Photoshop Q & A

[Loki]

Ah wait. D: I told you the wrong thing.

So it works with brushes, but I need the smudge tool. *shot*

I can't get it to work with the smudge tool.

 

[Volta.]

Are you sure? I looked at it again this morning, and the brush I made for the brush tool also works for the smudge tool... its at the bottom with the other custom brushes. Maybe you cant do that in PS7? Thats all I can think of. =/

The same brush set should work for all brush-based tools, being brush, smudge, pencil, and even the blur and sharpen tools, plus probably a lot more.

 

[PokemonRox]

I have photoshop 7.0 and i was wondering if anyone could help me make a banner and avatar like give me a tutorial or tell me what to do because i can barely make anything in photoshop and i really want to learn

 

[Mika]

PokemonRox :3 There are built in tutorials with Photoshop but the easiest way to learn is to just mess around. Look at other banners and get ideas then check places like websoup.org for tutorials and the like. It takes time to get good so don't get discouraged. ^^ keep at it and you'll be good before you know it! Maybe your school might offer a class you could take too. ^^; I taught myself on Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7 then learned how to us Photoshop CS2 at my school four years later.

 

[RYOUKI]

I have well Photoshop CS2, and I was wondering on how to create a Clipping Mask?
I have found a tutorial somewhere but I forgot the link and forgot the steps O.o
So um, Kindly pls anyone re-teach me how to create a Clipping Mask? Thank you

 

[Soulinferno]

I downloaded the trial for photoshop cs3 a couple of days ago. And I was wondering how do you color in drawing's (that you drew yourself) in photoshop because i've seen it done a lot and I want to learn how to do it. Sorry if this question has been asked before.

 

[THIRTY-SIX]

Add a new layer put the layer mode on color and paint the colour you want.

You can also trace your art with the pen tool, also colouring with that tool too. You may want to practise first, as it's a long process.
I think Forest Groyvle has tutorial on the pen tool.

 

[luke]

Is the Photoshop CS3 Classroom in a Book worth 55 Dollars?

Also, does it usually take forever to download Photoshop?

 

[Volta.]

55 bucks is pretty hefty for a software tip book (even if it is for a very expensive program) and I think that u can find most of the tips u need (and none that you dont) online with the help of your handy-dandy Google! However CS3 is fairly new (cmon! I just got CS2 recently! >=[) so online tutorials may be scarce (or not =/)

My opinion? Check online first before buying the book, and then decide!

As for download times, not usually. It depends on your internet speed, system memory, and maybe processing speed (the latter 2 Im not exactly sure of)

 

[Vavavoom ♣]

Alright. I never thought of posting here but anyway, I have a problem. I'm not new to Photoshop, however, I have a question.

" How to put the colour of a text, gradient, and the outside line, stroke? "

Thanks. :3

 

[THIRTY-SIX]

Do you mean you want the stroke to be a gradient or do you want something like in your sig?
For the first you can't without rasterizing.

 

[Vavavoom ♣]

Do you mean you want the stroke to be a gradient or do you want something like in your sig?
For the first you can't without rasterizing.

Like in my banner, in my signature. That's what I meant.

 

[Volta.]

If you have a way of selecting just the area of stroke on that text, you can make a new layer with that selection and make a normal gradient in that area.

 

[THIRTY-SIX]

Ok you have to type your text to whatever you want. Create a new layer, making a gradient on that layer. With the gradient layer selected hold down ctrl and click on your type. After the selection press the square with a circle inside it icon.
That should get you gradient text.

Now if you want a double stroke go to Edit > Stroke... You have t rasterize text first. After double click the the 'text' layer and when the menu pops up go to stroke and mess with the settings.
If you only want a single stroke the just double click the type.

 

[Vavavoom ♣]

Alright. Thanks to you two. It worked! ^^ -lollipop + confetti-

 

[Hazuki]

Do you know how to animate on Photoshop CS2?

 

[Volta.]

Yes I do! xD I used Photoshop CS2 and Imageready CS2 (which hopefully came with your Photoshop) to make little animations like my current avatar desu~ (which I plan on beefing up soon!)

First, you gotta have the frames you want as different layers in one psd file done and ready in Photoshop (which Im assuming you can make good frames ;D) Now you open the psd file in Imageready CS2 and while youre at it, go to Window > Animation to bring up a little window that, when you're done, will show all the frames like a little slide show!

