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10 Sweet GIMP Photo Editing Tricks to Wean You Off Photoshop

Paul Lily — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:30:00 -0500

You could buy a used car -- albeit not a very good one -- for the same scratch it takes to pick up a copy of Adobe Photoshop, the de facto standard in high-end photo editing software. Or a pair of GTX 285 graphics cards for that killer SLI setup you've always wanted. We could go on, but at $700 for a piece of software, Photoshop's MSRP hardly needs put into perspective. In short, it's expensive.

It's also powerful, but don't worry if you don't have a handful of Benjamins lying around. Thankfully, you can perform a lot of the same photo editing tricks for free with GIMP. Short for GNU Image Manipulation Program, GIMP is the open source (and no-cost) equivalent to Photoshop, and like it's paid counterpart, GIMP can be a little overwhelming at first. That's where we come in.

Like swimming, it's best if you just dive in. To help give you that push, we waded through the gazillion tutorials floating around the Web and brought back a sundry collection of groovy tips and tricks that, along with some touches of our own, will have you learning the ins and outs of GIMP while having fun doing it. We'll show you how to make lifeless photos pop with detail, how to tap into the Force and add a lightsaber to any pic, make your own custom brushes, and much more.

Be More Efficient with Batch Processing

After spending hours resizing and making minor adjustments to each of the hundreds of photos you took on your last vacation, you vowed to be much more seletive in what shots you take the next time you go on a trip. But you knew it was a promise you'd never keep, and that's okay, because even though GIMP doesn't come with a built-in batch editing feature, there's a plugin available that will add that functionality.

The plugin you're looking for is called David's Batch Processor (DBP), which you can download here. Scroll down to the Windows Users sections and grab the latest download (dbp-1.1.8.zip). Extract dbp.exe from the ZIP file and place it in C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\lib\gimp\2.0\plug-ins. That's all there is to it!

The next time you fire up GIMP, you'll find the Batch Process feature under the Filters menu. If you don't see this option, make sure you put the plugin the correct folder and reload GIMP.

The Batch Processor window contains several tabs, but the first thing you need to do is click on Add Files and select the photos you want to alter. You can remove individual files if you accidentally add one or change your mind, or clear the entire list.

We tend to take high resolution images, which gives us the flexibility to come back later and edit them for different projects. But this also makes them unwieldy to send to friends and family who have no interest in downloading a 10MB attachment. We can rectify this by selecting the Resize tab, clicking on the Enable checkbox, and then choosing whether to downsize by Relative or Absolute.

Other options include the ability to turn, flip, and rotate images, blur photos, adjust the color (including auto adjustments), crop, and sharpen. We can also choose to rename our snapshots and output to a variety of file formats, such as BMP, JPG, PNG, and several others.

Sharpen (Literally) Your Photo Editing Skills

Ever wonder how pro photographers manage to make their photos look better than the real thing? Part of the answer lies in post processing. Of course, adequate lighting, a good camera, and experience all play a part as well, but you can clean up almost any photo with just a few simple steps.

Snapshots of electronics clean up particularly, allowing you to post lust-worthy pics of your setup on your favorite computer forum or auction site. For this example, we're using an image of an EVGA X58 Classified motherboard. The colors appear a little dark and lackluster, so we're going to address that first.

Navigate to Colors and select Levels. You'll notice a histogram, which tells you how the pixels are distributed. If most of the action in the histogram is to the left, then your image is probably dark and underexposed. If they're to the right, then the picture may be too bright. A perfect shot will show most of the action in the middle.

What we want to do with this photo is lighten it up and get rid of the haze. Click the triangle on the right side of the graph and move it left. Keep doing this until the colors start to go out of whack, then back off slightly. When you're finished, make sure the image is noticeably brighter than when you first started. For this example, we decreased the white level from 255 to 222.

Now that we've lightened the image, it's time to make it pop. To do this, navigate to Filters>Enhance>Sharpen. The more you sharpen the image, the more lively it will look, but be careful not to overdo it or you'll end up with a swirl of colors. We settled on a value of 60, which over exaggerates the details - just the effect we were going for!

While this trick doesn't always work well with text-heavy photos or screen grabs, it does do a good job with outside scenes, especially where vibrant colors are involved, like a blue sky or lush vegetation. Notice in the above photo of our workplace how the right side -- the side we cleaned up -- looks much less blurry and vibrant than the untouched left portion. If you look close enough, you might even spot Wil giving an intern a verbal lashing - a typical Monday morning!

Make Your Own Custom Brushes

GIMP comes with a variety of brush styles to choose from, including various sized circles, splatters, and even a green pepper, but you can create any style brush you want. Here's how.

First, create a new transparent image sized to however large you want the brush to be. In this case, we're going to create a 70x70 image. Paste or draw whatever you want the brush to be (we used a cat's paw). Duplicate the layer (Layer>Duplicate Layer) one time for each color you want to use, then use the Paintbrush or Bucket Fill tool to make the image a different color in each layer.

Now comes the semi-tricky part. Because we're using four multicolored layers, we want to save our image as an animated brush. Save your image using the .gih file format, and in the 'Save as Brush Type' dialog box that appears, change the Ranks number to 4, or equal to however many layers you created.

Save or move your newly created brush to C:\Program Files (x86)\GIMP-2.0\share\gimp\2.0\brushes. No need to close and reload GIMP - just click the Refresh brush button in the lower right corner of the brush menu and you're good to go!

(Credit: Gauntam Lad)

Wield a Lightsaber Like Luke Skywalker

In a perfect world, we'd all have lightsabers and settle our disputes like they do in Star Wars. While technology is probably still a few years off from perfecting the lightsaber, we can at least fake it in our photos, and all it takes is a little bit of editing..

It's helpful if you start off with a picture that already has a sword, stick, or other similar object in it, though this isn't required. For our example, we're going to alter a snapshot from Medieval Times.

After you've selected and opened the photo you want to modify, create a new layer with a black background. To do this, select Layer>New Layer, or press Shift+CTRL+N. Where it says Layer Fill Type, select Foreground or Background color, depending on which one you have set to black.

