original photo by: John De Boer
Need to change the units of measure on your rulers from pixels to inches or vice versa? To do this, right click on either of the rulers and select the measurement you’d like to use. Options include Pixels, Inches, Centimeters, Millimeters, Points, Picas and Percent. Bonus tip – this works in Illustrator too.
Labels: Adobe, Photoshop, rulers, tip, trevor adobe, trevor payne
Categories:photoshop, trevor tip
Smart Objects are a great tool for working with images in Photoshop but did you know there are two ways to make copies of them. One way you duplicate the Smart Object so every instance of it will always be the same image and the other way you copy the Smart Object but unlink it so you can change out one image without changing the other.
Also make sure to watch my video on Smart Objects here.
Here’s how it works: Start with a new Photoshop document and add an image as a Smart Object – my favorite way to do this is to choose File > Place and place the image inside the file. This gives you one image as a Smart Object in the Layers palette. 
Now, the first way to duplicate a Smart Object is to right click and choose Duplicate Layer. This makes an exact copy of the layer so anything you do with the Smart Object on this layer will be done to both layers. 
Here I double clicked on one of the layer thumbnails and opened the actual image on that layer. I converted it to black and white then closed and saved it and this is what I have now in Photoshop. The two Smart Object layers are both changed. 
The alternative is to right click the Smart Object layer and choose New Smart Object via Copy. You get the same result as the earlier option with one exception – the two images are separate and they can be altered individually. 
Here I did the same alteration as before, only this time the image on the top layer is changed an not the one on the bottom layer. 
If desired you can change the image on the layer. To do this, click the layer to select it and choose Layer > Smart Objects > Replace Contents. 
Locate a different image to use, click it and click Place. Here I have resized the placed image so you can see they are different. If I had done this with the Duplicate layer then both images would be replaced. Which of these options you use really depends on what you want to do with the image. Sometimes you want two of the same image, sometimes not.
Labels: copy, duplicate, editing, Photoshop, Smart Object
Categories:photoshop
Learn how to link Smart Objects so, when one changes, they both change and how to un-sync them so they are separate. I’ll also show you how to replace the contents of a Smart Object with another image. Useful for wedding photographers and for creating albums in Photoshop.
Transcript:
Hello, I’m Helen Bradley. Welcome to this video tutorial. In this tutorial I’m going to show you how to work with smart objects in Photoshop. In this video I’m going to show you how you can use smart objects to assemble complex images, and you can do it in a way that harnesses the value of the smart objects. For example, I’m going to create a smart object for this background and then a smart object for this couple. This will allow me to go to this smart object and choose Replace Image. This will allow me to go to this smart object layer, right click and choose Replace Contents. And I can then replace the contents of that smart object with any of the images from that album. And so I can quickly and easily create images for an album with a background in place. But there is a catch and you’ll want to use the right tool for creating these smart objects so I’m going to show you that too.
Let’s just hide this away and let’s go and get our starter document. I’ve already got a vignette that I’m going to use, but we’re going to put in here the original background. So I’m going to choose File and then Place because that’s a way of getting an image in as a smart object. Here’s the portion of this image that I want to use as my background. I’ve already extracted it as a separate image so I’m going to click Place. And I know that this needs to be enlarged a little bit so I’m just going to enlarge it to 75 percent and then click the checkmark. So it’s now in place and it’s a smart object. It has a special little smart object icon. And I’m just going to show you that you have this vignette which is separate and it just goes over the top.
Now we want to create another smart object, but we want this smart object to be unhooked or unlinked to this one. So I’m going to right click and I’m going to choose New, Smart Object via Copy. And what that does is makes a copy of the existing smart object as a separate layer, but it is not linked to the original layer. So now if I go into this and resize it, I’m just going to link these two together, this gives us a new smart object layer in the image which is not linked to the background layer although the two share the current image. I’m just going to add a drop shadow to it. So if we were creating a bridal album we could use this as the starting point for our album. I’m just going to get a slightly nicer drop shadow here and pull that vignette down so that it’s over the top of the background and not the image here. So having created this, this could be the first image in our album. And we can then go ahead using the same background image and just change the smart object out without having to recreate this document, right click, choose Replace Contents.
This time I’m going for an image of the bride and groom, and here they are in place. They’re a little large so I’m just going to choose the transform tool with Ctrl or Command T. I know they need to be taken down to about 10 percent so I’m going to scale them down to 10 percent and just move them into position. You can see that the drop shadow is still in place, the background is still in place, the vignette is still in place, and we’ve got another page of our album already created. If I right click and choose Replace Contents I can go and select yet another image to go in here. And again, the border and everything are already on that image. So it gives me a smart way of creating an album very quickly.
