Photoshop is an amazing tool that can do almost everything you can think of with an image – but it is also very tricky to learn from scratch if you’re beginner. Therefore, it’s vitally important to form a few good habits right from the start and as a result, you will find yourself better positioned for any future Photoshop work you may encounter.

In this post, I will show you 5 Good Photoshop Habits You Must Form Right from the Start. Personally I think it will be quite beneficial for you to try and adopt those good practices, especially if you consider using Photoshop as a working tool and be professional with it.

The version of Photoshop I use here is CS4, but the points mentioned here should apply well for older version, too.

Habit 1: Get Your Workspace Setup Right, and Memorise Keyboard Shortcuts

Have a comfortable workspace setup for your Photoshop can make your life much easier in terms of the various task you’re trying to achieve in Photoshop. Have the right arrangement window position, layer palette layer, brush panel setup can get you a long way.

In the case of CS4, you will find a list of pre-defined workspace in window > workspace:

You can also drag and drop windows to your desired position:

and save them as your own favourite workspace setup for future use:

Give your workspace a name:

Another feature is Keyboard shortcuts – you can define them here:

this will bring up a list of shortcuts and you can make changes there:

You can also summarise them by pressing the “Summarize” button:

This will ouput a .htm file – I suggest you print this out and hang them somewhere easy to see:

I don’t have to mention the benefit of using shortcuts – after all, they are “shortcuts” to the art of Photoshop.

Habit 2: Don’t be lazy, Name Your Layers

OK, everybody is lazy in some way. But no matter how lazy you’re, name those layers you created in Photoshop! It has two major benefits:

• You will remeber what you did to your design, 15 days ago. Because the layers are named and structured.
• It will help others to understand your design better, and avoid abusive comments (especially if you work in a collaborative environment)

For instance, the screenshot below doesn’t make any sense:

We can give the layer some meanful names:

The named layer will help you remember what you did in the past, and help others understand your layer structure better.

Habit 3: Use Layer Blending Options Wisely

Layer Blending Option are used quite frequently by designers. It is quite a powerful feature where you can apply lots of effects to one layer:

Obviously, as a beginner, you tend to add on as many blending options as possible to make your design “POP”:

Sometimes, it is better keep things simple:

and the result may be better:

So use those blending options wisely :)

Habit 4: Learn Pen Tool, and Master it

Yes, Pen Tool is probably one of the trickiest tool in Photoshop to learn. I’m sure some people may choose to ignore it and use other tools instead.

I’m not sure how many people here have used Pen Tool (the icon with a little pen) in Photoshop before, but personally I think it is quite a useful tool when it comes to outlining and creating custom shapes.

In the beginning the Pen Tool can be a bit awkward to use, but once you practice and get used to it it will become a very handy tool for you, especially when you are trying to outline objects with complex lighting and backgrounds.

Here are some tutorials I found on the web covering the use of Pen Tool in Photoshop:

How to Use the Pen Tool in Photoshop: A Tutorial on Outlining Objects

Pen Tool Tutorial – Creating Selections With Photoshop’s Pen Tool

Photoshop Pen Tool (Video Tutorial)

You may find once you master the Pen Tool, you can use it to create a lot of elegant effects and make precise selection for your objects. Definitely worth the trouble.

Habit 5: Use Layer Mask More Often

That’s begin this part with a scenario:

You have an image (a flying bird in this case), and you decide to erase some parts of the bird so it looks like something else. But after a few hundred steps later, you found you probably overdid the image a bit:

Naturally, you seek help from the history window, try to reverse a few actions:

But often you find the list isn’t long enough to record your messiness, even if you go to the very top:

And you may have to start over again from the original image:

Worse still, you have a bunch of unnamed layers and objects mixing together, and you don’t even know where to begin:

So, to avoid the above frustrations, add a layer mask to the layer you want to modify – in case, you’re erasing some parts off the bird:

And you realise you made a mistake and erased the wrong part, or change your mind, you can simply right-click the mask and delete it:

And you can have your bird back just like that:

Put it simply: layer mask gives you extra protection against accidental mess-ups and save your time by not having to go back to the very beginning.

That’s it for this post! I hope this would help beginner learn something useful and try and form those habits before it’s too late. After all, you will be the one who benefits from it, eventually.

Till next time, have a great day!

When you first started with Photoshop, you might be overwhelmed by the amount of features and functionalities built for various graphic design tasks and basically don’t know where to begin. So what can we do to overcome this initial difficulty? Just like learning every other thing in life, we start with the easiest part.

In this post, I will provide 5 Simple, Yet Useful Photoshop “How-to”s for Absolute Beginners. Take a look and hopefully you will see after all, Photoshop is not that hard to start with!

Before we start, please note that this tutorial is made in Windows with Adobe Photoshop CS3 and CS4, options may vary in version and OS platform.

How to Draw a Perfect Circle/Square

This might be the first question every beginner would ask. So let’s take a look at the toolbox and find the set of drawing tools as shown below: (to expand, left-click on the rectangular tool and hold)

and You can use those tools to draw rectangule or oval shapes, as shown below:

Now here is the trick: if you would like to draw a PERFECT circle or a square, you must hold down the Shift Key while dragging your mouse:

How to Adjust Brush Opacity and Flow

This is an interest topic – it may seem to be really simple, but the amount of emails and comments I received in regards to this question made me think to include it here.

The options are in fact quite easy to find – if you select the brush tool first, on the option bar above you will the opacity and flow adjustment right there, as shown below:

How to Load Custom Brushsets into Photoshop

These days there are many free Photoshop brushsets you can download from the net, but how to load those beautiful brushset into Photoshop? Here are the steps:

Click on the Brush Tool in the toolbox and click on the drop down arrow next to the brush shape symbol, as shown below”

Next, click on the right arrow on the right hand side of the brush pallette:

You will see a list of options appearing, select the “Load Brushes” option from the list:

and a window will pop up, choose the brushset from the folder and click on “load”:

and that’s it! You will see the newly loaded brushsets in the brush panel:

How to Draw Paths with Pen Tool

Pen Tool can be use to create paths – however, it’s not enabled by default. If you select Pen Tool and straight away to use it, you will see Shapes instead of Paths, as shown below:

So to change it to Path, follow the steps below:

Click onthe Pen Tool in the toolbox and you will a bunch of options appearing on the top bar, click on the second symbol as shown below to change it to Paths:

and that’s it, you can now draw pure paths on your canvas as shown below:

How to Quickly Create Guides in Photoshop

Personally I think this is a rather important and useful function in Photoshop. When you design interfaces (eg. website mockups), you will need to create a sets of guides to ensure precision. But exactly how do we do this?

Here are the steps:

Firstly, if you haven’t turn the Ruler option on, Press Ctrl + R to turn it on, you will see the rulers appearing on top and right of the canvas:

Now if you move your mouse over on the ruler, then left-click and drag, you will see the guides appears on the canvas, as shown below:

and if you would like to clear the guides, simply go to View > Clear Guides

One extra tip with guides: if you right-click on the ruler, you will see a list of options to change the measurements, as shown below:

That’s it for this post! Hope you find it helpful and if you have any further question, just drop me a comment below and I will try my best to assist.

Cheers and have a great day!

In this tutorial, I will show you how simple it is to create effective, clean and fresh call-to-action button that will surely attract visitor’s attention, plus a super quick way to create this trendy Embossing text effect in Photoshop. Very easy tutorial, have a try!

For those who haven’t yet came across the idea of “Call-to-Action” button – basically they’re buttons that you would want all your users to click on when they land on your page. Usually they’ll be a link to a download, signup or sale. By making those buttons easy to easy and click on, you increase the likelyhood that user will notice the button, then follow up with relevant actions.

As for embossing text, they’re everywhere now on the web, and I personally quite like this particular effect :)

Here is a preview of the final effect for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

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OK let’s get started!

