Polaroid effect in Photoshop

Here are two different ways of creating a faux Polaroid effect using Photshop.
Polaroid 1
Polaroid 2
And here are some frames, you just need to remove the black inner and place your image behind.

Colour mixing online

Have a look at this if you are looking for some colour inspiration or a way to create, save and swap colour palettes:

http://kuler.adobe.com
You can register and save all your custom palettes to be used in Photoshop and Illustrator.
For example:
http://kuler.adobe.com/#themeID/75242
http://kuler.adobe.com/#themeID/106002

You are even able to make a palette from an image you upload or have loaded into Flickr
http://kuler.adobe.com/#create/fromanimage

Here is a video explaining briefly how to use Kuler

You can also have a look at ColourLovers for more colour and pattern palettes.
http://www.colourlovers.com

Photoshop: Clipping Masks

So you have an idea of what a layer mask is and how it works (as illustrated below) and want to add another to your set of techniques.

The next one you might want to learn about is called a Clipping Mask.

A clipping mask allows you to show or hide selected parts of an image depending on the pixels above it.

Hold down Alt while click between the layers in the Layers palette. You need to be able to see the double circle cursor.

The Duck layer in this example has some transparent pixels. You can see this by the checkerboard design in the thumbnail behind the yellow duck.

The non-transparent pixels reveal the pixels of the layer above it. So the Kaleidoscope layer is clipped where there are no pixels in the layer below.

It might help to think of the pixels above being caught by the layer pixels below and everything else just falls away.

Here is the Adobe Photoshop manual explanation:
Clipping Masks

Photoshop: Layer Mask.

Rather than using the eraser tool to delete portions of an image (because once pixels are gone they are gone) why not use a layer mask.

Masks are a way to hide portions of an image on lower layers based on areas of black or white, including levels of grey.

Once you understand what the layer mask is doing and how it works you can achieve much more than just using the eraser tool.
The example below shows a layer mask that has been added to the top layer.
Click on the images to get a larger view.

The layer mask is the black and white thumbnail to the right of the image in the layers palette. It is important to notice when the layer mask is selected by the frame around it's thumbnail.

The black ink on the mask thumbnail can thought of as a hole that is cut through the image revealing the layer below.

This also works with values of grey. In the example above the gradient runs from black to white through grey values. So painting with grey ink will make the underlying image semi-opaque.

The mask becomes really useful once you realise that you removed something from an image you thought you didn't need. You can alway go back and paint with white to restore the image.

Look at this link for a fuller explanation of using the layer mask.

What is a layer mask?

Photoshop CS4: Layer Masks in Depth | by Jan Kabili

View this entire Photoshop course and more in the lynda.com Online Training Library®.

How to create Colour Separations in Photoshop.

This blog entry gives you instructions on how to create a four colour separation (CMYK) from Photoshop.

This will enable you to prepare a screen for printing textiles.

Please follow the steps carefully as it is important to keep the images in registration with each other for the final print to work.

1. Open your image file

2. Convert it to CMYK if not already. (Image>Mode>CMYK) and flatten the image. (Layer>Flatten Image)

3. In the channels palette, select Split Channels from the pop-out menu in the top right hand corner. This will give you four separate black and white images each with Cyan, Magenta, Yellow or Black at the top of the window.

4. Save each file with a unique name. Preferably with Cyan, Magenta, Yellow or Black in the title.

5. You will now apply the halftone screen patterns to each of the images.

a. For each file go to the Image menu; select Mode; select Bitmap.

b. In the Bitmap dialogue box, select Halftone Screen and set the output to 300dpi.

c. You will then get a dialogue box asking you to enter the screen angles and frequencies and they are as follows. For each one select the shape as round.

6. Enter in these figures for each of the colour screens.

Colour: Frequency / Angle

Cyan: 31.622 / 18.434

Magenta: 31.622 / 71.565

Yellow: 33.333 / 0.0

Black: 35.355 / 45.0

7. Save your files.

8. Select one of your files and in the top menu bar click Select, All, then Edit, Copy to copy the image into memory.

9. Select New... from the File menu. This will create a blank page the same size, Bitmap mode type and resolution as the one you just copied.

10. Go to Image in the top menu bar and select Canvas Size. Add 3cm to both of the height and width dimensions here. This will give you an extra 1.5cm space on each edge to add some registration marks.

11. I have found a Bitmap registration mark for you to download here: http://bit.ly/i0DTwU

12. Clicking on this link will open the file: 14066_69_1.jpg. You will need to save this somewhere, ideally to the desktop of your machine.

