Transcript:
Hello, I’m Helen Bradley. Welcome to this video tutorial. In this tutorial I’m going to show you how you can actually make use of your reusable layout template that we made in an earlier video. In the previous video I showed you how to create this template.
It has a background color of white but that could be any color. It has space for two images. And then it has two copyright symbols here. One is black and one is white depending on which we want to use for any particular layout.
Now I’m going to show you how you can take this particular template and make it into this by adding images to it. I’m just going to hide this one away and we’ll focus on the one that we created.
I haven’t saved that yet but that doesn’t matter too much. Now I’m going to open some images that I want to use in it. So I’m going to go and select the images that I’d used previously. That’s winter7. And I want bird7 as well. So I’m just going to move these images into position. This is the main template and these are the individual images.
So to start off with I’m going to just drag and drop the background layers from each of these images into my main template. So this is this image first. I’m going to drag and drop it into position and I’m going to drag and drop this one in. Now you can see that the images that I’ve dragged and dropped in are way, way bigger than the template is. But that doesn’t matter because we know how to make them smaller. I’m going to click on the layer thumbnail, Ctrl T and then Ctrl Zero. You can see how much bigger these images are than the actual template itself. I’m going to size the image down quite small, click on this link here so I make sure that I don’t destroy its ratio of width and height, and I’m just going to move it roughly into position as to where it’s going to be in the final template. Now I’ll click the checkmark here and let’s go ahead and resize this one.
Click on the layer thumbnail, Ctrl T, Ctrl Zero. And now I’m going to scale it small, place it roughly in position, make sure that the width and height are scaled correctly in exactly the same proportion, finish off the positioning of it and then click the checkmark here. Now let’s zoom into the image. To make sure that this now works as we expect it to we need to bring back this line down here and we probably need to crop these images. Now the template has those crops already built into it.
The first thing I’m going to do is to drop this particular layer immediately above the layer that’s going to control its size. And then I’m going to drop this one immediately above the layer that’s going to control its size. And we’re going to use a simple feature called Clipping Path. With the topmost of this pair of layers selected, I’ll choose Layer and then Create Clipping Mask. And what that does is it clips this image to the exact size of the rectangle below. And now let’s do that with this one, click on the layer, Layer, Create Clipping Mask. And you can see that that’s clipped this particular image here to the exact size of the black box below.
The black has disappeared. It has nothing to do with it. These colors could be any color you like. But you can see that in doing so we’ve brought back the color from this layer here. And we can prove that that’s where the color is coming from. So I’m just going to select a blue color here and I’ll just fill this layer with blue. And you can see now that the space between those two images is the exact same blue as I just filled the background layer with. I’ll just undo that because I don’t really want blue.
To finish off I’m just going to decide which of these two copyright symbols is going to work better in this instance. Well I think the white one is. So I’m going to click its eyeball or its visibility icon and turn off the black one. So that’s how we would fill that template that we created in an earlier video.
Now your templates don’t have to be as simple as this one. They can be quite complex. And you may be aware that I have templates available on projectwoman.com. This is a free set of templates that you can download and use exactly as you’ve seen here. There are some triptychs and there are also some layouts with 9, 4 and 6 images in them.
I’m Helen Bradley. Thank you for joining me for this video tutorial. If you liked this tutorial place click the thumbs up to give it a like. Think about subscribing to my YouTube channel and visit my website at projectwoman.com for more tips, tricks and tutorials on Illustrator, Photoshop, Lightroom, Photoshop Elements, iPad and a whole lot more.
Place tables side by side in a document using text boxes to keep them in place
If you add a table to a text box in Microsoft Word, you can position the text box wherever you want it to be on the screen.
If you need two tables to be placed side by side in your document you can do so by placing each of them inside a text box and then arranging the text boxes side by side.
To do this, create a text box by selecting the Insert tab on the Ribbon, click Text Box and click Draw Text Box. Click and drag to create a text box and then click inside it and create a table by choosing Insert > Table. Repeat the process to create the second table in its text box then drag to position the text boxes side by side.
This technique shows a quick way to create even complex layouts using selections and layers in Photoshop. It is simple to achieve for any one with advanced beginner skills or better in Photoshop.