Step 1

Create a new document size 750px * 400px (size doesn’t really matter here) and fill this background layer with White. Create a new layer on top of the background layer called “gradient”, grab the Gradient Tool from the toolbox and fill it as shown below:

I decide to use this light gradient because it’s easier to demonstrate several important points in the next few steps. You can of course try out darker ones.

Step 2

Let’s type some text on the canvas. I used this font because I personally feel it’s a very clean and bold font, which you can use for a wide range of headings, or descriptive text.

So type some sample text on the canvas as shown below: (use a slightly darker colour for font colour)

Appy the following layer blending option to the text layer:

Inner Shadow

Stroke

And you will have the following effect to the text layer:

See, that’s our embossing text effect done. Very simple, yet effective.

Step 3

Ok let’s get on with creating the call-to-action button. Use the Rounded Rectangular Tool with a 7px radius, draw a button on the canvas as shown below: (Make shape you select “shape layers” on top option bar)

Apply the following layer blending effect to this button:

Bevel and Emboss

Gradient Overlay

With the Gradient Colour, apply the following settings:

Location 0% – Color: #0083be

Location 99% – Color: #31c8fa

Location 100% – Color: #FFFFFF

Stroke

And you will have the following effect:

Step 4

Now we have a button background, let’s add some symbol onto it so it provides some kinds of graphical meaning. In this case, I decided to make this button a download button. So naturally I thought of a down arrow would mean something to the user.

So grab the Custom shape tool from the toolbox:

and choose the bold arrow from the library as shown below:

Draw an arrow on the position as shown below, rotate it clockwise 90 degree when you done the drawing:

Apply the following layer blending options to the arrow layer:

Drop Shadow

Gradient Overlay

Location 0% – Color: #09c228

Location 100% – Color: #b4ff97

Stroke

You will have the following effect so far:

Step 5

Now we can type some text onto the button:

Apply the following layer blending options to the text layer:

Inner Glow

Gradient Overlay

Stroke

and you will have the following effect:

Step 6

Ok we’re almost done. To spice up the final effect, we can add some light and shadow to the button and text to increase their depth. To do this, create a new layer underneath the button background layer, grab a big soft brush with a dark colour, do a single click on the centre of the canvas:

Use free transform tool to resize it and position it as shown below:

To create a light divider between the text and the button, simply create a new layer on top of the shadow layer, use a big soft brush with white colour, do a single click to the position as shown below:

Again we resize it and fit it to the postion under the text:

and here is the final effect for this tutorial:

Final Thoughts

There are several things I think we need to pay attention to when it comes to making call-to-action buttons:

1. Always try to use fresh, vibrant colour as button background, and make sure the color differs significantly from the rest.
2. Apply gradient to the background creating more depth and make the button stand out
3. Use graphic element and symbol on the button to make it more meaningful to visitors
4. Use Light and shadows to draw user attentions.

Further Readings

1. Web Design Trends: Call To Action Buttons

That’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it!

I remembered when I first started learning Photoshop many years ago, there are many features I never knew how to use, or just don’t bother use them at all. Well, I was wrong, and I have since realised everything has their uses and they’re there for a purpose :)

In this tutorial, I will show you 5 Highly Applicable, Yet Easily Ignored Features in Photoshop -  and How to Best Use Them. Hopefully they’re of use to you as a starter, thus make your life as a photoshopper a bit easier right from the beginning.

Meanwhile, I guess even if you’re an experienced Photoshopper already, it nevers hurt to have a read :) Perhaps you’d like to share some tips and tricks too? Just drop me a comment below :)

Ok enough talk, let’s get started!

Turn on the Alignment Options in Move Tool

Let’s face this: you create a new document, copy and paste a new image onto the canvas, and try to position it to the center. If you’re a beginner, you may try to judge the center point by your eyes (I did it once). But believe me, your eyes don’t always tell the truth!

That’s when the alignment options come in handy. Simply click on the Move Tool (V), then you will see the alignment options appears on the top:

And let’s say you want to position an object in the center of the canvas, simply Ctrl + A to select the whole canvas, and you will see some alignment option become clickable:

And then you simply click “Align vertical centers” and “Align horizontal centers”, you will see the object is now positioned in the center of the canvas:

Also if you wish to align your object to a different spot, simply change the selection range instead of the whole canvas.

Image > Trim…

Ok, there will be time that you will face the following situation: you will have image sitting on top of a transparent or a single solid colour background, and you will want to get rid of all the background and leave just the image object.

Naturally you will want to use the Crop tool, however that can sometimes be tricky. So the Trim function can come in handy. (Image > Trim…)

What trim function does is that it lets you instantly crop your document’s canvas to the outer border of your image and clear out the rest of the image, as along as you have a transparent background or a solid colour background. Here is a demo: (I have a solid white background)

Before Trim

After Trim

Isn’t this much easier than cropping?

Unlock the Background Layer

Trust me, there will be time comes that you will want to unlock the background layer, for whatever purpose. To do so, simply double-click the background layer on the layer pallette, as shown below:

You will then be prompted with a new window, simply click “OK”:

And you will now see the lock on the background layer is gone, that means the background layer is now unlocked:

You can now drag this background layer up and down, just like all other unlocked layers.

An even quicker to unlock the background layer: (Thanks to dietoself86)

Actually the quickest way to unlock the background layer is to alt-double click on the layer.

Convert to Smart Object

Since Photoshop CS2, there is a new feather called Smart Object being introduced. We may know it’s there, however many of us may never use it until now.

This feature is available when you right-click the image layer on the layer palette, as show below:

I won’t go into great detail about the use of smart object here, however what I would like to talk about is that by converting your image into smart object, you can overcome the issue whan resize the image, it becomes blurred when enlarge back to the original size. Below is the screenshot of comparison:

Without converting to smart object, after resizing back to original size:

Converted to smart object, after resizing back to original size:

You can see by converting the image to smart object, it preserves the details and no matter how many times you resize it, it won’t go blurry.

More smart object options are available under Layer > Smart Object, as shown below:

Further Readings about Smart Object:

Photoshop Smarter: Smart Objects

Photoshop How-To: Get Smart About Smart Objects

A Word of Caution for using Smart Object: (Thanks to B. Moore for commenting this)

Using smart objects will increase the file size by a large amount. It all depends on size of the original piece thats was turned into a smart object. Using lots of high rez smart objects will make a HUGE increase to file size.

The Info Window

As a photoshop beginner, every now and then you will need extra information about the image you’re working on. And you may ask: How do I work out the size, colour and see extra information about the tools I’m using?

That’s when the info window come in real handy. To bring it up, simply go to Window > Info or press F8:

Once you have the info window open, it display some real handy information about the tool you’re using, and the size of the selection you’re drawing, etc.

Here is a example info window I have when I draw a rectangular marquee selection on a white canvas:

As you can see, it displays information about the rectangluar marquee tool I’m using, the size of the selection (in pixel) I’m drawing, the X/Y position of the selection, and the colour mode stats.

Those information would be quite useful especially when you need precise measurement, such as web graphic, prints, etc.

Ok that’s all for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it and find those information useful. Cheers and have a great day!

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes I used to Tidy Up and Smoothen Skin, and Do Eye Makeups in Photoshop. Along the way, I will also explain the steps you can use to effectively produce smooth skin and get rid of black spots on face.

Previously I posted an interesting (well, at least I think it’s intersting) showcase displaying 30 Stunning, Absolutely Magical Photo Manipulations Focusing on Human Eye. A lot of people asked if I could produce a simple tutorial show the steps you can take to do eye makeups. Well, here it is :)

This is a faily basic tutorial and it’s designed for beginner. Tools we will be using included Spot Healing Brush, Dodge/Burn Tool, layer blending, and adjustment layers. Have a try!

