CHANGE YOUR WINDOW VIEWS

Photoshop CS4 enables you to open and view your images in various configurations on the screen. You can open multiple similar photographs at the same time to see which one is the best of the group. You can also have two windows of the same image open. Photoshop automatically opens multiple images as separate tabs in one window. You can quickly change from one image to the next by clicking the tabs, and you can close any images you do not need by clicking X on the image tab. You can select one image and open it in a separate window while leaving all the others as tabs in the group or view all the images as cascading individual windows. You can also

tile multiple windows so they all fit on the screen at once. You can open a second window of one image and view an enlarged version in one window and the full photo in the other, so you can edit a particular area while still viewing the overall effect on the entire image. Comparing specific areas on similar photos is easy because you can match the areas displayed in each of the images and even match a zoomed-in location.

CREATE A CUSTOM ACTION to increase your efficiency

Actions help you perform repeated steps quickly. An action is a series of commands that you can apply to an image with one click of the mouse. Unlike a keyboard shortcut, which can only invoke a command, an action can open a command, apply changes to an image, step through another command, apply it, and even save a file in a particular way. You can create your own actions for steps that you do over and over and add them to the Actions panel. Using the Actions panel, you record a sequence of steps and save your new action. When you need to apply the same steps to a different image, even to an entire folder of files, you play the action, and Photoshop automatically applies the steps. Actions can help you automate your work for repetitive tasks, leaving you more time to work on creative projects.

Note: As an example, the following steps show creating an action of opening a new 7- x-5- inch document at 300 pixels/inch for a greeting card. To create an action for changing an image, start by opening an image.

Flying Land

Fantasy scene has always been difficult to create with great details. In this tutorial I will show you how to create a dreamy flying land scene by using various basic Photoshop techniques such as masking, color corrections, path layers. You will learn about creating some complexed and photorealistic things by combining various objects and effects.

Create a blank document and open the image entitled hill.jpg then isolate the hill part and import it to the document. Press [Ctrl] + [T] to transform layer and select Flip Horizontal then Flip Vertical to change the direction of hill, again transform layer and select Warp to adjust the shape of layer.

DARK THOUGHTS

Step 1

Choosing stock. I’ve chosen a beautiful background image and a picture of a model, both of which are perfect for a fantasy manipulation. You will also need bird brushes and hair brushes.

How to Paint a Realistic Eye

This Photoshop tutorial will explain how to paint a realistic eye in Photoshop. Eyes are by far one of the most important aspects of any painting, especially if it’s a portrait. It’s also one of the most fun features to paint, as painting an eye is much easier than one might think.

Step 1 : Sketch

Before laying down a single brushstroke, it’s important for me to create a rough sketch. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but we need to get our point across here. This will only make things easier during the painting process. Create a new layer and sketch in an eye.

Photoshop Masking Advanced ( Part 5 )

Similar to the Background Eraser, is the Extract feature. It deletes information based on color and tonal values and incorporates the advanced color decontamination technology as well. For more information, see the PDF file titled Extract.

Photoshop Masking Advanced ( Part 4 )

Photoshop also offers more permanent masking tools such as the Background Eraser. Like the Eraser tool and the Magic Eraser tool, the Background Eraser deletes the unwanted information instead of merely hiding it with a mask. It’s a necessary trade off though, as the background eraser is incorporating “color decontamination” into the selection that it makes. So, not only is it choosing colors and erasing like the Magic Eraser, it is also looking at the colors in the edge pixels and removing any unwanted cast from them to avoid the halo that is common to composited images. Unfortunately this cannot be done in a channel so the changes are permanent. The background Eraser uses a brush that has a sample point in the center and an affected area that is the size of the brush.