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More with Photoshop

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

Do you think that the workflowin Photoshop you use is ideal? Maybe these tools will make you reconsider.

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Liquify Tool



Ever wondered how people shown in those slimming center ads shed so much weight? You’ll be surprised to know that you can shed a lot of weight from pictures using Photoshop by using a single tool called Liquify, which is located in the Filters menu (Filter> Liquify). 

Liquify tools include the swirl, pucker, bloat shift pixels and reflection which can be used for various effects. You can freeze a part of the picture so that it is unaffected when the tool is used. Also, you can use a mesh that divides the picture into finite cells that can be modified. This mesh can be saved and used later.

This tool can be used to add a lot of abstract effects such as steam on top of a coffee cup or pizza and realistic fire. 

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The Extract tool



You love that picture of yours, isn’t it? But you don’t like the backdrop and don’t want to go through the ordeal of making a path, or use the lasso tool to get that cutout, use the extract tool.

This tool is present in the Filter menu. Lets see how we can have a nice cutout, step by step.

Open the file from which you need to extract the picture and select Filter>Extract. In the extract dialog box, choose the ‘Extract Highlighter tool’ placed on the top left of the dialog box.

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Highlight the edges of the part of the picture that you want to extract. While doing this, if you check the ‘Smart Highlight’ dialog box it will make the process much easier. It works somewhat like the ‘magnetic lasso’ tool, making the selection easier by recognizing the similar colored pixels.

If you think that you have made a mistake, you can use the eraser tool and erase the faulty part and redraw it using the extract highlighter tool.

Make sure that you close the selection. Click on the fill tool and fill the selection that you want to extract. Click on preview. Click on Ok to accept the changes.

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Adjustment Layers



Designers use adjustments available in Photoshop to correct pictures. There are 18 such adjustments, which you can access from Image>Adjustments menu.

When working in Photoshop, you generally make a copy of the layer and apply the adjustment to it. If you want to preserve this state, then you may make another copy of the layer and then apply the adjustment to it as well. As a result, you end up with a huge number of layers with various combinations of adjustments, increasing the file size and making it difficult to choose the final version. 

You can use adjustment layers to solve this problem. But the drawback of using adjustment layer is that it can’t be applied on a selection. 

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Let us see using an example how you can apply the hues adjustment and then adjust the brightness and contrast of an image using adjustment layers. 

Choose the layer on which your image is placed. Click on the Adjustment layer button on the layers palette (third button from the right). 

Select the hues/saturation menu item from the menu that pops up. Adjust the hues according to your requirement and press Ok. Once you do that there will be a new layer on top of the selected layer.

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Repeat the same procedure for the brightness and contrast layer. If you move any other layer under these adjustment layers, it will also be affected with these adjustments. You can also switch them on/off according to your preferences as any other layer. 

Blending Modes



These modes in Photoshop determine how the current layer blends with the colors of the underlying layer. 

Let us look at some of the most used blending modes and how they affect the layers. Here we will use three terms: base color (the original color), blend color (the color being painted with) and the resultant color (the color after applying the blending mode).

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Normal



It is the default selection in the blending modes. 

Dissolve



The resultant color in this case is the random replacement of pixels with either the blend color or the original color depending upon the opacity of the pixels. Make sure that you have ‘preserve layer transparency’ turned off while using this blending mode.

Multiply



It multiplies the base color with the blend color after looking at the color information in each channel. The effect is always a darker color that is a combination of the two blended colors. Multiplying with black will always give black, and multiplying with white will have no change.

Screen



This is the inverse of the multiply blending mode. It examines the pixels in both the colors and then multiplies the inverse of the colors of the base color and blend color producing a lighter color. 

Color Dodge



It brightens the base color to reflect the blend color by decreasing the contrast. Look at the adjoining images for a better understanding.

Color Overlay



Gives a tint to the base color from the blend color, using either multiply or contrast.

Exclusion



It examines the color in each channel in both the blend and base colors and subtracts the brighter color from the darker color. 

Luminosity



It uses the hues from the base color and the luminosity of the blend color to get to the resultant color. Photoshop has many effects and the tools discussed in the text are not alien to the designers. If you want to know more about any other tool, do let us know.

Geetaj Channana

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