily discreet. They don’t haveto define rigidly what is or is notselected – they can be partial too.

Page 11: Photoshop

It is perfectly possible to makeselections so that some pixels are100% selected and others are 100%unselected, and in between there is aselection gradient, where pixels arepartially selected. This is how youcreate effects that blend smoothlyinto existing pixels, and this alsoforms the basis of ‘anti-aliasing’ –smoothing jagged, pixelated edges.

Feathering is the most basicimplementation of gradientselections in Photoshop. Whenmaking a rigid selection using oneof the Marquee tools for instance,you can tell Photoshop to make theedge of the selection slightly soft, or‘feathered’. This effectively creates

a border around the selection wheresome of the pixels are partiallyselected, smoothing whatever effector operation is applied to theselection, or merely preventingjagged edges.

The soft optionBy making the feathered edge larger,you’ll be able to create very softselections, and this is very useful whenmaking photo-montages, for instance,or retouching images. We’ll look athow anti-aliasing and feathering areimplemented in Photoshop’s selectiontools, and how you can use them toachieve professional results quicklyand easily.

11ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES – FOCUS GUIDE

Selections

Page 17 The Magic Wand tool selects anobject in an image to change the colour

Page 20 Photoshop can convertchannels into selections and vice-versa

Page 18 Quick mask mode turns anypainting tool into a selection tool

Page 12 The Circular Marquee toolmakes an elliptical selection

Page 13 Single Column marquees areused to select only certain columns

Page 15 The Magnetic Lasso lets youmake detailed selections with ease

Page 12: Photoshop

Basic Selection tools

Let’s take a look at the various tools in thetoolbar available for making selections

12 FOCUS GUIDE – ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES

Chapter 1

ChangingmarqueesHolding down the[Alt] key will changethe marquee mode sothat the selectionexpands from thecentre, rather than thecorners, as you drag.

Shifting aroundRather than using thebuttons you can holddown modifier keys toadd and subtractselections.To add, holdthe [Shift] key beforeyou begin to click anddrag.To subtract holdthe [Alt] key before youclick and drag.Themarquee cursor willchange to show whichmode you are in.

In Subtract mode, you can remove areasfrom the current selection. Here we

changed to the Circle Marquee tool tosubtract an elliptical shape from therectangular selection we had made.You cancontinue to make negative selections thatchip away at the current selection.This is agood way to refine a selection to fit a specificshape in an image.

4

The Options bar displays tool-specificsettings.The selection tools all have a set

of four buttons that change the effect thatsubsequent selections have on the one that’scurrently active.The normal mode is NewSelection – each time you click and drag, a newselection is made and the current one is lost.Add mode makes the current selection largerand a different shape.

3

The Circular Marquee works in exactlythe same way, except the selection will

be elliptical. With both tools you can constrainthe selection so it is either a perfect circle or aperfect square by holding down the [Shift] keywhile you drag. Lift your finger off the [Shift]key while still holding the mouse buttondown to switch back to unconstrained mode.

2

The Rectangular Marquee tool is thefirst tool in the Toolbar, and is used to

select rectangular areas of an image. It’ssimple to use – just select the tool and dragacross the image to select the area you want.By default the tools works in corner-to-cornermode. Dragging from top-left or bottom-rightcreates the marquee.

1

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13ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES – FOCUS GUIDE

Selections

Short intersectionTo activate Intersectmode without using

the buttons holddown the [Alt} and

[Shift] keys before youdrag.

Perfect circleIf, after dragging while

holding down the [Shift]key, you want to force

the selection to beconstrained to a perfect

circle or rectangle,release the [Shift] key

momentarily and pressit again. Holding the

[Alt] key while draggingwill force a selection to

be drawn from its centreas mentioned.

If already holding the[Alt] key, such as whenusing the Intersection

shortcut, momentarilyrelease it and then press the [Alt] key.

This forces the‘constraint from centre’ to occur.

Uses for the Single Row and ColumnMarquees are varied, but not always

obvious. Here, they’re used to create multiplerandom vertical and/or horizontal lines in animage much more quickly than using thePencil or Line tool.The Add Selection modewas used and the selections filled with black,on separate layers, to create lines whoseopacity and blending mode we can vary.

8

The last two selection types in this toolgroup are the Single Row and Single

Column Marquees.These are special types ofmarquee which, as their name suggests, selecteither a single row or column of pixels. In thiscase dragging only defines which row orcolumn in the image is selected and theselection extends to the edges of the image in either mode.

7

This is the result of the intersection.Note that it’s only the overlapping parts

of the two selections that remain selected.This selection method is not used very oftenbut you’ll appreciate just how handy it can bein certain situations. Creating similarselections any other way would be verydifficult and time-consuming.

6

The fourth mode is Intersect. When inthis mode, you can create a new

selection that is the intersection between thecurrently active one and one you will drag out.Basically all parts of the current selection willdisappear except that portion that overlapswith the new selection you drag out. Here isthe original selection with a new one beingdragged out over it, using the Intersect mode.

5

Page 14: Photoshop

The Lasso tool is a free-formselection tool. You can use it

like a pen to draw your selectionborder by hand. When using theLasso tool selections can be anyshape you like, but it can be hard tobe precise because selection must bedrawn in a single motion. ThePolygonal Lasso is much easier touse, and can be found in the Lassotool pop-up in the toolbar. Thisenables you to click from one point to another to create straight linesegments to make up your selection.All you need to do is double-click,

or click on the starting point of theselection to end it and consequentlyclose your selection.

The Lasso Tools

The standard, Polygonal and Magnetic Lassosare ideal for creating complex selections

14 FOCUS GUIDE – ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES

Chapter 1

Using the [Alt] key technique allows you the bestof both worlds, drawing straight sections ordetailed curves as and when you need to

Poly-goneWhen using thePolygonal Lassoholding down the [Alt] key invokes thenormal Lasso tool.Releasing the [Alt] keyreverts back to thePolygonal Lasso.

Combined LassoWith the Lasso toolactive, just hold downthe [Alt] key at anystage to turn it into thePolygonal Lasso.

THERE ARE two ways in which to work using the [Alt] shortcut.

Assuming you have the normal Lasso tool selected, if you keep the [Alt]

key held down when you click and drag, the tool will behave like the

normal Lasso.

IF YOU want to get really precise, then the Magnetic Lasso is the key.

With this selection tool you can draw close to the edge of the object you

wish to select and the tool will figure out where the boundary should be

and adjust the selection to fit.

YOU CAN set the Frequency high to place lots of points as you drag.

This can be handy for jagged edges.

A LOW Frequency is also useful when you don’t need the added

complexity of hundreds of anchor points, but can make do with a

less precise selection.

LASSO OPTIONS ROUNDED UP

Page 15: Photoshop

The Magnetic Lasso

If you want detailed selections without toomuch effort, here’s the perfect tool for the task

15ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES – FOCUS GUIDE

Selections

Fast pan and zoomYou can use the Pan andZoom shortcuts to movethe image around whilestill in mid-selection. See

Chapter 2 for moreabout navigating and

editing your images.

Magnetic switchHold the [Alt] key to

activate thePolygonal Lasso

tool when using theMagnetic Lasso.

Another trick to help on very lowcontrast portions of an image, such as

where the pumpkin stalk is in front of the girl’sface again, it can help to increase theFrequency setting.This will cause the tool toplace anchor points more often, thereforereducing the span of pixels it has to analyze asyou drag the mouse.

4

This is a problem of contrast. Byreducing the Edge Contrast setting in

the Option bar you can help the MagneticLasso to detect edges that are lower incontrast. But you will still need to manuallyadd anchor points by clicking, to help theLasso do this.

3

If the area you are tracing is tooindistinct and low in contrast for

Photoshop to find an edge itself, you can clickthe mouse to force an anchor point to beplaced.The default setting in the Options baris fine most of the time, but there can beproblems – here, the tool has no problem withthe edge of the hair, but it didn’t seem todetect the pumpkin stalk.

2

This tool lets you make more detailedselections, particularly of specific

objects in an image, without requiring toomuch effort.You don’t have to keep the mousebutton held down when drawing either – click once to start, drag close to the objectedge, then double-click to end. Note that thetool automatically places ‘anchor points’ asyou draw to keep the selection in place.

1

Page 16: Photoshop

The Magic Wand

The Magic Wand is a special selection tool,used for selecting areas of similar colour

16 FOCUS GUIDE – ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES

Chapter 1

UnrestrictedcoloursWhen the Contiguoussetting in the Optionsbar is checked,Photoshop makes aselection of similar-coloured pixels thatare also physicallyjoined to your startingpoint. Disable thissetting and similarcolour pixels acrossthe whole image willbe included, whichcan take a fewmoments.

Use All LayersThe Use All Layersoption allows you tocalculate the selectionbased on how theimage actuallyappears on screenwhen working withmulti-layereddocuments. If this isleft unchecked, thenonly colours on thecurrently selectedlayer will be analysedfor similarity.

We can improve the ability of the wandto select the colours we want by

increasing the Tolerance setting, from thedefault 32, to 50 then [Shift]+clicking in each of the separate areas. Any other parts of thejumper still not selected can be added by[Shift]+clicking on them again until you havea good clean selection with no ‘islands’.

4

The Magic Wand will only select colourswithin a certain range, defined by the

Tolerance setting. And it will only look atcontiguous pixels – that is, ones that actuallytouch each other. Areas of colour not directlyconnected, like the chest and other arm, arenot considered for selection.

3

Most images don’t contain large areas offlat colour like the one above, so here’s a

more typical use for the Magic Wand – selectingthe girl’s jumper to change its colour. Using theMagic Wand, we can click on a section of thejumper to select all pixels with a similar colour.However, using the default setting there aremany ‘islands’of unselected pixels, so not all ofthe jumper has been selected.

2

The Magic Wand tool is used to selectareas using a single click.The tool works

by sampling the colour of the image whereyou click and then looking at all adjacentpixels for those that are the same or similar incolour.Take a well-defined shape like the onehere and click in it with the Magic Wand – thewhole shape is selected in one go.

1

Page 17: Photoshop

17ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES – FOCUS GUIDE

Selections

Colour tweaksThe Hue/Saturation

panel lets you adjustthe whole spectrumor individual sectors

of the colourspectrum. Choose

these from the pop-up menu.

Let it slideThe sliders at the

bottom of theHue/Saturation panel

enable you to adjustthe range of colours

affected in each sector.

By selecting the layer mask andapplying the Gaussian Blur filter with a

smallish value we can make the layer maskslightly bigger.Then by applying Levels to thelayer mask we can make the blurred edgesbrighter, controlling how much of theHue/Saturation effect is applied to this area.

8

If we zoom into the document we cansee that there is a slight fringe of red.

This is because some of the jumper thatoverlaps the background was left unselected.This is a limitation of the tolerance settingused by the Magic Wand. Fortunately, there isa way we can fix this.

7

By adding a Hue/Saturation AdjustmentLayer while the selection is still active,

you can change the colour of the the jumper,and only the jumper. Photoshop creates alayer mask from the selection and uses is tolimit which areas of the adjustment layer willactively affect the layers below.

6

Here you can see that a part of the armhas been selected.This is due to the

high tolerance setting used.You can easilyremove it from the selection, but first reducethe tolerance to a lower value, such as 24,then [Alt]-click on the arm inside the selectionto remove it.

5

Page 18: Photoshop

Quick Mask

Quick Mask is not a tool as such, but a modeyou can enter when working with selections

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Chapter 1

Fill the gapsHoles in a Mask orQuick Mask can befilled by selecting theinside or outside areaand applying theMinimum filter.

Keep it sharpApply the Minimumfilter to a copy of alayer using theOverlay mode to give you a ‘live’sharpening layer.

While in Quick Mask mode, therefore,you can use any of the normal painting

tools to modify your mask, and hence yourselection.You can see that Photoshop offers ahuge amount of freedom when creatingselections, and this is indicative of howimportant selections are when usingPhotoshop. Here, the Paintbrush tool is beingused to clean up the mask.

4

The red overlay is slightly transparentso you can see what it beneath. Red

areas are masked out (unselected) while clear areas are unmasked (selected). Butinternally, Photoshop stores the mask inshades of grey, not red – so this is how themask looks to Photoshop.

3

By clicking the Quick Mask button atthe bottom of the toolbar, or pressing

the [Q] key, the selection is converted to amask.The mask is displayed, not in shades ofgrey, but as a semi-transparent overlay.Thismimics the techniques used in traditionalprinting where a red ‘rubylith’ overlay is usedto mask out parts of a photo or artwork.

2

When any selection is active, no matterwhich of the selection tools you started

off using, you can enable Photoshop’s QuickMask mode. Here is a less-than-perfectselection we have made using the Magic Wand.

1

Page 19: Photoshop

When painting, take notice ofthe foreground colour

indicated in the bottom of thetoolbar. When in Quick Mask modethis will only indicate shades ofgrey, so any colours you have setwill appear grey. Hitting the [D] keysets the colours to the default, whiteand black. As you paint you can usethe [X] key to reverse the backgroundand foreground colours so that youcan paint in white (unmask) or black(mask) to edit the mask.

Once you have touched up themask, you can press the [Q] key

once more to exit Quick Maskmode. You’ll then be able to convertthe edited mask to a selection.

Working with the Quick Mask

The Quick Mask lets you create a ready-mademask,which you can edit or turn into a selection

19ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES – FOCUS GUIDE

Selections

Make use of the foreground and backgroundswitch key [X] to flip between masked andunmasked colours

Disappearing antsTo hide the ‘marchingants’ while a selection

is active use the[Crtl]+[H] shortcut

(that’s[Command]+[H]

for Mac users). Becareful to remember

that you have aselection active

though!

Hidingapplications

To hide otherapplications on a Mac

and leave onlyPhotoshop visible, type[Command]+[Alt]+[H].On PCs, Photoshop has

an applicationbackground window,

so this is notapplicable.

IF YOU need to make a selection slightly bigger all the way round, you

can do so using the Select > Modify > Expand menu command. A dialog

will appear in which you can enter the number of pixels by which you

wish to expand the selection.

YOU CAN contract a selection by using the Select > Modify > Contract

menu command.To make a selection larger by a specified number of

pixels around it, choose Select > Modify > Expand from the menu.

TO SOFTEN a selection and make its border less jagged, you can use

the Select > Feather menu command, enter a value in pixels (from 1 to

250) and click OK.

IF YOU need to modify just the border of the selection area you can

select it using the Select > Modify > Border.This is useful for creating

special edge effects, in combination with some filters, like Torn Edges.

HOW TO MODIFY YOUR SELECTIONS

Page 20: Photoshop

Selections,Masks and Channels

Let’s look at selections in a little more detail tosee how how they relate to layers and channels

20 FOCUS GUIDE – ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES

Chapter 1

Alpha channelsThe term alphachannel simply meansany extra greyscalechannel saved alongwith the three RGBchannels, or four CMYKchannels, that make upa colour image file.Photoshop files canstore many of thesealpha channels at once.

Channel selection[Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Shift]+clickon a channel to loadthe intersection of thecurrent selection and a channel.

To reload a channel as a selection onceagain,click the Load Channel As Selection

button at the bottom-left of the Channels palette.A better technique is to press [Ctrl] (or[Command] on a Mac) while clicking on thechannel icon directly – we can load the largerellipse as a selection (by pressing [Ctrl/Command]while clicking on it) then subtract the smallerellipse by pressing [Ctrl/Command]+[Alt] whileclicking its icon in the Channel palette.

4

Now that the selection is saved as achannel, we can drop the selection and

continue to make new ones. It’s only possibleto have one selection active at a time, sosaving them to a channel is a convenient wayto store them for use later on. Here we’vecreated another selection and saved it asanother channel. It’s just a larger ellipse.

3

We can convert the selection into an‘alpha’ channel by switching to the

Channels tab and clicking the Save SelectionAs Channel button, (second from the left atthe bottom of the palette).The selection isthen represented by a greyscale image.

2

As we’ve seen with the Quick Maskmode, selections are handled internally

by Photoshop as a greyscale image or ‘mask’.White areas in the mask are pixels that arefully selected, black areas are fully unselectedand grey areas are partially selected. Let’screate a simple selection using the EllipticalMarquee tool.

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Page 21: Photoshop

Slices

Slices are special kinds of selections for webpage design, before the Image Ready stage

21ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES – FOCUS GUIDE

Selections

Reassembled slicesWhen you save the

sliced page Photoshopcreates an HTML file

plus separate image filesfor each slice. When the

HTML file is read by aweb browser all the

slices are reassembled intheir original position,giving the appearance

of a single image once again.

Keep it tidyHold the [Ctrl] key

while using the Slicetool to toggle the SliceSelect tool on and off.

Use this to select aslice and drag its edgehandles to resize it. Be

careful not to haveany unnecessary

‘sliver’ slices betweenthe main slices. Zoom

in to check they allbutt up against each

other nicely.

Now choose File > Save For Web to openPhotoshop’s web compression tool. In

this panel, you can select each slice and applyprecisely the compression most suitable. Forexample, a photo saved as high quality JPEG,the text as a medium quality JPEG and thegraphics as GIFs.The backgrounds can be savedas low quality JPEGs.This sliced, higher qualityimage is only 5k larger than our first attempt.

4

Using the Slice tool we can divide upthe image into sections. It’s simple to

use – just select the tool and drag outmarquees to cut the image into appropriateboxes. Photoshop automatically adds extraslices where necessary to keep everythingrectangular because each slice essentiallybecomes a separate image file.

3

The problem here is that the differentkinds of graphics element on the page

really need to be saved individually using thecompression settings best suited to each.We can’t do this without using slices inPhotoshop. As this pretty extreme exampleshows, achieving a small file size causes mostof the elements to look terrible.

2

Here’s an example of where slicing canreally help.This is an example web page,

containing text, a background, a photographicimage and graphics created in Photoshop.Obviously, for the web we want the page todownload as fast as possible but also look asgood a possible.

1

Page 22: Photoshop

Chapter 2

NAVIGATINGAND EDITINGYOUR IMAGES

Being able to zoom and pan animage is important when

working on a Photoshop document.Like all other aspects of the programthere is more than one way to getaround an image, manage yourwindows and documents, andgenerally navigate the Photoshoplandscape. Similarly you’ll need tobe able to work with the elementswithin a document, such as masks,layers, floating selections, paths andvector masks. There are a number oftools to accomplish these tasks.

As mentioned before, Photoshop isnot an object-based 2D program –that is, you work directly with thepixels of a layer until you explicitly

In this chapter…

L e a r n h o w t o p a n a n dz o o m i m a g e s

D i s c o v e r h o w t o s e l e c ta n d m o v e l a y e re l e m e n t s

U s e s h o r t c u t s t o s c a l ea n d p a n t h e v i e w

Wo r k m o r e e f f i c i e n t l ya n d p r o d u c t i v e l y

Getting around inside an image is important ifyou are to work quickly and efficiently.Thischapter covers the view navigation tools andshortcuts for managing your workspace

do something to change that fact,such as creating a new layer onwhich to paint. In some 2Dprograms, every time you paint astroke or apply an effect, a newobject is created. While this givesyou a totally non-destructive way ofimage editing, it can make managingyour document a very complicatedprocedure. In Photoshop it’s muchmore straightforward.

Painting in layersIf you paint on an image layer, stopsay, to change colour, then paint overwhat you just did, the resultdestructively alters those pixels inthe layer. It’s much like painting in

Page 23: Photoshop

the real world, except in Photoshopyou have an Undo command.

If you need to paint over the top ofexisting artwork and be able to goback and change the position, size,colour and opacity of those strokeslater on, then you have to paint on anew layer. This holds true for anyother aspect of the program wherenew pixels are created.

While the Selection tools – theMarquee, Lasso and so on – are usedto select pixels within a layer, thereare other tools for selecting andmoving layer elements themselves.These include the Move tool, thePath Select tool and the DirectSelection tool for dealing with

vector-based elements. It’s importantto learn the difference betweenthem, and we’ll examine thesedifferences more closely in thefollowing pages.

Old and newThe Path Select and Direct Selectiontools are not easy to find in olderversions of Photoshop. The PathSelect tool used to be part of the Pentool group, but can now be found inits own tool group on the toolbar.Many revisions have been made toboth the menus and toolbar, but rest assured that most of theinformation in this book also appliesto older versions of Photoshop.

23ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES – FOCUS GUIDE

Navigation and manipulation

Page 24 Use the Zoom and Pan tools to navigate your images on screen

Page 25 The Navigation palette is greatfor giving an overview of the whole page

Page 26 Manage your screen spacewhen multiple documents are open

Page 31 Use the Direct Selection andPath tools to work with paths and vectors

Page 29 Quick 3D effects are possibleusing the Move tool in copy mode

Page 28 The Move tool enables you tonavigate your layers with a pop-up menu

Page 24: Photoshop

Panning and Zooming images

Here we show you the basic navigation toolsavailable for viewing your image

24 FOCUS GUIDE – ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES

Chapter 2

100% accuracyTo zoom the image sothat it is at exactly100% scale, double-click the Zoom tool in the toolbar.

Viewing optionsUse the buttons in theOption bar to zoomthe image to full size,print size or to make it fit on screen.

Two useful options are the ResizeWindow To Fit and Ignore Palettes

options in the Zoom tool’s Option bar. Withthe former option enabled the window willchange size along with the image, and withthe latter option enabled the window willcontinue to extend below any open palettes,though not the toolbar.

4

To zoom out again, either click theZoom Out button in the Option bar and

click in the image, or hold down [Ctrl] and click(that’s [Option]+click on a Mac). If the imageextends past the borders of the window youcan pan the image by clicking on the Pan tool,or holding the Space Bar at any time anddragging in the window.

3

At the bottom of the toolbar are theHand (which we’ll refer to as the Pan

tool) and Zoom tools. Click the Zoom toolthen click on your image to zoom in.Eventually you’ll zoom in so far that theindividual pixels will become visible as largeblocks of a single colour.You’ve exceeded theresolution limit for the image on your monitor,but getting this close is often very useful.

2

When you open an image in Photoshopit is automatically scaled so that the

whole image is visible at once.The scalingfactor is displayed as a percentage in thewindow’s title bar. But how do you zoom in tosee more detail in a large image? As is oftenthe case when using Photoshop, there are anumber of different options.

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Page 25: Photoshop

The Navigator panel

A useful device for getting around documentsis the Navigator panel. Here’s how it works

25ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES – FOCUS GUIDE

Navigation and manipulation

Navigator panel This can be very

useful when workingon multiple monitor

set-ups.You can havea full-screen preview

of your image on onemonitor while you

work up close onanother.This prevents

you continuallyzooming in and out to

see how the editinglooks relative to the

rest of the image.

A different scaleSome previous

versions of Photoshopdo not allow

incremental andfractional scaling –

you can only scale outto 75%, 50%, 25%,

12.5%… or in to125%, 150%, 200%

and so on.

The triangle at the top-right of theNavigator accesses the options for the

panel.There are only two in Photoshop 7:Dock To Palette Well and Options.The latterlets you change the colour of the zoom box,which can be handy if you have a very redimage like ours and the box is hard to see, of ifyou just don’t like working with the red colour.

4

To zoom in and out using the Navigatoryou have a few different options.You

can use the zoom slider to interactively zoomthe image, and that’s quite fun to do. Or youcan click on the Zoom In and Zoom Outbuttons either side of the slider. Or you canclick in the text field to enter an exact scale.

3

The Navigator panel is very useful whenzoomed in very close to an image,

because it shows you with a red box exactlywhere in the main image the zoomed inportion is located. Note that you can make thepreview larger by dragging the lower rightcorner of the palette to resize it, even to fill thewhole screen.

2

From the Windows menu you can accessthe Navigator panel, though it’s open by

default in Photoshop.This is a handy toolbecause it enables you to view the entireimage in a small window, pan the main view,and zoom in and out, all from the same smallarea on screen. It’s great for those that don’tlike to use keyboard shortcuts.

1

Page 26: Photoshop

The main interface in Photoshopis quite simple and well laid-

out, but it has been constantlyrefined through development tooffer highly efficient document andview management. Within the mainmenu is the View menu which hasmany view management options –the Zoom In and Out commands andtheir respective shortcuts, as well ascommands to show the Rulers,Guides and Grids and the option toenable various kinds of snapping. As well as using the Navigator orZoom tool you can use the shortcuts

[Ctrl]+[+] and [Ctrl]+[–] to zoom inand out (Mac users replace [Ctrl]with [Command]).

View management

Photoshop has several gadgets to help youwork with various views of your document

26 FOCUS GUIDE – ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES

Chapter 2

Multiple documents can be arranged on thescreen using Tile, in Windows > Documents. Thisfits your images next to each other on screen

Floating awayThe floating palettescan get in that way,especially if you areworking on a smallmonitor. No matter, atany time you can hitthe [F] key to togglethe display mode tofull screen. Use theTab key to toggle thepalettes on and off toget a totallyuncluttered view.

When the Zoom tool isactive the Options bardisplays a few extra buttons –Actual Pixels, Fit On Screensand Print Size. These zoomthe view to specific sizes.

The Navigator panel isgrouped with the Infopalette. Use the navigator toperform multiple viewnavigation tasks in one area,with one hand. You also get ahandy image preview.

The Print Size pop-up islocated at the bottom of thedocument window. Click onthe blank space here topreview how large the imagewill print out on the papersize set in the Print dialog.

Yet another way to zoomthe document is to type in avalue here at the bottom-leftof the document window.

The Zoom and Pan toolscan be found at the bottomof the toolbar. Click on theseto zoom and pan inside the image.

At the bottom of the toolbarare buttons to control fullscreen view. The middle onemakes the current window fillthe screen, the right makesthe menu bar disappear andthe left returns it to normal.

ZOOMING AROUND

Page 27: Photoshop

As well as moving and copyingpixels, Photoshop’s Move tool

allows you to align and distributeobjects evenly across the documentor within a selection. With the Movetool selected you will see a numberof options available.

The first option, Auto SelectLayer, is very handy. It enables youto click on a pixel in the image toselect that layer. The next, ShowBounding Box, displays a transformbox around the selection or elementor layer. You can drag the handles onthe edge of the box to move the

selection. If you click on the lines,you’ll switch to the Free Transformmode, enabling you to scale, rotateand deform the objects.

The next section of options onlybecomes active when you havelinked layers. To link layers so thatyou can move them as one object, goto the Layers palette and click theblank icon box between the eye iconand one of your layers. A chain iconnow appears in the blank icon box,indicating that the layer you havejust clicked next to is now linked tothe currently selected layer.

Move,Align and Distribute

The latest version of Photoshop has handyAlign and Distribute features

27ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES – FOCUS GUIDE

Navigation and manipulation

Line them up The Align features

work with selectionson fully filled layerstoo. If a selection is

active then it is usedas a master guide for

all the layers to bealigned to. If you have

accidentally movedimage layers so thatthey lie partially offthe canvas you can

use the Align featureto make them all lineup again squarely on

the canvas.

When you select a layer that has other layers linked to it the

Align and Distribute options of the Move tool become

active. Click on these to distribute the layers or align them to

various key points.You can use the Align Left Edges button,

for example, to align individual text layers so that their left

edges line up. It’s important to note that these options only

take into account the bounding box of the layer. If you have

a series of layers linked together but they are filled totally

with pixels, then the align options will have no effect. This is

because the layers have nowhere to be aligned to, as they

are already lined up on the canvas.

ACTIVATING ALIGN AND DISTRIBUTE

Feel like going MAD? Here’s how to Move, Align and Distribute

The Align and Distribute buttons inthe Move options bar can be used toalign multiple linked layers

Page 28: Photoshop

The Move tool

The Move tool is a very handy, multi-purposegadget – and surprisingly easy to use

28 FOCUS GUIDE – ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES

Chapter 2

On the MoveAt any time,no matterwhat tool is selected,you can access theMove tool by pressing[V] on your keyboard.

Scissor actionThe Move tool cursordisplays a pair ofscissors next to itwhen it is over anactive selection.

If a selection is active then the Movetool will move the pixels in the selection

only, as opposed to the whole layer. Herewe’ve selected the whole object in a flatteneddocument and dragged it.The result is thatthe pixels are lifted and moved, leaving a hole behind.

4

You can scroll your mouse through thelist to select precisely the right layer you

want to move without having to go to theLayers palette. Here we’ve selected theWireframe layer, and moved it. Getting intothe habit of naming your layers will help here.

3

The neat thing about the Move tool isthat it has a built-in layer navigation

feature. In a multi-layer document you canfind out exactly which layers are beneath anygiven point in an image by control-clickingand holding on the image. A menu will pop updisplaying the names of the layers in order,from the top downwards.

2

The Move tool is the second tool at thetop of the toolbar. It looks like an arrow

but without the tail. Use this tool when youwant to move elements in a document, bethey selected pixels or whole layers.

1

Page 29: Photoshop

29ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES – FOCUS GUIDE

Navigation and manipulation

Extrude and moveIn the 3D text example

on the left, we firstcreated a text layer,

then loaded it as aselection by command

clicking the layer. In anew layer below the

text layer we created agradient through theselection, and with itstill active we carried

out an extrude-move function.

Computer Arts To discover even more

ways to develop yourPhotoshop skills,

check out our sistermagazine,

Computer Arts.You can find the

magazine’s website atwww.computerarts.co.uk.

A nifty trick is to hold down the [Alt] keyand use the arrow keys to nudge the

selection diagonally. Used on a text outlinefilled with a gradient like this, repeatedlypressing the Up and Right Arrow keys createsan extruded 3D object.

8

Another way to do this is to create anew layer from the selection first, then

use the Move tool as normal. With a selectionactive press [Ctrl] + [J] (that’s [Command] + [J]on a Mac) to convert the selection to a newlayer, then move it as normal.

7

Now as you drag the selection will becopied, lifted and moved to another

location on the layer. Note that while theselection is still active the copied pixelsoccupy a quasi-layer.This is said to be‘floating’ selection.You can move it around as if it was on its own layer. Only when youdeselect the pixels will it be dropped on to the layer.

6

Moving pixels and leaving a hole behindmay be fine in some circumstances but if

you want to copy the pixels instead of cuttingthem out then you have to hold down the [Alt]key (often called the ‘Option’ key on a Mac,although it’s still labelled ‘Alt’) as you drag withthe Move tool. Notice that the cursor willchange to a double arrow, indicating you’renow in Copy mode.

5

Page 30: Photoshop

Direct and Path Selection tools

Use the Path Selection and Direct Selectiontools to move and edit paths and vector shapes

30 FOCUS GUIDE – ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES

Chapter 2

A familiar PathThe Path Selectiontool is much like theold arrow cursor inthe Pen tool group ofprevious versions ofPhotoshop, before vector shapes and masks were introduced.

Hide and seek You can show andhide the path outlinesby typing [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[H], onyour keyboard (that’s[Command]+[Shift]+[H] for Macusers) or toggling theViews > Show >Target Paths menucommand on and off.

With both paths selected you can clickon the Combine button in the Path

Selection’s Option bar to merge both (or asmany as you like) into a single path. If you clickaway from the paths to deselect them, thenreselect them, you’ll see that all the paths arenow selected because they are one.

4

Much like other selections in Photoshopyou can add to them using the [Shift]

key. Here we have selected both paths by[Shift]-clicking on the second path to activateit. Both can now be transformed together.However, to make this work you must havethe Show Bounding Box option turned off.

3

For this we need to activate the PathSelection tool.This is in the eighth row

of the toolbar and looks like a black arrowcursor. With this selected, clicking on theedges of each path in the vector mask selectsit. We are able to move the path and transformit to fit by making the bounding box visibleand clicking on the edge of the box to activateFree Transform.

2

Here we have two vector shapes in asingle vector mask applied to a Solid

Colour layer.They are not properly alignedand we need to select them independently,but how? The Move tool only lets us movethe whole layer, so we’re not able to select the paths independently.

1

Page 31: Photoshop

Vector shapes and multiple paths

Follow our step-by-step guide to working on vector shapes and multiple paths

31ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES – FOCUS GUIDE

Navigation and manipulation

Take the A road The [A] key is the

shortcut to the PathSelection tool group.

To toggle betweenPath and Direct

Selection mode type[Shift]+[A].

Make a pointClicking once on a

point that already hashandles with the Cuspcursor converts it to a

sharp point with no handles.

With the Direct Selection tool you canselect a point in order to access its

Bezier handles and modify the shape of thecurve. If a point has no handles you can pullthem out by holding down [Ctrl]+[Alt] as youdrag ([Command]+[Alt] on a Mac).The toolchanges to an inverted ‘V’, called the Cusp tool.

4

With either the Direct Selection or PathSelection tools active you can duplicate

a path, or multiple paths by [Option]+draggingthem.The cursor will change to display a plussign next to it when you hold the Option keydown as a visual cue that you are about tomake a copy.

3

If you need to select multiple points ona path and move them as one you can

drag out a marquee with the Direct Selectiontool. Alternatively the usual ‘shift to add’maxim holds true: [Shift]+click to add pointsto the selection that are difficult to selectwithin a single marquee.

2

If you want to edit the points of a vectorshape mask then you need to change

from the Path Selection to the Direct Selectiontool.With this tool active, you are able to click to select individual points in a path orvector shape.

1

Page 32: Photoshop

Chapter 3

USING THEBRUSHES ANDPENCIL TOOLS

Photoshop is traditionally knownfor image manipulation,

retouching, effects and colourcorrection, but not so much as apainter’s tool. This has partly beendue to the fact that the artisticcapabilities of the program wereseverely limited due to the poorsupport for artistic mediasimulation. Other programs such asCorel Painter used to lead the markethere, but the last few versions ofPhotoshop has seen it’s Brushessystem completely overhauled,making it much more useful as anartistic media program.

Having said that, Brushes havealways been essential for just about

In this chapter…

U s i n g t h e B r u s h a n dP e n c i l t o o l s

E d i t i n g a n d s a v i n gb r u s h p r o p e r t i e s

C r e a t i n g c u s t o m b r u s h t i p s

U s i n g t h e H i s t o r y a n dA r t H i s t o r y b r u s h

This chapter introduces you to Photoshop’smore arty tools, the Brushes. However, as we’llsee, you can use these versatile tools for farmore than just painting

everything else in Photoshop, andgetting the most out of the Brushtools involves finding out all thelittle secrets and features buriedinside the program. Actually they’renot that secret but its surprising howfew of the shortcuts some Photoshopusers know. It’s usually those whohave been using it since the earlydays that know all the best tips.

Spoilt for choiceIn a way, the later, feature-richversions spoil you by giving you somany options to work with. TheHistory palette, introduced inversion 5, is a fantastic time-savingdevice. It’s also an incredible feature

Page 33: Photoshop

that takes the basic Photoshopfunctions and multiplies theircapabilities tenfold. The Historypalette essentially adds a kind ofnon-linear undo to the program.Previously undo was limited to justhopping back step-by-step. TheHistory palette displays all youroperations (up to a maximumnumber that you specify) in a list,complete with the tool used and itsicon. By clicking on any of thesesteps you can immediately jumpstraight back to the document as itwas at that point in time.

Even more impressive is theability to store permanent snapshotsof the state of the document at any

time. These will not ‘fall off theback’ like items in the undo listwould when the list exceeded thenumber of steps set in thePreferences. However all this powerand flexibility comes at a cost: disk space. The History states canconsume very large amounts of‘scratch disk’ space, the randomstorage bin that Photoshop uses as akind of virtual memory.

Performance figuresKeep a large amount of hard diskspace free for Photoshop – as muchas 2 to 4GB if working on largeimages. Ideally, partition your diskand dedicate one part to Photoshop.

33ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES – FOCUS GUIDE

Brushes and Pencil tools

Page 41 Dual Brushes offer the userunprecedented levels of detail

Page 45 The Art History Brush allowsyou to turn an image into a painting

Page 34 Photoshop’s brush editingsystem gets the most from Brush tools

Page 35 Access Photoshop’s hiddenextras for more versatility

Page 36 Learn about the importance ofSpacing, Flow and Opacity for brushes

Page 43 The History Brush offerssuperb photo manipulation options

Page 34: Photoshop

The Brush tool can be found inthe fourth row of Photoshop’s

toolbar. When selected, the optionsbar displays quite a few settings forthe current Brush such as Opacity,Flow and whether it is in Airbrushmode or not. There are also pull-down menus for the Apply mode,Brush Shape preset and the newBrush Editing palette.

Brushes are used to apply colouredpixels to an image. They take theircolour from the current ForegroundColour swatch. The Colour palettecan be used to choose colours in a

number of different ways – by usingthe small gradient strip at the base,the sliders or the Swatch tab.

The Brush tool

Brushes offer some of Photoshop’s mostflexible features. So where can you find them?

34 FOCUS GUIDE – ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES

Chapter 3

The Color palette lets you choose colours invarious ways – via a gradient strip, sliders orswatches, which are located in their own tab

Back and forthYou can set twocolours, a foregroundand backgroundcolour, and switchbetween them whilepainting with theBrush tool by pressingthe [X] key.

The Brush presets arelocated here at the top-left ofthe Options palette when theBrush tool is selected.

The Brushes palette can beaccessed by clicking this iconin the Brush tool’s Option bar.

The basic Brush settings,such as Size, Shape andAngle as well as the spacingcontrol can be accessed byclicking the Brush Tip Shapesection at the top, thecontrols of which display atthe bottom of the palette.

The Brushes palette is veryversatile but can seem a bitcomplicated at first. It’s farmore advanced than inprevious versions.

Choose the display optionfor the presets from thepreset menu. You can displaythe presets as a list or asicons if you prefer.

The panel can beexpanded by dragging thebottom-right corner.

THE BRUSH INTERFACE AND CONTROLS

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Using Brushes

There is a huge range of customisable andpreset brushes. Here’s how to use them

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Brushes and Pencil tools

The key to opacity You can also reduce

opacity using thenumeric key pad.

Pressing the 0 key setsthe opacity to 100%,

while pressing the [5]key sets the opacity to

50%. Pressing the [1]numeric key sets the

opacity to 10% and so on.

Nimble numeracyTo get an intermediateopacity value like 15%,

type 1 followed quickly by 5 on the

numeric keypad.

In this case the paint ‘builds’,accumulating opacity the more and

more you paint.This is very useful for buildingup tones and colours in an image gradually.You can see the effect clearly here. Where thestrokes double back and cross each other thecolour intensifies.The downside is that theindividual ‘dabs’ are also visible.

4

Flow is like opacity but is a dynamicproperty. Whereas opacity sets a value

for the maximum amount of opacity, Flow setsthe minimum amount. With the Flow settingvery low, say 10%, and opacity set to full, youcan paint with what seems like a low opacity,except when you paint over the strokes youhave just applied.

3

The Opacity of the brush defines howtransparent the paint is – that is, how

much of the colour underneath showsthrough the paint. By default it is set to 100%,but you can reduce this using the Opacityslider in the Options bar.

2

Once you select the Brush tool you canchoose a Brush Shape from the Brush

preset drop-down menu in the Options bar.Each preset is saved at a given size, indicatedbelow the brush preview icon in the presetlist.You can alter this by dragging the masterdiameter slider.

1

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Using Brushes continued

36 FOCUS GUIDE – ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES

Chapter 3

Brush size shortcutYou can change thebrush size up and downin 10 point incrementsusing the squarebracket keys [ and ].

More shortcutsOn this month’s CDyou’ll find PDF filesthat contain all thepossible keyboardshortcuts for both PCs and Apple Macs. .

You can also turn Spacing off using the check-box in the Brushes palette.

When it’s off, Photoshop applies spacingdepending on how quickly you draw yourstroke.This can be good or bad, dependingwhat you want the stroke to look like.

8

In order to counteract this effect, youneed to use an even lower Flow setting.

Here the flow has been reduced to 3% for a5% spacing value.You can see that the strokesappear much smoother and build nicely as weapply more paint.

7

By reducing the Spacing you can getbetter results when using a low Flow

setting. Here the Spacing is reduced to 5%,which means each dab overlaps by 95% of itsdiameter.This results in a much smootherstroke, but its also more opaque, as the brushtends to ‘self build’.

6

This brings us on to the Brushes palette,which is opened by clicking the icon at

the top-right of the Options bar.The palettecontains a setting called Spacing.This controlshow frequently Photoshop places a ‘dab’ ofpaint as you drag the brush.The defaultsetting of 25% makes each dab overlap thenext by three quarters of its diameter.Here’s the result from a low Flow setting.

5

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37ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES – FOCUS GUIDE

Brushes and Pencil tools

Brush shortcutsLots of Photoshop’stools use the same

brushes interface.Youcan use the same

shortcuts to changebrush size and pop upthe preset panel with

any of them.Take alook at the PDF files

included on the CD fora full list of shortcutsfor both PC and Mac.

Straight aheadTo paint perfectlystraight lines click

once to place the starpoint of the stroke

then shift-clickelsewhere. A straight

stroke will joint thetwo points.

Also, while painting you can choose anew colour from the image by holding

down the [Alt] key.The Brush tool changes tothe Eye Dropper, allowing you to sample acolour from any pixel.

