Adobe Photoshop – Graphic Design and Photo Editing Tips

Which is the best photo editing program? How do I use Adobe Photoshop? How to do best photo editing? Where can I find online photo editing?

These are some of the very common questions we have these days, as everyone wants to be a nice photo editor. Photo editingis an excellent way to add your dream features to a picture.  With the help of we can easily improve the picture quality and appearance of any picture.

But for an instance you may think-Why do I need a Photo editing programor Photo editing software?

Well the answer is quite simple. The minor errors, due to which many of memorable photos would be in trash since years, now can be easily mended with just a few clicks of your mouse with the help of a good photo editing program

Not enough for you? Here’s another reason for buying a photo editing program as many of them include a bit of learning curve in it. So you can easily do professional level photo editingWith Photo editing programslike Adobe Photoshopor Adobe Photoshop lightroomyou can completely change the look of the photo and can easily handle projects like wedding photography workflowetc.

Now that you know why you want a photo editing program lets talk about what to see while buying a one. There are a couple of things you should take care while choosing a photo editing softwareto suit your needs.

è Ease of use:- As we discussed earlier you can also learn Photo editingwith the help of a Photo editing program. Even if you are a very good editor you would need to know the commands or functions for the software you are going for. So it is advisable for you go for a program which has a self tutorial.

è Formats that the software supports:- The that you are going for should definitely support. JPG, GIF, BMP, EPS, PDF, TIF and PICT format at least as these are the most commonly used formats. The formats supported should be both for input and output.

è Editing:- Some basic features of editing like Lightning, color balance, rotation, brightness and contrast, rotate adding texts etc. should have a direct button for easier use on your photo editing program.

è Photo sharing capabilities:- Your photo editing programshould have a direct way to send photos to email ids, cell phones, PDA’s etc. It should have direct options for printing and faxing the image also.

Now that you know what to look for, do check out many online websites like RGPKeys which provide you with the best of photo editing tools and other essentials requisites. Happy clicking!

Hands on with Apples Aperture 3. In this 2 part video I will be editing an overexposed dull photo from within Aperture and turning it into a WOW image. All using the simple slider controls. This is PART 1.
Video Rating: 4 / 5

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Adobe Photoshop is one of the most popular photo editing software. This software has a user friendly interface, which allows users to perform basic photo editing. However, one just need not spend hundreds of dollars on buying photoshop to do photo editing. As Adobe Photoshop offers much more! Did you know that photoshop is used by professionals to create matte paintings. Matte painting are the paintings used to form the background layers in movies like Van Helsing, Lord of the Rings, etc. Yes my friend, the backgrounds used in LOTR series are all detailed matte paintings done by professional artists in photo editing softwares, and not a film set.

With photoshop you can do graphic design, you can create business cards, greeting cards, do compositing, unwrap UV textures (am I getting too technical here?). Unwrapping UV texture is like taking a 3D model from a software and opening it in photoshop and then painting it in photoshop. Well, in short photoshop is a multi-purpose tool, and once you understand the basics of photoshop, you can exploit this software in many many ways. There are various ways to learn how to use photoshop.

You can download video tutorials on photoshop, or download other tutorials which contains instructions and screenshots of photoshop software, that help you understand the various features and settings in photoshop. However, in my opinion the best way to understand and learn how to use photoshop is just to start playing around with the software and if you get stuck somewhere, then hit the F1 key for help and search on the topic on which you are stuck. For example, if you want to import multiple images in photoshop, but don’t know how to, then just press F1 key and search for photoshop help by typing ‘importing images’. Few search results will appear in front of you, click on the relevant search result and read the stepwise instructions provided in the tutorial, and follow it to import multiple images. Yes, learning photoshop is quite easy and this is one of the fastest way to learn how to use adobe photoshop.

To learn photoshop, what do you need? You need some previous experience of using paintbrush (yeah, the old free software that is in accessories programs tab of windows), and the photoshop software. You can download the free trial version of old photoshop CS any version, or borrow from a friend any old version of photoshop 7, 8, anything will do. Before using this software, here are some pre-photoshop tips – photoshop can slow down your machine, hence you need a good graphics card and 1-2 GB of RAM capacity. So, install photoshop trial or old version, and use these tips to check the various features and tools in photoshop.

