A designer friend of mine recently wrote to ask me what process was responsible for creating a certain “look” of an image she found on Flickr. I recognized it as a combination of HDR (high dynamic range) photomerge, and some other Photoshop filters and tricks. While I personally think the HDR craze is a little overdone, I’ll address the technique here.
Traditionally, an HDR image is created by merging 3 or more photos together that were taken at different exposures. By doing this, you maximize the details in all elements of the photo; underexposure to grab sky/highlight detail, correct exposure for midtone detail, and overexposure for increased shadow detail. However, taking three identical shots is not always possible, especially when your subject is moving. With Photoshop Camera Raw and a few other tricks, it is possible to imitate the HDR effect with a single photograph. Continue reading »
Okay, I feel kind of silly.
I never really liked Photoshop brushes. I felt they were rather limited in scope, and it was difficult to get the effect I wanted. I ended up doing a lot of rotating of the image, a lot of copying and pasting and free transforming.
And now I find out all that work was for nothing.
Adobe, being the geniuses that they are, include an entire options window for brushes. I noticed it before, but never really explored it fully. So, I’m passing on this incredibly simple tip to you…
Window>Brushes produces the Brushes toolbox window. Click on “Brush Tip Shape” (the cleverly hiding option without a checkbox) at the top of the Brush Preset menu list on the left hand side of the window. And ta-da! Here’s what you get:
Using this option panel you can rotate the brush to acheive the effect you want, as well as edit the spacing of brush strokes. Pure gold. And so simple…
Amazing that a person can use Photoshop for 11 years and still learn new things every day. Ha.
Enjoy!