Adobe Photoshop CS3 - Smooth Edges

To start the tutorial please open Adobe Photoshop CS3 and click (File, New…) like the illustration shows.

Now you should name the project we are working on and set the width and height to something at or above 550×450. Please use a resolution over 90% otherwise the output will not look as smooth as it possibly could. Keep the background as white.

Now you can see our background layer and what we are going to work with. However, we will not be working on the background layer itself. We are going to create a new layer by selecting the icon on the bottom right corner of the screen that creates new layers.

Now you can see the new layer that we have created.

Now we are going to make the background not viewable so we can focus on Layer 1.

Now you can selected the Custom Shape Tool from the selection toolbar on the left side of the screen.

I have constructed an arrow with a black base so that it is easy to see the difference when you change the smoothness.

Now we are going to select the Vector Mask Thumbnail. You can do that by Control-Left Clicking on the thumbnail.

After you have selected the Vector Mask Thumbnail, we can go to the bottom of the right toolbar and select the Add Layer Mask button. This will add a layer mask to the object we have created.

Now we can select the Layer Mask Thumbnail so that we may single it out for changes. You then can select Control-D, to deselect the layer.

Now we can go to the top toolbar and select (Filter, Blur, and Gaussian Blur…). Select a ration of 4.0 pixels to make it an even blur.

Now you will see that the Layer Mask is blurred by the filter we have just implemented.

Now you can select the Layer Mask Thumbnail. You can do this by pressing Alt-Left Click to the layer mask available.

After selecting the thumbnail, select (Image, Adjustments, Levels…).

You will now see a graph with three pyramids on the edges from 0-255. The closer you bring the three triangles to the middle the smoother your object is going to look. This is where you are able to play around with how your object will look with the variances of the degrees. If you have something special in mind you can adjust this how you please. I brought my pyramids rather close to the middle. It seemed if I brought them too close the smoothness almost became too smooth to use for a picture.

Here you can see the selection I made and what it looks like on the screen.

Press “OK” and you will end up at this screen.

Now you should select the Layer Mask Thumbnail. Use a right-click to bring up a menu

The menu that you see when you right-click the Layer Mask Thumbnail will look like the illustration below. Please select the Add Layer Mask to Selection option.

You will see now that a dotted line is now around the object of the layer mask.

Now you will press Alt-Left Click on the Layer Mask Thumbnail to complete the implementation of the layer mask to the object.

Now you select Control-D to get rid of the dotted lines and deselect the Layer Mask Thumbnail.

Now you can make the background visible again and look how smoother it is on a white background after it has been smoothed.

This process to smooth the edges of objects is a great tool that anyone with a little patience can use to improve the look of their objects. It does not matter whether you are using it for pictures or for web content. I hope that this tutorial has taught you a few features that the Adobe Photoshop CS3 is capable of.

Photoshop Tutorial - Separating Colors For Screen Printing

If you are new to screen printing, you may not know where to begin when it comes to getting artwork ready for printing. Separating images into colors is an important step. Luckily Photoshop makes this pretty easy. I am going to show you how in just a few easy steps.

Open your picture in Photoshop. Now select the magic wand tool in the tools panel. Use this tool to select all of one color in the image. If you need to select more than one area, hold the shift key down as you click on the picture. You will see “dancing ants” around the selected areas. If you click on the wrong area, simply press Ctrl+Z to undo the last move, or right click and select Subtract From Selection. Once you have made your selection, right click and select Layer via Copy. This will create a new layer with just the one color in it.

If you look at the layers panel now you will see two layers. Unclick the eye icon next to Layer 1 to hide the layer. You should be able to see just the color you selected left in the image. I am going to change the name of this layer to the color it contains by double clicking on the name and replacing the text.

If everything looks right, click the space where the eye icon was before to make Layer 1 reappear. Follow the steps of selecting a color and Layering via Copy again until all colors are represented in their own layers. Each time you select a new color for layering, you will need to make sure Layer 1 is active. You can tell because that layer will be highlighted in blue in the layers panel. Layer 1 needs to be active because this is where all the colors reside originally. If a different layer is active then when you try to use the magic wand tool to select a color, it will not work correctly because the color you are selecting is not present in the active layer.

Colors that have fine detail are a little more complicated than the other layers. It’s a good idea to zoom in when you select small areas to make sure you don’t miss anything. Also, if I use the magic wand to select small lettering like the TM next to a logo it will probably not look crisp when screen printed. Instead of selecting this area with the Magic Wand create a new layer and use the text tool to rewrite TM. Write TM in black and move the TM to the correct location on the image. Use a different color than the TM was originally written in so it is easy to see if the font is the right size, etc.

Now hide all the layers in the layers panel except the TM layer and the layer that contains the same color as you would like TM to be printed in. Right click in the layers panel and select Merge Visible. Both layers are now together in one layer.

