*Bling Bling* Simple Gold Text Effect

Ok, ok, I know I’ve already written a tutorial or two on how to make a nice, golden text effect. But again, I’m going to write for you a tutorial on how to make a simple gold text effect by using some layer styles, namely the Gradient Overlay layer style!

I was inspired to do this tutorial after I saw an awesome bit of text on the David Letterman’s website, which you can view here. Props to the awesome David Letterman!

1. Setting the Stage
Ok, 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, fill the background with a color/gradient of your choice. In this case I used a radial gradient, colors were #393943 and #100e19.

I then added in a texture/pattern of some “Diamond Metal Plate,” I made this texture using the Free Filter Forge Metal Plugin, which you can download for free from their website.

If you don’t want to download their application and have to install it, you can simply download the pattern that I created from here: Diamond Plate Metal Texture/Pattern.



After adding your texture, mess with the layer mode and opacities settings to get an interesting look. I used the layer mode Overlay, with an opacity of 15%. Other good layer modes to use in this case are Soft Light, Vivid Light, and Color Dodge.



Looking alright so far? One or two more things to do for the background before we get onto the text though.

Create a new layer then get out the Rectangular Marquee Tool. Set the ’style’ for the selection tool to ‘Fixed Size, then put 50% into each of the boxes, width and height.

Drag your selection onto the canvas then into the bottom right corner of your canvas, do the same but in the top left corner. Next, fill your selections with one of the purple colors that you used for your background gradient.



Lower the opacity for this layer if you think it needs it, then, using a large, soft brush, erase away the inside (middle area) of your cubes, so you get something like this:



Repeat this part, but using the other corners and the other color that you used for the background. After a little bit of tweaking, this is what I ended up with for my background:



If you were unable to complete the background, then don’t worry about it, you’ll be able to download the PSD file at the end of this tutorial anyway, so you’ll be able to take a look at all of the layers later.

To finish off with the background I added in a bit of grunge at the bottom of the document, using the lighter purple as my brush color, I then changed the layer mode to Multiply and lowered the layer opacity to around 40%.



Alright, we’re finally done for the background! I hope you enjoyed this part

2. Setting Up your Text
This is the easy part, all you have to do is write out your desired text on the canvas. Get out your Horizontal Type Tool (just the usual one) and write out your text in whatever color you want.



In the above image I’ve used Impact as my font of choice, and it’s sized at a meager 60 pt.

Impact should come with your Windows installation (assuming you’re using Windows, anyway) but if you don’t have it, you can easily find a good alternative on a free font website such as Dafont or UrbanFonts. It’s preferred to use a fat font, with a large font size.

I find Impact does a great job in this case, but if you’re not pleased with it, I’ve listed a few good, free alternative below.

Bebas:



Accidental Presidency:


Boris Black Boxx:

3. Style Your Text
Pretty much the final thing we need to do is apply layer styles to our text to make it actually look good. Some of these layer style settings will depend on the size of your text, so be sure to mess with the settings a little bit if you’ve selected your own font size!

1. Drop Shadow
2. Inner Shadow
3. Inner Glow
4. Gradient Overlay

And now our text should look like this:



Looks pretty good to me!

4. Completion
Well, we’re pretty much finished for this tutorial, thanks for taking the time to read it! If you want, you can download the PSD file from this tutorial below, learning purposes only though!



As you can see in the above image, I’ve added some of those bling star things, I’ve included them in the PSD file.


Source: Photoshopstar,"*Bling Bling* Simple Gold Text Effect", http://www.photoshopstar.com/text/bling-bling-simple-gold-text-effect/, (july,31,08)

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Creating an Aurora in Photoshop

This tutorial goes through the steps to creating a beautiful skyline above a grassy field. (This tutorial requires Photoshop CS, 7.0 or 6.0.)

I'd recommend making this image 779 pixels wide, so it fits perfectly on a 800x600 screen.



1. Vivid Clouds

• Fill the area with a tan colour. I've used DDCE92 here.
• Create a new layer.
• Press D to set the colours back to black and white.
• Click Filter > Render > Clouds.
• Change the layer's Mode from Normal to Vivid Light. This makes the clouds, well, "vivid" :)
• Keep pressing Ctrl+F to redo the Clouds until you're happy.
  

2 . Brushing in a green area

• Create a new layer.
• Select a medium green colour (I've used #006000 here)
• Choose a fairly large, blurry brush from the drop-down list and brush in an uneven area at the bottom of your image.