Transcript:
Hello, I’m Helen Bradley. Welcome to this video tutorial. In this tutorial I’m going to show you how you can use Photoshop to make a reusable layout template. In a later video I’ll show you how you can go ahead and reuse that template.
This is the type of template that I’m going to show you how to create in this video and in the next video I’m going to show you how to populate it. Basically the template is made up here of a background layer which can be any color you like and you can also change the color if you want to. And into the template we’re going to put two black boxes and these later on are going to be filled with images. Here’s one image and here’s another. And it’s going to be done in a way that’s going to be very easy for you to limit the size of these images to match these black boxes. And then you can add copyright symbol.
Now I’ve got two in this particular template because I’m not sure whether I’m going to need a black one or a white one. And that will pretty much depend on what the images are that I’m using. So into this template I’m going to put both of them so they’re both available. So in this particular video this is the point at which we’re going to have the template created. We’ll have a backing, the two boxes and then two alternate copyright symbols that we can use. So let’s get started.
The first thing to do is to choose File, New and then make a size for your template. I’m using one that could be used for a blog so it’s a mere 650 by 300 pixels in size, 72 pixels per inch because this is going to the web, RGB color mode, and because I want a white background I’m just going to select Background Contents White. But we could color that later on if we wanted to, and I’ll just click Ok. And here is my new document. It has just a background layer.
The next thing to do is to add a guide that I’m going to use to make it just a little bit easier to make those black boxes. I’m going to choose View and then New Guide and I want this one to be at 40 percent vertical. So that’s a little bit more than one-third of the way across this document. Now I’m going to add a new layer by clicking the Add New Layer icon here at the foot of the layer pallete. I’m going to target the Rectangular Marquee tool. And making sure that I’m pointed to this new layer I’m going to drag over to create a rectangle. Now I’m going to do that again so that you can see that I start my rectangle here outside the edge of the image to make sure that I get all the image up to this line. And because View is set to Snap I’m snapping to this guide so I’m making sure that I’m filling this exact area.
I have black selected here as my foreground color so I’m going to press Alt Backspace or Option Delete on the Mac to fill my rectangle with that black color. Now I’m going to add another new layer and this time I’m going to choose Select, Inverse because what that does is to select everything that I didn’t have selected before. Now I’m going to fill this with black again, Alt Backspace, Option Delete.
Now right now I’ve got two black boxes. And if I turn off these guides, I’m just going to clear the guides, you’ll see that these two boxes in fact butt onto each other so they’re creating an entire document. That’s not what I want. I want a marker between the two of them.
So I’m going to click on the topmost layer, click the Move tool and then just tap with the right arrow key and I’m just visually deciding how much space I want between these two boxes. And I think that’s a pretty good amount. So having done that I’m just going to select a different tool and that will turn this off. So here I’ve got my two layers and my background layer.
And all I need to do now is to add the copyrights so I’m just going to choose File, Open Recent because I recently opened my black and my white copyrights. So here they are. I’m going to just pull these images out of the way so that I can see my main image. And this is the white copyright here that is selected so this is its layer. So I’m just going to drag and drop it into my image. It’s way too big but we’ll worry about that in a minute. I’ll close it down. And now this is my black copyright image and I’m going to drag and drop its background layer into my image. And again, it’s way too big too. I’m now going to select the black copyright layer here and I’m going to press Ctrl and T and then Ctrl and zero. And what that does is it lets me see my sizing handles because this image this copyright image is really, really huge.
So I’m just going to size it down so it’s going to fit better in this area here. I’m going to make sure that I click this link here so that it’s sized in proportion. And now I’m going to just drag it back to approximately where I want it to be and click the checkmark. I can hide that now. And now let’s focus on the white layer exactly the same, click the layer thumbnail to select it, Ctrl and T and then Ctrl and zero. Now I’m going to drag in on the sizing handles to make my copyright small enough to position it in place on my image. I’m just going to click this link again just to make sure that this is scaled in proportion and click the checkmark.
So this is my template. It’s all done and now I can save it. So I can choose File and then Save as and I would give it a name such as 40, 60 something, like that to indicate to me that this is a template that I can now use to create other documents in future. In the next video I’ll show you exactly how to do that.
