Clear Acne with Photoshop Retouching

For more amazing photoshop tips and tricks check out Janine's series' on Lynda.com! Here's a link to 7 days FREE  too!

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First published at TipSquirrel.com by Janine Smith

Unfortunately, acne’s a normal part of adolescence (and, more often than not, adulthood), one that can be quite embarrassing for the person sporting it. Sometimes, it’s just as painful looking back at photographs and seeing the cursed red spots. My son, Jason, had terrible acne when he was in junior high, until he went to a dermatologist to take care of it. To this day, he’s still embarrassed to see those old pictures. So, even amongst all the discussion out there over whether using Photoshop to manipulate a photograph is good or bad, or ethical or not, maybe it’s not such a bad thing to do a little Photoshop magic on a senior photograph, or clean up a social media profile shot. Regardless of your personal opinion on that matter, I’m going to show you one way to erase a little acne in someone’s life. By the way, the photo I’ll be using for this tutorial is not my son, it’s a stock photo provided by our friends at Fotolia.

 

 The first thing you’ll want to do is to take as much of the red out from the acne and surrounding areas. That will make the actual removal of the blemishes very much easier. To do this, make a Hue / Saturation Adjustment layer. Since it is the red we’re trying to get rid of, set the drop down menu to Red. Now move the Hue slider to the left and then the right – the goal is to find the color that makes the acne stand out the most.

See the rest of this tutorial here

Lightroom Adjustment Brush Presets

by Michael Hoffman

The introduction of the Local Adjustment Brush back in Lightroom 2 was the first step in transforming Lightroom from a global editor to a fully parametric, flexible content enhancement editor. The adjustment brush capabilities have improved with every release of Lightroom since then, but you may not have been aware of the existence of Adjustment Brush Presets. Adjustment Brush parameters can be set and reset at will, but Lightroom allows you to save specific settings together as an Adjustment Brush Preset. These presets may help you to speed your work and to operate more efficiently, especially in cases where you may be performing similar edits across many images. Check out the video for tips on using, creating and managing Adjustment Brush Presets. Lightroom Adjustment Brush Presets are not as powerful and flexible as their Photoshop brush cousins, but they are still quite useful. Keep in mind the main limitation of the Adjustment Brush Presets:

Adjustment Brush Presets store develop parameters only!

The Adjustment Brush Presets don’t contain brush tip parameters such as size, density, flow or feather. Furthermore, the actual shape of the area you have brushed on your image isn’t stored in the preset. With those limitations in mind, you’re ready to begin to use and create Lightroom Adjustment Brush Presets, as demonstrated here in the video. If you want to see more creative tips, check out my video on Lightroom adjustment brush tricks.

 

First published at TipSquirrel.com

Photoshop Rounded Rectangles and Bender From Futurama

Originally posted at TipSquirrel.com 

Photoshop Nut : Eric Renno

I recently created this Bender from Futurama as an exercise for a live class and posted the result on line. There was some interest so I thought I'd share it with all my TipSquirrel friends.

As mentioned in the video, the file is available, with all the finished layers and guides. You'll find it beneath the video in the 'Media locker' at TipSquirrel.com. (All this is is a way to share the post and keep the content free to all.)

Lightroom Mobile Quick Setup Guide

Originally posted at TipSquirrel.com 

Photoshop Nut : Michael Hoffman 

As you may have noticed, Adobe has just released Lightroom 5.4, along with the new Lightroom Mobile for iPad. Lightroom mobile extends your workflow beyond the desktop, and onto your iPad, where you can review, rate and even edit your images, and have the changes synchronized automatically back to your main catalog.

Lightroom uses the Creative Cloud storage services as the hub for this synchronization, and as a result, you must be a member of one of the subscription services for this to work, including any of the Creative Cloud plans, or the Photoshop Photography Program.

The iPad app is completely free, so this is just another benefit of the Creative Cloud subscription. Lightroom Mobile uses Collections as the basis for synchronization, so make sure you are familiar with using Collections in Lightroom to support this workflow.

Setting up Lightroom Mobile isn’t very difficult, but there are a few things that must be done in the proper sequence for it to work. Let’s step through the basics of getting things rolling.

