Category: PhotoShop

In this easy but useful Photoshop tutorial I’m going to show you how to make a golden shiny skin effect.

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Final Image Preview

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Resources

• Pretty Woman in classic dress

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Step 1

Download and open photo in Photoshop. We start by changing background. Duplicate background layer with Ctrl+J. On duplicated layer go to Image > Adjustments > Levels and apply following settings:

Desaturate layer by going to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.

Increase contrast by going to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast.

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Step 2

Duplicate again background layer and move it above all other layers. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.

Change layer blending mode to Linear Light.

Select Eraser Tool. With a soft round brush clear all layer contents while leaving a little radiance on the girl’s face.

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Step 3

Duplicate again background layer and move it above all other layers. Change layer blending mode to Hard Light to make photo clearer.

Select Eraser Tool and start cleaning again. This time leave girl’s hair and dress straps but remove background of the dress below the chest.

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Step 4

Duplicate again background layer and move it above all other layers. With Polygonal Lasso Tool select girl’s skin, then invert selection by using Select > Inverse. Press Delete to clear selected area.

Remove selection by pressing Ctrl+D. Clear eyes and lips area still using Polygonal Lasso Tool.

Finally use Eraser Tool with soft round brush to make edges of the fragments softer.

Change layer blending mode to Hard Light.

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Step 5

Duplicate again background layer and move it above all other layers. With Polygonal Lasso Tool select girl’s skin, then invert selection by using Select > Inverse. Press Delete to clear selected area and we will have only skin on this layer. Apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.

Change layer blending mode to Multiply.

Skin now looks smoother. We still need to strengthen shining a little.

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Step 6

Duplicate current layer and move it above all other layers.

Change layer blending mode to Screen on duplicated layer.

Reduce opacity to 40% for this layer.

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Step 7

Create a new layer above all other layers. Change layer blending mode to Soft Light. Select Brush Tool (opacity between 10%-40%) with soft round brush, black color and being to darken the cheeks, neck and eyes area. Change foreground color to white and create a glare on her forhead, shoulder, tip of the nose, hair, clothes, etc. (opacity between 70%-100%).

Duplicate current layer (Ctrl+J) to increase effect.

Change layer blending mode to Overlay on duplicated layer.

Reduce opacity to 30% for this layer.

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Final Image

Now let’s move to the 3 vertical “Bars” (Tools Panel, Image Window and Docked Panels) of the Photoshop interface.

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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)

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Vertical Bars

But the thing is that they are not really bars, I used this term so you better understand the overall picture. But what are they then? Well, imagine all the area below the 3 horizontal bars as a sticky area (a glued area that is) or a sticky box. You can stick the Image window, the Tools Panel and the Docked Panel to this area but you can also “unstick” them. Once they are “unstuck” they are floating above the sticky area and you can move them freely. After you stick them to the sticky area however they remain still and cannot be moved.

Take a look at the image below.

You can see that the Tools Panel, the Image window and the Docked Panels float above the sticky area and I can move them freely. To move these around click on the highlighted black box area area and drag. Also note that the Image Window can only be stuck to the upper sticky area and the Tools and Docked Panels can only be stuck to the either the left or right side of the sticky area.

Now let’s try something crazy and stick the Docked Panels to the left side of the sticky area. Simply click on the highlighted area than while holding on click drag it to right side until a blue vertical line appears. Release and voila, we stuck the Docked Panels to the left side.

Try to move the Image Window over the Docked Panels and you will see that it stays above the Docked Panels area but below the Tools Panels. That is because the Docked Panels are stuck to the sticky area while the Image Window is floating over the top. But why is the tools panel above the Image Window? Well that is because the image window has a lower priority than the tools panels (it is more important to have access all the time to the Tools Panel).

In the image below you can see that I stuck the Tools Panel to the right and the Image Window to the upper part of the sticky area.

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Docked Panels

In the image above you can see a panel group. Layers panel, Channels panel and Paths panel are grouped together. If you want to ungroup let’s say Layers panel then simply click and drag the tab then release. You can see the results below.

Now let’s say I want to put the Layers Panel in the group with the Adjustments panel and Masks panel. Click the upper dark grey bar (but not the buttons on the far righ ) then drag until near the Adjustments panel. If you see a blue box line surrounding the group then release and the Layers panel will be now in the group with the Adjustments and Masks panel. If a horizontal blue bar appears then you have put the Layers panel in between the 2 groups. You can also change the order of the panels in a group by simply dragging their tabbed names to the left or right.

The best way to get the hang of it is to experiment. Go ahead, drag and drop panels and panels groups, stick them to each other or to the right part of the sticky are. Really, go crazy with them! You can always choose Window > Workspaces > Reset “Workspace Name” to make it nice and clean again.

Ok, a few more things about Docked Panels. The little 2 arrows button which points to the right is the Expand Panels button and the same button but with the arrows pointing left is the Collapse Panels button. A collapsed panel is an iconic representation of the panel and it is used to save some space. If you click on one of the icons representing a panel you will open that panel in “full mode”. If you click anywhere else on the image window or another panel the panel you opened previously remains opened. But if you want the iconic panel to go back to it’s initial state after you click somewhere else then right click somewhere in the panel’s upper gray bar and choose “Auto Collapse Iconic Panels”.

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Tools Panel

The collapse button behaves differently to the tools Panel. If you click on it it will arrange all the tools in a 2 column panel. If you click it again it will return to it’s default 1 column state. Take note that in older versions of Photoshop the 2 column panel is the default and the expand/collapse button is missing. We will analyze the Tools Panel in detail in a future article.

