Category: PhotoShop

So, you want to convert your photos to stunning black and white versions? If that’s true then you are in the right place. Photoshop offers a wide variety of tools for performing black and white conversions. Some are obvious – like the black and white adjustment layer – and others are more obscure.

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Resources

• Dirt Road with Maple Trees in Winter Sunrise
• Mountain Lake
• Sunrise on Fields
• family moments
• City Skyline 1
• Lake – HDR

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Black And White Adjustment Layer

Let’s begin with the most obvious one: Black And White Adjustment Layer. Choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Black & White. Tweak the available sliders to your liking.

You can see here before and after:

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Gradient Map Adjustment Layer

Another way to convert to B&W is the Gradient Map Adjustment Layer. Choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map and choose a black to white gradient.

You can see here before and after:

Bonus tip. For a more dark and contrasted look duplicate the Gradient Map Adjustment Layer (Ctrl + J) and change it’s blending mode to Soft Light. Here’s how it looks:

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Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer

Channel Mixe Adjustment Layer is another way to go. Choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Channel Mixer and check Monochrome. Play with the Red, Green and Blue sliders to achieve the effect you want. I went for some really blown out Highlights.

You can see here before and after:

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Desaturate

Another option for converting photos to black and white is the simple Photoshop command Desaturate. Press Ctrl + Shift + U and your image will be converted to a grayscale version. This is the simplest way but it is the least flexible and it doesn’t look so great.

You can see here before and after:

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Lab color mode

Maybe the most obscure way to convert a color image to a black and white version is by using the Lab color mode. To do this choose Image > Mode > Lab Color. After that discard the color channels by selecting Image > Mode > Grayscale.

You can see here before and after:

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Learn complex/advanced techniques

Those were some simple techniques for converting to black and white. Let me share with you some of the more complex/advanced techniques.

One thing you can do after you’ve done one of the conversions above is to add a monotone, duotone or tritone effect.

One of the simplest and obvious ways to achieve this is to first convert a image to Grayscale (Image > Mode > Grayscale) and afterwards choose Image > Mode > Duotone. The options window is pretty self-explanatory so I won’t be covering it.

The way I like to do it involves Blending Modes and Solid Color Adjustment layer. It allows for more unexpected and beautiful results than with the Duotone command. Here’s how to do it:

First convert the image to black and white using one of the techniques from above. Afterwards add one, two or three Solid Color Adjustment layers. Use a different color for each. Now start changing their blending modes. Good blending modes for this kind of toning are Overlay, Soft Light, Color and Color Dodge.

Here’s some of what I made using the City picture from above (after converting it to black and white):

A dark/blue Solid Color with the blending mode set to Overlay:

A dark red Solid Color with the Color Dodge Blending Mode and a dark blue Solid Color with the Color Blending Mode for a duotone effect:

Another advanced technique is to simply go through the image Channels (channels hold information about image color and luminosity) by holding Ctrl and pressing 3,4 or 5. Once you find a channel you like press Ctrl + C to copy, create a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + N) and paste it (Ctrl + V).

You can see here before and after:

Whatever your Christmas design may be, you may well be looking for some brushes to either be the main feature of the design or to enhance the main design.

Here we have selected 20 sets of Christmas brushes for Photoshop, all of which are free for personal use.

Christmas Decorations

Cute Christmas Brushes

Christmas Doodles

Santa Claus St. Nick Brushes

Lovely Christmas Brushes

Christmas Brushes

Holiday Brushes

Holiday Brush Set

Christmas Ornaments Brushes

Christmas Tree Brushes

Christmas Ornament PS Brushes

Funny Happy Xmas Brushes

Christmas Cheer Brushes

15 Santa Pictures PS Brushes

Grunge Christmas Tags

Xmas Gift Tags

Hi-Res Christmas Filmstrip Photoshop Brushes

Christmas Tree Brushes

Crystal Xmas Miniatures

Christmas Brushes Corners

Hopefully there will be some brush sets in this showcase that you think are worth downloading and experimenting with.

This tutorial explains how to use simple brushes to create an easy clouds text effect.

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Final Image Preview

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Note: Original tutorial published on Photoshopstar.com some years ago. Tutorial was updated and now republished.

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Resources

• Cloud brushes by Adaae-stock.

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Step 1

Create a new 1000 x 500 px document. Set the Foreground color to #3497b6 and the Background color to #97d5e6. Pick the Gradient Tool, choose the Foreground to Background gradient, and click the Linear Gradient icon in the Options bar at the top. Then, click and drag from the top to the bottom of the document to create the gradient.

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Step 2

Create the text in white using the font Arial Black. In the Character panel (Window -> Character), set the Size to 350 pt and the Tracking value to 100.

Ctrl/Cmd + Click the text layer’s thumbnail to create a selection.

Make the text layer invisible by clicking the eye icon next to it.

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Step 3

Pick the Brush Tool, set the Foreground color to white, create a new layer on top of the text layer and call it “Clouds”.

Pick one of the Cloud brushes, reduce its size to something around 200 to 300 px, then start adding the brush inside the selection. You can use more than one brush to add some variations. Don’t leave lots of empty spaces, just enough for the clouds to maintain their details.

Once your done, go to Select -> Deselect (or press Ctrl/Cmd + D) to get rid of the selection.

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Step 4

Right click the text layer and choose Create Work Path.

Pick the Eraser Tool, then open the Brush panel once again.

Choose the “Per Stroke Brightness Variance” brush and modify its settings as shown below:

– Brush Tip Shape:

– Shape Dynamics:

This will create a jagged edges brush.

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Step 5

Pick the Direct Selection Tool, select the “Clouds” layer so that it is the active layer, right click the work path and choose Stroke Path.

Choose Eraser from the Tool drop down menu, and make sure that the Simulate Pressure box is un-checked. Click OK.

This will stroke the path with the Eraser Tool brush, making the edges more fluffy and feathery. Hit the Enter/Return key to get rid of the path.

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Step 6

Create a new layer right on top of the Background layer and change its Opacity to a value around 30%. Then, pick some of the cloud brushes again to add some clouds on that layer.

And that’s it!

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Final Image

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial.

A very detailed Photoshop tutorial where i will show you how to create a greeting card for Christmas and New Year Holidays to impress your relatives and friends. This Photoshop tutorial is very simple but the result looks so amazing!

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Final Image Preview

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Note: Original tutorial published on Photoshopstar.com some years ago. Tutorial was updated and now republished.

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Step 1

Create a new document with size of 800 x 600 pixels and fill it with black color.

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Step 2

Now I would like to create abstract snowing on the picture. We can do it by using the Pen Tool. But before we can start, we have to change some presets of the Brush Tool which we will be using in the future. Select the Brush Tool, a soft round brush about 15 pixels and opacity at 61%.

Then click the button “Toggle the Brushes Palette” on the Options Bar to open brush preset window or go to Windows > Brushes. Here we can see a couple of presets. Update them for current brush:

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Step 3

Set foreground color as white (#ffffff). Create new layer, after that select Pen Tool (you need to make sure you are working with Paths instead of Shape Layers). Draw out one straight line using paths:

Click on start point to close path. Then right-click and select Stroke Path:

A little dialog box will appear as in the screenshot. Choose Brush and make sure there is a tick next to Simulate Pressure. This is important as it will give your line tapered ends which will make it rock!

The picture will be similar to mine:

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Step 5

Next right click again and select Delete Path. Then add more lines on the same way.

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Step 6

You can change brush size, so the picture will look more interesting:

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Step 7

Duplicate current layer (Ctrl+J) and apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur with next parameters:

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Step 8

We are finished with creating snow; let’s move to the next step.
Create new layer above, then select the Gradient Tool and fill this layer with Spectrum linear gradient (this is one of standard Photoshop gradients).

After thart change layer mode to Soft Light for this gradient layer and you will see total difference in coloring.

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Step 9

Before we start adding text, we have to make some dark mat to divide text from the background. For this effect, select the Rectangular Marquee Tool to create selection similar to mine on screenshot below and fill this selected area with black to transparent linear gradient on the new layer.

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Step 10

Remove selection with Ctrl+D. Now is time to add the text. Get out the Horizontal Type Tool and write out some text with white color in two lines. For this Photoshop tutorial I´ve used Arial (30 pt, Normal, Black, Crisp) font which is one of standard Windows fonts.