Highlight the new layer in the Layer Console window and change the Mode to Screen, as shown above. Once you do this, you should be able to see your original photo. This begs the question, 'why not just create a transparent layer?' We tried doing that, but were unable to change the color of the lightsaber (which we'll get to in a bit). For an in-depth explanation on the different layer modes, see here.

With the black background layer still highlighted, click on the Paths Tool in the Toolbox window (second row, third icon). Use this tool to create a selection around the object you want to transform into a lightsaber (you may find it helpful to zoom in on your image while doing this). In our example, we're going to outline the sword's wooden blade.

Once youv'e made an outline, navigate to Select>From Path, or hold Shift+V to activate your selection, then use the Bucket Fill Tool or Paintbrush to completely fill in the selection with white. When you're finished, deselect the object by going to Select>None.

Next, create three duplicate layers (Layer>Duplicate). You should now have five layers total - your original picture plus four black layers.

Highlight the top layer, then navigate to Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Change both the horizontal and vertical values to 5. When you're finished, repeat the same step for the second layer, but change the values to 10. Repeat again for the third layer and change the values to 20, then one more time on the fourth layer and change the values to 40.

By this point, your object should look like a lightsaber, but we're not finished yet. Right-click the top layer, select Merge Down, then change the Mode to Screen. Repeat this step two more times so that all you're left with is the original picture (bottom layer) and a black background layer with a white lightsaber (top layer).

At this point, you're ready to customize your lightsaber. With the top layer highlighted, go to Colors>Color Balance and adjust the sliders until you're happy with the result. For an added effect, click the Shadows radio button and adjust the sliders some more.

(Credit: gimpology.com)

Create a Swirly Wallpaper or Water Drop Effect

Grown tired of the stock wallpaper that ships with your OS? You can hit up Google Images until you stumble upon one that fits your mood, or better yet, create your own one-of-a-kind wallpaper. Forum member acm321 on CrystalXP.net came up a easy-to-learn technique for making swirly wallpaper using GIMP, and we want to expand on that. Here's how you do it.

Decide what resolution you want your wallpaper to be. For this example, we're going to create a background that measures 1680x1050. Open a new image (File>New) sized to whatever resolution you're running, or go even larger if you think you might upgrade to a bigger LCD down the line.

Pick out a color and then choose a dark shade for the foreground and a light one for the background. You can change these by clicking on the two squares in the middle of the Toolbox window (if you need help choosing contrasting dark and light colors, see here). In this example, we chose Firebrick3 (#C11B17) for the foreground and Red1 (#F62217) for the background.

Click on the Blend tool in the Toolbox and verify that the Gradient is set to FG to BG (RGB) and the Shape set to Linear. With the Blend tool, draw a line from the top to bottom, bottom to top, or from corner to corner.

Change the foreground to white, then draw a swirl in the middle of your image using the brush tool. Don't worry if the swirl isn't perfectly uniform.

Next, navigate to Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur and set both values to 40, then hit OK. You should have an image that looks similar to the above.

Navigate back to the Filters menu and select Distorts>Whirl and Pinch. Crank the Whirl angle slider all the way to the right and the Pinch amount slider about three-quarters to the left. Leave the radius at 1.00..

Go back into the Filters menu and select Distorts>Waves. Make sure that the Smear radio button is selected. Play around with the amplitude, phase, and wavelength sliders until you're happy with the result (for our image, we set the amplitude to 75, phase to 140, and wavelength to 45).

We're almost finished, but first, we want to make the ripple effect stand out a bit more. Go to Filters>Artistic>Softglow and adjust the sliders to your liking. For our finished image above, we set the Glow radius to 1.00 (move the slider all the way to the left), Brightness to 0.25, and Sharpness to 1.00 (move the slider all the way to the right).

And that's it! If you're not happy with the color, there's no need to start over. Instead, go to Colors>Hue-Saturation and adjust the Hue slider.

When you're finished, play around with the other filters and see what different effects you can come up with (Hint: Go to Filters>Render>Clouds>Difference-Clouds).

(Credit: CrystalXP.net: acm320)

Create an Explosion in Outer Space

With a little bit of creativity and experimentation, the sky's the limit with GIMP. And so is outer space. By using a pre-rendered scene included in GIMP, we're going to create a galactic explosion.

Create a new image any size you want. Navigate to Filters>Render>Fractal Explorer. Click on the Fractals tab, highlight Snow_Crystal, and click Apply.

We want to blur the image so it no longer resembles anything like a snowflake. Go to Filters>Blur>Motion Blur. Change the Blur Type to Zoom, check the Blur outward checkbox, and adjust the Length slider all the way to the right. Click OK. On older machines, this may take awhile to process, so be patient.

Duplicate the layer (Layer>Duplicate Layer), then flip it vertically (Layer>Transform>Flip Vertically). Change the Blend mode to Burn.

We now have the basis for our explosion, but we still need the bright burst of light. Create a new layer with a black background, change the mode to Addition, then navigate to Filter>Light and Shadow>Lens Flare. Place the flare square in the middle, then repeat this step and place another flare slightly off to the side.

Create a new layer with a black background and change the mode to Addition. Change the foreground color to yellow, then click on the Paintbrush tool and select the Galaxy brush. Add several splatters in an uneven circle around the bright flares.

Now go to Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur and change the values to 15. We now have a realistic looking explosion! Splatter the scene with different sized stars using the brush tool, and add whatever else into the scene you want (planets, asteroids, spaceships, etc).

(Effect Credit: gimp.pixtuts.com)

Convert Photos to Sketches (without a Plugin)

Not all of us have an inner Rembrandt to work with, but we do have a PC. As it turns out, that's all you need to make realistic looking sketches, which you can then hang on the wall and dupe visitors into thinking you're a virtuoso with a pencil, or print out for your kids to color. But be warned - we've added some steps that were left out of the original tutorial and there isn't much room for error, so follow along closely.

Pick out a photo and open it in GIMP. Try to avoid overly cluttered backgrounds, as they end up difficult to discern when converted to a sketch.

