Ultimate Photoshop Training: From Beginner to Pro

1. Welcome to the world of Photoshop!: Learning Photoshop can be easy and fun, and that's exactly what we're gonna do together in this course. If you're a complete beginner, that's totally fine. We'll create all these lovely projects step-by-step without any complicated theory is all about working in Photoshop, no memorizing whatsoever. And I'm going to break down everything for you. Make this a five-star experience. You also have cheat sheets to refresh your memory, check them out to see the essential points of every lecture. And you also get all the resources, what every project, both the initial piles and the completed ones. Plus you have access will when they're full community, where you can talk to other students in real time and everybody is super friendly. A there, I'm Chris, Chris Baron, a certified Photoshop instructor and best-selling author. What makes my course their front is that it teaches you real-world projects will focus on getting awesome results in no time at all. This is as practical as it gets more than that. This course is the foundation for any designer. Because after you finish it, you'll have many options to explore who choose from. For example, you can specialize in web design. So creating beautiful websites without any coding, which is actually how I got started as a freelancer. And that's how I made my first $50 thousand all through Photoshop. But you can also focus on graphic design by creating social media ads, banners of all sorts, flyers, YouTube, thumbnails in that much more. You can also design mobile apps, both iOS and Android ones. You can specialize in retouching in so much more. This is the door to a world of designing and it's up to you watch one specialize in whether you're looking to do some fun projects just as a hobby. Or maybe you're looking for the new career to start fresh with. Maybe even start the business, increase some awesome designs for it to help it grow. This is the right course for you. Plus, as a gift, I've included over 300 templates that you can easily use for most of your projects. Although sharp has changed my life in an incredible way and I'm very thankful for it. Until this was a hope you can achieve your own dreams and goals. I know that my accent isn't for everyone, but that's why I've asked my friend Mark for some help. He has a silky, smooth British voice. That's absolutely fantastic. Just have a listen. Hello there. I'm Mark rise, as Chris just said, I'll be covering the audio for this entire course. Most videos are based in the UK and I'm quite a well-known British voice actor and TV presents it. In my free time. I like to work on fun projects as well, like helping Chris with this course. We're excited to get going and I hope you are too. So you'll be hearing his voice for the most of this course. Great at everything, all the content, all the exercises. I'm going to answer your questions. Mark, only does the audio. I made this tough choice because I want you to have a five-star learning experience and his accent is way better. So join me in the next lecture and let's get started. We're going to have loads of fun. 2. Get the Best Photoshop Version: Welcome back. What's the deal with all the Photoshop versions out there? The short answer that you're looking for is this. The best Photoshop version is the latest one, and this requires a paid subscription from Adobe.com The best choice is the photography plan, which starts at $10 per month, depending on your location, give or take. Now please don't buy the individual plan. It's not worth the extra cloud storage. That's the only difference, you're not missing out on anything. The first seven days are completely free. Go to Adobe.com create a free account and download the trial. And that's basically it for the basics. That's all that you absolutely need to know. Now, if you want to learn more, stick around. Is Photoshop Elements good enough for this course? No, it's not. Photoshop Elements is a completely different program and it's not good for this course. Now, what about using an ipad for the computer again? No, that's a completely different experience. How about Photoshop, S3s4, CS five? Well, while they can work, I wouldn't recommend that. It's like working on Windows 98 while having a ton of better options out there. For example, CS Four was launched way back in 2008. Using extremely outdated software is never a good idea. Again, you could work along, but it wouldn't be a great experience. It's like parking a big car in a tight space without sensors or cameras should you could manage, but it's not ideal. You know, CS six is the oldest version you should be using for the course. And that was launched way back in 2012. Even that's very outdated and you're going to miss out on some nice improvements and features. Again, having said that, if you're a very patient you could use Photoshop CSX, I just don't recommend it. In conclusion, you should expect various things that are not going to be available if you're on an older version. But let me make this clear. Most of the differences between these versions are mostly visual. They don't stop you from working. There are 234 different behaviors, but I'm going to create separate lectures for those, so you're not going to have a whole lot of trouble with it. So overall, you shouldn't