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Image Window

Next to image name (Koala.jpg) you can see some other info. “66.7%” is the actual zoom level. “(RGB” is the color mode and “/8#)” is the number of bits per channel or the image mode. Don’t worry too much about this info, you will get to know better what they mean in some later articles. And lastly “ * ” means that the image is not saved. If you save it that asterisk sign will disappear.

Lower, in the status bar (the red box) you can see the same zoom level as above (actually it’s 66.67% and above it is 66.7%. This is because Photoshop has rounded off the number 66.67 to 66.7).

Next to the zoom level you see some info about our image. In this case it is the image size. The number to the left of the slash sign (“/”) is the initial size” 2.25M” and the number to the right of the slash sign is the actual size “2.25M”. Because our image hasn’t been subject to any modifications the initial size and the current size are the same, but if we were to modify our image and add layers and stuff then the actual size would grow considerably. M means megabytes so 2.25 M is 2.25 Megabytes. If we click on the black arrow on the right of the info we will open an options window from where we can select what info is to be displayed. You can check out what the other options do in the manual. Because I use a lot of different images I tend to choose “Document Profiles “ as the default info but for now you can leave it in it’s default state.

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Conclusion

Ok, let’s make a quick summary of what we have learned so far. The Photoshop interface is composed of 3 horizontal bars (Application bar, Menu bar, Options bar) and a “sticky area” where the Image window, the Docked panels and the Tools panels live.

The only thing we can change about the upper bars is to make the Application bar smaller so it fits on the same line with the Menu bar and we can select Workspace > Options to make the Options bar disappear. We can also make these bars disappear when in “Full Screen Mode”. That’s it. We cannot drag these bars to the left, right or bottom and we can’t change their size (at least, as far as I know ).

We can float the Image window so it is above the image area and we can move it around as we want. The only place we can stick it back is the upper area.

We can float the Docked panels and the Tools panel as we want, we can move them to the left or right and stick them to the left or right ( but not the upper part ). Also we can ungroup panels from the Docked panels and create our own groups which we can stick and move to the left or to the right.

Remember, if you screw your workspace and you want to go back, simply choose Window > Workspace > Reset “Workspace Name “.

That concludes this Photoshop interface tutorial. I hope you had fun and learned useful stuff. And don’t forget to experiment and make mistakes, as this is the quickest way to learn.

I remember when I opened Photoshop for the first time I was dazzled by all the buttons, options and tools. It took me some time to get accustomed to the interface and when I was familiar enough with it I modified it so it would meet my specific needs. Don’t worry, I will guide you through the interface so at the end of this article you will have a pretty good understanding of the Photoshop interface.

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View Other Articles in This Series

• How to set up Photoshop

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Take a look at the image below. You can see that there are 3 horizontal bars (Application Bar, Menu Bar, Options Bar) and 3 vertical “bars” (Tools Panel, Image Window, Docked Panels). Ok, the last 3 are not really bars, but let’s call them bars for the sake of explanation. First thing to know is that you cannot modify, move or resize the 3 horizontal upper bars (except for the Application Bar which can be “squeezed” so it fits on the same bar with the Menu Bar, thus gaining us some precious space ) and you can move, resize and modify the 3 vertical “bars” (Tools Panel, Image Window, Docked Panels).

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Application Bar

Well, because it is an application bar you can close, minimize or maximize your main application (Photoshop) and you can open other applications by clicking a button (Bridge), change a workspace, change the zoom level, change the screen mode and show extras. I personally find most of the features of the Application Bar useless because I have some better ways to get access to them without taking my eyes from the image I am working on and those ways are keyboard shortcuts. They are a huge time saver and make navigation a breeze. Once you will learn the shortcuts you will find it very clumsy to go back to pushing various buttons so hang on with me as I reveal them to you.

Ok, so the only useful buttons I ever use are (highlighted with red):

• Close, Minimize, Maximize. That is when I am lazy and I don’t use the keyboard shortcut for Close ( Ctr+q);
• Show more workspaces and options. This is especially useful when you resize the Application bar until it fits on the same line with the Menu Bar (I will show you this feature next);
• Workspaces Area. Here you can see what your working space is and the other available workspaces;
• Resize button. When you put your mouse over this button a specific drag icon appears and if you drag it to the left you will extend the Workspace Area showing more workspaces. If you drag to the right it will reduce the Workspace Area. Drag it to the maximum extent to the right and the Menu Bar will magically go up to sit on the same line with the Application Bar. Well, not really magically, but once you make enough room Photoshop will do this for you. This feature is great because it will give you some more space to view your image. You can see below how the Application and the Menu Bar on the same line. Try to do this yourself and then leave it this way.

• Arrange Documents. This button is useful when you have two or more images opened and you want to see them both in the same window. When you click this button you are presented with a list of self explanatory icons which when clicked arrange your windows one way or another. Below the icons you will see a bunch of commands which perform some tasks.
  • “Float all in Windows” will remove the images from their tabbed environment (we will get to this later in the article) and floats them in separate windows;
  • “New Window” makes a duplicate of the current window (all the changes you make in one window are automatically applied to the second window. If you want to apply different changes to each window you should use Image > Duplicate or you can click “Create new document from current state” button from the History panel);
  • “Actual Pixels” matches the zoom level of the image to the actual resolution of the screen (we will learn about that in a future article);
  • “Fit on Screen” modifies the zoom level so the whole image is visible on the screen;
  • If you have at least 2 images tiled on the screen and you are zoomed in at let’s say 500% in the first image then “Match Zoom” will zoom the second image at the same level. If you zoomed in in the first image and you are viewing the lower left corner then by pressing “Match Location” than you will be seeing the lower left corner of the second image. “Match Zoom and Location” modifies both the location and the zoom of the second image. When I say first image I mean the active image, or the image on which you are working on. The second image represents the inactive image or the out of focus image. That is you are not actively working or viewing this image. Of course these 3 commands (“Match Zoom”, “Match Location”, “Match Zoom and Location”) work on more than 2 images. Just remember that the image you are working on or viewing is the active image and the rest are inactive (or out of focus) images;

To return to the default image view just press “Consolidate All”.