I’m just going to discard that for now and let’s have a look at what you might want to use and which would be a bad choice in this situation. And that would be to right click and choose Duplicate Layer. Now that would give us on the face of it exactly what we had before, a smart object with a second smart object layer over the top. Let’s just go ahead and select that and let’s add our drop shadow to it. Let’s position it where we want it to be above the vignette. And here’s what we had, an image over the background. And we’re ready to print that out.
But look what happens if we go to replace the contents of this image with our bride and groom. Not only do we replace the contents of the image with our bride and groom, and we can scale them back down to the 10 percent size that we were using before, but let’s just link that so that it’s going to be 10 percent in both directions. But look what’s happened to our background. These two smart objects instead of just being a duplicate of each other are in actual fact an exact copy of each other. And so anything that happens to this background smart object is also going to happen to this one and vice versa. If we change this one we’re going to change this one. So if we want the ability to create a smart object from another one but to unlink it so that they’re no longer the same image each time, we need to right click and choose New Smart Object via Copy.
But if we do want two smart objects that are linked and they’re always going to be the same image even if they’re different sizes of the same image then we would simply use Duplicate Layer. Smart objects are a really good tool to use when you’re assembling an album like this because it gives you the ability to create a background image and a smaller image on top and to easily replace that image and create an album very quickly.
I’m Helen Bradley. Thank you for joining me for this YouTube video tutorial. If you liked the tutorial please like it and feel free to add comments to the video tutorial. I encourage you to subscribe to my video YouTube channel. We release videos twice a week at the very least and you’ll be alerted to the new video releases. And don’t forget to visit my website at projectwoman.com. There you’ll find more tips, tricks and techniques for Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator and lots of other programs.
Labels: album, image, photo, Photoshop, replace, Smart Object, Vignette
original photo by: Stacey Bry
When you need to add guides to an image to help line up objects or the image itself you can do so if you first display your Rulers. Then click on the ruler and drag onto the image to create a guide – drag from the left to make a vertical guide and from the top to make a horizontal one. To remove an unwanted guide, drag it off the screen back to the ruler and it will disappear. To remove all guides choose View > Clear Guides.
Labels: Adobe, guide lines, how to, Photoshop, quick guide lines, tip, trevor payne
Categories:photoshop, trevor tip
Give a grunge look to a portrait using the Photoshop High Pass filter and Smart Objects – it is a quick, easy, and fully editable.
Transcript:
Hello, I’m Helen Bradley. Welcome to this video tutorial. In this tutorial we’re going to apply a grunge portrait effect to a portrait in Photoshop. Before we start on creating the grunge effect let’s have a look and see what we’re looking for. This is the original image that I have open here in Photoshop. All I’ve done really is cropped it. And this is the final appearance that we’re going to give this image. It’s a lot more grungy. It’s a lot darker. It’s a lot more interesting image. And the way we’re going to do it is by harnessing the power of the high pass filter which allows us to get edges out of the image. And we going to do it in a way that we could adjust it if we needed to as we go along.
So now that we’ve seen what we’re aiming for let’s get started on our new image. And here’s the image here, and I’m just going to hide away the existing one. And we’re going to start by creating a duplicate of the background layer. I’ll right click and choose Duplicate Layer and click Ok. This is the layer that we’re going to apply the high pass filter to. And if we want it to be editable we need to first convert it for smart filters. All we’re doing effectively is making it a smart object. So we could right click and choose Convert to Smart Object, and it’s exactly the same process to choose Filter, Convert for Smart Filters. This is now a smart object so when I apply the high pass filter to it, it’s going to be done in a way that could be edited later on.
I’m choosing Filter, Other, High Pass. And with this high pass filter what I want is to begin to see the edges in the image but not a lot of color. Now depending on the sharpness of your image and exactly what the image is all about, this might be a larger or smaller value. Usually I suggest around 5 but this image is really quite soft and 5 is just not going to cut it. So I actually have this wound up to 9.6 and click Ok. But because this is a smart filler it doesn’t really matter because if it’s too much or too little we can come back later and fix it. We’re now going to set this layer blend mode to overlay so that we’re picking up these edges in the underlying image. So let’s see how far we’ve come. This is the original image and this is a slightly grittier, grainier version. But it’s going to get better.
We’re going to make another duplicate of the background layer, right click and choose Duplicate Layer. And we’re going to drag this above everything else. And we’re going to make it black and white and then blend it back into the image. It’ll be easier to do if first of all we set the blend mode to something like hard light so we see the effect that we’re going to have. And I would like to do this adjustment using an adjustment layer so that we can also change that later on if we like. Let’s start with Layer, New Adjustment Layer, Black and White. I’m going to click Ok and then I’m going back into this layer stack here. And I’m going to clip this layer because right now this adjustment layer affects everything so we have a black and white image. I just want it to affect this layer. So I click on this top layer and then either position my cursor between the two layers and press the Ctrl and Alt keys, Command and Option on the Mac, to clip that or I could choose Layer and then Create Clipping Mask. It’s exactly the same thing. And what that does is it clips the effect of this black and white layer to adjust this layer underneath.
