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The Photoshop Blog offers the latest Photoshop news and software updates, Photoshop tips and tutorials, and random thoughts from graphic artist and Photoshop expert Jennifer Apple.
March 15, 2008
Here's my latest collection of Photoshop tips, news and tutorials...
John Nack
Lightroom 1.4, Camera Raw 4.4 now available
Adobe has released updates to Photoshop Lightroom (Mac|Win) and the Photoshop Camera Raw (Mac|Win) plug-in, both available immediately for download from Adobe.com or via the Adobe Update Manager (choose Help->Updates from within Lightroom or Photoshop). The releases provide added raw file support for nine additional digital cameras, including the Canon EOS 450D and Nikon D60 -- bringing the total number of supported cameras to nearly 200. Lightroom 1.4 also provides updated printer driver compatibility for Apple Leopard Mac OS X 10.5.
A tip on Photoshop Mac stability
According to an Adobe tech note, it's possible that the Adobe Version Cue CS3 3.1.0 update won't get installed correctly, leading to a damaged framework file that can cause Photoshop to crash. To fix the problem, you can download this small updater and run it. If you're not able to run the script (e.g. you don't have admin privileges on your machine), you can go into Photoshop preferences (Cmd-K), then go into File Handling and uncheck "Enable Version Cue." The tech note mentions other Adobe CS3 apps, but I've tried the fix only with Photoshop. In any event running the updater is a good idea.
PSDTuts
Creating an Urban-Style Piece of Artwork
While grunge has its origins in the 90's, recently the style has been gaining in popularity once more. In this tutorial I will show you how to create a dirty, urban style image using both well known techniques as well as a few new ones. You will learn to easily extract complex shapes and we will also create our own grunge texture.
Fiery Photoshop Space Explosion Tutorial
Illustrating scenes from the final frontier can make for some beautiful work. In this tutorial - the longest we've ever published - I'll walk you through creating a spectacular space scene featuring two planets colliding. Strap yourselves in photoshoppers!
Create an Illustrated Look From a Photograph
In Photo Effects by Kyle Pero In this tutorial I will show you how the create a stylized illustrated look from a photograph. The best part is that it requires no artistic ability! You can do this to any photo and pretty much any subject but I think it works best with people.
Creating a Cool Brushed Metal Surface in Photoshop
Today's tutorial comes in response to a reader request, it comes from Tom and it won't be about lighting effects, glows, and sparks. Instead, I will show you how to create the brushed aluminum texture similar to the Apple products!
Digital Arts
PHOTOSHOP MONTAGES
Cut-&-paste creativity has always had a bad press – but digital artist Mike Harrison shows that it can be used to generate inspirational surreal images. Cut-&-paste montages in Photoshop are probably the first creative exercise new pixel jockeys do, after cut-outs and colour conversion. And while it can be a quick process to seamlessly blend a multitude of images together, there is a real knack to using them to build up a creative landscape. In this masterclass, designer and illustrator Mike Harrison has created a surreal digital scene using layer effects, vector masks, and the liberal use of dodge and burn tools in Photoshop. The result is a fantastic, genre-defying montage that shows that you can take cut-&-paste to new heights.
CREATE AMAZING PSYCHEDELIC ART IN PHOTOSHOP
Rob Carissimo reveals how to layer and blend images in Photoshop to create a hazy, dreamlike effect that’s straight from 60s California. The psychedelic look is always in demand. However, creating an illustration that has the appearance of being formed under the influence of LSD in a hippie commune in San Francisco circa 1968 is tricky if you’re in a studio in the UK in 2008 with nothing stronger than coffee in your system.
FILTER-FREE ART IN PHOTOSHOP
In this step-by-step tutorial, we’ll create a photomontage in Adobe Photoshop CS3 using only the layer palette. Our goal is to achieve stunning results without using any of Photoshop’s filter options.
VINTAGE COLLAGES IN PHOTOSHOP
Layer found images and handmade elements with Photoshop and Illustrator techniques for a witty, retro style that’s got dozens of uses.
PluginsWorld.com
Warping plug-in by 4N6site.com: plugin for Adobe Photoshop
The plug-in warps an image to map 4 chosen source points to 4 chosen target points. This transformation can change a perspective image to a perpendicular view (see example), or remove other distortions and misalignments as well. It makes it possible to make a perfect overlay of two images.
