Photoshop Tips & Tutorials

[ACPigeon]

Howdy, all y'alls. Here's a little thread where you can ask any questions you have about how to do stuff in Photoshop, and I'll attempt to answer them. And it doesn't need to be just me answering them; anyone can. I'll also post various tutorials from time to time, just to keep people educated. So, ah, ask away!

[ACPigeon]

Sorry for the double post, but I think I'll get this started off with a very (in my opinion) useful tutorial on how to use the Quick Mask feature:


Okay. Suppose you wanted to take a pic of Homsar, and make a neon-y effect through a diagonal line, but nowhere else, like this:



I dunno why you'd wanna do that, but whatever. You could always make a selection with the lasso, feather it, but that would take considerably longer than using the quick mask tool. And here are the quick and easy steps how:

1. First, change your quick mask settings. CLick on the mask button, shown below. Click it again, and you will get a dialog box up. Check the box that says you want the SELECTED areas colored in, not the masked areas. It's more convenient that way.



2. Now select a paintbrush. Make it soft, unless you want rough edges in this thing (Which can make some cool effects, but doesn't look as good). Paint in the parts that you want the effect to be applied on (In this case, the part that currently has the neon effect).



BTW, don't be confused by the green. I set it that way so it was easier to spot on this one pic that I was working on, and now I keep it, cause I'm too lazy to change it back.

3. Now that you've got your area painted in, press the button NEXT to the quick mask button (refer to the pic after step #1). That should turn it into a selection. Now you can apply whatever effect you want (In this case, it was Filter - Stylize - Glowing Edges)



Now, a couple of notes on how to use the Quick Mask to its full potential:

1. You can use the gradient tool while in Quick Mask to make the effect slowly fade away, like so:



Just remember: Black = Masked. White = Erases the Mask.

2. You can apply most effects to your mask itself as well as the picture. Suppose you wanted a selection that bulged out in the middle. Simply make a straight line down the middle of the picture (With QuicK Mask on, of course), and (while still in Quick Mask, of course) go to Filter - Distort - Spherize. Press Ctrl+F a couple times (This repeats the filter you just applied, a rather useful keystroke), and voila, you have a nice, oval-shaped selection.


Just experiment with the Quick Mask tool for a while, and you'll make some pretty neat effects.

[Regis]

Yo ACP-

Great idea for a thread. I had a question/wanted to get my 100th post out of the way, so can you tell us the best way to select a figure and separate it from the background? Something to do with the magic wand tool?


[refined]I apologize if I ever used a 'd' in Pidgeon.[unrefined]

[Floyd Pinkerton]

Yo ACP-

Great idea for a thread. I had a question/wanted to get my 100th post out of the way, so can you tell us the best way to select a figure and separate it from the background? Something to do with the magic wand tool?


[refined]I apologize if I ever used a 'd' in Pidgeon.[unrefined]

Well, you can do a few different things. The magic wand tool (I use that one ALOT) the magnetic lasso, the selection tools. If I were you, I would try the magic wand tool. What you do, is you select it, and click near the area you would like to select. (It usually seperates by color). Then, you can move it, or cut it, or delete it and more. If you need a more in-depth explanation , or something else, then just feel free to ask.

[ACPigeon]

Dang, I never thought this thread would get any replies. But whaddyou know, it did. Anyway, you could do HHF's method, or you could use the extract tool. I never use it, because I don't have any need, but it does exactly what you asked. Just go into Image - Extract (or press Alt-Ctrl-X). Use the little brush tool in the dialog box to paint AROUND what you want to be separated from the backgroud. Then, click on the little paintbucket-tipping-over button, and click inside the area surrounded by the green marks you just made. It should turn a shade of purple-blue. Then press OK, and it's separated from the background.


Of course, if you want it to look neat and not jagged, you could always do the quick mask method that I explained on the second post in this thread. Once you have the area you want extracted filled in (still in Quick Mask mode), go to Filter - Blur - Blur. That should make the edges of your selection fuzzy, so that the little mistakes you might have made while painting in aren't so noticable. (Then exit Quick Mask, of course).



And like HHF said, you could also use the magic wand tool or the magnetic lasso.

[Outpatient]

Yo ACP-

Great idea for a thread. I had a question/wanted to get my 100th post out of the way, so can you tell us the best way to select a figure and separate it from the background? Something to do with the magic wand tool?

I would say the "best" way to do it would be to use the Pen Tool to outline the figure by creating a Path around it then make that Path into a vector mask to eliminate the background.  Definitely the cleanest method but this may be a bit advanced for anyone not familiar with the Pen Tool.

[PokéHomsar]

Can you explain what the color dodge really does?  I stumbled upon it one day.  It has a really cool effect, but I don't know how to explain it in words.

[ACPigeon]

Firstly, I'm going to assume you mean the color dodge brush.



If you meant the Blending Mode "Color Dodge", I'm going to cover that in a later post.

Basically, it makes your picture lighter. The overall effect depends on whether you have it set on "Shadows", "Midtones", or "Highlights".




