50 Excellent Digital Photography Photoshop Tutorials

 

 

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50 Excellent Digital Photography Photoshop Tutorials

via Smashing Magazine by Jacob Gube on 12/7/08

Adobe Photoshop is the industry standard for digital-image editing and graphics creation. Photoshop's versatility makes it a popular choice among Web designers, graphic designers, digital media artists, print designers, photographers and other professionals in design and image-editing. Whether you're designing a business card or website or digitally enhancing an image, you can rest assured that Photoshop will give you the necessary tools to get the job done.

In this article, we focus on tutorials on digital photography. You'll find an assortment of top-notch tutorials that deal with applying post-production techniques and effects, color correction, enhancement and photo retouching. So fire up Photoshop and try out some of these wonderful tutorials on your own photos!

Without further ado, we present you with 50 Excellent Photoshop Tutorials for Digital Photography.

Photo Effects

HDR-Style Results Using Layers in Photoshop
Learn how to achieve HDR results in Photoshop using bracketed exposures during the production process and then Photoshop layers afterwards.

How to Create Professional HDR Images
Here's an excellent (and very popular) tutorial on creating high dynamic range (HDR) images; the author focuses on realism instead of going overboard with the application of HDR.

Photoshop HDR tutorial
This tutorial shows you how to create true HDR using bracketed exposure and Photoshop for post-production.

Using the HDR Feature in Photoshop CS2/CS3
This thorough tutorial walks you through the basic concept of HDR photography and how to use Photoshop to make your photographs pop.

How to Make Digital Photos Look like Lomo Photography
In this tutorial, you'll learn how to apply the "lomography" effect to your digital photos.

Infrared Photo Effect in Photoshop
This tutorial shows you a way to simulate the infrared effect with photos taken using point-and-shoot cameras.

Exposure blending tutorial
Create an HDR photo by blending exposures with this Photoshop tutorial.

Your photos, 300-style!
Give photographs the sepia-toned 300 movie effect.

How to Use Photoshop's Lens Blur Tool for Tilt-Shift Fakery
Tilt-shift lenses are expensive and not very versatile. Save some money by checking out this Photoshop tutorial on how to fake tilt-shift photography.

Tilt Shift Photoshop Tutorial: How to Make Fake Miniature Scenes
Here's another method for faking tilt-shift photography.

The Tilt-Shift Miniature Fake Technique
This tutorial walks you through the basics of picking a subject for the tilt-shift effect and using Photoshop's blur and gradient tools to fake it.

Vignette 2.0
Give your photos a natural-looking vignette effect by following along in this Photoshop tutorial.

Adding a Diffuse Glow to Your Images
Apply diffuse glow to your photographs to create a dreamy effect with this Photoshop tutorial.

Image Enhancement and Correction

Improving Landscape Photographs
Enhance your landscape images by reading through this Photoshop tutorial.

Using Masks to Improve Landscape Images
Use the masking feature in Photoshop to improve your landscape images.

Color Correction, by the Numbers
Use CMYK values (obtained with the eyedropper tool in Photoshop) to correct colors in a photograph.

Color Correction Using Levels and Eyedroppers
In this Photoshop tutorial, you'll see another method of correcting colors by using the levels-adjustment feature and by sampling colors with the eyedropper tool.

Enhance Your Image with Selective Color Adjustments
This tutorial uses a "non-destructive" and selective method for enhancing colors in a photograph.

Black and White Is the Key to Better Color
Temporarily convert your image to black and white to improve color enhancement methods in Photoshop.

Understanding Local Contrast Enhancement
This excellent Photoshop tutorial explains local contrast enhancement and a method for using the unsharp mask feature.

Local Contrast Enhancement
Learn the theory behind local contrast enhancement and learn a practical way of applying the method to enhance images.

Sharpening Using an Unsharp Mask
Learn the concept behind the unsharp mask feature in Photoshop to sharpen photographs.

Sharpen Those Photos: Unsharp Mask
This tutorial shares a brief history of traditional photo sharpening techniques and how to sharpen images digitally in Photoshop.

Noise Reduction by Image Averaging
Reduce image noise in Photoshop by following this in-depth tutorial.