Color Deconvolution plug-in by 4N6site.com: plugin for Adobe Photoshop
The Color Deconvolution plug-in uses the sophisticated color deconvolution algorithm in 3D color space to separate or remove color components.
UnPlugged-X by VanDerLee: plugin for Adobe Photoshop
With UnPlugged-X you have access to over 100 unique filters and effects. These effects have been made famous by the long-running freeware series of UnPlugged but have now been enhanced in many ways and wrapped into one convenient plug-in which allows you to save and store settings, quickly browse through the effects and offers largely improved ease-of-use.
BittBox
Free Hi-Res Photoshop Brushes: Messy Spraypaint
It’s Photoshop Brush time again, and I’ve got a new set of 10 high res brushes for you. These aren’t traditional spraypaint brushes, so “Messy Spraypaint” is as close as I could get to an accurate name. Most of them are 2500px, and I also included PNGs for anyone not using Photoshop. CS1 & CS3 brushes, PNGs, screenshots after the jump.
PC World
Clone Away Your Problems
Use your photo editor's coolest tool to make unsightly parts of your photos go away. Have you ever taken a great vacation shot only to realize later that a telephone booth obstructs the middle of an otherwise picturesque duck pond? Or that a tourist in a loud shirt is right behind your family, poised in front of a famous landmark? Thankfully, you can easily eliminate those distractions with a little digital airbrushing.
This week, I'll show you how to clone away unwanted elements in Adobe Photoshop Elements, with emphasis on some of the tool's handier--but lesser known--options.
StockVault.net
10 free dirty and grunge textures
In case you didn’t know, stockvault.net began as a texture gallery back in 2003. And through the years all of the lovely textures have followed us through upgrades and changes. Still, a rather large part of them has not been key-worded yet, and therefor, does not appear in site searches (working on fixing that issue). Here is a list of 10 amazing grunge textures from our gallery that you might have missed.
Brusheezy
Complete Tree Brush Pack by Horhew - Photoshop Brush (40 in set)
Brush pack for Photoshop CS (may work on older versions, didn’t check out though). Highly detailed trees, rendered in Vue Professional 4.5, FULL VIEW for details, brushes have high resolutions. Contains about 40 tree brushes (didn’t count them):
-dead trees
-winter pear trees
-maple trees
-cherry trees
-palm and coconut trees(2 types)
-papyrus
-bamboo
Grunge Wood Brushes
by Literary Spring - Photoshop Brush (5 in set)
This set has five old grungy wood brushes. The brushes are all at least 800 pixels wide and are from pictures I took. I also have a zip of jpg image files that are available on my website for those who can’t use Photoshop CS2 brushes.
As always, a special Batgirl thank you to James Jean
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Photoshop CS5 & Photoshop CS5 Extended - Best Deals From Adobe
Adobe Photoshop CS5 delivers breakthrough capabilities to help you create images with impact. Refine your
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Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended software helps you create the ultimate images
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Find CS5 upgrade options and Creative Suite 5 deals at the Adobe Store. See CS5 pricing in UK currency at the Adobe UK Store. Visit the Adobe Special Offers page to find the latest deals. Save 80% on Adobe Student Editions. Try before you buy — download a free Photoshop CS5 trial.
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Photoshop CS5 Tutorials & CS5 Resources
See our Photoshop CS5 Resource Center for Free Photoshop CS5 Tutorials, and the Free Photoshop CS5 Trial Download. See our Photoshop CS4 Resource Center for Free Photoshop CS4 Tutorials.
Exclusive onOne Software 15% Instant Discount Coupon
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OnOne’s new Plug-In Suite solves six of the most frequent problems photographers will encounter in Photoshop. This suite has been granted American Photos Magazine’s Editor’s Choice award for Top Image Editing Software. The Plugin Suite includes:
Genuine Fractals Pro is renowned by both photographers and printers for its finesse at increasing images to more than ten times their original size while maintaining the sharpness and detail you started with. Think of this as the industry standard for image resizing.
Mask Pro is used to remove the tough stuff — such as hair, smoke and glass — while retaining the fine detail. You choose what colors to keep, then paint away what you don’t need.
PhotoTools Pro packs hundreds of high-calibre photographic effects into one user-friendly plug-in. It’s fast and easy to use. Gives your photos that pro quality look.