12

When painting an image using brushesit can be a chore moving to the Options

bar to change brush size and shape. Howeverthe preset pop-up is available right beneathyour mouse if you right-click in your image.Mac users should hold down [Ctrl] and clickfor the same effect.

11

Soft brushes are very useful especiallywhen used with other tools such as the

Rubber Stamp, which uses the same brushinterface as the Brush tool. A Hardness of100% is not totally hard, however.There is stillsome edge smoothing because of the effect of ‘anti-aliasing’ (on the right stroke). If youwant a totally hard brush (left stroke) switchto the Pencil tool.

10

Other brush properties includeHardness.This defines how sharp the

edges of the brush are and can be varied from0 to 100% in the Brushes panel.The brush onthe left has a hardness of 100% while the oneon the right has a Hardness of 0%.They areexactly the same diameter, but notice that thesoft brush seems smaller because its edgesare less opaque.

9

Page 38: Photoshop

The Brushes palette is where itall happens. It’s Photoshop’s

answer to its previous lack of naturalmedia tools. In truth, it’s not really anatural media simulation system, butrather an extension of the brushdynamics features that previousversions of the program already had.

When you open the Brushespalette you are faced with anoverwhelming array of controls andthey do take a while to becomefamiliar with. Most of the controlsare to do with the ‘dynamics’ of thebrushes – how the brush properties

vary during use. Photoshop allowsyou to set the various properties,such as scattering, colour and huevariation. These can stay fixed,respond to cursor speed or fade overa pre-defined distance. This gives you a large additional range ofnatural, organic variances to yourbrush strokes which would nototherwise be possible with a mouse.However, to get the most from thebrush dynamics, and experiencetheir intuitive ‘feel’, you shouldreally invest in a graphics tablet andpen, such as the Wacom Intuos.

Exploring the Brushes palette

The basics of the Brushes palette and presetsand how they affect the look of your strokes

38 FOCUS GUIDE – ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES

Chapter 3

Take a tabletWith a graphics tabletattached, the brushparameters canrespond to penpressure, speed and tilt(if supported).Theresult is that you cancreate brushes that areresponsive to yourtouch and work morelike real artists tools.But you can also set upthe dynamics so thatthe brushes perform ina totally unnatural waytoo, if you wish.

Brush shape is the final part of the jigsaw when creating and

editing brushes. The standard brushes offer a circular shape

that can be hard or soft, round or oval and rotated at any

angle. But there are a number of special brushes that are

more graphic in nature. These can be selected from the

Preset menu and there are many more that come with

Photoshop but are not loaded by default.To load a preset

library choose one from the Brush preset panel menu (the

triangle at the top-right).You are then asked to Replace or

Append the current list. Append adds the selected library

to the current list of brushes, rather than replacing it.

CHOOSING YOUR BRUSH SHAPE

Having the right brush shape for the task is the key to success

The preset brush libraries have manydifferent brush shapes.The menu is atthe top-right of the preset brush pop-up

Page 39: Photoshop

There are 13 sections in theBrushes palette, displayed in a

list down the left-hand side. The firstof these is the Presets section –essentially a duplicate of the Presetpull-down menu in the Option bar.You can choose a brush preset fromthe list, or load new ones from thepop-up menu at the top-right of thepalette. At the bottom is a preview of how the current brush strokewould behave, and above that is theMaster Diameter slider. At the verybottom are the New Brush andDelete buttons. Clicking the New

Brush button creates a new preset,which you can name and save toreuse another time.

The Brushes palette in detail

Having seen the Brush palette’s potential, let’sdelve deeper into the Brush Preset features

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Brushes and Pencil tools

The Brush Presets section at the very top storescomplete brush settings, including the type of tip shape and the dynamics settings

Saving your presetsYou can save the

currently loaded set ofpresets as a library

using the Save Brushescommand in the pop-

up menu at the top-right corner of the

palette.The library issaved as a .abr file,

which only Photoshopcan read.

Size Jitter – Controls thevariation in size of the dabs ina stroke. The higher the value,the greater the variation.

Minimum – Sets thesmallest size the brush willreach when it is jittered.

Control – These menusdefine what dynamicsattribute controls theparameter. Fade reduces theeffect of the parameter over acertain distance, entered inthe numeric field. Otheroptions are Off, Pen Tilt, PenPressure and Stylus Wheel.

Minimum Roundness – Sets the minimum value thatis reached when randomlyjittering the Roundness.

Tilt Scale – Enabled whenthe Pen Tilt option is selectedin the Control pop-up.Adjusts the tilting sensitivity.

Angle Jitter – If the brush isasymmetrical you can jitterthe angle of the dabs, but noton a perfectly round brush.

Roundness jitter – This toolrandomly alters the amounta brush is squashed or‘rounded’ on one axis.

THE TOOLS OF BRUSH DYNAMICS

Zinio
Note
Insert=True Align=Middle
Page 40: Photoshop

Scattering

Scattering is a great way of adding randombrush strokes to images. Here’s how it works

40 FOCUS GUIDE – ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES

Chapter 3

Better late than neverBrushes in laterversions of Photoshophave more options tocontrol their behaviour.If you’re using an olderversion you may findthat some of thefeatures that we’vementioned do not apply.

Scatter effectsWide Scatter settingscan be used to createrandom but evenvariation in tone orcolour on yourartwork. Use it withselections to controlthe placement of the effect.

Count Jitter simply varies the number inthe Count setting per dab, and is not

very noticeable in most situations. Note thatthere are Control pop-ups in the Scattersection so you can link the parameters tographics pen tilt, pressure and scroll wheel,or fake the effect of distance.

4

The Count slider multiplies each dab bythe number shown. instead of a single

dab, a setting of 5 in the Count slider willproduce five times as many dabs, each ofwhich may be scattered. Because it increasesthe density of the brush dabs you may want tolower the Flow setting of the brush.

3

When the Both Axes option is enabledthe scattering takes place perpendicular

to the stroke and along it. Most of the timeyou’d leave this option off, unless you want avery randomized stroke, almost like a spray.

2

The Scattering section is great fun.Thisadds a random scattering of the dabs

and is a great way to add random, organicstrokes to images.The Scatter slider controlsthe amount of scattering perpendicular to thestroke direction.

1

Page 41: Photoshop

Textures and Dual Brushes

Achieve seriously complex brush effects withadditional features of the Brushes palette

41ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES – FOCUS GUIDE

Brushes and Pencil tools

Precise strokesDon’t forget gradientselections are a greatway to control where

‘paint’ will go on animage.You can blend

or fade away yourstrokes very precisely

using these gradients.

Go easyDual brushes are the

key to getting moredetailed brush strokes

in less time.They aremore suited, however, to

be used sparsely ratherthan as dense strokes.

Enabling Scattering is a good idea.

Enabling all of the numerous othersettings and it becomes like playing

with wet paint, and great fun. It only takesseconds to spray the canvas with incrediblydetailed patterns and colours, and work themtogether like real paint.

4

Colour Dynamics takes the concept ofscattering and jitter but applies it to the

colour properties of a brush.You can achievevery complex and detailed strokes using thesettings in this section.

3

Enabling the Dual Brush option makesthings really interesting.This feature

adds a second brush tip to texture the mainone. It has its own Spacing, Size, Scatteringand Count settings and is mixed in using anApply mode chosen from the pop-up menu atthe top of the panel.

2

The rest of the parameters are operatedin much the same way as the Scattering

section that we looked at in detail.The bestthing to do is to experiment with the settings by playing around with them. Here the Texturesection is enabled.This lets you add texture to the brush tip using one of Photoshop’spreset textures.

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Page 42: Photoshop

The History Brush seems a bitof a mysterious tool in the

Photoshop toolbox for bothnewcomer and veteran alike, and forthat reason is one that often getsoverlooked. This is usually becauseveteran Photoshoppers have got usedto the way Photoshop used to workbefore the advent of the HistoryBrush and old habits die hard.

But it’s worth getting to know thisunusual tool because, together withits indispensable partner the Historypalette, it should turn out to be atotal delight to any newcomer.

Every time you perform an action,such as painting a stroke, applying afilter, or deleting a layer, that step isstored in the History palette as a‘state’. By clicking on any of these,you can return your document to thestate it was in at that point. Now,here’s the best bit – by clicking onthe small icon box next to a historystate in the History palette, youearmark that layer as the source forthe History Brush. When you thenpaint on the image with the HistoryBrush only those pixels will bereturned back to the earmarked state.

The History Brush

Discover Photoshop’s secret weapon forretouching and photo manipulation

42 FOCUS GUIDE – ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES

Chapter 3

Step back inHistoryThe History Brush letsyou paint previousstates of the currentdocument over thecurrent state.Thismakes it a powerfultool for selectivelyapplying filters to an image.

Photoshop 5 onwards has two kinds of undo. There’s the

normal [Ctrl]+[Z] undo ([Command]+[Z] on a Mac), which

undoes and redoes the last action you performed. This can

be handy to flip back and forth, checking the result of your

last action.There is also History.You can step backwards in

History using [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Z] (that’s [Command]+[Alt]+[Z] for

Mac users). By repeatedly pressing this shortcut, you step

back further and further through the history. To go forwards

again press [Ctrl/Command]+[Shift]+[Z]. Set the number of

states stored in History by going to Preferences > General

and entering a new number in the History States field.

HISTORY AND UNDO

So what’s the difference between Undo and History?

You can set Photoshop’s maximumnumber of History states from theGeneral section in Preferences

Page 43: Photoshop

Using the History Brush

The History Brush is a powerful and flexibletool, but has all the simplicity of a normal brush

43ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES – FOCUS GUIDE

Brushes and Pencil tools

Size does matterTo paint with History

states the source statemust be the same size

as the currentdocument. if you

resized an image youwill not be able to use

any states prior tothat as a source for

the History Brush.

United statesIn order to paint with

History states, thesource state must also

be the same colourspace. If you changed

this you will not beable to use any statesprior to that point as

a source for theHistory Brush.

Now we can change the History sourceto the Inverted state, select the History

tool and a fancy brush and paint. Wherever wepaint the pixels in the image will be inverted.Obviously you can use this technique with anyeffect, filter or adjustment you like.

4

We want to get the image back as is wasso that we can selectively invert it, but

undoing the last step also clears the statefrom the History, which is no good. Instead wemark the uninverted state as a History source.Choose Edit > Fill and set the Fill mode toHistory, et voilá, back to normal but withHistory intact.

3

Typing [Ctrl/Command]+[I] inverts theimage, turning the shades and colours

to their opposites.This will be be the basis forthe effect we want to achieve using theHistory Brush, and it has been saved as a statein the History palette.

2

A good use of the History Brush is toapply an effect to an image in localised

areas without the need to construct a mask orselection first. Here’s our starting image towhich we want to apply some special effects.First of all we resized it to make it a bit smaller.

1

Page 44: Photoshop

Using the History Brush continued

44 FOCUS GUIDE – ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES

Chapter 3

Filter tipYou can use this sametechnique of Brushingusing History toselectively apply anyfilter to an image.

Early editsIn earlier versions ofPhotoshop you couldopen part of a largeimage and edit it,placing the editedpart back into thelarge image oncefinished.That was inthe days when RAMwas expensive.

Now we select the Gaussian Blur stateas the source for the History Brush and

paint in the image precisely where we want itto be blurred, leaving the unblurred pixelsintact to create a forced ‘depth of focus’ effect.

8

Now we return the image to its originalstate by selecting the unblurred state as

the History source then using the Edit > Fillcommand set to History mode.

7

So, we follow the same steps as beforeexcept this time we blur the whole

image by Applying the Gaussian Blur filterinstead of inverting it.

6

Here’s another example of the sametechnique. We’ll use History to fake a

‘depth of field’ blur effect on this 3D image.Normally you might do this using a depthrender as a mask, but what if you forgot tosave one?

5

Page 45: Photoshop

Art History Brush

The History Brush has an even more creativecousin – meet the Art History Brush

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Brushes and Pencil tools

Historic detailEven if the detail has

been obliterated, youcan bring it back by

using a smaller brush,because the original,

untouched image isused as the source.

Pick a modeThe Art History Brush

can be applied indifferent blending

modes: Darken,Lighten, Hue, Colour,

Saturation and Luminosity.

You can carry on adding details back,changing brushes and styles until you

get the result you want. Here we went backand lightened the original image then usedthis as the source, enabling us to add in somedetail in the darker part of the face.

4

That blocks out the image nicely. Nowwe can paint some of the finer details

back in. Changing the brush to a much smallerradius lets you add back some details, but youcan do this only to certain areas. We’ve used a3-pixel brush, and the Loose Medium Stylefrom the History Brush’s Options bar.

3

Here’s how it works. Open any photo,preferably one that will work well as a

painting.You don’t need to perform anyaction to set things up, just select the currentstate as the History Source and select the Art History Brush. We used the Impressionistpreset from the pop-up menu at the verytop-left of the Options bar and painted overthe image.

2

The Art History Brush is one of thosebizarre but fun features Adobe comes

up with once in a while. Basically, it is used toconvert any image into one that looks hand-painted.The original photo is on the left, andthe Art History conversion on the right.

1

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Chapter 4

USING THECLONING ANDHEALING TOOLS

Cloning is a very simple andobvious concept in image

manipulation. Take pixels from overhere and duplicate them over there.That’s really all there is to it. TheClone tool, also known as theRubber Stamp, is Photoshop’simplementation of this techniqueand offers you a great deal of powerfor retouching images.

The tool works by ‘sampling’pixels at one location in an image, or even in a different documentaltogether, and painting them in adifferent location using what isessentially a brush. The Clone tooloffers most of the properties of thenormal Brush tool – size, hardness,

In this chapter…

L e a r n h o w t o w i e l d t h eC l o n e t o o l ( R u b b e rS t a m p ) l i ke a p r o

U s i n g b l e n d i n g m o d e st o g e t b e t t e r r e s u l t sw h e n c l o n i n g d i f f i c u l tt e x t u r e s l i ke s k i n

L e a r n h o w t o c l o n ep i xe l s b e t w e e nd o c u m e n t s

Wo r k i n g w i t h t h eH e a l i n g a n d P a t c ht o o l s t o i m p r ov ep o r t r a i t s a n d p h o t o s

P e r f o r m s p e c i a le f f e c t s a n d i m a g em a n i p u l a t i o n t r i c k su s i n g C l o n i n g

The Cloning and Healing tools in Photoshopoffer an elegant way to fix damaged photos,correct bad scans and generally clean up your images.They’re great fun to use too

tip shapes, dynamics and blendingmodes, but applies these to cloning.In addition to these the Clone toollets you clone not only pixels from asingle layer but from the whole of amulti-layered document. This can bea very powerful feature for advancedusers but can cause problems if youdon’t keep your wits about you.

Seamless samplingWhen sampling pixels from a multi-layered, composite image you mustbe aware of any Adjustment layerspresent. If you sample a compositeimage with say, a Hue/SaturationAdjustment layer applied to it,boosting the saturation, cloning on

Page 47: Photoshop

to layers below this adjustment layerwill result in the cloned pixels beingboosted twice. If your intention is tohave a seamless result, your hopeswill be dashed, so it always pays tobe aware of this.

In version 7 of Photoshop, Adobeintroduced a tool that takes theconcept of cloning to the next levelin terms of ease of use, known as theHealing tool. Cloning is a great toolto have but as we saw earlier, it cantake some effort to get a seamlessresult, especially when the samplepoint pickings are slim and whendealing with multi-layered images. It can take quite a bit of practice toachieve smooth results.

Healing, however, lets you clonepixels over a problem area but ratherthan simply overlaying them, as theClone tool does, it blends them withthose they are replacing, using someclever algorithms.

Skin careAs you may have guessed, theupshot of such technology is thatyou don’t need to be nearly socareful in your cloning – whenblending the blemishes on the faceof a subject in a portrait, forexample. The Healing tool willintelligently blend the pixels to getthe best result (at least most of thetime), which works well on skin.

47ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES – FOCUS GUIDE

Cloning and Healing tools

Page 52 The new Healing tool canmake someone look years younger

Page 51 Revive damaged photos andimages with cloning techniques

Page 53 The Healing Patch tool is agreat way to fix up photos

Page 48 Cloning copies parts of yourimage and transplants them elsewhere

Page 49 The Clone tool can removeunwanted parts of an image

Page 50 Less-than-perfect portraits can be fixed up in seconds

Page 48: Photoshop

The Rubber Stamp (Clone) tool

The Rubber Stamp tool is useful for copyingpixels from one part of an image to another

48 FOCUS GUIDE – ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES

Chapter 4

Sample modeWhen you hold the [Alt] key down the Clonecursor changes fromthe brush outline tocrosshairs to show thatit’s in sample mode andallowing more precise sampling.

Precision paintingUse the Caps Lock keyon any brush tool toactivate PreciseCursor mode.

Now we can clone the boy. Releasingthe [Option] key returns to normal

cloning mode. We can clone over the face ofthe boy at the top-right, replacing his with theface of the boy from the lower-left. We cancarry on and make as many clones as we like.

4

Selecting a 20-pixel soft brush we firstset the Sample point from which to

clone.To do this we hold down the [Alt] keyand click where we want to sample from – inthis case the face of the boy in the lower-rightof the photo.

3

To ensure that we can easily return tothe original if necessary, we first make a

copy of the image as a new layer. Selecting theClone tool we can see the Options bar looksmuch like the Brush tool’s. At the far right aretwo extra options though: Aligned and Use All Layers.Turn off the Aligned check-box.

2

Let’s focus on the more creative and funaspects. Here’s a great example of what

cloning is all about – our source image is atypical group portrait.

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Removing unwanted elements

Cloning is ideal when you need to seamlesslyeradicate an unwanted part of an image

49ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES – FOCUS GUIDE

Cloning and Healing tools

In the rightmeasure

Use the Measure toolto drag along the top

edge of one of thebench slats to read its

angle, then use theEdit > Transform >

Rotate command.Theangle that you just found will

automatically beentered in the rotation field.

Online tutorialsYou’ll find a host of

handy tutorials to helpyou take your

Photoshop skills furtherat the website of our

sister magazine,Computer Arts.

www.computerarts.co.uk

With a bit of effort we can remove theman entirely from the image. Note that

to do this successfully we need to stop whenthe alignment of the image begins to drift,and take a new sample point.

4

It sort of works but the cloned part ofthe bench does not line up properly

with the original.To fix this we can undo thecloning, rotate the image slightly so that theslats are horizontal, and clone again.This timethey line up.

3

This time we make sure the Alignedoption is enabled.This allows us to use

multiple strokes, and to maintain the offset sothat the cloning is consistent. In a duplicatelayer we set the sample point on to the middleof the park bench and begin cloning out theman on the left.

2

Another great use for cloning is forremoving objects from a picture. Here’s

an example image. Perhaps you wanted to usethe image with some text overlaid on one side,or you just need to change the composition.

1

Page 50: Photoshop

One of the most common usesof the Clone tool is to fix

blemishes, bruises and marks onskin. If you want to fix marks on theskin such as a rash or the occasionalspot you can easily clone it out usingthe Clone tool as normal. Whileyou’ll remove the blemish you’llprobably find it very difficult to geta seamless clone. What tends tohappen is that the clone will beslightly the wrong shade or colour,so that when you zoom out toinspect the whole image, the clonedpoint is almost as visible as the

original blemish, which defeats thewhole point of removing the blemishin the first place!

Cloning Skin

You can fix problem portraits in seconds usingthe Clone tool and its subtle blending mode

50 FOCUS GUIDE – ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES

Chapter 4

Fixing skin in photos is easy, once you know thatthe secret is simply to change the Clone tool’sblending mode and subtly clone out the marks

A cloningalternativeAn alternativetechnique, which usesthe same principal, isto clone on to a newlayer using theNormal mode but setthe layer’s blendingmode to Colour or Luminosity.

Less is moreUsing a low opacityallows you to cloneaway blemishesgradually.You don’t alwaysneed to eradicateblemishes totally. Infact, doing so canlook too fake. Insteadjust reduce theirintensity a little.

CLONING SKIN correctly requires careful use of the brush blending

modes. In the Options bar set the blending mode in the drop-down

menu to Luminosity and the opacity to 50%.You can then clone the

image using only the brightness of the sampled point.This lets you get

rid of light or dark blemishes easily, without changing the colour.

IF THE blemish is a red patch of skin or bruise, set the blending mode to

Colour before you clone.That way the brightness of the pixels remains

the same, but the off-colour will be removed.