Navigate to Filters>Edge-Detect>Sobel. Make sure all the checkboxes are selected and hit OK. It may look like we just irreversibly ruined the image, but rest assured, we're just getting started.

We need to highlight the details, and to do that, go to Colors>Auto>Equalize. Because we want a black & white sketch, we now need to get rid of the colors that were just drawn by converting them to gray. To do this, click on Colors>Desaturate and hit OK.

Create a duplicate layer (Layer> Duplicate Layer, or press Shift+CTRL+D). To make things easier as we go, double-click the original layer (the one in the bottom on the Layers panel) and rename it 'Equalized Layer.' Now double-click the layer you just created (the one on top) and rename it 'Highpass Filter.'

Nw we need to bring out the details of our sketch-in-progress. Part of this entails darkening the blacks and lightening the whites, and there's two ways you can go about doing this. The first is by going to Colors>Levels and adjusting the Input Level sliders until you're happy with the results. Alternately, you can apply a high-pass filter using GIMP's Curves tool (Colors>Curves).

No matter which one you use, the finished product should look the same, as depicted above.

Here's where things get a little tricky. Make a duplicate of the Equalized Layer by clicking on it and selecting Layer>Duplicate Layer. Move this layer to the top (click and drag), double-click, and rename it 'Masked Layer.'

We need to invert the colors on this new layer. Click on the newly created masked layer (which should be on top), and select Colors>Invert.

Next we're going to apply our highpass layer as a mask. Highlight the Highpass Filter layer and select Edit>Copy. Now highlight the Masked Layer that you just inverted, right-click, and select Add Layer Mask. In the dialog box that pops up, check the Selection radio button, then press Add.

If you followed the steps correctly so far, your Layer box should look like the above. Select the Masked Layer you just created and click Edit>Paste. Right-click the 'Floating Selection' layer that appears in the Layer box and click Anchor Layer.

You're almost finished! For the last step, you need to create a new, white layer (Layer>New Layer), then drag it underneath the Masked Layer. If you didn't make any mistakes, your sketch should look similar to our example.

If you want your sketch to show more details and shading, play around with the input levels or curve tool when manipulating the high-pass filter and lessen the black level, allowing more highlights to show.

(Credit: Dave Neary)

Mix B&W with Color

Some of the best looking effects are also the easiest to pull off, and that's definitely the case with this one. All that's required is a bit of patience and a whole lot of experimentation.

There's no hard and fast rule that says one type of picture will end up looking better than another, but generally speaking, you want to start with one where the main character or object is vibrantly colored.

Once you've selected a photo and opened it in GIMP, duplicate the layer (Layer>Duplicate layer). We need to remove the color from this duplicate shot, and do that, navigate to Colors>Desaturate. You have three options to choose from -- Lightness, Luminosity, or Average -- each one representing a different shade of gray. We chose Luminosity for our example, but use whichever one you like.

Now you should have a black and white layer on top of the original color photo. Right-click the top b&w layer and select Add Layer Mask. Select the White (full opacity) radio button and hit Add.

Now you're ready to start restoring color. One way to do this is by simply grabbing the brush tool and going to town willy-nilly, but we found it easier to zoom in and create a selection path around our area of focus. Once you're zoomed in, select the Paths Tool and create points all around the area you want to color. Then choose Select>From Path or press Shift+V to make the selection active. Now you can restore color using the paint brush without fear of accidentally spilling into other objects.

How much or how little of the picture you want to restore is up to you, but it doesn't hurt to play around (just keep pressing CTRL-Z to undo each step if you don't like the result). In our example, we partially restored an outline in the grass for a natural border..

You'll often see this trick applied to flowers and plants, but don't be afraid to experiment with different types of photos and see what you can come up with!

(Credit: Eric R. Jeschke)

Convert Photos to Neon

There are a billion and one tutorials on the Net that show you how to convert text into neon in GIMP, but not many tell you how to convert an image. In fact, we only found one, and it was missing some critical steps. Here's how you can create a neon effect from any photo without pulling your hair out.

This works best if you pick out an image where the person you want to crop isn't just standing upright. Once you've found a suitable candidate, zoom in, select the Paths Tool, and create an outline around the subject. Don't worry about making it perfect, we just need a general outline. Click on Edit>From Path to activate the selection, then copy it to your clipboard.

Open a new image with a black background, then select Edit>Paste as>New Layer. Now click on Layer>Transparency>Alpha to Selection. If it isn't already, change the background or foreground to white then click Edit>Fill with BG Color (or Fill with FG Color, whichever one is white). You should now be left with a black background and a white image of your selection.

Now click on Select>Grow and choose the value 1 where it says 'Grow selection by.' Click OK to get rid of the dialog box, then hit the DEL key. Next, navigate to Edit>Stroke selection (make sure white is selected as your foreground). Chose 2.0 for the line width and make sure the Solid color radio button is selected, and then click on Stroke.

Next, click on Layer>Transparency>Alpha to Selection, then duplicate the layer (Layer>Duplicate Layer). Now click on Select>To Path, then Select>None. Duplicate the layer again, then go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and input 10 for both the horizontal and vertical values.

It's starting to look like a neon outline, but we need to give it some color. Click on Colors>Colorize and adjust the Hue left or right to change the color. For an added effect, Duplicate the layer, change the Mode to Addition, change the Hue just as you did before, and move the layer slightly off of the original. Rinse and repeat as many times as you want, and feel free to add some flair with the different brushes.

Draw Graffiti without Being Harassed by the Five-O

We don't condone tagging (or whatever it is kids are calling it these days), nor would we want to explain to the local cop on duty or wandering gang banger why we're leaving our mark on a perfectly good wall. Luckily for us, neither of their jurisdictions extends into the virtual world.

A prerequisite for this effect is a good graffiti font. There are a ton of free ones floating around the Web (see here), and the one we're using is called Nosegrind. You also need a good backdrop, like a brick wall. Once again, the Web proves invaluable

Open the image in GIMP that you want to tag, then select the Text Tool in the toolbox. Choose your font and desired size, then click on the image and begin typing.