Now we can have a look at our black and white layer and see how we can grunge up this portrait a little bit better because we’re actually seeing the final results. Now we can drag on these sliders our self to make our own setting or we could select a preset. And I’m going to choose the red filter because I kind of like that effect. And I’m probably just going to lighten these red and magenta channels and perhaps even the yellow channel a little bit before I continue. So I’m just going to close that down now.
Now we’ve got the image that we want we can fine tune it by adding another adjustment to it. And for this I would use a curves adjustment. So I’m going to again choose Layer, New Adjustment Layer, Curves. And this is going to affect the entire image this curves adjustment layer. And I just really want to lighten it and add a bit more contrast into the skin tones. If I click on this slider here you can see where the skin tones are in the image. They’re in this area down here so I can drag around this area to increase the contrast in the skin tones, perhaps lighten them up a little bit as we go. And that’s really personal preference at that point.
So let’s have a look and see where we started and how far we’ve come. This is the original image. It looked a little perhaps grungy when we started but we’ve actually been able to make it even look a lot more grungy with the application of this high pass filter, blending it back in with some black and white and then adjusting the curves. Now all of these changes are adjustable so for example we can come back to this high pass filter, double click here and adjust the high pass filter effect. So we can get more or less grunge effect by just adjusting that filter. We can also come back here and adjust this black and white filter, double click here and adjust this. And the final adjustment layer was a curves adjustment layer and it’s editable too. So there’s how to create a quick and easy grunge portrait effect. It’s all editable so that you can change it and fine tune it if you like.
I’m Helen Bradley. Thank you for joining me for this YouTube video. Look out for more of my YouTube videos on this YouTube channel. I encourage you to subscribe to my channel so you’ll be advised when new videos are released. And remember to visit projectwoman.com. You’ll find more tips, tricks and techniques for working with Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Lightroom and other applications there.
Labels: clipping mask, grunge, High Pass filter, Photoshop, video
1 Unlock the Background
You will already know the Background of any photo is locked and you can’t do anything much with it until you unlock it. The quickest way to unlock a background layer is from inside the Layers palette. Drag the lock icon to its right and drop it in the Trash and the Background layer will be automatically converted to a regular layer.
2 One click add a Layer
To create a new layer above the current layer click the Add New Layer icon at the foot of the Layer palette.
To add a new layer directly below the current layer Ctrl or Command Click on that icon. Both options add a layer but without displaying the Layer dialog.
3 Merge Everything to One Layer but Keep the Layers too
To merge all the current layers in the document to a single layer and at the same time to keep all the layers intact below it, click the topmost layer of the document and press Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E (Command + Option + Shift + E on the Mac). In case you are curious – it’s called Stamp Visible.
4 Select the Content on the Current Layer
To select everything on the current layer Ctrl + Click on the layer thumbnail in the Layers palette.
5 Copy a Layer to Another Document
To copy a layer from one document to another drag the layer from the Layers palette in one document and drop it into the other document. If you hold Shift as you drag the layer will be centered in the middle of the second document.
6 Quick Layer Moves
To quickly move a layer up the layer stack press Command + ] and to move it down, press Command + [.
7 Instant Delete a Layer
To instantly delete a layer, click the layer and press Delete.
Bonus Layer tip
To fill a layer or a selection with the foreground color press Alt + Backspace (Option + Delete on the Mac). Use Control + Backspace (Command + Delete on the Mac to fill the layer or selection with the Background color.
So, over to you now… what are your favorite Layer tips and tricks?
Labels: content, copy, create, delete, fill, layer, merge, move, Photoshop, select, tip, unlock
Categories:photoshop
One relatively unknown benefit of Smart Objects in Photoshop is the ability to use it to apply multiple strokes to an image. You can’t do this with Layer Styles on their own but you can do it with Smart Objects.
Here’s how to do this.
First add a Stroke Layer Style to your layer.
You can’t add a second stroke but you can convert the object to be a Smart Object. To do this, right click and choose Convert to Smart Object.
Now click the Smart Object layer and go ahead and add a new stroke to it. It all remains fully editable and you get multiple strokes – or multiple “anything” you want in Photoshop.
Labels: layer styles, multiple, Photoshop, Smart Object, strokes
Categories:photoshop
Photo by: John De Boer
To make your Rulers display along the left and top of an image Ctrl + R on a PC or Command + R on a Mac. To make the Rulers disappear, simply press the keystroke shortcut again. Bonus tip – this works in Illustrator too.