Guessing the first thing you want to do with photoshop is edit some pictures. (May be edit your picture, to remove pimples from your face, and crop it to put it as a profile pic on facebook?) You can simply drag and drop the picture you want to edit, or use the import option and specify the path of the image. You can also import multiple images selecting many images from a folder, and dragging and dropping your selection into photoshop software.

Now that you got a picture, you will need to use tools and settings to change the picture. The first thing you need to do is unlock the layer of the image. On the bottom right side of the software, there is a floating box of layers. On that your image will be displayed as a layer. Unlock this layer, so that you can edit this picture. Remember, that you always need to keep layers unlocked in photoshop to work on them. You can select the hue/saturation or brightness/contrast options which you select from a drop box in the menu bar. Play around with the light and color settings. You can work in multiple layers in the photoshop easily, and there are many setting and features.

Here, is something for you to try out. Create a new layer which will be a tiny option on the bottom right side of layers floating box. Lock your original image layer. Then on the new layer (make sure it’s unlocked), use the text option from the tool bar on the left side. Then select the text layers and text option and start typing on your workspace. This way you can add text on your picture. But, wait, not just that, you can go on adding anything you like this way in layers. For example, bottom layer of a red carpet event with the main celebrities, then middle layer of your smiling face picture overlapped on the head of the hero/heroine of the movie, next top layer of fan A drooling, next top layer of fan B swooning, next top layer of fan C asking autograph, to layer infinity… I hope, now you understand the ‘power of layers in photoshop’. Play with settings like opacity, normal, screen, multiply with layers. These options you will find on the layers box, just below the there tabs of layers, channels and paths. Level 3 is using tools in photoshop.

One of the aspect which distinguishes photoshop from other photo editing softwares, are the tool options of photoshop. On the left side of photoshop software the toolbar is located. Here are some tips, before we start looking at the tool options in photoshop. If you can’t find the toolbar, layers or other floating windows in photoshop, then go to the windows options on the menu bar and click on default, all the windows will get arranged to their default places. You can also click on the individual options like layers box, color palette, toolbar, etc. if you like.

There are many tools options in photoshop. The basic ones are rectangular, crop, eraser, pen, zoom, eyedropper, hand, brush, move, text, etc. You can learn the keyboard shortcuts of all these tools, just hover the mouse cursor on tools and the shortcut will get displayed, or go to help on photoshop and you will get a list of all these keyboard shortcuts, take a screenshot of these and stick them as a wallpaper, to memorize them. Play with these keyboard shortcuts for half an hour. The basic tools are easy to use and learn. However, there are some awesome advanced tools like magic wand, clone stamp, dodge, lasso tool options which allow the user advance editing. For example, with lasso tool, you can select someone’s lips and using hue/saturation option to paint those lips green. Or you can use the clone stamp, select a patch of good skin, and stamp it on the pimples or scars, to make your skin look blemish-free. (Yep, works faster than any anti-blemish cream!) Wondering, how to change eye color in photoshop which is red? Another great tool is the red eye tool, which you can find under the spot healing brush tool menu. Just click on the red eyes, and voila! Instant red eye correction.

Alright, now this is for some serious photoshop users, or artists who want to use this software for designing or painting purposes. If you wish to learn how to paint then you need to play a lot with the color palette, and understand all the sizes and shapes of brush options. Also, practice of layers is important. If you are doing some graphic design work, then you will need to use more options like emboss, highlight, shadow, etc. and also understand other options like flipping images, skewing them, etc. For people who want to compose their image to look professional, you need to zoom the images a lot so that you actually work on pixel levels so that your image looks flawless. Use the feather or blur option in such cases. Tip – while doing any important project, keep saving a back up of your file every 1 or 2 hours, to prevent loss of valuable artwork.

