Chapter 8 : Filters and Effects

Effects and Filters

      Filters are easy to learn and use, and yet are one of Photoshop’s most powerful features. When used properly, they can recreate a number of photographic and artistic effects, can enhance the quality of your images, and can even distort them in ways which would otherwise be very tedious and time-consuming.Each filter produces its own unique effect, which you can adjust and manipulate before it is applied. Also, a filter may be applied even after another has been used, with the end result being a combination of the two filters used. The order that you apply the filters has an effect on what the end result looks like; for example, running Add Noise followed by Blur will give you a blurry image with fuzzy dots on it, whereas the reverse combination would give a blurry image with sharp dots. Since filters can be used in any order, and each has its own controls, there is practically no limit to the different ways in which you can apply and combine them.

Examples of Effect and Filter

                                                          Artistic Effects Applied

Blur Effects Applied

Brush Stroke Effect Applied

Render Effects Applied

Distort Effects Applied

Sketch Effects Applied

Chapter 6 & 7 : Working With Layers and Layer Styles

Layers

What is a layer ?

• In the program you can stack, merge or define layers when creating a digital image. Layers can be partially obscured allowing portions of images within a layer to be hidden or shown in a translucent manner within another image, or you can use layers to combine two or more images into a single digital image. For the purpose of editing, working with layers allows you to go back and make changes within a layer as you work.

Layer Style

       The layers palette shows you the stacking order of the various layers in your document along with a thumbnail to help you identify each layer at a glance. As mentioned previously, only a single layer can be edited at one time. The active layer will be highlighted in your layers palette.In addition, the active layer will have a paintbrush symbol in the small square just left of the thumbnail. Double-clicking on a layer in the palette gives you access to layer styles, as well as some advanced blending options that we will not be discussing in this course. Unlike previous versions, renaming a layer in Photoshop requires you to Alt/Option double click on the layer name.

You'll also notice a small eye icon for each layer. Clicking on this icon lets you toggle the layer visibility on and off.

To link layers to the currently active layer, you would click in the second square (left of the thumbnail) in the layers palette. A link icon will appear in the space to indicate that the layers are linked.

Now take a look at the bottom row of buttons on the layers palette. These icons allow you to (left to right) work with layer effects, add a layer mask, group layers into sets, create adjustment layers, create a new ordinary layer, and delete layers.

Below the blend mode and opacity controls, you have a series of checkboxes for locking various editing functions. From left to right the lock can be applied to:

• transparency,
• image pixels,
• position, and
• all of the above.

When any of the locks are activated, you will see a small lock icon appear to the right of the layer in the layers palette. When all locks are activated, the lock icon will turn solid. You'll notice the background layer always has its transparency and position locked. This cannot be changed without promoting the background to a layer.

• The transparency lock allows you to edit on a layer without changing the transparency level of the pixels in that layer.

• The image pixels lock disables all painting tools for that layer. You can still move and transform the layer contents, adjust opacity settings, and change blend modes, but you cannot paint directly on it.

• The position lock is self explanatory. You can't move or transform a layer that has its position locked, but you can still paint on it, apply layer effects, and change blend modes.

• And if you hadn't guessed already, the last lock is the same as selecting all three locks.

A picture that i have edited during the class 

Chapter 4 & 5 Multimedia

Chapter 4 & 5: Making and Manipulating Selections

Manipulating Selections

Selections can be manipulated in a number of ways. After making an initial selection you can make an additional selection that can be added to, subtracted from, or intersected with the original. A selection marquee can be transformed in terms of its size, position, rotation, skew, and perspective.

New Selection

Unless you specify otherwise, every new selection will replace a previous selection. Let's say you create a selection with the Marquee tool and release the mouse button. If you so much as click again on the image with a selection tool, Photoshop assumes you want to draw a new selection and the old one will be removed. This is because the Selection Options are set to New Selection as the default behaviour.

Add to Selection

You may want to isolate more than one area of the image for modifications or select multiple areas with different colours. In the example at right, the Magic Wand tool was used to make the selections.

1. Make the first selection.
2. Click on the Add to Selection button in the Selection Options. The selection cursor will now display a small plus sign.
3. Make the second selection.

                                                       



Subtract from Selection

As you're fine-tuning a selection, you may want to remove areas from the selection. The process is exactly the same as before but you click the Subtract from Selection button before starting your next selection. The selection cursor will display a small minus sign.

Intersect With Selection

The last button in the Selection Options is called Intersect with Selection. This option compares the two selections and the resulting selection will contain only those areas that were common to both selections. After you draw your first selection, press the Intersect with Selection button and the selection cursor will display a small X sign. Then draw the second selection.

Remember that these add, subtract, and intersect options work for all the selection tools: Marquee, Quick Selection, Magic Wand and the Lasso tool variations. You can switch tools between one operation and another.