Here is a preview of the before and after effect of the eye:

Before

After

Ok let’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stock:

Eye

Step 1

Load the “Eye” stock image into Photoshop, now let ’s take a look at the original image and here is the analysis I came up with:

1. The image has a lot of black spots, and bits of hair that really disturbs me
2. The skin is OK, but if we can make it smoother would be bettter
3. The eye colour is perferably better in Blue, and those bloodlines in the white part of the eye can go.

After you’ve done the above analysis, duplicate the background layer once and name it as “face skin”let’s grab the Healing Brush tool (J):

Set the brush size to 15px, and hold down the Alt to define a source point as shown below:

Gently work you brush around the spots you wish to heal:

And clean up the lower part of the image as well, until you reach the following effect:

Step 2

Now we have a fairly clean face, let’s tackle the eye. Firstly duplicate the previous “face skin” layer once and name it as “eye”. Firstly we want to get rid of the bloodlines in the eye. To do this, again we use the healing brush tool, define a new source point on this layer as shown below:

Adjust the brush size accordingly to around 10-12px, work your way around the white of the eye until you reach this effect:

Step 3

Now we onto the smoothening of the skin. We have used the healing brush tool before however, for the overall effect, it’s really handy to apply the dodge/burn tool (O):

So duplicate the previous “eye” layer once and name it as “dodge and burn”, use the dodge tool with the following settings:

The secret here to to set exposure level to a very low amount.

Work your dodge tool around the area you want the skin to become smoother and lighter, until you reach the following effect:

Please note, you will have to adjust the brush size for different area, for the best result possible. Practice with it!

Step 4

Ok we can tweak the image a bit by adding some image adjustment layers:

Black and white (Set to blending mode to “Screen”)

Duplicate this Black and White adjustment layer once, and change the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “Hard Light”, you will have the following effect:

Now we’re on the interesting part of changing the eye colour. I simply created a new layer called “eye colour” on top of all other layers, grab a soft, round brush with a light blue colour and paint around the pupil:

Change the layer blending mode to “colour” and you will have to the following effect:

We can now add a shining reflection on the pupil. To do this, create a new layer called “reflection” on top of all other layers, grab a small white brush and paint on the centre of the eye, as shown below:

Step 5

Now we can add some dotty effect around the eye. Firstly let’s make this dynamic brushset:

Shape Dynamics

Scattering

Other Dynamics

and make sure you tick “Airbrush” and “Smoothing”.

Create a new layer, use this brushset to paint around the eye: (Set brush flow to around 40%)

and we can add a curve adjustment layer to bring some depth into the image:

and you will have the following effect:

We can add some final effect onto our eye. How about some colours?

To add some colour around the eye, simply create a new layer on top of all other layers, set its blending mode to “overlay”, and grab some nice markup colour you like and paint around the eye:

That’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it, drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!

In this tutorial, I will show you how you can utilise the amazing power of image adjustment layers to make colour, contrast and lighting change for any chosen image in Photoshop, by walking you through the design process of this man jumping scene.

The reason I put up this basic tutorial is that lately I have receive some requests from people wishing to learn some techniques involved in using adjustment layers.

Along the way, not only I will be using image adjustment layers techniques, but also I will show you some skills I use to create break-apart effects, pen tool and layer blendings. Have a try!

Here is a preview of the final effect of this tutorial:  (click to enlarge)

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OK let’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stock:

Jump

Step 1

Load the “Jump” stock image into Photoshop, double-click on the background layer inside the layer pallatte to unlock it. Then create a new layer called “bg” , fill it with black colour and put it under the background layer we just unlock.

Use whatever selection tool you perfer to clear out the surroundings, and leave just the jumping man on the canvas:

It doesn’t really matter if the selection isn’t perfect. The tutorial is not about teaching you how to make the perfect human selection (However if you do want to learn, here is a tutorial for you).

Step 2

Now let’s head straight to the image adjustment layers. You will find those options under Layer > New Adjustment Layer > … , as shown below:

In this tutorial, I will be using three adjustment layers to retouch this jumping man: colour balance, curves and brightness and contrast. In my opinion, these are probably the most frequent used adjustment layers you will be using for whatever design you’re doing.

Step 3

Let’s go ahead and apply those adjustment layers. From bottom to top,

Color Balance

Curves

Brightness and Contrast

And you will have the following effect:

You will see now the colour tone and the lightness of the image are completely changed, just by adding those three adjustment layers. And the good thing about them is that you can have more flexibility if you do want to make changes later on, because the original layer is not altered.

Also, because those adjustment layers are in fact layer, you can apply mask, or change the blending mode for them, to experience different result.

Step 4

Now I will show you a quick way I use to create this cool dis-integration effect. Firstly let’s create a custom brushset.

Select a 5px, soft round brush, and apply the following brush dynamics to it:

Shape Dynamics

Scattering

and tick Noise, Airbrush and Smoothing options.

Now load the selection of the jumping man layer by Ctrl + left click the thumbnail image of that layer, click the rectangular marquee tool, then right-click inside the selection and choose “Make work path”:

Then define the Feather as 2px, and you will have the following effect:

After you made the work path, create a new layer called “stroke” and put it just under the jumping man layer, then click on the Pen Tool icon, and right-click on the work path and choose “stroke path”:

Make sure the brushset you just created is still selected and choose “Brush” in the next window, leave “simulate pressure” option un-checked.

Change the layer blending mode of this stroke layer to be “Screen” and drop the opacity to 40%. You will now have this effect:

Step 5

To create some motion for the image, we can duplicate the “stroke” layer from the previous layer once, drag the duplicated layer to the top of the jumping man layer, and apply the following radial blur:

Change the blending mode to “Hard Light” for this duplicated layer, and duplicate it once again. You will now have this effect:

Step 6

To add some more effect to the image, we can grab this Debris brushset and create a new layer just below the “Brightness and Contrast” adjustment layer, and paint some debris on it:

And that’s pretty much it for this tutorial! I added some abstract lines stretching from his arm to make this image more vibrant. This require some basic use of the Pen Tool, if you’re interested, I have a pretty neat tutorial here showing you how to make this sort of effect.

Here is the final effect I have for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

Hope you enjoy this tutorial, drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!

In this tutorial, I will show you the method I use to quickly and effectively clean out Body Hair in Photoshop, which you can use for a wide range of occasions in your Photoshop Retouch works. The method itself is really easy (done in 3 steps and I’m sure you will have no problem in acquiring it :)

There are a lot of tutorials out there showing how you can do so by using the Healing Brush Tool. However in my opinion, healing brush tool is only useful when the area you try to heal is reletively small, and it can be a bit difficulty to adjust the source position.

Here I’m going to show you  an alternative way via the Smudge Tool and the Blur Tool to tackle the shortcomings of the Healing Brush Tool. Have a try :)

Here is a preview of the before and after effect:

Before

After

OK Let’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, we will need the following stock image:

Female Hand

Step 1

Load the Hand Image we just downloand into Photoshop and duplicate the background layer once (always a good habit, just in case something goes wrong).  The resolution of this image is quite high, and that brings the attention to the hair on the forearm (especially when you zoom in):

So our task here to remove them with the quickest possible method and make it as clean as possible.

Step 2

We need to make a selection around the hand and the arm. The reason we do this because later on when we apply the smudge tool, we only want to apply it on the arm and hand, not anywhere else.

So we can grab the Quick Selection Tool (W key) and make a selection outside and the hand, and hit Ctrl + Shift + I to inverse the selection:

Then Grab the Smudge Tool from the Toolbox and apply the following settings:

Increase the brush size to approximately the same as the width of the arm (as shown below):

Left-click and hold, and move the Brush toward the position as shown below:

You will see all the hair magically disappeared! But it doesn’t end here, we still have a bit retouch job to do to make it look better

Step 3

You will see around the Bracelet area, we still have some hair left. To remove them, simply grab the Blur Tool and set its strength to 100%, gently brush arcoss the surface around the bracelet:

Also under the palm there is a bit of hair there, we can remove them using the Blur Tool as well:

Maintain the selection, hit Ctrl + J to make a Layer via Copy and apply following Surface Blur Settings to this layer:

Change the layer blending mode of this layer to “Screen” and reduce the opacity of 60%, you will have the following effect:

Add a layer mask to this layer as shown below, this will create a better lighting contrast for the hand and make this overall image look better:

And here is the effect after apply the mask:

OK that’s it for this tutorial! Of course the retouch won’t just stop here, there are still plenty of methods you can try out to make the picture even better.