be too worried about using a slightly older version of Photoshop, as long as it's not something that's completely outdated from 2008 or something like that. And again, as I said, the ideal situation is you have a creative cloud subscription. Let me explain how this works. Back in the day, Adobe launched programs like Photoshop CS four, Photoshop CS five, CS six, and so on. And they had a fixed price. For example, Photoshop CS six, the most popular one retailed for the 699. So you paid 700 bucks for the single program, and that was a huge amount of money, and not a lot of people could afford that. But in 2013, Adobe completely changed the pricing, Launching the Creative Cloud or a Short CC. This meant that the user would pay a monthly subscription and he would receive all the updates and bug fixes for the free. And that's where we're currently at basically right now. If an update comes along, I'm going to get a notice in my Adobe Creative Cloud program. This is how it currently looks, but it changes all the time. If yours looks different, no worries about it. But I'm going to click one button here and the new version is going to get installed. And this applies for everybody that has a legal version of Photoshop, a paid one. If you have a subscription, you probably have the latest version. Nobody is stuck on CC 2014 or 2017 because the update is free and it's easy to do, you just click a button. One final thing, the course is version independent. Over 90% of what I teach you applies to all Photoshop versions. So if you have a slightly older one, please don't use it as an excuse to not watch and learn from this course. The changes between CC editions are minimal, the interface is slightly different, and do and shift work a bit differently. But honestly not a lot has changed. So if your interface doesn't completely match mine, no worries about it. Just ask for help. I'm going to be there. And like I said in the beginning, if you don't want to invest any money into Photoshop, create a free account on Adobe.com and you're going to get a week totally for free. And in that week you can finish the entire quotes. Okay, let's sum this up. You could use Photoshop CS six, but you're going to miss out on some nice improvements and various features. What I recommend is you go to Adobe.com You pay for the subscription, $10 per month, the photography plan, and that's going to be that. Okay, let's get started. 3. Create a Black and White Image: Welcome back. I know some people think Photoshop is an overwhelming program that's difficult to use, but I'm here to take all the difficulty out of it. I want to show you right from the start how you're going to be able to get fantastic results with only a few steps. This activity, we're going to transform this image, which is fairly dull and boring to this one. Everything is going to be done in just a few minutes in two steps. Number one, we're going to make it black and white. And number two, we're going to bring back color to her lips. Let's start with this image that you have attached to this lecture. Please download it, right click it and open it in Photoshop. Another way to open it, you simply double click this PSD that you have attached. It's going to load directly. It's the same thing. There are no differences between the two. Okay. Now, please don't worry about the specifics because we'll talk about them later on. For now, please just follow my lead. This is how Photoshop should look like on your end. If that's not the case, please go to the top right side and click here. From this list, you should choose Essentials. Now if the program still doesn't look like what you see here, not a problem, click again, but this time please choose Reset Essentials, Okay? Fantastic. Now go to the bottom of Photo shop and click on this small Ying Yang looking symbol. Okay, From this new list, please choose black and white. And that's step one. Immediately our image has changed, but we're just getting started. Now you're going to notice a new panel that's called Properties. From here, we can make adjustments to this black and white effect. Play around with these slides as much as you want, without any fear that you might destroy the image. You can see that the photo quality isn't all that great. If you use some of these slides, you're going to see more of those issues. I want to remind you that you should watch these exercises twice the first time around. Please don't try to work along. Just watch and see what I'm doing. Understand my process the way I think. Then rewind from the start. And then the second time around, please pause as often as you need to in order to work along. Just hit that Spacebar key step by step. Okay, let's go back to it now. Luckily, if something isn't right with these slides, you have two options. First of all, you can just disable this effect, this black and white effect, by clicking here next to the icon, okay. Now this is also helpful if you want to compare the before and after shots. Click here to re, enable it in case some of these settings are not right and you can't remember the original position. The second option is best just click on this arrow icon and that's going to reset everything. This way you don't have to delete and start over just in case you mess up. Now let's see what we want to do here. The hair could be a bit darker. Let's