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Tutorial 01 – Photoshop – Basics: Layers and cropping.

March 24

 
Photoshop – Basics: Layers and cropping.
 

I’m gonna start this by posting a couple of basic Photoshop tutorials.
 

This is child’s play for most of you, but it’s actually something that I have myself explained a couple of times before so I think it might be good to put it into a post here.
 

The software I’m using is Photoshop CS2, but the basics applies to Paintshop Pro as well. That is to say – it’s translatable with a little imagination.
 

Take your seats. School is in session!
 


Layers

The more advanced graphics program all have a layers function to help you keep control of what you do with your image and offers a lot of different advantages than if you only work on a “flat” surface. To help you understand what a layer is and what you can do with it I made this once upon a time for youbetterwiseup when she started out. *hugs Ilaria*And even if I started this post by saying I use PS CS2 – this is actually made in PS CS3! *lol* It’s a one-off though…
 


Click thumb to see whole image


 
Open the pic!
 
Ok. The easiest way to do this is if you first try to re-create that blotchy-star thing. That will get you on your way a bit.
 
1. Archive – New – “width – 660 pixels” “height – 457 pixels” “resolution 72 pixels/inch” – OK
 

On the layer pallet, create two new layers. (don’t freeze up! Look at the pic I attached. 😉 )
Go to the tools pallet and pick the brush tool.
Pick any colors you want by clicking on the colored squares on the tool pallet (default is black/white) and a color picker thing is going to show up for you to choose from. I went with red for the blotches and blue for the stars.Once you’ve done that you are going to pick type of brush!
 

Go up to the drop down menu for the brushes and pick a blotchy one.
On your empty canvas with “Layer 1” highlighted on the layer pallet stamp your blotches a couple of times. See – the word “brush” isn’t really a good one. Brushes are more like stamps!
Ok. Now you pick another color and another brush (I went with the star one), highlight “Layer 2” on your pallet and stamp a few times again.
 

Now you can play with the layer pallet for a while. See those little eyes at the end of each layer? Those are visibility thingies. Click on one and your layer will be hidden. Click again and it will show.
On the top of the layer pallet you’ll find a drop down menu that default is set to “Normal”. That’s the different blends. Since your background is probably white then a couple of those blends will tend to make the image on the layer to “disappear” – never fear. It’s still there but it might need a colored background to show up.
 

I hope that made sense!
 

Cropping an usericon

This can naturally be used to crop other images, but I’m gonna show you how to crop an image to the size of an usericon.
 

First of all we open up the image we want to crop. I’m going with Brian looking all….*zones out*…sorry. Focus!
 

 

The next thing we want to do is pick the cropping tool on the Tool Palette by clicking on it. Up in the menu bar some different boxes turns up and here you can set the size you want to crop and the resolution you want to use. For an icon it should say width 100px | height 100px | 72 pixels/inch.
 

 
 

With our mouse and the crop tool selected, we click-drag-release over the section of the image we want to crop. You now have the option to resize the selection or move it, using your mouse and the little drag-points.
 

 
 

Once you’re happy with what you’ve got – double-click inside the selection (or click up in the menu bar), and Photoshop will crop your image to the right size and resolution for you!
 

 
 

If you for some reason don’t want to crop the image after selecting the area – click in the menu bar.
 
 

And that’s it!
 
 

QUESTIONS & COMMENTS : HERE You can leave anonymous comments as long as you mentioned you are redirected from Reminiscent-Designs!
 
 

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Posted by on March 24, 2008 in Tutorial

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