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Step 11

Then we have to add the year, but I want to put it in a small box. Use the Rounded Rectangle Tool (Mode: Shape layers, Radius: 5px) to create small box above the text with white color also.

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Step 12

After that select the Horizontal Type Tool again and add the year with the same font (Color: Black, Size: 16 pt, Black, Crisp).

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Step 13

Again add one more text line a little bit down. But before you start writing the text, just change some text presets for this text line:

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Step 14

Now you can add one more text line:

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Step 15

Change opacity for this layer to 40%.

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Final Image

We are almost finished with creating our greeting card. The last one thing that we have to add a little bit visible white circles. Select the Brush Tool (Opacity: 20%) and a hard round brush to add different size circles to the greeting card canvas.

Looks cool, isn’t it? That is it. Card looks amazing to you as for me? You can send this card to your friends and relatives, hope, they will be happy to get this card from you!

In this Photoshop tutorial we will take a picture of a young woman and make her look older by a decade or two. It’s quite amusing to do this as you can see how you or your friends will look when you get older.

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Final Image Preview

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Resources

• Young Woman 6
• Wrinkles
• Old Woman Portrait II Stock

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Step 1

Open the picture “Woman” (or any other portrait). The first thing we want to do is drop/drag down some of the parts of the face. I am talking about cheekbones, nose, jaw. Why? Because that’s what happens to old people. To do this make a duplicate of the original layer (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + J) and open the Liquify Filter (Filter > Liquify). Use the Forward Warp Tool to drag the highlighted areas down.

Be subtle, we are not making caricatures.

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Step 2

Now let’s make the teeth more yellow. While not a general characteristic of old people, yellow teeth make a person look older.

Create a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer and use the settings shown below. I have selected a yellow hue and lowered the lightness a bit. Fill the layer mask of this adjustment layer with black and use a round, soft white brush to paint in the teeth in the layer mask. If you don’t know how to use layer masks then check out this tutorial.

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Step 3

Generally, old people have gray hair. So let’s make this young’s lady hair more gray.

Start by adding a Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer and lower the saturation to -90. Fill the layer mask with black and with a white brush paint over the hair in the layer mask.
Next, add a Curves Adjustment layer to add some lightness to the hair. Drag the curve upwards as shown below to achieve this effect.

Finally, create a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + N) and with a 1px brush at 50% Opacity and 50% Flow draw some random hair strands. It helps a lot if you have a Wacom tablet, but I did it without it.

Be subtle and if the results are to obvious lower the Flow or the Opacity.

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Step 4

Old people have less hair. If this was a man I would probably create some baldness, but as this is a woman, the other area for hair reduction is the eyebrows.

Create a new layer and select the Clone Stamp Tool (S). Set the Opacity of the tool to 30-40% and Alt-click somewhere near the eyebrows to sample. Paint over the eyebrows with the sampled area. Again, my advice is to be subtle.

You can see below how my layer with the cloned eyebrow area looks.

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Step 5

Time to add some wrinkles. In order to do this we will use two pictures of old women. If you want to be more realistic you should find old relatives of the person you want to make look older.

Here’s how this process works:

Open the picture of an old woman, select all (Ctrl + A), copy (Ctrl + C) and paste in our document (Ctrl + V). Desaturate the picture (Ctrl + Shift + U) and change the blending mode to Soft Light. Add a layer mask (Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All) and using a white soft brush at 30-40% opacity paint over the areas you wish to reveal in the layer mask. To position the wrinkles correctly, use the Free Transform to resize and position the layer.

Here’s how I made the forehead wrinkles:

After I imported the image of the old woman and desaturated, I used Free Transform (Ctrl + T) to position the image correctly over the face of the young woman.

After I filled the layer mask with black I used a white round soft brush at 40% Opacity to reveal some of the forehead.

I changed the Blending mode to Soft light and played with the opacity until the results looked good. 50% Opacity did the trick.

Now repeat the step above for the cheekbones, eyes and where you feel that wrinkles are required.

Here’s how my picture looks:

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Step 6

The final step is to add some final hand painted details. Use a 1px brush at 20% Opacity and 40% Flow to paint some more wrinkles over the upper lip, on the neck and near the eyes. Increase the brush size to 30-40px and paint some black bags under the eyes.

This step is optional but it adds to the realism of the final result. Be subtle and don’t draw heavy wrinkles as they will look fake.

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Final Image

There is room for improvement – like adding more hand painted wrinkles and hunting every single strand of hair to make it grey – but I leave this as an optional exercise for you.

In the following tutorial you will learn how to create a simple drop down menu using Photoshop.

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Final Image Preview

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Step 1

Open Photoshop and hit Control + N to create a new document. Enter all the data shown in the following image and click OK. Enable the Grid (View > Show > Grid) and the Snap to Grid (View > Snap To > Grid). For the moment you need a grid every 5px. Go to Edit > Preferences > Guides, Grid & Slices and focus on the Grid section. Enter 5 in the Gridline Every box and 1 in the Subdivision box. Also, set the color of the grid at #a7a7a7. Once you set all these properties click OK.

Don’t get discouraged by all that grid. It will ease your work later. You should also open the Info panel (Window > Info) for a live preview with the size and position of your shapes.

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Step 2

Set the foreground color at #3f8ecf, grab the Rounded Rectangle Tool and set the radius at 20px. Create a 160 by 40px vector path and duplicate it (Control + J). Select this copy and make it white. Switch to the Rectangle Tool, check the Intersect button from the top bar and draw a 40 by 40px vector path as shown in the third image. Move to the Layers panel and double click on this white vector path to open the Layers Style window.

Activate the Inner Glow, the Gradient Overlay and the Stroke then enter the properties shown in the following images.

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Step 3

Reselect the blue rounded rectangle made in the previous step and duplicate it (Control + J). Select this copy, make it white and grab the Rectangle Tool. Check the Intersect button from the top bar and draw a 120 by 40px vector path as shown in the second image.

Move to the Layers panel, right click on the white vector path made in the previous step and click on "Copy Layer Style". Return to the white vector path made in the beginning of this step, right click on it then simply click on Paste Layer Style.

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Step 4

Pick the Type Tool and add your text as shown in the following image. Set its color at #a1d8ff then open the Layers Style window and enter the properties shown in the following images.

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Step 5

Return to the blue rounded rectangle made in he second step, open the Layer Style window and enter the properties shown below. Duplicate this path (Control + J), select the copy, open the Layer Style window and edit the Drop Shadow properties as shown in the following image. Select all the shapes created so far and group them (Control + G). This will be your closed drop down menu. We’ll add the final touches in the final step.

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Step 6

Move to the Layers panel, right click on the group made in the previous step and click on Duplicate Group. Select this newly created group, drag it down and place it as shown in the following image.

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Step 7

Focus on the new group made in the previous step. First, you need to edit the text. Change its color to #b4b4b4 then right click on it (in the Layers panel) and click on Clear Layer Style. Open the Layer Style window for this grey piece of text and add the discrete Drop Shadow shown in the following image.

Next, you need to edit the left, white vector path. Select it, replace the white with #f5f5f5, clear the current layer style then open the Layer Style window and enter the properties shown in the following images.

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Step 8

Set the foreground color at #f5f5f5 grab the Rounded Rectangle Tool and set the radius at 20px. Create a 160 by 35px vector path, place it as shown in the first image then duplicate it (Control + J). Select this copy and make it white, switch to the Rectangle Tool, check the Intersect button from the top bar and draw a 40 by 35px vector path as shown in the second image.

Move to the Layers panel, lower the Fill of this vector path to 0% then open the Layer Style window and enter the properties shown in the following image.

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Step 9

Reselect the rounded rectangle made in the beginning of the previous step and duplicate it (Control + J). Select this copy, bring it to front (Shift + Control + ] ), lower its Fill to 0% then open the Layer Style window and enter the properties shown in the following images.

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Step 10

Reselect the second vector path made in the eighth step and duplicate it (Control + J). Select this copy, bring it to front (Shift + Control + ] ) then open the Layer Style window and edit the properties used for the Inner Shadow as shown in the following image.

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Step 11

Focus on the right side of the shapes created in the last steps. Set the foreground color at #ebebeb, grab the Rectangle Tool, create a 10 by 5px vector path and place it as shown in the first image. Select this little rectangle and continue with the Rectangle Tool. Check the "Add" button from the top bar and draw a 5 by 10px vector path as shown in the second image. Make sure that this new vector path is still selected and hit Control + T. Rotate it -45 degrees then hit Enter.

