Tips, Tutorials, and Techniques
Please note that these notes presented here are in Adobe Acrobat format and you need an Adobe Acrobat reader to read them. If you don't have the Acrobat reader, it is available free from Adobe by clicking on the Adobe Reader Icon..

Tip for Removing a color cast in Photoshop or Elements
Go to this link http://www.screencast.com/t/4pzaiU8IHx

Tutorials on CD
Click here for information on tutorials on CDs for learning Photoshop Album, Proshow Gold and Enhancing Images for importing into a Slide Show .

The following are Photoshop Elements Notes. Click here for Photoshop Notes.
NEW Creating a Watercolor Effect from a Photograph

Key Board Shortcuts Image of Keyboard showing Keyboard Shortcuts

Photoshop & Elements

This tutorial will discuss using Adustment Layers to correct the tones in a localized area of an image without distrubing other portions of an image. An example would be an underexposed face due to backlighting.

Installing this file will allow you to have a Brush Set that varies opacity with Pen pressure. When you click on the link below, select Save and save it to a folder on your hard drive, then in Elements copy into the Adobe program folder, Photoshop Elements > Presets > Brushes. With Elements open select the Brush from the toolbox and in the Brush Options bar click on the small down arrow just left of the Size option. In the resulting dialog box you will find another small arrow on the top right. Clicking on this will give you a dialog box and at the bottom select Replace Brushes and you will see the Brushes Folder that shows the various Brush Sets. Select Stans Pen Opacity. You can always load the default brushes by selecting Restet Brushes from the same menu that you selected Replace Brushes.

In Photoshop copy into the Adobe prgram folder > Photoshop 7.0 > Presets > Brushes > Photoshop Only. To load this brush set, with Photoshop open and the Brush tool selected. In the Options bar click on the down arrow next to the small icon showing brush size and pick Stans Pen Opacity from the list shown.

Click here to download the Stans Pen Opacity Set.

Photoshop Tips & Tutorials

 This tutorial explains a method to select a bland sky and replace it with a new sky. It uses a method creating an Alpha selection channel from an existing channel and the use of Layer Mask to add the sky.
Click here to download the bridge with blah sky image for you to practise on. You can use your own sky image to replace the blah sky in mine.
This tutorial shows how to use the Pen tool and a Vector Mask to add a model A to the bridge image.
If you would like to download the two images used in this tutorial for you to practise on, click on the image name. When the page opens, right click and select Save Image As.
Covered Bridge Model A

This tutorial shows how to add creative edges to your images using the Photoshop Quick Mask feature.
This tutorial shows the use of the Smart Edges Blurr command to put an edge an image creating a faux pencil sketch. Very useful in conjunction with the Watercolor or similar filters.
This a short tutorial on creating stars in a night sky.
This is a tutorial that shows how to replace a sky with a dramatic sunset and to place the sunset reflection in the water. The sunset is created using Corel Kai Tools 6.0 but any sunset photo will work.

Notes on Plugin Filters for Photoshop

 Notes on use of Plugin filters for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements are availiable by clicking on:

Plugin notes

More Plugin notes

Tip

 I received an email asking if I knew a keyboard shortcut for transforming a selecion. When I said I didn't the sender found the shortcut and emailed me to it. I now wish to share this with you. The steps are:

The keyboard shortcut to transform a selection:

Draw the selection;
Hold down the Right mouse button,
Press letter "T",
Release the right button, and
Voila! There are the handles to transform the selection.

Thanks to Pat C. for this.