Adobe CS4

Adobe Photoshop has what seems to be an endless array of options to spruce up photos and images. In this tutorial I show you how to take a color image and fade it from black and white on one side to color on the other. Here is how to fade black and white to color in Adobe Photoshop CS4.

1. Launch your Adobe Photoshop CS4 program and load a colorful image. The more colorful your image is the better you will see how this works.
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Your image is now loaded as the background image. In order to continue it must be unlocked and turned into a regular layer. To do this double click on the image thumbnail in your layers panel and when the new layer panel appears just click “ok”. The name of the layer is not important in this tutorial.
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Now that your layer is unlocked, select the black and white adjustment option on the adjustments panel. It is circled in the picture associated with this step.
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Step 4
You will notice a new layer has been added and your photo has turned black and white. Before you can continue you have to make sure the “layer mask thumbnail” is selection. Click your “layer mask thumbnail” to make sure it is selected. If you do not know what the “layer mask thumbnail” is, take a look at the picture associated with this step.
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Step 5
Press the letter “G” on your keyboard to activate the gradient tool, and make sure the color black is on top in the color swatch panel as circled in the picture associated with this step. If black is not on top, press the letter “X” on your keyboard until it is.
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Step 6
With the gradient tool already selected (step 5), hold the shift key down and starting on the right side of your image and about halfway down left click and drag the line to about halfway through the image to create the affect similar to what you see in the image associated with this step.

Although you would not use Adobe Photoshop CS4 to write a book, you can use it to do some neat affects on text. In this tutorial I am going to cover how you can make your text hollow so an underlying image will be able to show through. You see this affect a lot on posters and advertisements.

1. Launch Adobe Photoshop CS4 and load an existing image.
2. Step 2

   Select the “Horizontal Type Mask Tool” from your tools panel as shown in the picture associated with this step.

3. Step 3

   In my example I have chosen font name, Arial, Black, size 30pt. This creates a good size font that is thick so you can really see the affect of the text being hollow.

4. Step 4

   Click somewhere on your image to start typing. In my example I chose to write the words “refreshing apples” at the top of my image in all capital letters.

5. Step 5

   When you are done typing in the text, click the checkmark that is located at the top and to the right. It is circled in red in the picture associated with this step.

6. Step 6

   From the main menu at the top choose “Select” then from the submenu choose “Inverse”. You could also press the “SHIFT+CTRL+I” keys on your keyboard all at the same time.

7. Step 7

   Add a hue/saturation adjustment layer, by clicking on the icon that looks like a half black, half white circle located at the bottom of your layers panel, then selecting “Hue/Saturation” from the menu that appears. See the picture associated with this step.

8. Step 8

   Lower the saturation level and raise the hue level and you will see your image start to fade around your letters making them come through and look hollow.

Adobe Photoshop is a great tool for artists, enthusiasts, photographers, businesses and the average computer fan. One way to diversify your art is with Brushes. Photoshop supports thousands of brushes, which can be installed with a few simple steps.

1. Go online and do an online search for Photoshop Brushes. You should immediately get hundreds of results from sites that have brushes. Most brushes are free. Pick the brush that you like and download it to your computer. Alot of times your brush file has been compressed into a .zip or .rar file. Make sure to extract it first.
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Open Adobe Photoshop CS4, or a previous version if you have an older one.
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Click on the following. Edit -> Preset Manager. This will open up a new dialog window in Photoshop.
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Once Preset Manager is open, first make sure that the Preset Type is set to Brushes, then click on Load on the right hand side.
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Select the downloaded brush file that you got from the internet. A brush files extension is .ABR. Click your file, click Load.
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Now you should see your new brush displayed at the bottom of the Preset Manager. If you have a lot of brushes, you may need to scroll down to view your new brush.
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To use your new Photoshop Brush, simply open a new document or an existing one, select your brush tool, and then the type of brush, and you are on your way to creating many amazing Photoshop projects.

Tips & Warnings

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Look all over the internet for free brushes, there are tons of them out there.
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Make sure you use a brush that is compatible with your version of Photoshop.