Move to the Layers panel, hold Control and click on the vector path made in the previous step. This should load a simple selection around it. Keep it active, grab the Selection Tool, focus on the Layers panel and make sure that yout arrow vector path is still selected.

Move to the top bar and simply click on the "Align vertical centers" and "Align horizontal centers" buttons to center your arrow shown in the fifth image. Open the Layer Style window for this path and enter the properties shown in the following images.

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Step 12

Grab the Type Tool and add a simple, new text as shown in the following image. Set its color at #b4b4b4 then open the Layer Style window and add the discrete Drop Shadow shown in the following image. Select this new piece of text along with all the stuff made in the last four steps and group them (Control + G).

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Step 13

Make four copies for the group created in the previous step. Place these new groups as shown in the following image and change the content of the text.

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Step 14

Focus on the "Tutorials" sub-menu, open the Layer Style window for the arrow shape and enter the properties shown in the following images.

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Step 15

Select the "Tutorials" piece of text and change its color to #2c95dd. Also, select the grey rounded rectangle behind the text, open the Layer Style window, activate the Gradient Overlay and enter the properties shown in the following image.

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Step 16

For the final steps you will need a grid every 1px. So, go to Edit > Preferences > Guides, Grid & Slices and enter 1 in the Gridline Every box. Set the foreground color at #a1d8ff, grab the Rectangle Tool, create a 6px square and place it as shown in the first image. Pick the Direct Selection Tool and focus on the bottom side of this new vector path. Select the right anchor point and move it 3px to the left. Switch to the Delete Anchor Point Tool and simply click on the remaining, bottom anchor point to remove it. In the end your square should turn into a triangle.

Open the the Layer Style window for this shape and enter the properties shown in the following images.

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Step 17

Finally, duplicate the vector path made in the previous step (Control + J). Select this copy, drag it inside the group made in the fifth step and place it as shown in the following image.

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Final Image

Here is how your final result should look.

On this tutorial we will create a water lily in a cup effect in Photoshop.

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Final Image Preview

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Resources

• Large Cup
• Colors of Life

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Step 1

In this tutorial we will be working with two photos to show you how to create a section of a cup with liquid. Start by opening the Cup photo. Resize the image to 1000 px width by going to Image > Image Size.

We now need to remove the inscription from the cup and edit the background. Select the Clone Stamp Tool and a soft round brush about 50 pixels. Hold down the Alt key and the cursor will change it’s format to a target. Click the point you wish to use as a sampling point. This will be the reference point for cloning. Click and draw where you want the cloned image to appear. As you draw, a cross will appear on the original image while a corresponding circle appears where you are drawing.

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Step 2

Let’s work on the background. Select the Polygonal Lasso Tool to make a selection of the background.

Hold the Alt button to remove the small background area between the cup handle and the cup body from the selected area.

Press Ctrl+Shift+I to inverse the selection and apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur using the following settings:

Remove the selection by pressing Ctrl+D. Click twice on the background layer to convert it to a normal layer. Go to Edit > Transform > Rotate and rotate the photo a little bit.

Use the Clone Stamp Tool to process empty areas on the canvas.

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Step 3

Open the flower photo and copy it to the canvas with the cup. The flower image is bigger than the cup photo so we need to resize it. Set flower photo opacity to 50% (it will be easier to choose the right size). Apply Edit > Free Transform to reduce the image size holding the Shift button to reduce it proportionately.

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Step 4

Change the opacity of the flower photo back to 100%. Hide the lotus layer temporarily (click on the eye in the layers palette). Select cup layer and use the Pen Tool to create a form similar to the liquid surface, fill with white.

Add rulers to our canvas with View > Rulers and then create two guidelines as show below.

Select the Pen Tool (make sure you are working with Paths) and draw your line.

Right-click and select Make Selection.

Create a new layer and fill the selected area with #f0e5d3. Remove the selection with Ctrl+D and move the horizontal guide line a little bit higher similar to the screenshot below.

Use the Pen Tool again to create a new shape.

Right-click and select Make Selection. Fill the selected area with black on a new layer. Deselect the chosen area with Select > Deselect. Now we need to add some shadow to the section. Go to the layer below and load selection with Select > Load Selection. Select the Brush Tool (Opacity: 16% and soft round brush) to create a shadow at the bottom.

Remove the selection with Ctrl+D and go to the layer above.

Duplicate the layer with Ctrl+J and apply to the duplicated layer Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.

Remove the guide lines and merge the unblurred black layer and the layer with liquid surface into one layer.

Load the selection of this layer with Selection > Load Selection.

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Step 5

Select the flower layer and make it visible again.

Select the Polygonal Lasso Tool and hold the Shift button to see a plus sign near the cursor. Then add flower petals to your selection which should be inside the cup.

User Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal Selection to add a vector mask to this layer.

Lower part of the flower is missing so select the Smudge Tool to complete it.

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Step 6

Press Ctrl+J to duplicate the flower layer and apply Filter > Distort > Glass on the duplicated layer.

Select the Eraser Tool and with a hard round brush with black color erase the petals that should be outside the water.

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Step 7

Select the Elliptical Marquee Tool and create a round selection similar to the liquid surface size. Finally create a new layer.

Fill this selection with a white to transparent gradient on a new layer.

Remove the selection with Ctrl+D and set the opacity to 37% for this layer. Use the Eraser Tool and a soft round brush to clean the petals that should be outside the water.

The liquid that is on a deeper level is darker so we need to add a dark gradient to the bottom. Load the selection of the layer with the flower by using Selection > Load Selection and fill the selected area with a black to transparent gradient on a new layer.

Remove the selection with Ctrl+D and work with layer mode and opacity/fill to achieve the final result. In my case I used Soft Light with an opacity of 37%. And this tutorial is now complete.

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Final Image

In this Photoshop tutorial we will learn how to create a realistic looking starfield using mainly noise and clouds filter.

Final Image Preview

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Resources

• Apophys Galaxy

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Step 1

Create a file with 2000×1236 px. Fill with black and then make a duplicate layer (Ctrl+J). Choose Filter > Noise > Add Noise.

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Step 2

Choose Image > Adjustments > Curves and apply the settings shown below. This step will help us get rid of the dim stars and will brighten the remaining ones.

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Step 3

Duplicate the layer and using Free Transform increase it’s size like shown below. Than choose Image > Adjustments > Curves. Change the blend mode to Screen. This will be the second layer of stars so we want them to be more bright.

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Step 4

Duplicate first stars layer again and move it on top. Use Free Transform to make it twice the size of the image. Choose Image > Adjustments > Curves and apply the settings shown below.

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Step 5

To make the stars look even more natural we will add 2 Curves adjustments layers to our small and medium stars layers. After that click in each Curves Adjustment layer mask to make sure it’s selected.

Go to Filters > Render > Clouds and press Ctrl+Al+F to randomize the clouds generation.This step will add a variance in brightness in a random way. Make sure to clipp each adjustment layer to the coresponding stars layer. Lower the opacity until it looks good.

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Step 6

Add a layer mask to each stars layer and run the Clouds filter on each. The stars start to look really good at this point but we will do some more.

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Step 7

Add a new layer on top and select the Clone tool. Choose a hard edge brush, change the tool blending mode to Screen and start on cloning. We are aiming for some nice stars clusters so put your Wacom at work. Change the layer blend mode to Screen. Also beware that the images I provided may look a bit messy but that is because of the way Photoshop “drops” pixels when you zoom out. It should look good at 100% zoom level.

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Step 8

Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E to make a new layer from all visible pixels. Apply a 4 px Gaussian Blur filter and change the layer blend mode to Linear Dodge.
This step will add some nice glow to our stars.

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Step 9

Let’s add a bit of color. Add a Color Balance adjustment layer and choose a color. Change the blend mode to Soft Light and apply a Clouds filter to the layer mask.

Add another Color Balance adjustment layer but this time choose another color. I choose blue for the first and orange for the second because complementary colors look good together. Change the layer blend mode to Color Dodge and apply a Clouds Filter to the layer mask. Press Ctrl+Alt+F a couple of times to randomize the effect and make it stronger. Lower the opacity if the effect is to strong.

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Step 10

Add a new layer, fill it with black and change it’s blend mode to Linear Dodge. Then choose Filter > Render > Lens Flare. Resize this layer and place it in your star clusters.

