My first day learning PhotoShop

I'm studying Automotive Design so if it means anything it will only take you about two weeks to learn photoshop. It's the 1000's of plugins available from various sources that are a ***** to learn. And paying for this is kind of weak. Just go to your local community college and enroll in a real class for as long as you are comfortable with. You will end up spending like $500 to get really good, worth much more than $20 an hour to me. Edit* I think you're in Cali right? take a trip to the Art Center College of Design or Academy of Art University.

 

I've been using Photoshop professionally for about 9 years now and still learn new stuff on a regular basis. You can learn the basics in a few weeks, but from there you start to discover all kinds of interesting things. Not that you asked for it, but in my opinion, the most important thing to learn is how to make selections. Pretty much everything you do will require you to isolate a portion of an image or layer, so being able to effectively select it and knowing which tool or combination of tools to use for that is key.

Another thing that's often overlooked is the importance of knowing the technical details of an electronic image like bit counts and how/why an alpha channel does what it does. It's sort of like becoming Neo and being able to see the data that makes up the Matrix.....

Anyway good luck and have fun with it!

-R

 

It's like chess: minutes to learn, a lifetime to master.

I agree with Robin - the devil is in the details, and the biggest thing is getting proficient at using the lasso and selection tools, and then experimenting with balances and the image adjustment tools to make things look authentic.

Of course, being around a place like this is great because there are plenty of people to tease with photoshopped images.

 

This a great post. I'm very frustrated with myself as it comes to Photoshop. I generally consider myself a quick learner. However, the program wasn't intuitive to me at first pass, what with layers, etc. so I bought a book to go beyond the basics of cropping, resizing, etc. One of them is Photoshop for Dummies (beginner-level), and the other is written by a well-known graphics artist (medium-level). Unfortunately, the books are thick and I haven't had the chance to spend time to go through each one and practice the lessons. Result is that I am probably taking advantage of about 1% of Photoshop has to offer.

One example of my ineptitude is that I want to make some cool avatars from pictures I've taken, but I can't even figure out how to get a border around the picture, much less modify the attributes / colors of picture itself - can somebody help me here?!

I'm thinking of taking some lessons here in NYC, but again I face the time issues, as most lessons are condensed into three or four day cram sessions. Most likely, I'll just have to double-down and try to go through these dry books.

It's a pleasure to see the works of guys that have mastered Photoshop, like ryalex. But for me it has been a very frustrating process so far. -

 

I've used Photoshop for years; but last year I took a Photoshop course at a local JC for fun. That course taught me several new techniques and a bunch of shortcuts; obviously well worth the time. So even after you learn the basics, you can go back and keep on learning more.

 

One of the best things about PS is that there's usually 20 ways to accomplish the same thing. Some are obviously better suited for certain situations... In the case of making a border around your avatar, that can be accomplished as easly as hitting ctrl-a (selects all, so you'll get a square of marching ants around your image), then go to edit - stroke, and set it to 2 or 3 pixels wide, click on the color box to pick your color, set the location to 'inside', and leave the rest as is... hit 'ok' and you're set. This isn't the BEST way to do it, but it'll work just fine.

-R

 

I've been using it (only as a hobby, in my free time) for more than 2 years ... and there are still things I wish I could do.
If I end up actually needing to pull off something on PShop, I'll take classes.

 

You sir are the MAN! Thank you!

I've been trying to figure out this simple command for some time. The "stroke" function?!? Would have never figured it out on my own. But now that I know setting up the "marching ants" is the precursor to the border, I see I can use that function to create a border inside the picture as well vs. right at the edge. The lightbulbs are starting to go off. Reeeeeeeal slow. But it's starting to happen -

Thank you Robin!

PS - Stunning profile pic of your 355B.

 

Thanks Friend of mine took that pic and kind of overprocessed it so it looks more like Grigio Alloy than Grigio Titanium, but I kinda like it...

Glad you got the border thing to work. A slightly better way to accomplish the same thing is to put the border on a separate layer. Just click the 'new layer' button at the bottom of the layers palette, then do the same thing from the post above. The difference is that now you have the border isolated from the rest of the image, so you can do a drop shadow to add dimension, put an outline on the border, apply some funky filter to give it a rough edge, or change the color all without affecting the picture in your background layer. When you're ready for primetime, flatten the image and save it as a different name (if you don't flatten it you can't save it as a jpg, gif, or any other web-friendly format).

Another option is to use the layer effects tools to create the border. Double click just to the right of the layer name on the layers palette and you'll get the layer effects window. From here you can add a stroke, drop shadow, beveling, etc etc and maintain the ability to adjust or remove the effects without ruining your background image.

Anything else you wanna know, just ask...

-R

 

Amazing, thank you. Will practice at home this evening.

I assume "flattening" an image is like "grouping" the various layers and should be done once you are ready to go final. What is the command sequence to do that?