MAKING USE of both apply modes in turn is likely to be the best

option for very bad marks like cuts and bruises.This allows you to deal

with the colour and brightness independently.

WITH BOTH methods try to keep the sample point as close as you can

to the problem area to minimize the difference in skin tone.

THE TRICKS FOR SKIN CLONING REVEALED

Page 51: Photoshop

The Healing Brush

No time to fuss with the Clone tool? Then fixup an image with the Healing Brush instead

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Cloning and Healing tools

Extreme healingThe same technique

of setting theblending mode to

either Colour orLuminosity instead of

Normal works withthe Healing tool justas well as the Clonetool, but you’ll onlyneed it for extreme

situations when thebuilt-in blending

algorithm doesn’tquite cut it.

Sample andPattern

The Healing toolworks in two modes:Sample and Pattern.

In Sample mode itworks like the Clone

tool, while in Patternmode it blends the

pixels with one ofPhotoshop’s stored

patterns.The uses forthis mode are less

obvious, but useful forcertain effects.

The Healing brush has differentblending modes which you can choose

from the Options bar drop-down menu, 90%of the time you won’t need to use them.

4

Using the Healing brush instead resultsin a totally invisible repair.There’s no

need to change blending modes or opacity,just set the sample point using the [Alt] keythen click and drag over the damage.

3

Using the Clone tool works, but leaves avery slight, but noticeable mark behind

due to the sampled pixels being a sightlydifferent shade. We could use more advancedtechniques, but why bother when the Healingbrush is at hand?

2

The Healing Brush can be found in thefourth row on the toolbar, and looks like

a plaster. It uses the same sampling principalas the Clone tool but works by blending theoriginal and cloned pixels together to create anear-perfect fix. Here’s an image that needs abit of a repair.

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The Healing Patch tool

If you don’t like using brushes and selectionsare more your thing, try the Patch tool

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No smearThe Healing and Patchtools can smear if theyare near to very darkpixels.Use a selection toprotect the area youwant to fix if smearing occurs.

When you release the mouse button,the pixels will become merged with

those below. Photoshop performs its trickintelligently, so the dark area vanishes but the skin tone looks normal. We can repeat this on the other eye to complete the anti-ageing process.

4

Because Destination mode is enabledwe can drag these selected pixels onto

the destination pixels. As you drag a copy ofthe pixels, the selected area moves with themouse as a visual cue – you are actuallycloning the pixels.

3

With the Patch tool selected we lasso anarea of clean skin texture, just below the

eye we want to fix.That area is highlightedwith the familiar marching ants.

2

The Patch tool can be found in the sametool group as the Healing Brush, but it

has fewer options.The most logical mode touse is Destination, so this is how we have it setfor now. We want to make the man in thisphoto look a bit younger by removing thebags under his eyes.

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Large patchesThe Patch tool can be

useful whenattempting to repair

very large areas inone go. It’s much

quicker than usingthe Healing Brush too.

Select then PatchIf you need to, you can

make the selectionbefore you choose thePatch tool.This means

that you can use any ofPhotoshop’s advanced

selections tools, such asQuick Mask, ColourRange or the Magic

Wand to preselect thearea you require

more precisely.

When you are happy with the selectedarea you release the mouse.The

selection snaps back to its original locationtaking the source pixels with it.WhenPhotoshop blends the two, the line vanishes.Here’s the result on both eyes.

4

Now all you need to do is to drag theselection over the pixels you want to

use to fix the problem area.This time only theselection outline moves, not the pixels that areselected, as is the case in Destination mode.

3

When in Source mode you need toselect the pixel that you want to change

first, as opposed to selecting the pixel youwant to use to fix the problem area. Here wedrag around the line under the left eye usingthe Patch tool to select it.

2

The Healing Patch tool works theopposite way round when in Source

mode. Depending on your way of thinking,Source mode may seem less intuitive. We willperform the same trick of removing linesunder the eyes in this image but use Sourcemode instead.

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Chapter 5

THE GRADIENT,FILL ANDERASER TOOLS

Gradients and Fills are suchsimple tools in Photoshop that

their simplicity can often hide theirpower, especially in the hands of anexperienced Photoshop user. A Fill is simply a way to pour asingle flat colour, pattern or historystate into a selected area, or thewhole canvas. Like most of the toolsin Photoshop, there is more than oneway in which to accomplish a Fill;we’ll explore some of these differenttechniques later on in this chapter.

Gradual benefitsThe Gradient options are even more powerful than Fills. With theGradient tool you can create a fill

In this chapter…

L e a r n t o u s e a n dc o n t r o l G r a d i e n t s

C r e a t e C u s t o mG r a d i e n t s , u s i n g t h eg r a d i e n t e d i t i n gfeatures in Photoshop 7

U s e t h e P a i n t B u c ke tt o o l t o f i l l a r e a s w i t ha c o l o u r, p a t t e r n o r h i s t o r y

U s e G r a d i e n t s a n dFi l l s f o r s p e c i a l e f f e c t sa n d i m a g em a n i p u l a t i o n

R e m o v e a s u b j e c t f r o mi t s b a c kg r o u n d u s i n gt h e B a c kg r o u n d a n dM a g i c E r a s e r t o o l s

Once you get more competent withPhotoshop you’ll appreciate the importance ofthese utility tools.The Gradient tool in particularis essential for all manner of tricks and effects

that gradually changes colour.Gradients come in all kinds ofdifferent shapes: Linear, Radial,Angular, Reflected and Diamond,and this makes them very useful fora variety of different situations.

The Gradient Editing feature inPhotoshop enables you to creategradients with two or more colours.You can have a simple white-to-black gradient, or a whole rainbowof colours. For special effects workthe simple black and white gradientis absolutely indispensable, putting a whole range of additional optionsat your disposal. For example, if youwant an effect to smoothly fade from full strength to invisible then

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it’s easy to use a white-to-blackgradient to control this, usually as a layer mask.

Photo perfectionFor photographers, colouredgradients can play the role of customfilters, making it easy to createsultry sunsets or brooding, stormyskies at the drag of a mouse. If youcombine gradients with alphachannels you have the power user’splayground. The ability to constructcomplex masks and selections usingalpha channels and the Gradient toolis unparalleled.

While the Fill and Gradient toolsare concerned with adding pixels to

an image, the next family of toolsthat we’ll look at does quite theopposite. The Eraser tool lets youremove pixels by simply using abrush, like an anti-paint brush,which enables you to paint awaypixels on a layer leaving nothing buttransparency behind. The powerversion of the Eraser is theBackground Eraser. This tool isdesigned to make the extraction ofsubjects from their background arelatively simple task. Don’t befooled though – it’s still a trickyproposition, but we’ll show you howto avoid the pitfalls of this techniqueso that you can achieve the bestpossible results every time.

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Page 64 Blend two or more imagelayers together with Gradients

Page 62 Use gradients and blendinglayers to simulate photographic filters

Page 66 Learn how to avoid the pitfallsof the Background Eraser tool

Page 56 Learn how to fill colours in animage using the Paint Bucket tool

Page 57 Fill with 50% grey for specialeffects and image enhancement

Page 59 We look at the Gradient tooland its various options

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The Paint Bucket

The Paint Bucket tool lets you pour pixels into any selection, and it has a few tricks too

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Missing PaintBucket?Photoshop’s toolbarhas undergone manyrevisions over theyears, so the PaintBucket may belocated elsewhere inolder versions.

Select and fillSave time by usingthe Paint Bucket inone fell swoop,instead of using theMagic Wand to makea selection and then filling it.

Instead, what happens is the same aswith the Magic Wand tool.The Paint

Bucket searches for similar coloured pixels to fill, within the tolerance that you set, ratherthan covering the whole layer. Increase theTolerance setting in the Option bar to fill awider range of colours.

4

However, the Paint Bucket has more incommon with the Magic Wand than you

think. If your selected area already has imagepixels in it, clicking on the image will notnecessarily fill the whole selection or layer.

3

It can operate in Foreground Colourmode or in Pattern mode, which you

choose from the drop-down menu in theOptions bar.You can then select a patternfrom the drop-down presets menu, also in theOption bar, and click in the image to fill it.

2

The Paint Bucket can be found in thesixth row of the toolbar in Photoshop 7,

in the same tool group as the Gradient tool.If you make a selection you can use this tool to fill it with the current foreground colour.

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In the modeIn Overlay mode 50%grey pixels are totally

transparent. Pixelsbrighter than 50% are

applied in Screen mode,while those darker than

50% are applied inMultiply mode.

Video tutorialsOn the CD this month

is a set of videotraining tutorials

created by our veryown Photoshop guru,

George Cairns. If youwant to learn more

about using everytool in the Photoshop

toolbar, you’ll find your CD invaluable.

The layer is filled with the grey, bymaking sure the Use All Layers option is

off and clicking in it. Now we can set the Layermode to Overlay and apply the noise, blur itslightly, then change the opacity of the layerany time we want to control the effect.

8

We need to soften the noise, by blurringit but not the image. So we need to

apply the noise in a layer above the image.However, the Noise filter does not work on atransparent layer. Enter the Paint Bucket.The Foreground Colour is set to 50% greyusing Colour Picker and setting Lab Lightnessto 50, A and B to 0.

7

Another use for fills is for special effects.An example is for adding noise to a 3D

or digital image to make it look more likephotographic film.We could simply applynoise to the image directly but this limits ouroptions later if we want to change the noise,say, to make it less obvious. Applying thenoise as-is also tends to looks fake.

6

Using a lower tolerance you can buildup the fill by clicking a couple of times

on different areas of the image. In this examplewe did so in a new layer.You have to makesure the Use All Layers option is checkedwhen using a transparent layer for the fill.Applying the layer in Color mode allows us tochange the colour of the girl’s kagool.

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The Paint Bucket enables you to fill areas using a tolerance

setting like the Magic Wand tool. It also has settings to fill contiguouspixels – or not, as the case may be.Enabling the Contiguous mode inthe Paint Bucket tool’s Options bar(this is the default setting) only fillspixels that are both within thetolerance and physically connectedin the image. Disabling this modecauses the Paint Bucket to searchover the whole image for pixelssimilar to the one that you click on.The Anti-aliasing option simply

means that the edges of the fill aresmoothly anti-aliased to remove anyunsightly jagged edges.

More Fill options

The Paint Bucket is just one of a number of waysin which you can fill an image or selection

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The difference between the smooth anti-aliasedfill (green) and the jagged non-anti-aliased fill(pink) is quite obvious in this close-up

Fetching patternsCustom fill patterns can be found on the web.Here’s the address of asite where you candownload freePhotoshop patterns:http://graphicssoft.about.com/library/free/blfree_pspatterns1.htm

Keep it coolFills and patterns areuseful for creatingbackdrops for webpages. Be carefulthough, becausepatterned backgroundscan be very distracting,so keep them as subtleas possible.

YOU CAN fill using the current foreground colour by typing [Alt]+

[Delete].Typing [Ctrl]+[Delete] (or [Command]+[Delete] for Mac users)

will fill using the current background colour. Pressing the [D] key reverts

the colour to the default black and white.

ANOTHER WAY to fill is using the Edit > Fill menu command.This has a

few extras, such as a pop-up menu for choosing to fill with either White,

Black, Foreground or Background colour, or the handy ‘50% Grey’.

THE FILL Command also enables you to fill using the earmarked

history state in the History palette.You can furthermore set it to Pattern

mode and choose a pattern from within the Fill dialog.

CHOOSE YOUR pattern from one of Photoshop’s presets or use your

own custom-made pattern if you prefer. Any rectangular selection can

be stored as a pattern using the Edit > Define Pattern command.

FILLING TIPS

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The Gradient tool

The Gradient tool is indispensable whenworking on multi-layered documents

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Degrees ofconstraint

Hold down the [Shift] key while dragging toconstrain the angle of

your gradient to 45-degree increments.

Gradient presetsWhile using the

Gradient tool right-clickto pop up the gradient

presets palette. Macusers will need to press

[Ctrl] instead.

The distance you drag will define thewidth of the gradient. It can by very

tight if you only drag a little way (top) or veryloose if you drag a long way (bottom). Notethat before the first point the pixels are madeup of 100% first colour, and after the last pointthey are 100% last colour.

4

The Gradient tool can be found in thesixth row of the toolbar, and has an icon

with a small black-to-white gradient. Use thetool by simply dragging out a line indicatingthe direction of the gradient.The first pointyou click defines where the first colour willend, and the point where you release themouse after dragging is where the second (orlast colour if it has more the two) will begin.

3

...or colourful, like this red-to-greengradient.You can also blend a

monotone colour, like black or white into acolour such as red, and the brightness andsaturation of the colour will smoothly blendacross the distance that you specify.

2

A gradient is very simply two coloursspread over a distance and smoothly

blended from the one to the other.They canbe monotone, like this simple black-to-whitelinear gradient…

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The Gradient Tool continued

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See-throughoptionsThe Transparencycheck-box in theOptions bar allows youto turn off thetransparent part of agradient if it is enabled.

Make it noisyThe Dither check-boxenables a dithering orjitter to the gradient,adding a touch ofnoise, which can helpreduce bandingeffects when printing.

Custom gradients can contain anynumber colours that you specify and

are edited in the Gradient Editing panel.Theycan also incorporate transparency. Here is acustom preset that combines a multicolourgradient with alternating transparency.

8

Foreground to Transparent takes thecurrent foreground colour and blends

it to nothing, leaving only transparent pixels.This can be great for blending gradients overimages, for example.

7

Foreground to Background modesimply uses the current foreground

colour as the first point, and the currentbackground colour as the last point andcreates a blend between them.

6

There are actually three types ofgradient. Foreground to Background,

Foreground to Transparent, and Custom. Eachtype is selected from the preset pop-up in theGradient tool’s Option bar.There are usually anumber of preset custom gradients available.

5

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When the Gradient tool isselected, clicking on the

preset sample at the top-left of theOption bar opens up the GradientEditor panel. Here you can choosefrom a range of ready-madegradients, or create your own.

To create a custom gradient justselect a preset and begin editing thecolours of the ‘nodes’ in the editingstrip at the bottom of the panel.

The top of the strip contains thetransparency nodes, while thebottom contains the colour nodes.Click on a node (or ‘Color Stop’ as

Adobe calls them) to edit its colour.The Stops section lets you edit the properties of the selected stop.

The Gradient Editor panel

Editing gradients is done in the Gradient Editorpanel in Photoshop 6 onwards

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Clicking on a colour node, (or ‘Stop’ as Adobecalls them) in the gradient strip at the bottom of the panel selects it for editing.

Changing stopsCreating new stops is

done by clicking in freespace above or below

the gradient strip.Toremove a stop,

drag it away and let go.Stops can be moved by

dragging them left or right.

The Preset list is displayedat the top. You can changethe size of the previews fromthe panel’s pop-up menu.

You can change the type of gradient from the pop-up.The options are Color(normal) and Noise.

Create a new preset fromthe current gradient strip byclicking on this button here.

The Color Stops (or nodes)are displayed underneath thegradient strip. Click on one toselect it for editing. Clickingwhere there is no stoppresent adds a new one.

the Transparency Stops are displayed on top of thegradient strip. They can beeither white, black or shadesof grey only.

When you select a Colouror Transparency Stop its mid-point handle is alsodisplayed. Drag this tochange the rate of blendingbetween nodes.

THE GRADIENT EDITOR EXPLAINED

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Using Gradients creatively

Now let’s look at how useful Gradients can be when working creatively in Photoshop

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Trial and errorExperiment with all theLayer Blending modesand get a feel for howthey affect the image.Some will have similarpleasing effects, whileothers will just lookplain awful.

Comprehend the blendThere are technicalexplanations for eachof the Blending modesin your PhotoshopManual or onlineguide. It's worth goingthrough these tounderstand exactlywhat's going on.

In a new layer, we add a Foreground to Transparent gradient once more, but

choose a much darker blue.The layer mode isthis time set to Multiply, creating a dark castover the image. Finally, a Levels AdjustmentLayer is added to the image, which controls all brightness and gamma.

4

Another use for gradients is to addmood to a Photo. Here’s an image of a

model looking quite moody, but the pictureitself could be even moodier. It’s simple with a gradient to add that mood.

3

In a new layer we add a vertical darkblue transparent gradient over the

image. Setting the layer’s blending mode toOverlay blends the colour and brightness ofthe gradient in a special way, creating adeeper, darker sky.

2

Gradients are great for those workingwith digital or scanned photographic

images in Photoshop. We can use gradients in place of traditional photographic filters tocreate some cool effects. Here’s the originalunfiltered image.

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Gradient Styles

The Linear gradient is only one of five styles.We’ll look at the others and see what they offer

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Turn it aroundThe invert button in the

Options bar reversesthe direction of the

colours in the gradient.

Quick sampleUse the [Alt] key to

activate the EyeDropper.You can thenchoose colours for the

gradient from your image.

Finally, the Diamond style is similar tothe Radial style, except that the edges

form a square rather than a smooth circle.This can be useful for certain kinds of vignetteeffects, for example.

4

Next up is the Reflected style.This typeof gradient can be useful, especially for

creating masks and selections. In this case aLinear gradient is created, but in oppositedirections from where you drag.

3

The next style option is the Circularstyle.This is not a common one to use,

but can be useful. In this case the gradient iswrapped around in a circular motion.The lineyou drag doesn’t mark the size of thegradient, but only the direction of the colours.

2

At the top of the Gradient tool’s Optionsbar next to the preset pop-up are the

Gradient Styles. Linear is the default, but nextto it is the Radial style. Selecting this creates a radial gradient using the selected preset.The first point you click is the center of thegradient, dragging outwards to the edges.

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Gradient Masks

Use a simple black and white gradient in alayer mask for creating composite images

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ApplicationoptionsYou can apply masksto adjustment layers aswell as normal imagelayers. So we couldhave applied the levelsas an adjustment layerusing the samegradient trick to maskout its effect on thelower part of the image.

Vignettes Create vignettes usinga Radial gradient as alayer mask applied toa Solid Fill Layer.Youcan then adjust thecolour of the fill to suitdifferent uses.

Finally Image > Adjustment > Levels is applied to the Sky layer (not to the

mask). In the dialog box that appears, drag upthe black input slider to darken the sky andmaking it match better with the image below.

4

A layer mask is added to the Sky layer,by clicking the New Layer Mask button

at the bottom of the Layers palette. Makingsure the layer mask is selected and not thelayer, we can use a black-to-white lineargradient to mask out the bottom of the skylayer, blending the two images together.

3

One image is copied into the other bydragging its layer from the Layers

palette over the other’s image window andreleasing the mouse.The sky image is scaledroughly to fit using the Free Transform tool.

2

One very popular use of the Gradienttool is to make one image blend

smoothly into another. Here are two imagesthat we want to composite, by blending onegradually into the other.

1

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Because Photoshop handlestransparency as a mask, a

simple black and white gradient canbe used to smoothly manipulatelayer transparency. Photoshop alsoenables us to convert a mask into aselection and vice-versa.

For example, you can create agradient selection by switching tothe Channels palette, creating a newalpha channel and drawing agradient in it. Then by [Command]+clicking on the alpha channel, it canbe loaded as a selection: black areasare unselected, white areas are fully

selected, shades of grey are partiallyselected, depending on brightness.So loading a gradient in this waycreates a variable selection, throughwhich we can apply filters, paint orwhatever. Another way to do thesame thing would be to enter QuickMask mode, apply the Gradient toolon the Quick Mask, then press [Q]to convert it to an active selection.

Once a gradient selection is made,you can convert it to a layer masksimply by adding a layer mask to alayer with the selection active.

Masks and selections in detail

We’ll look at some different ways to creategradient masks and selections

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Goodbye haloIf applying a filter such as

Gaussian Blur through agradient selection it’s best to

apply the filter multipletimes with a small value.Otherwise you will get a

‘halo’ around the partiallyselected pixels rather than a

smooth blur.

As we’ve seen, we can use gradients as layer masks when

compositing images. We can also apply gradients to layers

using blending modes to get different effects. Another use,

which is sort of between the two, is to control the effects of

an adjustment layer with a gradient mask. It helps to make

the gradient selection first, as described above, then add

your adjustment layer. Unlike pixel-based layers, adjustment

layers are created automatically with a layer mask. Any

current selection will become the layer mask for this new

layer. Make the adjustment, such as increasing the contrast,

and see the results as applied through the mask directly.

GRADIENT LAYER MASKS WITH ADJUSTMENT LAYERS

Here’s another handy way of using Gradients

A Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer isapplied to this image using a gradientlayer mask

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Magic and Background Erasers One is like the Eraser and Magic Wand in one,while the other is ideal for cutting out objects

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Know the limitsIn all honesty the MagicEraser is not one of thebest tools inPhotoshop's arsenal. Itcan be useful forquickly erasingsomething but onlyworks well on a limitedrange of images.