3 – Adding grass and a title

• Create a new layer.
• Change your background colour to a slightly darker green than your foreground colour. (I've used #003200 here.)
• In the list of brushes at the top left of the screen, scroll down about two thirds of the way down, and choose Dune Grass. Look out for a brush at size 112, and you'll find it. Change its Master Diameter to 30, and start brushing in your grass. Try to stay roughly at the edge of the green area, though it's not a problem if the green shows through a bit.
• Add in your own text. I've used the Plaza Swash font here. Resist the urge to give your text a bevel or shadow. You don't want to lessen the aurora effect with a big plastic-bevel header. :)
• Click File > Save for Web, and save the image as a gif. I usually use Jpeg, Quality 60, but in this case, a jpeg mashes the strands of grass together. Continue to Complete.....
  

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Photo Acute Studio Review

Written by Denny Tang

Sunday, 29 June 2008


In the world of photo retouching, there is a technique called image stacking; combining several variations of the same scene. Using this technique, you can increase sharpness, reduce noise, remove unwanted objects, increase dynamic range, and more. Photo Acute Studio lets you do all that in one software. Find out how PhotoAcute Studio can help you create super high quality photos using image stacking.

PhotoAcute Studio Review
This is a sponsored review from PhotoAcute Studio.


Features


By using image stacking, you can increase:

• image resolution
• dynamic range
• depth of field

and you can reduce:

• noise
• chromatic aberrations
• geometry distortions

Super-resolution processing

One of the best features of PhotoAcute Studio is that you can increase the image resolution of your camera using several images. Don't confuse this with the image dimensions (width & height). It increases the sharpness of the image and not the width and height. Using this technique, you can get DSLR quality images using point and shoot cameras. This is no sharpening trick to fool your eyes; the MTF test the company conducted shows that it actually increases image resolution.

Below is an image of the before and after effect of super-resolution processing. The picture was taken four times and those four images were loaded into PhotoAcute Studio. The four images were combined to create an image with a lot better sharpness. Also, the images can be automatically aligned meaning you can shoot handheld without a tripod. Click on the image below to enlarge and see the details.

Noise reduction without losing sharpness

If you don't have a tripod and you need to shoot on a high ISO setting, you'll get photos with lots of noise. The solution? You can either use a noise reduction utility or shoot several frames and combine them with PhotoAcute studio. If you use a noise reduction utility, you'll lose image data and end up with an unsharp image. Instead, use the image stacking technique and get a cleaner image with more detail. See for yourself with the images below. Continue to complete.....

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8 Tips for Shooting Landscapes with Horizons

Written by Chad Neuman

Improve your landscape photography skills with these must-know tips for breathtaking landscape photos.

1. Shoot about 30 minutes before and after sunset.

A sunset is a great thing to capture, but even if you’re not shooting the sunset but instead shooting at a 90-degree angle to the sunset or even shooting with the sunset at your back, having that subtle light brings out the colors in landscape photos. Most outdoor photography magazines won’t even consider shots that haven’t been shot around this time, as well as before/after sunrise.



2. Shoot about 30 minutes before and after sunrise.

As well as before and after sunset, shooting before and after sunrise causes a lot of detail and tone to be seen. The lighting avoids being overexposed, which happens many times when shooting in the middle of the day with harsh light. For portraits, you can shoot in the shade for subtle light even during the middle of the day, but with landscapes, you can’t put the entire landscape into the shade. You have to rely on the weather for that. You can shoot a little longer after sunrise if there’s some slight cloud cover, but usually an hour or two after sunrise and it’s already really bright.

This is an example of a slightly underexposed landscape photo. It’s not shot during the right amount of light, and was shot when the sun was too far down or with too much cloud cover.

3. Have a foreground, middleground, and background.

This is part of the rule of thirds, which I cover in the next tip. Make sure you have three elements in landscape shot in order to make it more aesthetically pleasing. For example, if there are some seagulls running on the beach along the shore, that can be the foreground, while the middleground would be the waves crashing and part of the ocean, and the distant ocean and horizon would be the background. Continue.....

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Photoshop Elements: Combine Multiple Images

Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 6
July 3, 2008

When you want to combine multiple images into one new image, you must open separate files and then copy each file into the working image. Two common ways to do this are:

• Copy an image and paste it into another image.
• Drag-and-drop an image on top of another image.

After you copy all images to your working image, you are ready to make a collage.

View All Open Images

When combining images, it helps to view all the open images in the Editor workspace.
To view multiple images at the same time:

1. Open the images you want to combine.
2. From the Window menu, select Images, then Tile. The images are tiled in the workspace.

View Only One Image
To view only on image:

1. In the tiled view, click the image you want to view.
2. From the Window menu, select Images, then Maximize Mode. The selected image is displayed.

