Using Pen Tool to crop out items (beginner)

Step One: Open the selected image you want to remove something from.


Step Two: Zoom In, Select Pen Tool, and start "outlining" the wanted selection.


Step Three: Close Path by returning the path to its start, Then Click on the "Path" Tab next to Layers. Right Click on Work Path Layer, Make Selection, Feather - 0 pixels.


Step Four: Now with your Item selected, Copy Selection and either paste on a new layer, or create a new document(will be sized to whats on your clipboard) and put it there!


I use this technique alot, I hope some may find it helpfull.

Abstract Shine Animation with Photoshop and ImageReady

Few days ago, I was playing with Photoshop and ImageReady, and I came up with something really delicious :). I was trying to make an animated Display Picture or Avatar for Windows Live Messenger 9 (which supports recently animated avatars). So I mastered an amazing technique that I’m going over step by step below. Note that this is an advanced tutorial because it involves the usage of Pen Tool, Layer Mask and Tween (ImageReady). Here’s what we’ll be working on

Let’s start:

Step 1

Open Adobe Photoshop and press CTRL + N to create a new image:

Step 2

Set the background color to #000000 (black) and the foreground to #122c52.

Step 3

Filter > Render > Clouds to get something like the following:

Step 4

Select the Pen Tool, make sure the “Paths” option is selected in the toolbar. Draw the following shape:

Step 5

CTRL + SHIFT + N to create a new layer (Layer 2).

Step 6

Select the Brush Tool, set the Foreground color to #ffffff (white), master diameter to 4px and hardness to 100%.

Make sure your selected brush supports Simulating Pressures:

Step 7

Select the Pen Tool again, right click on the image and press Stroke Path…

Step 8

Set the following options in the Stroke Path dialog:

Step 9

CTRL + SHIFT + N to create the third layer.

Step 10

Select the Brush Tool again and increase the Master Diameter to 5px.

Step 11

Right click again on the image and press the stroke path. Then apply the same options.

Step 12

Hide the Layer 3 by unsetting the eye in the layers panel:

Step 13

Select the Layer 2 from the Layers panel. Then, Layers > Layer Style > Blending Options… and set the following settings (Outer Glow and Color Overlay):

Step 14

You will get something simillar to this (do not remove the pen tool selection):

Step 15

Now, we’re done with Photoshop, we’ll start editing with ImageReady:

Step 16

ImageReady will open. Window > Workplace > Default Workplace to arrange your windows.

Step 17

Window > Animation to show the animation window:

Step 18

Now, we will show the Layer 3 (that we already hided in Photoshop) by setting the eye back.

Step 19

Be careful here!!! Drag the Layer 3 in the Layers Panel to the “Add a mask” button in the bottom to create a mask of that layer. Select the Brush tool and clean up the white area in the mask. Then unset the link between the layer preview and the mask:

Step 20

Here’s the tricky part. Although it can be done in many ways, but i find this way the easiest. Select the Brush Tool (I think it’s already selected :)), set the foreground color to #ffffff (white) and select the following Brush:

Step 21

Make sure the mask is selected! draw with you free hand a line like this (Note that you will only see this line in the Mask preview in the layer panel):

Step 22

You should see in the Layers panel the following:

Step 23

Let’s start with the animation now. Press the 1st Frame in the Animation windows and press “Duplicate current frame” icon to duplicate the layers state.

Step 24

Now make sure the the mask of the layer 3 is selected, select the Move tool and Press Shirt + Right like 25 times to reach the following state:

Step 25

So, we have moved the line mask from left to right. It’s time to animate it! The frame 2 is selected, hold CTRL and click on frame 1 to make them both selected. Then press the Tween icon:

Step 26

Apply the following Tween settings:

Step 27

A set of frames will be created for you. Select the 1st frame, scroll to the end, hold SHIFT and click the last frame. You will have all the Frames selected. Click the delay drop down on any of the selected frames and choose Other:

Step 28

Enter 0.03 seconds as a delay between the frames:

Step 29

Now select the last Frame alone by clicking on it, and set its delay to 5 seconds:

Step 30

We’re done. It’s time to save the animation as gif. Make sure the format in the "Optimize" panel is GIF:

Step 31

File > Save Optimized As!

Open it with Firefox, because Firefox renders the Gif formats faster than Internet Explorer (I’m not sure about Safari or other browsers).

Clean Background

Shatter Heart » Photoshop Tutorials » Clean Background

Clean Background

This tutorial will teach you how to create a clean looking background in photoshop. This tutorial is very quick and easy. Though there are a lot of steps, they are all very simple ones.