So hide or unhide the layers till you get the layer you want to be the first frame to appear, then, in the Animation window, click on that little arrow in the corner, and go to New Frame. Then, again, hide/unhide some layers to get the second frame to appear, and click New Frame again.

Repeat this process untill you get the last layer (frame) on top as the final frame in the series of frames that should be appearing in the Animation window. Now right now, if you try to click that play button on the bottom, youll see the animation whiz by so fast itll make your head spin desu~! To fix that, click on where it says "0 sec" underneath one of the frames and change that time. This is the amount of time it takes from that current frame to the next frame. Hopefully that slows things down a bit where things are more recognizable. Now if you want to make your animations smoother (at the cost of more frames and ultimately a larger filesize), you can select a frame, and then click the button by the Next Frame button in the Animation window that looks like a fading circle (to me, it looks like a bouncing ball desu~ but thats just me =/) which is called the Tween button. What this does is that it helps fade between frames to smooth things out a bit. Thisll bring up a window with a few options...



Tween With: usually you want this set to Next Frame. This just chooses which other frame to blend with.

Frames to Add: this is how many extra frames to add between the two frames. The more you have, the smoother the transition is.

Layers: leave this on all layers so it blends everything in the frame nicely (unless you have some other trick in mind ~_^)

Parameters: usually you want all these checked so it smoothes everything that happens between frames.



Then you click OK and itll add some frames to smooth things out. Once things are tweened, you may want to shorten the time between some frames to speed things up somewhat too.

Now, BEFORE you finish things up, there are some necessary tasks you must do to compress filesize as much as possible.

First, with your image windowed, there are some tabs above your image. (Original, Optimized, 2-up, and 4-up) click Optimized so we can get a good preview.

Now go to Window > Optimize to bring up the optimization window. Goody! More options! xD



If you want to bypass all this, go to the arrow in the corner and click Optimize to Filesize. This will jiggle with everything to get a desired filesize, though the outcome isnt always what youre looking for. Otherwise, look below...

Preset: there are some preset options here if you want to go for the quick and easy way. Any alterations below will change this.

Format: make sure this is GIF, as this is the only format in the list that supports animation.

Color Table

Reduction: ummm... this mainy says how many total colors you can use here. We mainly worry about the top four choices; Perceptual, Selective and Adaptive dont have much difference IMO, but perceptual has the smallest filesize (though not by much). And Restrictive is just plain ugly..

Colors: more often than not, youll want this left at 256 to get the most detail. Any less and things start to look choppy even though it does reduce filesize a lot!

Dither

Method: this tells how it will blend colors. Diffusion offers the lowest filesize but at a significant cost to quality. Noise is vice-versa, and Pattern is a good balance between the two desu~

Amount: This only applies to Diffusion. The higher the value, the better it will look, but the bigger it gets.

Transparency: check this if you have a transparent BG

Dither: the same options as Amount above ^

Matte: this selects what color the edges will be (since not all dithering is perfect) you can choose a color if you know what will be behind your image, or leave it at black or white.

The final settings are a bit fuzzy to me...

Interlaced: Umm, by default this is on, but this increases filesize

Use Unified Color Table: this doesnt affect filesize as it only determines how to select colors when you change formats. But you probably wont be, so leave this off

Add Metadata: TBH, I have no idea what this does. There is a settings box next to it that changes a few things for file formats, but none of these options affect filesize. Mess with this if you want to.



FINALLY, when everything is done and optimized, go to File > Save Optimized As and choose a filename and everything, and make sure its a GIF too! ^_^ and then hit save!

Bum budda ba!!!! Your animation is done and optimized and ready to be used!

Hopefully this helps desu~!! ^_^

 

[ran[D]umb]

When I am trying to setup my Photoshop CS3, when it actually gets to the setup screen, it says it cannot setup due to:

- Photoshop CS3

And I dunno why it does this.

Help?

 

[Hazuki]

Yes I do! xD I used Photoshop CS2 and Imageready CS2 (which hopefully came with your Photoshop) to make little animations like my current avatar desu~ (which I plan on beefing up soon!)