Copy and Paste Images
To copy and paste images:

1. Open the source images you want to copy and a destination image (new or existing image).
2. View all open images in the workspace (see above).
3. Click an image that you want to copy.
4. From the Select menu, select All or press Ctrl+A.
5. From the Edit menu, select Copy or press Ctrl+C.
6. Click the destination image.
7. From the Edit menu, select Paste or click Ctrl+V. Each image you add is displayed on its own layer above the current layer.

Drag and Drop Images
To drag and drop images:

1. Open the source images you want to copy and a destination image (new or existing image).
2. View all open images in the workspace (see above).
3. Click an image that you want to copy.
4. From the Select menu, select All or press Ctrl+A.
5. Select the Move tool.
6. Drag-and-drop the image on top of the destination image. When you release the mouse button over the destination image, the copied image is displayed on its own layer above the current layer.
7. Repeat until all source images are copied.

Caution: Do Not Drag from the Photo Bin

Do not drag your photos from the photo bin into another file. When you drag from the photo bin, Photoshop Elements creates a special layer called a frame layer and places your photo in the frame layer. The photo appears small in the destination file and the layer thumbnail is marked with a plus sign (+) in the lower right corner in the Layers palette.

Frame layers are special layers that you use when creating projects in Photoshop Elements. During ordinary editing, working with a plain layer is easier. If you inadvertantly create a frame layer, delete it, then follow the instuctions above for copying a source image into a destination image.

This Artikel Taked from: http://www.alibony.com/pse/070308copy.html, (July,26,08)

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The Making of Mystic

By Nik Ainley

In this tutorial Nik Ainley walks us through the process of making a spectacular image. This tutorial focuses on the big picture steps taken to create this image. You'll learn some incredible techniques in this tutorial, and get a view into how Nik creates beautiful photo-manipulation based images. Let's check it out.

The Final Result:

Let's Tutorials:

Step 1

Chances are you will need to do some work to your photo before starting, even if it is of high quality. My photo is of a good size to use as my canvas, so I am happy to just open it up in Photoshop and work on it directly. Its size is 2912 x 4368 pixels. Working at high resolution gives greater control, and will allow the image to be printed at a decent size in the future if needed.

The first thing that strikes me is the image is too dark. To sort this out I run a shadows/highlight adjustment on it to bring out the dark sides of the face without completely killing the contrast.

Next I want to neutralize the color cast of the image slightly, so I perform a color balance adjustment. I add some more blue, cyan and green into the image until I find the skin tone a more pleasing color. Since I will be getting rid of the background, hair, and clothing, the face is really the only part that I am concerned with here.

The final thing I do is to clone tool out his few freckles/spots. I find them distracting and unnecessary. Use the healing tool if you like, but I find the clone tool a lot more reliable.

Step 2

Now for the almost inevitable step that every photo-manipulator hates, extraction. I want to cut out the background so it doesn't distract me. I can replace it later if necessary. Now there are endless ways to extract an image, and which one to use really depends on what you are trying to cut out. In this case, I have a fairly irregular shape but nothing overly complex. That means I can't just do it by hand.

First, I create a layer behind my photo and fill it with a bright color (yellow here) that contrasts sharply with it. This is so that when I start cutting him out I will see very easily which pixels I am hiding. I then add a layer mask, zoom in, and start tracing around his face with a small brush. Since I plan to cover up the hair and neck, I just roughly cut these out for now. No point tracing carefully around something that's going to be hidden anyway.

For a bit more detail on this method of extraction, here's a very old tutorial of mine that should still be helpful: Extraction

Step 3

Once I had extracted what I wanted, I changed the yellow background layer to black as I wanted this image to have a dark background. The face is leaning a bit so I wanted to rotate it to a better alignment. To help I added a couple of guides. Then I lined up the eyes and nose with them as best as I could.

Step 4

I also wanted to turn the face to look at me so it is more symmetrical. To do this I used a warp transform to pull the face into a better alignment.

Step 5

Now although I don't want the face to be perfectly symmetrical, I did find the right (his left) eye a bit too closed. I decided to replace it with a reflected version of the other eye. To do this took a few steps.

First, I duplicated the face and reflected it horizontally using the transform tool. I then dropped the opacity down and aligned the reflected eye over the one I wanted to replace before putting it back to 100% opacity. I then added a 'reveal none' layer mask (hold down ALT while Clicking the add layer mask icon). Then, using a big soft brush, I brushed white onto the mask over the old eye to reveal the new eye. This way I made sure the new eye blended in nicely.

PS I have added a gradient to the background here. There was no particular reason to this, just one of the many little things I do while making an image depending on how I feel. You'll notice more small irrelevant changes like this throughout the article.