Labels: Adobe, display rulers, how to, Photoshop, rulers, tip, trevor adobe, trevor payne
Categories:photoshop, trevor tip
It’s a good idea to configure your Photoshop preferences so the program works as you want it to. So, after installing Photoshop check your preferences and change any that you need to set by pressing the shortcut keystroke Ctrl + K on a PC and Command + K on a Mac. Bonus tip – it works with Illustrator too!
Labels: how to, Photoshop, preferences, tip, trevor adobe, trevor payne
Categories:photoshop, trevor tip
Learn how to take an image from Lightroom to Photoshop and back again. This will ensure that the image appears back in Lightroom, automatically added to the catalog, with the original version backed up. I also demonstrate the different possible settings so that you may customize this process.
Transcript:
Hello, I’m Helen Bradley. Welcome to this video tutorial. In this tutorial I’m going to show you how you can take an image from Lightroom to Photoshop and back successfully. I’m here in the Develop module in Lightroom and I’ve already done some work on this particular image. And I’m pretty happy with it. The problem is in this animal’s eye though you can see that there’s a little shape here that I want to get rid of.
Now I could get rid of this in Lightroom but it’s going to be a whole lot easier to take this image into Photoshop. So we’re going to do that now. To take an image from Lightroom into Photoshop I’m going to let Lightroom control the process. I’ll right click and choose Edit in. Because Photoshop has already been installed and Lightroom is aware of that I’m going to click Edit in Adobe Photoshop CS6. If I was using a different version of Photoshop I would select that from the list. I’ll click here. And now what’s happening is that Lightroom is asking me what I want to edit, either a copy of this image with the Lightroom adjustments, just a copy of the original or the original itself. In this particular case I want to edit this image with the Lightroom adjustments. So I’m going to edit a copy with Lightroom adjustments and click Edit.
If Photoshop is not already open Photoshop will be opened now. But here’s our image inside Photoshop and I’m just going to size it so that we can see the area in question. And now I’m going to bring in the tools. I have here the spot healing brush tool which is going to be the tool that’s going to help me fix this problem. I think I need to zoom in a little bit closer still so let’s get right into this problem area. And now with the spot healing brush tool I can size it down to suit the problem area and just start working over it. I could also use the clone tool if I wanted to. Any of these tools are going to help me fix this issue. And working with this tool in Photoshop is going to be a whole lot easier than working with the similar tools in Lightroom because I can just be a whole lot more accurate in Photoshop. If I want to undo it I just press Ctrl Alt Z to undo the change.
So when I’m happy with the resulting eye I’m just going to zoom out, make sure it all looks fine, which it does for this particular eye. I’ll probably fix this one while I’m here, but let’s call this good for now. And because I’m ready to go back to Lightroom now I’ve fixed the problem, I’m just going to close this image. So I’m just going to click the X button to close it. I’ll get a message which will say do you want to save changes to the document and I’ll say yes. The important thing at this point is not to choose File, Save as because you want to send the image back to Lightroom in the format that Lightroom sent it to Photoshop.
Now we’re back in Lightroom. The image that we’re looking at is the one that has been the fixed eye. And you can see here it’s called lionanimaleyes edit.tif. What Photoshop has done in conjunction with Lightroom is it’s taken the image, applied the edits to it and then sent it back as a TIF file with -edit after it. This is the original file. We haven’t lost the original. We’ve just got a copy back with the edits applied to it. Now the settings that Lightroom uses when exporting to Photoshop and receiving the image back are in the preferences setting.
I’ll choose Edit and then Preferences. And we’ll go to External Editing. You can see here that edit in Photoshop CS6 is set up as a TIF file. If we wanted to we could bring it back as a PSD file but TIF was selected here. It’s being sent out as proPhoto RGB with a 16 bit depth, a resolution of 240. And here’s the file naming. It’s coming back with the same file name with -edit on it. You can see that we’re using custom settings. Here’s the edit and here are our custom settings, the original file name with –edit applied, and then either PSD or TIF depending on what it is that we have set here for the file format. So all of this is customizable and this is where it’s being controlled as to what it goes out to Photoshop as and what it comes back into Lightroom as. And provided you use that process of just choosing File, Close or File, Save from Photoshop and not Save As so you don’t give it a name, you let Photoshop and Lightroom deal with it, then you’re going to be able to work seamlessly between Lightroom and Photoshop and back again.
I’m Helen Bradley. Thank you for joining me for this video tutorial. If you enjoyed this tutorial place click Like. You can subscribe to my channel and hear more about videos that are launched regularly every week in future.
Labels: adjust, automatic, edit, effect, faux, Lightroom, move, orton, Photoshop, transfer