First, you gotta have the frames you want as different layers in one psd file done and ready in Photoshop (which Im assuming you can make good frames ;D) Now you open the psd file in Imageready CS2 and while youre at it, go to Window > Animation to bring up a little window that, when you're done, will show all the frames like a little slide show!

So hide or unhide the layers till you get the layer you want to be the first frame to appear, then, in the Animation window, click on that little arrow in the corner, and go to New Frame. Then, again, hide/unhide some layers to get the second frame to appear, and click New Frame again.

Repeat this process untill you get the last layer (frame) on top as the final frame in the series of frames that should be appearing in the Animation window. Now right now, if you try to click that play button on the bottom, youll see the animation whiz by so fast itll make your head spin desu~! To fix that, click on where it says "0 sec" underneath one of the frames and change that time. This is the amount of time it takes from that current frame to the next frame. Hopefully that slows things down a bit where things are more recognizable. Now if you want to make your animations smoother (at the cost of more frames and ultimately a larger filesize), you can select a frame, and then click the button by the Next Frame button in the Animation window that looks like a fading circle (to me, it looks like a bouncing ball desu~ but thats just me =/) which is called the Tween button. What this does is that it helps fade between frames to smooth things out a bit. Thisll bring up a window with a few options...



Tween With: usually you want this set to Next Frame. This just chooses which other frame to blend with.

Frames to Add: this is how many extra frames to add between the two frames. The more you have, the smoother the transition is.

Layers: leave this on all layers so it blends everything in the frame nicely (unless you have some other trick in mind ~_^)

Parameters: usually you want all these checked so it smoothes everything that happens between frames.



Then you click OK and itll add some frames to smooth things out. Once things are tweened, you may want to shorten the time between some frames to speed things up somewhat too.

Now, BEFORE you finish things up, there are some necessary tasks you must do to compress filesize as much as possible.

First, with your image windowed, there are some tabs above your image. (Original, Optimized, 2-up, and 4-up) click Optimized so we can get a good preview.

Now go to Window > Optimize to bring up the optimization window. Goody! More options! xD



If you want to bypass all this, go to the arrow in the corner and click Optimize to Filesize. This will jiggle with everything to get a desired filesize, though the outcome isnt always what youre looking for. Otherwise, look below...

Preset: there are some preset options here if you want to go for the quick and easy way. Any alterations below will change this.

Format: make sure this is GIF, as this is the only format in the list that supports animation.

Color Table

Reduction: ummm... this mainy says how many total colors you can use here. We mainly worry about the top four choices; Perceptual, Selective and Adaptive dont have much difference IMO, but perceptual has the smallest filesize (though not by much). And Restrictive is just plain ugly..

Colors: more often than not, youll want this left at 256 to get the most detail. Any less and things start to look choppy even though it does reduce filesize a lot!

Dither

Method: this tells how it will blend colors. Diffusion offers the lowest filesize but at a significant cost to quality. Noise is vice-versa, and Pattern is a good balance between the two desu~

Amount: This only applies to Diffusion. The higher the value, the better it will look, but the bigger it gets.

Transparency: check this if you have a transparent BG

Dither: the same options as Amount above ^

Matte: this selects what color the edges will be (since not all dithering is perfect) you can choose a color if you know what will be behind your image, or leave it at black or white.

The final settings are a bit fuzzy to me...

Interlaced: Umm, by default this is on, but this increases filesize

Use Unified Color Table: this doesnt affect filesize as it only determines how to select colors when you change formats. But you probably wont be, so leave this off

Add Metadata: TBH, I have no idea what this does. There is a settings box next to it that changes a few things for file formats, but none of these options affect filesize. Mess with this if you want to.



FINALLY, when everything is done and optimized, go to File > Save Optimized As and choose a filename and everything, and make sure its a GIF too! ^_^ and then hit save!

Bum budda ba!!!! Your animation is done and optimized and ready to be used!

Hopefully this helps desu~!! ^_^

IT was kind of long but... OMG I animated my first pic! Thank you so much! ^^

 

[Volta.]

Yeah, I realize its long.. x_x But most of it is just going through menu options desu~ Once you practice a bit more and get used to the setup, this all becomes second nature to you and you can whip something up in about 10 minutes!

...and TBH, I learned a thing or two writing this tutorial too! ~_^