PhotoFrame Pro lets you enhance your pictures with hundreds of such design effects, or simply drop your image into a pre-fab layout in Photoshop, Lightroom or Aperture.
FocalPoint helps to control focus and minimize visual noise. Draw the eye to specific points in your images by using selective focus, depth-of-field and vignette effects.
PhotoTune lets you can compare images side-by-side and easily color correct and enhance them. PhotoTune optimizes the dynamic range, color and sharpness of your image without the need to know all the complicated controls in Photoshop like levels and curves.
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Nik Software 15% Instant Discount - Exclusive 15% Coupon
Enter our exclusive discount coupon code - NIKPSS - during the checkout process at Nik Software for an instant 15% discount on any Nik Software product. This exclusive discount coupon code can be applied to all the latest Nik Software Photoshop plugins, including Silver Efex Pro, Color Efex Pro, Viveza, Sharpener Pro, and Dfine.
Color Efex Pro
52 photographic filters with over 250 effects for professional quality images.
Completely Original. Completely Indispensable.
Nik Software Color Efex Pro filters are the leading photographic filters for digital photography. The award-winning Color Efex Pro filters are widely used by many of today's professional photographers around the world to save time and get professional level results. Whether you choose the Complete Edition, Select Edition, or Standard Edition, you’ll get traditional and stylizing filters that offer virtually endless possibilities to enhance and transform images quickly and easily.
Patented U Point technology provides the ultimate control to selectively apply enhancements without the need for any complicated masks, layers or selections. Control color, light and tonality in your images and create unique enhancements with professional results. With 52 filters and over 250 effects found in Color Efex Pro, you can perform high quality retouching, color correction, and endless creative enhancements to your photographs. Download a free Trial version.
Viveza
The most powerful tool to selectively control color and light in photographic images without the need for complicated selections or layer masks.
Two of the most important factors in creating great photography are color and light. Mastering the art of selectively correcting or enhancing each of these is now possible for every photographer without the need for complicated masks or selections, or expert-level knowledge of Photoshop. Integrating award-winning U Point technology, Viveza is the most powerful and precise tool available to control light and color in photographic images.
U Point powered Color Control Points, placed directly on colors or objects in an image (such as sky, skin, grass, etc.), reveal easy-to-use controls that photographers can use to quickly adjust brightness, contrast or color in a fraction of the time needed by other tools. With Viveza you’ll spend more time shooting photographs and save hours of image editing. Download a free Trial version.
Silver Efex Pro
Complete power and control to create professional quality black and white images in one convenient tool.
Silver Efex Pro from Nik Software is the most powerful tool for creating professional quality black and white images from your photographs. For the first time, all the advanced power and control required for professional results have been brought together in one convenient tool.
Featuring Nik Software’s patented U Point technology to selectively control the tonality and contrast of the image, Silver Efex Pro includes advanced imaging algorithms to protect against unwanted artifacts, a comprehensive collection of emulated black and white film types, a variable toning selector for adding traditional toning techniques, over 20 one-click preset styles, and a state-of-the-art grain reproduction engine that help produce the highest quality black and white images possible from your color images while providing more freedom to experiment. Download a free Trial version to use Silver Efex Pro.
Enter our exclusive discount coupon code - NIKPSS - during the checkout process at Nik Software for an instant 15% discount. This exclusive discount coupon code can be applied to all the latest Nik Software Photoshop plugins, including Silver Efex Pro, Color Efex Pro, Viveza, Sharpener Pro, and Dfine.
Exclusive 15% Discount On All Topaz Plugins - Use Coupon Code PHOTOSHOPSUPPORT - Includes Bundles And Upgrades
Enter our exclusive discount coupon code PHOTOSHOPSUPPORT during the checkout process at Topaz Labs for an instant 15% discount on any Topaz product, including bundles and upgrades.
Topaz Labs Photoshop plug-ins are specifically designed to expand a photographer's creative toolbox by harnessing powerful image technology developments. Photographers everywhere are now taking advantage of the creative exposure effects, artistic simplification, unique edge manipulation, and top-of-the-line noise reduction offered in Topaz products. The Topaz Photoshop Plugins Bundle is a super powerful Photoshop plugins package that includes the following Topaz products:
Topaz Adjust
Deliver stunning and dynamic images with this uniquely powerful plug-in that features HDR-like abilities and enhances exposure, color and detail.
