Photoshop for beginners

Ever wanted to do abstract art? Well with computers it can be quite simple. Start by creating a new file with black as background color. Select gradient tool. Select radial mode as gradient style. Create a new layer and apply the gradient. Apply another gradient several times as shown below. Change the layer mode to "Color Dodge". Repeat the above steps again to create more disco loops. Create duplicate of both disco layers and merge the duplicate layers. From "Filter" menu select "Distort>>Wave". Press Ctrl+U to open hue/saturation window. Change the layer mode to "Screen". There you have it creating disco balls with photoshop.

Creating a flame that moves is quite fun, in fact all animated gifs are fun to create and watch. To make a moving flame start by creating a new document. Load a candle or something with a flame into this document. ( I used this one )The candle should be in a single layer. To create the flame create a new layer.Draw with a brush a flame with a brown or black color.Duplicate the layer (Layer-> Duplicate Layer)Now use: Filter-> Blur-> Gaussian Blur and Filter->Blur-> Motion blur. Use this filters several times for your flame. Create a new layer, again. Filter-> Render-> Clouds. Change the 'Blend mode' from 'normal' to 'Color Dodge'.

The basics of photoshop are extremely important to photoshop itself. Photoshop comes with a number of Auto correction features that can fix most common problems. Unless I am 100% happy with images I run most images through these to see if they can be improved. Open an image in Photoshop and then go to Image > Adjustments. You will see three Auto correction options: Auto levels The Auto Levels command automatically adjusts the black point and white point in an image. Basically this increases the contrast of the image in proportion to the colour channels in the picture. Auto contrast This automatically adjusts the contrast without looking at the colour channels Auto color This searches the images and corrects common colour issues. It identifies shadows midtones and highlights, neutralising midtones and cliping shadows and highlights. It can have the effect of washing an image out but generally it does a good job You can see in the following example that good results can be achieved using these tools.Fine tuning: The Auto-correction tools also allow you to fine tune what they have done. Once you have completed the auto-correction you can add an adjustment layer. Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer. You can choose to target many different aspects of the image. Which one(s) you choose to use will depend on the image has come out. Many other options Photoshop offers you hundereds of ways to improve the quality of images. Unless I'm doing some artworking I normally find that the Auto correction tools and a few adjustment layers will do the trick. If not you can explore the many options available under Image > Adjustments. The options are too many to list here but they are worth exploring!

When using your brushes it is essential to organize your them: The Preset Manager: Go the brushes palette on the left and click on the tab that says brushes. Click the small black arrow that appear when you click the brushes tab. A menu will appear with the option "preset manager". Or go to "edit" > preset manager. When you click that option the preset manager will appear. Here you can organize your brushes. You can load several sets into the pallet, rename the brushes to something you will easily remember and create your own sets of various brushes. You can also delete brushes. Not only can you organize your brushes in the preset manager but also your swatches, gradients, styles, patterns, contours, custom shapes and tools.

Do you want to recolor this white rose into a red one. It is quite easy, start by opening the image you want to recolor. Then choose the color you would want on your image. I took a dark red color. After that you choose a hard 70px or so brush. Make a new layer and choose linear burn as the blending mode. Leave opacity at 100%. Start brushing but leave the small details for now... Now choose a small 10px or so hard brush and start brushing details. Still not perfect though. Let's use a little blur by going to Filters > Blur > Blur more around 3 times to fix the hard edges.After that add some noise. Go to Filter > Noise > Add noise and do 2,50% Gaussian with Monochromatic noise checked.

Adding cool effects to photos is quite amusing. A fun one is to split apart a picture like a puzzle. First find an image of Guitar. Then open the saved picture in photoshop. We are going to split the image.Go to Views>Rullers.Or simply press CTRL+R.Then using the Rectangular Marquee Tool. Press Ctrl+J to copy and paste the selected part in a new layer. Repeat these steps until all the parts of guitar is selected.Try drawing different rectangles because we want to add this puzzle effect. Select a layer and choose the blending options. Again apply the stroke effect as needed. Now right click the layer you applied the effects and select Copy layer style. Go to next layer and right click on the layer and choose paste layer style. Paste the layer style to remaining layers. Click Ctrl+T and transform each layer. With some Gradient Effect you can get a better effect.

Creating photo effects is just about as fun as creating the effects alone. A fun way to make a matrix like effect starts like this: Open the image you want to create the effect using Adobe Photoshop. Make the background image into black. You can do this bay create a selection on the image, and then fill (Edit > Fill) it with black color. Make a new layer. Fill this layer with white color. Select Filter > Texture > Grain. I use the seeting in this dialog box like this: Intensity=100, contrast=100, Grain type=Vertical. But you can try different setting also. Select Filter > Stylish > Glowing Edge. Select Filter > Artistic Neon Glow. In the color box in this dialog box, select green color. Apply the setting as you like until it show a green line like the effect in the matrix movie. Change the blending option into Screen. If you want the model picture also look green, try adjust it using Image > Adjustment > Hue/Saturation. Check the colorize option, and then adjust the Hue and Saturation slider until you get the image you like.

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