Below you can see “Arrange documents” in action. In this specific case I choose the “Tile all in a grid” icon (second upper icon from left to right).

Ok, now for the less useful ( or less used ) buttons:

• Screen Mode. You can use the keyboard shortcut ( F ) to cycle through the 3 screen modes. Standard Screen mode it is as its name suggests the standard, default screen mode.
  “Full Screen Mode With Menu Bar” gets rid of the Windows Taskbar (I don’t know the exact behavior on a Mac but I presume it is basically the same), the tabs bar, the status bar and the scroll area.
  “Full Screen Mode” gets rid of everything but the image. It usually displays a black background but you can right click and choose a custom background. If you are in “Fullscren mode” and you want to bring up the Tools panel, the Docked panels and the 3 upper bars then press Tab. If you want to bring up just the Docked panels then press Shift+Tab. Also if you go with your mouse near the left or right edge the Tools or the Docked Panels will temporarily appear and disappear when you move your mouse away.
  
• Zoom Level. Here you can select a zoom level. I never used this button because I do all my zooming from the keyboard. I will detail navigation in a future article but here’s the fastest way to zoom around in Photoshop: Hold Ctrl+Space than click and drag. For “zoom in” drag to the right and for “zoom out” drag to the left.
• View Extras. Another button I never use. There are faster keyboard shortcuts for the rare occasions that I actually need extras. Or I go to the View menu (on the Menu Bar) and choose my options from there.
• Launch Mini Bridge and Launch Bridge. These buttons do exactly what they say: one launches Bridge (Bridge is an application for managing your pictures) and the other launches the Mini Bridge Extensions. Let me be honest and tell you why I almost never use these buttons. I used Bridge in the past and I can say it is a pretty solid photo management software and it works great if you have no more than 1000 pictures. But good luck managing 50000+ pictures in Bridge! It is a slow, tedious and annoying process, with huge loading times and slow reaction times. If you have a huge picture library like me then I warmly recommend Adobe Lightroom. It has most of the features of Bridge and much more. You can do some basic editing to your photos, export your gallery to the web, batch rename-edit-tag your pictures, easily modify keywords etc. But the most important aspect for me it is that it doesn’t choke on a large library of photos like Bridge does.

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Menu Bar

This is where you can save any open files, set options, choose panels etc. Take a look at all the menus and try to familiarize yourself with them. Don’t be afraid to experiment and make mistakes because this is the only way you will learn. The ones you should really know about are:

• File > Save. Save your files in any of the different formats available. If you are not sure what format to choose go with .psd or .tiff.
• File > Save for Web and Devices. Save your files as .png, .jpeg or .gif.
• File > Open. Open a file.
• File > New. Create a new file.
• Edit>Keyboard Shortcuts. Change keyboard shortcuts and menus.
• Window > Workspace > Reset Workspace. If you screw your workspace this option will reset it to it’s default state. Also accessible from the “Show More Workspaces and Options” button from the Application Bar. Also note that when you open the “Window” menu you will see some little check marks next to some names. The check marks indicate what panels (or panels groups) are opened. Try it for yourself and check or uncheck panels. Lower down you will see a check mark next to “Options” and “Tools”. Uncheck “Options” to get rid of the Options bar or uncheck “Tools” to get rid of the tools panel. I never use this option because I know a keyboard shortcut for it. While in “Standard Screen Mode” press Tab to get rid of the Tools panel and the Docked Panels or press Shift+Tab to get rid of the Docked Panels only.

• Help > Photoshop Help. Don’t be shy to use help when you don’t know something. Use the search bar to find your topics. If you have a poor internet connection then you will do better if you download the help file in .pdf format to have it available all the time. Here’s the link to the .pdf file (CS5). Just let it load then save it to your computer. Also beware that due to the size of the file (40 mb) some old browsers might crash so use a modern (good) browser like Firefox or Opera.

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Options Bar

This bar will look different depending on which tool you have active. Here you will find options for the active tool. For example in the image above you can see the brush options because I have selected the brush tool. We will get into more detail in future articles when we will be describing each tool from the tools panel.

Ok, so far we have reviewed the 3 upper horizontal bars. You cannot move them or resize them ( except for the little trick when we squeeze onto the same line the Application and the Menu Bar) and you can only make them disappear when choosing the “Full Screen Mode”. Also you can hide the Options Bar by choosing Window > Options ( choose again to make the Options Bar show ).

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On Part 2 we will look at the 3 vertical “Bars” (Tools Panel, Image Window and Docked Panels).

Learn how to create a ghost in the landscape with this Photoshop tutorial.

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Final Image Preview

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Resources

• Park in autumn
• elk in the forest

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Step 1

Download and open both photos in Photoshop. Start by working on Deer photo. With Polygonal Lasso Tool make selection of deer. When you have completed, press Ctrl+C to copy deer. Paste selection on scenery photo with Ctrl+V to have something similar to what I have.

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Step 2

Update deer layer opacity to 45% so we can see background.

With deer layer selected go to Select > Load Selection. Hide deer layer (click on layer eye to turn layer visibility off). Select background layer and press Ctrl+J to duplicate layer selection into a new layer.

Turn back layer visibility on in deer layer. Select Polygonal Lasso Tool and create a selection like mine.

Go to Edit > Transform > Warp to change the shape and perspective.

Begin to stretch the content of the layer to create the impression of the distortion of space.

Apply same technique to other parts of body.

Delete deer layer by selecting it and pressing Del. With background fragment layer selected Go to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast.