You will need to create registration marks now so the layers are easy to line up when screen printing. Use a thin font like Arial and write the + sign in black in three corners of the image. Use a font size that is easy to see but not too thick or it will be hard to line up. The registration marks need to be far enough away from the image that they do not interfere with printing, but still close to the picture. Once you print a few logos you will get a feel for how to create and place these marks.

Now select one of the layers. In the file menu go to Image>Adjustments>Levels. The levels options window will pop up. Under Output Levels: there is a black and white bar with two arrows underneath. Click on the white arrow and drag it all the way to the left end of the bar. This will turn the layer black.

Do this with each layer until each layer is black. Now you are ready to print. You will want to print each color layer separately in black with the registration marks on each print. Good luck printing!

28 Bar & Grill Restaurant Website Layouts

A recognizable online presence should be one of the top priorities for any new restaurant. Patrons and new customers alike both prefer to find information about restaurants from the comfort of their desk, couch, or doctor’s waiting room. In the past we’ve covered food-related sites but haven’t been focused on specific types of food.

This gallery places a direct focus on websites for grills, bars, and steakhouses. Each of the following sites exude both creativity and usability relating to a more niche consumer base. Use this gallery to your advantage when designing a new bar & grill website or just practicing new techniques on your own.

Jake is a digital researcher and writer on many popular design magazines. He frequently writes on topics including web design, user experience, mobile apps, and project management. You can find him all throughout Google and tweeting @jakerocheleau.
Connect with Jake on google+

Photoshop LAB Color - The Most Powerful Colorspace!

I consider LAB color space and it’s use to be one of the most important subject when it comes to the whole image processing concept.

And why is that, you ask? because the LAB color space is the only “device independent” color space in Photoshop, and when used correctly, it is the only one that will allow the user to have the best color match from capture to display to print.

Simply put – the LAB color space is the only one representing the way the human eye sees color. And that is the most important thing when it comes to ensuring color match throughout the process.

Let me explain what “device independent” means:

Simply put, “device independent” color space is one that regardless of which device is used the human eye will always see the exact same color.

RGB an CMYK color spaces are component based spaces. Whet it means is that when a color is “created” it is made up of certain amounts of each component. The problem is that different devices use different components. Take for example two monitors. Their RGB phosphors will be different, so despite the fact that they may display same quantities of RGB components, the human eye will see two different colors. The same is true for CMYK – take two printers, and same CMYK amounts will result in the eye seeing two different colors.

That is not the case with LAB. When the same LAB value is measured on any number of devices (which will probably require different component, RGB or CMYK, to do that, which is what device profile do), the human eye will always see exactly the same color.

A great book to read about Photoshop LAB color is Dan Margulis’s “Photoshop LAB Color: The Canyon Conundrum and Other Adventures in the Most Powerful Colorspace”

Which makes it the most powerful color space!

This book is outstanding! It’s not for beginners, and it is not an easy read for advanced user either – you need to have a solid understanding of what you’re doing with RGB or CMYK color adjustments, and basic retouching first. Working in Lab is an incredibly powerful way to pull out very natural and vibrant colors with much less effort.

Dan Margulis’s knowledge of color runs deep. This book is nothing short of amazing. If color matters to you as it is to me, this is a must read book.

Dan essentially advocates color correction and image improvement through LAB, and he advances compelling evidence to support the concept. The trick is to get a grasp of what kinds of images LAB excels at, and where it falls short (in which case Dan points out which of the remaining color spaces, RGB or CMYK, is the better option). He also demonstrates image correction in as few steps as possible, often without selections (rather, he generates what he needs by employing more useful channels… which helps avoid obvious selection edges that do not match).

As I said, it’s not an easy read. I keep picking it up and read out a few pages here or there, trying out techniques as I go along. And by now I use LAB almost exclusively for color corrections.

On top of that, even though this is not one of the free photoshop downloads, it is very straight forward to turn a lot of the book techniques into photoshop actions, which I did. Just go through the motions and record them – that’s all it takes.

As far as I’m concerned, if you are serious about color match throughout the process, LAB is the only way to go. Give it a go, and you’ll realize that yourself.

How To Use The New Adobe Photoshop CS5 Tools

Adobe not too long ago unveiled Photoshop CS5, which is currently the latest variation of Photoshop, which can do much more compared to the previous versions. Even so, it is presented in a slightly different style, making it somewhat bewildering for existing Adobe Photoshop users, but it does have many significantly helpful applications that are a lot more powerful than ever before. There’s a number of healing applications that can help you clear your photos of those unattractive imperfections, be it for a specialist portfolio or a family album. So why don’t we have a look at exactly how to use the latest Photoshop CS5 resources…

Adobe Photoshop CS5 – All New-found Painting Applications – Included are bristle tips which are a set of brand-new tips which you will get access to. You’ve also got the dynamic tip which will change based on how it’s impressed and touched on the actual canvas. Each and every brush features a great deal of expressive characters within it that were not in Photoshop previously, and you will find a variety of handles and tips too.