 

Yup pretty much. I usually have anywhere from 5 to 50 layers depending on the image I'm working on. You can tidy them up using layer sets so you can have a set with all your text layers, another set with your background stuff, etc. Just keeps the palette clean so you don't have to scroll through 50 layers... When you flatten it, it combines everything into one layer. Always do a 'save as' when you do this so you can keep the image with all the layers intact.. that way you can go back to edit if necessary.

To flatten the image just go to the 'layer' menu and right near the bottom is 'flatten image' (it also shows up in the dropdown menu on the layers palette). I use it so much I actually recorded an action for it so now I just hit F2 and it flattens my stuff. Actions in PS are just like macros in any other program. A good thing to do when you're bored is to Google some websites that contain PS actions and download a few. You can go through them step by step so you can see how the action accomplishes its task. While they're generally pretty cheesy, they're a good way to see how people use tools and fuctions in ways you'd never think of...

-R

 

Robin, you would be proud of me. Note the Avatar and profile pic. All done by yours truly. Baby steps for the pros like you, but a huge leap forward for a newbie like me. One step at a time... -

 

Im a beginer when i comes to photoshop, i've used it for the last couple of years now, but i only use it for basic stuff, but still a pretty cool program

 

I wish I had the time to fully understand everything on PS. How many hours are you going to do Peter?


Antony

 

I've used it some but never have bought a copy for myself (used it at friends, labs etc) but I use and recommend GIMP its a free opensource program that basically does what PS can do but free and open source

I like the chess anology

 

Nice job! Next up, layer masks, alpha channels, and adjustment layers

-R

 

Two questions for the pros:

- Do you generally save in file formats that preserve layers - ie, TIFF, Photoshop, etc just to hedge yourself in case you ever come back to edit this pic. Or do you flatten the layers so as to be able to save in a more common format (jpg, etc.) once you're done?

- The avatar and profile pic I edited had 2 layers - the base picture and a layer for the text. When I tried loading these pics, they literally took 30 - 45 seconds to load a 800 x 600 image. No problems with saving, editing, once the picture was loaded, but really long to get started. I read that layers - while necessary - add additional complexity to the picture causing Photoshop to run slower so they should be cautiously added. At the same time, from what I understand, layers are essential to maintaining the flexibility PS is so known for. Do you also have loading delays? Perhaps I just need to reboot my computer. Running a 2.66 GHz Pentium with 512 MB of memory and Windows XP.

Thanks.

 

1) I always work in PSD format until I finalize the image. Even then, I keep the layered PSD version and typically save out as a TIFF or PNG (jpg uses a lossy compression algorithm that makes images look like crap). The worst thing you can do is open a JPG, tinker with it, save it as a JPG again, then repeat. Always always always keep a layered PSD version of your images...

2) Sounds like your system is fine, but there's no way it should take 30-40 seconds to load an image like that. Back in the day I'd regularly work with 100-200mb images and they didn't even take that long to load. Might want to check your preferences (ctrl-k) and skim through the memory usage tab. A good scrubbing of your temp files, trashcan, and a defrag are always helpful too.

-R

 

Need to reach out the pro's again, as I have not had as much as I would like to experiment.

What is the best way to blend the edges of an image into a background. Ie, let's say my screen rez is 1600 x 1200. I have an image that is 1280 x 1040 and don't want to stretch it to fit the screen. My XP background is black. I would like to blend the edge of the image into the background so that the contrast between the image and the background isn't pronounced

Best way to do it? Ryalex? Robin?

Thanks in advance.

 

Hey Vikito, the easiest way to blend like you're saying is to:

- make the image a new layer (double click on it in the layers palette, it should go from background to Layer 0).
- Add a layer, put it behind
- Fill the layer with black using paintbucket
- Using the square marquee tool (selection tool), set the feathering to a few pixels, maybe 4+, and then on the top image layer select a box that leaves a few pixels of image around the box.
- Selection>inverse (so that you are now selecting that area *around* the box).
- Filters>Blur>Gaussian blur

Another easy way, once you have the layers set up
- Use the square marquee tool with feathering on a few pixels and select around the very edge of the whole picture (instead of leaving some selected)
- Inverse and delete
- Instead of a blurry edge, this should give you an easy fade-to-black.

That should get you a basic soft edge. There are plenty of other things you can do using some of the different brush shapes and the erase, smudge and blur tools.
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If anyone needs any help with their p-shop skills, just ask Kirk Verdi from the UK section, he is or WAS a master!

 

Mac Daddy Ry - thank you!! Am traveling till Thursday but can't wait to try.

Best.

 

Might want to consider more ram for your box... not sure what you do with it beyond photoshop, and 30-45 seconds still seems excessive, but 512mb is a little on the short side. The speed will get worse as you have more windows open in addition to PS because each one takes part of your RAM and uses it.

Craig