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Step 3

Apply following layer styles by going to Layer > Layer Style > Blending Options.

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Step 4

Go to Select > Load Selection to load selection. Create a new layer on top and change layer mode to Hard Light. Select Brush Tool (black color, hard round brush with opacity at 30%-50%) and apply to bottom parts of selection.

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Step 5

Create a new layer above all and update layer mode to Hard Light. Select Brush Tool again and highlight upper parts of selected area with white color.

To finish this tutorial, reduce layer opacity to 50% and deselect selection by pressing Ctrl+D.

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Final Image

In Part 2 this tutorial we keep creating a space fantasy composition using some basic techniques.

Part 1

Part 1 of this tutorial has been published here.

Final Image Preview

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Step 1

Open file “Yosemite Park” and make a selection of right mountain side. Copy and paste it to our document. Add a layer mask (Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All). Now you will see the real power behind the blend if sliders. Go to Layer > Layer Style > Blending Options. We want to make the clouds partially cover the mountain so we will drag the lower sliders to the left (Hold “Alt” or “Option” keys to drag the two halves of the slider). This way the white colors from the layers below will “force” themselves through. Finally add a clipped Curves adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves) to color correct the mountain.

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Step 2

Create a layer group by going to Layer > New > Group. Create a new layer group inside this one were we will place all cow related layers. Open file “Cows 1″ and make a selection of the cow. Copy and paste it to our document and inside our newly created group. Add a clipped Curves adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves) to color correct the cow.

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Step 3

Create a new layer under cow layer (inside layer group). Select Brush Tool and with a soft brush paint some shadow beneath the cow’s feet. Change the layer mode to Multiply and lower the layer opacity if needed. Add a layer mask to the group (Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All). Paint with a black soft brush at 50% opacity to reveal some clouds.

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Step 4

Create a layer group inside first group by going to Layer > New > Group. Open file “Yellow air balloon” and make a selection of the baloons. Copy and paste it to our document and inside our newly created group. Add a clipped Curves adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves) to color correct them.

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Step 5

Create a new layer above baloons layer (inside layer group). With Pen Tool and a brown color paint the rope that ties the cow to the baloons. Finally apply Layer > Layer Style > Inner Shadow to layer.z

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Step 6

Time for last tweaks. Add a Hue/Saturation layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation) and use settings below. Use Gradient Tool in the layer mask to protect the upper part.

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Step 7

Let’s darken the image and increase contrast a little. We can do these both things by adding a Black and White adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Black and White) and use settings below. Change blend mode to Multiply and lower opacity to 83%. Select Brush Tool and with a soft brush mask away the dark areas.

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Step 8

Add a Vibrance adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Vibrance) and use settings below. Use Gradient Tool in the layer mask to protect the lower part.

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Step 9

Add a Curves adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves) and drag the curve upwards to lighten the image. Fill the layer mask with black color and use Gradient Tool (Radial) to reveal the top right area.

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Step 10

Add another Curves adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves) and use the settings below. Select layer mask and apply Filter > Render > Clouds. Lower layer opacity to 50%.

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Final Image

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In this post, we announce the winners who previously participated in a giveaway held on March 1st, 2012.

First of all this was a great giveaway thanks to Pixmac. Five winners have won 1 stock photo account each.

About Pixmac

Pixmac was launched in September 2008 and is a microstock agency that has more than 7 million photos available for print and web.

The Winners

Here are the 5 lucky winners of Pixmac giveaway:

1. Mario Awad
2. Arsalan Azarmi
3. Karen Cole
4. Julián Suárez
5. Kathleen

Thank you to all for participating on this giveaway and congratulations to the winners.

All the winners will be contacted with more details thru email.

More Giveaways coming Up!

New giveaway contests are being prepared so if you want to keep updated follow Photoshop Star:

1. Twitter

2. Newsletter

3. Facebook

4. RSS

Learn how to create one mythical scenery with one interesting technique of unusual scenery processing adding rays of light.

Final Image Preview

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Resources

• Balloons
• Cows 1
• Yellow Air Balloon
• Full Moon
• sky so blue 2
• Stars and Bubbles Brushes
• The Earth seen from Apollo
• Old Windmill 3
• Yosemite Park

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Step 1

Create a new document with 1024 px height and 786 px width. Update foreground color to #0374b8 and background color to #90c3ea and select Gradient Tool. Select preset “Foreground to Background” and fill canvas with a linear gradient.

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Step 2

Open file “Sky so blue”, copy all and paste it into our document. Make sure layer is on top of all other layers. Double-click layer thumbnail to enter advanced blending mode. Drag the upper sliders to the left until the dark blues disappear.

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Step 3

Create new layer (Shift+Ctrl+N). Make sure layer is on top of all other layers. Select Brush Tool. Load Stars and Bubbles Brushes by going to Load Brushes inside Brush Type Selection. Paint with stars brush some stars with different sizes.

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Step 4

Add a Hue/Adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Adjustment) and use the settings below. Select Gradient Tool, black as foreground color and white as background color and apply on layer mask to make sure only the upper part is visible.

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Step 5

Open file “Full Moon”. Select Moon with Elliptical Marquee Tool or other selection Tool. Go to Select > Modify > Feather and place 20px. Copy selection and paste it on our document. Make sure layer is on top of all other layers. Update layer mode to Hard Light.

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Step 6

Open file “The Earth seen from Apollo”. Select Earth. Copy and paste it into our document. Make sure layer is on top of all other layers. Apply following effects by going to Layer > Layer Style > Blending Options:

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Step 7

Open file “Old Windmill” and make a selection of the Windmill. Copy and paste it into our document. Make sure layer is on top of all other layers. Apply Edit > Free Transform and Edit > Transform > Warp to make Windmill fit the Earth. Add a layer mask (Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All) and with Polygonal Lasso Tool mask away the unwanted parts.