Hope you enjoy it drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!

In this tutorial, I will show you the method I use to create a stylish, clean and shining button for your website in Photoshop. This method is extremely simple with no more than five steps, yet it’s very effective since you can use the button for a wide range of occasions.

Along the way, the tools we will be using include the shape tool, layer blending options, brush and eraser tool. This tutorial is suitable for beginners as the steps are quite easy to follow in my opinion. As for advance Photoshoppers, I would love to hear you the methods you use to achieve such effect, just drop me a comment below.

Have a try, let me know if you have any problem, I will try my best to help you out :)

Here is a preview of the final effect for this tutorial:

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Let’s create a new document sized 640 x 480px and fill the background layer with Black.

The reason I chose not to create a document with the size same as the button we’re creating, is because ultimately we will be placing this button somewhere on a web page. Therefore, I think it would be better if we start on a bigger canvas so we will have a better overview of the button design.

Now add a new layer on top of the background layer and name it “background lighting”, grab a big, soft and round brush with a dark grey colour, do a single-click in the position shown below:

Step 2

Grab the Round Rectangular Tool (U) and apply the settings to it:

Draw a rectangular shape in the centre of the canvas, as shown below: (Don’t worry too much about the dimension, just a rectangular shape will do)

On this shape layer, apply the following layer blending options:

Drop Shadow

Inner Shadow

Gradient Overlay

and you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Now let’s load the selection of the shape layer by holding down the Ctrl key and left-click the thumbnail image of the shape layer on the layer palette.

Create a new layer called “Lighting”, on this layer, grab a soft round brush with white colour, do a single click in the position as shown below:

and you will have the following effect:

On this “lighting” layer, apply the following layer blending options:

Drop Shadow

Bevel and Emboss

Gradient Overlay

and you will have the following effect:

Optionally, you can duplicate this “lighting” layer once for more depth. You will notice on the top we created a shining edge line, which add a bit of extra flavour to the button design.

Step 4

Duplicate the “lighting” layer one more time and put this layer on top of all other layers. On this duplicated layer, go to Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical and flip this layer vertically once.

You will now see on the bottom we now have a shining edge line as well, this makes the button more stylish.

In order to reveal the top shining edge line created in the previous step, we can simple grab an eraser tool with a soft round brush, and do a single click on the position shown below:

and you will now have this effect:

Step 5

Now we can simply type some text onto the button. Font choice is quite important here because we want to the button to be as eye-catching as possible. Personally I think those Bold, Clean Font always work wonders. There is a pretty nice article here containing a list of bold fonts free for download, simply grab one of those and type some text onto it:

And on this text layer, apply the following layer blending options:

Drop Shadow

Bevel and Emboss

Gradient Overlay

And you will have the following effect:

To make the text stronger, simply duplicate the text layer once and you have made a very stylish, clean and shining button:

That’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!

In this tutorial, I will show you how to draw this Cute Glossy Star via 3 Easy Steps in Photoshop, which you can use for a wide range of decorative purposes. The aim of this tutorial to introduce you the Polygon Tool and the settings associated to it, plus the method you can use for adding glossy effect to certain element.

Along the way, we will be using the Polygon Tool to draw the star, and use some simple layer blending effect to add the shining, glossy effect to it. I will also use the Pen Tool and dynamic brush settings for the final effect. The effect is easy to achieve and very practical. Have a try!

Here is preview of the final effect for this tutorial: (Click to enlarge)

Alternative coloured version:

OK let’s get started!

Step 1

Create a new document size 800 * 800 px and use the gradient tool to fill the background layer as shown below:

Select the Polygon Tool by left-click the Shape Tool symbol from the toolbox and hold, as shown below:

You will notice a series of shape tool options appearing across the top, apply the following settings:

Sides: 5

Radius: 10px

Indent Sides By: 50%

Make sure to tick “Smooth Corners” and “Star” option.

Draw a star on top of the background layer as shown below: (You can press Ctrl + T to free-tranform it if you like)

Rename this layer as “Star”.

Step 2

On the “Star” layer, apply the following layer blending options:

Drop Shadow

Inner Shadow

Outer Glow

Inner Glow

Bevel and Emboss

Contour

And you will have the followin effect on the star layer:

Step 3

Now we can add some decoration on the star so it doesn’t look too boring. To do this, we can simply create a new layer below the “Star” layer, use the Pen Tool to draw a working path like this:

Hint: Try holding down “Shift” key while dragging the anchor points.

Then grab a 18px, 0% hardness brush, select the Pen Tool and right-click on the path and choose “storke path”:

Apply the following settings:

And you will see the following effect:

Duplicate this working path layer a few times, rotate, scale and distort the duplicated layer using the Free Transform tool (Ctrl + T). Here is my effect so far:

Once you’re happy with the result, you can merge those duplicated abstract line layers together, then duplicate some more layers based on the merged layers, result as shown below: (rotate, resize if necessary)

And we can add some dots around the star for the final touch-ups. To do this, grab a 9px, soft round brush and press “F5″ or go to Window > Brushes to bring up the brush window, apply the following dynamic settings:

Shape Dynamics

Scattering

Other Dynamics

Make sure to check “Airbrush” and “Smoothing” options, too.

Once the brush is made, create a new layer under the “star” layer and paint those dots in random areas as below:

OK, that’s it for this tutorial! You can of course add some of your own texture or filter effect and see what the end results are! Remember to always keep your own creativity!

Here is an alternative version I have:

Hope you enjoy this tutorial, drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!

In this tutorial, I will show the processes involved in designing a God of War III Inspired Cracked Text Effect in Photoshop. I personally have been a fan of the God of War Series for a long time and got the inspiration for this tutorial from the game title text effect, and thought I could make a tut for it :)

Along the way, I would like to show you the use of custom brushsets in Photoshop and how to use them to create eye-catching effect for your design work. There are also techinques such as layer blending mode, masking and image adjustments. Have a go!

Here is a preview of the final text effect for this tutorial:

Alternative version:

Let’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, you will need to the following stocks:

Grunge Brushset

Font

Crack Brushset

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1200px * 800px, fill the background layer with Black colour. Create a new layer called “background texture” on top of the background layer, and we’re going to do some painting with the Grunge Brushset we have just downloaded.

Firstly we want to load the brushset into Photoshop. To do this, press the “B” key to select the Brush Tool, and following the steps as shown in the following screenshot:

1. Click the down arrow next to the Brush shape/size

2. Click the right arrow on the top right corner of the brush palette

3. Click the “Load Brushes” option on the menu

After this, you will see a window pop-up and simply select the Grunge Brush set you just downloaded/extracted, and you will see those brushes appear in the palette as shown below:

(The yellow highlighted part indicates the brushset we have just loaded)

So now we have a set of grunge textures we can use to create our background texture. On the “background texture” layer, use those brushsets we just loaded and paint some irregular, grungy patterns on it:

(Hint: don’t just stick with one brush, try out a combination of them and adjust the flow and opacity for each different brushset, experiment and see what result that bring you)

Here is what I have after a bit of painting with the grunge brushset:

Step 2

Now we have a grungy style background texture. Let’s type some text onto it by using the font we downloaded at the start of this tutorial:

On this text layer, apply the following layer blending options:

Drop Shadow

Inner Shadow

Bevel and Emboss

Gradient Overlay (Hint: you can adjust the position of the gradient by left-click and drag on the text)

And you will have the following effect:

Duplicate this text layer once and make the text look bolder and thicker:

Step 3

Load the selection of the text layer (if you’re not sure how to do so, please take a look at Step 3 of my previous post) and create a new layer called “crack texture”. While maintaining the selection,  load the “Crack brushset” into Photoshop and on the “crack texture” layer, use this brushset to paint  over it.