Step 6

I also decided that his eyes were a little too puffy, and so smoothed the skin out just below them. To do this took a few steps as well.

Basically, I cloned skin from his cheeks up to just below his eyes. However, the skin on his cheeks is actually lighter, although it may not look it, so a straight clone would not work. The healing brush also failed here so it has to be done manually. First, I duplicated the face layer, and very roughly cloned skin from his cheeks upwards so that it covered all the area I wanted to smooth.

Next I added a reveal none layer mask and dropped the opacity to 50% or so. This opacity change is because I didn't want to completely remove the folds beneath the eyes, as that would look odd. Next I brushed white onto the layer mask over the areas I wanted to affect. This looked a little too light so I slightly darkened the top layer using a curves adjustment (pull the middle of the curve down slightly). If there had been no difference in lightness between the two areas, I could have done this all in one step with the clone tool. This method works where lightness/colour adjustments are needed though.

Step 7

Wow, so after all that the main image is basically ready for use (hah! I wish, as you will see I have to make more adjustments later, but it's good for the moment). Now it's time to bring in our next photo. This is another high resolution image, approximately the same size as the first, from iStock.

Step 8

As before, I needed to extract this photo to make it ready for use. With an image set against a flat background like this that job is slightly easier. I find the best way to do these extractions is to use the RGB channels. I took a look at these channels to see which had the most contrast between the background and object, in this case the blue channel.

Next I duplicated this channel. Then in the curves adjustment window, selected the set black point dropper, and chose a very light grey. This changed every pixel from that light grey and lighter to black. I tend not to choose the lightest grey possible, as this results in very jagged edges because you basically cause aliasing. To make sure that you are getting all of your image requires a little more work.

Tip: If you do end up with jagged edges in your channel, there is a way to help smooth them out. Run a series of very light Gaussian blurs (1 pixel or less) on your channel. Then using a levels adjustment, pull the two outer sliders towards the middle until your channel sharpens up again, but stop before it gets jagged. Be careful though as this method can cause the smoothing of corners as well so fine details might get cut out of your selection.

Step 9

Using the magic wand tool, I selected the big white areas outside and in the middle of the frame. I then inverted this selection, contracted by a couple of pixels, and filled the resulting selection with black. I now had a perfect black shape in the parts of the image I want and white where I didn't want it. This is actually the exact opposite of what I want, as white represents the bits of the image that will be selected, so I had to invert this channel. I then CNTRL + Clicked on this channel to produce a selection. Then making sure the RGB channel was active, copied and pasted into my main document.

Click to complete tutorial....

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Tool Tips

Rotate and Crop at the Same Time:

When you are using the Crop tool, you can rotate while you crop by just moving your cursor outside the bounding box that appears around your image when you choose the crop tool. You will see that your cursor temporarily changes into a double-headed arrow, which enables you to freely rotate your object. When it's rotated just the way you like it, you have two choices: Double-click inside the bounding box, or just press Return to make the rotation permanent.

How to Cancel a Crop:

If you are using the Crop tool and decide you don't want to crop the image after all, just click once on the Crop tool icon in the tool palette. A dialog box will appear giving you the option to "Crop" or "Don't Crop.

Free Transform Tips:

To bring up Free Transform, press Command-T (PC: Control-T). Here is how the Free Transform tool works:

• To Scale (resize) an object visually, just grab one of the corner and drag in or out. Hold down the Shift key as you drag to keep your image proportional.
• To Rotate an object, just move your cursor outside the bounding box and the cursor changes to a two-headed arrow which enables you to free rotate.
• To Distort an object, hold the Command key (Control key on a PC) and grab any corner and drag.
• To Skew an object, hold both the Option-Command keys (Alt-Control on a PC) and drag a corner left or right to Skew.
• For change the Perspective of an object, hold Shift-Option-Command (Shift-Alt-Control for a PC) and drag a corner up or down, left or right.

If all these commands seem too confusing (and frankly it is a bit hard to keep them all straight) you can always just hold the Control key and click anywhere (or on PC, just rightclick) and a pop-up list of transformations will appear, and you can choose the one your looking for. When you do, the bounding box doesn't change, but the cursor changes to the right one for the transformation you selected. You can now just click and drag away!

Editing Gradients:

To bring up the Gradient Editor, get the Gradient Tool, then click on the current Gradient up in the Options Bar. To create your own custom gradient, click below the color bar to add another color to the gradient. To assign either the foreground or background color to this new color, click the "F" marker for foreground, or the "B" marker for background. To choose a different color altogether, just click on the rectangular swatch next to the F and B markers and the Color picker will appear, enabling you to choose any color you'd like. To delete a color, click and drag down to the bottom of the palette; it will disappear. To drag out an existing copy of a color already in the gradient, just Option-drag it (Alt-drag on a PC.)