Have you heard about photoshop elements? It is a more cheaper and simpler software compared to photoshop. It is a good software too, however, it doesn’t have all the options found in photoshop. Wondering, how to use photoshop elements? It is pretty much the same way using photoshop. Another advantage of photoshop elements is that it is lighter than Photoshop CS. It is a good software if you are not looking for advanced features. These were the tips on how to use photoshop. So, use the above tips to explore photoshop features and options. If you get stuck, then hit the F1 key.

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A friend of mine had been saving up for some time to buy the legendary Photoshop. The editing software of choice by graphic designers, soulless tabloid journalists and artists around the world, he knew he was making a great choice. He imagined his life would be complete when he bought Photoshop. Life would be breezy, he would glide around his laptop making outstanding images whenever he wanted. But when he eventually bought the Photoshop package, he was completely lost and really needed to begin understanding the basics of Adobe Photoshop that very day.

You shouldn\’t have to go through this tragedy. You deserve better. Photoshop may be expensive, but anyone who knows how to properly use it will tell you it\’s worth every cent. Like anything else you will have to make mistakes and learn by yourself, exploring the interface of the software. One way to help is to go to \’Preferences\’. Here you can improve the performance of your Photoshop.

Here is some advice to get you started. Search for the \’History Log\’ on the screen. This is where you can save your progress while you edit your image. The are a number of options to personalize your session. For example select \’Sessions Only\’ to make the log remember the time and date that you start each session. Choose \’Concise\’ to recall more information about your work. And you can pick \’Detailed\’ for the most information, recording details about every edit you do to the image.

Find the \’History Log\’. Here you can save every step you take when making your picture. You can choose how much information it saves. For example choose the \’Sessions Only\’ to remember the time and date that you start each Photoshop session. \’Concise\’ records more information on all the editing sessions. You can also choose \’Detailed\’ which does the same job as \’Concise\’, but also notes the file path and details about every edit to the file.

The only real way to learn Photoshop is to play around with things. Keep exploring and discover what you can do. For more specific learning read about Photoshop online and try out the many available video tutorials. After a while, you\’ll be making superb pictures just like my nephew wanted to! He also wanted to know how to make a collage using Photoshop, and he found this excellent video – http://www.learnphotoshopnow.com/blog/2009/08/how-to-make-collage-using-photoshop.html

LearnPhotoshopNow is a great place to start learning the basics of Adobe Photoshop and offer a step by step video tutorial program that will help you to really understand the basics of Adobe Photoshop in less than 2 hours, as my friend did.

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For the digital photography enthusiast, becoming well acquainted with photo editing is one of the digital photography basics that can make a world of difference in how well a photograph turns out.

Image editing software to a digital photographer is what the dark room is to a film photographer. The big benefit of photo editing software is that it’s easier to do than setting up a darkroom.

And with photo editing software, you can do standard image editing functions like cropping and adjusting color, and can also do photo manipulation.

Image editing refers to any change that is made to a picture. Photo manipulation refers to what film shutterbugs used to call “trick photography” switching backgrounds and such. (For some fun examples of photo manipulation, look up the “National Geographic Photo Foolery” page online.)

Once you know the type of image editing you want to do, you will be better able to choose a photo editor. In this article, we’ll highlight the most popular ones:

Picasa: A free photo editor from Google. If you are just getting into the very basics of digital photography, this will serve you well for a while. It is really designed to be more of an online photo album or photo manager but can also handle basic photo editing. Picasa offers basic editing tools such as retouch, which helps you remove blemishes, scratches, etc. Like many photo editors it has red eye remover. It also has some fun functionality where you can create screensavers with your photos and even integrate them with Google Earth.

If you’re ready to advance from digital photography basics and do more with your images, consider one of the other photo editors.

Adobe Photoshop Elements: This is more user-friendly and less costly than it’s “big brother” Photoshop CS4 and is the market leader in photo editing and manipulation. It’s good for the photography enthusiast plus there is a free trial version.

Adobe Photoshop CS4: This has everything you could possibly need as a professional photographer or graphic artist. It sells for about $700 on their website, but you can find it half that price by some vendors or look for a free trial version.

Paint Shop Pro: This is a close competitor to Photoshop Elements and also runs about $90. They also offer a 30 day free trial.