If you have it set on Shadow, it gives your picture a lighter, but very faded out kind of look, as in the following pic:

Original -

Shadow Dodge -


If it's on Midtones, then it looks sorta like it would if it was on Shadow, but a little less faded.

Midtone Dodge -


If it's on highlights, then it will turn verrry bright. Some parts of the picture will turn to plain white.

Highlight Dodge -

Those are the overall visual effects. But suppose you want to know exactly WHAT happens, on a pixel-by-pixel level. To understand this, you may need to be familiar with RGB color. Simply put, RGB colors are the combinations of Red, Green, and Blue. This is what most computers use, and is why you get numbers like FF0000 (red) and CCFF00 (lime green) in HTML code. If you can't tell, these are in Hexidecimal form, which is like the regular number system, but with 16 digits (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F). In an RGB color system, each color (Red, Green, or Blue) can have any integer value from 0-255 (00-FF). FF0000 means that Red = 255, Green = 0, and Blue = 0. This makes pure red. Likewise, CCFF00 means Red = 204, Green = 255, and Blue = 0, which makes for a lime-greenish color. Incidentally, in some HTML editors, if you enter "CRAP" as a color code, it will mistake it for C0A000 and give you a gross, brownish color. You can understand any HTML color if you have a Hexidecimal calculator and a decent understanding of RGB colors.


Person Reading This Thread: Uhh.... I thought were were talking about color dodge?

Me: Silence, mortal. I'm getting to that.


Anywho, if you have it on Shadows mode, then it will increase each R, G, and B color value by a number. The closer the original number to 255, the smaller the amount that gets added to it will be. Suppose you have a pure red pixel (255, 0, 0). Click "Dodge" once, and it will become a lighter red (255, 50, 50). Click it again, and it will become (255, 90, 90), then (255, 123, 123), then (255, 149, 149). Notice how the number gets bigger each time, but the amount it gets bigger by gets smaller (+50, +40, +33, +26). I could dive into the mathematics of exponents and whatnot right now, but I'm deciding not to.

Now, let's move onto Highlight Burning. Suppose you have that red (255, 0, 0) pixel again. You apply a highlight burn to it. It's still (255, 0, 0). "Hmmmm", you say. So you click it again. Still (255, 0, 0). You click and click and click until you get carpal tunnel syndrome, and it's still (255, 0, 0). Finally, you give up. Alright, now how about a lime green (204, 255, 0) color? Click it once, and it zooms up to (255, 253, 00). Click it one more time, and it goes to (255, 255, 0), or, in other words, yellow. Okay, one more color, just for completeness sakes. Saaaay... (74, 79, 179), which is a sort of periwinkle-ish blue. Click once, and it becomes (92, 98, 222). Another click, and it's (114, 121, 255). Keep clicking, and it goes (141, 150, 255), (175, 186, 255), (217, 231, 255), and finally (255, 255, 255), or pure white. Now, look at the sequence of increase: (+18, +19, +43), (+22, +23, +33), (+27, +29, +0), (+34, +36, +0), (+42, +45, +0). As opposed to getting lower, like they do in "Shadows" mode, they get higher. What's more, even the amount of increase in THESE numbers is getting higher. If you click enough times, any color that doesn't have at least one 0 for a value will eventually become pure white. Again, I could go into the mathematics of expontial growth and decay here, but I think I've bored enough of you already. To sum it up, Color Dodge makes your pictures lighter. "Shadows" mode makes the darker parts lighter, "Highlights" mode makes the lighter parts lighter, and I'm going to assume "Midtones" mode makes the moderately bright places lighter.

So that's basically what happens. Also, I'll note the Color Burn brush, which can be accessed by right-clicking the Color Dodge button and choosing "Burn Tool". I won't go into great details here, but it's basically the opposite of the Dodge tool; it makes your picture darker. I'm not going to go into the whole pixel mathematics with this tool, so just look at this picture for a comparison of the modes:





And if you were talking about the blending mode "Color Dodge", I'll cover that in a later post/tutorial. I plan on explaining all of the blending modes, which shall be great fun. Or at least a decent way to spend an hour or two.

[Regis]

dude. that was mind blowing. I can tell you really know your stuff!

[ACPigeon]

Thanks.

I wasn't originally gonna take it on a pixel-by-pixel level, but there was nothing good on TV that night, so I had to find something to do.

[PokéHomsar]

I have a different kind of Photoshop, I guess.  Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 is what I have.  In Artistic Skill Game 3, I used the color dodge to make some wierd eyes on Gunhaver, making him Funhaver.

Here it is:

http://www.sitesled.com/members/pokehomsar/Funhaver%20copy.gif

[ACPigeon]

Hmm... are you sure you used color dodge on that? To be honest, it looks like you just used the paintbrush on his glasses.

[PokéHomsar]

I did use the color dodge first to get the colors, but I had to use the paintbrush to even it out.  The colors I got from it and where they are came out of the color dodge tool.

[ACPigeon]

Hmm... I dunno what to tell you then. Pretty good job on that pic of yours, BTW.

[PokéHomsar]

I've gone through the color dodge tool, and it seems it changes it based on the color you have selected at the moment.  Making the color dodged color output be lighter or darker is up to the color that is selected.