Using the Photoshop Levels Tool
This tutorial discusses the concept behind Photoshop's levels tool, as well as how to use it effectively to enhance photographs.

Using the Photoshop Curves Tool
In this Photoshop tutorial, you'll learn about the curves tool in Photoshop and how to use it to improve photographs.

Advanced Photo Sharpening
This Photoshop tutorial shares a more complex method for sharpening photos using a variety of techniques such as using filters and setting threshold adjustments.

Controlled Image Sharpening
Learn another method of controlled image sharpening via this Photoshop tutorial.

Digital Blending
Learn how to enhance dynamic range by reading through this excellent Photoshop tutorial.

Gaussian Blur
Learn how to use Gaussian blur to enhance and soften photographs in Photoshop.

Lens Correction Filter in Photoshop CS2
Learn about the lens correction filter in Photoshop to fix image distortions.

Photo Manipulation and Retouching

Add Dynamic Lighting to a Flat Photograph
Add dynamic lighting to a photograph to make it pop in this Photoshop tutorial.

Getting a Grip on the Vanishing Point Filter
Learn how to use Photoshop's vanishing point filter to extend certain areas in the photograph.

How to Stitch Photos in Photoshop
Learn a method of stitching together two photographs using Photoshop.

Super-Fast and Easy Facial Retouching
In this tutorial, you'll learn a method for hassle-free and speedy facial retouching.

Quick and Effective Facial Photo Retouching
Here's another method for quick and easy facial retouching.

Four Easy Photoshop Techniques to Make Your Pictures Pop!
This tutorial shares four simple but effective Photoshop techniques for isolating a subject.

Awesome Photo-Realistic Coloring Techniques
Learn the basics of coloring techniques via a practical example (coloring the hair of a black-and-white photograph) in this wonderful Photoshop tutorial.

Removing Objects From Photos
Learn the basics of removing objects you don't want to be seen in your photographs by following along in this Photoshop tutorial.

Black and White with a Splash of Color
In this tutorial, you'll see a method for the selective coloring of a black-and-white photo.

Hand-Colouring a Black-and-White Photo in Photoshop
Learn a method of manually coloring a black-and-white photo in Photoshop.

Converting a Digital Color Photo to Black and White
Here is another effective method of converting colored photographs to black and white.

Colour to Black and White Using Channel Mixer
Convert photos from color to black and white using Photoshop's channel mixer.

Quick Fix for Cluttered Backgrounds
Cluttered backgrounds can be a distraction from the photo's subject. Here's an introductory-level tutorial on reducing visual clutter in the background of a photograph.

Antiquing Digital Images in Photoshop
You don't have to wait decades for your photographs to fade in color; simulate the effect using Photoshop.

Change Hair Color Photoshop Tutorial
Learn a method of retouching a subject's hair color via this excellent Photoshop tutorial.

Creating a Sunset Effect in Photoshop Tutorial
Give photographs taken in the middle of the day a sunset effect by following along in this Photoshop tutorial.

Photo Retouching: Spotlight Effect
In this Photoshop tutorial, you'll learn how to highlight parts of a subject by giving the area a digitally placed, but natural-looking, spotlight.

Image Retouching: Advanced Skin Softening
Learn a method of removing skin blemishes by softening the skin using the surface blur filter in Photoshop.

Nesting Smart Objects for Multi-Mask Effects in Photoshop
Learn all about nesting smart objects in Photoshop to smoothen and sharpen details in a photo.

Related posts

If you enjoyed this article, you may also want to check out the following Smashing Magazine articles:

• 35 Beautiful Vintage and Retro Photoshop Tutorials
• 70 Beauty Retouching Photoshop Tutorials
• 50 Photoshop Tutorials For Sky and Space Effects
• 40 Beautiful Grunge Photoshop Tutorials
• The Ultimate Collection Of Useful Photoshop Actions
• Photoshop Tutorials To Improve Your Modeling and Design

About the Author

Jacob Gube is a Web developer/designer and author of Six Revisions, a blog on Web development and design. If you want to connect with the author, you can follow him on Twitter.