Look elsewhereThere are a number ofthird party toolsavailable that do abetter job at removingbackgrounds thanPhotoshop’sEraser tools.

Our Dog image proves to be far moredifficult a proposition, however.

Although the Magic Eraser works fairly well on the sky, on the grass it doesn’t do so well.This is because the grass is so varied in colourand brightness that the Eraser has a hard jobof finding the right colours to remove.

4

After a couple of clicks the wholebackdrop is erased, leaving a nice

clean-edged subject surrounded bytransparent pixels.This is useful if you thenwant to save the image as a GIF for example,with transparency intact.

3

Alternatively you can cut out the middleman (or woman as is quite literally the

case here) by using the Magic Eraser tool. Withthis tool you can click on the background toerase it directly in one click. All colours thatfall within the tolerance setting are deleted.

2

In an image such as this it is fairly easyto remove the subject from the

background because there is a definitedifference in colour between them. Photoshophas many ways of doing this, you could makea selection using the Magic Wand tool thendelete it, for instance.

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Backgrounddetails

Like the Magic Wand,the Background Eraserhas a Tolerance setting

but also Limits andSampling Method

options. Continuouslets you sample as you

paint, while the Onceoption samples only

on the first click.Background Swatch

lets you save a colourto use as the sample.

Glitch invasionThe Background Eraser

is not a tool that aprofessional Photoshopuser would feel at home

with. It tends to leave fartoo many glitches in the

edge of the cut-outobjects, which take extra

time to fix up later.It’s still slightly messy, but the bulk ofthe rest of the background can be

deleted using a rough selection. It’s the bitsnear to the subject that cause the problem,and the Background Eraser does a prettygood job of keeping the parts you want anddeleting those you don’t.

8

The tool has a boundary like a normalbrush and a central cross. When you

paint you must keep quite close to the edge of the object you wish to keep, withoutactually touching it.The tool samples anderases as it goes, but does so only within thebrush area. If you slip and accidentally crossover onto your object then it will be deleted,so care is required.

7

Using the Background Eraser tool (you’ll find it in the Eraser tool group in

the sixth row of the toolbar) results in a morecontrollable method of chopping the poochout of his environment.The tool is brush-based, so you simply paint away to removethe background.

6

Turning off the Contiguous optionmight improve matters.This makes

the tool search the whole image for similarcolours, rather than just examining pixels that are connected to the starting point.Unfortunately we end up losing most of ourdog as well when we try this method.

5

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Chapter 6

GETTING TOKNOW THEEFFECTS TOOLS

When it comes down to it,Photoshop is mostly about

effects. Be it a simple vignette, acrop or even an image enhancement,what you are really doing is creatingsome kind of effect to spice up animage. Photoshop’s filters offer youa broad palette of effects, which canbe applied to images, both verysubtly or dramatically. Combinefilters with selections and masks,layers and blending modes and youhave a cornucopia of digital tricksthat can improve an image no end.

Photoshop also has a small groupof effects-based tools which work ina similar way to the filters andadjustment features in many

In this chapter…

B l u r o r s h a r p e n p a r t so f a n i m a g e u s i n g t h e‘ f o c u s ’ t o o l s

C r e a t e f i n g e r - p a i n t i n ge f f e c t s o r b l e n dc o l o u r s u s i n g t h eS m u d g e t o o l

C r e a t e b e t t e rc o m p o s i t e i m a g e su s i n g ‘e x p o s u r e ’ t o o l s

M a ke y o u r s u b j e c ts t a n d o u t w i t h D o d g ea n d B u r n e f f e c t s

Photoshop’s effects tools include Blur, Sharpen,Smudge, Dodge and Burn.We’ll look at howbest to use them to spice up your artwork,composites and photographic images

respects, but do so in a moreartistically controllable way.Essentially these are brush-basedfilters, allowing you to ‘paint’ theeffects just where you need them.

Focus and exposure Effect tools are in two differentgroups. The ‘focus’ tools are in theseventh row of the toolbar inPhotoshop 7 and consist of the Blur, Sharpen and Smudge tools.‘Exposure’ tools are directly to theright of this and contain the Dodge,Burn and Sponge tools. Click andhold on the groups to reveal all thetools in that group. You’ll also notethat next to each tool is a letter. This

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is the tool’s shortcut key, and there is one for almost every tool inPhotoshop’s toolbar. Pressing thatkey will activate the respective toolno matter what else is selected.

The ‘focus’ tools – Blur andSharpen – allow you to apply thesefilter-like effects directly to pixels inthe image using any of Photoshop’sbrushes – including the complex,customisable brush shapes. But mostof the time you’ll find it best to usethese tools with a normal, soft,round brush. The Smudge tool worksin a slightly different way, however,and we’ll look at how to use thatparticular tool more closely later inthe chapter.

The ‘exposure’ tools – Dodge,Burn and Sponge also let you painttheir effects onto an image directly.These tools produce effects similarto the Adjustment tools like Levels,Curves and Hue/Saturation.

Shadow playUsing the exposure tools is anexcellent way of producing photo-realistic composites. The toolsenable you to paint additionalshadows or highlights in preciselythe right areas, to give compositedelements the correct shading. Theshadows will then look like theyreally belong there – which is justthe effect you’re after.

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Effects Tools

Page 75 Dodge and Burn adjust pixelcontrast and brightness by painting them

Page 73 The Smudge tool lets youapply paint with a finger-painting effect

Page 79 Focus in on an object within animage by Burning the background

Page 70 The Blur tool works by blurringthe pixels in an image, to varying intensity

Page 71 Decreasing the brush spacingallows for a more intense Blur effect

Page 72 Maximise the usefulness of theSharpen tool, with its blending modes

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The ‘focus’tools

The ‘focus’tools are simple to use when youunderstand how they work.Let’s explore them

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Pop-up paletteYou can also pop up thebrushes preset palette by right-clicking in theimage window. Macusers will need to holddown [Ctrl] and click.

In a hurry?The pop-up Brushespalette can bemomentary ([Alt]+click+hold) or persistent([Alt]+click+release)enabling you to choose a brush quickly orbrowse at leisure.

The tool applies the effect continuallyso even if you stop moving the mouse

the effect continues to be applied.Thestrength slider therefore does not control themaximum amount of blur, but rather the rateat which blurring will intensify. On the rightthe blur tool is applied for 5 seconds at 10%,and on the left 5 seconds at 100%.

4

The Strength slider in the Options barcontrols the intensity of the blur – how

quickly the blur intensifies as you paint. Usethe numeric keypad to quickly type in thestrength you require. For example, pressingthe 1 key on the keypad equals 10% strength,5 equals 50%, and 0 equals 100%. Here’s thesame stroke applied once at 10%, 50% and100% strength to the pattern’s bottom edge.

3

The tool uses the normal brushesinterface and preset menu, accessible

from the Options bar as usual. Most of thetime you’ll be using the Blur tool with just anormal, round, soft brush rather than anything fancy.

2

The Blur tool can be selected from theseventh row of the toolbar or with the a

shortcut key [R]. Simply put, you can use thistool to soften edges and detail in an image bypainting over it.

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The Blur tool

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Effects Tools

Blurred orfocused?

The trick for asuccessful blurring

effect, as on the girl’sportrait, is to apply

the blur tool only toparts of an image and

leave key areas, suchas the eye, in focus.

Blurred light Other blending modeson offer – Hue, Colour

and Saturation, are lesssuitable modes to use

with the Blur tool inmost cases.

But Lightness can bequite handy, as it blurs

the details but not the colours.

Setting it to Lighten mode does theopposite and creates a light glow or

halo.This is a great way to soften brighthighlights within an image in order to createsoft focus and bloom effects on otherwisedead sharp images.

8

The tools can be set to differentblending modes, and this can be very

useful for certain effects. In Darken mode,blurring parts of an image creates an eeriedark glow around objects.The result isactually similar to some types of old cinematic film.

7

There is however a simple way toovercome this and to boost the Blur

tool’s power. What you need to do is edit theSpacing setting for the brush you are using.The default 25% spacing is often not enough.Reducing the Spacing means the ‘flow’ of theeffect in increased, so blurring is given a boost.

6

Even with the tool set to 100% strengthit can seem like it doesn’t blur to a very

high degree. In fact it feels like it reaches aplateau where it no longer has any effect.Thisis because as the pixels get more blurry youneed an ever stronger blur to see any effect.But since the strength is at maximum, the tooljust appears to come to a halt.

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The Sharpen tool

The antithesis of the Blur tool is the Sharpentool. No prizes for guessing what this tool does

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A sharp escapeWhen working on largeimages with largebrushes, the Blur andSharpen tools can takesome time to calculate.If you want to stop thecalculation of a blur orsharpen while inprogress, press the [Esc] key.

Slick selectionSelecting the generalarea before using theBlur or Sharpen toolcan speed things up.

To reduce the multicolour noise effect,switching to the tool’s blending mode,

to Luminosity, is a great help. Now only thebrightness details in the image are sharpenedbut not the colour, which is often where the noise resides.

4

The Sharpen tool works best when theStrength slider is kept low – on

photographic images, or those that have beencompressed using lossy compression such asJPEG, the sharpening can increase ‘noise’ –the pixels become too sharp and stand outtoo much from the image.Therefore, too higha strength setting for the sharpening effectcan ruin the image.

3

You could of course construct a mask toprotect the blurred areas, but using the

Sharpen tool with a large soft brush it’s simplya matter of painting in where you want thesharpening to occur. Noise in blurred parts istherefore kept at bay.

2

The Sharpen tool is used to selectivelysharpen pixels in an image.This can be

very useful, as in this image, where there isvariable focus. Applying the Sharpen filter cansharpen unwanted noise in the blurred partsof the image.

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In the focus tool group you’ll alsofind the Smudge tool. Its

inclusion in this group is a slightlymoot point because it has more incommon with the Paintbush, at leastin the way it’s used. A look at theSmudge tool’s options in the Optionsbar at the top of the Photoshopinterface reveals its variousproperties. There is the usualBrushes Presets drop-down menu,where you can select any ofPhotoshop’s brushes, the Blendingmode menu, Strength slider,Multiple Layers option, and the

Finger Painting mode, which smearsthe foreground colour onto theimage, using the other pixels.

The Smudge tool

The Smudge tool is more like a spacialpaintbrush than a focus effect – here’s why

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Effects Tools

In Finger Painting mode, the foreground colouris mixed with the original image pixels, while inNormal mode only the image pixels are used

Activate with RThe [R] key activatesthe uppermost tools

in the focus toolgroup. [Shift]+[R]

cycles through theBlur, Sharpen and

Smudge tools.

Smudge itUse the Smudge tool in

the same way as youwould your finger when

working with pencil orcharcoal. Smudging a

textured brush willsmooth it out.

IN NORMAL mode the Smudge tool smears the pixels along the

direction of the brush stroke.The Strength slider is important here.

Setting it low causes the smudge effect to fade out as you brush.You can

set the strength from 1% to 99%, but setting it to 100% enables a special

mode – the first pixels you click on are sampled and smeared indefinitely,

for as long as you paint.

ALL LAYERS lets you smudge colours from all layers. However, the

results is only applied to the currently active layer, not to all the layers.

It only means that the Smudge tool samples from all the layers.

THE SMUDGE tool can take a lot of computation, especially for large

brushes. If your computer is grinding to a halt, try reducing the brush size.

MAKING USE of the blending modes can be a lot of fun. For example,

Lighten mode can create glowing swirls and streaks on an image.

THE SMUDGE TOOL’S OPTIONS IN DETAIL

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Working with the Smudge tool

Here’s how to use the Smudge tool to createsome amazingly eye-catching effects

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Smudge controlThe Smudge tool’sdynamic settings canbe set up to respondto a graphics pen’spressure and/or tiltfor extra responseand feedback.

New layerThe Smudge tool has aUse All Layers option.You can use this tosmudge pixels on allvisible layers. It’s best todo this on a new cleanlayer so you can undothe effect easily if necessary.

Setting the Fade control on the OtherDynamics section to alter the Strength

property creates a brush that gently fades thestrength, so that it’s 100% to begin with and1% at the end.The Fade value represents thedistance over which the effect is faded.

4

What can be useful is editing thecurrent brush to enable the Fade

setting. Clicking on the button at the far rightof the Options bar opens the Brushes palette.In the Shape Dynamics section the Sizecontrol can be set to Fade and a value for thedistance in pixels entered.This creates atapering smudge, useful for creating wispsand curls.

3

The Strength slider controls the lengthof the smudge effect. A low Strength

setting smudges only slightly, but it willcontinue for as long as you keep the mousebutton pressed.

2

Using the Smudge tool is prettyintuitive. Set to a very high strength,

90% here, the tool continually samples coloursfrom the image you are smudging, draggingthe colours with it as it goes.

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Dodge and Burn

The Dodge and Burn tools enable you to addsubtle or intense shading to an image

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Effects Tools

Burn your ownmaterial

Use the Burn tool toadd shadows to objectsyou create from scratchin Photoshop – such as

when creating photo-realistic images

and graphics.

Dodge the issueUse the Dodge tool to

add Highlights toobjects that you havecreated from scratch

in Photoshop.

With the Dodge tool set to Midtonesmode only the middle range of tones is

affected.The brightest and darkest pixels areunaltered.You can see that a lot ofotherwise invisible detail has beenrevealed.

4

In Highlight mode the Dodge toollightened only the brightest pixels in

the image. With an image that has strongcontrast such as this it’s easy to overexposethe highlights and blow them out.

3

Both the Dodge and Burn tools operatein three modes, which can be selected

from the Options bar.These are the Highlights,Midtones and Shadows modes. By default theDodge tool operates in Highlights mode, andthe Burn tool in Shadows mode. We’lldemonstrate the differences, but first here isthe original image before the exposure toolsare used.

2

The Dodge and Burn tools are two sidesof the same coin and refer to traditional

photographic techniques.The Dodge tool isused to lighten pixels in an image, while theBurn tool darkens them. Here are two strokesto illustrate each tool.The image has beenDodged on the left, Burned on the right.

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Dodge and Burn continued

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To the extreme Both the Dodge andBurn tools don’t seemto work well whenaffecting the oppositeends of the tonalspectrum.There aresituations where thiscan be useful, butthey tend to be usedvery subtly.

BackgroundelementsFocusing in on a subjectby dampening thehighlights ofbackground elementsusing the Burn tool is agood example of the tip above.

There’s something familiar about thisone. In Highlights mode, the Burn tool

lowers the brightness of the brightest pixels,resulting in what looks like a stroke oftransparent black paint across the image.So the Burn tool works best in Shadows andMidtones mode and the Dodge tool worksbest in Highlights and Midtones mode.

8

In Midtones mode the middle range oftones is darkened leaving the darkest

and lightest pixels as they were.This is likeapplying the gamma slider in the Levelsdialog to darken an image’s midtones, butonly where you paint.

7

If we start with a very light image anduse the Burn tool we can better see its

effects. Here in Shadows mode, the tool picksout the dark areas in the image and makesthem even darker.

6

In Shadows mode, it’s the darkest pixelsthat get lightened. this is quite a

different result. it looks like we’ve paintedacross the image with a transparent whitebrush – not good at all.

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The Sponge tool

The Sponge tool is the cousin of Dodge andBurn. It varies the saturation level in an image

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Effects Tools

Spray the spongeThe Sponge tool has

an Airbrush mode.You can click and

hold to continuallyapply the effect.

Colour RangeMake a selection using

Color Range to focusthe Sponge tool on

certain colours in the image.

A better way to go about this is to applyHue/Saturation to the whole image

before you desaturate it with the Sponge.Thislets you see how much saturation to apply,rather than flatten out the colours.You caneven control the saturation of the coloursindependently using the pop-up menu.

4

Switching to Saturate mode, you’d thinkit would be easy to increase the

saturation of the girl to enhance the effect.However as you can see even when we lowerthe strength setting, the result is uneven, andin some places the colours have ‘flattened’ outdue to over-saturation.

3

You can of course perform this kind ofaction using the Hue/Saturation

command or an Adjustment Layer. But theSponge tool does the same thing in a morehands-on way. Here, we’ve painted on theimage with the Sponge tool in Desaturatemode to make the girl stand out from thebackground more.

2

Using the Sponge tool couldn’t beeasier. It’s a very simple tool that makes

pixels either less or more Saturated. Bysaturation, we mean how colourful a pixel is.More saturated colours are vivid, while lesssaturated ones are washed out.

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Using the Dodge and Burntools is quite simple but you

need to take into account certainthings, in order to get the bestresults. The Dodge and Burn toolsare often used to add shading toelements in a composite image sothat they match the background orother elements in the image.

Look for shadows in the image tofind out where the main light iscoming from. Highlights – parts ofthe object in direct illumination –can be added by painting with theDodge tool in Highlight and/or

Midtones mode, while shadows canbe painted on with the Burn tool inShadows and/or Midtones mode.

Using Dodge and Burn

Here’s how the Dodge and Burn tools workin real, or surreal, situations

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The direction of the light cast on other elementsor in the background image, determines whereto apply effects with the Dodge and Burn tools

Toggle toolsUse the [Alt] key totoggle between theDodge and Burn toolsas you work.There’s noneed to stop and switchtools manually.

The Options bar is whereyou’ll find the differentmodes and the strengthslider for the exposure tools.

Airbrush mode is availablefor the Dodge, Burn andSponge tools. This applies theeffect constantly while themouse is held down, sothere’s no need to wiggle themouse to intensify the effectin a certain spot.

These areas in the imagehave been darkened bypainting on the image usingthe Burn tool, and setting it toShadows mode.

The Sponge tool has beenused in many of the dodgedand burned areas todesaturate the image inthose places.

Dodge, Burn and Spongetools are located in the‘exposure’ tool group inPhotoshop 7’s toolbar.

These areas in the imagehave been lightened bypainting using the Dodgetool in Highlights mode.

THE EFFECTS OF DODGE, BURN AND SPONGE

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Focusing in with Dodge and Burn

Dodge and Burn is a great way of focusing inon the subject of an image, or even a new area

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Faded paintAfter using theDodge, Burn or

Sponge tools, you canused the Edit > Fade

command to vary theintensity of the laststroke you painted.

Fade awayThe Fade commandactually works with

most of the brush-based tools in

Photoshop.You canoften change the

blending mode hereas well as the opacity.

Using Shadows mode is probably not a good idea in this case because you

would be changing the contrast balancebetween the subject and background in amore unnatural way.

4

We can work on the background layer,(having made a copy of it) with the layer

mask applied to protect the main leaf. We’lluse the the Burn tool set to Highlight modeand a low opacity. Keeping the brush strokesloose and slightly random, we can dampenthe brightness of the surrounding leaves.

3

We can force the image to have asubject by picking one of the leaves and

then adjusting the rest using Dodge and Burn.First we isolate the subject leaf by creating amask for it using the Magnetic Lasso and thenQuick Mask mode to touch up the edges.

2

Here’s a good example of an image thathas no focus. It would work well as a

texture or background, but the uniformity ofthe subject makes it difficult to pick out anyone leaf as the main subject in the image.

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Chapter 7

WORKING WITHTHE TYPE TOOLIN PHOTOSHOP

Type and text has numerousapplications in Photoshop.

You can create logos, web buttons,cool 3D text, even paragraphs ofprose using the Type tool. In earlierversions of the program, text was avery basic affair. You created text asa selection which could be filledwith a colour in a layer or applied asa layer mask to create type thatknocked out part of an image, or wasitself filled with an image or texture.

In Photoshop 7, text has become afully-fledged feature, and the mostimportant aspects of this are its TypeLayers. Like Adjustment Layers,Solid Fill and Gradient Layers, TypeLayers are ‘live’. This means that the

In this chapter…

U s i n g t h e Ty p e t o o la n d Ty p e l a y e r s

C r e a t i n g t y p e e f f e c t sw i t h L a y e r S t y l e s

Managing, transformingand distorting type

Creating text in Photoshop is quite easy to do,whether it’s for artistic effect or simply to addessential information.We’ll look at the variousoptions available with the Type tool

text is created as real type just like ina word processing program or vectorillustration program. The type can beedited, so that you can go back andchange the font used, the colourapplied or the properties of the text,such as scale, leading (line spacing)and kerning (letter spacing).

Quality assuredType layers are produced usingvector technology, just like in avector-based tools such as Illustratoror Freehand, and this has two veryimportant consequences. The first isthat type is ‘resolution independent’.This means that you can scale,rotate, stretch and distort type layers

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and they will never degrade. It is thevector paths that are altered, and therasterization is performed at the end.You’ll always have crisp, clean type,until the Photoshop document issaved as a flattened image or printed.