13. Open this file, Copy and Paste it to your new blank document. It should appear somewhere on your page. Move this to one of the corners of the page using the Move tool.

14. Select Paste again (it will paste directly on top of the old registration mark) then using the Move tool move this new mark to another corner, complete the previous step putting a registration mark into each corner. Remember that in Bitmap mode layers are not supported so you will need to correctly place each of the marks before you paste the next mark. You should now have a blank page, slightly bigger than your image with little registration marks in each corner.

15. Save this file with the reg marks as “Blank page” or similar.

16. Now you will copy each of your Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black screens into the blank page with the reg marks.

17. Select one of your C, M, Y, K, screens and Select, All, Copy. Select the “Blank page” with reg marks image and Paste. This should paste the image into the exact centre of the blank page with registration marks around the edge. If it doesn’t for some reason, make sure that when you select Paste you can see the whole of the image if not it may move the pasted image off centre.

18. You will want to put a small letter C, M, Y or K somewhere in the margin to indicate which screen is which when you come to print them. Do this with the Type tool in the tool palette.

19. Save as… your file making sure you add Cyan, Magenta, Yellow or Black to the title to help you identify the file.

20. Reopen the blank original file with the registration marks and continue with the other screens from step 16. Remember to save each file with a unique name so you can go back and open the original blank file each time.

21. You are now ready to print!

Masking in Photoshop, without masking.

How to mask without masking in Photoshop by Russell Brown

If you have a chance to check the Russell Brown website. He used to work for Adobe Systems and knows his stuff. You can also see his tutorials here at Adobe TV.

Remove fringe. 03

A further technique and possibly the better of the three is to use the Clone Stamp tool.
This technique has the advantage of giving you more control in the colour, tone and placement of the pixels.

1. First we must lock the transparent pixels in the layer. Ensure you are targeting the correct layer. As before the background should be transparent.


2. Select the Clone Stamp tool and set the mode to Darken. A low flow rate will give you more control.


3. Sample pixels close to the area you are cloning, this way the pixels will be of similar tone, colour etc. Remember to keep resampling the area to break up any patterns that can develop with this tool.


What you may find in this instance is that the strands of hair become thicker and heavier and might even reveal strands or pixels that you couldn't see previously.

Remove fringe. 02

So if you find that the removal of the white fringing from the previous technique didn't quite cut it, I'd recomend this next step to further enhance the results.

It is quite straight forward really, what we are going to try and achieve is to darken, selectively parts of the image.


Here is the image as it ended up in the previous technique. What you might be able to pick out are the small areas of lighter pixels around the finer parts of the strands of hair.

Here is the example in detail.


1. We need to select the Burn tool and change the range to Highlights. This way only the light pixels will be affected.

2. Now apply the Burn tool to the light edge darkening any fringe remaining. Be careful not to darken into the image too much or you will end up with an obvious dark shadow around the image.


As mentioned in the Russell Brown tutorial there is another slightly better technique that could be used in this instance which follows.

Remove fringe. 01

This technique works best I find with images that are dark but have a light or white fringe from the background, so can be quite limited in it's usage.


Here is the original QT Movie from The Russell Brown Show.

View QuickTime Tutorial; 10.4 MB

A quick distillation of the process involved.

1. Delete as much as possible of the background to transparency, possibly leaving you with a white fringe around the edge.
2. If you change the blend mode of the layer with the fringe to Multiply you will get an idea of the resulting edge quality.
3. Change the layers blend mode back to Normal if not already.
4. In the layers palette double click to the right of the text, this will open up the Layer Style dialogue box.

5. Tick the Inner Glow style checkbox and click on the name Inner Glow to open this into the right hand panel.
6. Change the Blend mode to Multiply and select black as the solid colour. You could also click in the main image and pick a tone from here.
7. Change the Technique to Precise this can give you a better edge.
8. The size in pixels will determine how much of the edge detail will be effected.
9. Adjust the Opacity to give you a more subtle blend.

Some parts of the image may still need to be tweeked. If so then I'd recomend this next process...

Photoshop tips.

I've decided to create a whole lot of blog to record helpful Photoshop and Illustrator techniques. Primarily of course to help and inform but also to collate a body of knowledge should I loose my notebook.

I can't make any claim to have invented all of these techniques by myself but most have been found lying around here and there, as one does. I'll post all the relevant links to the originals where I can.

Because I find it frustrating trying to find interesting and useful Photoshop techniques from reams of pages of poop, hopefully this might act as some kind of poop-filtering-collator.

Finally, if you find something of interest please post a comment here and spread the word.

And if you wish to be a regular contributor please ask and I'll send you an invite to become an author.

Chris.