Photoshop

A beam of light will be most intense in the center of the beam, so by making three different curves layers that get smaller and smaller it gives the light a sense of depth. It's also important to apply a gaussian blur to the layer masks so the light doesn't look unreasonably hard edged.

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Making selections is an essential skill for any Photoshop user. In this tutorial, we are going to show you 10 ways to modify a selection in Photoshop. By watching this video, you will be able to understand the connection between all the selection features Photoshop offers including; Feather, Contract, Expand, Border, Smooth, Refine Edge, Quick Mask, Color Range, Transform Selection and many more. Let’s get started! 1. Basic ModificationsThe following selection options are considered basic modifications:Add to selection (hold down Shift while using the following tools: Magic Wand, Lasso tools, Marquee tools)Subtract from selection (hold down Alt/Option while using the following tools: Magic Wand, Lasso tools, Marquee tools)Intersect selections (hold down Alt/Option and Shift together to intersect a new selection with a previous one)Select All (Ctrl/Cmd + A to select the whole canvas)Deselect (Ctrl/Cmd + D to deselect everything)Reselect (Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + D to reselect previous selection)Invert selection (Ctrl/Cmd + I to deselect what was previously selected and select what was not selected)Move selection (hold down Space while still drawing the selection with Marquee tools to move it around)Perfect circle or Square (hold down Shift with Elliptical or Rectangular Marquee tools while creating them)Draw selection from the center (hold down Alt/Option with Elliptical or Rectangular Marquee tools while creating them) Add to selection Subtract from selection Intersect selections 2. Save & Load SelectionsSaving your selections can be useful if you need to come back to them at a later date. Saved selections are stored as Channels. They are essentially Pixel Masks not assigned to any layer. You can find these options under the Select menu. Save selections Naming saved selections 3. Transform SelectionsThis feature is essentially the Free Transform tool, which will only transform your selection but not the content of the selected layer(s). This can be very useful when you need to create perspective distortions to shapes selected with the Marquee tools. This can be achieved by holding down Ctrl/Cmd while dragging one of the control points of the transform bounding box. You can also use Warp features to bend and reshape your selections with this feature. Transform selections Warp selections 4. Quick MaskThis is a very handy feature for making changes to your selections. You need to click on the icon at the bottom of the toolbar to enter Quick Mask mode or press Q. You can use the same keyboard shortcut to exit this special selection editing mode. Once in Quick Mask mode you will see your selection normally and everything else outside your selection with a red overlay. This setting can be changed by double clicking on the icon in the toolbar. In this mode you should work with the Brush tool and the Gradient tool to make fast and precise changes to your selections. Using black as your foreground color will remove areas from your selection, while using white will increase the area of your selection. Try using custom brushes to achieve special selections. Quick mask mode Quick mask options 5. Magic Wand, Quick Selection, Similar & GrowThe Magic Wand is a classic Photoshop tool. It creates selections based on the similarity of neighbouring pixels. This method can be achieved with two features from the Select menu. Similar will extend the selection by including similar coloured areas from around the whole images (not only adjacent pixels) and Grow will extend the selection only using adjacent pixels. The Quick Selection tool uses also the same sampling, but together with a very powerful brush method. With the Quick Selection tool you can quickly sample several areas with a simple brush stroke and you can customise the size of your brush to make precise selections. Adding Similar pixels to selection Using Magic Wand for selecting not only adjacent pixels 6. FeatheringThis feature will soften the edges