Get the Zoom Temporarily:

To temporarily switch any tool you are working with to the Magnifying Glass tool, just hold the Command-Spacebar (Control-Spacebar on a PC).

Tip for working while zoomed in close:

To temporarily switch any tool you are working with to the Grabber Hand, just hold the spacebar. Perfect for navigating while zoomed in close, because the Scroll Bars move too far, and are too unpredictable when zoomed in.

Get the Eyedropper Any Time You are Painting:

If you have any paint tool (Brush, Airbrush, Pencil, Eraser, etc.) you can temporarily switch to the Eyedropper tool (used for sampling any existing color from a image) you can just hold the Option key (Alt-key on a PC).

Toggle Through The Tool Palette:

To instantly switch to the Rectangular Marquee tool just press "M". To get the Elliptical (circular) Marquee tool, just press Shift-M.To get the Crop tool (you have missed this tool have not you?) just press "C".

To toggle through the Pen tools press Shift-P to toggle between the Pen tool, the Magnetic Pen tool, and the Freeform Pen Tool. To get the Add Anchor Point Pen press the "+" (plus) key. To get the Delete Anchor Point Pen press the "-" (minus) key. Press the letter "A" to get the Direct Selection tool, and unfortunately there is no keyboard shortcut to get the Convert Point tool.

The rest are pretty obvious (E for Eraser, B for Brush, T for Type, etc.) with the exception of:

• "I" for eyedropper
• "K" for Paint Bucket (You don't really use this tool, do you?)
• "N" for the Line tool
• "O" for the Burn tool
• "R" for Blur tool (Should have been R for Rubber Stamp)
• "U" for Smudge tool
• "Y" for Pencil tool

Source: http://www.tutorialized.com/view/tutorial/Photoshop-Tool-Tips/36240

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Making a Rusty Text

In this tutorial we’ll create a rusty text effect:





1. Start by making a new file with the Width=1024 and Height= 768 and a black background.
2. Use as your colors: black for background and as your foreground #926320.
3. Go to Filter->Render->Clouds.
4. Go to Images->Adjustments->Brightness/Contrast and use the following settings: Brightness=50 and Contrast=-20.
5. Go to Filter->Brush Strokes->Sprayed Strokes and use the following settings: Stroke Lenght=3, Spray Radius=20 and Spray Direction=Horizontal.
6. Go to Filter->Noise->Add Noise and use the following settings: Amount=3, Distribution=Gaussian and check Monocromatic.
7. Go to Filter->Brush Strokes->Spatter and set: Radiu=25, Smoothness=15.
8. Go to Filter->Sharpen->Unsharp Mask and set: Amount=177, Radius=8.7, Treshold=0, do this one more time but this time set: Amount=50, Radius=40, Treshold=0.
9. Using the type tool with Stencil Std font and a size of 400 write your text, I will write AND.



10. With the text layer selected go to Layer->Layer Style->Blending Options, the Layer Style window should apear, here we’ll apply the following styles:

• Click on Drop Shadow and apply the following settings:

• Inner Shadow

• Gradient Overlay

• Stroke

11. Set the text layer blending mode to Color Dodge.

12. Duplicate the first layer (the background layer) and move it on top of the text layer, set this layer blending mode to Linear Light. Then go to Layer->Create Clipping Mask or press Ctrl+Alt+G.

13. Make a new empty layer and move it on top of all layers. Then using Gradient Tool with the default gradient (black to white) and with the Radial Gradient option and Reverse checked fill the layer by dragging from the middle of the image to one of the corners, use the image bellow for reference:

14. Select the last layer, the one wich we filled with the Gradient Tool and set his blending mode to Multiply.
The final result should look like the one bellow:

(This Tutorial taked from: http://cgtutorials.110mb.com/index.php/photoshop-tutorials/photoshop-tutorial-making-a-rusty-text/)

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Making Rounded Corners Text

In this tutorial we’ll create Rounded Corners text effect, with this tutorial you can make rounded corners for any type of shapes:

1. Start by making a new file with the Width=1024 and Height= 768.

2. Select a square font, I used Arial Black with a size of 400 and write your text, I will write AND.

3. Go to Layer->Rasterize->Type.

4. Select the text layer, then Ctrl+Click on the layer thumbnail to select the text contour.

5. To add a layer mask Go to Layer->Layer Mask->Reveal Selection, pres Ctrl+D to deselect.

6. Select the layer mask by clicking on the layer mask thumbnail.

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