Photoshop Tutorials

 

28 August 2010 -  most of the tutorials listed below are based on long since superseded versions of Photoshop. Naturally, it would be more useful if they were updated, but alas that takes more time than I'm prepared to put into the task, especially since there are many alternatives to be found elsewhere on the internet. Given their age I would normally remove them from the site. However, the site statistics available to me suggests that they remain popular, therefore, I've decided to keep them available

• A pet peeve of many Adobe Bridge users is features that don't work in a manner that makes their use as intuitive as they should be. A good example of such a feature is "Collections". This short tutorial discusses their use and provides some examples.

• A short tutorial that describes a use for the Photoshop CS File Browser Automate: Apply Camera Raw Settings command.

• A short and relatively simple example of the Photoshop CS Lens Blur filter in use.

• It seems that by refreshing the the Soft Proofing tutorial earlier in the year I have somehow encouraged a number of Computer-Darkroom readers to take the next logical step which is to consider making their own Proof Prints. Unfortunately there isn't a lot of material describing how so I've put together a short tutorial describing  my approach to using an Inkjet Printer as a Proofing Printer which describes the method that I use.

• RGB Soft Proofing in Photoshop - Since the color gamut and dynamic range of the printer is vastly different to our monitor, it will be virtually impossible for the RGB monitor to closely match the printer without some additional help. Different types of paper and ink all conspire to make things even more complicated. However, if we can obtain an accurate preview on the monitor of the likely appearance of our final print, we can go some way to fine-tuning the image to our needs. This is an updated version of the tutorial describes the technique for Soft Proofing.

• Basic Tone and Color Correction in Photoshop - This tutorial describes the basic tools that maybe used within Photoshop to correct/adjust the tone and color of images before printing. In addition to Brightness/Contrast, Color Balance, Levels and Eyedropper tools the tutorial also demonstrates the use of "Adjustment Layers" and Curves.

• Perspective control - This short tutorial describes a technique that can be used to correct the converging verticals that so often plague architectural photographs taken with wide-angle lenses. It demonstrates the use of the Perspective control tool to great effect.

• Monochrome from Color - This tutorial demonstrates a very simple Photoshop technique by which we can  convert color images  into Monochrome. Even better, with a little practice we even manage effects similar to the "sepia tone" and "split tone" processes practiced in the conventional wet darkroom.

• Using color negative film has many advantages for the digital worker; not least the wider dynamic range that can be capture relative to reversal type film. However, scanning negative type film for optimum results can be difficult. This tutorial Alternative Scanning Method for Color Negative type film describes a technique that can help us overcome many of the problems associated with scanning color negatives on low end scanner software.

• Photoshop 7 & CS for Mac OS X - Centring Prints on the Page - With the introduction of OSX  Mac users users were promised new all singing and dancing OS with features that would Windows users would die for. Yeh, pull the other one! As with each new version of Windows the third party software and hardware vendors hadn't been let into the secret and of course we the users pay the penalty. Epson printer users quickly found that many of the features that they had become sued to using simply didn't function or worse - exist. This tutorial demonstrates a method of overcoming the missing Center Print feature.