Finally add a clipped Curves adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves) with the settings below to color correct the Windmill.

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Step 8

Create a new layer on top. Select Brush Tool and with a black soft brush at 50% opacity paint the Windmill’s shadow. Move this layer below the Windmill layer and clipp it on Earth layer (Layer > Create Clipping Mask). Update layer blending mode to Multiply.

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Part 2

Part 2 will be published very soon. Do you like this type of tutorials and would like to see more?

Photoshop Star and Pixmac have partnered to giveaway 5 stock photo accounts.

About Pixmac

Pixmac was launched in September 2008 and is a microstock agency that has more than 7 million photos available for print and web.

Pixmac also has a free images section with more than 60,000 pictures and royalty free stock photos where you can download what you need and use in your projects.

Sample Images

Prize

Each one of the five winners will receive a stock photo account that allows to download photos. These accounts are valued at $99 each.

How to Win

You need to leave a comment on this post telling us why you would like to win using a valid email address so we can contact you in case you’ve won.

Giveaway details

This giveaway ends on Thursday, March 8th 2012 after which the comments section on this post will be closed.
Only comment once.
The 5 winners will be randomly selected as always.
Winners will be announced on a separate post so i advise you to subscribe to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter or on our Facebook page. And they will be contacted via e-mail.

Comments are moderated on this site and your comment may not show up right away. If we find any comments that do not follow the instructions on how to participate (described above) may not be published, or may be removed later on.

Good luck to everyone!

On this Photoshop tutorial you will learn how to apply a jaguar skin to a woman by using Photoshop Tools.

Final Image Preview

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Resources

• Woman
• Jaguar

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Step 1

Start by creating a new document with 1920px width and 1200px height. Fill canvas with black color on background layer.

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Step 2

Open woman photo and copy to our main canvas with black background. With woman layer selected go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal to flip photo.

Hold Shift button to reduce photo size proportionally horizontal and vertical to similar size as you can see below. We need to extend woman’s hair with Smudge Tool. Select Soft-brush, 3px and set foreground color to white (#ffffff).

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Step 3

Now we are going to extend woman shoulder. For this, select Brush Tool, hard round brush with 20px, set foreground color to #9e6e39 and draw shoulder shape.

Load selection of current layer by going to Select > Load Selection. Select Brush Tool (soft-brush with 45px in size and color #d5c7b8) and apply brush to highlight shoulder edge.

Remove selection with Ctrl+D.

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Step 4

Our next step is to prepare photo to apply jaguar effect. Select Polygonal Lasso Tool to create selection of the woman. With selection made, click on button Add Layer Mask located on layers palette.

Go to Select > Load Selection to make selection again. Hold down Alt key (a minus sign will replace plus sign on cursor) and select woman face still with Polygonal Lasso Tool. We are going to substract from selection and we will keep only hair, ear and neck. To finish click Ctrl+J to duplicate selection into a new layer.

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Step 5

On duplicated layer apply Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast.

Update Hue/Saturation settings by going to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation.

Select Burn Tool (150px, Range: Midtones, Strength: 35%) and darken the edge of hair.

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Step 6

Open Jaguar photo. Copy photo to our main canvas. Select part of the photo with Rectangular Marquee Tool and press Ctrl+J to copy selection to new layer. Hide Jaguar layer by clicking the eye icon.

Change layer blending mode to Multiply and place it similar to what I have.

Increase Hue and Saturation by going to Layer > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation.

We are going now to apply texture to body. Select Eraser Tool and with a soft round brush remove visible parts of jaguar texture on neck and shoulder.

With Polygonal Lasso Tool clear hair area of texture by selecting and clearing it with Delete button.

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Step 7

Now we are going to add texture to woman’s face. Select hidden layer with jaguar and make it visible again. Set up opacity to 70%. Select Rectangular Marquee Tool to create selection similar to mine. After that, invert selection (Select > Inverse) and press Delete to clear selection.

Remove selection by using Select > Deselect (or Ctrl+D). Go to Edit > Free Transform (Ctrl+T) to increase layer. And after that, use Distort if needed to have something similar to what I did.

Duplicate layer with Ctrl+J and flip it with Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal. Move it to the left like I did.

Select Eraser Tool and with a soft round brush eliminate distinction between both texture layers.

Set layer opacity to 100% again on both layers. Merge both texture layers by selecting them (Select first layer by clicking on it, keep pressing Ctrl and click on second layer) and press Ctrl+E. Change layer mode to Multiply. Finally change Hue and Saturation settings by going to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation.

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Step 8

With layer selected, go to Select > Load Selection. Apply Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All.

Select Eraser Tool, soft brush, opacity: 100% and correct mask form.

Set Brush Opacity to 4%. Clean up a bit on nose area.

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Step 9

Select Pen Tool (make sure you are working with Paths instead of Shape Layers) and draw a shape similar to mine.

Right click and select option Make Selection. Create new layer, select Brush Tool with a soft round brush (Opacity: 6%, foreground color: white) and apply on selection.

Remove selection with Ctrl+D and with Eraser Tool selected (Opacity: 8%) clean borders.

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Step 10

Hide this layer temporarily by clicking on layer eye. Select Pen Tool again to create lips form. When you have finished drawing right click and select option Make Selection.

Make layer visible again by clicking on layers eye. Clear selected area by pressing Delete. Deselect with Ctrl+D. Select Blur Tool to blur lips edges.

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Step 11

Select layer with jaguar texture and use the Dodge Tool to make eyes brighter.

Use Eraser Tool to fix and make eyes clearer.