Make as many duplicates as you feel and place them all over the star field, but don’t forget to resize every to mimique randomness.

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Step 11

Let’s add some space dust. Open file “Apophys Fractal” and place it into our document. Resize it until it fits the canvas then add a layer mask and generate some clouds. Lower the opacity to 5% and change the blend mode to Screen. Duplicate the layer and rotate it 180 degrees. Add a Color Balance adjustment layer and after you select a color generate some clouds in the layer mask. Clip this layer to the layer below.

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Final Image

Last week tutorial got a lot of feedback and so here you have a new tutorial now using clone tool. In this Photoshop tutorial you will learn how to remove a person from an image and recreate the background to look very natural.

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Final Image Preview

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Resources

• Spring in London

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Step 1

Open the photo “Old Couple” and create a new layer above the background layer.

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Step 2

Select the Clone Stamp tool.

In order to successfully use the Clone Stamp tool you first must define a source point (the point from which you will sample pixels for cloning). To define a source point simply Alt-click on the photo and then start painting. You will notice that you will paint with the pixels from the area where you defined your source point. Now that you figured out how the Clone Stamp Tool works, undo what you just draw (Ctrl+ Z) and uncheck Align checkbox on the tool options panel.

Now define some source points around the old lady and use the Clone Stamp Tool to paint over it. There is no established recipe on how you should use the Clone Stamp Tool in each specific case. Just use your common sense and try to cover the old lady totally. Don’t worry too much about repeating patches of grass or other irregularities for now as we will address them later.
In the image below the little red circles are suggestions for source points (Alt-click).

Now you should have the something resembling the image below.

And don’t forget that you should paint each stage of cloning on a new layer. So at this first stage we will have a background layer and a new layer.

Notice that despite my best efforts I still have some ugly repeating patterns (that’s the side effect of using the Clone Stamp Tool). In the next steps I (and hopefully you) will address the issue.

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Step 3

Create a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + N) and with the Clone Stamp tool try to remove some of those patterns.

Notice how on the right of the old man, at his feet level, the grass is sharper than the grass further away (at his knee level). Let’s try to achieve the same result on the left side. Set your source point from a place where the grass is sharp and carefully clone some more.

The flowers in the background end suddenly and it looks fake so we should continue the flowers to the left edge of the picture. You know the drill: new layer (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + N) and the Clone Stamp Tool.

STEP 4

The result still looks a bit unnatural so let’s create a selection of good grass from the right side of the old man. Create a selection using you favorite selection tool, press Ctrl + Shift + C to copy merged, create a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + N) and paste merged (Ctlrl + Shift + Alt + V). Move the newly created layer to the left side of the old man.

Add a layer mask to the newly created layer (Layer > Layer Mask  > Reveal All) and with a round soft brush paint with black the hard edges in the layer mask. This step will blend the copied grass with the existing grass nicely. Repeat a couple more times with patches of grass from different places to cover some of the ugly grass.

Final Image

And this is the final result.

In this Photoshop tutorial you will learn how to remove a person from a photo.

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Final Image Preview (Before and After)

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Resources

• Waiting Woman

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Step 1

Open the photo “Waiting Woman”.

Create a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + N) and make a selection of the wall facing us (use either the Pen Tool or the Polygonal Lasso Tool).

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Step 2

Use the Clone Stamp Tool to remove the woman. Because we have a selection, all the cloning will be done inside the selection, without affecting the rest of the image. Also, you should save the selection because we will need it for later use. To save a selection go to Select > Save Selection.

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Step 3

Notice how patterns emerge again. You may be thinking that selecting the Clone Stamp tool and laboriously removing each pattern would be the solution. No, I have an easier method and the name of that method is the Patch Tool, which is perfect for this kind of work. Select the Patch tool and duplicate the layer on which you cloned.

This is how your layers should look (except for the names, as they change accordingly, to how many layers you have created so far).

Also, make sure that in the tool’s Option Panel you have the following settings:

Now create an irregular selection on a patterned area and drag it somewhere on a good area.

And watch the magic. You will notice that Photoshop blends the area you selected with the area on which you dragged your selection, making our patterned area not so patterned anymore but integrated into the overall randomness of the wall. Repeat the step above by dragging the selection a couple more times over other good areas for a good result. Select another patterned area and repeat. Continue to do so until all (or most of) the patterns are removed.

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Step 4

Remember the saved selection? Load it by going to Select > Load Selection and invert it (Ctrl + Shit + I). Now with the Clone Stamp Tool remove what is left of the lady’s knee and some of her feet.

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Step 5

And now for the treat. Select Filter > Vanishing Point. Press C to select the Create Plane Tool and create a grid like shown below.

Now press S to select the Stamp tool and start removing what is left of the lady’s feet. Notice that the cloning is done in perspective, according to the grid we previously created. Lower the opacity of the brush to achieve better blending.

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Step 6

Ok, almost done, time to improve the little flaws and imperfections. Notice how the corner of the wall looks fake because that’s where our selection ended.

To correct this select the Clone Stamp tool and click to select a source point as shown below, then click once at the base of the corner and Shift-click at the upper point of the corner.

I did some more detail cloning and you can see my results below.

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Final Image

In this tutorial (Part 2 of 2) we will create an Adam and Eve scene with warm colors an rays of light. We learn some advanced masking techniques so get your selections tools ready. Let’s get started then.

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Part 1

Part 1 of this tutorial has been published here.

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Final Image Preview

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Step 18

Now for the tedious part. To build the tree we will make selections of roots and place them into our document. If necessary apply a Free Transform and Warp to tweak the form and size. Some roots will be lighter so we will have to add clipped adjustment layers. Also, each root (or branch how I named my layers) will have a layer mask in which you should paint with a round soft black brush at 40-50% opacity in the places where the branches join each other to make the transition smoother.

I will not show you how to place each branch (there are 14 or so) but instead I will show you the numbered selections in the branch file and the same selections in our scene. It is up to you to Free Transform and if necessary to add an Adjustment Layer. But you should always add a layer mask to make the transition between branches smoother. I used the Pen Tool to make selections of branches and when I finished drawing my path I pressed Ctrl + Enter to transform path into selection. After that you now the workflow (Ctrl + C to to copy an Ctrl + V to paste it into our scene).

To replicate my exact moves will be very difficult so I recommend that you make your own roots selection and transform them how you see fit. After all, you should start doing this stuff on your own eventually so I don’t you start now?

Open the file “Roots” and make selections create the tree using my indications above.

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Step 19

Now let’s add some branches with leaves on them. For this I use three different “Bonsai” images. Open image “Bonsai 1”. This one is pretty easy to select but still tedious with the usual selection tools (Quick Selection or Magic Wand). You could give it a shot or you can try the channels way – the good way. First let’s take a look at each channel and see which offers the greatest contrast between the subject (the bonsai in our case) and the background. I decided that the blue channel is my shot. The only trouble with this channel is that it needs more contrast because in a channel white is selected, black is deselected and gray it’s partially selected. Our channel it is mostly gray. So what we have to do it is to make our subject completely white and the background completely black (or inverse and after we’re done we will simply invert the selection by pressing Ctrl + I). First make a copy of the blue channel (by right-clicking and choosing Duplicate Channel). Next you should do:

• Boost the overall contrast

  To do that we will use a Curves Adjustment (Image > Adjustments > Curves). First drag the left slider towards the middle until the bonsai it is as black as possible while the background remains as unchanged as possible. Next drag the right slider towards the middle until the background it is as white as possible and the bonsai remains as unchanged as possible. Below it is the Curve Adjustment I used to achieve my effect.

• Refine

  The black and white contrast it is pretty good but you may notice some ugly gray artifacts in the left side of the image. To remove the gray artifacts we will use a well known trick in the channel selection world. First select a white round soft brush and change it’s blend mode to Overlay. Now brush carefully the grey artifacts and notice how the black areas remain unchanged. Altough this make brushing away the artifacts easier you should still be careful not to damage the black areas that contain the subject.You could also lower the amount of work you have to do by using the Lasso tool to create an approximate selection around you subject, press Ctrl + Shift + I to invert selection and fill the selection with white (or the opposite color of the subject).