The GIMP: An odd name for such a powerful program, the acronym stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. This open source, freeware continues to improve and has a good community of users should you need help. It is available for Unix/Linux platforms, as well as Windows (NT4/2000/XP/Vista) and Mac operating systems (OS X). It doesn’t quite have everything that you get with Adobe Photoshop CS4, but it has more than Elements or Paint Shop Pro and is used by some professionals.

No matter what photo editor you have, read through the guide or help sections so you understand what you can do with it.

It takes time to learn but you will be impressed with what you can do with your images.

For example, here are a just a few of the things you can accomplish (the top 5 even with just Picasa):

* Crop

* Resize

* Lighten or darken shadows, highlights, and midtones

* Correct Colors

* Remove blemishes, a stray branch, a logo, or anything else you don’t want in the picture

* Blur Backgrounds (Photoshop Elements, Paintshop Pro and The GIMP all offer background-blurring applications. Picasa doesn’t.)

You can also create all sorts of special effects with a photo editor. For example, you can convert your photograph into an impressionistic painting. You can turn a color photo into black and white to capture the tones, lines and highlights without the distraction of color.

Or for a more vintage or antique look, you can choose sepia.

Even if you don’t want to do any cool special effects, learning the basics of any photo editor will let you fix “mistakes” in your photos. Just cropping alone can do wonders if you couldn’t get a close enough shot or you’ve got too much clutter in the picture. That is why photo editing is an important part of learning the digital photography basics and why it’s important that you learn it. Before you know it, you will be editing and producing quality images perfect for framing on your wall.

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Adobe Photoshop, called simply Photoshop by most, is a leading graphics editor developed by Adobe Systems. It is used to create and manipulate images, both for personal and commercial use. Photoshop can be used in multiple operating systems, including Microsoft, Macintosh and Linux. Since 1988, Photoshop has evolved from containing basic editing tools to the now more advanced functions, including the warp tool and the grain reduction filter for photos taken in low light. Because of this, there is a need to learn the basics and constantly re-learn additional features of the software; hence, the continuously increasing number of free Photoshop tutorials available.

The Adobe Photoshop program itself offers tutorials. First, check out the manual. This contains explanations on the basic tools of the software. The program also comes with ReadMe and ReadMe First! files that also contains helpful information. When you open Adobe Photoshop, you can also go to Photoshop Help under the “Help” tab. If you are using Windows, the shortcut would be to click F1. You can then choose from a set of basic Photoshop topics, such as making color adjustments, drawing, applying filters, and using layers.

Free Photoshop Tutorials also abound on the Internet. The advantages of using the Internet to look for free tutorials are that these resources are more updated that those found in books or those built-in with the program. The Internet also provides almost unlimited information for various topics and useful tips from other users like you. Also, you can access these tutorials at your own time in the convenience of your home.

The most trusted source of free Photoshop information is the Adobe Website, which can be seen at http://www.adobe.com. Adobe Online offers free tutorials, how-to guides, interactive online courses and online seminars. Adobe Online also allows registered users access to Photoshop Knowledgebase, which contains answers to technical questions. Adobe also offers customer service, which can vary depending on your location.

You can also join several online Photoshop forums. These allow Photoshop users to interact with one another and answer each other’s questions. Adobe also has an online forum for its products, including Photoshop. Aside from this, there are other forums on Photoshop and other similar software that you can join.

If you still want more information, you can also search the Internet for other sources. Using a search engine, you can find numerous websites offering free Photoshop tutorials. Free Photoshop tutorials are available in multiple formats, including text, audio, video, or combinations of these. Depending on your availability, tutorials may also be conducted in real-time or may be accessed on-demand.

Some websites offer a list of free online tutorials from different sources, such as http://www.tutorialkit.com and http://www.photoshopsupport.com. Other sites offer free tutorials that can be accessed on their webpages, while some websites send the tutorials directly to your e-mail. Some websites also offer online tutorial and training courses, which you can try out for free for a set trial period. You can also avail of tutorial courses using chats and call or video conferencing, which can be conducted one-on-one or with a group. These live tutorials are more interactive, allowing you to ask questions during the process and provide feedback to the other users.