take down blues to something like -100 That's going to help us do that. Let's also take down magentas to about -25 or so. Again, you don't have to be precise because we can always come back and change these settings. Okay, so far, let's say this is looking great, but let's do a dramatic effect. Step number two, right? I want her lips to be bright red, while everything else is black and white. Let's do that. Now, press B to get the brush tool. Take a look at the tools panel on the left. Click and hold, and make sure you have this one selected the brush tool, not anything else. Okay, now focus here. Click on the small icon that's going to open up a panel called Brush Properties. Now there's a lot going on here, but please don't get confused. We only want three things here. First of all, select the very first brush from the list, this one here. Now the second thing, make sure the hardness is set to 0% Lastly, change the size to about 60 pixels. Also give or take, okay, Now it's time to get to work. Now make sure that you have black as the top square here. Okay? If that's not the case, please press X on your keyboard and that's going to flip these two. Okay, fantastic. Now we want to really get into the lips, what we have to do is press Z to activate the zoom tool. That's Z for the zoom tool. This is the new cursor click several times until you're up close. Awesome. Now let's get back to the brush tool it again. Now let's start painting around her lips. As you can see, while I'm working these, stand out tremendously, The red really stands out. Now, let me pause here just for a minute in case this doesn't work on your end. Please have a look at all my settings here. Pause the video and make sure that your settings are the same as mine. Especially the mode which should be set to normal. Okay, let's get back to work. If you're not careful with the brushing, please don't worry about it. Let's say I messed up and I went way too far, This would not be okay. What do we do here? Not a problem. Hit X, and this time white will be the top color. Instead of black, we're going to have white here at the top. Awesome. Now, paint over the mistake and it just went away. Right. Now, switch back to black and continue painting as you covered the lips. You may want to adjust the brush size, and that's because these tricky parts are going to need the smaller size. Maybe 20 pixels, 30 pixels, something like that. When you're done, press control of command z though. And this is going to reset the zoom level and you can see the entire result. That's it. In just a few steps, we made the image black and white. We enhanced her hair and we went for the creative effect by showing off her lips. By painting over them, we are no longer able to adjust them with a black and white slider, but everything else is fair game. Now it's your turn. But when you start brushing, please do the nails as well. I want to see all the nails get done. This should take you about four to 5 minutes to get a good result. Plus, to make this easier, I made the PDF file so you can see the essential points on this lecture and how you can export the image as a J pego PNG. Please check out that PDF, then post image in the comment section. If you really want to make a good impression, find your own image, Apply the same technique and upload that as well to the comment section. Okay, have fun and I'm going to see you in the next lecture. 4. Here’s why Photoshop is finally magical: Welcome back. Photoshop is finally magical. Let me show you, but please work along on your second viewing the first time around. Just sit back and watch. Okay. This is the latest version of Photoshop, and I have a paid subscription from Adobe.com The only place where you can get Photoshop. I'm going to activate the marquee tool, hot key M, It's this tool right here. And click and drag out the box in this corner. This means I've made a selection. Now in this latest version of Photoshop, I have this option called generative fill. Let's click it. Now we have a field where we can type anything. I'm going to go with cranberries for example, and I'm going to hit Generate. This requires an Internet connection and a bit of patience. But after a while, here's the result. This is why I said Photoshop is finally magical. This is only available in the latest version of the program, but wow, it's fantastic. If you don't like it, no worries. We have three options in total. Use these arrows to go through them. You can also see these options here in the Properties panel. Now, some people thought Photoshop is washed up and all these new platforms like Mid Journey, or would just make Photoshop obsolete. That's not the case, that's actually the opposite. Photoshop is now even more powerful than ever. Let's do it again. The marquee tool, right? Hot key, M, click hold, and make sure you've selected this one here. Now let's draw another box. But what if you make a mistake? No problem. Hit control D, That's command D on a Mac where you can remember D as in D, Select. Okay, that's control D to remove your selection. Now draw it once again, click on Generative Fill and let's type something different. Let's go with Coconut for example. You will have to wait for the while but that's totally fine. I'm going to edit it out. Okay, the result. Well, this is okay, but I'm not in love with it. I think