After you’re done brushing away artifacts you may notice that some artifacts may still remain or that there is white color in the middle of your subject. If that’s the case you can do 2 things:

a)Brush with a white or black brush the areas you need but set the blend mode to Normal. This takes away the safety net the Overlay mode has provided but it will give you full control over the brushing. This may prove difficult because you may not now what parts of the subject need brushing (because you only see it in black and white)

b)Ctrl-click the blue channel copy you worked on until now to load it as a selection. Than change to composite view (Ctrl + 2) and enter the Quick Mask mode (Q). Now you can brush with black and white as you did in the channels. The only difference is that there is no black and white, but red for selected (you may have to change the default setting of the Quick Mask if you want this behavior. To do this double click the Quick Mask icon and choose Selected Area from the 2 available options) and transparent for deselected. The advantage here it is that you can see the actual image you’re working on.

I gave you the knowledge to make channel selections so go ahead and use it on “Bonsai2” and “Bonsai3” to select the bonsai’s.

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Step 20

Place the bonsai trees as shown below. If necessary Free Transform and Warp. In the next steps we will adjust the saturation and the color of the bonsai trees to make them as similar to the branches as possible.

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Step 21

Apply a clipped Curves adjustment layer and a clipped Hue/Saturation layer to the first bonsai as shown below.

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Step 22

Apply a clipped Curves Adjustment layer to the second bonsai.

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Step 23

Apply a Curves Adjustment layer and a Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer to the third bonsai. I grouped all the bonsai related layers into a group called “Leaves”.

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Step 24

While we are at it let’s add the final element of our tree: the red apple. Open file “Apple” and using you favourite selection tool make a selection of the apple. Copy (Ctrl + C) and paste (Ctrl + V) into our document. Place the apple like shown below then add clipped Curves Adjustment layer with the settings shown below.

And by the way, I will say this at every step but if you have an object that it is not well selected and you want fix it the quick way simply add a Layer mask and do your hiding and showing there.

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Step 25

Time to add the tree shadow. Make a new layer and place it below the “Branches” group. Lower the opacity of this layer to 57% and change the blend mode to Multiply. With a round soft brush paint on below the brushes on the man’s clothes, in the places you think shadow from the branches should be.

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Step 26

Time to add put the shadow from the branches on the ground. The fastest way to do this is to group all the branches related layers into one group and name this group tree. Then turn of the visibility of all other groups and layers but leave the “Tree” visibility turned on.

Press Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E to make a new layer from all visible and Ctrl-click this newly created layer to load it as selection. Also name the layer “Shadow Branches”.

Fill the selection with black and change the visibility of all the other layers on so you can see were you’re putting your shadow. After you’ve turned one the visibility of all other layers on select the “Shadow Branches” layer and press Ctrl + T to free transform. Drag from the upward boundary towards bottom until you have flipped the layer upside down. You can also Warp the layer to finely tune it. Apply a 3-4px Gaussian blur and change the blend mode to Multiply with an opacity of 53%.

Add a layer mask and with the Linear Gradient tool mask away the bottom part of the shadow. You should add a couple of additional layers to paint some more shadow where it is needed. Take a look at the image below to see how I’ve done.

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Step 27

The final step regarding the tree it is to make some blades of grass showing at the base of our roots. Add a layer mask to the “Tree” group and apply the method from step 11 (black outline + smudge). And we’re done with the tree. We covered a lot of advanced techniques in the previous steps so you should be proud of yourself that you had the patience to work until now with me.

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Step 28

Time to add some extra elements. I am thinking that a black raven would fit just perfect on the right branch. Open file “Raven” and select the raven with your favourite selection tool. Copy the selection (Ctrl + C) and paste it into our document (Ctrl + V). Free Transform the raven and resize him until it is positioned like in the image below.

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Step 29

Make a new layer and clip it to the “Raven” layer. With a round soft white brush tool at 30-40% opacity paint the left side of the raven (that’s where the light is coming from). Lower the opacity to around 50-60% procent.

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Step 30

Make another new layer and place it below the “Raven” layer. Change the blend mode to Multiply an lower the opacity to 70%. With a round soft black brush paint some shadow below the raven.

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Step 31

Make a new layer and paint some birds with black. Next open the file “Dove” and select the dove. Use the techniques you learned at step 19. Copy the dove and paste it into our document. Add a layer mask and with a round soft black brush at 10% opacity draw on the tail and wing feathers to make them a little transparent. This way some of the background will be visible through them thus making the dove fit better into the environment.

Add a clipped Curves Adjustment layer and drag the curve upwards to lighten. With a round soft white brush at 50% opacity paint the tail and the chest of the dove.

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Step 32

Make a new layer and select beam-2-particles brush. With white as foreground color and 100% opacity click-once in the upper left part of the image.

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Step 33

Open file “Rabbit” and make a selection of the rabbit. Copy and paste into our scene. Free Transform like shown below than paint some shadow on a layer beneath this layer. Change the shadow layer blend mode to Multiply.

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Step 34

Open file “Lion” and make a selection of the lion. Copy and paste into our scene. Free Transform like shown below than paint some shadow on a layer beneath this layer. Change the shadow layer blendmode to Multiply.

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Step 35

Open file “Squirell” and make a selection of the squirell. Copy and paste into our scene. Free Transform like shown below than paint some shadow on a layer beneath this layer. Change the shadow layer blen mode to Multiply.

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Step 36

Select all the animals (lion, squirell and rabbit) and press Ctrl + G to make a group. Change the blend mode to Normal and at the top of the layers, inside the group add a Curves Adjustment layer.

Drag the curves upwards to lighten than with a round soft white brush at 50% Opacity paint the right side of the rabbit and the lion. Then paint the left side of the squirell. Remember that left and right from our persepective.

Add another Curves Adjustment Layer and this time drag the curve downwards to darken. In the layer mask paint with the same brush you painted on the previous Curves Adjustment layer only this time on the opposite sides. This step will add some volume to the animals in conformity with the direction of light.

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Step 37

Now that I look at the scene I find that the shadows are way too strong. Of course I could’ve modified the tutorial from the beginning to make the shadow just right but I didn’t for two reasons.

One reason is that I am writing this tutorial as I am creating my scene (you assist at the creative process in all it’s splendor ) the amount of work required to redo all the steps and to create another set of screenshots would be too much for my patience (I am lazy, so?:D).

Secondly this is a valuable lesson in itself. If something doesn’t look right you shouldn’t leave like this, maybe thinking “It will work nevertheless”. Because if it looks wrong than it is probably wrong and it won’t work. So what you have to do it is to correct your mistake (ok, ok, my mistake) despite the reasons that made you make that mistake in the first place. In this particular case it seemed to me that the shadows were competing for attention with the main subjects making the whole composition unbalanced. Go ahead and select a soft round black brush at 50-80% opacity and mask away most of the shadows until you will have something like the image below.

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Step 38

Time for some post-processing techniques to finish this scene. I decided to go light on this one, whitout too many “contrasty” effects. I want to achieve lots of warm colors an a sort of heavenly, godly feeling to it. Let’s see if I (we) succeed.

Add a Color Balance Adjustment layer and increase the Red and Yellow amount. In the layer mask use the Linear Gradient tool to limit the adjustments to the left side of the image. Next add a Gradient Map Adjustment layer and use the settings shown below. Change the blend mode to Soft Light and decrease the Opacity to 38%.

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Step 39

Now it’s time for a Selective Color Adjustment layer. Use the settings shown below (or try out the sliders yourselves) and in the layer mask drag with the Linear Gradient Tool to achieve something like in the image below.

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Step 40

Press Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E to make a new layer from all visible and add a 20px Gaussian Blur. Desaturate (Ctrl + Shift + U) and add a layer mask. In the layer mask paint with black the “ray of god” light and the gras in front of the scene to protect them from bluring. Use a round soft brush black brush at 50% Opacity.

Now for the magic, change the blend mode to Soft Light. We have a nice, dreamy effect.

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Step 41

And now for the final step let’s lower the saturation of the grass in the front of the scene because we want our viewer’s attention on the main subjects and not on the boring grass. Add a Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer and drag the Saturation slider to the left to lower the saturation. In the layer mask use the Linear Gradient tool to apply this effect only to the bottom of our scene.

And that’s all.

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Final Image

In this tutorial (Part 1 of 2) we will create an Adam and Eve scene with warm colors and rays of light. We learn some advanced masking techniques so get your selections tools ready. Let’s get started then.

