Category: Photoshop

Create photo-illustration effects with Photoshop

Posted on November 22, 2009 by ellen

I’ve been experimenting with enhancing some of my photos in Photoshop to create more interesting images. I use a Canon PowerShot SD 990IS point-and-shoot camera that does a good job on the whole, but because the lens isn’t very high quality, images sometimes come out somewhat hazy. The camera actually captures a lot of detail but it takes some processing to bring it out. I’m not against using some tricks to emphasize what’s good about the picture, even to the point where it crosses the line into illustration.

[DOWNLOAD DEMO FILE]

For this project, I started with a fairly unexciting picture of my dining room. Its one strong point was the sunlight streaming in the windows which brought out the colors in the wood chair and tablecloth. This picture was one of several shots of the same scene with different exposure settings.

This was the lightest one, chosen for the detail visible through the windows. However in choosing the lightest exposure, the tablecloth lost a lot of its color. However I thought it had potential.

Original image

Problems with Photoshop filters

Posted on November 16, 2009 by ellen

Recently I’ve been using the Photoshop Filter Gallery filters more than usual, and experienced a few apparent problems, particularly with the grayscale filters. First all the grayscale filters suddenly seemed to stop working. All of them showed nothing but a completely blank screen, no matter what settings were tried.

I really thought this was some sort of bug with CS4. But a search of the Adobe forums turned up nothing. Clearing the plugin cache and Filter Gallery preferences reverted the filters to their defaults, and fixed the problem.

Photoshop taking forever to open images on Windows XP

Posted on January 23, 2009 by ellen

I have a very fast multi-core system, so I was puzzled because Photoshop always opened even tiny images slowly, sometimes taking 5 or 10 seconds, and freezing everything in the process. Thanks to a post

Batch resizing in Photoshop, step by step

Posted on December 24, 2008 by ellen

One important element that is often left out of beginner Dreamweaver courses is how to make your photos web-ready. Today’s cameras turn out multi-megapixel images that are several feet wide when dropped into a web page at web resolution. Here’s how to take a folder of high-resolution images and turn them into smaller files that will display at about 5-6″ wide at 72dpi using Photoshop.

Select Scripts > Image Processor from the File menu

Ernst Haeckel Photoshop Brushes Set 3

Posted on October 5, 2007 by ellen

High-resolution Photoshop brushes based on Ernst Haeckel’s engravings of shells and sea jellies. Great used as stamps, or the spiky shells look particularly good when you use scattering and angle and opacity jitter. Download

Photoshop Brushes based on Ernst Haeckel’s engravings: Set II

Posted on October 4, 2007 by ellen

This is my second set of brushes based on Haeckel’s drawings of diatoms, coral and other sea creatures. 11 different brushes are included, many with variations in opacity, spacing, size jitter, etc. Download file

Photoshop Brushes: Fractal Flame

Posted on December 23, 2006November 22, 2013 by ellen

These Photoshop brushes were done a while ago in version 7. They are based on the old KPT FraxFlame plugin. Click here to download Frax Flame brushes View all my Photoshop Brushes

Photoshop Slowdown when using Color Picker

Posted on September 10, 2004 by ellen

I noticed a dramatic slowdown after installing Panther when using Photoshop 7, particularly when using text, layer effects, and also when using the color picker. After some experimenting I found that changing to the Apple

Architectural Photoshop Brushes

Posted on June 22, 2003 by ellen

New Photoshop Brushes based on antique architectural engravings. Get ’em right here! The file is zipped, but is still around 2.2MB. View all my Photoshop Brushes

Photoshop Brush Fever!

Posted on June 4, 2003December 3, 2013 by ellen

Photoshop brushes are incredible! I just discovered them and have been playing with them for two days straight.

They’re like rubber stamps on steroids. You can control the brush dynamics – the separation of each individual “stamp”, the color and brightness “jitter”, randomness, edges, etc.

I’ve found many sites that offer free brush sets, but

Truly-Sarah.com

and

AnnikaVonHoldt.com

are my current favorites. AnnikaVonHoldt’s brushes are like instant creativity! You will be creating beautiful and mysterious fantasy images almost automatically.