Topaz Detail
A three-level detail adjustment plug-in that specializes in micro-contrast enhancements and sharpening with no artifacts.
Topaz ReMask
The fastest and most effective masking and extraction program with one-click mask refining.
Topaz DeNoise
Highest-quality noise reduction plug-in that removes the most noise and color noise while preserving the most image detail.
Topaz Simplify
Provides creative simplification, art effects, and line accentuation for easy one-of-a-kind art.
Topaz Clean
Take control of the detail depth of your images with extensive smoothing, texture control and edge enhancement tools.
Topaz DeJPEG
Drastically improves the quality of web images and other compressed photos.
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Photoshop Masking Plugin Fluid Mask - Exclusive Instant Discount
The 4 1/2 out of 5 star review of Fluid Mask at MacWorld begins by saying that this "Photoshop plug-in takes the pain out of extracting backgrounds," and goes on to recommend the latest version, stating that "Fluid Mask is a very effective tool for separating objects from their backgrounds. It offers a variety of useful features for tackling almost any difficult image, from wispy hair to complex foliage. Online video tutorials and live training sessions help ease the learning curve."
Our friends at Vertus, the makers of Fluid Mask Photoshop Plugin, have set up a special exclusive discount for PhotoshopSupport.com. Go to our Fluid Mask page for a special, exclusive discount link.
Fluid Mask is designed for photographers, image editors, graphic designers and all those who take digital image editing seriously. In a streamlined interface and workflow, Fluid Mask instantly shows key edges in the image and provides comprehensive easy to use tools that work with difficult-to-see edges and tricky areas like trees & lattices. Fluid Mask will also preserve all-important edge information for a professional quality cut out. Go to our Fluid Mask page for more info.
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Did You Know You Could Create An Entire Website In Photoshop?
SiteGrinder Photoshop Plugin - Create Websites Instantly
There often seems to be a strict division of labor within the world of web design and development. Creative professionals tend to stick to the Photoshop domain, while those well-versed in scripting are left to the task of implementing their work. Indeed, the two realms are quite different from each other, to which any of us even vaguely familiar with either can easily attest.
Essentially, Photoshop is a no-holds-barred design studio, offering the artist a seemingly endless array of creative options. On the other hand, HTML, CSS, Java and the like follow strict rules of engagement, requiring the developer to take any number of esoteric concerns into consideration in order to ensure that designs are properly displayed on the web.
Turn Photoshop Into A Complete Web Design Tool
SiteGrinder seeks to bridge this gap between design and development. Basically, SiteGrinder turns Photoshop into an easy-to-use and fully functional web design tool. With SiteGrinder, designers will now have the freedom to totally let their creativity loose and then, without skipping a beat, transfer their designs to the web. Bringing esthetic concerns together with more practical considerations, SiteGrinder is an amazingly powerful tool that would make a fantastic addition to any web designer's bag of tricks. Mac OS X and Windows versions of the SiteGrinder unlockable demo are available now via download.
Photoshop CS4 Essential Skills - By Mark Galer And Philip Andrews
Brimming with beautiful pictures, Photoshop CS4 Essential Skills guides you through a project-based, progressive curriculum so that you can build all the essential skills to enhance photographs creatively and professionally with Photoshop CS4. If you are an aspiring professional or a student learning photography, digital imaging, or design graphics, you'll be amazed at the stunning results you can achieve. A DVD is included free.
The Essential Skills Photography Series from Focal Press uniquely offers a structured learning experience for photographers of all ages, with both the underlying theory and loads of invaluable 'how to' and real-life practice projects - all from the most talented photography practitioners/educators in the world.
Read 2 free sample chapters:
Skin Retouching Tips In Photoshop CS4
Transforming Smart Objects In Photoshop CS4
Find more Photoshop CS4 tutorials on our Photoshop CS4 Tutorials Page.
Read 2 free sample chapters from the Adobe Photoshop CS3 version:
Adjusting Exposure in Adobe Camera Raw CS3
Photoshop CS3 Tutorial High Dynamic Range
Find More Adobe Photoshop Books at Amazon.com
Find all the latest bestselling Photoshop books at discount prices at Amazon.com.
Skin Retouching Tips In Photoshop CS4