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Final Image Preview

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Resources

• Landscape
• White clouds in blue sky
• Business Man
• Woman
• Hocking Hills
• Bonsai Garden 1
• Bonsai
• Bonsai pomegranate tree
• Perfect Plum
• struttin crow
• Birds Brushes
• Dove
• Light Brushes
• White lion 2
• mr fluffy…
• Hare

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Step 1

Open file “Field” and make a selection of the sky using the Quick Selection Tool (Q). Press Ctrl + Shift + I to invert the selection and Ctrl + J to make anew layer from the selection. Now we have the ground on a new layer so we can turn off the background layer.

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Step 2

Open file “Sky” and press Ctrl + A to select all then Ctrl + C to copy. Paste into our document (Ctrl + V) and Free Transform (Ctrl + T) like shown below. Place this layer behind the ground layer. The horizon line looks very unrealistic because it is so well defined. We will have to blur it a little to make more genuine. To do this first add a layer mask to the “Ground” layer (Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All).

Now Ctrl-click the ground layer to make a selection of the current pixels and with the layer mask selected (simply click on it once) press D to set default colors and Alt + Backspace to fill the selection with white. To blur the horizon press Ctrl + D to deselect all and apply a 8px Gaussian Blur (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur).

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Step 3

Add a Color Balance adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Color Balance) and use the following settings. This will unify the colors of the sky and ground and will increase the saturation thus making the colors more vibrant.

To make the composition more interesting let’s add a bit of hue variation. Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation) and drag the hue slider a little to the left. Select the Linear Gradient tool and in the layer mask drag from the right upper corner towards the left lower corner. Release when you are in the middle.

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Step 4

Select all the layers (Ctrl-click on each of them) and press Ctrl + G to group them. Name this group “Background”.

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Step 5

Open file “Man” and using the Quick Selection tool make a selection of the white background. It should be very easy because it is a uniform white. Press Ctrl + Shift + I to invert the selection and thus select the man and copy selection (Ctrl + C). Paste it into our document and Free Transform as shown below.

Ctrl-click this layer to load it as a selection and press Ctrl + Alt + R to open the Refine Selection window. Use the settings shown below and after you press OK delete the unselected layer and name the new layer “Man”.

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Step 6

We know in advance that the light will be coming from above his right shoulder so let’s add a couple of curves layer to set up the proper lighting.

First add a Curves Adjustment Layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves) and drag the curve downards to darken the scene. Clip this layer to the man layer (to clip an upper layer to a lower layer Alt-click in between the 2 layerl) and fill the layer mask with black (with black as foreground color press Alt + Backspace). Select a round soft brush and set it’s opacity to 50%. Carefully paint the right side of the man (imagine how the shadows would be if the light is coming from the upper right).

Add yet another Curves Adjustment Layer and clip it to the below curves layer (and consequentally to the man layer) but this time drag the curve upwards to lighten. Fill the layer mask with black and paint with the same round soft brush at 80% paint the right side of the man carefully.

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Step 7

Time to add the light. In this step I will teach you a little trick to make a lens flare and move it freely on the screen. Make a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + N) and fill it with black (press Shift + F5 and select black from the drop down menu). Choose Filter > Render > Lens Flare and use the settings shown below.

Change the screen mode to Screen and voila, the black disappears, leaving you with a movable lens flare. Place the render flare just above the man’s right shoulder (from the viewer perspective).

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Step 8

Notice how our man doesn’t seem to integrate into the scene, he seems like he’s floating above the ground. Let’s add some shadow to correct that.

Make a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + N) and move it below the “Man” layer. Ctrl-click the man layer to load it as a selection and in the newly created layer press Alt + Backspace to fill the selection with black (make sure you have black as foreground color). Press Ctrl + T and transform the selection like in the image below. Right click on the shadow an select Warp. Adjust it like shown below to place the shadow properly on the ground and press Enter.

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Step 9

With the shadow layer selected choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur to blur the shadow a little. When working with shadow layers always choose the Multiply blending mode to make the shadow integrate better into the environment. Let’s do that here. Change the blend mode to Multiply and lower the opacity to 60%. Now add a layer mask (Layer > Layer Mask > Reveall All) and with a round black soft brush erase the shadow behind the legs and reduce the amount of shadow below the shoes.

Make a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + N) and set it’s blend mode to Multiply with a 60% opacity (the same as the shadow layer). Move this layer below the shadow layer and name it “Shadow2”. With a black round soft brush at 100% paint carefuly below the shoes. Lower the opacity to 50% an increase the size to 300. Dab once on the ground, below the man.

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Step 10

We are almost done with the shadow but still have to add a little detail. Shadows usually fade away as they are further from the subject. To accomplish this effect here first group the two shadow layers (Ctrl-click on each then Ctrl + G) and name this group “Shadow”.

Add a layer mask (Layer > Layer Mask > Reveall All) and select the Linear Gradient tool. With white as foreground color and black as background color drag from below the image until the middle of the shadow and release.

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Step 11

Take a close look at the shoes and notice how the shouse stand just above and not in the grass. We have to put some blades of grass in front of his shoes to achieve this effect. The trick I am going to show you works pretty well for all kinds of objects so you can use it in your further compositions.

First add a layer mask to the “Man” layer. With a round soft black brush paint closely around his shoes but do not overlap them. Select the Smudge tool and set it’s strength to 90%. In the layer mask drag from the black outline you just made towards his shoes. This is simpler to do than say so give it a shot, you’ll know what I mean.

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Step 12

To integrate the man with the surrounding environment choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Photo Filter and select a cooling filter. Select all the layers and groups above the “Background” group and group them (Ctrl + G). Name this group “Man”.

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Step 13

Open file “Woman” and select the background with the Quick Selection tool. Press Ctrl + Shift + I to invert the selection and Copy (Ctrl + C). Paste into our document (Ctrl + V) then position and resize the woman like in the image below. Ctrl-click on it to select the visible pixels. Press Ctrl + Alt + R to open the Refine Edge window and tweak the sliders until the visible edges dissappear. Delete the layer that is not visible and name this layer “Woman”.

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Step 14

Add a layer mask (Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All) and with a 10% round soft black brush paint over the semi-transparent part of her dress. Then repeat the trick we used at step 11 to add blades of grass (by drawing a black line around the edges and smudge).

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Step 15

In the next steps we will be adding clipped layers to the layer “Woman” and I won’t repeat at each step. To clip a top layer to a bottom layer simply Alt-click in between the two layers.

Add a Curves Adjustment Layer and in the Blue Channel drag the curve upwards to increase the blues in the light areas. Add another Curves Adjustment Layer but this time drag the RGB curve downards and fill the layer mask with black (if you don’t know how to fill a layer mask with black reffer to step 6). Because the light is coming from the left of the woman (we are using the viewer perspective) brush with a round soft white brush at 80% the right side.

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Step 16

Make a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + N) and with a round soft white brush at 10 opacity gently brush the left side of the hair (remember, the light is coming from the left). Add a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation) and drag the hue slider to the right to increase the redness.

In the layer mask use a soft round black brush to mask away the effect in her face. After that make a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + N) and and change the blend mode to Soft Light and with a round soft black brush at 20% Opacity paint the right side of the girl.

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Step 17

Let’s add some shadow. Make a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + N) and move it below the “Woman” layer. Lower the opacity of the layer to 60% and change the blend mode to Multiply. With a round soft black brush paint some shadow (look at the image below for inspiration).

Add a layer mask and drag with the Linear Gradient tool to partially mask the further edge of the shadow. Group all the woman related layers and name the group “Woman”.

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Part 2

That’s it for the Part 1 of Create a Adam and Eve scene tutorial. We will publish in next days Part 2.

Nature is always the first place to look for design ideas, and with the growth of ‘organic’ website design, this has never been more true than it is now. With a wealth of colors and surfaces, natural textures can lend themselves to almost any style of design.

So whether you are a web designer or a digital artist, there should be something in this list of 30 free packs of natural textures that will fit perfectly with one of your upcoming projects.

Paper Textures

Although not entirely natural, paper textures are often used in organic web design, so I felt a selection of them would fit well into this list.

6 Old Sheets of Paper

2 Old Postcards

Paper Textures

6 Paper Textures

Crumpled Paper Texture Pack

Cardboard Texture Pack

Wood Textures

Wood, these days, comes in many forms, from the bark on a tree to a processed piece of walnut for high quality cabinet making. Whichever wood texture you require, the pattern or the grain is always formed by nature.