(al)

 

 

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KidZui brings its child-safe browser to Firefox

 

 

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KidZui brings its child-safe browser to Firefox

via The Download Blog: Software tips, news, and opinions from Download.com editors by Josh Lowensohn on 12/8/08

KidZui, the child-safe browser maker, has put out a Firefox extension that offers all the functionality of its standalone browser right inside of Firefox.

Once installed and activated by a parent, it locks the child (or anyone else for that matter) out of accessing non-Kidzui approved sites, or other areas of the computer, by taking up the entire screen. A password, which is chosen by the parent, is the only way to exit the KidZui browsing experience, essentially turning your computer into a kid-friendly Internet kiosk.

The browser extension has full support for the company's paid subscription service, which runs around $40 a year. Paying users get a few additional features like being able to white list certain sites, track children's browsing history on a per-session basis, along with a tool that will figure out what your kids are into based on that history.

What's really interesting here is this is one of the few times a standalone browser has been rolled up as an extension for another browser. Of the many variants which are built on top of mainstream browsers, there's the lingering question whether the same experience could simply be offered on top of someone else's product. With something like Flock or Maxthon, this would likely be underwhelming, however, in KidZui's execution it appears to be a smart play at getting more users onboard.

KidZui's standalone browser experience comes to Firefox with a new extension that keeps kids from visiting sites or accessing parts of your computer you don't want them to.

(Credit: KidZui)

Originally posted at Webware

 

 

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The top 5 music-streaming services on the Web

 

 

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The top 5 music-streaming services on the Web

via Webware.com by Don Reisinger on 12/8/08

Although there are a slew of music-streaming services across the Web, they're not created equal. But if you find the right service to match your music style, you'll quickly realize that finding the best song for a particular occasion isn't as hard as it once was.

Grooveshark

Including Grooveshark in the list of the top five music-streaming services may surprise some since it doesn't get the kind of attention Last.fm or Pandora does. But with the help of an outstanding search interface that lets users find a slew of songs by artist, album, or song, as well as a slick, Flash-based interface, it's one of the best streaming music services around.

Overall, the site's recommendation engine is outstanding and the relevance of the tracks it offered was superb. The ability to embed songs elsewhere across the Web with Grooveshark widgets is a nice touch, but the main issue facing Grooveshark is that its library is a bit too small. Sure, the company claims it offers a library of "millions" of songs, but many are duplicates and after listening for about 20 minutes or so, I heard the same songs again when I left the recommendation engine running. To limit that issue, I decided to create my own playlist of songs without using the recommendation engine. It allowed me to skip back to songs I had already heard and although it took more work than I would have liked, the experience was far more appealing that using the company's recommendation engine.

Last FM

Last.fm is great for the social-networking fanatic in all of us and its library of songs is superb. In fact, the service is equally capable of finding Louis Prima's "Angelina Zooma Zooma" as Coldplay's "Viva La Vida." Last.fm might just be another place to create a radio station to listen to songs that sound similar to your favorites, but it's the social element that adds appeal to the service. The ability to find out what friends are listening to is a welcome feature and the ease with which you can find songs makes Last.fm one of the easiest services to use.

There's not much to dislike about Last.fm. The service is simple to use, it offers extras like videos and lyrics to sweeten the pot, and generally does well when offering up new songs. But it's that recommendation engine that doesn't perform quite as well as Pandora's that takes away somewhat from the Last.fm experience. During my testing, the service did well on newer, more popular songs, but on more obscure tracks, it had difficulty delivering related songs. But if you're not into less-known artists or indie labels, I doubt you'll even notice.

Editor's note: Last.fm is owned by CBS, which also publishes CNET and CNET News. The author of this post is a freelance contributor to CNET, and his views on these products are his own.

MySpace Music

A relatively new entrant to the market, MySpace Music has quickly become one of the most appealing music streaming services on the Web. Its library of music is huge--it features songs from all the major labels and independents--and learning more about the artist and song was made easy thanks to MySpace's wealth of information for each track. Unlike Pandora, I was able to pick any songs I wished from the company's library and add it to a playlist that I could play an unlimited number of times. That may be a simple addition, but being able to repeat songs and choosing to play any one of the millions of tracks the service offers is an extremely appealing feature.

