Hey… I just stumble upon the new logo for photoshop… Is this better then the Photoshop Cs3 logo?

I think not. Ok it’s not bad but i think it’s way worse then the previous. I’m curious also to see if illustrator and indesign and all the programs will have a new logo or it’s just for the Photoshop Star

The rest will be stuck with some beautiful, minimalistic and without being on the wave of the new trend.

Keep the rest and change the best

not so long ago, at my old job, i quite frequently had to cut out the background of some photoshop images. nothing special so far…

but guess what: all of those images presented close-ups of people (women and children)… can you imagine how fun it is to cut off their hair? especially with curlly hair!!

i’ve tried everything! neither the pentool nor the magic wand did any magic!! not even after making an alpha channel and recreating the hair.

if i only knew then the vertus fluid mask filter…
here’s what you can do with it:

great details isn’t it?

and here’s how you do it:

1. after you install, select and apply the filter, push the delete local button

2. now click on the background you want to cut off (click on both sides of the object)

3. go to image > select autofill image

4. make sure you deactivate “show edges” in order to have a clearer image

5. select complex brush

6. and cover all the parts that are not selected

7. click on the cut out button

8. and… this is how it looks on transparent background, after everything’s done!

really simple and fast isn’t it?

btw: you maybe interested also in some previous posts, where i’ve told how to cut background using pen tool.

need more answers? post a comment

_________________
comment “fine cut for object background in photoshop”

so you just have a hard time straightening an object in the composition… here’s a tip:

to repair a crooked image, use the measure tool [U] to draw a line along what should be a horizontal or vertical line (the edge of the image, a door frame, across the eyes of a person in a portrait, etc.), and then choose image » rotate canvas » arbitrary…;

the correct angle and direction will appear, just hit OK.

keep in mind that you can also use the crop tool [C] to rotate and crop an image in one step. select the crop tool [C] and draw a rectangular region. use the crop handle to scale the marquee, and drag outside the marquee to rotate it; hit enter to crop the image.

see?

are you in a hurry?
do you want to use some of those images you have processed as thumbnails? in a website maybe?

well… there’s a 3 min solution for that.

1. use the “ready made” automation in photoshop for making a web photo gallery

2. choose one of the albums from the style list on top of the options page

- choose the the folder for the source of the pictures
- create destination a folder and choose it choose
- chose the thumbnails option from the drop down list and then select a size, small, medium or big
- hit ok…and wait….

3. when all the thumbnails are done photoshop will open a html page with the web album that you created.
you don’t actually need that. close it and go to the destination folder that you’ve chosen. you can delete everything but the thumbnails folder.
in the thumbnails folder you can also delete any image but images named “back”, “next”, “up”, “down”.

in the next post i’ll tell you how i’ve used thumbnails to create a preloader for external images in a flash website.

i’m sure you use photoshop’s crop tool!

and yes, i’m sure you’ve noticed that if you crop images in photoshop (using the crop tool [C] or edit » crop), you will lose all pixels outside the crop boundaries.

but are you sure you want that?!

To crop your image without losing any data, use canvas size (image » canvas size) instead. Photoshop will warn you that some clipping will occur, but for some reason that does not happen.

….and all “cropped” data will be preserved outside the canvas boundaries!

haha… you have outsmarted the crop tool in photoshop!!

some of you remember my tea house ad created in photoshop:

and some of you might remember that i’ve promised you that i’d show you all the steps i have done to achieve it.

i’ve allready told you what were the steps for making it and where from to get the right pictures.

now… i want to show you how you can the objects in pictures with any kind of background you want.
simply put… how to cut an object from it’s background using the pentool in photoshop.

so i’ve made a short movie (about 4 min). please don’t hesitate to share feedback. or to ask for details.

here’s it!
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u0htzPrSW4[/video]

find the the second part of this tutorial here.

some days ago, i wrote you about how to create and use actions in photoshop.

but there’s more!

one really powerful aspect of actions is the ability to have them play other actions (even from different action sets).

this feature is ideal for actions that contain repetitive command segments that could be segregated into action �??subroutines�?� (thereby making the action easier to edit and maintain).

here’s how:

while recording an action, choose another action and press the play button: the play command is recorded as an action step (play action �??name�?� of Set �??name�?�) in the current action.

usefull, isn’t it?

If you are making a web site most probably you will find yourself in the position to resize lots of images…if time is short or if you just want to finish working and go playing use actions.
So at the begining you want to put all the images that you want to resize in two folders - one vertical and one horizontal (i mean portrait - v and landscape - h)

Part one - make the action

1. create a destination folder…like “done” on the desktop
2. go to photoshop and in the actions panel choose create new set (give it a name)
3. open an image (from the source folder) …or any image, it only has to be the same orientation (portrait or landscape), as the images you want to use the action on
4. return to the actions panel and push the create a new actions button
- a new window will appear with these options…

- name the action (if you are resizing the horizontal images name it like… h 450×600)
- choose a source set…if you created a new set choose that one.
- function key - it’s a shortcut for apply the action, like ctrl+v is paste (it’s good to have a function key if you have to resize several small number of images. for a large number edited all at once you will not need it)
- color - to see the action quicker on the panel use a color to highlight it
- push the record button and you can start making the first action

5. resize the image. the image is opened so rezise it using the image size and canvas size. do dot use the crop tool because you can’t tell the action where to begin and where to end.

be sure you first resize the largest size of an image in image/image size, and then go to image/canvas size and set the low size

6.save - save for web png or jpeg as you wish in the folder “done” that you’ve created earlier

7.close without saving - if it asks you if you want to save, push NO

Part two - use the action

now you can begin using the action for a batch of images
in photoshop go to file/automate/batch

- choose the set, the action, the source folder
- for the destination folder choose “none” - the action will save the images on the “done” folder
- take the images from the folder and you have finished.