Archive for the “Planet Photoshop” Category

The preview in the Color Range dialog shows the entire image by default, which can make it hard to judge the potential selection mask if you’re trying to select only small areas. The solution is to first create a selection around the area on whic…

When using either the Polygonal Lasso or the Magnetic Lasso tools (both nested under the Lasso tool [L]), you can remove control points in the order in which they were put down by backtracking along the selection path and pressing the Delete (PC: Back…

Want to get a small taste of what Photoshop World is all about? If you find yourself in the Las Vegas area on Thursday, September 2 or Friday September 3 you can get a free pass to the Photoshop World Tech Expo at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. Yo…

Flawless skin can be key to successful portraits of ladies. Make their skin creamy soft by tapping the K key in Adobe Camera Raw 5 to call up the Adjustment Brush. Set the Clarity slider to ~40 for starters. Brush over the skin you want to smooth. Want…

Feather is still hidden in the Select menu under the Modify option. More useful is the new keyboard shortcut Shift-F6, which replaces the old shortcut Command-Option-D (PC: Ctrl-Alt-D). Mac users rejoice! you no longer have to give up the keystrokes t…

When the image won’t fit the page, use Content-Aware Scale to resize the background. And if you’re working with a human subject, click the Protect Skin Tones icon in the Options Bar, it will even leave the subject itself untouched. Press-in…

Choose the Sponge tool (nested under the Dodge tool [O]) from the Toolbox. In the Options Bar (shown below), choose Saturate from the Mode menu, set the Flow to at least 50%, and then click the Vibrance checkbox. Brush over the irises and ta-dah! Brill…

You can Shift-click on the Layer Mask thumbnail in the layers panel to turn off or disable the mask. You’ll see a red X appear over the mask icon in the Layers panel. The mask is actually still there but it’s disabled. Shift-click on it aga…

Double-click on the name ‘Background’ in the Layers panel, and then click OK, or press Return (PC: Enter) in the New Layer dialog to accept the new name. Or, even better, you can hold down the Option (PC: Alt) key, double-click on the Backg…

I never used to use keyboard shortcuts for blend modes. Then about a year or so ago, I realized that the keyboard shortcuts for blend modes are actually very easy. It always involves the Option-Shift (PC: Alt-Shift) keys and then one letter that’…