Next, right-click the text layer and select Alpha to Selection, then create a new transparent layer drag it and under the text layer. Click on Select>Grow. How large you decide to grow the selection will depend on how large your image is, but we recommend starting with a value of 10 and seeing how it looks.

Now we're ready to add color to our graffiti. Pick a light and dark color for your foreground and background. Make sure the new layer you created above is highlighted, then select the Blend tool with Mode set to Normal, Gradient to FG to BG (RGB), and Shape to Linear. Draw a straight line up or down on your selected text. Click Select>None.

Right-click the top black text layer and select Alpha to Selection, then Select>Grow. Grow the selection by about 25 percent of the original value you grew it by previously (so if you grew it by 20 before, grow it by 5 this time). Make a new transparent layer and move it beneath the black text layer. Pick a different color than the one you used before and select a light (foreground ) and dark (background) shade. Select the blend tool and draw a line down over your text. Merge the layer down.

Now we need everything to blend into the brick background. Right-click on the top layer with black text and select Alpha to Selection. Change the foreground and background to a dark and light gray, respectively, and draw a line from the bottom to the top of your text with the Blend tool. Now go to Filters>Map>Bump Map. In the top pull-down menu, select your brick layer, change the depth to about 10, and hit OK.

We also need to change those gray colored bricks back to black. Go to Colors>Brightness and Contrast and decrease the brightness to about -115 and increase the contrast to around 35.

In our example, we used green and pink colored graffiti. To make these also blend in with the brick wall, go to Select>None, then right click the green text layer and select Alpha to Selection. Apply the bump map filter as you did before, only this time you don't need to follow that up with a brightness and contrast adjustment. When you're finished, click Select>None and repeat this step for the pink text layer.

Use different brushes to sprinkle in some paint splatters and other effects to make it look more realistic.

(Credit: GimpTV.net)

Additional Resources

www.ghuj.com
Gimp.org/Tutorials
Gimp-Tutorials.net
Gimp-Tutorials.com
Gimper.net
Gimpology.com
Pixel2Life.com

Microsoft Apologizes for Photoshopping Black Man out of Promotional Image

Andy Salisbury — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:54:46 -0500

In an attempt to save some face, Microsoft has come out and publicly apologized about changing the race of a person used in a promotional image.

The picture in question shows three businesspeople, one black, one Asian and one white for a pitch of Microsoft’s business productivity software. The same image on Microsoft’s Polish site had a white person’s head placed over the black man’s, but the hand remained its original color.

“We are looking into the details of this situation. We apologize and are in the process of pulling down the image,” said a Microsoft representative.

Image Credit: Microsoft

Adobe Nixes Photoshop Album Starter Edition

Paul Lilly — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:37:09 -0500

Adobe has announced it is discontinuing its Photoshop Album Starter Edition software, which resides at the bottom of Adobe's image-editing products. No new product is taking its place, and instead Adobe is encouraging users to move their photos to the company's online Photoshop.com web portal.

"As part of our commitment to providing customers with a free photo-editing solution, we have created Photoshop.com, an exciting new online service that lets you upload, organize, edit, store (up to 2GB free), and share your photos," Adobe wrote in a note to its customers.

Then note went on to list steps for exporting photos from Photoshop Album Starter Edition to Photoshop.com, as well as asked customers to "consider an upgrade to Adobe Photoshop Elements 7," essentially a stripped-down version of Photoshop CSx with a much lower price tag.

Image Credit: photohowto.info

Four Ways to Separate Open-Source Winners and Losers

David Murphy — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 12:30:38 -0500

The competition between open-source projects and retail applications is a never-ending struggle. Even when two products aren't in direct competition -- like Adobe's Photoshop versus the GNU Image Manipulation Program -- there's still an underlying push and pull for your attention and resources. The struggle only deepens when the retail version of the two programs approaches an inexpensive or free pricing model. Open-source is an alternative, but when is it the better alternative?

Open-source software developer Patrick McKenzie wrote a post recently about the various ways retail software developers can out-develop open-source alternatives to their products. While it was geared toward the perspective of an open-source creator, he nevertheless gave some good insight as to what differentiates quality open-source projects from the muck. And a number of his points apply to some of the very applications I've recommended in these weekly freeware/open-source roundups.

What does the program do?

To start, McKenzie suggests that a number of open-source projects navel gaze on the specifics of the software and the licensing behind its creation rather than the solution said software provides for a user. For this, look no further than a project like FreeNAS. FreeNAS is a wonderful open-source alternative to pre-installed software setups on network-attached storage devices. But if you check out the project's Web site, you will have no indication as to why you would ever want to install the app. What's the benefit? There's a ton of information about the program's features, requirements, and updates... but comparisons of FreeNAS versus common open-source and retail equivalents are sorely lacking. What problem does FreeNAS solve? What makes it better than the standard? Why should I turn to open-source?

Design Disasters

McKenzie's second point concerns the design of open-source projects, and this one hits especially close to home. I discover a number of interesting applications in my search across the Web for new projects to highlight. Invariably, I have to kick some out of the pile--not because they're poor implementations, but because they're ugly enough to distract from the application's powerful functionality. This proved especially heinous when I was going through finance-related open-source applications for Maximum PC's tax-time feature. Hint to open-source developers: If your program doesn't look at least as smooth as Excel, people aren't going to want to use it.

User Experience is Full-Circle

The user experience presented by an application--or SourceForge itself, in McKenzie's example--is another determining factor that separates quality open-source from questionable applications. It's difficult to parse out specific example in this case, but there are a number of open-source programs that look as if they were created using a 7-year-old installation mechanism. Worse, these programs won't even leave a means for uninstalling the application, save for whatever you might be able to accomplish in the Windows Control Panel.

I never used to use Revo Uninstaller before I started running these open-source roundups; I now consider it a critical component of my work. Invariably, of the five open-source applications I install each week, two to three will leave junk on my hard drive or, worse, spare folders in critical system areas (My Documents, an uber pet peeve). A quality user experience doesn't begin and end with the actual running of the application--the entire process is as important as the actual program itself, and this is an area where retail applications can shine over their open-source friends.

Help! I Need Somebody! Help!

