Photoshop Quick Tip : The best Photoshop keyboard shortcut!
Posted by Jennifer | March 21, 2007 | Leave A Comment
Ok, this is probably a matter of personal opinion (and perspective) BUT, the first keyboard shortcut that I insist my trainees know in Photoshop is …
Ctrl + Z (windows) Cmd + Z (mac).
This very simple shortcut will undo your last action/mistake.
If you need to undo more than one action then the other shortcut you will find invaluable is …
Ctrl + Alt + Z (windows) Cmd + Option + Z (mac).
Photoshop : Tutorial - Using The Art History Brush
Posted by Jennifer | March 20, 2007 | Leave A Comment
Rather than using the filters to create a watercolour or painterly effect, you can use the Art History Brush in Photoshop to create a nice looking “painting”. And it will make you feel like you’re part of the process of making something because with this tool you need to make decisions about how the effect will look.
1. Start by opening the image you want to paint in Photoshop. I’m using this close up of a flower. This is a large, high resolution image.
2. Select the Art History brush from the toolbox. It may be hidden underneath the History Brush.
3. On the tool options bar, click on the Brush options. Choose a “Dry Brush Tip Light Flow” brush from the list of brushes available. Depending on the size of your image you may need to change it from the default of 66 pixels. For this image, I’m going to leave the brush size as 66
pixels.
4. Open the brushes palette and click on the Shape Dynamics under Brush Tip Shape.
5. Drag the Roundness Jitter to about 50%
6. Click on the Color Dynamics. Drag the Hue Jitter to about 10%.
That’s all the brush adjustments that we need to make.
7. On the Tool Options bar, set the style of the Art History Brush to Tight Short.
(You may want to try out different styles depending on the effect you want to achieve). Set the area to 50 pixels.
8. Start painting on the image. It’s a good idea to paint over large areas of similar colour to get a feel for how the art history brush works.
9. Continue painting into the more detailed areas of the image. Reduce the brush size where required on the intricate areas.
10. Keep working on the image until you have painted the whole area and you have what should look like a nicely painted watercolour image.
Design Resources : Picfindr
Posted by Jennifer | March 19, 2007 | Leave A Comment
This is a new free service that I heard about at the weekend. It’s a search engine for free stock photography that you can use commercially. There are already several free free stock sites such as Image:After , MorgueFile and the great SXC.hu, but Picfindr should make it that little bit easier and quicker to find images.
As it mentions on the site, the service is neither “alpha” nor “beta”, it’s just not finished yet. I found it already works really well. I typed in a couple of terms and off it went searching on 4 different sites and coming back very quickly with thumbnail results.
As part of your search you can specify if you want to give credit for the image, not alter it in anyway or ask permission to use the image. Depending on your choices, the search engine will return different results. I know that I’ll be using this service regularly.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day
Posted by Jennifer | March 16, 2007 | Leave A Comment
Well Happy St. Patricks Day to you all! I’m looking forward to a few days off work - one of the best things about Paddy’s Day in Ireland is that you get a day off work, even if it’s on a Saturday! Also looking forward to a few of these babies …
Free Photoshop Brushes : Book of Kells
Posted by Jennifer | March 16, 2007 | Leave A Comment
The set of free photoshop brushes that I’m offering you today are based on the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is an ornately illustrated manuscript of the gospels created by monks in about 800 AD. The books were found in a town called Kells here in Ireland and I live about 7 miles from there. The manuscripts are now held in Trinity College in Dublin and you can go and see them in the wonderful library there.
You can find out more about the book of Kells here.
The photoshop brushes consist of some of the images found in the book and some of the ornately decorated letters. I hope you like them.
You can download a zip of the brushes here.
Photoshop Plugin : Virtual Photographer
Posted by Jennifer | March 15, 2007 | Leave A Comment
As you probably know, there are literally hundreds of plugins available for Photoshop. Some are excellent and some not so hot. I’m generally of the opinion that most of the things you can do with a plugin, you can learn how to do using just Photoshop and I like to try to figure them out myself.
Having said that, the Virtual Photographer plugin is one that I have had for over a year and one that I really, really love. It allows you to add styles to your photographs that could take quite a bit of time and effort to achieve in Photoshop alone. But most importantly the results are very professional. There is everything from sepia to ultra-contrasty cold steel styles. Very cool.
The plugin is free from the optikVerve Lab website and there are lots of samples and a forum over there too.
B.T.W. I have absolutely nothing to do with the company, I just really like this plugin.
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About
Hi, my name is Jennifer Farley and I am a designer and design instructor based in Ireland. Read more about Laughing Lion Design .
Hire me for illustration work too!
view my portfolio:
coroflot.com/jennyrusks -
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