The main issue plaguing MySpace Music, though, is its poor interface that makes it too difficult to find music, create playlists, and get down to the business of listening to music. I realize the service is full of features, which is probably why it's so difficult for the company to cram all of it onto a page in a neat way, but something needs to be done to fix it before it can truly compete on the same level with well-designed services like Pandora and Last.fm.

Pandora

Pandora is easily one of the best music services on the Web. With a huge library of songs, an outstanding interface, and the best recommendation engine in the business, the service is a fine alternative to Last.fm. And with the help of a simple "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" system to tell the service if you like a song, Pandora's ability to find related songs that you actually enjoy is second to none.

But as appealing as its music service is, it's the general lack of social features that takes away from an otherwise outstanding service. Monitoring what your friends are listening to is practically impossible and connecting to others to share music is missing. Granted, the service, which is based off the Genome Project, specializes in providing music first and foremost, but as one of Last.fm's main competitors, it seems silly to me that a more appealing social element isn't included.

Rhapsody

Rhapsody may be one of the oldest services in the music streaming business, but it still packs quite a punch. Aside from playing songs, Rhapsody displays lyrics for most songs and I was even able to perform a few tunes myself thanks to karaoke tracks included in its library. And regardless of whether I was looking for the Velvet Underground or Britney Spears, I found any song I wanted without much trouble, thanks to a slick interface and a library of songs that's one of the largest on the market.

But for all its virtues, the biggest issue facing Rhapsody is its business model. To gain full access to its entire library of songs an unlimited number of times, as well as other features the service has to offer like personalized playlists, it requires users to dole out at least $12.99 per month. The company's free offering allows users to play 25 songs for free each month, but that limit dries up quickly. And considering most of the Rhapsody's competitors offer the same music for free, I'm hard-pressed to find a reason to use it when Pandora and Last.fm are providing their own, free alternative.

 

 

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Get Your Google Profile Organized For Friend Connect

 

 

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Get Your Google Profile Organized For Friend Connect

via MakeUseOf.com by Mark O'Neill on 12/8/08

After many months of closed beta and keeping people waiting, Google Friend Connect has finally gone live. This is the app that seems to be Google's answer to Facebook, their social network that finally connects everything together. If they stick to it (unlike Lively) and put a lot of work into it, they might just give Facebook a run for their money.

But before you go ahead and put Friend Connect on your blog or accept any Friend Connect invitations, you need to get your Google profile together first. So let's take a look at that. It's worth pointing out before we start that to use Friend Connect, you do NOT need a Google account. You can sign in also with a Yahoo account, an AIM account or an Open ID account as well.   But I personally think that a Google account is the way to go here if you want to take full advantage of what Friend Connect has to offer. That's just my personal opinion but you may think differently.

You can find your Google profile by going here and if you don't have a Google account, you can sign up for one if you want. Then it is just a matter of deciding what information you would like to make public and what information you would like to withhold. It's also worth pointing out that your Google profile also shows up in your Google Reader "your stuff" section if you use Reader.

I would recommend making a short bio and put in some relevant HTML weblinks as this will naturally be indexed by the Google bots. So if you are a blogger or a businessperson, make sure that your website / blog is in there and linked to. This is just good SEO common sense.

Then the next step of the profile is linking to all your web presences, a bit like Friendfeed. But to speed this part up, I just entered my Friendfeed URL and this immediately brought up dozens and dozens of other URL's!  So a bit of a shortcut there! Google can also "auto-detect" some of your web profiles and you can mark which ones you want on your profile and which ones it should ignore.

Another feature of Google profiles that I like is the picture strip. At the top of the page is a "photos" sub-tab. Click on that and you can enter the URL of your web album or photo feed. Of course being Google, they prefer Picasa but it also works for Flickr or any other photo feed with a URL. I have my Flickr feed running through it and it works perfectly (each picture linking directly to its Flickr page) :

So once you have got your page all filled out the way you want it, it's time to start accepting all those Friend Connect invitations that people may send you. Or if you have a blog, you should find the space to install Friend Connect in a prominent place (I moved the Friendfeed widget down to have Friend Connect at the top of my sidebar).   