I’m Helen Bradley. Thank you for joining me for this video tutorial. If you liked the tutorial please click Like. Think about subscribing to my YouTube channel and look at my website at projectwoman.com for more tips, tricks and tutorials on Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, iPad and a whole lot more.
Let’s look a little deeper into how to capture great reflections
In the previous post we looked at the basics of capturing reflections. Here we’ll look at some additional tips and tricks.
Frame the image
When capturing a reflection of a building in a lake, for example, you have two choices for framing the image. You can capture the reflection alone or you can capture the original object and its reflection. The choice is yours. If you’re shooting digital, capture both shots and see which you like best later on.
If you opt to capture both the original and the reflection, consider where the line where one ends and the other begins should be. You can shoot with the ‘line’ across the middle of the photo but this can be distracting as the eye doesn’t know exactly which image to focus on.
A better solution is to place the ‘line’ along the top one third or bottom third of the image – so the reflected area is double the size of the original or half its size. This will balance the image better and give a more restful image. Make sure the line between the reflection and what’s being reflected is very straight, if it is not, it will be very distracting.
Here the buildings are much more interesting as a reflection than they were right side up!
Capture the imperfect
When you’re looking for reflections, don’t always look for perfection. There are interesting photos to be taken where the reflection is bent or rippled because of the characteristics of the reflective surface.
For example, try shooting a reflection captured in a car windscreen. The reflection will be bent and distorted because of this and all the more interesting.
Here the wake of the boat I was travelling on broke the reflection in a very visually rich way:
A sudden shower of rain will open up new adventures in capturing reflections as you will see the surrounds reflected in puddles of water on the ground. Even a storm-cloud laden sky will look more threatening if captured reflected in a puddle.
Focus on the point of focus
When you’re shooting a reflection, check your camera is focusing correctly. You want it to focus on the reflected surface and some cameras may not do this correctly and may, instead, focus on the objects behind the reflective surface.
If you’re using a digital SLR, you can switch to manual focus and focus the lens yourself so you can make sure that the area you’re most interested in is nice and sharp.
Once you start looking for reflective surfaces to shoot images from you will be surprised at just how many there are and what great effects you can get from them with not
much effort.
Modify a Style’s Font Color to help find missed formatting
Quickly determine which paragraphs in a document have been formatted using one style, rather than another, by changing the colour of the formatted text.
To do this, click the Home tab on the Ribbon, hover over the style’s name you want to edit in the Styles gallery. Now, right click it and select Modify. In the Modify Style dialog, change the Font Color to something that will stand out on the page (such as purple) and click OK.
Now scroll through your document to see if the style has been applied everywhere you wanted it applied. Remember, if you don’t make any changes at this point, you can quickly undo the colour change by selecting Undo.
Otherwise, when you are done formatting the document, set the colour back to the original Font Color by repeating the above steps.
Reflections make for great photos so here’s how to capture them
Reflections occur all around us. When you’re driving, the road behind you is reflected in the car rear vision mirror and your car will be reflected in the chrome on the car next to yours at the stop light.
Other reflections are more obvious and often constructed to be so, for example, the Reflecting Pool at the War Memorial in Canberra reflects the surrounding buildings and beautiful houses are often constructed with lakes in front of them to reflect their beauty.
Capturing these objects and their reflections can lead to some wonderful photos so here I’ll show you want to look out for and how to capture a great shot.
Axe the Polarizer
The first thing to do when shooting reflections is to remove the polarizing filter from your camera. This filter is designed to reduce reflections which, most of the time is a good thing, but not when it’s the reflections themselves you’re interested in.
If you leave the filter on and photograph something reflected in a window, chances are you’ll capture an image of what’s behind the window instead of what is reflected in it.
Ideas for reflections – sunglasses
While a beautiful building reflected in a lake makes for a great shot, there are reflections you’ll come across every day that will often be more interesting because they are not staged or expected.
For example, the lenses in sunglasses will reflect the scene around them. By positioning yourself so you can see something interesting reflected in the lens you can capture a mini scene within the glasses themselves.
Ideas for reflections – rear vision mirror
Car rear vision and side mirrors are great for capturing interesting reflections.
Hold the camera at an angle to the mirror so you don’t capture the camera in the shot (unless you actually want to) and frame the shot in the mirror. You’ll need to frame it very accurately because anything outside what shows in the mirror won’t be captured.
