While we wait for CS5 (rumoured to be scheduled for the second quarter of 2010), here’s a look back over 20 years of Adobe Photoshop welcome screens. Every release of Adobe’s industry standard photo editing software prior to 6.0 is alien to me, but perhaps those horrendous 90’s splash screens will bring back memories for some of you. [Read more…]
Photoshop – Why so serious?
January 21, 2010 by
Having spent eight years using Photoshop for good and mischief, in recent years I’ve stepped firmly away from compositing The Ultimate Warrior piledriving Buzz at the moon landing and into the world of serious photo editing and digital art. It’s a trend I’ve seen developing a lot recently, a considerable number of today’s digital artists and retouchers I’ve spoken to started out as I did. Some of the most beautiful work from the most modern of art forms has its roots in the early 2000’s, Photoshop 6, and putting Chuck Norris in space, just because suddenly, we could.
Photoshop turns a digital image into Lego bricks and the new user into a child. By the time that child grows up, he/she has an intimate knowledge of a set of tools that surpass the old dark room tricks a thousand times over. It’s easy to look down on the teenager holed up in his/her bedroom custom building glitter text for their myspace, or selectively colouring an object from a snapshot, but to do so, even from those generic online tutorials, instills an understanding of animation, paths, masks and curves. [Read more…]
Retouching In Photoshop 1 – The Basics Page 2
January 2, 2010 by
Once you’ve completed Retouching in Photoshop Page 1, you may have started to notice the next problem to tackle. We’ve softened and removed the main blemishes, but the skin tone is still blotchy and uneven. In this next step we’ll solve this problem using the dodge and burn tools.
Look at our image below (you will need flash player installed to view it) and roll your mouse cursor over the image. Highlighted in green are areas that are a little too dark, and highlighted in red are areas that are too light. Roll your cursor over a few times, allowing your eyes time to adjust to each image. Remember that too dark or light is hugely subjective, and the example given is one artist’s very rough 60-second appraisal of the skin tone variations at a macro level. It’s just a guide, but it should be enough to train your eye towards these variations. There are others I’ve missed out, and no doubt a few errors, so don’t follow it exact. It’s ultimately up to you how you interpret your image. [Read more…]