First, download the new programs

You’ll need to download and install the new update for Lightroom 5.4 for your desktop. You can find it here:

• Lightroom 5.4 Update for Windows
• Lightroom 5.4 Update for Mac

You’ll also want to download Lightroom Mobile for iPad. You can find it here:

• Lightroom Mobile for iPad

Once you’ve completed the downloads, you’re ready to move on.

Next, configure Lightroom on the Desktop

When you start Lightroom 5.4, you’ll notice a change where the Identity plate used to be. Now, there’s a new identity section with a place for you to configure your settings with Lightroom Mobile.

Clicking the link to “Get started with Lightroom mobile” beings up a menu with a selection to enable you to sign in with your Adobe ID:

 



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Coloring with Photoshop – Skin

Originally posted at TipSquirrel.com 

Photoshop Nut : Janine Smith

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We’re going to perk things up a bit with a little help from history. First, we need to ask ourselves a couple of questions; what era is our image from and what era’s style do we want to borrow from? Of course, you can color your images any way you like, but personally, I like to borrow styles from the era the image was taken in. For the really old images that may mean striving for a watercolor or pastel look of a hand tinted image and portraits taken in the 40’s may call for the more saturated, glamorous style of that era. I’ll go more into the styles of each era and inspiration at a later date, but for now, since the image I’m working on was taken in the 40’s, you can go online and find an image or images from that era that appeals to you in terms of skin and hair color. You may feel like it’s wrong to borrow an image, but It’s okay to use these images for this purpose – all you’re going to do is sample color palettes, you’re not using the image or reproducing it in any other way. I liked the skin tones in this image of Rita Hayworth so I sampled some of the colors"

Continue to tutorial >>

Creating Torn Edges in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements

Originally posted at TipSquirrel.com 

Photoshop Nut : David Asch

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Hello everyone. This month I'm donning my top hat and tuxedo to perform a spectacular card trick for you.

First, I'll tear the card in half and then, without so much as a wave of a magic wand, I'll seamlessly mend it right in front of your very eyes! Seriously, though, if you've ever gone delving into the many filters available in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, you will no doubt have come across the Torn Edges filter.

As the name suggests, it will give you a super torn edge effect on your image. Well, no, actually it won't, not if it's applied directly to the image, that is; all you'll end up creating is a fuzzy monochrome graphic element. In this tutorial, that can be used with both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, I'll be showing you how to create a realistic torn edge using the Torn Edge filter but done in a different way.

Rather than applying the filter to the image, it will be applied to a layer mask. As we'll see, working in this way produces very different results; the effect does exactly what it's supposed to. We'll also see how filters can be layered within the Filter Gallery to create composited effects. This is a great way of creating the effect and it can be applied in many different situations. It also gives you much more control over the result than you would when using custom brushes or scanned elements.

Continue to the Tutorial >>

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Hand Painted Border Brushes For Photoshop

Originally posted at TipSquirrel.com 
Photoshop Nut : Gavin Hoey


I’m a sucker for a border and Photoshop has a raft of ways in which you can create a border from scratch. The only downside with some Photoshop border effects is they can look digitally created and by that I mean they lack the subtle changes and randomness that only a handmade border provides. So here’s a solution. Paint your own borders and turn them into custom brushes. Since Photoshop CS6 brushes can be up to 5000 pixels long, twice the size of Photoshop CS5 and that opens up a lot more creative possibilities. To get you started we’re sharing the same brush image that you’ll see used in this video. All you need to do is download it.

Click here to get the FREE brush set.

This will take you to TipSquirrel.com where we'll ask you to Tweet, Plus or post to LinkedIn to reveal the brushes. This is marketing, not blackmail; ;)

Originally posted at TipSquirrel.com 
Photoshop Nut : Howard Pinsky

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Many Photoshop users have asked how they would be able to add multiple Strokes, or outlines, to an object. This quick tip will show you how it's possible to add 6 outlines to a single object, using Layer Styles, and a new feature in Photoshop CS6. Starting out, you need a shape. I'm using a simple star shape that comes with Photoshop's Custom Shapes Tool.