Of course, there are also disadvantages to searching for free Photoshop tutorials online is that you cannot always be assured of the quality of the tutorials. Majority of these tutorials are not certified or supported by Adobe Systems. Also, some websites offering free Photoshop tutorials advertise that their tutorials are free when, in fact, they aren’t. Users looking for free Photoshop tutorials should be on the lookout for these sites and should proceed with caution.

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Photoshop users may be used to using many of the tools that are part of the program but have you used the Gradient Editor as a way to customize Photoshop’s default gradients?

You need to have a good working knowledge of Photoshop’s Gradient Tool if you want to be able to make the most of the possibilities and this means you have to be able to master the editing options.

No need to be overwhelmed because this is a fairly easy thing to learn and master, it will just take a little practice.

Begin by selecting the Gradient Tool and then click on the gradient preview located in the options bar. This will open Gradient Editor and you are ready to get to work.

When you have opened Gradient Editor you will see several preset gradients. You can choose from the default Foreground, the Background gradient and even the more complex Chrome gradient.

With some practice you will be able to use the preset gradients to create new ones.

You can edit the preset gradients and design new gradients. Some of the gradients have more color stops than others.

The Foreground to Background gradient has two color stops while the Spectrum gradient has seven color stops.

If you want to modify a gradient you can do so by changing the color stops.

Click on one and choose a new color from the color picker, it’s that easy.

You can also click on an image and sample a color for your customized gradient. When you do this you can use the Eyedropper Tool to customize or you may want to add new color stops to a gradient that already exists.

You just click anywhere along the bottom edge of the preview bar and you will be able to add new color stops.

Maybe you want to add different opacity settings so that you can have an image fade from solid to transparent.

This can be done when you use the opacity stops that run along the top of the preview bar. The black opacity stop will be 100% solid while a white opacity stop will tell you that this part of the gradient is 100% transparent.

The gray stops show you the values in between.

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Taking photos can be a lot of fun. It doesn’t matter if you’re taking images of pets, family, sports or scenery, it’s still enjoyable for you. Part of the enjoyment of taking photos is sharing them with others. While before to do this you might have had to send them via snail mail, now all you need to do is go on the computer and use photo gallery software to share them with as many people as you like. It’s a much more convenient way of sharing photos with the people you care about. You’ll learn the basics of photo gallery software in this article.

What is Photo Gallery Software?

So what exactly is photo gallery software? Well, it’s kinda like a digital version of a photo album. If you’ve taken lots of pictures with older cameras (you know, before they were digital), you’ve probably created some photo albums to keep the photos organized. Photo software is just like this, except instead of holding a photo album in your hands, you’ll instead have one on the computer.

A traditional photo gallery software program will allow you to import photos. That is, you’ll be allowed to press a button, select photos from your harddrive, and then put them in your photo by using the software. When you’ve added in all the photos and pressed the button to create the photo gallery, your online photo will be created instantly.

How does Photo Gallery Software Work?

No two photo gallery software programs are alike, but most offer the some of the same features to customers. Usually, when you use the photo software to add images, the program then creates a photo album to house the images. Depending on the software program you are using, during this process, you might be able to choose between different themes for the album. For instance, you might get to customize the gallery’s border, background, text etc.

When the photo album is created, other things are created as well. Thumbnails for the images are also created, which allows people to see a small version of the image and then decide, based on that, whether to click the thumbnail (to see the whole image) or not. This is very handy if you want to have a page for your photos which doesn’t take forever to load. All the HTML coding is also taken care of by the photo gallery software. This is probably a huge relief for those webmasters who can’t be bothered with coding their own photo gallery for their site.

Some photo software programs will allow you to add image captions in when you are adding the images to the program. This allows you to take care of everything within the album while adding the photos in, rather than having to wait until later.

Depending on the photo gallery software program you use, you might also have a great selection of file formats to use. A lot of the best photo software programs will accept many image formats ranging from jpeg and gif to psp. This allows you to upload virtually any type of image format you may have.

Web or Computer?