12 Wood Textures

Bark Textures

6 Wood Textures

Wood Texture Pack

Wood Textures

Regularjane’s Wood Textures

Water/Ice Textures

Water is the one thing that man has not managed to come even close to simulating or producing without the help of nature, so this is probably one of the most natural of all textures.

Textures: Water Collection

Rainy Day II Textures

Ice Crystal Pack

Water Pond Texture Pack

IF Water Textures

HQ Water Texture Pack

Sky Textures

The sky… what could be more natural, it is always above us and it offers such a beautiful array of patterns and designs – just there for the taking!

Regularjane’s Sky High Pack

Sky Textures

Sky Texture Pack

Stormy Sky Texture Pack 2

Sky Photo Bundle Pack 02

Sky Texture 002

Rock/Stone/Ground Textures

The way that rocks and stones erode through nature gives them some beautiful and highly useful textures.

Rock Texture Pack 1

IF Rock Textures

Rough Rock Texture Pack

Rock Texture Pack

Ground Textures

Rock and Cliffs Textures

Conclusion

I hope you have found some of these texture packs to be worth downloading and adding to your library for future use. Designers usually try to look within themselves for inspiration, but there is no greater inspirational images than those we can see out of the window, or all around us when outdoors.

Welcome to Photoshop Toolbar Part 3 (Part 3 of 3). In this tutorial we will finish our introduction to the Photoshop Toolbar.

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View Other Articles in This Series

• How to set up Photoshop
• Photoshop Interface Explained (Part 1)
• Photoshop Interface Explained (Part 2)
• Introduction to the Photoshop Toolbar (Part 1)
• Introduction to the Photoshop Toolbar (Part 2)
• Introduction to the Photoshop Toolbar (Part 3)
• Photoshop Channels and Color
• Photoshop Selections (Part 1)
• Photoshop Selections (Part 2)
• Photoshop Layers

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Resources

• Young Woman

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Gradient Tool, Paint Bucket Tool

First, let us cover the Paint Bucket Tool. It is a useless tool as far as I am concerned because I never used it. And I mean never ever. What does it do? Well, if you click with it on a picture it will fill the area with the foreground color. It has a Tolerance setting in the options panel which works the same way as the Tolerance setting for the Magic Wand Tool.

Now the Gradient Tool is a very useful tool and I find myself using it on a daily basis. It allows you to create a gradient from the background and foreground colors. The shortcut key is G. While you can achieve some artistic effects by dragging the gradient tool directly on a layer and then maybe use Fade (Ctrl + Shift + F) and an Opacity option it’s more likely that you will want to use it in layer masks. You want to create a Vignette effect? Add a Curves Adjustment Layer, drag the curve downwards to darken and in the layer mask drag with the Radial Gradient Tool (black as foreground, white as background).

Here’s before:

And here’s after:

This may not be the best looking Vignette effect (there’s more than one way to achieve this effect) but it serves its demonstrative purposes.

Blur Tool, Sharpen Tool, Smudge Tool

The Blur Tool and the Sharpen tool have some obvious purposes: they blur and respectively sharpen. They have 2 big disadvantages though. Firstly, they are pretty processor intensive, so if you like working fast or you have a slow machine you will have to wait. Secondly, using them means that you are not editing your document in a non-destructive way. If you want to go back to a previous look of your image then you will have to hit Ctrl + Z (Undo) like crazy. When it comes to sharpening and blurring I prefer to create composite layer from all the visible layers (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E), apply a sharpen/blur filter on this layer, add a layer mask and paint it with black and white to show/hide my layer (in a layer mask black conceals and white reveals).

The Smudge Tool allows you to “smudge” pixels. It’s main use (at least for me) it’s to create hair. Let’s say I cut and copy in a document a wolf (or a human head) but I don’t select the hairs very well so it looks fake. Then I use the smudge tool at the edge of the fur to emulate hair.

Here’s before Smudge Tool:

And here’s after:

Dodge Tool ,Burn Tool , Sponge Tool

Now these are pretty good tools. Dodge Tool lightens and Burn Tool darkens while in the same time increasing contrast. In the Options Panel there are 2 setting you should be aware of: Exposure setting and Protect Tones checkbox. You will want to have the Protect Tones checkbox checked all the time unless you are aiming for very strong effects. The Exposure setting affects the power of the tool .I recommend using lower settings and gradually paint until you achieve the desired effect. A quick tip: If you are using the Dodge Tool hold Alt to temporarily switch to Burn Tool and vice versa.

The nondestructive alternative to these 2 tools is to create a new layer, fill it with 50% Gray color (Shift + F5), set the blend mode to Overlay and use Dodge and Burn or a black and white brush on the layer to achieve similar effects.

The Sponge Tool desaturates the image (absorbs color). For a more contrasty effect be sure to check the Vibrance checkbox in the Options Panel.

Pen Tool, Freeform Pen Tool, Add Anchor Point Tool, Delete Anchor Point Tool, Convert Point Tool

The Pen Tool may be familiar to you if you have worked with Adobe Illustrator. This tool allows you to create vector shapes and the additional tools in the category allow you to modify and tweak that shape. I don’t do much vector work but instead I use this tool heavily for my selections. Basically I trace with the pen tool the object I want selected and then I simply transform path to selection (Ctrl + Enter). This allows me to do very accurate selections, it works especially well when the object I want to select has a color similar to the background, and the usual selection techniques will not work. So go ahead, give it a spin and create some paths. Make sure to check Rubber Band in the Options Panel as it allows you to preview the paths you are going to create.

Horizontal Type Tool, Vertical Type Tool, Horizontal Type Mask Tool, Vertical Type Mask Tool

Horizontal and Vertical Type tools allow you to add text to your images. Simply click anywhere in your document with one of these two tools and start typing. You can change the font, size and other settings in the Options Panel. When you are done typing simply press Ctrl + Enter to close the paragraph and stop typing. If you click and drag with one of these two tools you will create a box which will allow you to type only inside that box.

If you want to type on a path for a special effect simply create a path with the Pen Tool and with Vertical or Horizontal Type Tool click somewhere on the path (you will notice that the icon will change).

Horizontal and Vertical Type Mask tools allow you to create a selection from type. That is if you type something with one of these tools and press Ctrl + Enter you will have a selection of your typed text. I don’t use these tools at all because I can get a selection from a type layer much easier: I simply Ctrl-click on the layer and voila, a selection of the visible pixels of that layer.

Path Selection Tool, Direct Selection Tool

These tools are designed to manipulate and select paths. If you click with the Path Selection Tool on a path you will select the entire path and if you click with the Direct Selection Tool on a path you will select only a point or a handle bar.

Rectangle Tool, Rounded Rectangle Tool, Ellipse Tool, Polygon Tool, Line Tool, Custom Shape Tool

These tools allow us to create different shapes. There are three options in the Options Panel which are very important. If you select the first option you will create Shape Layers (that is basically a Solid Color Adjustment layer with a Vector Mask), the second option allows you to create simple Paths and the third option allows you to create pixel shapes.

You can see in the image below some different shapes I created:

I won’t cover the 3D tools but know that they allow you to manipulate 3D objects that you create in Photoshop or import from other 3D software.

Hand Tool, Rotate View Tool

If you are zoomed into a document the Hand Tool allows you to drag the document. Simply click and drag and you will see what I am talking about. You can temporarily access the Hand Tool from almost any other tool by simply holding the Space button.

Zoom Tool

The Zoom Tool allows you to zoom into a document. Drag to the left to zoom out or drag to the right to zoom in. Click to zoom in, Alt-click to zoom out. You can temporarily access the Zoom Tool from almost any tool by holing Alt + Space. Note that certain features of the Zoom Tool and the Hand Tool won’t work if you don’t have Enable OpenGL Drawing checked in the Edit > Preferences – Performance tab.

There are some additional buttons on the Toolbar Panel which are not Tools.

Default Foreground And Background Color (Shortcut D) allows you to set black as foreground color and white as background.

Switch Foreground and Background Color (Shortcut X) allows you to switch between foreground and background colors.

Set Foreground and Set Background Color. If you click on one of these icons the Color Picker window will pop up allowing you to select a color. A nice feature of Photoshop CS5 is that when you have the Brush Tool selected you can temporarily access a simplified version of the Color Picker window (also called HUD Color Picker) by holding Shift + Alt and Right-clicking. You can change some options for the Color Picker appearance by going to Edit > Preferences > General.

Finally the Quick Mask (or Edit In Quick Mask Mode) (Shortcut Q) allows you to quickly select parts of your document.

