The Photoshop Cheatsheet

Essential hotkeys to speed up your editing process!

For the full guide, refer to http://www.cheetyr.com/photoshop.

This concludes my first week with Photosynthesize! I hope the tutorials were interesting and easy to understand. I would love to hear your comments, thoughts, ideas, challenges, anything. It would really help in my analysis for this module and how to optimise this blog effectively.

Cheers!

Photoshop Challenge!

Recently, a friend wanted me to use a photo for a tutorial and I thought that this would be a fantastic idea and opportunity to express how much we miss a fellow brother on exchange in Mexico.

Here's introducing, the Clipping Mask.

1. Using a Magnetic Lasso Tool, trace the area that you wish to replace with your new image. The Magnetic Lasso Tool is a useful instrument to select a defined area as it 'magnetically sticks' to the edges. This takes some practice, but it's really useful! (Tip: click at each point you wish to define, just in case the magnet does not pick it up)

This is a closer view - You can see that I am selecting the edges around the photo frame and the fingers.

2. Once you have successfully selected your area, hit ⌘ + J (for Mac users), or Ctrl + J (for Windows) to duplicate this area as a new layer.

I deselected the other layers to show you how the duplicate layer looks like.

3. Paste a portion of the photo that you wish to combine into your image.

4. Select 'Create Clipping Mask".

5. Your photo is 'clipped' onto the duplicate layer.

Do give it a try! Let me know if you have any difficulties!

Ever wanted to remove the background of a photo?

Removing the background by using the Eraser tool can be tedious and dangerous for those who do not have steady hands. Instead, there is a quick an easy solution! Using this tool, you can simply select the background, and hit the 'Delete' button to erase the background. Introducing, the Magic Wand tool.

Unlike other tools that select based on shapes and edges, the Magic Wand Tool selects based on tone and colour. Here's how to do it:

1. Using the tool, select an area that you wish to remove.

2. Hit 'Delete' to erase the image. (I created a white layer background beneath this layer to demonstrate the result)

However, as you can see, this tool does not perfectly select the whole background that I wish to remove. Hence, you need to adjust the Tolerance level. 

The Tolerance level determines the contrast in tone and colour for a pixel in the area we select. Photoshop select pixels that are the same tone and colour in the selected area. 

This is the Magic Wand tool, at tolerance level 80.

This is the tolerance level 20. You can see that the Magic Wand tool selects less and more unevenly than at level 80. Hence, it takes an amount of trial and error to get a good level of tolerance. Each photo is different!

You can also manipulate the background in any way that you like. Check out this video tutorial to find out how: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnJCO6UIRQk.