Lasso Tools: The lasso tools are great for making more complicated or irregular selections. The three tools in this group are the Lasso Tool (freehand selections), the Polygonal Lasso (shapes with straight edges)and the Magnetic Lasso (automatically finds the strongest edge of an image).

The Magic Wand is a "shortcut" tool that makes selections based on color.

Transforming Selections

Once a selection has been made you can scale it, rotate it, skew it or apply perspective to its shape. Transforming a selection does not affect the underlying pixels. This just helps you to modify or reshape your selections. Here are some example of Transforming Selections

• Horizontal Scale            
• Vertical Scale                 
• Scale                             
• Rotate                            
• Move Reference Point     
• Skew                              
• Perspective                     

A Picture that we edited in class for this lesson

                                         

Week 2 : Chapter 2 & 3

Chapter 2: Viewing and Managing Documents

Understanding Color Modes in Photoshop

RGB, CMYK, Greyscale and BitMap they all serve a purpose and they all serve them well.

RGB - Red, Green, and Blue. The same color system that makes up viewing an image on a computer monitor (also the same as on a tv). The process of defining your image is to blend the three main colors (Red, Green, and Blue) to achieve the desired color in your fil. It's the image color of choice for photos viewed on screen. It has the widest range of color available for your photoshop image.


CMYK - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black. This process takes the aforementioned four colors and blends them to achieve the desired color of your image. This process is the same as on a full color printing press, therefore if you are printing your image file, this color mode gives you the most accurate representation of what will be printed. Remember however your monitor is RGB so your CMYK color mode won't view perfectly on your monitor compared to a printed sheet.


Greyscale - Think black and white photo here. A greyscale image has black, white, and every scale of grey in between (256 of them actually). Images in greyscale are used in printing, one color will print the entire image, most often a black ink, and the shades of grey are just less heavy ink (called halftones). On the web, greyscale images are generally saved a .jpg files and are a smaller image file for downloading then saved in a colour format.



Bitmap - A bitmap image is made up of black or white and nothing in between. A bitmap image is best used for line drawings, signatures, or logos made up of one solid colour. If the resolution of a bitmap image is high enough, a bitmap image will print great, but often doesn't look too sharp on the web.


Changing the On-Screen Size of an Image

You can change the size at which an image displays on your computer monitor so that users
can see the entire image.

• To change the on-screen image size, click Image > Image Size

                               

Chapter 3: Painting and Drawing with Colour

Brushes Palette are used to modify, improve or repair an image. It is also used to create an image from scratch.

Painting tools include:

• Brush tool 
• Gradient tool 
• History Brush & Art History Brush 
• Color Replacement tool

Using Paint Tools you can draw and create your own images and graphics.Adobe Photoshop and image ready contains many painting & editing tools and fill commands, that let you retouch existing art work in many different ways. Tools used for painting are line( ), paintbrush (), airbrush (), and pencil () tools. The editing tools are history brush, rubber stamp, smudge, focus, toning. The paint bucket tool () fills adjacent pixels that are similar in color value to the pixels you click.

The Gradient Tool is very similar to the paint bucket tool, in that it fills entire areas or selections with colors. However, rather than filling an area with a solid color, the Gradient Tool creates a series of colors than blend into one another.

When the gradient tool is selected, a preset gradient can be selected from the gradient picker in the options bar. A gradient can then be created in the active image area by clicking and holding the mouse button, and dragging in the direction you’d like the gradient to go. Release where you’d like the gradient to stop.

5 different gradient styles which can be selected to create different effects. You can set them from the Options Bar.

Example of a project that we made during class 

Week 1: A Quick Tour of Adobe Photoshop

Understanding Photoshop

1. What is Photoshop?

• Adobe Photoshop is a professional image editing software package that can be used by experts and novices alike.  While this handout  offers  some very basic tips on using  the tools available in Photoshop, more comprehensive guidance can be accessed on the web or in the help menu of your version of Photoshop.  The version used for this tutorial is Adobe Photoshop CS.

2. About the Work Area 

• The work area can be intimidating to work with because of all the complex functionality but with a  quick breakdown of the available features and their uses, you will be ready to comfortably navigate the work area with ease. The work area in Photoshop has the following basic functionality and features:

                       • Menu Bar – this is where you can access most of the commands and features in 

                                               Photoshop

                       • Drawing Palette – where the image being worked on will appear

                       • Options bar  

                                      • content sensitive display of tool options – changes as different tools are
                                         selected

                                      • display using Window > Options or Click a tool in the toolbox. 

                                      

Lasso options bar

                       • Tool box - for creating an editing images (display or hide using Windows > Tools)

                       • Palettes - to monitor and modify images (there are 5 palettes by default) 

                       • Palette Well - to organize palettes in work area

                                          • Drag a palette’s tab into the palette well to store it in the palette well 

                                          • Once in the palette well click on the palette tab to use it