You will see because we keep the selection active, the crack texture appears only within the selection:

Duplicate the “crack texture” layer once and change the blending mode of the duplcated layer to “Multiply”, you will have the following effect (the crack texture darkened) :

To create some more variation to the crack, we can add some more layers and on each added layer, apply a different crack texture from the brushset, and set the layer blending mode to “overlay”.

You can add as many layer as you wish, here is what I have after adding two more layers of crack texture:

Step 4

Now we can some colour on the text. To do this, load the selection of the text layer again, create a new layer on top of all other layers called “colour overlay”.

Here is the tricky bit: What I would like to achieve is some colour variation, so I use the Lasso Tool with a 10px feather, substract the upper portion of the selection off by holding down the Alt Key while making the selection:

While maintaining the selection, pick a colour and a soft round brush, and paint inside the selection:

Load the text layer again, create a new layer above the previous colour overlay layer, this time choose a lighter colour and soft brush, paint it on the upper portion of the text:

Step 5

Now we can add some adjustment layers to bring out some colour contrast and lightness for the overall effect. I added the following two adjustment layers (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > …)

Levels

Curves

And here is the final effect for this text effect: (Click to enlarge)

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! You can of course add some of your own texture or filter effect and see what the end results are! Remember to always keep your own creativity!

Here is an alternative version I have: (click to enlarge)

Hope you enjoy this tutorial, drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to create the Super Sleek, eye-catching text effect with Water Drop Texture. This effect is simple but effective, and would be suitable for any water/rainy/ocean themed designs you’re creating.

Along the way, we will be using Photoshop techniques such as make selections, layer blending effects, image adjustment tools and a bit of masking. This is a beginner level tutorial and the steps are really easy to follow, have a try!

Here is a preview of the final effect: (click to enlarge)

Alternative Version: (click to enlarge)

Ok let’s get started!

To Complete this tutorial, you will need the following stock:

Font

Water Drop Texture – By eRiQ

Step 1

Firstly we can prepare some nice background for us to work on. Create a new document sized 1920 * 1080px with white colour background. On the background layer, use the Gradient Tool (G) to fill it with the followings:

Duplicate this background layer once, hit Ctrl + T and resize the duplicated layer as shown below:

In between the duplicated layer and the background layer, create a new layer call “Light bottom” and grab a big soft round brush with white colour (I chose 1600px, 0% hardness, 55% opacity), do a single-click on this newly-created layer on the position shown below:

Then on top of all previous layers, create a new layer called “light top” and use the same brushset for the “light bottom” layer, do a single-click to the following position as shown below:

You will have the following effect:

Step 2

Use the font we just downloaded, type some texts onto the document, resize (Ctrl + T) and position it in the centre of the canvas:

On the text layer, apply the following layer blending options:

Drop Shadow

Outer Glow

Gradient Overlay

And you will have the following effect so far:

Step 3

Load the water drop texture into Photoshop. Go back to our text document and load the selection of the text layer by using the following method:

1. Move your mouse over the thumbnail image of the text layer in the layer pallette: (You will notice your mouse cursor change into a hand)

2. Hold down the Ctrl key (the cursor will change into a hand + rectangular marquee) and left-click the thumbnail image of the text layer. You will see now the text layer is selected:

Once the text layer is selected, grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M), move your mouse over the selection until you see the cursor changes into the following shape:

Left-click and hold, drag the selection over the water drop texture:

Hit Ctrl + Alt + R and bring up the refine edge tool, apply the following settings:

Press Ctrl + C to copy the selected portion from the water drop texture, go back to our text document and Ctrl + V to paste the texture on top of the text layer:

(Important: please maintain this selection on the water drop image, we will use it again in the next step)

Name this layer as “water drop texture 1″ and change its blending mode to “Overlay”, you will have the following effect:

Step 4

To add a bit variety for the water drops, simply go back to the water drop texture image, move the selection to a different portion:

Again we copy and paste the selection back to our text document, name the newly-created layer as “water drop texture 2″, change the blending mode to “overlay”.

You will have the following effect:

Optional: you can add more water drops to the text by repeating the above steps.

Here is what I have after adding another two layers of water drop textures:

Step 5

To make the actual text stand out a bit more, simply duplicate the text layer once and drag the duplicated layer upon the top. Reduce the opacity of this duplicated text layer to around 70%.

You will have the following effect:

Add a new Levels adjustment layer by going to Layer > New adjustment Layer > Levels and apply the following settings:

Add the following mask to the Levels adjustment layer:

And you will have the this final effect:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! You can of course add some of your own texture or filter effect and see what the end results are! Remember to always keep your own creativity!

Here is my final image for this tutorial: (I simply black and white the image and add some of my own colours) – Click to enlarge:

Hope you enjoy this tutorial, drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!

In this tutorial, I will show you the method I use to design a simple, yet elegant abstract spectrum lines in Photoshop. You will see how easy it is to achieve this nice effect and you can use it a wide range of occasions including perhaps site header backgrounds, logos, or add extra flavor to your photo manipulations.

This tutorial is suitable for beginners and I included the ways of creating new brush presets and also the use of Pen Tool. You will ample opportunities to practive layer blending, filters and Free Transform Tools. Have a try!

Here is a preview of the final effect: (click to enlarge)

PSD File Download

You can download the PSD File for this tutorial via the VIP Members Area for only $4.95/Month (or less)! You will not only get this PSD File, but also 40+ other PSD Files + Extra Goodies + Exclusive Photoshop tutorial there. Signup now and get exclusive! Find out more about the VIP Members Areas

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Create  a new document with black background, for size I chose 980px * 400px however you can change this according to your own preference. Use 72 pixel/inch for resolution since we’re creating an image used for website.

Now let’s make a new brush preset. To do this, firstly select the brush tool with the following brush:

Then apply the following brush dynamics to it:

Shape Dynamics

Scattering

Other Dynamics

Make sure you also select the Airbrush and Smoothing option.

After finishing making this brush, let’s save it as a new brush preset so that we can use it in the future too. To do this, left-click the down tri-angle on the top right and click “new brush preset”:

And Enter the following into the window popup:

Then you will see the brush preset appear in the brush selection window:

Step 2

Create a new layer call “lines”, grab the Pen Tool and draw the following working path:

Hint: hold down Shift key and drag your mouse upwards approximately 45 degree for both archor points.

Then right-click and select the option “Stroke Path”:

Then choose the option “brush” and tick the “Simulate Pressure”:

And you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Still on this “lines” layer, go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur and apply the following settings:

Then hit Ctrl + F and apply the motion blur filter again, and you will have the following effect:

Apply the following Gradient Overlay blending option to this layer:

Then duplicate this layer 4 times and merge the duplicated layer together, you will have the following effect:

Rename this layer as “lines” after the merge.

Step 4

Again we duplicate the “lines” layers 3 times, and you will see the colour of the the spectrum become clearer:

Then we merge those duplicated layer together, then use the Free Transform tool to resize it into the following:

Then we can use the Warp Tool (Ctrl + T and right-click select “Warp”), transform it into the following shape:

And here is the effect after warping:

Step 5

Now we can really just use our imagination and simply duplicate this “lines” layer a few times, rotate and resize each duplicated layer until the outcome is desirable:

Here is my effect so far:

Merge the duplicate layer together.

We can also add a bit of glowing effect to the spectrum lines. To do this, simple duplicate the merged layer and apply the following Gaussian Blur settings: (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur)

Change the blending mode the duplicated layer to “Linear light” and you will have the following effect:

To add some final touches, remember we created a new brush preset in Step 1? We can use it to add some nice dots on the abstract line.