we should try again. I'm going to click on the same search field, but this time I think I'm going to go with coconut chips now. This should give me a better result. Yeah, I think this is a bit better. We can cycle through them and look for the best one. Now in my case, I'm looking for something realistic, but also something that matches the entire photo. Now in general, I use this feature for my social media posts. Maybe for an ad on Facebook ads, or maybe for an image gallery for my own webshop. Now you may ask Chris, does this generative fill always work? Does it guarantee perfect results? No, of course not. At least not in this version. I'm sure it's only going to get better. But here's the thing. If you make a large selection, it's struggles. It doesn't do a good job. For example, let's select the entire top part. Let's say I want to fill it with some almonds. By the way, I'm editing out the way, because I want to keep the video short. But yeah, know that it does take a few seconds. Anyway, here's the result, but this doesn't make any sense. You can cycle through the options, but it just doesn't do a decent job. But if I select a much smaller area, say this part here, and I repeat the exact same instructions, almonds, nothing else, you'll see that this is actually quite decent. Now, obviously, you should go through several options you can generate again if needed. But yeah, focus on smaller bits. Now, to export all work, go to the top menu To file. From here go to export and then export as if you prefer the hot key. That's all the modifier keys, all control shift. And then finally, that's a very long one, but you do get used to it. All the keys, all control shift, and then now from this new window, choose PNG and hit this button when you're ready. Now it's your turn to use generative fill. Remember, this is only available in the latest Photoshop edition, and you do need a pay subscription from Adobe.com Also, you should focus on smaller areas. If you want to do very large ones, you're not going to get a good result. Now we have lots to cover, but this was just a preview. Go ahead and practice and have fun with it. You have the image attached. 5. Use the History Panel to fix your mistakes: Welcome back. Let me show you how you can work with confidence, knowing that you can fix any mistake. So here's the situation, right? Just as a demo, I have a blank project, nothing special about it. And I'm going to do several random things, right? You don't have to work with me, just watch me work, okay? For example, I'm going to create a triangle. Just a random shape. Then I'm going to move it just a bit. Next, I'm going to add an empty layer to the project. Something like that. I'm going to switch to the brush tool. I'm going to draw some lines. Again, random stuff. Finally, I'm going to get the eraser and I'm going to delete a part of this drawing. Okay, just again, random actions. During this design process, you might realize that maybe something should have been different. Maybe you should have chosen a different color for the brush. Or maybe you wanted a clean up line. Being able to go back and redo it is a big confidence booster because it allows you to pick up speed without worrying. Trying to be perfect all the time, every step of the way. Just go for it. Here's how this goes. First of all, you need to know that Photoshop records just about everything that you do. Go to the top menu to window from here to choose History default, This new panel is pretty short, but move your cursor here at the bottom and expand it, make it bigger. Okay, Now we can see all the contents here in this panel. All of my actions have been recorded. The easy way of fixing any mistake is to simply click on any of these entries. For example, if I click on Move, this will delete the new layer, the brushing and the erasing. Those actions have become inactive. That's why they're gray. But here's the thing. If this is a mistake, if you didn't want to do that, simply click on any of these audit items and there's going to be that that's redo by using this panel, you have complete freedom and you can work with confidence knowing that you can always go back. Okay? Now one thing that you have to be aware of is that when you go back several steps and you do something else, for example, let's say we add a second rectangle, right? All those grey actions are going to be thrown out the history panel. While it's great, it's not magical, it does not allow you to add new actions in between old ones. That's not possible. To sum this up, you can always go back to a previous state and fix any mistake. But when you go back and you do something else, something new, the gray actions are going to disappear. But overall, this means that you can work with confidence because you can always fix any problem. But let's take this to another level. Hot keys and Photoshop go together like bread and jam. And one of the best hot keys that you can use is control Z. Now before we talk about this specific hot key, you have to check your Photoshop version. That's because there are some differences based on Photoshop additions. Here's the deal. Assuming that you're using the latest version of the program, process is quite simple if you want to undo three steps. Just as an example, you're going to hit control Z three times, That's 12.3 Control z is the