 

 

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3D in Photoshop CS6 - Materials Properties

Originally posted at TipSquirrel.com
Photoshop Nut : Michael Hoffman

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In the conclusion of this segment, we will look at assigning and modifying properties of 3D objects to define transparency and reflections. We'll create a reflection on the ground plan, and make some basic adjustments to the light in the image to soften the shadows. If you missed the first part, you can find it in my post on 3D in Photoshop – Combining Objects.

Click here to see the other videos in this series

The Photoshop Show 27 - With Guest Eric Renno

In this edition of The Photoshop Show TipSquirrel Nut Eric Renno is the special guest. More editions of this great show can be found here.

"A bi-weekly web broadcast hangout show. Your hosts Jan Kabili and Ron Clifford along with a featured guest with a specialty in Photoshop and Lightroom, discuss and demonstrate post processing features and techniques and the inspiration behind the art. This show is geared toward beginner and intermediate Photoshop and Lightroom users, though many advanced techniques are also covered."

Step Into Your Image with Photoshop and After Effects

Originally posted at TipSquirrel.com
Photoshop Nut : Eric Renno

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In this video I take a flat, 2D image and transform it into a 3D image that a camera can pass into. If you’ve not worked with Vanishing Point before then you may wish to take a quick look at Multiple Planes with Photoshop (No 3D Layers). There’s two techniques here, one uses only Photoshop while the second uses Photoshop and After Effects. 

Conditional Actions in Photoshop

Originally posted at TipSquirrel.com
Photoshop Nut : Richard Hales

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The latest update to Photoshop (only available to Creative Cloud users, don’t blame me talk to Adobe, but I probably agree with you) included something called Conditional Actions.  Conditional Actions are a way of adding a clause to an action that will cause another action to run if the clause is applicable or another to run if it isn’t.  Clear?  No, probably not, so I’ll create a real world example to explain more clearly (hopefully).   One thing I end up doing a lot is preparing images for tutorials, this involves using the Save For Web function in Photoshop, in-putting size and quality settings, selecting a place to save the image and then close without saving.  I have two actions to do this for me, one for landscape and square images (the square action works with portrait images too), which means running a Batch command for several images would have been a fiddle and a faff. What Conditional Actions allow me to do is to create a new action that selects which of my two existing actions to run depending on whether the image is landscape or square/portrait.   To do this, open the Actions palette and create a new action (press the new icon at the bottom of the palette or use the palette's pop out menu)

    

Name it as you wish but make sure that you save the action the set where the actions you are going to use are located.  Don’t worry about pressing record as you do not need to be recording to create a Conditional.   Go back to the pop out menu and click on “Insert Conditional…”   opens the Conditional Action dialogue box

 

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Cutting the fringe – Selective Colour in Photoshop

Originally posted at TipSquirrel.com
Photoshop Nut : Scot Baston

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I encountered a little problem the other day while creating something in Photoshop.. not my usual photography but pulling some low resolution text from a black background. Normally the route would be to create a selection and to use refine mask to remove any stray edges of the background. In this case the text was so small and with the compression on the original file, the refine edge option was not working for me, especially when you add in the complexity of the shape. Below is an example of what I had to work with..

my final image would be on a white background, so lets try the normal route first
 
As you can see, selecting the black background and using refine edge did not create the best result when shown on a white background. I'm sure better could be achieved by taking the time, zooming in to the text and using the refine edge brush around each of the letters.. but who has time for that? First steps first.. lets select the text from the black background. Using the Magic Wand tool (W), set the tolerance to around 10 and uncheck the contiguous checkbox.. then select the black background

   

 With the Background selected, create an inverted layer mask by holding down the Alt key and clicking the 'add layer mask' button at the bottom of the layer mask panel.

 

 Adding a simple white background layer underneath the cut out layer shows our current text with accompanying black fringe.

 

 So how to get rid of the horrible black fringe without losing the feel of the text and without spending ages refining the mask. My solution was to use the Selective Colour Adjustment Layer...

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Symmetry with Photoshop

Originally posted at TipSquirrel.com
Photoshop Nut : Gavin Hoey

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As a photographer symmetry is one of the hardest types of composition you can find. Nature has a habit of avoiding symmetry most of the time. You’ll never walk through a forest and find two identical trees and you’ll never see the left side of the sky perfectly matching the right. However it is dead easy to create symmetrical images using Photoshop, the knack is disguising the fact that you used Photoshop at all. In this video I’ll show you how to mirror an image and then apply a few tweaks to complete the perfect symmetric photo.