Pixel perfectThe other consequence is that youcan, if you wish, decide to keep thetext as vectors if you print to apostscript printer. This means thatthe type is printed at the highestpossible quality and is neverconverted to pixels. Even perfectlyrasterized type will print slightlyfuzzy at the edges. This is becauseof the necessary anti-aliasing that is

used in order to convert the flowinglines of the vector paths into therows of square, coloured pixels in anormal image layer. To be honest,printing type as true vectors is onlyimportant when producing thehighest quality artwork for printingon professional printers. Because ofthis it only works when out-puttingCMYK separations from Photoshop.

Note: Rasterization is the process ofconverting vectors and paths into‘raster’ images, made up of pixels.Once a type layer is rasterized itloses any of its special editableproperties and becomes just anordinary pixel-based layer.

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Text

Page 87 The Warp Text palette lets you distort your type any way you like

Page 84 Learn how to distort vectortext in later versions of Photoshop

Page 89 Use Layer Styles with live layersto create rich and varied text effects

Page 82 Older versions created text asselections. Photoshop 7 is more flexible

Page 83 Type layers in Photoshop 6and above can be edited at any time

Page 84 Get to grips with the idea ofdifferent kinds of anti-aliasing for text

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The Type tool

Photoshop’s Type tool allows you to addimpressive text and type effects to any image

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Twice the sizeIf using an older versionof Photoshop withoutvector text and youneed to transform type, do so in a newdocument that is twice the size of thedestination document.The higher resolutionwill minimise thedegradation of the text edges. Resize the image once thetransformation is completed,sharpening it as necessary.

Computer Arts To discover even moreways to develop yourPhotoshop skills, checkout our sister magazine,Computer Arts.www.computerarts.co.uk

Furthermore, if you wanted to edit themask, to make it smaller or larger, distort

it and so on, then the quality of the edgepixels will deteriorate even further. After just afew transformations the edges become fuzzy.

4

While this is fine, the text is not a vectorobject, so the edges of the type are not

always as crisp and clean as they could be.This is due to the anti-aliasing used to smoothnon-straight edges of pixel-based images.

3

The type selection could be filled with aflat colour, saved to a channel ready for

some channel effects work, or as here appliedto an image layer, to create image-filled text.

2

Previously, in releases of Photoshopearlier than version 6, text was created

like this, as a selection.You could type in yourtext in a panel, choose the font and otheroptions but once created, that was it.

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Text

Vectors and rastersThough the type layers

are vector-based, justlike any vector program

Photoshop has torasterize them in order

to display them. Butthis is an ongoing

process.The type itselfis still stored internally

as a vector.

Rescalingwith text

If you were to rescale adocument containing alive Type Layer, the type

would scale up correctly along with the

pixel layers, but would not suffer

any degradation.Even after many transformations, thetype layer’s edges remain as crisp and

properly anti-aliased, as it was when the typewas first created.You don’t have to worryabout the edge degrading when working withtype layers.

8

Type created like this is ‘live’.You canselect the layer and make changes to

the text it contains, change the font, colourand whatever else you like.Transforming thislayer is possible using the Free Transform tool,just as if it was a normal pixel layer.

7

The Type Masks are just like those inolder versions of Photoshop, except

they are more easily edited while they arebeing created. Afterwards they are noteditable.The normal Type tool creates type as a special vector layer called a Type Layer.

6

The vector text introduced inPhotoshop 6 is a whole different ball

game.The Text tool, located in the eighth rowof the toolbar, contains four different tools.Horizontal and Vertical Type, and Horizontaland Vertical Type Masks.

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The familiar Options bar inPhotoshop 7 is home to the

Type tool’s Options and Properties.As with all tools the first entry at thetop-left is the tool preset picker pop-up, from which you can selectpreset tool settings, or reset the toolto default. Next is the Horizontal/Vertical Type toggle, followed by theFont drop-down menu, Font Styleand Font Size drop-downs.

The next menu is the Anti-aliasingcontrol. This is an interesting featurebecause it enables you to change theedge anti-aliasing of your text on the

fly. The options are None, Sharp,Crisp, Strong and Smooth and rangefrom sharpest to smoothest.

Type Options

The Type tool’s Options bar is one of the most feature-packed in Photoshop

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The Type Anti-aliasing feature controls howsmooth the edges of your type is. It’s more noticeable on small type that on larger type.

Cycling fontsThe Font field can bescrolled through to viewalternative fonts, just like theFont Size field. Just placeyour cursor in it and usingthe Up/Down arrow keys.

Choose the typeface youwant to use for the selectedtype from the Font menu.

Choose your paragraphalignment by clicking on thebuttons in the Option bar orin the paragraph panel.

A text layer is denoted by alarge letter T in the layerpreview. The layer name isalways the first fewcharacters of the text.

The Character panelcontains many of theproperties found in theOptions bar plus some extra ones, such as Kerning,Leading and Scale.

Text can be warped usingthe Warp Text panel. This isuseful for creating manyspecial text effects.

Selected text is highlightedin black. The text colour isinverted when selected,so this type will be blackwhen deselected.

A WHISTLE-STOP TOUR OF YOUR TYPE TOOL OPTIONS

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Type tool tips

Some practical tips and advice for getting the most out of Photoshop’s Type tool

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Text

Quick resizingYou can increase ordecrease the size of

text by placing yourcursor in the Size fieldand using the Up and

Down arrows.[Shift]+Up/Down

moves the values in larger chunks.

Specify unitsYou can specify text sizeusing any units you like.

Just place your chosen unit after the

number value.For example, 20cm is

the same as 2362.2 pixels.

To set the kerning for your text, openthe Character palette by clicking the

palette icon in the Type tool’s Options.There’sa letter spacing pop-up menu, where you canchoose your desired value. Negative numbersoffer tighter spacing.

4

When creating headings and otherlarge type, there is a simple rule that

you can apply to get better results. Basically,larger text such as headings – especiallychunky bold fonts – can have much tighterkerning (letter spacing) than normal text.Here’s the same word, one with much tighterletter spacing.

3

You’ll notice that the drop-down listonly goes up to 72-point text.This is fine

for most web page titles and such, but notnearly big enough for images destined forprint. If you want larger text, then you have toenter a value in the text field manually. Herewe’ve used 500-point text in a 1000x1000-pixel image.

2

When you create text in a Type Layer,one of the main things you’ll want to do

is get the text the right size.There are, asalways, different ways to do this in Photoshop.The most obvious is the Size menu in theOptions Bar. Open it up and choose a size.

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Type tool tips continued

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Speedy selectionsSelect text by clickingon it with the Texttool. Alternatively youcan select a type layerand the text within itby double-clicking theLayer Preview icon.

Type tool optionsThe Type tool’sshortcut is, surprisesurprise, the [T] key.You can cycle througheach tool in the toolground by typing[Shift]+[T].

Attempting to pan an image while textis selected will result in this. All your text

will be replaced by a space. If this happens justclick the Cancel Current Edits button in theOption bar to retrieve your previous text as itappeared before you started editing it.

8

The only safe way to navigate yourdocument when in editing mode is to

use the View menu or the [Ctrl]+[+/–] shortcut(that’s [Command]+[+/–] on a Mac). At leastthen you are able to zoom in and out of theimage while text is selected.

7

However, when you move your cursorfar enough away from the text it turns

into the Move tool automatically.This at leastgives you the option to move text aroundwithout leaving the text editing mode.

6

Selecting text can be tricky, but onceyou get the hang of it you’ll be fine.

Once text has been created you can click onthe tick in the Options bar to return to normalPhotoshop operation. While text is selectedmost of the key commands no longer work,so be careful you don’t accidentally addunwanted characters.

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Using the Warp Text panelPhotoshop won’t let you warp text along a path, but there are still plenty of Warp options

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Text

Be patientBecause Type Layers are

vectors the distortiondoes not degrade the

quality of the type.However, large

amounts of text willtake longer to distort

than a single character.

Extra text toolsPhotoshop has

Paragraph tools as wellas Character tools.

These can be found inthe Paragraph palette,

which is docked withthe Character palette

by default.Using nonsense fonts or symbolstogether with the Warp panel you can

get some weird shapes and patterns. It can befun and – like all the best features – it takessome playing with.

4

Warps can be subtle or pretty severe,depending how you set the sliders.

The Horizontal and Vertical sliders control akind of perspective distortion of the typelayer, making it appear to tilt towards or awayfrom you on either axis.

3

There is a Style pop-up menu, fromwhich you can choose numerous

distortion types.This is a simple Arc Warp,set to Vertical mode.

2

When you select a ‘live’ type layer,you can access the Warp Text panel by

clicking its icon on the Options bar.The panelopens and allows you to distort the selectedtype using some simple controls.

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Because type layers are vector-based you cannot apply pixel-

based effects to them. So you can’tuse filters or paint on them directly,and you can’t apply adjustments tothem to change their colour orbrightness. You can get around theseproblems by adding an adjustmentlayer above your type layer, butyou’ll also need a mask if you onlywant the adjustment applied to thetext and not to the layers below.

You can change the blendingmodes of type layers, which results in some interesting type effects,

especially over image layers. But to really get stuck into text layers you’ll need to rasterize them.

Rasterizing type

In order to apply normal Photoshop effects to type, you’ll need to rasterize it first

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Flatten itAll non-pixel layerscan be rasterized inPhotoshop, using theappropriatecommands in the Layers menu.

One way to rasterize typeis to Choose the Layer >Rasterize > Type commandfrom the main menu.

Another method is to loadthe type layer as a selection.[Ctrl/Command]+click on thelayer icon and create a newlayer. Fill this layer with colourusing the type selection.

You can apply Layer Stylesto live type layers. In this casethere’s no need to rasterizethem beforehand.

To rasterize a type layer,right-click on the layer’sname in the Layer Paletteand choose Rasterize Layer.

If you want to keep thetype layer editable, you canmake a copy of the layer bydragging it onto the NewLayer icon at the bottom ofthe Layers palette.

If you try to do somethingthat requires the type layer tobe rasterized, Photoshop mayask you if you wish to do thisfirst in a warning dialog.

RASTERIZING YOUR TYPE LAYERS

Rasterized type layers act like bitmap layers,because that’s just what they are. This type hasbeen rasterized, blurred and adjusted with levels.

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Styled Type

Layer Styles can be used to create stunning type effects for any occasion

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Text

Quick colourchange

The Colour Overlaysection of the Layer

Styles palette can beused to quickly change

the colour of your textwithout changing

to the Type tool and selecting it.

Save your StylesCustom Styles can besaved as presets and

stored for reuse byclicking the

New Style button in theLayer Styles palette.

Text can be ‘stroked’ using the Strokesection of the Layer Styles.The Stroke

function adds an outline to the text, which canbe useful if you have filled it with a patternbecause the text is more clearly defined.

4

The Pattern option lets you fill the textwith any saved pattern. In this case

we’ve used an American flag that we hadpreviously saved as a pattern to fill our New York text.

3

To create text with a bit of relief you canuse the Bevel and Emboss options to

add depth to your text. It helps if the text isnot set to 100% white or black, because theBevel and Emboss effects add black and whiteshading to create the illusion of depth.

2

With a type layer selected in the Layerspalette you can select Layers > Layer

Styles and choose an option from the sub-menu to apply that style to the text.In this case a simple drop-shadow has beenapplied.The Layer Styles panel willautomatically pop open.

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Chapter 8

WORKING WITHPATHS,VECTORSAND MASKS

Vectors are totally differentfrom pixels: vectors are

mathematically defined lines andcurves, which you can use to drawperfectly smooth shapes andoutlines. Whereas a shape made upof pixels has a definite size andresolution, vectors can be of any sizeor resolution – they are said to‘resolution independent’.

Furthermore a vector-based imagewill be a very small file when savedto disk, compared to a pixel-basedbitmap image. The same file couldbe used to make a 128x128 pixelweb graphic, or a 5000x5000 pixelposter. The quality will be perfect inboth situations.

In this chapter…

L e a r n h o w t o u s e t h eP e n t o o l t o d r a w p a t h s

L e a r n h o w t o c u t o u to b j e c t s u s i n g p a t h sa n d c o n v e r t t h e m t os e l e c t i o n s , a n d v i c e - v e r s a

Work with Vec tor Maskst o a d d a d d i t i o n a ll a y e r i n g c a p a b i l i t i e st o y o u r d o c u m e n t s

L e a r n t o u s e Ve c t o rS h a p e s a n d i m p o r t e d v e c t o r a r t w o r k

Photoshop has always used vector-based‘paths’ to draw smooth shapes and outlines,but the latest version has the ability to createshapes and masks with vectors too

Photoshop has limited capabilitieswhen it comes to saving vector-onlyfiles but you can include vectorinformation in a normal Photoshopfile. While this means file sizeswon’t be quite as small as theywould be with a true vector-basedprogram, you will still get all theadvantages of a vector’s scalability.

Various vectorsIn Photoshop, vectors come indifferent varieties: first, there’s thePen tool, which is used to create‘Paths’ (Photoshop’s traditionalname for vectors) but there are alsoVector Shapes; these are a newfeature that appears in later versions

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of Photoshop which you can use intheir own special layers, instead ofrelegating them to the Paths palette.

Paths were an alternative methodfor creating selections in Photoshop,since a path can be loaded as aselection once it’s been drawn. Thismakes them ideal for cutting outcomplicated shapes, such as whenyou’re removing an object from itsbackground – useful when thebackground is complex and it hasbecome difficult to select using theselection tools.

Paths can also be ‘stroked’,making them an alternative paintingtool. Stroking a path with a brush isa fun way of turning plain vector

shapes and imported artwork intocomplex painted graphics with therichness of pixel-based brushes.

Shape your behaviourVector shapes behave like layermasks, blocking and revealing partsof the layer to which they areapplied. You can edit them with thePen tool or the Direct Selection tool,and they offer a further level offunctionality for the program.

Photoshop is not a fully-fledgedvector-drawing application such asIllustrator, Freehand or Corel Draw,and probably never will be, but thereis surprisingly good support forvector drawing in Photoshop.

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Vectors

Page 92 Learn how to use paths andwork with the Paths palette

Page 97 Set overlapping vector shapesto different Boolean modes

Page 95 Add Shape Layers to the layerstack when you create a vector shape

Page 99 Apply Layer Styles directly to Shape Layers

Page 93 Use the Freestyle Pen tool tosketch paths

Page 94 Use the Convert tool to alterthe control points

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Using the Pen tools

You can use the tools in the Pen family to draw all kinds of paths

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Control pointsEach time you clickwith the Pen tool, acontrol point is added.Always try to use asfew control points asyou can, because itmakes the path mucheasier to control.

Path optionsThe Paths palette hasan Options menu,where you can choosethe size of the displayicon, or choose toturn it off.

You can combine smooth and sharpcontrol points in a path to make it both

smooth and angular – simply click withoutdragging to place a sharp control point whereyou need one.

4

Clicking and dragging pulls out theBézier handles from a control point,

turning it into a smooth point.You can usesmooth points to create curved paths, such asthis roughly circular path.

3

The Pen toolgroup contains fiveseparate tools.The first is the ‘normal’

Pen tool. Use this to draw smooth or angularpaths by clicking in the document; clickingwithout dragging creates a sharp controlpoint used to make angular paths, such as thisquadrilateral shape.

2

The Pen tool is located in the ninth rowof Photoshop’s toolbar – it’s easy to find

because it looks just like its name. In olderversions of Photoshop the only place youcould create paths was in the Paths palette.All the paths you drew would be located here.

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Vectors

Add anchor pointsWhen using the Pen

tool, the cursor willautomatically change

to the Add AnchorPoint tool whenever

it’s over part of thepath. Just click on it to

add a point.

Quick curvesYou can edit the curve

between two pointsdirectly by clicking and

dragging it.Thehandles of the two

adjacent points changesimultaneously, but do

not change their location.

Next is the Add Anchor Point tool.Thistool enables you to add control/anchor

points in between existing points on a path.The path will not change shape when you adda point using this tool.

8

The second tool in the Pen toolgroup isthe Freeform Pen tool. With this tool you

can literally draw a path, as opposed toclicking to place point.Your freehand sketchwill be converted to a path consisting of asfew control points as possible.

7

A Path layer in the Paths palette cancontain more than one separate path

entity. Once you’re finished drawing a path,[Ctrl]+click to end the Pen drawing action soyou can start a new path. Mac users should[Command]+click instead.

6

Paths can be open or closed. An openpath does not loop back on itself,

whereas a closed path does.To close a path,you position the cursor over the startingcontrol point and the Pen cursor will changeto show a small ‘o’ next to its pointer. Whenyou click, the ends of the path will join up.

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Using the Pen tools continued

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Load a pathTo load a path as aselection, [Ctrl]+clickon the path icon inthe Paths palette(that’s [Command]+click for Mac users), orclick the ‘Load path asSelection’ button atthe bottom of the palette.

Convert aselectionYou can convert aselection into a pathby clicking the ‘MakeWork Path fromSelection’ button inthe Paths palette.

Holding down the [Ctrl] key when anyof the Pen tools are selected activates

the Direct Selection tool (Mac users shouldhold down the [Command] key).This is theprime editing tool for Paths. Use this tool ifyou want to move Bézier handles togetherwithout breaking them.

12

You can also use the Convert point toolto edit the Bézier handles of a smooth

point.When you do this with this tool theHandles will ‘break’ – that is, they will moveindependently of each other.

11

The final tool is the Convert AnchorPoint tool.This is used to change a

sharp point into a smooth one, and vice-versa.To use it, click on a smooth point to convert itinto a sharp point (or ‘cusp’); drag on a point to convert a sharp point into a smooth one.

10

The fourth tool is the Delete AnchorPoint tool.This tool does the opposite

of the Add Anchor Point tool: clicking on anexisting point on the path with this tool willdelete it.You might find that the path willchange shape as a result.

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Next to the Pen tool in the ninthrow of the tool bar is the

Vector Shape tool. This enables youdo draw shapes as vector paths orvector masks by dragging them outin the Layers or Paths palette.

With the tool selected you canchoose from the Options bar whatyou want to create. You can selectthe Pen and Freestyle Pen tool fromthe Vector Shape tool’s Options, butthere are also the specific shapes:Ellipse, Rectangle, RoundedRectangle, Polygon and Line.

A third option is the Custom

Shape, which enables you to choosea shape from the library of designsthat ships with Photoshop.

Vector Shapes

Vector Shapes are new to later versions ofPhotoshop – here’s what they do

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Vectors

A Vector Shape can be created as a mask for asolid fill layer, and optionally, as here, have alayer style automatically applied to it.

Preset stylesIf you choose a LayerStyle preset from the

Layer Styles presetpop-up before you

drag out a shape, thatstyle will be applied to

the shape.

The Custom Shape optionin the Vector Shape’s Optionbar gains you access to alarge library of custom vector designs.

This is a Shape Layer: it isessentially a solid fill layerwith a vector mask.

Layer Styles can be appliedto Shape Layers; here a dropshadow is applied.

Photoshop comes with alarge collection of customvector shapes.

Your shape can be createdin three ways: as a Shapelayer, as a plain vector pathin the Paths palette, or as adirect pixel fill with no savedvector attributes.

Whenever vector shapesoverlap in the same layer, youcan choose how they willreact to one another. Theoptions are: Add, Subtract,Intersect and Exclude.

HOW TO CREATE CUSTOM SHAPES

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Using Vector Shapes

Using the Vector Shape tool in versions ofPhotoshop that support vector shape layers

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ArrowheadsArrowheads can befound in the small pop-up menu next to theCustom Shape buttonin the Options bar.

Line width optionsIn Line mode, you canchange the line widthby entering a value inpoints in the Optionsbar. Hold down the[Shift] key whendrawing lines toconstrain them to 45-degree angles.

The fourth option is to do away withany vector information and create the

shape as pixels on a normal layer. Using theLine Shape option, this is the only way tosimulate the Line tool function in olderversion of Photoshop.

4

The second option is to create theshape as a simple path in the Paths

palette.You do not need to be in the Pathspalette to do this, just click and drag in a layer– the vector shape is created in the Pathspalette automatically.

3

This creates a Solid Fill Layer and addsthe path as a vector mask to the layer.

Layers in Photoshop 6 and onwards can havetwo masks per layer: a vector mask and anormal layer mask. Here a gradient mask isused on the layer as well.

2

When you select the Vector Shape tool,you have three options that determine

how shapes will be applied to your document.These options are located at the top-left of theOptions bar.The first is Shape Layer mode.