Create a new layer called “dots” on top of all other layers, grab that brush preset and simply paint over the lines:

Then Change the layer blending mode to “Overlay” and you will have the following effect:

Duplicate this “dots” layer and change the blending mode of the duplicated layer back to “normal”, then reduce its opacity to 15% and erase some excessive parts.

You will have the following final effect:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! Of course you can further enhance this image by adding some more effect, textures and filters.

Here is my final version for this tutorial: (Added a bit of cloudy effect and sharpen the image )

Hope you enjoy this tutorial and find it useful, drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!

In this tutorial, I will show you the process I used to create this super delicious, shining and glossy text effect in Photoshop. In fact, I once again accidentally discovered this interesting effect while playing with Photoshop filters this afternoon and thought I could share it with you guys :)

Along the way, we will be using techniques such as layer blending options, filter effects, adjustment layers and a few photoshop tools. It’s a very simple tutorial, have a try!

Meanwhile, I have received a few enquiries about how to add colour effects onto a plain image from my past tutorial – and I decided to include the method I use to achieve the colour effect along with this tutorial. So read on if you’re interested!

Here a preview of my final result for this tutorial: (Click to enlarge)

Alternative versions:

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1200px * 800px and fill the background layer with Black. Duplicate the background layer once (Always a good habit) and grab the Gradient Tool (G) fill the duplicated layer as shown below:

After applying the gradient effect, duplicated this layer once and on the second duplicated layer, go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal and change the layer blending mode to “screen”.

You will have the following effect:

Step 2

We can make the background a bit brighter and fresher. So go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Color Balance and apply the following settings:

Shadows

Midtones

Higtlights

And you will have the following effect:

OK that’s for our background! We can now add our text effect onto it.

Step 3

Download this font and type some text onto it, resize and position it as shown below:

I typed Susan Boyle because I was so touched and inspired by her performance on Britains Got Talent show :) Wish her all the best!

Apply the following layer blending effect to the text layer:

Drop Shadow

Inner Shadow

Outer Glow

Inner Glow

Bevel and Emboss

Contour

Gradient Overlay

And you will have the following effect:

Step 4

Load the selection of the text layer (ctrl + left-click the thumbnail image of the text effect on the layer palette):

Then create a new layer called “fibre” (make sure you maintain the selection) and fill it with White colour:

Then go to Filter > Render > Fibers and apply the following settings:

Then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply the following settings:

Change the layer blending mode of this “fiber” layer to “lighten” and you will have the following effect:

To add some lighting variation onto it, we duplicate the “Fiber” layer once more and change the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “overlay”:

Step 5

Now we can add some colour onto our text! To do this, load the selection of the text layer using the method described previously, create a new layer called “colour” on top of all layers:

Maintain the selection of the text layer, grab a soft brush with colour of your choice and simply paint over the layer. You will see because we have a selection of the text, you will paint only within the selection not any other area:

Change the layer blending mode of this layer to “color” and you will have the following effect:

To add a bit more shining effect to finish off the text, duplicate the “colour” layer once and change the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “overlay”.

Here is the final effect: (click to enlarge)

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! You can of course add some of your own texture or filter effect and see what the end results are!

I added some textures on the background just to decorate it a bit: (click to enlarge)

Alternatve Colour

Hope you enjoy this tutorial, drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!

Welcome to Part III of Six High Quality Photoshop Tutorial Sites Apart From PSDTUTS.com series here on psdvault.com! In this post, I have once again collected six useful design sites containing very high quality, useful Photoshop tutorials for you to browse through. Some of those sites are fresh ones, and some of those are established ones that have gained a good popularity amongst the designer community.

In the mean time, I’d like to once again say psdtuts.com (now psd tuts plus) is absolutely wonderful in every way with tons of  Photoshop tutorials, inspirations and resources to offer. However it’s always good to have a wide variety and try to learn from different sources. So go and have a look at those sites, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed :)

Enough talk, here goes the list, enjoy and HAPPY EASTER!

PSD Rockstar

PSD Rockstar is a Photoshop tutorials blog dedicated to web designer, bloggers, beginners and web developers to provide the best Photoshop tutorials around the web. At PSD Rockstar you can find stuff related to inspiration, Photoshop tutorials, web collections, tools & related to designs.

- About PSD Rockstar

Denis Designs Blog

Graphic Designer that creates websites, logos and print designs. I have a design blog at denisdesigns.com/blog
- About Tyler Denis

Design Reviver

The goal of Design Reviver is to provide Web Designers with valuable information. Here you will find useful tutorials, free downloads, sources of inspiration, and articles covering a wide range of web design related topics.

- About Design Reviver

Grafpedia

A fresh new graphic design site I discovered a few days ago, has a nice and clean site layout. The Photoshop tutorials on there look pretty sweet :)

- From James @ psdvault.com

Our Tuts

Another newly-created Photoshop tutorial site and it has some nice entries showing good techniques. I found the tutorials are easy to follow and particularly suitable for beginners.

- From James @ psdvault.com

PsDeluxe

A nice Photoshop Tutorial site containing quality tutorial (video tutorial included) and good resource such as free PSD file, brushes and texture downloads.

- From James @ psdvault.com

OK that’s it for Part III of  Six High Quality Photoshop Tutorial Sites Apart From PSDTUTS.com! I hope you find this list of Photoshop tutorial sites useful and learn to the maximum!

Cheers and have a nice day :)

If you have just started learning Photoshop, you will most likely encounter a set of little icons on the left of your screen at first glance. They are Photoshop Tools – If used wisely, they will make your design life so much easier and in the mean time, maximise your creativity. There is so much to discover about those tools and that’s why I decide to have a series here on PSD Vault and share some tutorials I found useful with you guys.

In each post of this series here on PSD Vault, I will share 10 hightly practical tutorials to get you started with Photoshop Toolset, along with some tips and tricks to increase your workflow efficiency.  There will be two tutorials for each tool and eventually cover every single tool in Photoshop.

For Part I, I will be focusing on the Move Tool, Marquee Tool, Crop Tool, Slice Tool and Magic Wand Tool. Hope you enjoy those tutorials and find them useful!

Move Tool

A Look At The Move Tool

This tutorial is the first part of a series of photoshop video tutorials covering each of the tools in the tools palette. In this tutorial, we cover the Move Tool, also sometimes referred to as the Pointer Tool.

Six Move Tool Tips For Photoshop

So naturally enough, the main function of the Move Tool in Photoshop is to move objects around the document window. It’s basically your index finger for pushing stuff around, but by combining it with some modifier keys you can add to it’s functionality. Here’s six MoveTool tips to speed up your workflow.

Marquee Tool

Select With the Marquee Tool in Photoshop

In this video tutorial, you will learn how to select with the marquee tool in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

The Photoshop Marquee Tool

There is almost nothing you can’t do to a picture in Photoshop. Learn how to use the marquee tool in this free video clip on this great computer program.

Crop Tool

Photoshop’s Crop tool explained

The crop tool is probably one of the easiest tools to use, but probably not used as often as it should. Use the crop tool to help the appearance of your image by enhancing the composition.

Using Photoshop Crop Tool: Beyond the cropping

Generally cropping is process to removing portions of an image to create focus or strengthen the composition. But with Photoshop Crop tool, its provide much more option to crop and more flexible.

Slice Tool

How to Create a template using slice tool in Adobe Photoshop

This is a tutorial about how to use slice tool in Adobe Photoshop and export it as a web page.

Image Slicing in Photoshop CS3

No doubt you’ve heard about image slicing, but do you know what it is and how it works? Image slicing is a technique for creating a web page (or a component of a web page, like a header or navigation menu) visually in Photoshop (Fireworks and Illustrator also allow you to slice images, too). But how does it work?

