Lunacore Photoshop Blog

Time for a little experiment. First ask yourself which square is darker, A or B?
Then open Photoshop and use the eye dropper tool to find the answer…

Have a nice weekend everybody!

The author of this tutorial explains in great detail the power of Advanced Blending. It’s a very useful tutorial with several screenshots included showing the outcome of specific settings.

If we take a look at the state of photography today, such as the advances of digital camera, artful image manipulation by Photoshop, and even the role of paparazzi in media - and the pervasiveness of photographic images in our lives, it is easy to forget that the first photograph ever was taken just 180 years ago.

Photography was probably an inevitable invention - the surprise was that it took so long for it to develop, especially given that the scientific principles that are responsible for it - physical principles such as our understanding of lens and optics and chemical processes that are required to affix permanent images, have actually been known for long before the invention of the first photograph.

The development of photography was quite fast: since Niépce took the world’s first photograph in 1826, it took only about 30 years for photograph became a product for mass consumption with the introduction of carte-de-visite. Before long, the world’s first concealed cameras were introduced to help detectives document the dalliances of cheating spouses!

More about the history of photography here.

Dirk Paessler explains how to use Photoshop’s polar coordinates filter to turn panoramas into pieces of art:

FastStone Capture is a powerful, flexible and intuitive screen-capture utility that can be very useful for all Photoshop users on the Microsoft Windows platform.

In previous versions of Photoshop for Windows it was possible to capture a single window by using the key combination Alt+PrintScreen, which would copy the result to the clipboard.

Photoshop allows you to create a new document based on the content of the clipboard by selecting in the menu File / New. Photoshop then automatically adjusts the height and width according to the size of the screen capture that was placed on to the clipboard. In the document itself it’s then just a matter of pasting the content of the clipboard (Edit / Paste or Ctrl+V) inside the current document.

Photoshop CS2 however doesn’t allow to capture a single window; the key combination Alt+PrintScreen will copy the complete screen instead. The only way to copy a window in Photoshop is to use a special screen capture utility like FastStone Capture.

(more…)

According to PhotoshopNews there is an issue with the Windows update for Photoshop CS2; in some cases you will need two clicks to regain focus on your menu (an issue that we can confirm after some testing).
Check the article for a workaround.

The issue does not effect the Mac version of 9.0.1.

In this third and last part where going to end with some suggestions from Adobe to improve performance:

Optimize performance in Photoshop (Mac OS)

Optimize performance in Photoshop (CS2 on Mac OS)

Optimize performance of Photoshop (CS on Windows)

Optimize performance of Photoshop (CS2 on Windows)

Memory allocation and usage (Photoshop CS)

Memory allocation and usage (Photoshop CS2)

Slow performance and screen redraw problems in Photoshop (CS2 on Windows)

Improve performance in Photoshop CS2 on computers with more than 1 GB RAM

Related articles:

Making Photoshop run faster
Making Photoshop run faster (part 2)

One of the authors at GurusNetwork.com, a very good site btw, is Steve Nelson, who runs TheGoldenMean.com.
On his site Steve has collected one of the best articles and tutorials he has written for GurusNetwork.

The Pen Tool - one of the better pen tutorials that you can find on the internet

Curves - Best online curves tutorial I’ve read.

Displace Filter - Best displace tutorial I’ve ever read, great examples, sometimes a bit technical but never confusing.

Other great articles/tutorials that are really worth looking into:

- Crop Tool
- Resolution
- Dodge and Burn
- Replace background
- Backdoors
- Depth Masks

Excellent work Steve!

Photoshop gurus David Blatner and Conrad Chavez are the authors of the book Adobe Photoshop CS/CS2 Breakthroughs.
Publisher Peachpit provides the visitors of their web site with a sample chapter of this book that deals with resolution.

It answers some of the most common questions people might have about resolution in the following subjects:

- Don’t Forget Your Resolutions
- Finding Out the File Resolution of an Image
- What’s the Effective Resolution?
- To Resample or Not to Resample. . .
- Going Bicubic
- Image Size vs. Canvas Size
- Resizing a Batch of Variously Sized Images

You can find the article here.

Not long ago I met someone on a forum who wanted to make digital paintings and decided to buy Paint Shop Pro, thinking that Photoshop was mostly suited for retouching photographs.

Hopefully I can convince people that this is a misconception; Photoshop is actually very well suited for painting as some of the following artists show (click on each link to see an example):

Linda Bergkvist
Wei Chen
Marc Simonetti
Camille Kuo

Photoshop is nothing but a tool; it doesn’t teach you how to be creative, but allows you.

If you’re really serious about Photoshop, then you might consider buying a tablet. The most recommended tablet is the Wacom Intuos

These tablets aren’t cheap, but in return you get top quality. Most people tend to be satisfied with a 6×8 sized tablet. It also depends on how much space you want to sacrifice on your desk, how much money you’re willing to spend and what kind of techniques you use; people who prefer long strokes are probably better of with a larger tablet.

Here’s a collection of some links of sites that offer painting tutorials;

Anticz
BearClover
BearsClover
DrawThrough
EarthCurves
Farp
Gfxartist
Katherine Dinger
Linda Bergkvist (check gallery/tutorials)
Painting.About
Portrait-Artist
Rebekah Lynn
WoodenPalette