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Vectors

Add modeYou can also add to

the current vectormask by turning on

Add mode in theBoolean options to

the right of theOptions bar.

Chop and changeMake complex vector

shapes by intersecting,subtracting, addingand excluding more

simple ones.

You can use the Boolean switches on existing shapes in a vector mask

as well, just as you can for shapes that you areabout to create. Here we have changed themode for the third circle from Subtract toIntersect mode.

8

In Add mode, the overlapping vectorshapes simply overlap and add

together. However, switching to Subtractmode turns the next vector that you draw intoa ‘cutter’, which you can use to removeportions of the current shapes.

7

In order to add a vector shape to anexisting shape layer, you must switch to

Path mode and select the Vector Mask Layer.Now when you drag out a vector shape it isadded to the same vector mask in thecurrently selected vector layer.

6

When set to Layer Shape mode,dragging out additional vector shapes

creates new vector shape layers, which is notalways what you want to happen, and alsoprecludes the use of the vector shape Booleaninteraction options.

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Photoshop has more masks thanyou might realise. There is an

additional mask in each layer(besides the background layer, whichis always 100% opaque) that youdon’t usually see. This is because it’s the layer itself, or rather thesurrounding transparent pixels.

If you paint on a transparent layer,the brush stroke is surrounded bytransparent pixels. The pixels in thelayer are a mask in their own right.This can be proved because you canload it as a selection by [Ctrl/Command]+clicking the layer icon.

You can also group layers togetherinto a ‘clipping group’ by [Alt]+clicking between them on theseparator in the Layers palette – thecursors will change to overlappingcircles indicating clipping groupmode, and clicking will cause theuppermost layer to be indented. The layer will be masked using thebottom layer’s Layer TransparencyMask, and its Layer Mask and itsVector Mask, if these are present.This enables you to quickly maskmultiple layers using a single layeror vector mask, and is very useful.

Masks

A bit of detail about masking to help you getthe most out of vector layers and masks

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Layer FoldersA Layer Folder (aka‘Layer Set’) canactually hold twomasks: a normal layermask and a vectormask, giving youpotential access tofour different masks.

Photoshop 6 introduced a new kind of layer mask: the Vector

Mask. This uses a vector shape to make portions of a layer

transparent and works in tandem with the normal layer

mask. Vector masks are either on or off: they either hide or

show the layer 100%; there is no in-between value like with

normal layer masks, which use 255 grayscale values. But what

happens if you already have a layer mask and a vector mask

on a layer but would really like a third? You can do this

through the use of layer folders. Adding a layer folder and

placing your layer inside it gives you access to two further

masks that can be applied to the folder layer itself.

VECTOR MASKS AND LAYER FOLDERS

If you run out of masks you can always add a folder

A layer folder can be used to addfurther masks to a layer if you find you need more than two

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Vector Shape details

We’ll look at some of the options that arespecific to Vector Shapes

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Vectors

In a cornerYou cannot change

the radii of thecorners of a roundedrectangle after it has

been created.

Quash confusionDon't confuse the

Move tool with thePath Selection tool.The Move tool doesnot have a 'tail' and

cannot be used tomove pathsindividually.

The usual copying options apply withpaths as well as selections, so you can

make a copy of a shape by selecting it and[Alt]+dragging it. Here we’ve duplicated thearrows, and changed their mode to Add.

4

When editing the shapes you need toselect the Direct Selection tool.Then

you can drag out a marquee around thepoints you wish to move. Selected points aredisplayed as filled-in dots; unselected ones areunfilled dots.

3

The Polygon shape tool is used to createregular shapes of any number of sides.

Here a triangle is created in Subtract mode tocut a hole in the Rectangle.

2

The Rounded rectangle shape is used tocreate rectangular shapes and masks

with rounded corners. Before you drag out theshape you can set the desired corner size inthe Options bar. Add a Layer Style if you like.

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Chapter 9

ANNOTATIONS,NOTES AND THEMEASURE TOOL

The ‘notations’ tools, Note andAnnotation, can be found in the

tenth row of the toolbar in their owntool group. The Note tool allows youto attach informative notes toPhotoshop documents. These can beread by other Photoshop users whenthe document is opened, so the toolcan be very useful when usingPhotoshop collaboratively. It can alsobe very handy for creating teachingaids in an educational environment.

Taking this one step further is theAnnotation tool. This allows you toadd sound clips to images that can beplayed by double-clicking their icon.This again provides a useful way tocommunicate with others working on

In this chapter…

A d d N o t e s a n dA n n o t a t i o n s t o y o u rP h o t o s h o p d o c u m e n t s

Learn which file formatswork with Notes andAnnotations

U s e t h e E y e D r o p p e rt o o l t o s a m p l e c o l o u r sf r o m a n i m a g e

S ample precise pixelvalues at differentpoints of an image withthe Colour S ampler

Along with the creative tools, Photoshopprovides several tools to add accuracy, soundand vision to your work.These fall into two toolgroups – notation and measurement tools

a project, or for producing learningaids directly within the program.

Measure for measureThe measurement tools are veryuseful utilities in Photoshop. TheMeasure tool itself lets you measuredistances and angles, providing youwith precise information that you canuse in conjunction with other tools in Photoshop. You can measure thedistance between two points, or thetotal horizontal distance covered,plus you can snap the tool to gridsand guides when more precisemeasurements are needed.

The Eye Dropper and ColourSampler are essential when working

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professionally with colour, but arealso very useful on a day-to-daybasis for any Photoshop user. TheEye Dropper can be accessed invarious ways in Photoshop. Forinstance, when the Colour Picker isopen, if you move your cursor off theColour Picker panel and over theimage, the cursor automaticallychanges to an Eye Dropper, enablingyou to sample the colour of anypixel. The tool can also be toggled onand off by holding down the [Alt]key when a Brush tool is selected.

The Colour Sampler is like the Eye Dropper tool on steroids. Youcan sample a maximum of fourpoints simultaneously and read their

values in the Info palette. This can be extremely useful when makingcolour adjustments because the Infopalette displays the original valuesboth of the sampled pixels and theadjusted values.

Colour by numbersThe great advantage of these colourmeasurement tools is that you don’tneed to rely on your eye or thedubious colour characteristics ofyour computer monitor. Instead, youcan see the exact values numerically.This accuracy is a real bonus forprofessional printing needs, but alsofor achieving good results on a homecolour photo printer.

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Miscellaneous tools and Utilities

Page 106 The Colour Sample tool putsup to four sample points on an image

Page 105 Sampling options can readthe perceived colour from a noisy image

Page 107 Use the Measure tool to helpstraighten out crooked images and scans

Page 102 Add notes to images to useas a handy reminder later on

Page 103 Sound clips can be added toimages, with a microphone

Page 105 Choose the foreground orbackround colour with the Eye Dropper

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Notes and Annotations

Make notes and annotations, attach them toimages, and learn how to open and save them

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Name changeYou can also changethe name in the titlebar by entering a newone in the field in theOptions bar andpressing return.

Closing notesTo close a Note clickthe close box in thetop-left corner of theNote’s title bar.TheNote will collapse toan icon on the image.Double-click it toopen it again.

To save a document containing a note,you must use one of three file formats.

These are Photoshop, Photoshop PDF andTIFF. All the other file formats will discard thenote information, as they do not support it.

4

You can have more than one note in adocument, and in order to differentiate

between them you can choose to give themdifferent colours.The note’s title bar and itsicon take on the new colour when collapsed.

3

There is not a lot of editing that you cando to the note text itself, but you can

change the font and set the size.There areonly five preset sizes: Smallest, Small, Medium,Large and Largest. Smallest and small arepractically unreadable, though.

2

Creating a note could not be easier.With the Note tool selected you click on

the image where you want the note icon toappear. A window, like a little Post-It note,appears where you can enter your text.

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Take the micIn order to record an

annotation you musthave a microphone

connected to yourcomputer’s soundcard or mic input.

Colourful sounds Annotations can be

coloured using thecolour swatch in the

Annotation tool’sOptions bar.You can

reuse annotationsfrom other documents.

You can importannotations

by selecting File > Import > Annotations.

As with notes, documents containingannotations must be saved as either

TIFF, Photoshop PDF or plain Photoshopformat. If you don’t want to displayannotations you can hide them using the View > Show > Annotations menu command.

8

Because the audio annotations are a bitdifficult to see it may be wise to build

your document with spaces to accomodatethem.This is an example of a way to helpguide people to the right annotation.

7

Click on Stop to end recording.There isno interface for the audio annotation,

you just double-click to hear the recording. Ifyou look hard enough you can just about seethe icon next to the Annotation tool’s cursor.

6

With the Annotation tool you can attacha sound clip, usually a spoken sentence,

to an image in a similar way to notes. Clickingon the image with the Annotation tool opensa dialog prompting you to start recording.

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The Eye Dropper tool samples thecolours of individual pixels in an

image, but there is more to it than justbeing able to set a new foregroundcolour. In Levels Adjustment, you canuse the Eye Dropper by moving thecursor over the image, and reading thetonal values at different points. To seeif the darkest shadows are really blackand the lightest really white, hover theEye Dropper over them and read theirvalues in the Info palette. The palettecan display various colour values –CMYK, RGB, LAB and so on. WithRGB (Red, Green and Blue pixels)

the darkest pixels should read 0,0,0.Pure white reads 255, 255, 255 – themaximum brightness value.

The Eye Dropper tool

The Eye Dropper is an essential Photoshoptool, especially for achieving colour accuracy

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Using the Eye Dropper tool while working withthe Levels adjustment panel allows you to readthe original and adjust values in the Info palette.

Eye Dropper infoYou can also use theHistogram with theEye Dropper to readvalues and gauge thedistribution of tonesin an image.

Select a sampling methodfrom the Options bar. Chooseto take a point sample, ormeasure the average colourwithin 3x3 or 5x5 pixels.

CMYK documents aredestined for print and colouris critical in this type ofmedium. You can check whatcolour mode the document isin the title bar.

Using the Sampler you canlook at the darkest anlightest points in an imagesimultaneously.

The Info palette displayscolour values differentlydepending how you have itset up and what colour modeyour image is in.

The Colour Sampler toollets you place multiplesample points in an image,marked by ‘bull’s eyes’.

The colour values for eachpoint are displayed in theInfo palette.

THE COLOUR SAMPLE TOOL

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Using the Eye Dropper tool

Using the Eye Dropper tool couldn’t be easier,but it boasts a few less obvious features too

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Colour accuracy The 3x3 average

sample size can bemore accurate,

especially on busyimages where the

colour varies dramatically.

Get a colourupdate

Click and drag overthe image to see the

colour sample updateinteractively in

the toolbar.

To get around this there are two othermodes – 3x3 Average and 5x5 Average.

Each mode samples a grid of pixels around theone you select, sums their colours and takes theaverage.The sample is usually a much bettermatch to the colour you perceive by eye.

4

When in Point Sample mode, selectedfrom the Options bar drop-down menu,

it can be tricky to sample the perceived colourof a particular area of a noisy image.Theactual pixels may vary in colour dramaticallyand not represent the overall colour of theparticular area of the image.

3

To chose a new background colour,you could flip the Foreground and

Background swatches using the [X] key, take a sample and flick back, or simply hold downthe [Alt] key when the Eye Dropper tool is selected.

2

You can choose a different foregroundcolour when painting by selecting the

Eye Dropper tool from the toolbar andclicking on the image.The tool will sample thecolour of the pixel you click in and store it inthe Foreground Colour swatch.

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The Colour Sampler

The Colour Sampler tool enables you to takeup to four colour readings at once

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Neutral coloursRGB mode stores theimage as three colourchannels, Red, Greenand Blue. If you samplea pixel and each of thevalues for R,G and B arethe same, (say, 45,45,45or 189,189,189) thenyou know that pixel is aneutral pure grey tone.

Colour inconfidenceUsing the absolutecolour values is a sure-fire way of proofingcertain aspects of animage, since it avoidsthe vagaries of your computer’smonitor display.

Like the Eye Dropper tool, you can setthe mode for the sample points to be

either single pixels, or averaged pixels (3x3 or 5x5 pixel arrays, around the sample point).The latter are useful for ‘noisy’ images.To clearall the sample points, click the Clear button inthe Option bar.

4

To delete a sample point hold the [Alt]key down and click on the point – the

cursor turns to a pair of scissors. Alternativelyright-clicking on a sample point will open apop-up menu from which you can choose the Delete command. Mac users will need to[Ctrl]-click for the latter function.

3

You can move sample points aroundafter they have been created, and they

are truly permanent. Even if you close thedocument, and reopen it the sample pointswill have been stored. Displaying colours inRGB mode in the Info palette helps you gaugethe neutrality of tones in an image.

2

The Colour Sampler tool in the Eye Dropper tool group (tenth row of

the toolbar) can be used to place multiplepermanent sample points on an image to helpwhile adjusting the image’s colour.The Infopalette displays the colour reading.

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The Measure tool

Taking measurements is very useful foraccurate drawings or precise transformations

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Diagonalperfection

Hold down the [Shift]key to constrain the

Measure tool’s angle to45-degree increments.

This is useful when youwant to measure a

perfect diagonal.

Automeasurements

With the FreeTransform tool,

the value willautomatically be

applied after taking an angle

measurement. If it’s inthe wrong direction,

simply add or delete aminus sign in front of

the angle value in the Options bar.

A single line’s angle is displayed too,which can be useful for straightening

crooked images.You can measure a line thatshould be straight and then use the Image >Rotate Canvas > Arbitrary command.You don’tneed to enter the value you measured,because it’s already been entered for you.

4

To measure an angle drag out theMeasure tool along one edge, then [Alt]-

drag from the end point to pull out a secondline.The angle between the two lines isdisplayed in degrees in the Option bar andInfo palette.

3

The measurement is given in theOptions bar, and the Info palette, in this

case the line is 280 pixels thick. We can nowmake a duplicate line with the same thicknessby entering 280px in the Line tool’s Size field.

2

The Measure tool can be found in thetenth tool group along with the Eye

Dropper tool.You can use this tool to measuredistances, widths and angles directly in theimage. Here we can measure the exact size ofan object by dragging with the Measure tool.

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Chapter 10

CREATING TOP QUALITYARTWORK

Photoshop has many uses,ranging from film and

television graphics, to 3D texturing,to web design, to colour correctionand printing. All are different, yetPhotoshop has the toolset to enableartists working in totally differentdisciplines to get the best resultsfrom their work.

Photoshop is also a superbphotographer’s tool, providingdigital darkroom capabilities that are second to none. And with theproliferation of digital camerasavailable these days, the importanceof Photoshop as a photographic toolhas never been greater. What’s more,the ease of workflow and smart

In this chapter…

S e e h o w P h o t o s h o p’st o o l s c a n b e u s e d t oc o n s t r u c t a c o m p l e x ,m o n t a g e - b a s e di l l u s t r a t i o n

L e a r n t h e t r i c k s o f t h et r a d e t o c r e a t e m o r ep r o f e s s i o n a l - l o o k i n ga r t w o r k

C o m b i n e t o o l s t o g e tt h e b e s t r e s u l t s i n t h es h o r t e s t t i m e

In this final chapter we’ll put together a pieceof artwork using all the tools and options thatwe’ve looked at over the course of thisPhotoshop Focus Guide

interface makes Photoshop as easyto use for home dabblers as it is forthe professional artist.

Creating illustrationsAnother use for Photoshop iscreating incredible works of art and illustrations. These may behand-painted, some composite ofphotographic or 3D images, or somewild combination of other media. In this last chapter we’ll be puttingtogether an illustration combiningphotos with Photoshop filters,brushes and effects. We’ll need todraw on the skills and techniqueslearned in the rest of the book inorder to create this image, and you’ll

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see how the tools used are anintegral part of the creation process,as well as facilitating the idea itself.

As with any other program, you’llneed to be aware of the limitationsof Photoshop, or you could end uppainting yourself into a corner.Often you will need to think aheadin order to progress smoothly. Forinstance, it may be necessary, inconcept, to remove a foregroundelement from its background so that it can be used in the artworkseamlessly. However, this can be avery difficult thing to do – arguablythe single most difficult task aPhotoshop artist can be faced with,especially if the object in question

has an ill-defined edge. Wispy hairis a classic case; it can be nearlyimpossible to extract this from abackground using Photoshop alone.Indeed, there are a number of thirdparty plug-ins designed solely totackle this very problem.

Eggs and basketsDo not make the execution of adifficult task pivotal in the creationof an image. It may not work, and if it doesn’t, you’ll be left withnowhere to turn. Photoshop is a rich and varied system; explore itthoroughly and remember any quirksyou discover – you never know when you may need to use them.

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Page 115 Seamlessly blend imagesover complex backgrounds

Page 113 Create duplicate brushstrokes by stroking a path

Page 119 The illustration is completedwith Vector Shapes and Type elements

Page 110 Selecting and removing abackground is tricky, but worth a try

Page 111 Paint away holes inside amask with the Brush tool

Page 112 Reconstruct missing parts of an image with the Clone tool

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Creating a montage

Now we can experiment with a montageusing all the techniques we’ve learned

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ExperimentationBecause this is acreative exercise, wecan risk experimentingwith cutting out thebackground, since there may be a creative solution to any problems we encounter.

Background layerWhen increasing thecanvas, thebackground layer,which cannot havetransparent pixels, isfilled with the colour inthe background colourswatch. Set this beforeyou run the command.

Here’s the resulting selection as a mask.Not too great, but not bad either. It’s

promising and worth having as a half decentmask, so let’s keep it and refine it further.

4

Let’s begin by attempting to remove thebackground to see how well we can

achieve this.The Magic Wand tool will be firstup to bat. Using the default settings of a 32-pixel tolerance, we shift-click to select eachsector of the background.

3

We intend to apply as many Photoshoptools as we can, while attempting to

produce as artistic an image as we can.Cutting out the background in such an imagecan be tricky because of the wisps of hair. Weneed to keep this in mind before we committo a total removal of the background.

2

Here’s the starting image for ourillustration/montage. It’s a straight

portrait of a model, with even lighting andgood all-round quality. It’s also at a highresolution of about 3,000 pixels.

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Invert a selectionWe could have

avoided this step byinverting the selectionbefore applying it as alayer mask.To invert aselection (as opposed

to the pixels within aselection) type

[Alt]+[Shift]+[I].

Inverted layermasks

If you want to load aselection as an invertedlayer mask, you can do

so in one action by[Alt]-clicking the AddLayer Mask button in

the Layers palette.At this point we need to make thecanvas area larger. Using the Image >

Canvas Size command we can expand thedocument horizontally to 4,000 pixels.

8

The layer mask can be smoothed toremove some of the graininess by

applying a filter to it. By applying the GaussianBlur filter to the mask (not the image part ofthe layer) we can vary the smoothness to getthe right effect.This also has the effect offading the edges of the subject, which looksquite cool.

7

The fixed mask is loaded as a selectionand applied as a layer mask to a

duplicate of the background layer. Anotherlayer has been added below the new layer andfilled with white.The mask needs to beinverted, which you can do by selecting it inthe Layers palette and typing [Alt]+[I].

6

In Channel view we can see the maskand the RGB channels at the same time

by clicking the eye icons next to the channels.The mask is displayed as a rubylith overlay,just like in Quick Mask mode.This enables usto paint out the problem areas with carefuluse of the Brush tool.

5

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Fix missing parts of the image

We can regenerate our subject with the Clonetool and add shading with the Burn tool

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Cut and pasteAnother approach isto use selections tocut and paste sectionsof the skin from otherareas of the image.

Safety layerIf you are unsure ofwhat you are doing,try cloning onto anew layer rather thanthe image's own layer.Make sure Use All Layers is checked, though.

To add back some shading we begin byadding a bit of highlight to the edge of

the arm to match the existing highlight on theshoulder. We’ll use a textured brush for this,and the temptation is to simply paint it on byhand, which is fine, but there is another way.

4

The tones are a bit blotchy but we caneven them out using the Blur tool.

Remember the tip of reducing the Spacing of the brush to increase the strength of theeffect.This won’t fix everything but it’ll help.

3

We use a hard-edged brush for the edgeof the arm to get a good line for her

arm.The inside parts are filled in using a softerbrush.This can be tricky, but don’t worry if itlooks flat – we can add back the shading later.

2

Using the Clone tool we can paint backpart of the model’s left arm, which had

been cropped off in the original image.Sampling from skin tones nearby the croppedpart of the image we begin to rebuild themissing portion.

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Using the Pen as a brush

We can use the Pen tool to create accurate,repeatable brush strokes

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Sketchy strokeThe technique ofusing a pen as a

stroke can be appliedin other ways.You can

give vector shapes a more 'hand-drawn'

look by stroking themwith sketchy brushes.

