Photoshop Tips & Tricks Thread

Hi everyone!

In another thread, I asked if anyone would be interested in a PS Tips and Tricks thread, and three people said yes, which is enough for me! So here it is.

Tip # 1; Non-destructive Burn & Dodge

A lot of people use the Burn and Dodge tools to make shadows and highlights on their garments; but the problem with them is that if you go to far, or you change your mind about where you want that highlight or shadow, you've altered the pixels, and it's very difficult to go backwards. But there's another way!



Overlay works by using Multiply on pixels that are darker than 50% gray, and Screen on those that are lighter. Pixels that are 50% gray have no effect on the underlying layers, so they are essentially invisible.

However, it is a solid layer, so it will show as 50% gray over any transparency. If that bothers you, just hold down Command/ctrl to select the non-transparent pixels on the underlying layer(s), make sure the Overlay layer is selected, and click on the Make Mask button on the layer palette. (The one that looks like a black square with a white circle in it, third from the left.)

Your layer will look like it normally does, except for the burn and dodging!

Hope this helps!

Questions, Comments, and other tips are more than welcome!

nice

WooT Thanks Robin

Good one!

Here's one that helps me, going along your tip. Never be afraid to add layers (and keep them) and layer folders. Even if you're not a control freak like I am, more layers means more chances to re-do things. And even when I make what I think is a quick change, I often find reason to want to go back and change something about it.

And the more layers you have, the more you need to organize them. Layer1, Layer2, Layer3, etc. don't make it easy on you when you go back to this project five projects from now. Start with clear names, then if you have more layers than fit in one screenful of the layers palate, use folders, colors, naming schemes and whatever else you need to group them together.

Thanks for that tip Robin. I will post a little one I know.


Suppose you have made a selection using one of the various tools, made use of it, deselected and moved on to something else. You suddenly want that selection back. All is not lost. Providing you haven't made another selection then Photoshop will have remembered the last selection made. The selection can be returned with the RESELCT option under the SELECT menu. Or SHIFT OPTION/ALT D.

Thank you Robin!

Robin, did you glean that advice from the Photoshop 7 WOW! Book , by chance? (It is an awesome book by the way, even for those with newer versions of Photoshop.)

Here is another way:

Do darken areas of the image.
1. Add a Level adjustment layer to the image and set it to about 0.5
2. Fill the layer mask with black.
3. Now paint with a white brush set to around 25% in the layer mask to darken desired areas of the image. Paint with black to revert back to original density.

To lighten areas do the same except set the level to around 1.5

Thanks, everyone, you are very welcome.

Great tip, Bobby! I'd forgotten about that one. Thanks!

No, Elle. I don't have that book. I've been doing it this way for a while; I hate to damage pixels. But the place I'm getting most of the new stuff I'm learning (like the Step and Repeat trick, which I'll post in a bit,) is the National Association of Photoshop Professionals.

It's fairly expensive to join (around $100 US,) but I've found it to be well worth the price. They have tons and tons of really good tutorials, and all kinds of other benefits, too, like reduced cost on some plug-ins and things, and health insurance. It's also open to everyone, not just Pros, and not just people from the US.

Anyway, back to the Pixel Mines for me!

Thanks Robin on the non destructive dodge and burn. Been looking for a way to do that for a while now.

Awsome, thanks so much Robin... I like this way better

Wait! I am confused.... when I save it and I upload in SL, the alpha part looks grey, what do I do with that grey part? erase it? (the alpha par)

i second the 'napp' membership - they collect some of the keenest tricks. i'd also highly recommend getting a copy of 'real world photoshop' - i never really understood ps 'till i read that book.

don't know if this contributes much new, but here goes! continuing upon the 'recall a selection' tip - lol, that's one i never knew about, since i'm a habitual mask-user...

an active selection is a loaded mask, and a mask is a stored selection... and the language is grayscale. the quickmask lives up to its name, in that it's not a very useful storage bin (though it can be occassionally handy to spot-check a freshly loaded selection).