So what is Friend Connect all about I hear you ask? Well, let's first get the obligatory YouTube video from Google on the matter.

So as you can see, this is basically Google trying to make some inroads on the social networking scene. By having FC on your blog, you can start to build a small community of visitors who can interact with one another. What's even better is that, as the video says, there's no need for the person to make a new account with a new profile (who wants to go through all that again?). They can also sign in with their Yahoo account, AIM account or Open ID account.

So what are some of the benefits for you and your site visitors?

• By clicking on people's icons, you can view their Google profile and find out more about them.
• You can contact site visitors and become friends with them.
• You can find out what other websites people are members of with their Google profiles.
• You can leave comments, ratings and reviews about a particular website and respond to other comments, ratings and reviews.

So in other words, Friend Connect personalises your site more. Gives it that human touch.

But it also branches out further than that. If you click on someone's icon and view their Google profile, you can potentially see their Google Reader shared articles, their favourite shared photos, their Blogger comments, their YouTube videos and much more (if they choose to share that information with you by having it on their profile). This is in direct contrast to Facebook where you have to be approved first by the person before viewing any information of theirs. Facebook is also very much "walled in" where everything is inside and can't be taken out of the site. Friend Connect, by contrast, seems more "looser" and you can click from site to site. Nothing seems to be constrained.

So I think Google is drawing a clear line here and giving users a clear choice. They aren't offering up an identical boring Facebook clone. They are making an entirely different product where you can see the choices on offer. I like what I see so far. I just hope they don't get bored 6 months down the line and ditch it, like a lot of other beta "Lab" products.

What about you? Have you installed Friend Connect? Do you like what you see? Or are you distinctly unimpressed? Do you think social networks like Facebook have cause to be worried?

(By) Mark O'Neill is a blogger and professional writer. He is also the managing and publishing editor of MakeUseOf. Check out his blog at Better Than Therapy.

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Tags:friend connect, Google, social networking, widgets

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Ultimate GMail Collection: over 80 Tools and Tips | MakeUseOf.com

Ultimate GMail Collection: over 80 Tools and Tips | MakeUseOf.com

How To Setup Free SMS Alerts For Urgent Emails in Gmail

 

 

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How To Setup Free SMS Alerts For Urgent Emails in Gmail

via MakeUseOf.com by Aibek on 12/8/08

Not so long ago we looked at how to send emails to cell phone as SMS for free. Lots of people found the article quite useful. Today I wanted to extend it a bit further and show you how you can use the info from the previous post to setup alerts for important emails that land in your Gmail account.

The whole thing is fairly simple. I am pretty sure some of you have been using it already.

First you need to get free email to SMS gateway for your mobile carrier. If you didn't get it last time you can easily do so now. The page lists email-to-sms gateways for 10 major US carrier and lots of international ones.

Once you have the email for your mobile number (say 1234567890@tmomail.net), simply login to your Gmail account and go straight to Settings -> Filters tab. Now, there are two ways to use this.

1- Get SMS Alerts for Emails from Specific Addresses

The first way is to setup SMS alerts for emails coming from certain people or places that you consider important. These can be emails from your employer, bank, hosting provider, site uptime tracker etc.

Create new filter and enter the email address for which you want to receive SMS alert.

In the next step, setup a Forward rule to your free email-to-sms number.

Click on "Create Filter" and you're done. Next time you receive email from that address you'll also get SMS message with about first 150 characters of the email. As simple as that.

2- Get SMS For Urgent Emails If You're Away

Say you're on holiday and don't want to be bugged with regular work related emails. However at the same time you want to make sure that when it's something really urgent people can reach you.

Here is what you can do. First create an auto-responder message (see in Setting -> General) that looks something like the one below.

Then go to 'Filters' tab and setup a forward filter for it. As you can see, in the above auto-responder message I provided sender with option to reach me by simply emailing me again using "urgent" in the subject line.

As soon as email hits my inbox I get texted to my mobile.

Are you using anything similar to that right now? Share with us in comments.

(By) Aibek, the guy behind MakeUseOf.com.

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Tags:alerts, Gmail, SMS tools

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