Magic Wand Tool

Select With the Magic Wand Tool in Photoshop CS3

The magic wand tool can be used to make a precise selection to an image in Adobe Photoshop CS3. In this video tutorial, you will learn how to select with the magic wand tool in Photoshop CS3.

To make quick selections, just wave the Magic Wand

Photoshop’s Magic Wand tool makes it quick and easy to select large areas of an image with just a few clicks.

Ok that’s it for Part I of 10 Highly Practical Tutorials to Get You Started with Photoshop Tools! Hope you enjoy those tutorials and if you would like to add any site you find useful, simply drop me a comment below.

Meanwhile, if you have any tips and tricks about those tools, you’re more welcome to share them here by leaving a comment below.

Thanks and have a very creative day!

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes I used to design a soft and fluffy text effect in Photoshop without using any third party images.

Along the way, we will be using techniques such as gradient fill, various layer blending options, dynamic brush settings and filter effect. I combine this soft text effect with a solid stone wall texture at the end of this tutorial, thought it would be interesting to see! It’s a simple tutorial, have a go!

Here is a preview of the final image result: (click to enlarge)

Black and White version:

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Create a new document in Photoshop, size doesn’t really matter in the tutorial (I chose 1200 x 800 px). Fill the background layer with Black colour.

Now let’s create some background lighting. To do this, simply grab the Gradient Tool (G) and choose the Radial Gradient option, Fill the background layer as shown below:

Step 2

On the background layer, type some texts on it. You may choose any font you like, I used this font for this tutorial.

For this tutorial, I seperate each letter into different layers so I will have more freedom playing with each of them:

I place the letters as shown below (you can of course alter the position of text yourselves):

Rasterise the text and merge the layers together when you’re happy with the text position. Name the merged layer as “Text”.

Step 3

On “Text” layer, apply the following layer blending options:

Drop Shadow

Bevel and Emboss

Contour

Gradient Overlay

Stroke

And you will have this effect so far:

Step 4

Load the selection of the text layer by holding down Ctrl key and left-click the thumbnail image of the “text” layer on the layer palette:

Then press M key to select the Rectangular Marquee Tool, right-click on the selection and choose “Make work path”:

Set tolerance to 1.0 pixel:

And you will see now the selection become a work path:

Step 5

Create a new layer called “fluffy effect”. Now let’s make a dynamic brush to create some fluffy effect!

Grab the following brush and set its size to 70px:

Then apply the following brush dynamics to it:

Shape Dynamics

Scattering

Other Dynamics

Don’t forget to tick “Smoothing” option as well.

Now Press “P” key to select the Pen Tool, right-click on the work path and choose “Stroke Path” then choose the “Brush” option. You will have the following effect:

Press “ESC” key to cancel the path.

Step 6

To add a bit more texture effect onto text, you can duplicate “fluffy effect” layer once, and go to Filter > Sketch > Reticulation and apply the following settings:

Add the following Bevel and Emboss setting to the duplicated layer:

Change the layer blending option of the duplicated layer to “Overlay”, and the effect will look like this:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! Of course you can futher enhance this text effect by applying some more texture effect, or simply add some background effect to it.

Here is my final image for this tutorial (I combine it with an abstract image I created a while ago with rocky texture on it, just interested to see what would the end result be like)

You can click the image to enlarge.

Black and White version:

Hope you enjoy this tutorial, drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps I took to transform a cloud image into an explosion scene in Photoshop. I was having a play with some cloud photos I took the other day and discovered this effect by accident :)

This effect is easily achieve through some simple layer blendings and image adjustments. Other techniques include selection tool, various filters and free transformation tools.

Here is a preview of my final image for this tutorial:

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Create a new document sized 800px * 800px (size doesn’t really matter for this tutorial, you can choose one you feel comfortable with), fill the background with Black colour.

Download a copy of this image (this is my OWN image so don’t worry about copyright, you can use it freely) and load it into Photoshop.

Use the Rectangular Marquee Tool (Press the “M” key) to select a portion of the image as shown below:

Copy and paste the selected portion onto our newly created document, resize and position it in the centre of the canvas:

By pasting the selection, a new layer will automatically be generated on top of the background layer. Name this new layer as “flame”.

Step 2

We will now get rid of the square edges of the “explosion” layer. I found a quick way is to use the Eraser Tool with a big, round, soft brush setting (I used 300px round brush, with 0% hardness), and set both the brush opacity and flow to 100%, gently eraser the edges off.

The result is shown below:

Apply the following the Level Adjustments to this layer: (Please note the setting may be slight different for your image, the purpose is to adjust the colour input of the image to make the effect more realistic)

The result so far will look like this:

Still on the same layer, apply the Curve Tool (Ctrl + M) and use the following settings:

And the image should look similar to this one:

Step 3

We will add various effect onto the flame and make it look more realistic.

Now duplicate the “flame” layer Five Times. Hide the top four duplicated layers for now and just leave the “flame copy” layer visible.

On the “flame Copy” layer, apply the followng Hue and Saturation Image Adjustment Settings:

Change the layer blending option to “Soft Light” and you will have the following image:

Step 4

Un-hide the “flame Copy 2″ layer, apply the following Black and White Adjustment to it:

(For those who use CS2 or earlier versions of Photoshop, you may try to the Curve or Level adjustment tool first to alter the colour contrast, then desaturate the layer.)

Change the layer blending mode to “color dodge” and you will have the following result:

Step 5

We can add some particles into the flame so it look a bit more realistic. To do this, un-hide the “flame Copy 3″ layer, go to Filter > Artistic > Film Grain and apply the following settings:

Then change the layer blending option to “Overlay” and drop the opacity of 80%. You will have the following image:

Step 6

We can some highlights and softness to the flame. Un-hide the “flame Copy 4″ layer, apply the Gaussian Blur filter with the following settings:

Change the blending mode to “Screen” and you will have following effect:

Step 7

Now we can give the flame a bit of motion. Un-hide the “flame Copy 5″ layer and apply the following Motion Blur settings:

Use the Move Tool to move this layer slight up a bit and change the layer blending option to “Screen”, drop the opacity to 50%. The result so far will look like this:

Step 8

Now let’s make some explosion effect. Select all layers previously created, hit Ctrl + T to bring up the Free Transformation Tool, distort, perspective, resize the image as shown below:

Here is a zoom-in view:

Step 9

Create a new layer called “Particles”. Use the Lasso Tool with a 20px feather, select some random area outside the explosion:

Fill the selection with Black colour and render some cloud (White as foreground colour, Black as background colour). Then apply the following Level Adjustments:

Change the layer blending option to “Screen” and drop the opacity to around 80%.

Here is the result so far:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! The rest is left upon your own creativity. Have a play with the layers and change the blending modes, or apply some other filters and see what results they will bring you!

Below is the final image (I added some watercolour painting effect to the image)

Hope you enjoy this tutorial and find it useful and inspirational! If you have any question, just drop me a line and I will try and get back to you asap.

Thank you very much and have a nice day!

In this tutorial, I will show you how to bring colour and light out of an ordinary image through simple layer blending and image adjustments. I also would like to introduce the idea of “non-destructive” photo editing, which I think will be beneficial for you as a designer.

The techniques used in this tutorial includes various image adjustment tools, layer blending options and the surface blur filter.

Here is some helpful tips I would like to share with you guys:

1. The purpose of duplicating layers is to achieve non-destructive editing, which means the original image is not affected and you will have greater flexibility when it comes to retouching your image.
2. Make use of various image adjustment tool (Curve, Level, Black and White, Hue and Saturation), they are the tools to boost your image colour and lighting constrast.
3. Layer blending mode such as “Overlay”, “Soft Light”, “Color” are always useful for bringing out extra light and colour for your image.
4. Use Dodge/Burn Tool to give certain portion of your image additional lighting contrast.
5. Use Surface blur instead of Gaussian blur for image blending.