Now we need to update eyes color. Select layer with woman photo and with Polygonal Lasso Tool create selection of one eye pupil. With Shift pressed, create selection of second eye pupil.

Apply Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation to selection.

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Final Image

This Photoshop tutorial explains how to make a simple gold text effect by using some layer styles, namely the Gradient Overlay layer style!

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Final Image Preview

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Note: Original tutorial published on Photoshopstar.com was old and needed a few updates. Tutorial was rewritten and now published.

Resources

• 9 tileable metal textures (starnetblog_tileable_metal_texture8.jpg)
• Grungy Brush package
• Highlight Glint or Star Sparkle Brush Set

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Step 1: Setting the Stage

Let’s start by making a new document in Photoshop. I created a new document sized 500 x 500 pixels with all the default settings, RGB, 72 DPI, etc.

After creating your document, set the Foreground color to #393943 and the Background color to #100e19, then fill the Background with a Radial Gradient.

Duplicate the Background layer (Ctrl+J).

Double click the “Background copy” layer to apply a Pattern Overlay layer style. Change the Blend Mode to Multiply, the Opacity to 70%, and the Scale to 25%. Use the starnetblog_tileable_metal_texture8.jpg image from the 9 tileable metal textures pack, (it is also the second pattern in the .pat file), as the Pattern.

You can play around with the values, for example, other good layer modes to use in this case are Soft Light, Vivid Light, and Color Dodge. You can as well choose different patterns, but you might need to adjust the Scale value if you do so.

Get out the Rectangular Marquee Tool. Click the Add to Selection icon in the Options bar at the top, and set the Style to Fixed Size, then type 50% in both the Width and Height boxes. Drag your selection onto the canvas then into the bottom right corner of your canvas, do the same but in the top left corner.

Create a new layer on top of all layers and call it “Dark Squares”, and fill the selections with the Background color (#100e19). Go to Select -> Deselect (or press Ctrl + D) to get rid of the selections.

Lower the Opacity for this layer to 25%.

Use a large soft brush to erase away the center (middle area) of the squares, so you get something like this:

Create a new layer on top of all layers and call it “Light Squares”. Repeate the previous steps to create two more selections in the empty corners, and this time use the Foreground color (#393943) to fill the selections.

Create another new layer on top of all layers and call it “Grunge Brush”. Use the brushes from the Grungy Brush package to add a bit of grunge at the bottom of the document, using the Foreground color (#393943) as the brush color.

Change the layer’s Blend Mode to Multiply and lower the Opacity to something around 40%.

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Step 2: Setting Up your Text

This is the easy part. Get out the Horizontal Type Tool (T) and write your text in whatever color you want. The font used is Impact, and the size is 80px. You can use any other font you like, bolder fonts give a better result.

Double click the text layer to apply the following Layer Styles:

– Drop Shadow: Change the Opacity to 85%, the Distance to 2, and the Size to 15.

– Inner Shadow: Change the Blend Mode to Color Dodge, the color to #a98e0f, the Opacity to 50%, the Distance to 1, and the Size to 0.

– Inner Glow: Change the Blend Mode to Linear Dodge, the Opacity to 55%, the color to #fae48f, the Size to 3, and the Range to 70%.

– Gradient Overlay: Check the Reverse box, and change the Scale to 55%.

Click the Gradient box to create the gradient using the colors #fae48f, #ffc230 and #9f7f00. Position the color stops as shown below:

This is how your text should look like after applying the Layer Styles:

The last thing we’re going to do is adding some sparkles! So create a new layer on top of all layers, set the Foreground color to white, and use a sparkles brush to create some sparkles around your text.

Final Image

And that’s it! This is what your text should look like:

Before you start using Photoshop you should set it up properly. Don’t worry if you don’t understand what all the options mean, just follow the guidelines below for starters. With time and extensive use the meaning of all those fancy and (apparently) complex options will fall in place and you will now exactly what you want. You have to start somewhere, right?

General Preferences

Let’s start by going to Edit > Preferences > General (Ctrl+K).

General

Uncheck “export clipboard” and leave the rest as default.

Interface

Here you can also leave as default but you may want to temporarily check “show channels in color” to see them in color and maybe better understand the way RGB channels work. But you will want to uncheck this option eventually because it will make channel evaluation difficult.

File Handling

I usually uncheck “Ask before saving layered TIFF files” because it is annoying to have the warning pop up every time and warning you that using layers increases file size. I also choose “Never” from “Maximize PSD and PSB file compatibility” popup menu. But if you are using your files across multiple versions of Photoshop or other Adobe Suite products you may want to leave this to “Always” or “Ask”.

Performance

• Memory usage
  This depends on your available RAM but I usually let Photoshop to use 70% of total available memory. This is enough for my system to do multitasking on not choke if I have other apps than Photoshop open simultaneously.
• History & Cache
  The only thing you should change is “History States”. This option is very important because it determines how many history states you have available when editing a file (that is how many ctrl+Z or steps back you can go). 500 is a fairly right amount but watch if you max it out (1000) because it will require more RAM and it will increase your scratch file size (we will get to it right away).
• Scratch disks
  Scratch disks are disks where your scratch files are stored. But what is a scratch file? Well, a scratch file is usually a file on your hard-disk where Photoshop stores history states (remember them from above?), cache levels and other information about your working documents. As you continue to edit your images the scratch file size increases. So you should select as primary scratch disk a fast, large hard-drive (other than the one the operating system is installed). A Solid State Drive would be great, but a defragmented hard-disk with 20+ Gigabytes will be enough for most of your tasks.
• Gpu Settings
  You should definitely check “Enable OpenGL Drawing” if your graphic card allows it. That is, if the option is grayed out you probably don’t have a good enough graphic card or your drivers are missing or they are old in which case you should update your GPU drivers. This is not essential for working with Photoshop but it sure makes navigation and editing smoother and more eye-candy.