Not all photo gallery software is the same. Some are focused more on uploading images to the web, while others will only help you to create photo albums for people to browse while using your computer. Usually when you are looking at the information about the program, you’ll be able to tell where the images go. If they are uploaded to a web site, it could be either the photo software maker’s web site, or it could be your own.

Uploading to Your Web Site/Their Web Site

If you’re new to the whole photo gallery thing, it can be difficult to choose the best photo software for your needs. You’re not sure which is the best, and to make this decision, it’s important to think things through. Do you have plans for hosting the photo album on your web site? Do you want the URL (web site address) to be your own? If so, you’re going to want a photo gallery software program that does this for you. Keep in mind that such a program will have to have FTP support, so make sure it does this.

But what if you don’t want to host your own images? While most photo software programs that offer web capabilities are built to work with existing web sites, some offer the ability to upload images to the photo gallery software program’s web site. Your photo along with your photos will be given space on their web site and you’ll be able to pass that link on to others.

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Happy with our training? Donate! tinyurl.com I have compiled my previous 2 tutorials into one file. I hope the quality is good enough to follow. Enjoy! If you have any questions, feel free to message me.

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Taking photographs for people can be a great way to make a living. For the person who has a passion for photography, such a career can be a dream come true. There are a lot of well paying fields within photography, though one that is often overlooked is that of event photography. Event photography is a field in which people can make a great living taking photographs. However, it’s not a field for the highly inexperienced photographer, as it does take some work to master, as well as organizational skills. Event software can make event photography much easier for the beginner, as you’re about to find out.

What is Event Photo Software?

If you know what event photography is, you should have a pretty good idea of what event photo software is. If not, you’ll find out now. Event photo software programs are programs which serve to make event photography a bit easier. They help with organizing the photos (which is very important because event photos need to stay in a certain order so that they “flow” well), naming pictures and much more. To put it simply, event software speeds up the process of actually managing event photographs. It’s like having an automated software do all the repetitive, mundane work for you.

Should I Use Event Photo Software?

That’s an excellent question that many curious event photographers wonder about. The question of whether or not to use event software is heavily debated in photography forums. Most of the time the answer to this question is that yes, you should use event photo software. We’ll give you 5 reasons why.

Reason #1: Professional Looking Photos

Professionalism is of the utmost importance in event photography. People are paying you to take high quality event photographs, so it’s important to make sure your photographs adhere to this high standard. Event photo software can actually help you do this. That’s because you can use event software to edit pictures and make them look better and more professional. For instance, there are event photo software programs specifically created for wedding pictures. These help a photographer to make this type of image look its absolute best.

Reason #2: Slideshows

A common bonus event photographers offer to their customers is that of the slideshow burnt to a DVD. Believe it or not but event photo software programs also help with the creation of slideshows. You can use such a program to quickly and easily create a great slideshow complete with animation and transition effects. These will be very appealing to customers, making event software a great choice for this reason alone.

Reason #3: The Ability to Create a Gallery

When you are showcasing your photos to the customer and letting them pick which they want printed out, it’s a good idea to have them arranged in a gallery. Obviously, doing this manually can be a bit of a chore. First you have to get all the photos together. Then you have to create a great looking gallery. Finally, you add the photos in and arrange them. For the busy photographer (and most of them are busy), this can be a daunting task. Event photo software automates the process and creates a gallery right away. The nice thing about event software is that it not only creates the gallery, but also allows photographers to choose between several different designs, thus allowing them to customize their gallery.

Reason #4: Online Photos

As you can tell, there are many great things about event photo software. Yet another one is that some event software programs will automatically upload the photos to a web site for you. This definitely saves a lot of time as uploading photos manually can take hours, depending on the size, not to mention all the design work involved in putting up a web site and online photo gallery. That’s why using event photo software is a good idea.

Reason #5: Organization

Yet another reason to use event software (which is something we already mentioned) is that it helps to make things more organized. You can use the software to keep track of a lot of photos. Have you ever had to keep track of several hundred event photos at once? It’s quite a chore, isn’t it? Event photo software can do this for you. It can keep a lot of photos organized, and also make naming and captioning photos a breeze. This is the single greatest reason for using event software. It just plain makes the job easier.

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