Finally, there are the support mechanisms. Nothing's more frustrating than having to wade through Google-searched forum posts or those damnable Wikis just to find the answer to a simple question about lost features or a confusing user interface. When possible, open-source software needs to walk users by the hand through every facet of its operation. I'd love to see a common video encoding application actually bundle half of the information found across the Internet about encoding types and mechanisms. Better yet, I'd love for a video encoding app to recognize what file I slap into its "Input" field and give me a step-by-step overlay as to how I can go about converting that video to any format the encoder supports.

Simplifying this concept, quality open-source projects are more than just scatter houses of user-built information across the Internet. They are apps like Pidgin, which integrate comprehensive search listings of potential problems, mailing list support, IRC queries, and large user guides right on the big-and-bold help section off of the main site's homepage. Making the support system as easy as possible for the user to interact with is the mark of a solid open-source project. Querying hundreds of Internet forums to find answers is the surest way to turn a person back to the retail alternative.

One of the greatest advantages of open-source software--for consumers, at least--is that it provides a free method for accomplishing tasks that would otherwise require you to purchase expensive software. But just because a program is priced to nothing doesn't mean that it's automatically going to attract user interest regardless of its design, user experience, or marketing. Free software isn't a free pass to ignore the basic qualifications that retail software has to entertain to attract customers.

6 Totally Essential Photoshop Skills Even Your Mom Should Know

Florence Ion — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:00:00 -0500

For more than a decade, Adobe Photoshop has been the de facto image-editing program used by professionals and art students alike. But there are plenty of casual users who only dabble with Photoshop for simple tasks, such as photo resizing and cropping -- oblivious to the sheer power of Photoshop's graphics manipulation abilities. These decidedly non-power users (and we know some of you are included in this group) can do so more with this versatile program -- and we're here to show you how.

Whether you've just installed Photoshop for the first time or know your away around a the Tools toolbar, we put together a few of the most essential Photoshop skills to get you started on your photo editing endeavors. Before you know it, you'll be fixing up your grandmother's torn-up black and white wedding photos and airbrushing the heck out of yourself for your Facebook photo.

Ahh...a clean Photoshop palette. Don't be daunted by the many tools!

Create an Action Script to resize a large batch of photos

Understanding how to record an action script is vital to becoming a Photoshop power user. Actions can help increase productivity by using prerecorded macros to emulate repetitive tasks, allowing you to step away while your computer automatically gets the job done. In this particular tutorial, we'll show you how to resize a large batch of photos, but you can record virtually any action that may be neccessary to your Photoshop needs, including color correction, level adjustment or even applying filters.

1. Before you start this project, we suggest that you gather your images from their respective locations and place them all in one folder. This way, it will make it much easier to save a huge batch of images and access them afterward.

Fire up Photoshop and open up a photo from the set you’ve previously isolated. At this point, we only need one photo to record the action.

2. Go to Window - Actions, or use the shortcut keys Alt + F9. Click the “New Action” button. A dialog box will pop up asking you to give it a name. You also have the option to set the action as one of your defaults or assign it a function key.

Select "New Action" to start recording your own macro.

3. Press the red circle in the actions palette and get ready to record. Remember that everything you do from this point on is tracked and added to the new action, so make sure that any tool you utilize follows in the precise order you'd want your macro to emulate.

Resize the photos to your desired width and height, then Save for Web... and select the file type you would like to save your image as. We suggest that you save your photos as high resolution JPEGs for use on the web, or otherwise, PNG.

If you prefer, you can also select Save As... and simply replace the original image with the resized one.

4. Close your image and select the Stop symbol on the Actions palette. Your Macro should be all set for your batch of photos. Locate the folder where you stored your photos beforehand and load them all up in Photoshop.

5. Go to File – Automate – Batch; a new dialogue window will open up. Under Play – Set, which should automatically set to Default Actions, select the name of the Action you just created.

Click for a thorough view of the Photoshop palette.

Under Source, make sure that the option Open Files is selected. Destination should be set to none, since you’ve already recorded that in your action. Click OK, sit back, and observe your macro in action.

Alternatively, you can manually set a destination for your resized images, and use the File Naming section of the Batch Process window to add prefixes, suffixes, or sequential numbers to your newly resized images. If you do this, make sure to check the "Over Action 'Save As' Commands" box as well.

Befriending the Pen Tool

They say that pen is mightier than the sword, and indeed, the Pen Tool is a powerful blade -- easily one of Photoshop's most difficult tools to use, which is why it merits giving it a bit of an introduction before you use it freeform.

Open up a new image, giving it workable dimensions (800 width by 600 height should be enough), and strike up your Pen tool by selecting it from the tool bar (or by pressing P).

We've provided a cheat sheet to give you a thorough understanding of what each option in the top navigation bar does for the Pen tool. Click on the image to enlarge it.

Download the cheat sheet if need be and try your hand at making your own shapes and curves. Keep in mind that maneuvering your pen tool can seem incredibly challenging at times. As long as you’ve got the basics down, it should be a fairly simple attempt. The trick is in figuring out how to create subpaths, which is the point at which the path starts.

To create a curve, start by clicking anywhere in your document, then click and hold elsewhere on your blank palette. Slowly drag the mouse in any direction to create an anchor point.

The bullet points now illustrate where your curve points are, which further enhance the current curve. To move these curve points, hold ALT and drag. To move the anchor point or the subpath, hold CTRL. Refer to the image below to distinguish between the subpath, an anchor point, and a curve point.

Photoshop has a great built-in tutorial on how to use the pen tool. Hit F1 to do a search in the how-to guide and keep practicing!

Extracting Images Using the Pen Tool

Using what you've just learned about the Pen Tool, we're going to trace our object, extract it, and save it as a new image.

Original Image:

Click to load the image in its original size and then save it to your computer to follow along with the tutorial.

1. Open up your image of choice. If this is your first time cutting out an object, we suggest choosing a photo that does not contain an elaborate background.

2. Select the Pen tool to begin tracing the image. Start at a decent anchor point and make a path around your image, but be precise. When you’re finished tracing, make sure the lines are all connected.