Cursors

• Painting cursors
  Go with the “Full size brush tip option” and check “Show crosshair in Brush Tip” as this increases your precision when painting.
• Other cursors
  Leave it to “Standard”. You can press Caps Lock to bring up the precise cursor.

Transparency & Gamut

Here you can leave the default settings.

Units & Rulers

Because I mainly use Photoshop for Web I set “Rulers” to “pixels”. But if you are working with files for print or other medium you can change the “Rulers” to the other measuring units available. Be aware of the “New Document Preset Resolution” option. You should leave “Print Resolution” to 300 pixel/inch but you can change the “Screen Resolution” to 80 pixels/inch if you are working with images for Web display and raise it up to 250 pixels/inch if you are working with images that will have multiple future destinations ( print, web, video editing etc.).

Guids, Grid & Slices

Here you can leave the default settings.

Plugins

The only notable change you can do here is to check “Additional Plug-Ins Folder” and select your plugins folder. How is this going to help you? If you use lots of plugins you can install them in different folders ( other than the default plugins folder ) and select only the folder with plugins you need that day or that week. The thing is that the fewer the plug-ins, the faster the start-up.

Type

Here you can leave the default settings.

3D

I don’t use 3D on a regular basis so I can’t give you proper advice about how to set up this effectively, but on rare occasions that I work with 3D the default setting work just fine.

Color Settings

Color settings is a very important thing to set up right because your entire workflow is affected by it. This settings establish the way Photoshop treats your images so you should be careful and set it up properly. Go to Edit > Color Settings (Ctrl+Shift+K).

The first thing you should do is click the “More options” button which reveals some advanced settings.

• Working Spaces
  Here you can choose in what color space you will be working. I suggest you leave “Gray” and “Spot” as they are and also leave CMYK to “Us Web Coated SWOP v2” unless you have specifications from your printing service. The RGB is set to default to “sRGB IEC61966-2.1” and it should work fine if you edit images only for the web. However, if your images will have multiple future destinations ( video editing, print, etc. ) you should choose either ”Adobe RGB(1998)” or “Pro Photo RGB” color space. What is a color space? Well, when you work in a color space, your image will be displayed using all the colors available in that color space. sRGB is a smaller color space than others, so your image will look less smooth and poorer in color variation than it would look if you have displayed your image on Adobe RGB or Pro Photo Rgb because the last two are larger color spaces and thus contain more color nuances. If you are interested in the subject you can check this Wikipedia article. Follow this general rule: If your images are for the Web only than choose sRGB. Else go with AdobeRGB or Pro Photo RGB.
• Color Management Policies
  Here you set up the way will treat the profile mismatches and images with missing profiles. My advice is to leave “CMYK” and “Gray” to “Preserve Embedded Profiles” and “RGB” to “Convert to Working RGB”. This setting will convert an image with and existing or missing profile to your working profile ( your working profile will be the color space you selected from the dialog above this one ). Also you shold check “Profile Mismatches” “Ask when Opening” and leave the other two options unchecked. This is useful when you are working in a smaller color space and the image you open has a larger color space Because the conversion will discard some color information you should be aware of it when it will happen. As a rule of thumb convert to working RGB only when your working RBG is Adobe Rgb or Pro Photo RGB and the image your converting has an sRGB or an unknown color profile.
• Conversion Options
  Leave the “Engine” to “Adobe(ACE)” but if you are working mainly with photos than I recommend that you change the “Intent” to “Perceptual”. This will preserve the color relations in a photo when converting it to another color space and that is important for photography. If you are working only with charts or logos (this is not something you want for your pictures).
  After you’re done changing the options you should save your settings for future use and for in-between applications color management compatibility. By saving your settings you ensure that the same color settings are applied throughout other Adobe apps (Bridge, Dreamweaver etc).

Those are the basic settings you should set before starting to use Photoshop. You could tweak the keyboard shortcuts and menus (Edit> Keyboard Shortcuts) but if you are a newbie to Photoshop I suggest you leave those unchanged until you are more comfortable with the program and you have developed certain workflows and habits. Try experimenting for yourself and observe how various settings affect your images but always return to the safe options which you know for sure that work unless you know precisely that you want something else.

In this post, we announce the winners who previously participated in a giveaway held on January 26th, 2012.

First of all this was a great giveaway thanks to Grafpedia. Six winners have won 6 VIP accounts (one winner won one commercial VIP account valued at $199 and five winners won one VIP account each valued at $49).

The Winners

One winner will receive one commercial VIP account valued at $199.

Winner is Wendy.

And winners of one VIP account valued at $49 are:

1. Bob
2. CCronje
3. Eric
4. Kenneth
5. mare

Thank you to all for participating on this giveaway and congratulations to the winners.

All the winners will be contacted with more details thru email.

About Grafpedia

Grafpedia.com is a popular website with lots of resources for web designers including tutorials. It also features one of the best premium member areas including more than 70,000 graphics resources.

Grafpedia premium member area includes more than 900 photoshop brushes, 29400 photoshop gradients, more than 1000 textures, more than 100 web elements and more than 130 templates ready to use. Every week new resources are added to premium member area to keep collection up to date.

More Giveaways coming Up!

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I received several requests for a simple animation tutorial so this Photoshop tutorial is here. Learn to create a small text animation using Photoshop.

Final Image Preview

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Step 1

Start by creating a new document with 1000×300 pixels. Set foreground color to #000000 and background color to #00ae0f. Select Gradient Tool and create a linear gradient.