Ideas for reflections – city buildings
If you live in a city there will be reflection opportunities in the buildings around you. For example, capture a busy streetscape in the glass front window of a shop. Look out for an interesting shop to use for this purpose such as a fruiterer or bakery or some shop where what is in the window is as much of interest as what is reflected in it.
When you’re shooting reflections in shop windows, there’s a good chance the final shot will be a mix of reflection and what shows through the glass.
Tall buildings with mirror glass will reflect the buildings around them and the sky too. Look for opportunities where the sun is right and the reflected image an ideal one to compose and capture.
Learn to make realistic rivets in Photoshop. This tutorial makes use of the new photo filters in Photoshop CS6, but doesn’t require their use, so, you can make the rivets in any version of Photoshop. You will see how to add dimension with Bevel and Emboss and Contours, as well as with gradients and light. The tutorial is easy to follow and the process of making a rivet quite simple.
Transcript:
Hello, I’m Helen Bradley. Welcome to this video tutorial. In this tutorial I’m going to show you how you can create rivets quickly and easily in Photoshop. Before we get started making the rivets let’s have a look and see what it is that we’re creating. And this is the type of rivet that we’re going to create. This one’s a copper rivet, but we can make them in any colors that we like.
To start off I’m going to choose File and then New and I’m going to create a new image. This one’s going to be 500 by 500 pixels because I like my rivets to be able to be shrunk down so that they can look realistic in place. So I’m just going to click Ok. And the first thing I’m going to do is to fill this layer here with a gradient.
Now in Photoshop CS6 there are some new photo gradients that you can use. And I really like these for rivets, but in earlier versions of Photoshop you can go and do the same thing and you can create your own look in gradients. So you don’t have to have these gradients available, but you will find that they are kind of handy for creating rivets as well as of course coloring photos. So I’m just going to click Ok and I’m going to apply this as a linear gradient. So I’m going to make sure I have Linear Gradient selected here and I’m going to drag it across the image here. I’m holding Shift to constrain it to a straight line. Now I’m not totally convinced about this particular gradient so let’s go and get something.
I know this copper one is going to work. So I just want something that is a little less harsh. This one’s got a distinct dark area and I want something that transforms from light to dark a little bit more smoothly. So this is a pretty good gradient. Now if this is a bit dark you can add a new layer to your image. So I’m going to add a new layer and I’m going to fill it with the foreground color by pressing Alt and Backspace because my foreground color is white. That’s Option Delete on the Mac. I’m going to set this to Screen Blend mode and just adjust the opacity down so that I can use most of the color underneath. But I could make it lighter if I wanted to. And I’ll just merge those layers with Ctrl and E to merge the layers. But if your gradient isn’t too dark then you don’t need to do that step.
I’m then going to choose the Elliptical Marquee tool and I’m going to drag a circle onto my gradient. And if I hold the Shift key with it that will be a pure circle. And if I use the Spacebar I can move the circle right into the center of the image. So I’ve still got the Shift key selected, I’m going to let go of the left mouse button and then let go the Shift key so I’ve got a circle here.
Now I’m going to invert that with Select Inverse so I have selected everything but the circle and I’ll press Delete. So this is the first part here of my rivet and it’s actually this outside part here. I’m going to duplicate this layer by dragging and dropping it on the New Layer icon. Now I got a bit enthusiastic there and ended up with more layers than I needed. So I now have two identical layers. I’m going to deselect the current selection by pressing Ctrl D or I could choose Select, Deselect. Now this is going to be in my inner shape so I’m going to Ctrl click on it, choose the Move tool, and then I want to size it in smaller. Now the way I do that is to hold both the Shift and the Alt keys as I do this. The Shift key constrains my movement to a full circle so I’m always going to have a circle here and the Alt key sizes it from the middle so that it’s not being repositioned. This second circle is going to be right in the middle of the first circle. So when I get it in place, let go of the left mouse button and then and only then let go of the Alt and the Shift keys, I’m going to click the checkmark here.
