Computer – check. Photoshop – check. Lots of free time – check. It seems that this is all that is necessary to call yourself a ‘designer’ these days. I believe that there is far more to a designer than software, computers and free time. Designers should have critical thinking skills, understanding of design principals, knowledge of grid systems, typography and much more.
Critical Thinking Skills
Designers need to be able to think, reason, research and back up their designs. Critical thought is the backbone of design. Critical thinking is what separates designers from your clients cousins 10 year old kid with Photoshop that can ‘make a logo in 5 minutes’. Design without meaning or concept is merely decoration.
Understanding of the Principles of Design
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Adjustment layers in Photoshop provide a quick, non-destructive way to edit and and make changes to your photos. In this tutorial we will cover some of the different types of adjustment layers and how they work.
We will be working with the ‘fruit smile’ image that is available for download here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/libraryman/95516793/sizes/l/
A quick preview of the different types of affects you can achieve with adjustment layers:
Open the image in photoshop and in the bottom of the layers palette click on the adjustment layer icon. This should bring up a menu of different types of adjustment layers. All the options that are available under image > adjustments are available to us in adjustment layers. You can also make new adjustment layers by going to ...
Working with slices in Photoshop can sometimes be a pain. In this tutorial I’ll show you how to use the slice tool and show you some easy methods of slicing up your designs.
Download the example photoshop file we will be working with: Slices.psd.zip
Using the slice tool
First lets talk about the slice tool. The keyboard shortcut for this tool is ‘K’. Select the slice tool and draw a selection around the type in the middle of the header. When you draw a selection with the slice tool photoshop automatically creates slices around the slice that you draw.
You can select individual slices by using the slice select tool. Click and hold on the slice tool in the tools palette and a pop up menu should appear.
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Did you know you could create simple animations in Photoshop? This is another one of those lesser utilized features. In versions previous to CS3 animation was handled in a separate program called Image Ready, but now the animation capabilities are included with versions CS3 and beyond! In this tutorial ill show you how to create some simple animations with bananas 
Plan your animation
In this animation I’ll be using some text and an image of bananas. I’ll be making the bananas move on and off the screen, tweening (creating transitions between frames) and changing the positioning and color.
The Animation Palette and creating frames
Create a new document in Photoshop and open the animation palette by going to window>animation.
The animation palette has two views: Frame ...
Alpha channels are one of those features in Photoshop that you don’t normally find until someone shows you. In this tutorial we will be loading and saving selections in an alpha channel as well as adding some highlights to an image.
Today we will be working with this lovely image of a chihuahua with a mohawk from iStockphoto:
Saving a selection in an alpha channel
1 Select the area that you want to remove via the pen tool, marquee tool or magic wand.
2 Go to select>save selection. Select new channel from the pop up and name the channel
Head over to your channel palette and click on the new alpha channel ‘dog’.
You can then utilize the alpha ...
The free transform tool can be daunting if you don’t know how to use it. The tool has a lot of hidden options that make it quite powerful. In this tutorial we will be manipulating a simple square to show you the basics and then we will move on to a real life application.
First: The basics
Step 1: Draw A square with the rectangle tool (u)
Step 2: Select Edit>Free Transform Path (or Command+T)
You should see little handles on the corners and the middle of the sides of the square.
Step 3: Grab one of the handles and drag it from the square
Go ahead and experiment. Adding keyboard shortcuts while using the transform tool is being used really unleashes its power.
Free ...
A clipping mask is a quick way to create masked effects that show and hide parts of images or photos. In this tutorial we will create a clipping mask with text and an image.
Step 1: Find an image with some interesting texture.
I’m going to go with a grass background. Download the image here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nebrow/3736422961/sizes/o/
Step 2: Add text to the image
Open the image in Photoshop and use the type tool and type some text on top of the image.
Step 3: Drag the text below the grass layer
Step 4 Create the clipping mask
With the grass layer selected go to Layer > Create Clipping Mask. The keyboard shortcut for this on a mac is Option+Apple+G.
And there we have it! Masked ...
In this short tutorial you will learn what layer masks are and how to utilize them for working faster and more efficiently in Photoshop.
Lets consider what masks do: They hide or show things. Masks in photoshop work the same way: they can hide or show parts of images. In general filling a layer mask with black hides a part of the image. Filling a layer mask with white shows a part of an image. Filling the mask with gray will show the part of the image with varying opacity based on how light or dar the gray is.
Step 1: Select two photos that you want to combine and place them in your Photoshop document.
I just selected two random photos that I found on the internet for the purposes of this ...