3. To make a selection out of your path, right click and select Make Selection, making sure Anti-Aliased is selected and Feathering is set to zero.

Copy it by using the Ctrl + C shortcut. Then, go to File – New, select OK and paste your image with Ctrl + V.

The window at the top left is your extracted object.

Final result:

With your vector image now its own entity, you can edit the object however you please. Here are a few examples of what you can do with your image from the Blending Options menu, which you can access by right-clicking on the layer.

You can create a border around your object with the Stroke option.

Or, you could do a pattern overlay. The choice is yours!

Quick Tip: You can use this same extraction technique in Adobe Image Ready to export objects from an Animated GIF. Simply load the GIF in Image Ready, select a frame, and then repeat the above steps.

Use Level Adjustments and Color Correction to bring an photo to life

Long nights toiling in the dark room have become a thing of the past, thanks to the simplification of applying photo filters and color correction. If you’re a photographer—whether casual, professional, or a serious hobbyist— knowing how to work with digital photography in Photoshop can save time and improve the visual quality of your images. Level adjustment in Photoshop lets you tweak the constrast and brightness of your photos, so you can make sharper images and highlight you photo subject.

Original Image:

1. Open up your image in Photoshop. Click on “Create new adjustment layer”. You’ll be given a selection list. Choose “Levels”.

You can always do contour tweaking by adjusting the Levels and Hue/Saturation of your photo from the Images - Adjustments tab. However, fine-tuning directly adjusts the layer in it’s entirety, which ruins the original photo quality and makes it difficult to do any additional contour alterations without scrapping the whole process and starting over from scratch. Using an adjustment layer avoids this pitfall and lets you play around with Levels without commiting to any changes.

Levels can be very tricky to adjust. It’s assumed that, generally, you wouldn’t need to adjust anything too drastically. In this case, we’re going to do the minimum possible to make this image a little more outstanding.

2. Photoshop uses histograms to visually represent the tonal range of your photo, which is incredibly useful in distinguishing between light shades in your image.

The black arrow on the left represents pure black, the middle adjusts the contrast and is referred to as the mid-tones level slider, and the far right represents pure white. The histograms are different for every picture, so what you see here may not match what is on your screen.

Play around with the levels to achieve the look you’re going for, or hit Auto to have your image instantly set to automatic levels (based on tonal range) and go from there. You can also select Options for more customization features.

The layer palette now has two layers—the original image and a levels adjustment layer. Should you change your mind about the way your photo looks, all you have to do is delete the adjustment layer.

This is the histrogram for our image after we selected Auto levels. Notice that we've moved the adjustment arrows to the peaks of the histogram to enhance the colors that are most prevalent in our photo.

3. Next, we want to enhance the color of the image by adjusting the hue and saturation. Like the first step, we’re going to create a New Adjustment Layer and select Hue and Saturation. Arrange your screen so that you can see both the dialogue box and the image.

In the drop down list at the top of the dialogue box, where it says Edit, you can choose which color set you'd like to refine.

Each option serves a different purpose: Hue modifies the tint, saturation controls the color, and lightness will alter the brightness. In this particular situation, we are most concerned with the saturation. And we want to adjust just one color without affecting any others.

Unlike the Levels box, from here you can choose between six different color schemes. For our photo, we want to increase the detail on the salad, so we only slighty increased the saturation and lowered the lightness for the reds and the yellows, which increased sharpness of the beer and tomatoes. For the lettuce and cucumbers, we muted them a bit so they wouldn't overshadow the vibrance of the other vegetables in the salad.

Adjustments for our tomatoes

Adjustments for our beer and lemon wedge

Adjustments for our lettuce and cucumber

4. You’ll notice a trio of eyedropper icons on the bottom, right side of the dialogue box, right above the rainbow color bar.

Each of these will help you accurately define the colors you wish to adjust, with the middle and right eyedroppers allowing you to add and subtract from your selection. Select the left eyedropper to select the approximate shade of the color you want to modify.

5. The sliders on the rainbow color bar at the bottom of the dialogue box can help with color fluidity—they also tell you what color you’re currently toying with. The inside brackets determine the color spectrum range and the outside ones determine how those colors blend in.

Be careful when saturating individual colors so that the image doesn’t stray too far from its original composition.

In general, level adjustments can be tricky to figure out. It may take some time before you figure out the formula to get a photo looking just the way you like it, but once you’ve played around with levels you’ll know exactly what to do for future photo projects.

Final product:

Our original image looked a little bland, but this image brings more attention to the delicious food laid out on the table.

Remove flash spots

There’s no doubt that sometimes it's neccessary to fix those little nuances that plague digital photos, especially those taken indoors with a point-and-shoot camera.

Flash spots occur when the flash from the camera reflects back from the person’s face or a reflective object in the background. Suffice to say, flash spots are unflattering. They make the photo look over-exposed and take away from the overall aesthetic of the image, or they add too much shine to your subject’s face. Follow along to find out how to use Photoshop’s default filters to make your point-and-shoot photos look cleaner. You can also use this tutorial for airbrushing.

Original image:

1. Point your cursor over to Image – Adjustments – Curves (or you can hit the shortcut, Ctrl + M). We’re going to use the curves to adjust the lighting in our photo.

With your mouse, click on the center-most point of the grid and drag it downward to diminish the lighting in the picture. Conversely, moving the curve upwards will increase the exposure of your image, causing it to look washed out. We want the image to be a bit dimmer than the original to remove the sheen from our subject’s face.

2. Duplicate the layer; you can do so by right clicking and selecting Duplicate Layer. Uncheck the visibility of your original image by clicking on the tiny eye icon next to it. We’ll be working with the duplicate to make all of our changes.

3. Go to Filter – Blur - Gaussian Blur and increase the radius only slightly until the shiny spots begin to fade away. Be careful not to blur out the entire photo.

4. Now, we want to bring back some texture to the image, especially if we want any semblance of human skin on your subjects. Go back to Filter and select Noise – Add Noise. Make sure Gaussian is selected and Monochromatic is unchecked.

Decrease the percentage so that it doesn’t look like rainbow speckles. Click okay, and now you have your base image, which we will fuse with our original to remove the flash spots.