Now I want to transform this. And I want to transform it through 180 degrees so I’ll press Ctrl and T to get my transform details up here and I’ll type 180. And that’s flipped it around. In fact I think it could be rotated a little bit more attractively, probably to about here. Now at this point you’re going to get a relatively flat looking rivet. And I actually prefer to at this stage actually go and reapply the gradient. So I’m going to select my gradient again, with this layer I’m going to lock the pixels on it so that I can drag my gradient in and it’s only going to affect the area marked out by the circle. I’m also going to select a radial gradient because what I want to do is for this part of the gradient here to be light and the outer edge to be dark, and I’m just going to find a good position for it. And I think this is a pretty good gradient. So you can just continue to drag until you get it into the right place. Let’s just unlock that now. We’re ready now to add a Bevel and Emboss.
So I’m going to click the bottom layer here, choose the Add Layer Style icon and I’ll choose Bevel and Emboss. Now in contour I want one of these contours, this one, this one or this one. They’re all going to work pretty well. And I’m going to just adjust the range so that I push it to the very edge of the shape. Let’s go back into Bevel and Emboss and now I’m going to reduce the depth quite a bit, reduce the size, just get it to what I want it to look like. Now we have a problem with the light now. At the moment from Photoshop’s point of view and for this Bevel and Emboss effect, Photoshop has the light coming from this direction. But you can see that the light is actually coming from this direction on the rivet itself. So we need to adjust the light here to match our rivet.
So I’m going to bring in a global light here that is hitting from this direction. And then I’m going to adjust my Screen and my Multiply so that I get the effect that I want. I don’t want a really, really harsh set of settings here. I just want the very smallest amount. And then I’m going to add a Drop Shadow so I’ll click Drop Shadow, select the Drop Shadow itself.
Now I think that these are badly named in Photoshop. Size in actual fact it’s more like a feather. So size will give you a softer or a harsher shadow and the actual physical size of the shadow is really controlled by the spread and the distance. So I’m going to bring my distance and my spread in quite small and adjust the size of it which gives me that sort of feathering effect and click Ok. And let’s just zoom out here and there we have our rivet. And this one’s a copper rivet but you’ll find that there’s plenty of things to choose from in this set of photo gradients. And you can create your own gradients to create your own look for your rivets.
I’m Helen Bradley. Thank you for joining me for this video tutorial. Look out for more video tutorials on this YouTube channel, subscribe to the channel, click Like if you liked this video and visit my website at projectwoman.com for more tips, tricks and tutorials on Illustrator, Photoshop, Lightroom and a whole lot more.
Learn to use ‘Save as type’ to format your document so users of older versions of Word can access them
You can easily exchange files with users of older versions of Word. This is because Word 2007, 2010, and 2013 essentially share the same file format. So it is pretty easy to open any Word document created using version 2007, 2010 or 2013 in any other of these three versions of Word. In addition, Word 2007, 2010, and 2013 will open files from any previous version of Word.
However, when you need to share a Word 2007, 2010, or 2013 file with someone using a much earlier version such as Word 2003 or a Mac version of Word, you must save the file using their particular Word file format. This is because the file formats are not the same and the older versions of Word cannot read the newer file formats.
To save using the appropriate format, select the File tab on the Ribbon, and click Save As. In the Save As dialog, click the Save as type: dropdown list and select the word processing format that matches the software that your other user is using such as Word 97-2003 Document (*.doc). Then click Save to save it in that format.
Give an image’s Midtones a Boost with the Clarity Slider
The Clarity slider helps you adjust the Midtones in the image so it adds Contrast to them which also results in them looking a little crisper and more saturated too.
It’s a great tool, but try not to overdo it. Typically, a Clarity adjustment of around 25 is a good choice for most images. In Lightroom 4 the adjustment has been tweaked a bit so you can add more Clarity in Lightroom 4 than you are perhaps used to doing in Lightroom 3.
Find Lost Details Hidden in Shadows and Darker Parts of an Image
When you have an image that has details lost in the shadows or darker areas of the image, the Fill Light slider in Lightroom 3 or the Shadows slider in Lightroom 4 can be used to recover this detail.
Don’t use either of these as a tool for lightening an image or to lighten shadows if there is nothing interesting in the shadows. Use them instead when you want to get some interesting detail out of the shadows.
The result of using the Fill Light and sometimes using the Shadow tool is that some contrast in the image will be lost – so you nay need to increase Contrast as a result of using the Fill Light slider in Lightroom 3 or apply a tone curve adjustment in Lightroom 4.