so, i always make empty layers just to use their masks for selection storage. if you've got a complicated selection you want to store away for the future, make a new layer and give it a mask - your live selection instantly saves a mask, ready to load again later...

on a mac, command-click (pc is maybe control-click?) on a layer mask to load it as a selection. also, command-clicking on a paint layer (sans mask) will load it according to its current transparency (if the layer is already 100% opaque, you'll just get a 'select all'). different shift/option combos will let you stencil your selection with add/subtract/intersects.

or, even better, flip through the channels and load one of those - great for making the sky in your photographs bluer, etc. for something like a photographic source, most likely the source mask by itself won't really do; it needs to be adjusted for contrast, and tightened up to the 'seam' for a good mask fit (and some require experimentation of combinations of masks)... and that's the part i love about seeing a grayscale mask - i can do that very precisely, by also filling in the whole paint layer with some contrasting 'warning' color, then click the mask and fiddle with the curves on it until i see that i'm getting a good fit. fine-tuning a mask to either then load up as a live selection, or to use on a copy of the same photograph with grouped adjustment layers... very flexible arrangement.

(edit: that is to remind that masks have two essential uses... to define the trasparency of a paint layer, or, often on an otherwise emtpy layer, is only for loading as an active selection later on. or both! verrry powerful in the right combinations.)

so, i always work (well - ALMOST always, but you'll discover these extreme cases on your own with 100% opaque layers when possible (i guess text doesn't quite count, but in some designs where you've gotta do type in ps, it still can be a bit of a handstand)... letting the paint layer only define completely solid color/details while the mask completely defines its shape and transparency. it's much easier to control the design, and to fix the probs when the transparency isn't 'baked' into the layer and color already.

oh, another quick one (or two - or one-and-a-half - make and save a couple of curve profiles, one tuned with a verrrrry high curve, and the other with a verrrrry low curve - 'hi-pass' and 'lo-pass', if you wanna be tech-phile about it. i load both of these (AS ADJUSTMENT LAYERS-060222 in on most works (esp. illustration on white backgrounds), and just toggle these adjustment layers on and off and look over the work for stray, very light brushmarks or transparency errors. varying intensities of these curves can be used to finetune composites together, making sure their various ranges meld nicely. (helps make the difference between special effects you can or can't tell were 'just added to the scene'...)

hope that helps someone... keep up the tipping! super-interesting...

Hi Palomma! I'm not quite sure what you mean by "the alpha part looks gray." The part that's supposed to be transparent? Ummm... it should be transparent, unless there's something going on with your alpha mask.

Wait... you have PS 7, right? Are you using image transparency to make your alpha? That's not recommended, for lots of reasons that are mentioned in other threads.

But, if that's what you're doing, yes, you'll have to erase the extra gray. Just ctrl+click on the layer thumbnail for the non-gray layer to select by layer transparency, Invert the selection (Selection > Inverse) so you have selected the transparent pixels, not the opaque ones, click on the Gray layer to Select it, and tap Delete.

But, honestly, do try using normal Alpha layers. You can make them just like you made the layer selection above, but instead of Selection > Inverse you choose Selection > Save (and don't delete anything.) And once you have one, you don't have to worry about what is and isn't transparent in your image, since the Alpha will make it all go away when it's uploaded to SL.

Nyoko, great tips! I especially like the one about the High Pass and Low Pass curves to check for stray marks and errors. I'm going to write that one down, and start to use it myself.

i should further clarify what i meant - those curves should be very steep bell curves (the kind you usually avoid, not just dragging the white point very low. don't bother setting too many, but use enough that the curve comes out smooth and doesn't go outta control like it does with too -few- points.

Another simple one about layer folders. If you work with many layers and am going to reuse them in new images/textures, just put the layers in question in a layer folder and drag that over to the new image. Saves a lot of time compared to copying and adjusting position of layers if you copy several from old image to new image.

When using alpha channels, especially ones that will become complicated ones, I use one alpha channel for each element. That way I can experiment with density, contrast, sharpness and so on until alpha is perfect. Then combine all of them into the final alpha channel.

