Lunacore Photoshop Blog

Sean T. McHugh(CambridgeInColor.com) has some excellent Photoshop tutorials that are focused on photography. It’s not often that you see tutorials that are written with such dedication and eye for details. A good example is his curves tutorial, that explain beautifully how to use Photoshop curves tool, a tool that’s still a mystery for many beginners.
Don’t forget to check out Sean’s photo gallery which contains some excellent photography!

This new Lunacore tutorial will show you how to use Photoshop CS2’s Red Eye tool in a non-destructive way. The technique is unique and hasn’t been discussed before in any book/magazine or on any web site.
We will also show you how to use the red eye tool to create a mask that you can use for any kind of red eye correction. The technique itself might be confusing to beginners, but because of the detailed steps and large amount of screenshots it shouldn’t be too difficult to end this tutorial with success.

The main purpose of the tutorial is to show you how can use a combination of masks, channels and blending modes to do some fascinating things.

In this 49th episode of Photoshop TV, Matt, Scott and Dave have the following to share:

- Technique for using Gradient Overlay and the Warp Tool to add a shiny effect to text and objects.

- Layers technique that lets you break a subject out of its borders.

- Little-known features in Photoshop CS2 like resizing the font sample, choosing alternative plugin folders and creating customized hotkeys.

To-Do List

- iStockphoto isn’t just great royalty-free content. They have lots of articles and tutorials.

- Stock up on free tutorials, how-to videos and digital photography news at Planet Photoshop.

- Nature lovers and photographers combine in the Digital Landscape Workshop Series.

Niklas Jansson created an excellent art tutorial that covers some of the basics of art. Subjects that get attention are:

- Terminology
- Seeing
- Thinking in layers
- Speculars
- Radiosity, Reflected and Ambient light
- Exposure
- Materials
- Shadows
- Skin Tones
- Focus Points
- Line Art
- Studies
- Study Objects

A nice tutorial by Scott Kelby and Felix Nelson that shows how to make an image look old.

The Photoshop Guys Scott, Matt and Dave are here again with new tips and tricks in this 48th episode Photoshop TV:

- Camera RAW techniques for converting to black and white using saturation, shadows and contrast sliders

- A detailed explanation of Blend If

- tip-of-the-hat to Jeremy Stroud

- split-toning effect with the Channel Mixer, Color Balance and Adjustment Layers.

To-Do List
- Check out a cool Podcast for digital photographers at thedigitalphotographyshow.com
- Find out about Matt’s new Layers training course at photoshoptraining.com
- Need an excuse to go to Maui? Visit visualimpact.org

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!

John Sadowski has written a Photoshop tutorial that explains how to create a color illusion.

A demo of the original illusion can be found here.

Photoshop’s toolbar can be pretty overwhelming for new users of Photoshop.

Simplephotoshop.com has several videos that show how most of these tools work (Flash 6 or more needed).

The Light Strokes OptiPaint system is the first input device that lets you use real paint brushes and other actual artists’ tools directly with your favorite paint software.
You can even use your fingers and hands, or virtually any light-colored object you’d care to paint with.

The OptiPaint system picks up the changing shapes and textures of those tools with each stroke.
Up till now, the only way to get real brushstrokes into a computer would be to paint them on paper, let them dry, and scan them in. Not exactly interactive. Now with the OptiPaint system, you can paint with real brushes in real time.