same thing as using the history panel, but it's just faster. And it's also better if you get used to it, it's going to help you be more efficient. But if you have an older Photoshop version, let me switch to that. It can be anywhere in between CC 2018 and CS Six launched way back in 2008, that's prehistoric times. Dinosaurs were still running around. Anyway, in the older versions, here's how control Z would work. You hit control Z once and you go back one step. So far so good, but when you hit it again, you're going to move forward. Basically, you're toggling the last action. This was especially useful when you wanted to decide, for example, between two colors. Should this button be red or blue, red or blue, red or blue. And you would go back and forth by using control Z in case you wanted to move back several steps. You did this, you use control Z first and then Alt control Z. Each time I press that combination, it takes us back another step. But again, this is for old Photosho versions. And while this may seem complicated, you only need to remember the hot key for your version to help you out, I created a Che sheet and you can always review it and refresh your memory. Now in conclusion, you can use the history panel to fix your mistakes, or you can use the undo command through the hot key control Z. Before you use control z, make sure you check the Photoshop version. But as long as you have a recent one, you can use it like in any other program you want to go back. For example, four steps. Simply use controlable Z four times. With that, let's continue. 6. You need to learn this tool for AI Art (Generative Fill): Welcome back. The lasso tool is one of those things that didn't make a whole lot of sense for about 20 years. Well now it's an absolute must. Here's the situation. We have this bottle of lemonade and we want to add some lemon slices and mint trouble is the marquee tool would be quite limiting. As you can see, I'm going over the bottle and that's because I do want to have my lemons as close to the bottle as possible. Now, could I do a very small selection? Maybe something like this? Yeah, sure, but it wouldn't look as nice. Remember, use control D to select. Okay, now in comes the lasso tool. Hot key L, It's this one right here. Now this is a tool that helps you make selections by drawing freehand. You click, you draw, and you circle back to the starting point. To the lasso tool, I can really get close to the bottle and follow this particular line. Now, this tool wasn't all that popular because it's not really precise. When you try it out, you're going to see that it's actually quite tricky. Nice straight lines, but with generative fill, that's actually not an issue. Let's type in lemon slices and let Photoshop do its thing again, this is the paid version. The latest one cycle through the options and choose the best one. As always, you can generate more if you're not happy. This is a game changer because the lasso tool is so easy to learn. Let's do the top part as well. Remember, click and draw. If it's no good, use control D and start over. One thing you should know is that you should go back to the starting point. Here's what happens if you don't. I'm going to start drawing a line like a rainbow, a curve. Basically say I'm going to let go of my mouse click right here. Well, Photoshop is going to connect the starting point with this one, with the current position of the cursor. This means it will always give us a straight line. Let me do that again. You start using the lasso tool. Click, hold the click, you draw something, then you just let go. Well, Photoshop is going to connect the starting point with the last position of your mouse. Obviously you're going to get a straight line. Now most of the time this is not ideal control. And do it again. The lasso tool requires a lot of trial. And don't be surprised if you need 56 tries before you get the right selection. Now let me show you something that works with every selection tool, with every single one. Say that you draw a small selection like so. Have a look at options bar, see how this icon is active, this means new selection. But if you want to make that selection just a bit bigger, you're going to hold down shift. Now I'm holding it down. And notice this lights up more than that. Focus on the cursor, notice that's a small plus icon. This means I can draw again and I'm going to make my selection bigger. Just like that. Let's do it again with the lasso tool selected. I can draw out a selection. Right, any size. Then if I want to add to that selection without starting over, I can hold shift. I'm going to get a plus symbol on my mouse. Cursor, and now I can add to it. It doesn't even have to be in the same region. And it's still going to work. I can work across the entire image, but if we can add to it, we can also remove parts of the selection by using all. That's the option, Kono Mac. Notice the minus symbol on your cursor at the top, you're going to see that this icon is now active. Now draw over your selection, and you're going to remove that part. Just like that. Now to recap the lasso tool, hot key L is great when you need a lot of freedom. Draw out any shape by clicking and dragging. If your hand is not steady enough, you can use control D and try again. Or you can do your best and then use Shift to add to that selection