The CS5 Patch Match – A patch match is really a randomized correspondence algorithm used for structural graphic modifying. It provides tools for graphic re-composition and image completion, as well as image re-targeting, and each and every operation is actually managed by user specified restrictions. It also provides tools for interactive image reshuffling. This demonstrates an easy algorithm for locating a patch in order to patch correspondences between two arbitrary picture areas. It may be employed in a wide array in new and present patch based graphic manipulation allowing novel work-flows for structural picture enhancing. It can be helpful for a number of other programs in media synthesis and analysis.

Photoshop CS5 Content-Aware Fill – This particular new function of Content-Aware Fill allows us to extract undesired areas from any given picture; with the ability to perform it simply by filling up the area that is remaining by making use of pixels which are around it. It’s a welcome function for beginners or novices and does not call for in depth understanding of Adobe Photoshop or even graphics. All you have got to do is strike Shift and Delete and you’re done.

Mixer brush – this particular characteristic helps you to blend and also mix colors together much like in wet colors. The application gives an amazing simulation of natural media style tools. Sample all layers – It is within the property bar of the mixer brush. Works well for giving a picture an even more real painting kind of appearance.

Compositing plus selecting hair in Adobe Photoshop CS5 – CS5 includes a unique feature called Edge Detection that will finally permit you to swiftly help make selections of images with both hard and soft edges. it ‘s got the edge over formerly used applications similar to the quick selection tool which often tends to go shabby about soft edges.

I hope you have enjoyed these tips to help CS5 users discover how to use the new functions in this latest version of Adobe Photoshop software.

What is Required in Getting an Adobe Photoshop Certification?

Adobe is a trusted company that produces many software products. Photoshop is a very popular program that is used by graphic designers, photographers and practically anyone who works with computer images. Adobe offers certifications for their Photoshop products and other software programs that they make. Having a certificate from such a well known company is a great addition to any resume.

So, what does it take to become an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE)? It is essentially as easy as paying a fee (usually $150 for each exam), using Adobe’s Prep Guide and taking the test. There are over 20 different programs that you can take an exam for and get certified in. As an example, I’ll analyze the Photoshop CS4 exam.

Before you pay the fee to take the exam you may want to look over the Prep Guide in order to see if you will be successful. With the guide, you will also be able to practice the steps necessary to passing the exam. Adobe Photoshop CS4 costs $699 at the onset, so you definitely want to get the most out of this program. In order to get certified, you need to understand and be familiar with the topics which are “general knowledge, correcting, painting and retouching images, working with selections, creating and using layers, working with masks and channels, working with vector tools, suing Camera Raw and Bridge, automating tasks, managing color, advanced knowledge, creating output for print, and creating output for web and mobile devices.” Each one of these categories counts as a certain percentage for the entire exam. There are 74 questions and you need to get 70% of them correct in order to pass.

The criteria for the other exams are very similar to the ones for Photoshop CS4, between 60 – 90 questions with a required 70% to pass and a $150 exam fee. Other programs that you can get ACE certified in are “Adobe Photoshop, Flash, InDesign, Illustrator, Premier Pro, AfterEffects and Dreamweaver CS4 and CS3 versions” as well as “Adobe RoboHelp, Captivate, Photoshop Lightroom 2, ColdFusion 8, Acrobat 9 Professional, Flash Lite 2.0 Mobile Developer, Flex 3 with AIR and FrameMaker 8.0.” All of these programs work to advance your Photoshop skills. I feel that it is also important to keep current with the program, and you can re-certify any of these programs for a $50 exam fee.

I think you’ll find that passing the exam and getting an ACE certificate is as good as, if not better than, getting an A grade in a Graphic Design course in college. Once you have passed the exam, it takes 2-4 weeks to get your “certificate kit” in the mail. With the kit, you get a certificate that you can hang on the wall (which is especially nice if you have a walk-in store where people can purchase your imaging services), you will be able to post the ACE logo on your website and you will be able to access the ACE community to further expand your expertise. I am sure you see that getting a Photoshop certification is very beneficial for anyone in the imaging industry.

Copyright (c) 2010 Mandi Pralle

25 Exuberant Portfolios for Writers & Authors

Portfolio design is a helpful topic for web designers who are always looking for inspiration. Most of these portfolios relate to graphic & web designers but there are many other creative people out there. Portfolio layouts vary dramatically based on the type of creative work.

This gallery is devoted to 25 of the best portfolio websites for writers and authors. Writing is an expansive field that includes copywriting, technical writing, screenwriting, and of course authorship. Anyone who’s in the midst of a portfolio design or redesign will find a lot of great ideas from these magnificent examples.

Jake is a digital researcher and writer on many popular design magazines. He frequently writes on topics including web design, user experience, mobile apps, and project management. You can find him all throughout Google and tweeting @jakerocheleau.
Connect with Jake on google+