5. Activate the original layer by clicking on the small eye icon. Select the eraser tool, pick a brush size, and make sure to turn down the hardness to zero percent in the brushes dialogue box. The master diameter of your brush really depends on the picture and the person featured in the picture; you want to make sure that you don’t use too big of a brush.

This is what the brush tool dialogue box looks like.

6. Touch up the areas that you see the flash spots, doing so slightly by sponging the area with your brush. Be careful not to remove too much when you’re removing flash spots from human faces as you could lose depth, causing your subjects to look flat (and fake!). Remember to zoom in and fix miniscule areas like gums and teeth, just for posterity.

Final product:

Restoring Black and White Photo Scans

This trick is incredibly essential for anyone looking to restore ancient family treasures for photo albums and preservation. Make sure that when you scan the photo, you do so at a high resolution to ensure the highest possible photo quality.

Original image:

Click on the photo to get the original and take a closer look at its imperfections.

1. Open up your black and white photo, complete with scratches and whatever other imperfections may be present. Zoom in to get an accurate depiction of how severe your scratches are.

2. This next process can become incredibly meticulous, so put on your patience hat and prepare for mass amounts of left-mouse button clicking. (Alternatively, if you have a WACOM tablet lying around, now would be the time to put that thing to use since you can use the digitizer pen instead of incessantly clicking your mouse.)

Select the Spot Healing Brush tool from the toolbar, or press J on your keyboard. This particular tool will help clean up any small, unwanted marks from an image even more easily than the standard Healing brush (which, basically, copies and pastes). The Spot Healing Brush will make its own sample from the pixels around the mark and match in texture, tone and lighting.

Setting the mode will change the results of how your brush emulates the area surrounding it. For this project, you’ll want to use the “Replace” option, which will retain the grain, noise and texture of the original image, and select the “Proximity Match” option, which will emulate the pixels around the edge of the brush shape.

Toward the top of the window, you should see an option for brush size. Select whatever size you think best suits the scratch and make sure that Hardness is set to zero. Keep in mind that the brush size should really depend on the width and height of what you’re trying to fix. Just make sure that the brush size doesn’t exceed those parameters, otherwise you’ll constantly be hitting Ctrl + Z to undo.

The Healing Brush tool dialogue box

3. Trace over any and all scratches in your photo. Instead of holding the left-mouse button down and dragging it over the scratches, click on the problem areas as if you were dabbing at it with a sponge. This is the most effective way to remove the scratches. However, if you’re fixing scratches in a lightly colored sky scene, you can very well drag the mouse across the scratch without any problem, but don’t go too crazy with your strokes—this method only works well if you make horizontal strokes.

If you see that your method doesn’t work for the darker areas of the photo, try reducing your brush size to fit each of the tiny specks on the picture and zoom in so the process doesn’t become too tedious.

4. Similarly, you could also use the Healing Brush Tool, which emulates a sample of your photo. It is almost like using the paintbrush and coloring over your image in one particular shade. This method works depending on the range of shades in the photo.

Once you’re finished, save your image at the highest resolution PNG. The end result may not look too different from its predecessor, but bear in mind that your picture can now be easily duplicated and printed out as a high quality photo.

Final product:

Use the Clone Tool

This process can either test your patience or turn out to be a fairly simple task—it really depends on the complexity of the background in your image. In this case, we're going to use the Clone Tool to ensure that we can mask what once was. Copy and paste your photo into a new layer (or right-click and select “Duplicate Layer”). Having two layers means that you can mess one up and still retain the original, in case you run into some trouble and need to start over from scratch.

Original image:

That air filter cable seems pretty uneccessary, and it looks kind of tacky, so we're gonna get rid of that in our photo to bring more glory to our betta (beta?) fish

Click on the image to download the original and try out the tutorial for yourself

1. Select the Pen Tool and trace the main subject of your photo. This is to ensure that the Clone Stamp doesn’t identify the main image as something it should duplicate.

Right click and select “Make Selection”. When the dialogue box appears, make sure there is zero feathering selected, and then press “OK”.

Invert the selection so that everything else is selected except for what you traced. You can do so by going to Select – Inverse or by hitting Ctrl + Shift + I.

2. Select the Cloning Stamp Tool by pressing S. Scan your image and look for a suitable area to clone. This can be a tricky decision—if you choose the wrong spot, your image will look out of whack. We suggest that you clone certain areas one section at a time.

Hold the Alt key and click your left-mouse button to select a section of your background, and then choose a brush size. Make sure it’s set at Normal and Zero percent hardness, and that it feathers a bit.

3. Start the cloning process by repeatedly clicking with your mouse over the object you want to remove. It also becomes easier to do so if you zoom into the image. Look for repeating patterns and make sure when you dab with your clone tool that it matches the background—attention to detail is extremely crucial for pulling this off.

When you choose sections, try going horizontally for accuracy.

Make simple swipes with the Clone Tool

4. When you’re finished, and if your endeavor proved successful, delete your duplicated layer and save your image.
This tool also works well at removing scratches out of color photos and objects that seem out of place in a photo, such as a lamp post or a trash can.

Final product:

Finishing Touches—Typing On a Path

What better way to finish off a soiree of Photoshop tutorials than by adding text? Text lets you add witty remarks and character to your image, giving it a sense of completion—or, you could be accidentally generating the next big meme. Either way, here’s a few tips on how to lively up your photos, besides adding thought bubbles or diagonal text.

You’ll need to create a path for the text to follow; do this by selecting the pen tool and make sure that paths is selected in the options bar towards the top of the window. Go ahead and create yourself a fun little shape. You can pretty much shape it however you like, but make sure it has some sort of fluidity. Otherwise, the text could come out looking a bit awkward and illegible.

You can also type according to the outline of a preloaded Photoshop shape or manipulate the text box so that the end result looks like the shape itself. To do so, make sure you have the pen tool selected and click the shape you’d like for your text box (it can be anything: a square, a circle, a heart, or a custom shape). Make sure that it is selected and then point your cursor inside the box (your cursor will have the text symbol with a circle around it). Click and type.