Resizing a bunch of images manually can be a huge pain. Luckily, Photoshop CS4 can do all the work for you!

1. If the pictures you want to resize aren’t already all in one folder, put them in one. This isn’t strictly necessary for batch processing, but it’ll make the job a lot simpler.
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Open Photoshop CS4.
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Before you can start batch resizing your images, you’re going to have to create an action set.

Go to your Action panel (if you don’t see the Action panel, you can access it by going to the “Window” menu at the top and selecting “Action”).

At the bottom of the Action panel, click the icon that looks like a folder to create a new set. Name the set “Resize” and click OK.
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Next, you’ll need to create an action in your action set. Do this by clicking the “Create New Action” icon (between the “Create New Set” icon and the “Delete” icon).

Name the action “Resize” as well, and click Record.
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Step 5

Now it’s time to record the actual actions that will going into your batch processing.

First, open an image. It can be one from the set you want to process, but it doesn’t have to be. You can do this with File > Open, or by dragging and dropping a picture into Photoshop.
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Step 6

Next, it’s time to resize the image.

Go to Image > Image Size to bring up the resizing image. Next to either Width or Height, click the drop-down menu and select “Percentage”.

Type in the percentage of the current size that you want your images resized to. For example, if you want them to be half their current size, then type in “50%”.

Click OK.
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Save the newly-resized image.
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Step 8

Stop recording your actions.

Now click the square button at the bottom of the Actions panel to stop your actions from being recorded to the action set.

You now have your action set ready to be used for batch resizing.
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Step 9

Batch processing.

It’s time to put your action set to good use.

Open the batch processing menu by going to File > Automate > Batch.

At the top of the Batch menu, select the “Resize” action set for “Set”, and the “Resize” action for “Action”.

In the next section, choose “Folder” from the source menu and choose the folder containing the pictures you want to resize using the “Choose…” button.

You’ll probably want to check the Suppress File Open Options Dialogs in order to avoid a lot of unnecessary clicking.

Select “Folder” from the Destination menu, and choose the folder you want to save your resized images to.

The “File Naming” section gives you a number of options for how the resized images will be named, but the default works just fine, so there’s no need to adjust it unless you just want to.
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Step 10

Click “OK” and let Photoshop do its magic!

After some time processing (depending on how many pictures you’ve got it working on), you’re all done!

Go check out your newly-resized pictures in whatever folder you had them saved to.

Tips & Warnings

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Although this article was written with CS4 in mind, the process is very close in earlier versions of Photoshop as well and you should be able to follow along.

The Adobe Creative Suite includes applications that allow you to quickly assemble media elements and integrate them with web-friendly file formats. Imagine being able to assemble a slide show of various still images then outputting the final project in Adobe Flash. Adobe Encore makes this possible without having to know Adobe Flash programming or write any HTML code. With Adobe Encore CS4, you can quickly assemble a slide show and instruct the program to automatically create the files needed for your website.

1. Import still images for your slide show. Double-click anywhere in the “Project” tab window and select the images you want in your slide show.
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Step 2

Create a new slide show. Right-click and select “New” then “Slideshow” from the submenu.
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Step 3

Create a new slide show. Right-click and select “New” then “Slideshow” from the submenu.
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Select the imported image files from Step 1 and drag the files into the Website Slideshow window.
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Enter an end action in the “Website Slideshow Properties” tab. From the End Action pull-down menu, select the first image from the Website Slideshow if you wish the slide show to loop continuously. Otherwise, select “Stop.”
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Select the “Build” tab then select “Flash” from the Format pull-down menu. Under the Flash Settings section in the Build window, confirm the project source is using the “Current Project” shown in the Create Using pull-down menu.
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Click the “Browse” button in the “Destination” section and select the folder where you want the files saved.
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Enter “Website Slideshow” in the “Name” field under “Settings.”
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Click the “FLV” file format and choose a size preset format. This example will use “480×270 Widescreen Medium Quality” from the Preset pull-down menu.
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Confirm “Progressive Download” is selected instead of “Flash Media Server Streaming.”
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Click the “Build” button to create the Flash webpages from the Website Slideshow in Encore.
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Step 12

Upload the files from the folder specified in Step 7 to your web server.