just like so. Or use Alt to remove parts of your selection like so. Then when you're happy, hit generative fill and type in something like mint. What? Mint leaves? There you have it. The lasso tool is finally useful and now you know how to use it. As always, use Alt control shift to export your work. That's all the modified keys plus W. You have this image attached. Please go ahead and practice. Have fun with it. 7. Quickly improve images with Camera Raw: Hey there, let me show you how you can quickly improve a photo in Camera Raw. I'll keep this as short and sweet as possible. His idea, do you have a boring image in Camera Raw? This is a very powerful part of Photoshop that can feel overwhelming. For that reason. In this lecture, we're only going to cover the essentials. So you can get up and running with it and get results Past, will have a separate section about Camera Raw later on in the course. There, we'll dive deeper into it. So again, for now, this is just an overview. Let's jump straight into it. Okay, let's get started with this photo of an oatmeal jar. I snapped it with my own camera, another photographer, but I needed some photos from my website, so I tried my luck with it. Most cameras will give you two files for every photo you take a JPEG file, which is pretty standard, and in my specific case, a CR3 file. I'll explain the differences in a different lecture, but here are the essentials. Number one, when you have the option, use the raw file in Photoshop, not the JPEG does because the Raphael always contains much more information. If you just look at the size, that's a dead giveaway, that JPEG is about five megabytes. The raw file is about 27 megabytes. So that's a huge difference. There are two ways to open Camera Raw in Photoshop. You can simply double-click on this Raphael. Wait a moment, and that will launch Camera Raw in Photoshop. But assuming that doesn't work for you on your, then you can do this. Let me close this bar by hitting Cancel. The second way is to open camera in the following way. Drag and drop the JPEG file into Photoshop. If that doesn't work either for whatever reason, use Control O. Okay, now use this window to browse for the file on your computer. Once the JPEG is opened, go to the top menu to filter. From here, scroll down to Camera Raw. And just like that you have now in the same place. So those are your two main options. Double-click the raw file or use Filter camera Raw rate. In this case, because I have the RAW file available to me. I'll hit Cancel one more time and open that up. As I said, this contains much more information, so it's best to work on it. Don't work on a JPEG when you have the raw file. Now, this window is incredibly massive. This is the latest version of the program in CS6. It looks different, but most of the features are still there. You have to be really patient and look for them. Okay. You can imagine why loads of people feel intimidated by Camera Raw. What you see on the right side is the basic section expanded. But if you click on curve, detail or color mixer, you get a bunch more options in every one of them. It's really easy to get confused. But here are my top tips to get awesome results with no headaches. Number one, use the auto feature. This is available on the right side next to the edit section. Make sure you don't click on black and white by mistake though. Okay, when you hit, although Photoshop looks at a photo and it tries its best to improve it based on what it thinks is ideal. The great thing about it is that you can toggle it on or off so you can see the changes. We can see the red jam at the top is brighter. The shadows are also radically different and the contrast in the yellow part is much improved. With a single click. You've just improved the photo. To be fair, this doesn't always work. And in this case it's still not looking like I'd like it to. So here's step number 2. You can always reset your changes. This is done by holding down the Alt or Option key on the Mac. When you do that, the cancel button at the bottom changes to reset. He did, and you're back to the default state. With this bit of info, you can play with all these sliders as much as you want, because you can always start from square one in case you mess up too bad. This means you can work with confidence, even though you may not know exactly what you're doing. And if you hold Alt, you can also reset individual components. Just like that. So you don't have to throw away everything that you've done. Okay, Deb number three is to start playing with it. I suggest you focus most of your time on the basic section. I won't do a complete breakdown of everything you see here. That's for later on in the course. Instead, let's make this photo pop. Start with the temperature slider. If you raise it up, you'll make it warmer, which means the mood of the photo is going to change. White is going to become yellowish. On the other side, a lower value is going to make it colder. Blue is going to start creeping in. In this case, I'll go with a moderately cool vibe, 4200. This is a very subjective thing, so don't worry too much about it. That is not the right or the wrong way. Okay. Let's keep going. For the exposure, I'll keep things fairly simple. If you use a lower value, everything becomes darker, which is not ideal here considering we have a black