Take note of the various cursor states. You can decide on a start-point by dragging the cursor either way—the choice is yours. When you’re finished, you can either click on the outside of the shape selection or click on the check mark on the right side of the options bar, towards the top of the window.

Typing text on a shape's path

Typing inside a shape

Quick Tip: You can make your own shapes for the text boxes if you have a very complex graphic. Simply select the pen tool, customize your shape (making sure all open ends are closed), and then right click “Define Custom Shape”. Give it an alias of your choice and accept the changes. It should be available at the end of the custom shapes list.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 7.0

Gordon Mah Ung — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 11:45:32 -0600

A fast car won’t make you turn better laps at Laguna Seca. A pair of $200 sneakers won’t help you outplay Lebron James, and installing Photoshop CS4 won’t make your photos magically better. While that may be true, Adobe’s Photoshop Elements 7.0 will almost certainly make the average person’s photos better. Now in its seventh iteration, Elements 7.0 uses the guts of the extremely powerful Photoshop and tries to make it friendly to everyone.

A new feature in Elements 7.0 allows you to combine multiple shots of you, say, standing in front of a statue and subtract people who rudely walk into the frame. It’s the inverse of a feature added in Elements 6.0 that lets you easily combine multiple group photos to create one family picture without someone blinking or sticking his or her tongue out.

Other easy as pie touches include a new tool to whiten teeth or make the sky bluer and a few easy photo effects such as the ability to give an image a line-drawing look, an old-fashioned photo look, or a saturated slide look. None of these are exactly new concepts, but we do appreciate the simplicity of it. Those looking for a bit more fun will probably find it in the Smart Brush Tool. It’s what you might expect based on its name: a very smart brush. Choose it and click from a wide assortment of changes, such as blue skies or high contrast and then paint an object. The brush will stick to similarly colored or toned pixels on the screen, so you could change someone’s sweater from blue to yellow in a snap.

Adobe has pushed additional integration with its Photoshop.com service. The freebie Photoshop.com gives you about 2GB of storage space, the ability to back up your photos online, access to a limited set of themes and tutorials, and the use of a mobile phone client for uploading and viewing photos. The client, however, is pretty limited in handset support, but Adobe does point you to ShoZu as an alternative. Ponying up $50 per year gets you 20GB of space, additional themes, and tutorials.

Initially, we didn’t understand why you’d even want Photoshop.com when you can get unlimited storage at websites like Smugmug for $40. The answer: photo editing. You can access and edit the photos that you have on Flickr.com using the far more feature-rich Photoshop Express on Photoshop.com. It’s a neat feature, but 20GB still seems miserly in a day of cheap 16GB memory cards and 15MP cameras.

Elements’s list price of $140 may seem steep, but it includes one year of Photoshop.com. Far more palatable is the $80 street price of the app. At $80, it’s well worth the investment for the person looking to jazz up their photos. It’s not perfect, of course; we’d like see high dynamic range photography support (which is included in the competing Paintshop Pro Photo X2), and finding some of the cool features, like the excellent Magic Extractor, isn’t easy; however, for basic photographers who want quick and easy photo enhancement, it’s tough to beat Photoshop Elements 7.0.

Adobe Creative Suite 4 Ships, Adds GPU Acceleration to Photoshop

Mark Edward Soper — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:19:38 -0500

Adobe began shipping its Creative Suite 4 (CS4) this week, and perhaps the most significant new feature from a typical Maximum PC reader's point of view is the support for GPU acceleration in Photoshop CS4 and other components, including Bridge CS4, After Effects CS4, Premiere Pro CS4, Acrobat 9, and Flash Player 10.

Photoshop CS4 uses OpenGL 2.0 GPU acceleration for the following features:

Smooth Display at ALL Zoom Levels
Animated Zoom Tool
Animated Transitions when doing a One Stop Zoom
Hand Toss Image
Birdseye View
Rotate Canvas
Smooth Display of Non Square Pixel Images
Pixel Grid
Move Color Matching to the GPU
Draw Brush Tip Editing Feedback via GPU
3D Acceleration
- 3D Axis
- 3D Lights Widget
- Accelerated 3D Interaction via Direct To Screen

While NVIDIA touts its new Quadro CX GPU product line for Photoshop users, you can use existing NVIDIA and ATI GPUs with Shader Model 3.0 and Open GL 2.0 support to accelerate Photoshop and other CS4 apps. The level of OpenGL 2.0 acceleration depends upon the GPU and the amount of video RAM a particular card includes.

How much memory do you need? You need at least 128MB of video RAM to enjoy any level of acceleration. However, for best performance and results, you should have at least 256MB of video RAM, and cards with more than 512MB of RAM handle large images better. Sorry, Windows XP Professional x64 version users, there's no GPU acceleration for you.

For a list of tested cards/GPUs, see Tech Note kb405711.

If you're planning on moving to Adobe Photoshop CS4 or one of the Creative Suite 4 SKUs that includes Photoshop CS4 and you're already gaming on the same box, the good news is that most recent gamer-oriented video cards will accelerate Photoshop CS4. However, if you have a hand in choosing photo-editing hardware for the office, it's time to start loading up those systems with better GPUs as well.

Nvidia Launches Quadro CX GPU for Photoshop Wizards

Paul Lilly — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 12:25:18 -0500

Nvidia's latest videocard release takes aim at the graphics professional rather than the hardcore gamer with its new Quadro CX GPU. The new card comes just in time for those planning on jumping onto Adobe's Creative Suite 4, as the Quadro CX has been designed with the suite in mind, which Nvidia claims will give uses the "ability to create rich, stunning content in a faster, smoother, and more interactive way."

The Quadro CX comes with 1.5GB of GDDR3 memory on a 384-bit memory interface capable of 76.8GB/sec of memory bandwidth. Dual Link DVI comes standard, as well as support for OpenGL 2.1, Shader Model 4.0, and DirectX 10.

The customized GPU allows Photoshop CS4 to offload real-time image rotation, zooming, and panning, as well as instantaneous view changes. But such goodies won't come cheap. MSRP has been set to $2000. Ouch!

Image Credit: Nvidia