From The TipSquirrel.com Archive : Getting Started in HDR Pro

Originally posted at TipSquirrel.com
Photoshop Nut : Richard Harrington

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In this exclusive video for TipSquirrel.com Rich Harrington show’s us how to get our images into HDR Pro and what to do with them once they’re there!      

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From The TipSquirrel.com Archive : Building an ebook in Lightroom

Originally posted at TipSquirrel.com
Photoshop Nut : Scot Baston

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Today I thought I would try something a little different.. How about creating a book in Adobe Lightroom 4, converting it to an ebook and publishing it to the Apple iTunes (and Blurb book store). Does that sound different enough? The finished ebook will be available in the epub format used by Apple iPad and iPhone and should look something like this.. [caption id="attachment_14869" align="aligncenter" width="600"] free ebook created using Lightroom 4 and Blurb[/caption] So lets get started.. Select the images you would like to use in your ebook and go to the Book module As you can see above, all my images are showing in the bottom panel ready for placement. Before that, we need to set the defaults for our ebook. Do not be put off by the price in the screenshot above.. Lightroom only understands physical books at the moment and in this example we can create an ebook for free! I have chosen a square format book for this example, although the Standard Portrait might be a better option for creating an iPad ebook. So lets get started and create our front and back page.. Select the first page and click the little arrow in the Page panel on the right. This will bring up the pre-formatted options. As I want both the front and back covers to be full page photos I choose the 1st option. [caption id="attachment_14872" align="aligncenter" width="599"] Drag and Drop the image onto the page[/caption] Now, select an image from the film strip and drag it into place on your page. Using this multi page view is very handy for getting the overall order of your images in your ebook, but to fine tune how the page looks it is best to switch to either the double or single spread views With the Double Page Spread view selected I can position my cover image by dragging the image and changing the zoom settings. Now we can create a title for our cover page by ticking the Page Caption box in the Caption panel. There are many formatting options that allow placement and styling of the text. One thing to consider if, as in this example, we are creating for the iPad is the choice of Fonts. Blurb advise that you use one the following fonts to prevent formatting errors when converting to iPad format. Helvetica, Century Schoolbook, Futura, Verdana, Courier, Arial, Garamond, Trebuchet, Georgia and Times. I have not used fonts from the selection in this example but Blurb allows you to alter this during the conversion process. Adding pages could not be easier.. Keep adding and populating your pages until you have a completed book. Now Save the book by clicking the Create Saved Book button in the top right.. The book is now ready to send to Blurb to be converted to an ebook. This will bring up a loading page for Blurb.. do not be put off by the price as we use this book to create an ebook. Be aware that this uploading process may take a while.. make some tea, maybe even lunch and supper while you are at it. When it is finally complete, a web page will automatically open at the blurb website. As you can see there is a link to automatically convert you Lightroom created Book into an ebook. Click the link. Click continue and you will be asked to convert any non standard fonts The Blurb website will then notify you of any formatting issues and help you to correct them Click the page number to take you to the page (Page 1 in this case).. The warning tells us that the text overflows the text box. This is simple to fix by either changing the font size or in this case, making the text box a little bigger. Once you have fixed any minor problems with formatting, click the Complete and Publish button in the bottom right. Test your new ebook by downloading it to an iPad or iPhone to make sure that the formatting looks fine. When you are happy with your downloaded ebook, you can now add it to the Blurb bookstore and submit it to Apple iBookstore (if you want your ebook on iTunes). The submission to Apple can take up to 2 weeks, although can happen much quicker. Now everything is done! You can preview your ebook in the blurb bookstore and others can download it for their own viewing pleasure. and for those who want to see the finished result.. Download the ebook from Blurb or     I hope you managed to stick with me through this process, it is easier to do than explain! If you would like to find out more about Blurb and Adobe Lightroom 4 book creation.. Please check out Richard Curtis' upcoming webinar on creating extraordinary blurb books in Lightroom    As always, please ask questions or comments below and feel free to share the knowledge.