Last year I got a call from photographer Joe McNally asking to talk to me about a project that he wanted me to work on. I have the absolute pleasure of being able to call Joe a friend , but its never really lost on me the fact that when we are working, this is Joe “Frigging” McNally we are talking about. Joe is one of the three most influential and inspiring photographers for me – a long studied idol. To be asked to do a project with him filled me with anticipation.As it turned out, Joe wanted me to work as a guest instructor with him on an annual class that he does: The Advanced Flash workshops at Jade Mountain. Jade Mountain is a beautiful resort in St. Lucia. In this wonderful paradise, Joe takes out a small group of photographers and takes them through the paces of a variety of different flash scenarios. This isn’t a “What is your favorite Fstop” kind of event – you are a shooter.. with an assignment.. and your goal is to produce an image that celebrates the person that you are trying to shoot. From sunset portraits to mountain bikers racing along the jungle – you learn how to run your gear to light an image. My contribution to this? I was tasked to take the participants through the world of post processing as well as explore the world of HDR with them. I know. The concept of tying Joe McNally and HDR in the same sentence sounds like a complete shocker. HDR is often a polarizing topic, and many photographers have started big flamewars on its contribution to the photographic space.Joe however, saw this situation differently. To him, this was a technique that merited a space to talk about. While it’s not something that he himself works on, he appreciated the form enough to give it a platform. To that, he believed enough of my contribution to it to talk about it as one of the foremost experts on the topic (I assure you, his words.. not mine) Knowing how the industry can sometimes be on HDR never really bothers me. I believe that for the most part, my work on it stands for itself – and I’ve prided myself in showing through example how you can totally work on it and have great results – not the typical “Elvis on Velvet” kind of look people cringe at. Having said that, this was one of those situations that did make me nervous about me doing it. Here’s a person that I respected – asking me to teach and show my art. I would be lying if I didn’t say I was determined on focusing on other types of shooting entirely – ignoring the use of HDR. I figured my technique would be something that I would keep to myself, for fear of not wanting to look too different – or look bad.I guess I wanted to write about it because I believe that many of us as photographers struggle with that entire concept of voice all the time. In looking for a place for us to make a mark, we can often struggle with accepting the things that we like and surrendering to them. To giving in to what we love and in the process of it, finding a new style that we can call our own. We quickly comb through websites of other work and say to ourselves “Look at THAT. That image is great. If only I shot this. If Only I shot that.. “ Perpetually looking at the grass on the other side just keeps us thinking that the grass we stand on isn’t as good.. or cannot be cultivated as well as the one right in front of us.At times like this, I remember a maxim that my good friend Pete Collins shared with me:Comparison is the thief of Joy.Rather than sit and compare myself to all of the other stuff around me, I found it better to just sit and think to myself “This is what I do. This is how I work. Let me dive into the scenarios and leverage how much practice I’ve done with this technique to see if I can bring about something completely new that these people have not seen.” Eric Clapton was once asked about legendary guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughn. When asked about playing next to Stevie, Eric stated that he tried not to watch him play. To do so would have him lost in the greatness.. and not let h

In this episode, Julieanne Kost, Adobe worldwide evangelist, will demonstrate her top 5 favorite features in Photoshop CC, including the new Upright, Radial Filter, and Spot Healing Brush features in Adobe Camera Raw 8; image upsampling and sharpening; rounded rectangles; and Camera Shake Reduction. READ MORE... (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)

The family of Creative Cloud desktop apps, and many of the powerful publishing and collaborative features that were announced at Adobe MAX in May, are now available. These include... READ MORE... (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)

Discover how to enhance the reflectivity of an object to match the ambience of its environment in this week’s Deke’s Techniques. Deke shows how to enhance the sunglasses of a model posed in White Sands National Monument, New Mexico, using Adobe Photoshop paths, masks, and layer effects. READ MORE... (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)

Figures a movie called “The Heat” has melted their leading ladies’ features right off. Melissa McCarthy might be a bit overweight, but you don’t start (and then stop) at the top when you photoshop the pounds away – this poster makes her head look like a pea on top of a potato. The other version of this poster features a more artful job and the correct version of McCarthy’s head atop her shoulders. Thanks to everyone who has sent this in! The post The Heat: Turn it Down appeared first on PSD : Photoshop Disasters .

Live demo/Q&A at 10am Pacific: Create photo-real visual content fast with awesome new advancements, such as the Live 3D Pipeline between After Effects and CINEMA 4D, an enhanced 3D Camera Tracker, and layer and mask snapping for faster composition construction. Save hours of tedious rotoscoping work with the Refine Edge tool. Be more creative, thanks to advancements in stabilization and other refinements for a more responsive workflow. (time zone convertor)

The Best HDR Program Ever? German-developed HDR Projects Platin is the most intricate, feature-complete HDR app I’ve ever seen. It’s more advanced than FDRTools Advanced and offers more control than Photomatix Pro, but it lacks one thing: manual image alignment. The workflow is easy and simple enough. The app imports JPEGs, a large number of RAW file formats including Hasselblad files, and HDR images. Upon import, it will let you set color space, white balance, and a couple of preparation settings. When the images have been imported, your bracketed images appear in a left column with sliders for process weight and exposure. You can create faux HDR images by creating “synthetic” images from an existing one. Presets allow you to get started quickly. HDR Projects Platin comes with seven HDR algorithms, 51 postprocessing presets that can be combined and customized, ghost reduction and halo removal, and an expert mode with five tone-mapping algorithms and 46 photo filters arranged in six categories. Additionally, you can change the weight of the image areas by painting, a very powerful feature with a bit of a steep learning curve. The application has intelligence built in at several levels, starting with image alignment. However, this didn’t always work perfectly and a manual image alignment isn’t available. HDR Projects Platin does have a perfect halo and ghost removal system. The possibilities to convert up to 18 images into HDR artwork are dazzling. One example is that you can combine HDR tone-mapping algorithms or apply the same algorithm several times. Effects are highly configurable, with easy-to-use sliders and on-image manipulators. Company: Franzis Verlag GmbH Price: £99.99 Web: www.hdr-projects.com Rating: 4.5 Hot:  Controls; infinite creative possibilities; batch mode Not:  Awful user guide; no manual image alignment