If you have trouble saving images with alpha channels from Photoshop 7, and have a previous version of Photoshop, then just copy the Targa loader/saver from that to Photoshop 7.

If you have Photoshop 7 or newer, and have elected to also use plugins from Photoshop 6, Photoshop 7, CS and CS2 may protest about missing dll's, uncompatible mmxcore and such when starting up (pc version). Don't worry - just untick use additional plugins in preferences.

Don't underestimate the power of using paths when creating clothes. You can easily adjust them - much easier than using other methods to preserve your shapes. Build a library of clothing shapes as you get more experienced - they will be great timesavers for you.

For enhancing the look of skin when photographing in sl, copy the red and the blue channels from the color image to new layers. Then play with blending modes, percentages and contrast/brightness until it looks good You may want to blur the blue channel somewhat since it contain much noise. Or use CS2's photo noise removal filter.


Lis

bump

Hi, thanks so much for posting about this! I know it's been here awhile, but I'm new and just found it.

I do have a question, though. The technique works great when I'm working with an outfit that is any hue other than white or black. With white and black, I can see the change taking place on my overlay layer, but it doesn't affect the under layer. Am I doing something wrong?

*edit* nevermind. A continued google search answered my question.

I have a question that has bugged me for a while, that all you Photoshop guru should be able to answer. IN Paint Shop pro from 6 on there has been a tool called Raster deform. (looks like a pound sigh with dots in the holes). The closest mI can come to that on Photoshop is either liquify or Free transform. Is a tool that deform a cut image, that is pasted in (not the whole image, ie.)?

Brushed aluminium:

okay this is an easy one, first make a gradient with 2 shades of grey, like 32 32 32 and 200 200 200

then use noize, monochromatic, and add a good deal of moize without alterating the tones too much

finally, blur > radial blur

and it will give you a quite nice brushed shiny surface wich can be colorized to your liking

Say your working with a layer that has a transparent background and you want only whats in the layer to show in sl. Like tatoos etc.

You select the layer you want to show in sl
You rclick the picture for the layer.
Select layer transparency
then go to channels (its a tab next to teh layer tab)
create a new channel (will say alpha)
hit alt-del
then save as 32bit tga

If you have issues with a white halo.
Add a new layer teh color of your tattoo or what ever underneith the layer you want displayed before you save.
make sure only your layer you want to show and the background you just created is visable.

Easy method to get rid of a background.

Say you have aimage you want to make the background transparent.
I usually load up the image.
go to save as for web.

Then in the color palet you select the colors you want transparent and select the tranparent icon.
(for tatoos that are black i usually select teh bottom half of the pallet.

then save.

Then open the new image.
and goto image -> mode -> select rgb color.

rclick on the layer picture -> select layer tranparency
copy then paste into your template.

I was making a white 512x512 box and I put a gradient fade on the alpha layer. Regardless that I have a gradient fade half way through, and it is all black at the top, when I upload my faded image, I still have a white anti-alias line around the bottom of the transparent section. How do I go about getting rid of it? I did the tutorial on how to get rid of it by bluring a layer below it.. but my problem is that this is just a fade like a shadow... any ideas????

Andrew, if you are trying to have a texture fade to 100% alpha, and you're seeing a line, that's probably that lovely little "bleed/wrap" feature in SL. Where the texture wraps around to the top of the prim. You can get rid of it in world by lowering the repeat slightly to 0.995 or by "clipping" the bottom of the texture with a 100% alpha line (go into your alpha channel and draw a 1-pixel black line at the bottom)


another PS "tip" I thought I would send out there for folks who like to use the Render > lighting effects tools:

if you make one light source you like and want to make a copy, press the alt-key and drag the white dot in the middle of your already-made light source

alt is a useful key in PS. If you make a hue-saturation change, for example, and hold down alt when you hit the CTRL-U shortcut to return to hue-saturation, it will preload the pop up with your last values.