Photoshop Tips Thread

Hey, I just relised although alot of us are experienced in photoshop we still don't know everything we can. So I decided to start a thread where we can enter our tips. It may of been done before, but I havn't seen the link, and there is nothing wrong with starting one fresh.

My Tips
- instead of using the polygon lasso, use the pen tool to create a path, and then turn it into a selection. I find it much easier, because you can go back if you made a mistake.
- If you have just clicked the pen and its only off by a pixel, you can use the arrow keys too nudge it into the right place.


Thats all I can think of right now, but I'll add some more later.

Thanks
Sarujin

hrmm, only tip i would have is..........

when putting on extra body part's, make sure that you select both the car an d the part's, adjust the saturation to 0, then use the blend tool (smudge) on a light setting, and then mesh it 2gether, then paint it

Originally posted by sarujin
I find it much easier, because you can go back if you made a mistake.


I just recently found out that while using the polygon lasso tool you can go back with the backspace button. Now it is not so much of a pain to use.

to lower a car perfectly, dont use the moving curser....


hit ctrl and the down arrow :)

Originally posted by ROCKINtheASTRO
to lower a car perfectly, dont use the moving curser....


hit ctrl and the down arrow :)

oh reeeheeeheeeheeelayy?.........hrm ima go try that!

This thread is very helpful so i've made it into an important announcement that will stay at the top of the forum.

hey thanks alot! there will be more tip's shortly!:D :alien2: :D

Why bother using lassos when selecting parts of a car? Am i the only one that uses masking tool to select parts? I find it much easier than using lasso...

All u do is hit Q to choose EDIT IN QUICK MASK MODE, or click the right button under the Foreground/Background color(Rectangle with a filled in circle inside). Choose the PENCIL tool or the PAINTBRUSH tool and just color over the parts you want selected, it'll appear red. Color over all the stuff, then hit Q again to switch to EDIT IN STANDARD MODE, or click on the button on the left. Now it'll be selected! soooo much easier than lasso tool... for me anyway...

Also, you can always use the eraser tool while in QUICK MASK MODE to rid certain parts you don't want selected...

This might not be so mcuh of a tip but more of a personal preference, but when I'm adjusting things like bodykits, too put on the cars. I find Transform Distort, then Skew works best.
Don't ask me why, but if I try using just one, or them the other way around it always looks wrong.

More Tips
-The most important tip I can give to Newbies, is DON'T give up. If something isn't going right, go back a few steps. Then retry it, if it still goes wrong try doing it diffently. If you are totally stuck post a msg, or pm someone. I'll help people if they need it, and I'm sure others will too.

-For tinting windows, its best to use 'Adjust Levels', it looks more real. (I have seen this tip before, but I can't think of where to give credit).

-When tinting windows, select the windows on the other side of the car and tint them aswell. Remember if you can see 2 windows, the tint will be a little darker on the rear one.

-This is a bit of a cheating trick. But if you can't get one part of the photo to look right, just go filter, render, lensflare. Lensflares are brillant at hiding the little mistakes.

- For changing the colour of parts try using adjust, 'hue/saturation', that seems to make the colour change look more real. Though in some situations, adjust 'color balance' can work better.

- Experiment with everything, you never know what tools might work better for some situations then others.

- Last Tip, is post more tips

Oh yeah, thanks alot snowboarder for sticking this thread to the top!!!


sarujin

Originally posted by BeEfCaKe
Why bother using lassos when selecting parts of a car? Am i the only one that uses masking tool to select parts? I find it much easier than using lasso...

Better yet, add layer masks for each layer. Then you can re-do your selection later.

And I always, ALWAYS work on copies of the original layer. That way if I screw something up royally and am out of undo's, I still have the source preserved.

When I do color changes, I use Color mode with the Paintbrush some of the time. To keep things real, use a yellower color on highlights of the image, and a less saturated color on shadows..

And finally, there is nothing more important than a good, high-res, sharp, source image. I don't care how long you mess with it, if your original image is 35x85 pix, and JPEG compression-1, your shop will look like crap.

Originally posted by boingo82


And finally, there is nothing more important than a good, high-res, sharp, source image. I don't care how long you mess with it, if your original image is 35x85 pix, and JPEG compression-1, your shop will look like crap. thank god someone said that!!!


i cant stand when people photoshop 50x50px 24kb pictures...ggrrrrr



and when youre finding "donor parts" make sure you get that from the same size/a huge as poss. file size/same angle as the car you putting it on.


that is all:):):) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

if you start messing everything , you can't do things with enough precision etc. try to remind that humans need to sleep sometimes... :bloated:

NEVER hurry when you photoshop anything... ( I do it all the time :( )

When you're putting new wheels , and camber doesn't look right , play with rotation and skew to make it look tight...

Save your work like the world was going to colapse in a few seconds... Really... if you ever watched me photoshopping... you would notice a weird thing... i try doing one thing (e.g changing color , cutting something out , putting a new bodykit , wheels or so , you know , a single thing) and if it looks good i always save...

Yeah.. most people will make copies of layers so that they can always go back... this is one good way of reverting if u make a huge mistake and have no more undos(btw... can someone tell me how to change to more than one level undo? or if its possible... perhaps in registry? cause it really is a pain sometimes with photoshop...)...

I personally prefer to just save different versions of the work... with a letter at the end... so like (S2000-a.jpg, S2000-b,jpg)... i do this everytime I do something major, this way I can go back to any stage I want... but this is just me... and I'm always a rebel :p

Originally posted by BeEfCaKe
can someone tell me how to change to more than one level undo?
you when you want to undo two things?


Press crtl+alt+z and hold the ctrl+alt and keep hitting Z till you get it to the undid stage you want it at :):):):)

can someone tell me how to change to more than one level undo?