Tips & Warnings

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Choose a homepage template from the Templates list in the Settings section of the Build window. Click the “Preview Template” button to see how your slide show will appear in the home page template.
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Add music by importing a music track into the Project window and dragging the file into the Audio section of the Website Slideshow window.
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Add random motion effects to each slide by clicking the “Random Pan & Zoom” check box.

There is no other tool that I have used that can touch up photos like photoshop. All you have to do is look at any magazine with a photo of some model, actor, actress or well known person and chances are they have been “photoshopped” in some manner. In this tutorial I am going to cover the basic, yet most popular, means of touching someone’s photo up and that is the removal of a blemish.

1. Launch Adobe Photoshop CS4 and open up the picture that you wish to touch up. Make sure your layer is unlocked. This can be done by double clicking the thumbnail in the layers panel and then clicking ok on the window that appears. For this tutorial I am going to show how to use the spot healing brush.
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Activate the spot healing brush by pressing the letter “J” on your keyboard. You will see your cursor turn to a circle. See the picture associated with this step to make sure you have the correct tool selected.
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Once you have the spot healing brush selected, go to the blemish that you want to fix and just click your mouse button. There is no dragging and dropping needed. One click fixes it.

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Nothing spruces up your Adobe Flash animations like sound. The best part is Adobe Flash makes it so easy to do. With a few mouse clicks you will be well on your way to an Adobe Flash animation complete with sound.

1. Launch Adobe Flash CS4 and either select an existing project or a new one. For this tutorial it doesn’t matter as you will soon see.
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In the timeline panel create a new Layer and call it “sounds”. If find that having a layer for the sound itself works best. This way I can manipulate it in some fashion to get it to do what I exactly want it to do. To change the name of your layer, just double click the layer name and type.
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The next thing we need to do is import our sound to our library. Click on “File” then click on “Import” then click on “Import to Library”. This will bring up the “Import to Library” window.
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On the “Import to Library” window, navigate to where your sound file resides on your computer, select it then click the “open” butto.
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Step 5
We need to associate the sound we just imported to our library to the layer we have called sounds in our Adobe Flash animation. To do this click the sounds layer to activate it and then go to the properties panel. If you don’t see the properties panel press the “CTRL+F3″ keys on your keyboard.
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Step 6
In your properties panel you will see a heading labeled “sound”. Under that heading you will see a drop down box labeled “name”. Click the arrow on the dropdown box and you will see your sound in there that you just imported. Select your sound from the dropdown box.
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Your sound has now been added to that layer. As a side note if your animation is not long enough to play the entire sound file it will only show up to the number of frames that have. This is where you will have to extend or shorten your animation to have it match the sounds you just imported.

When YouTube went HD I was thrilled. However, I could not figure out how to export a movie properly. Everything I tried looked horrible. After scouring the Internet I came up with the following steps to export an HD movie and load it to YouTube.

1. Record in High Definition ~
If you want to export to HD then record in HD. I use the Canon VIXIA HF200 but any HD camcorder is fine. I record in 60i Standard. I also make sure I’m recording in the higher quality HD possible on the camera which on my camera is MXP (High Quality 24 Mbps).
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~ Set Adobe Premiere Project Settings ~
Start a new project and make sure the settings in the ‘New Sequence’ window are as follows:
Tab: Sequence Presets
HDV (under ‘Available Presets) > HDV 1080i30 (60i)
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Step 3

~ Export your movie ~
After you’ve edited the movie to your liking and you’re ready to export, click File > Export > Media

Use the following for the ‘Export Settings’
– Format: H.264
– Presets: Make up a name and Save it. YouTube HD will suffice.
– Comments: Enter whatever you want.
– Make sure Export Audio and Export Video are checked

There are five tabs in the ‘Export Settings’ window. Here are the setting for each tab:

‘Filters’ tab: Make sure nothing is checked

‘Multiplexer’ tab:
Multiplexing: MP4
Stream Compatibility: PSP

‘Video’ tab:
Codec: MainConcept H.264 Video (will be selected since you chose the Format as H.264 above)
TV Standard: NTSC (since I’m in the United States)
Frame Width [pixels]: 1,280
Frame Height [pixels]: 720
Frame Rate [fps]: 59.94 (I don’t understand why this setting works but it does and works well).
Field Order: None (Progressive)
Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square Pixels
Level: 4.0
Bitrate Encoding: VBR, 1 Pass
Target Bitrate: 5
Maximum Bitrate: 8

‘Audio’ tab:
Codec: AAC
Output Channel: Stereo
Frequency: 48 kHz
Audio Quality: High

‘Others’ tab: Make sure everything is blank.

After you’ve configured the settings click ‘OK’. The Adobe Media Encoder will launch. Click ‘Start Queue’.

That’s it! A 10 minute video with transitions and other effects can take as long as 10 hours to export depending on the horsepower of your computer.
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~ Load to YouTube ~
Simply log onto your YouTube account and upload the video. YouTube will recognize the video as HD. After YouTube processes the video you’ll be able to watch your video in HD glory!

Ok so who doesn’t like cool looking lasers? If you do then here is an easy step by step way on how to create as laser in Adobe Photoshop CS4.

1. Launch Adobe Photoshop CS4 and create a new project and set the canvass size to 400×400.
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Unlock the initial background layer by double clicking on it and selecting ok on the window that pops up.
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Fill in the canvass background with all black. You can choose any color but black really makes it stand out.
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Select the rectangular marquee tool and draw a rectangle selection onto your background as shown in the picture associated with this step.
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Select your fill tool again, change the fill color to white and the fill in the rectangular selection as shown in the picture associated with this step.
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Duplicate the layer by pressing the CTRL+J keys at the sametime.
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With the layer copy selected, click on “Filter” from the menu at the top, then click on “Blur” then finally “Gaussian Blur”.
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When the Gaussian Blur window appears set the number of pixels to “8″ then click on “Ok”.
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Select your original layer, follow the steps to bring the Gaussian Blur window back up and set the number of pixels to 3 this time. If you have been following along in this tutorial, your picture should look like the picture associated with this step.
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Create a new layer by pressing the CTRL+SHIFT+N keys at the same time. And fill in the new layer with any color. I have chosen a red.
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At the top of the layers panel directly underneath the tab named “Layers” you will see a drop down box. Right now it probably reads “normal”. Click the down arrow and select “Color” from the list.
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You are now done. The object you just created is a laser beam with the color you just gave it. You can further enhance yoru new laser beam by adding things to it. Hopefully this gives you the start you were looking for.

So after 60 years of smoking two packs of camels a day, Aunt Matilda doesn’t have the “best” smile. Not to worry, with a few mouse clicks, your Aunt Matilda’s smile will look as good as new. Here is how to whiten teeth in a photo.

1. Launch Photoshop and open the photo that has “questionable” teeth. Make sure you unlock the layer by double clicking on it and selectin ok from the window that appears.
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Step 2
Zoom in by pressing the “CTRL” and the “+” key at the same time. You want to zoom in because in the next step you are going to select just the teeth and zooming in makes it easier to do this.
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Step 3

You can use any selection tool that you would like however I used the “quick selection tool” which is circled in red in the tools panel in the picture associated with this step. I then selected my layer to make sure it was actively selected and then I clicked my mouse button starting at the left side of the teeth and drug it to the right side.
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Step 4

Now you need to add an adjustment layer so we can whiten those soon to be pearly whites up. With your layer still selected, click the icon in your layers panel that looks like the circle that is half black and half white. It is circled in the picture associated with this step. When the pop up menu appears select “hue/saturation”.
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You will now see a new layer created with your adjustments panel being displayed and in the new layer a “mask” showing just your teeth selection. In the adjustments panel you will see sliders for “saturation” and “lightness”. To whiten the teeth slowly slide the saturation slider to the left and the lightness slider to the right until you get the right color of white.