Broken pathsBreak up a complex

path into differentsections to add

variety and detail tostroked paths.

The rest of the arm is touched up toremove any further unevenness in tones

on the skin (the eye is very sensitive to this)using the Burn and Clone tools.The result ispretty good, especially if you didn’t knowwhere to look for the fix-up job.

4

By repeating this action withsuccessively smaller radius brushes we

can create a nice fake illumination to the edgeof the arm. Each stroke passes in exactly thesame position because of the path.

3

We select the Dodge tool and set up alarge textured brush for it in Midtones

mode at 50% strength. By clicking the StrokePath with Brush button selected in the Pathspalette, the Dodge tool will be stroked alongthe path.

2

In order to have a bit more precisionwhen adding the highlight, we can use

the Pen tool. We begin by drawing a pathalong the length of the arm.

1

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Using the Pen as a brush continued

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Chapter 10

Keep it realOverdo a touch-upjob and your subjectcan end up lookinglike one of thoseplastic models on thefront of countlessfashion mags.Remember to keepyour effects subtle.

Progress reportUse the Zoom tool tozoom out of theimage to look at theimage as a whole.This will give you agood idea of how wellthe touch-up iscoming along.

You can be as thorough or as subtle asyou like when using the Healing tool.

In this example we’ve removed the smallwrinkles near the corners of the eye.The rightside has been done and the left side has not.

8

Next we can tackle the occasionalblemish.The odd spot is removed using

the same technique with the Healing Brushtool. Note that even where there are areas ofhigh contrast and detail (such as where thelight strikes her face at the edges) the tool willstill work well.

7

The most obvious lines to fix are thoseon the brow. Using a brush that’s about

three times the width of the line, we take asample just above it and paint it out.You mustbe careful not to overdo it and remove all thelines totally, as it can look too false.

6

The next tool we need to use is thewonderful Healing Brush.We can use

this to just subtly remove some wrinkles andblemishes from the model’s face.

5

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Adding a background

We can add a colourful background in order toprovide more visual impact

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Artwork project

Discard or apply?When you discard a

mask by dragging it tothe trash, you are

prompted to discard orapply the mask.

Choosing the option toApply cuts away the

masked pixels beforethe mask is deleted.

Trash layersAny layer element can

be deleted by draggingit to the trash can icon

at the bottom of the palette.

Next we load the layer mask as aselection, and then use the Selection >

Feather command and a large value (about60) to smooth the selection.Then we shrink itby 20 pixels using the Selection > Modify >Shrink command.

4

We decide to go with a creative effect tosolve this problem – blurring them until

they are unnoticeable. Before we do that weremove as much of the white as possible usingan eraser.The layer is duplicated and the maskis applied to the layer by dragging it over tothe trash beforehand.

3

The render is dragged into the mainPhotoshop illustration document by

dragging its layer from the Layers palette anddropping it over the image. Placed below themasked layer we can see the edges of theoriginal background more clearly.

2

The white background was just a stand-in to enable us to see the effect of

the layer mask. We can replace it with a betterimage, such as this.This is not a photo or apainting, but a 3D render produced usingsome special focus rendering effect.

1

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Adding a backgroundcontinued

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Chapter 10

More layersAlways think howsomething can beaccomplished withoutactually changing anypixels destructively.Rather than adjustingthe colours of the girllayer directly we useanother layer in Colourblending mode.

Overwrite rulesYou will find thatsome work you doearlier will be negatedby later artisticchanges. Don't worry- it's a part of theprocess that even bestlaid plans can't avoid.

The Opacity is adjusted to get the rightblend.Too much and the girl’s colours

are washed away; too little and she stands outtoo much.The greenish/yellow patch of thered layer is removed by cloning over it.

8

To blend the colours of the backgroundand the girl better we can make use of

Photoshop’s blending modes.The redbackground layer is duplicated, blurred andplaced above the girl layer. Using Colourmode, the layer’s colours are transferred to thegirl layer.

7

We can make use of this same selectionagain by applying it as a layer mask to

the blurred girl layer and inverting it.Thisfades out the blurred portion, blending it intothe background. Levels are used to adjust thedegree of blending.

6

The selection is inverted using[Alt]+[Shift]+[I] so that only the outer

edges will be affected; the face will stay sharp.Gaussian Blur is used to blur the edges of thegirl, producing a forced ‘depth of focus’ effectand hiding a lot of the white edge.

5

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Artwork project

Advancedblending

Access a layer’soptions panel by

double-clicking it.Here you can find the

advanced blendingsliders. In this case, the‘This Layer’ slider is set

to Red and the darkslider moved towards

the right to fade outthose colours only.

Split the slidersTo ‘split’ the sliders you

[Alt]+drag them.Thishas the effect of

feathering thetransparency of thelayer to prevent an

obvious cut-off pointfor the blend.

A mask is added to remove the sparksthat cover the girl’s eyes and face.This

is painted on using a large soft brush, varyingthe opacity as we go, by making use of thenumeric key pad.

12

The sharp red layer is once againduplicated and moved to the top. We

want some of the sparks to be in front, as wellas behind, to give some more depth to theimage.The Layer is applied in Screen modebut most of the flat red colour is removedusing the sliders in its layer options.

11

In fact, the opposite works well too:applying the duplicated layer in Linear

Dodge mode brightens the girl up, butlikewise it also intensifies the image – it’s timeto make a decision.

10

To intensify the girl layer and add morecontrast to it once more, Layer Blending

modes come to the rescue. The girl layer isduplicated and applied in Linear Burn mode,with an opacity of 50%.

9

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Applying artistic detail

We can use the Art History Brush here to addsome extra background detail

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All about imageBecause the Art HistoryBrush applies newpixels using originalcolour, you can makelow-res images intohigh-res ones.

Effect limitationsVery small imagesblown up very large willstart to show pixels andcompression artefacts,so the effect has its limits.

A very fine brush is finally applied topick out the fine edges.You only need

to do this where needed, because it can bequite slow.The layer is applied in Hard Lightmode and a Gradient Layer Mask fades outthe left side.The other elements arerepositioned for better composition.

4

Using successively smaller brushes and changing to the Tight Medium

Art mode, we can add back some detail.Thebrushes we used were 200, 100, and then 50pixels in radius.

3

To get round this we can apply the ArtHistory Brush to ‘regenerate’ the pixels

in the enlarged layer. We mark a previous stateas the source for the Art History Brush andbegin filling in the canvas with a large brush inDab mode.

2

A selection is made of the girl’s eyes and copied to a new layer.This layer is

enlarged to fill the document. However, whenyou do this, the image quality will suffer.

1

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Vector Shape and Type layers

We can add further creative elements usingVector Shape and Type layers

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Artwork project

Balancing elementsWhen creating an

image such as this, tryto balance the

foreground andbackground elements,

making sure thebackground detail doesnot overpower or clashwith the main subject.

Big impressionUsing a Hue/Saturation

Adjustment Layer youcan change the feel of

the entire image just bychanging some

of the colours.

Finally, a layer mask is applied to theLevels Adjustment Layer. Using the

Gradient tool set to black and white andRadial mode, a gradient is drawn that protectsthe girl’s face from the effect of levels.

4

A Levels Adjustment layer is applied tothe image and a Vector Shape is used as

a mask to create a further layer of detail in theimage. A combination of two overlappingVector Shapes in Exclude mode interacts tocreate an interesting shape.

3

The Warp Text tool helps to bend the 7 into a more interesting shape, and

assists in integrating it into the image depth-wise. A layer mask aids this further making itappear to wrap around the girl. Applied inScreen mode, an Outer Glow Layer Stylemakes for a subtle effect.

2

A Type layer is added by clicking on theimage with the Type tool. Appropriately,

the number 7 will be used as a graphicelement for the image, since 7 is the currentversion of Photoshop.

1

Page 120: Photoshop

On your CD-ROM/DVD

To access the programs and fileson this disc, including the

photo collection from Image Source,first insert the disc into your drive.Whether you’re using a PC or anApple Mac, the disc will workequally well. If it doesn’t runautomatically, look at the oppositepage to find out how to start yourinstallation manually.

Before you go onThe first item that should appear on your screen is the disclaimerwindow; here you’ll need to click

Featured software…

V i d e o t u t o r i a l s t o t a key o u t h r o u g h t h e t o o l s

E v e r y P h o t o s h o ph o t ke y f o r P C a n d M a c

on ‘I Accept’. Please remember thatthis disc has been thoroughlyscanned and tested at all stages ofproduction, but – as with all newsoftware – we still recommend thatyou run a virus checker before use.We also recommend that you havean up-to-date backup of your harddisk before using this disc. FuturePublishing does not acceptresponsibility for any disruption,damage and/or loss to your data orcomputer system that may occurwhile using this disc, or the data andprograms on it. Please consult your

Here’s how to get the most from the disc that accompanies your Focus Guide

As well as the printed tutorials in this issue, George Cairns

has supplied a range of video tutorials covering a wide

variety of the tools available to Photoshop users. George will

take you through the basics of each tool, what they are

called, what they do, where they can be found as well as a

brief description of how to use them.

Watch and learn about the following essential tools: Blur tool,Brush

tool,Crop tool,Dodge and Burn tool,Erase tool,Eye Dropper tool,

Gradient tool,Hand tool,Healing tool,History Brush tool,Lassoo

tool,Magic Wand tool,Move tool,Note tool and Slice tool.

VIDEO TUTORIALS

The toolbar explained by Photoshop expert George Cairns

Photoshop expert George Cairns takesyou through the tools of the trade inour superb video tutorials

Page 121: Photoshop

network administrator beforeattempting to install any software on a networked PC.

InstallationOnce inside you’ll find yourself on our introduction screen, with anumber of options in the menu baralong the top. Click on the relevantlink in the menu bar to access thefile or program that you require. If you have a query about your disc’sinterface or content, email our supportteam ([email protected]) forhelp. If you want to talk to a member

of the team, call 01225 822743.Please note that we can only providebasic advice on using the interfaceand installing the software. Wecannot give in-depth help onspecific applications, or on yourcomputer’s particular hardware or operating system.

121ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES – FOCUS GUIDE

On your CD-ROM/DVD

Finding your files

Click on the Focus Guide link

at the top of the disc

interface screen to

access all the files that

accompany this book.

The PDF documents on your disc, provided by GFX^TM,

contain every Photoshop 7.0 hotkey for both PC and Mac.

A hotkey is simply a keyboard shortcut that saves you

having to click through on-screen menus with your mouse.

While you may know that pressing [Ctrl]+[C] on your

keyboard is how you would copy a selection, for example,

you may not know that 'Fill from History and Preserve

Transparency' can be accessed by [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Shift]+

[Backspace].These indispensable documents catalogue over

250 keyboard shortcuts and are a useful resource for

Photoshop beginners and experienced users alike.

PHOTOSHOP HOTKEYS

Over 250 keyboard shortcuts for just about any Photoshop task

There’s a wealth of Photoshop trainingmaterial and experience on the GFX^TMwebsite: www.user.fundy.net/morris

http://user.fundy.net/morris

Page 122: Photoshop

Index

AAdd Anchor Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Adjustment

(Levels, Curves and Hue/Saturation) . 69, 71, 77

Adjustment layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65, 77

Adobe Illustrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80, 91

Alpha channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Annotation, Notes

and Measure tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100-107

Anti-aliasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Art History Brush . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45, 118

Auto measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

BBackgrounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66-67, 115-117

Bevelled and Embossed type . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Bézier handles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31, 92, 94

Blending mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Brush dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Brush hardness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Brush shape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Brush tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Brushes and Pencil tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32-45

Brushes – customisable, preset . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Brushes palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38-39

Burn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75-76, 78,79,112

CChanging Marquees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Channels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20, 65

Characters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Circular Marquee tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Circular gradient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Clone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48, 49, 50, 112

Cloning and Healing tools . . . . . . . . . . . 46-53

Cloning skin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

CMYK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81, 104

Color palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Colour Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Colour Sampler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104, 106

Colour Stops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Contiguous option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16, 67

Convert Anchor Point tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Corel Draw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Corel Painter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Count Jitter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Creating a montage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110-111

Creating Top Quality Artwork . . . . . . 108-119

Custom Shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

DDarken mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Delete Anchor Point tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Destination mode in Healing . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Direct and Path Selection tools . . . . . . . 30-31

Dither . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Dodge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75-76, 78, 79,113

Dual Brushes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

EEffects tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68-79

Elliptical Marquee tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 20

Exposure tools

(Dodge, Burn and Sponge) . . . . 68-69, 75-79

Extrude and Move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Eye Dropper. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104-105

FFade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Feathering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Fill tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56-58

Finger Painting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Flow setting for Brushes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Focus tools (Blur, Sharpen and Smudge)70-74

Focus and Exposure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Foreground to Background,

Transparent and Custom gradients . . . . . . 60

Freehand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80, 91

GGaussian Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65, 111

Gradient, Fill and Eraser tools . . . . . . . . . 54-67

Gradient Masks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Gradient Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Gradients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54-65

Graphics tablet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

HHealing Brush . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51-53

Healing Brush . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51, 114

Healing Patch tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52-53

Highlight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78, 79

History Brush . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42-44

Horizontal and Vertical Type . . . . . . . . . 83, 87

IIntersect mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

KKerning, Leading and Scale . . . . . . . . . . . 80, 85

LLasso tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14-15

Index

Turn straight to the information you need with the help of our comprehensive index

124 FOCUS GUIDE – ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES

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125ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES – FOCUS GUIDE

Index

Polygonal Lasso . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

QQuick Mask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18-19

Quick Mask mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65, 79

RRasterization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81, 83, 88

Rectangular Marquee tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Rubber Stamp (Clone) tool . . . . . . . . . . . 48-50

Rulers, Guides and Grids . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26, 107

SSample mode in Cloning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Sample mode in Healing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Saturate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Scattering in Brushes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Scratch disk space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Selecting text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Selection tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10-21, 23

Selections for web pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Shadows mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76, 79

Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22, 37

Single Column/Row Marquee tool . . . . . . 12

Slices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Strength slider. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70, 73, 74

Styled Type. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Subtract mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

TTextures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Tolerance setting for Eraser tools . . . . . 66-67

Tolerance setting for Magic Wand . . . . . . . 16

Tolerance setting for Paint Bucket . . . . 56-57

Transparency. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Layer Blending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62, 64, 117

Layer Folders (Layer Sets). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Layer Styles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Levels Adjustment layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Lightness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Linear Dodge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Linear gradient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Luminosity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

MMagic and Background Erasers . . . . . . . 66-67

Magic Wand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16-17, 56, 110

Magnetic Lasso . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Marching ants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18-20, 64-65, 98

Measure tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49, 107

Midtones mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75-76, 78, 113

Modifying selections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Move tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27, 28-29

Move, Align and Distribute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

NNavigating and Editing Images . . . . . . . 22-31

Navigator panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Noise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57, 72

OOpacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

PPaint Bucket . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56-57

Panning and Zooming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Paths, Vectors and Masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90-99

Pattern mode in Healing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Pen tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90-93, 113-114

Type and text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Type layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82-88, 119

Type masks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Type options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Type Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80-89

UUndo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Use All Layers in selections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Using the Brushes and Pencil tools . . . 32-45

Using the Cloning and Healing tools . 46-53

VVector Shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31, 95-97, 119

Vector text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

View Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

WWacom Intuos. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Warp Text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87, 119

Page 124: Photoshop

Glossary

126 FOCUS GUIDE – ADOBE PHOTOSHOP TOOL TECHNIQUES

Glossary

Finding the lingo a puzzle? Here’s your handyguide to essential terms found in this Focus Guide

Alpha channelAlpha channels are storedalongside colour channelswithin Photoshop files but donot affect the final imageprintout. Instead, they storeinformation that is helpful toyou, such as saved Masks.

Anti-aliasingMoving pixels around can causeundesirable jagged edges toappear, where edited pixels havenot blended smoothly together.Anti- aliasing refers to the processof smoothing out these jaggededges for a more natural look.

BrushBrushes enable you to paint onPhotoshop images with colour,other bits of images and pre-defined patterns. They mimicreal brushes in that you canalter the size, hardness andtexture in order to achieve theeffects you want.

Colour channelThere are three colour channelsin all colour images: red, greenand blue. Each one containsinformation specific to thatcolour. Photoshop enables youto alter each channelindependently, making itpossible to reduce grainy blueskies without affecting the restof an image, for example.

FeatheringSoftening the edges of pixels in aselection, so that they will blendsmoothly when moved elsewhere.Photoshop does this by onlypartially selecting some of the pixelsaround the edge of the selection.

FilterOne of Photoshop’s preset toolsthat applies an effect to animage (or a selection within theimage). Examples includesharpening, blurring, creative

and artistic filters. You’ll find a complete list by clicking in the Filter menu at the top of the Photoshop window.

FontA commonly used term used todescribe the typeface you areusing. For instance, Times NewRoman is a font where all theletters look fairly formal. InArial, however, all the lettersare far simpler looking.

GIF (or .gif)A type of image file format bestsuited for producing simpleimages for the web. Examplesinclude logos, banners, buttonsand anything made up of only afew flat colours.

GreyscaleAn image is greyscale if itcontains no colour information.Almost all digital camera files,for instance, will be in colour.But you can turn them intoblack and white with many finegradations of grey, from withinPhotoshop by turning them in togreyscale images.

Image sizeThis refers to the physical sizeof an image. For instance, aphotograph you are working onmay be 20x15cm. This mattersmost when you come to printing out the image.

JPG (or .jpeg)A type of image file format thatgives a desirable combination ofsmall file sizes and good qualityphoto reproduction. It iscommonly used in digitalcameras to store the images thatyou take. The small files sizesalso make it ideal for the web.

LayerLayers containing effects or bitsof images can be stacked on top

of the original image layer (thebackground) in order to changethe appearance of the image.Layers do not directly affect thelayers beneath them, in thesame way as a blurry piece ofglass placed over a photographdoes not actually affect thephotograph – in both cases, it isthe appearance that is changed,leaving the original untouched.

MarqueeThe flashing dotted outline thatsurrounds a selection. You’llalso see it referred to in someplaces as ‘marching ants’.

NavigatorIn Photoshop’s default screenlayout, the Navigator ispositioned in the top-rightcorner and gives you access tothe whole image, even if you arecurrently zoomed in to aspecific part. The red box withinthe Navigator image denotes thearea that is currently on screen;you can move around yourimage by clicking and draggingthe red box around theNavigator image.

ResolutionA measure of how many pixelsmake up an image. A resolutionof 300dpi (dots per inch) isrecognised as the minimum if you’re intending to print your images.

SelectionAny part of an image which youselect with Photoshop’s tools,shown by a marquee around it.You can then work on certainparts of an image, or removethen without affecting the rest.

SlicesThese are special kinds ofselections for web page design. Animage can be split into segments orslices, and Photoshop creates an

HTML file, plus separate imagefiles, for each slice. The webbrowser then reassembles the slicesin their original position to give theappearance of a single image.

Thumbnail A small, ‘thumbnail-sized’version of an image. You’ll findthem in folders of images and in Photoshop’s File Browser –Because they’re smaller than afull size image you can browsethrough them more quickly,which makes finding the fileyou’re after far easier.

PixelAn abbreviation for ‘pictureelement’, it is essentially a tinydot of colour on screen. Mostimages are made of up millionsof pixels, which combine tomake an image look seamless.Zoom in very close on an image,however, and you can clearlysee these individual pixels.

PSDPhotoshop’s own file format,which preserves things such aslayers and channels. If you’reediting an image file, it’ssensible to save it as a PSD, inorder for the changes you havemade to remain editable whenyou next open it.

Tool Options barWhen a tool is selected, thecorresponding Tool Options barautomatically appears at the topof the Photoshop window,giving you access to variousoptions, including such thingsas Brush Sizes and Feathering.

Page 125: Photoshop

Notes

Page 126: Photoshop

Notes

Page 127: Photoshop

Notes

Page 128: Photoshop

Notes

Page 129: Photoshop
Page 130: Photoshop

Ten chapters of expert tips and advice

All book related CD content can be foundon the magazine cover disc

Master every tool in the Photoshop toolbar

Navigate and manipulate images with ease

Use the Cloning and Healing tools to retouch your photos

Make pixel-perfect selections every time

Harness the power of the stunning Effects tools

Tailor-made video tutorials

Every keyboard shortcut for PC and Mac

FocusGuideFrom the makers of Computer Arts

AdobePhotoshop

Printed in the UK. © Future Publishing 2004

Free with issue 19 of