Simply click Q to enter Quick Mask mode and use the Gradient Tool or the Brush Tool to draw with red color. When you press Q again to exit the Quick Mask mode the red color becomes a selection. Note that the default behavior in Photoshop is that red is the non-selected area and the rest of the image is selected. If you want the red to be the selection (I find it much easier to work this way) simply double click the Quick Mask icon and select Selected Areas in the window that pops up. In that window you can also change the color and the opacity of your Quick Mask.

In the image below I used the Gradient Tool in the Quick Mask Mode to select the upper portion of the image.

After I press Q again the red color becomes a selection.

Now I can apply different adjustments to this selection (quickly).

Conclusion

This is where I finish my introduction to the Photoshop Toolbar. I hope you have become more familiar with the different Photoshop Tools and learned some useful stuff.

Welcome to Photoshop Toolbar Part 2 (Part 2 of 3). In this tutorial we will take a look at the rest of the Photoshop Toolbar and get familiar with the various tools the program has to offer.

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View Other Articles in This Series

• How to set up Photoshop
• Photoshop Interface Explained (Part 1)
• Photoshop Interface Explained (Part 2)
• Introduction to the Photoshop Toolbar (Part 1)
• Introduction to the Photoshop Toolbar (Part 2)
• Photoshop Channels and Color
• Photoshop Selections (Part 1)
• Photoshop Selections (Part 2)
• Photoshop Layers

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Resources

• Girl

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Spot Healing Brush Tool, Healing Brush Tool, Patch Tool, Red Eye Tool

These tools are very important if you are doing a lot of facial retouching. The Spot Healing Brush Tool is the easiest to use. You simply find the skin imperfection you want to remove and click on it. It’s not the most advanced technique for making clean skin but it is a basic and very fast tool.

You can see in the image below a before and after. I simply clicked the marked spots with the Spot Healing Brush Tool and Photoshop created some good skin based on the clicked spot and the surrounding area.

The Healing Brush Tool is the same as the Spot Healing Brush Tool with the difference that it requires you to set a sample point so that Photoshop will base its healing algorithm on the area of the picture set as the sample point. To put it more simply: you will heal all your next spots based on the area you Alt-clicked on.

The Patch Tool is a different beast from the first two and it’s very useful for seamless blending of skin or other uniform surfaces. Let us say I want to remove the dark bags under the girl’s eyes. I could use the Spot healing Brush Tool but the Patch Tool offers an easier way. In the image below I selected the Patch Tool and created a selection as shown below. Now simply drag the selection a bit lower three times and release. This will create skin in the selected area based on the area from which we drag the selection. The whole process is easier done than said so it’s best that you try it and see for yourself.

You can see my results below. There is a subtle but noticeable difference but that’s what you will probably want when doing portrait retouching with Photoshop. On the other hand, let us say that you used the Spot Healing Brush Tool like crazy some parts look fake and don’t fit with the rest of the face. No problem. Select the troublesome area with the patch tool and drag and drop the selection a couple times in the surrounding good portions of the skin. There, problem solved. Again, these things are much more complicated to write than to do.

Finally, the Red Eye Tool requires you to select an iris with a red eye problem and it attempts to remove the redness in the pupil. Although there are more advanced ways to do that (with Curves or Channels) this tool does a pretty good job.

Brush Tool, Pencil Tool, Color Replacement Tool, Mixer Brush Tool

The Brush tool is probably the most used tool in the Toolbar panel. You can use it to paint with pixels over your image. The round brush tool is the one selected by default when you first open Photoshop so you probably have played with it a little. This brush has two important settings you will want to play with: size and hardness. Hardness represents how defined the edges of the brush are (or how blurry). Set the hardness setting to maximum (100%) and you will paint with ugly hard strokes.

Set it to minimum and you will have some nice blurry strokes that blend well with the background.

In the brush option panel (usually you can find the option panel in the upper area, just below the menu bar) you can also change the blending mode of the brush. Combined with the layer’s blending mode this option offers you some wildly creative options. A useful keyboard shortcut for the brush tool are the bracket keys ([ / ]). Clicking the left bracket key decreases the size of the brush while the right bracket key increases the size. Holding Shift while pressing the bracket keys allows you to increase/decrease the hardness of the brush.

The round brush tool is not the only tool available: Photoshop offers you a wide range of different shaped brush for your needs.

Still not enough brushes? No problem. You can create your own brushes. Create a new layer, draw something with a black brush then choose Edit > Define Brush Preset.

Give it a name and you have a new brush.

Let’s draw something with our newly created brush.

Hmm, it doesn’t look so good. If only we had some kind of advanced settings for the brush….Oh, wait! We do! Choose Window > Brush to open the brush panel and enjoy the multitude of settings for your newly created brush. We can add texture over our brush, make it rotate randomly, make it scatter, add another brush on top of it and many other things. Go ahead, open the brush panel and play with the settings. You can create some pretty cool brushes with it.

The Pencil Tool is basically a downgraded version of the Brush tool. You don’t have a hardness option (in fact you do have a hardness slider but dragging it doesn’t change a thing) but you have almost all of the features of the Brush Tool. You will probably be interested in the Pencil Tool if you do pixel art.

The Color Replacement Tool allows you to replace one color with another. It has a bunch of settings in the Options panel and it offers some interesting results but to be honest I almost never use it. There are better, more accurate ways to replace some colors with other colors (at least for me) so I won’t go into detail about how to use it.

The Mixer Brush Tool is Photoshop’s attempt to mimic traditional painting behavior. Again, I don’t use this tool at all but if you’re into traditional painting and you want some digital tools to play with I recommend Corel’s Painter which is built solely for this purpose.

Clone Stamp Tool, Pattern Stamp Tool

The Clone Stamp Tool is probably my favorite tool and surely the one I have most fun with (and Filter > Liquify too). It has a lot of uses and if you’re doing photo manipulations then this a tool to be on good terms with. It is not complicated at all. To use it first Alt-click somewhere to set the sample point. Then start painting. You will notice that you will paint with the pixels underneath the sampled area. That’s all this tool does. It clones areas from one part of the image in other parts. It is very useful for creating new content based on an existing one and removing skin imperfections or undesired objects.

The Pattern Stamp Tool allows you to paint with desired patterns over an image. Never had a use for it!

History Brush Tool, Art History Brush Tool

The History Brush Tool is an interesting little thing that holds a lot of power. It allows you to paint on a new layer from a previous state of your image. Let’s say that you heavily modified a photo but you still want some of the original look in certain areas. To do this first select a previous state. Open Window > History and click on one of the little squares next to the name of the desired state. In the image below notice that I clicked on the little box next to the most upper state of the image – the original. Now if I create a new layer and paint with the history Brush Tool I can restore certain areas of my picture to their original state.

Personally I find it a very powerful tool but my workflow is based on adjustment layers and nondestructive editing so I don’t find the need for the History Brush Tool. It was a very popular tool back in the day when the nondestructive editing capabilities of Photoshop were scarce.

The Art History Brush Tool is a strange tool that allows you to paint from previous states of the images but in crazy, dynamically changing shapes. A quite useless little tool, if you ask me.

Eraser Tool, Background Eraser Tool, Magic Eraser Tool

The Eraser Tool allows you to delete (erase) pixels from a pixel layer (or a layer mask). It is as simple as that. You don’t like the way your new painted layer looks, you select the Eraser Tool and send pixels into oblivion. Alternatively, if you’re smart you could use a layer mask and nondestructively remove the undesired pixels. Maybe you noticed that I generously used the term nondestructive but I do this for good reason. When working on a document in Photoshop it’s very important to be able to go back and redo or modify some of your old actions. This offers you the power to infinitely tinker with settings and adjustments without losing any permanent data. That is why I recommend staying away from the Eraser Tool as much as possible and go for layer masks instead. A bit trickier to understand at first but they are totally worth the effort.

The Background Eraser Tool is like the Color Replacement Tool , but instead of replacing the color you erase it. It is a decent tool for getting rid of certain parts of the image but not precise enough. There are much better selection tools and techniques (like Channels and Color Range) that I do not use this tool very often.

The Magic Eraser Tool looks and acts a lot like the Magic Wand Tool but instead of selecting pixels it deletes them. Useful tool only if you are in a great hurry and do not care much about the results.

Part 3

That’s it for the Part 2 of Photoshop Toolbar Introduction; stay tuned for part 3.