Photoshop Tips Thread

[sarujin]

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

[mentel]

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

[JE123]

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.

[ROCKINtheASTRO]

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


hit ctrl and the down arrow

[mentel]

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!

[S Brake]

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

[mentel]

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

[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...

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...

[sarujin]

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

[boingo82]

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.

[ROCKINtheASTRO]

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

[Tom_S8]

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

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...

[BeEfCaKe]

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

[ROCKINtheASTRO]

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

[sarujin]

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