Some info I found on the web about Non-destructive Photo Editing:

The great advantage of non-destructive editing in Photoshop is that you can easily adjust image effects or adjustments, even weeks or months later. They also allow quick editing and increased flexibility. Everyone who uses Photoshop should know these techniques, because they really make Photoshop so powerful.

- http://www.lunacore.com/photoshop/tutorials/tut013.htm

Here is a preview of the final result:

Step 1

Load a photo of your choice into Photoshop. Alternatively, you can download a copy of this image if you want to follow this tutorial precisely according to each step.

After loading your photo, duplicate the background layer five times:

Then hide the top 4 layers and leave just the “Background copy” layer visible.

Step 2

On the “Background copy” layer, hit Ctrl + M to bring up the Curve Tool and apply the following settings:

Then change the blending mode of this layer to “Overlay” with an opacity of 60%, and you will have the following image:

Step 3

Un-hide the “Background copy 2″ layer and select it, hit Ctrl + Alt + Shift key to bring up the Black and White image adjustment tool and apply the following settings:

(Please note the settings may be different if you use your own photo, but the idea is to put more emphasis toward certain colours in the image and bring them out a bit more)

Change the layer blending mode to “Soft Light” with an opacity of 70%.

The effect so far will look like this:

Step 4

Now we can some more exposure to the image. Un-hide the “Background Copy 3″ layer and select it, go to Image > Adjustments > Exposure and apply the following settings:

Then change the layer blending mode to “Color” and you will have the following effect:

Step 5

Un-hide the “Background copy 4″ layer and select it, go to Image > Mode > Lab Color and change the image mode to LAB.

The go the Channel Palette and select the “lightness” channel:

Then hit Ctrl + L to bring up the level adjustment tool, apply the following settings:

Change the image mode back to RGB mode. When you’re prompted to flatten the image, choose “Don’t Flatten”.

Change to layer blending option to “Soft Light” with an opacity of 50% and you will have the following effect:

Step 6

Now we can add some extra soft light onto the image.

Un-hide “Background layer 5″ and select it, go to Filter > Blur > Surface Blur and apply the following settings:

Change the layer blending mode to “Screen” with an opacity of 60% and you will have the following image:

Step 7

This is an optional step. As you can see after several layer blendings, the mountain on the right has become a black spot without any tree to be seen. We can bring the trees back by using the dodge tool.

Duplicate the background layer once more and put the duplicated layer just above the background layer, but beneath any other layer.

Hit “o” key to select the dodge tool, apply the following settings:

Brush over the mountain until the trees are back.

You can reduce the layer opacity a bit to get a better result, also adjust the brush size for the dodge tool if necessary.

And here is the final effect:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! Remember you can always use the layer blending modes, curve/level tools and blur filter to bring out light and contrast for your image.

Hope you enjoy this tutorial and if you have any questions, just drop me a comment.

Cheers and have a nice day!

In this tutorial, I will show you how to design a Modern Glossy Navigation Bar in Photoshop. This is a beginner tutorial with a just few simple steps, aiming to help beginner web designer for making their first-ever web page.

Skills involved in this tutorials are selection tools, layer blending options, and some simple gradiant filling techniques.  Have a go!

Here is a preview of the final result of this tutorial:

OK let’s get started!

Step 1

Firstly let’s create some background to work with.

Create a new document sized 1000*600px, use the Gradient Tool (with Foreground colour #333333 and Black ground colour #000000) to fill the background layer.

Step 2

Create a new layer and grab a big round brush (I used a 700px brush) with white color, set its opacity and flow to 50%, do several left-clicks (see image below for details):

Step 3

Create a new layer named “Navi Bar”. Use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to make a selection and fill the selection with Black Colour.

Apply Drop Shadow layer blending option to this layer:

Here is the effect so far:

Step 4

Hold down the Ctrl key and left click on the “Navi Bar” layer to load the selection.

After the selection is loaded, hold down the Alt key and use the Rectangular Marquee tool to make another selection over the existing selection. This will subtract our existing selection.

Step 5

Maintain the selection from the previous step, create a new layer called “glossy” and fill it with White colour. Set the layer opacity and fill opacity to around 30%.

Type some page texts onto the “glossy” layer:

Step 6

Now we can add some mouseover effect! To do this, create a new layer in between the text layer and the “glossy” layer and name it “mouseover”.

Then use the Rectangular Marquee tool to make a selection outside a page text, fill it with White colour and set the layer opacity and fill opacity to around 30% (in layer blending options).

Apply a colour overlay of your choice. I used the following settings:

That’s it for this tutorial! You can add some final touches using preset brushes and apply some texture effects in the background.

Here is my final result of this tutorial:

Hope you enjoy this tutorial and find is useful when you design your own website! If you would like to find how to translater the design into working web pages, study some XHMTL and CSS~ There are plenty of tutorials available on the net about this topic.

If you have any question, just drop me a line below. Thanks and have a nice day :)

In this tutorial, I will show you the processses involved in transforming an average photo into a mysterious dark portal to the underworld scene, inspired by the famous Playstation hack-and-slash game Devil May Cry.

The techniques used in this tutorial include layer blending styles, various image adjustment tools, filters and some basic selection techniques. The steps are very simple and straight-forward. Give it a go!

Here is a before-and-after comparison:

Before

After

PSD File for this Tutorial

You can have this PSD File for only $2.00 via Paypal! Click the link below and you will be taken to the Paypal checkout page, after payment you will be redirect to the download page automatically.

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Download the above “Before” image and load it into Photoshop. On the background layer, use curve tool to adjust the lighting contrast a bit. See below for detailed settings:

Step 2

Duplicate the background layer once, then hit Ctrl+Alt+Shift+B to bring up the the Black and White image adjustment tool, apply the following settings on the duplicated layer:

After applying Black and White, right-click on the layer and choose “Blending Option”, change the layer blending option of the duplicated layer to “Saturation”.

So far the effect looks like:

Step 3

Now we add some glowing light on the stone pillars. Duplicate the Background layer once more, and the duplicated layer above the previous duplicated layer in Step 2. Apply the Black and White image adjustment on this layer, using the following setting:

After Black and White, go to filter > blur > Gaussian Blur and apply the following settings:

After applying gaussian blur, change the layer blending option to “Screen” and set the layer opacity to about 70%.

Optional: You may apply the Curve Tool (Ctrl + M) on this layer if you wouldl like to adjust the colour constrast.

The effect so far looks like this:

Step 4

Now we want to create some cloud/mist inside the archway so it looks like a portal to the underworld and add some extra CG effect.

Create a new layer named “cloud” on top of every other layer, use the Lasso Tool with a 15-20px feather, select the six archways respectively. (To do this, you need hold down the Shift key while selecting)

Fill the selection with Black and go to Filter > Render > Cloud and render some cloud:

You can repeatly hit Ctrl + F to re-render the cloud untill you’re happy with it.

After rendering cloud, hit Ctrl + L to bring up the Level Tool, apply the following settings:

Then hit Ctrl + M to bring up the Curve Tool, apply the following settings:

Optional: You may use the Clone Stamp Tool to clone some clouds and fill the empty gap.

Step 5

Now we can add some colour to the image. Create a new layer and set the layer blending option to overlay. Grab a big brush and change its setting as the following:

To make the Devil May Cry Theme, I Chose a Dark red colour and brush over the cloudy part of the image:

The effect so far looks like this:

Ok! That’s it for this tutorial. You may still want to adjust its Hue and Saturaton a bit more, or simply add some more lighting effects to it.

Here is my final image for this tutorial:

Hope you enjoy this tutorial and if you have any question, just drop me a comment below.

PS: I used a lot of Keyboard shortcuts in this tutorial. The reason is that I think it’s a good idea for a beginner to practice some shortcuts and later on you will form this habit and increase your work efficiency.