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Step 2

Apply Filter > Sketch > Water Paper with following settings (Fiber Length: 5, Brightness: 53, Contrast: 73):

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Step 3

Select Horizontal Type Tool, font Arial Black with 170 pt and update foreground color to #00b75a. Write something like I did.

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Step 4

Merge all layers (Layer > Merge Layers). Rename layer name to “Original”. Duplicate layer using Ctrl+J and apply Filter > Sketch > Water Paper on duplicated layer (Fiber Length: 50, Brightness: 0, Contrast: 73).

Rename duplicated layer as “1″. This layer will be our first frame of the animation. Duplicate layer “Original”, move it on top of all layers and rename it to “2″. Apply Filter > Sketch > Water Paper on this layer (Fiber Length: 50, Brightness: 20, Contrast: 73).

Duplicate layer “Original”, move it on top of all layers and rename it to “3″. Apply Filter > Sketch > Water Paper on this layer (Fiber Length: 50, Brightness: 30, Contrast: 73).

Duplicate layer “Original”, move it on top of all layers and rename it to “4″. Apply Filter > Sketch > Water Paper on this layer (Fiber Length: 50, Brightness: 40, Contrast: 73). Duplicate layer “Original”, move it on top of all layers and rename it to “5″. Apply Filter > Sketch > Water Paper on this layer (Fiber Length: 50, Brightness: 50, Contrast: 73).

From now on we will work with Fiber Length. Duplicate layer “Original”, move it on top of all layers and rename it to “6″. Apply Filter > Sketch > Water Paper on this layer (Fiber Length: 40, Brightness: 50, Contrast: 73).

Duplicate layer “Original”, move it on top of all layers and rename it to “7″. Apply Filter > Sketch > Water Paper on this layer (Fiber Length: 30, Brightness: 50, Contrast: 73).

Duplicate layer “Original”, move it on top of all layers and rename it to “8″. Apply Filter > Sketch > Water Paper on this layer (Fiber Length: 20, Brightness: 50, Contrast: 73).

Duplicate layer “Original”, move it on top of all layers and rename it to “9″. Apply Filter > Sketch > Water Paper on this layer (Fiber Length: 10, Brightness: 50, Contrast: 73).

Duplicate layer “Original”, move it on top of all layers and rename it to “10″.

Duplicate layers “1″ to “9″ and place them as I did.

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Step 5

Turn off all layers visibility except layer “1″. Select Window > Animation to open animation panel. Click on button highlighted on screenshot below to convert the timeline to a frame animation.

Update looping options to “Forever”.

Increase delay to 0,2 on frame “10″ of animation.

To complete tutorial save animation bu going to File > Safe for Web And Devices. Don’t forget that image must be a GIF.

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Final Image

Photoshop Star and Grafpedia have partnered to giveaway several VIP accounts to Photoshop Star readers.

About Grafpedia

Grafpedia.com is a popular website with lots of resources for web designers including tutorials. It also features one of the best premium member areas including more than 70,000 graphics resources.

Grafpedia premium member area includes more than 900 photoshop brushes, 29400 photoshop gradients, more than 1000 textures, more than 100 web elements and more than 130 templates ready to use. Every week new resources are added to premium member area to keep collection up to date.

Prize

We have six VIP accounts to giveaway: one winner will receive one commercial VIP account valued at $199. Five winners will receive one VIP account each valued at $49.

These accounts will give you access to more than 70,000 design items.

How to Win

You need to leave a comment on this post telling us why you would like to win using a valid email address so we can contact you in case you’ve won.

Giveaway details

This giveaway ends on Thursday, February 2nd 2012 after which the comments section on this post will be closed.
Only comment once.
The 6 winners will be randomly selected as always. First the winner of the commercial VIP account and after that more 5 winners will be selected to receive one VIP account.
Winners will be announced on a separate post so i advise you to subscribe to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter or on our Facebook page. And winners will be contacted via e-mail.

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Good luck to everyone!

One more tutorial teaching you how to make a man facial retouching in Photoshop.

Final Image Preview

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Resources

• Cowboy

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Step 1

Start by opening photo.

We are going to start by removing skin problems. Select Healing Brush Tool. This tool lets you correct imperfections, causing them to disappear into the surrounding image. Like the cloning tools, you use the Healing Brush tool to paint with sampled pixels from an image or pattern. However, the Healing Brush tool also matches the texture, lighting, transparency, and shading of the sampled pixels to the pixels being healed. As a result, the repaired pixels blend seamlessly into the rest of the image.

Set up the brush size about 20 pixels. Set the sampling point by positioning the pointer over an area of the image and Alt-clicking. Then click or drag in the place where you want to apply sampling point. The sampled pixels are melded with the existing pixels each time you release the mouse button.

It’s very important to leave natural look for the skin so you should have at least leave some small defects. We are going to remove some wrinkles also. When you finish working with Healing Brush Tool you should have something similar to image below.

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Step 2

Duplicate background layer with Ctrl+J. Apply Image > Adjustments > Desaturate to convert image to grayscale values.

Apply Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen More.

Change layer mode to Multiply.

Reduce layer opacity to 60%.

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Step 3

Duplicate background layer again with Ctrl+J. Move it on top of all layers and apply Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast.

Apply Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation.

Change layer mode to Multiply.

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Step 4

Duplicate background layer again with Ctrl+J. Move it on top of all layers and apply Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast.

Change layer mode to Screen.

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Step 5

We still need to make some additional color correction on this photo. Select Layer > New Adjustments Layer > Color Balance.

Go to Window > Adjustments and set up following presets for this layer.

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Step 6

To complete this tutorial let’s change exposure a bit. Select Layer > New Adjustments Layer > Exposure.

Go to Window > Adjustments and set up following presets for this layer.

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Final Image

This tutorial is complete. We got a nice retouching result and applied a good photo effect.