Why don't you just use the history toolbar? it lets you go back about 30 undos, or however many you set. Its very very useful

sarujin

Originally posted by sarujin
Why don't you just use the history toolbar? it lets you go back about 30 undos, or however many you set. Its very very useful
sarujin i forgot about that one




~~when youre using the poligon lasso, you can hit the backspace button, and itll undo any messup clicks you did

~~when yousing the magnetic lasso, you can click the mouse and itll stay put

thas it

sweet... now i don't have to bother saving every other second ^^

Usually, when I'm shaving door handles, etc., I use the air-brush and sample tool. I set the sample tool to use a 5x5 sample area, and set the airbrush pressure at 15-20. Sampling at a 5x5 area when working on an image will give you a better average of the colors in the area you are sampling (rather than picking just one pixel). Having the airbrush pressure really low means you have to make several passes with the air-brush, but you get a much smoother result. I also vary the brush size, working from bigger to smaller, first getting the basics, then concentrating on the details.

Every time I have a new addition to a car, I create it on a new layer. That way, I can manipulate each object individually, and I can go back later and fix anything I screwed up. I don't "flatten" the image until I'm 100% done.

Also, I pay just as much attention to the background as I do the foreground.

Originally posted by ci5ic
Usually, when I'm shaving door handles, etc., I use the air-brush and sample tool. I set the sample tool to use a 5x5 sample area, and set the airbrush pressure at 15-20. Sampling at a 5x5 area when working on an image will give you a better average of the colors in the area you are sampling (rather than picking just one pixel). Having the airbrush pressure really low means you have to make several passes with the air-brush, but you get a much smoother result. I also vary the brush size, working from bigger to smaller, first getting the basics, then concentrating on the details....

Why not use the Rubber Stamp? I think it'd be easier. That tool's my best friend.

Why not use the Rubber Stamp? I think it'd be easier. That tool's my best friend.

Never thought of that... guess I never really played with the stamp tool too much, but I'll give it a try! Thanks.

LoL, better yet, the new healing tool in 7.0 does the job quite well.. it is very similar to the rubber stamper, but it matches the surrounding too.. of course, rubber stamper would still be the better option in some cases...

ahhh 7.0, so many new features

Healing Tool in 7...

and you say there are many new features. I may have to go and get photoshop 7. So do you people think I should get it?

sarujin

umm...boy, I have tons. I think I'll add somthing like this to the tutorial site.

Here are a few off hand.

-Try not to desaturate anything 100%
-Get to know the "Color Range" under "Selection" It is a big help when you need to clean up little scraggly bits of color laying around.
-KEYBOARD shortcuts! http://www.photoshopjunkie.com/shortcuts.html

Here's one I started using a few days ago, seems to work pretty well!

For clearing out amber (or any color) lenses, do the following.
Select the area of the lens that you wish to clear.
Choose Image:Adjust:Desaturate from the menu (this will remove all color from the lens)
Then choose Image:Adjust:Brightness/Contrast... Adjust these levels tell you get the look you're going for.

P • E • A • C • E

heres one i found pretty handy
if your lowering a car and changing the colour change the colour first..
because you can just ctr+click on the paint layer.. then press ctrl+shift+i
to invert the selection then modify it a bit so only the bottom is selected... saves lotsa time if you can make any sense of it

a question. How do i get rid of race logos and multicolours on race cars? and also how to change rear wings and flare arches??? Thanks in advance

as for tips:

make good use of the smudge tool.
work on individual pixels if you want the best finish.

Where do you find things like psoilers and body kits? I can never find any!

Other car Photos Desktop wallpapers are the go & Scanning Maga__ Um Pictures. I Have 120 sets of Wheels which have three angles of the same wheel, Flat, 45 Deg, 70-80 Degrees, 30 full body kits 800 high quality car wallpapers 5 Disk and caliper sets recaro momo and other interior products aswell as engines and there accessories there all in there respective folders Trimmed Of exsess Pixels ready pasting & A copboard full of fast fours hot fours street machine wheels & motor

you must have been searching for ages.

Ive Lived Cars My Whole Life so the huge collection of mags comes from that and i get all the images of web sites i visit out of my temp folder wheels kits cars logos i probably have most of the chopped cars ive seen in a folder and one for every other type of image there is and CDs full of crap I collect Data I Guess And Faster than i can sort and store it

Does somebody have time to read these messages?
anyway photochoping aint easy at all it gets easier when you get good at it.
(and one more thing: not recommended for people that get board fast.)
but in the end it's nice and looks realistic so thats what its all for, the change. (just like this::licker:)

When putting new body parts on, I find it easier to match the color by first changing the color of the body, then start the body kit, and to get smooth wheel arches when lowering, Make a VIA copy of the car after you've gone around it with the lasso. And I find it easiest to change the color of a car by Circling around the outside of the car (not Perfect) and making a layer VIA copy, then change the color then erase around the body etc. I find the Layer VIA copy extremely useful.

wait, what kind of photoshop are we talkin about here? i have kodack photoshop. does that work? and if so, how the hell do i get other things on my car?

We are talking about Adobe Photoshop. I don't know what Kodak Photoshop is like, so i dunno if you can do any of this kind of graphics editing with it.

sarujin

-Learn All the quick commands! Example: to free transform: instead of having to go Edit>Transform>_____, you can just hit CTRL + T. Then, if you want to go from scaling to skewing, just right click!

-Also, If you feel you have WAY to many layers, and you ARE POSITIVELY HAPPY WITH HOW THE LAYERS ARE SET, you can go to "Layer>Flatten Image"

-If the magnetic lasso isn't stick to what you want, hold ALT and then click. THis turns it into a polygon lasso, and you can make straight lines around say the top or a hood.

My tips.