The tutorial

1. Go to File > New and create a new document. I created mine with the size of 1024x768 pixels.

2. Make sure that it is colored white [ #FFFFFF ] You can use the Paint Bucket Tool to do so if it is not.

3. Create a new layer.

4. Select the Rectangular marquee tool. . Select an area at random on your canvas. You can make it whatever size you wish.

5. With the area still selected, head to Select > Modify > Feather. Edit the setting so it is "5" and confirm it.

6. Now you'll want to pick a color of your choice. For this image, I used various shades of green, but you can use whatever colors you want. If you want to use what I used, go ahead and use the paint bucket tool to fill the selected area to color B2C3AC. [ Note: this tutorial works best with light colors. ]

7. Now, you'll want to repeat steps 3-6 about a dozen times. Make sure that you make the selections at different sizes with this tool so they cover most of the canvas, but make sure to leave a bit of white area leftover on the canvas to give it a "creamy" effect.

Also, when you create new layers, you'll want to lower their opacity a bit as you'll want the filled selections to overlap each other a bit. To do this, on each new layer right click on the layer in the layers window and select blending options. Lower the blending options to your desired amount, but around 40-70 is usually good.

When you are done, it should look similar to the image below.


Step 7 Example

8. Go to Layer > Flaten Image

9. Duplicate the layer.

10. Make sure the top layer is selected. Select Filter > Distort > Polar Cordinates. Tick the Polar to Rectangular box and confirm.

11. Right click on the top layer in the layers menu and select blending options. Set the blending mode to Hard Light.

12. Flatten your layers. [ Layer > Flaten ]

13. Duplicate the layer again. Go to blending optinons. Set the blending mode to Dark Light.


Step 13 Example

14. Flatten the image once more and duplicate the layer.

15. On the first bottom layer, Go to Filter > Distort > Twirl. Set the angle to 377

16. On the second layer, go to Filter > Distort > Twirl. Set the angle to -517.

17. Set the top layer's blend mode to lighten.


Step 17 Example

...And you're done! Well, almost! The rest is up to you. You can add gradients then do the color overlay setting for a more vivid coloring, add images to your background, text, or whatever else you want. Below is the finished product that I created.

Have fun!

Easy Abstract Photoshop Tutorial

This tutorial will show how to create a very simple abstract shape using a few brushes and effects. For this tutorial I will be using Adobe Photoshop CS3. If you have an older version of Adobe Photoshop, you may still be able to follow this tutorial.

Keep in mind that it would be nearly impossible to duplicate this exact object, but this tutorial should give a guide to creating your own unique object. You should end up with something like this.

The first thing we need to do is download the brush set for this tutorial. You can download the free Trance Brushes from Brusheezy.com by clicking here..

After you download the brushes, extract the .abr file from the .zip and save it.

Open Adobe Photoshop and create a new document 700×700.

Fill the background layer with black (#000000) and select the brush tool.

Load the brush set that you just downloaded by clicking the drop down next to the brush > the arrow point right > then the load option.

Select the Trance Brushes and load them. You will see the new brushes appear at the bottom of the brush set.

Reset the color swatches so that white is the foreground color and black is the background color. Create a new layer and use some of the brushes to create an abstract shape. When you are painting with these brushes, do not drag the mouse like you normally would. Instead click once to create the shape. There is really no science to this. First I will use brush 305 to create this.

Next I will add a few more with #213.

Then I will use 215 to make a tail.

To complete this shape I will dab a couple times with the brushe that is numbered 380 for me.
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Like I said before, there is no set way to do this, just come up with a shape you like. Now to add a little bit of color I will apple a purple glow. Right click on the layer in the layers pallet and select blending options.

Apply an outer glow using the color #7200ff.

I also added an inner glow using the same color #7200ff.

Apply the changes and you should get something like this.

Now we are going to distort the image using the polar coordinate filter. Click Filter > Distort > Polar coordinates.

Make sure that Rectangular to Polar is selected and click ok

You will get something like this.

Where the object is located on the canvas will effect how it is distorted. If you do not like the way it came out, undo the filter and move the object. Then try to apply the filter again. Mine looks ok, but I think it is a little blurry.

I am going to apply the Smart Sharpen filter to sharpen up the image. Click Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen.

You will have to play with the settings to see what looks the best for you, or you could skip this step completely. Here is what I used.

This is what my image looks like now.

That is all it takes to create a simple abstract shape using brushes. If you do a search online you can some great free brushes to play around with. You could also add some text to this and make into a background or something.