background. If we increase it, more light comes through, which is great because product photos tend to look better when they're nice and bright. But don't go overboard though, because these red blood cells, these red spots will let you know that you'll pushing it over the limit. Again. I know that you may have questions about all these sliders, but for now, let's keep going. Contrast. A low amount makes everything blend together. We want the opposite. We want the jar to stand out from its background. Use a high value, but don't go overboard with it because again, you're going to see some red spots. I think around plus 35 will work well. Regarding highlights, they're the brightest parts of the image. In my case, the light hits the white label and the result isn't all that great. Again, step three is to experiment, to play with it. If you don't know the logic behind these settings, simply increase them or decrease them and see how it looks like. In this case, it makes sense to go for the negative value, say minus 50 year-old. So again, don't think too much of them, use them as a reference. You can obviously go with more or less with the next slide, the shadows. In this specific case, we can control the backdrop. In this case, I'll go for the positive value. Depending on your photo, this slider might adjust other parts of the image. Okay, looking good so far, Let's keep going. We have load still to do. I'll increase the white value because we drop the highlights quite a lot. I still want the label to shine to do so this is very much needed as what the black slider, I'll keep it as it is. I'll quickly jump to vibrance and saturation. I want certain colors to stand out more. So I'll bump up the vibrance to about plus 30 year-old so I won't touch the saturation in general, that's not a good idea. Now come back up to this part where a lot can change. For example, if I increase the texture, the value or the individual seeds in the jar will start coming to. This may or may not be what you want is a very subjective thing. If I lower it to say a negative value, the look of the product changes, but note the texture of the background also goes away. I think this is a positive thing because nobody cares about the background in this photo. The Clarity slider seems to be somewhat similar, but it's best you play with the sliders until you're happy. Sometimes it may not make sense to darken the image through a slider and then make it brighter to do another one. Trust me, at the end of the day, it does improve the photo if you know what you're doing anyway, overall, a positive gravity value. And while we're on this topic, I'd like to remove all that dust particles and minimize all the flaws from the label. Jumped to the detail section in here you'll find the noise reduction. This is critical. Move it all the way up to 100, and this will have a dramatic change. All of a sudden, everything is smooth there. Now let's pause. There's a ton more we can do, but it's really detailed stuff that takes quite some time to do. Now let's consider this done when you want to wrap up your work in Camera Raw. My advice is you click here next to open. From this list, choose open as object, which is actually short for the smart object. Wait a second, and you'll be back in the regular version of Photoshop. Now you can export that as usual or you can do other their debts. But here's the thing. In case you want to change some sliders in Camera Raw, just double-click the thumbnail, is that easy? Double-click here, and does that where the few seconds and here you go. All the sliders are the exactly as we've lumped them. I'll hit Cancel though. Let's see the before and after. Here's where we started. And this is the improved version. In just in case you're wondering, here's the final photo. After I play with it a bit more. It's a night and day, their friends. And it's all through the power of Camera Raw. What I want you to do right now is rewind the video and recreate this version. After you watch the entire course, you'll be able to get even better results like this one. But for now, this is good enough. I also attached to this photo that's fairly washed out, bring it into Photoshop, use the Camera Raw Filter and Show me what you can do with it. Please be aware that when you use a PNG or JPEG image, you first have to do this. Go to Filter Convert for Smart Filters. Then you can jump into Camera Raw. You'll only have an Okay button here, but that's totally fine. You can still edit your settings once you click okay, you just have to double-click here. So remember, please convert for smart filters. Overall, this was a glimpse into the mighty power of Camera Raw in Photoshop. Have fun with it. 8. OPTIONAL: Speed up Photoshop: Welcome back. If you're like me, you want to get the best performance out of Photoshop. Make it as fast as possible. So what can we do? Well, my number one advice is this, don't get a laptop for serious work. Now, I understand that you may travel, but you've got to understand that you're sacrificing speed for the mobility in terms of value for money. Laptops are not great. I know this may not be what you want to hear, but at any budget, a desktop computer is going to be much faster and better value for money. That's why I can't recommend laptops. It doesn't matter what brand, what model, you're going to pay a lot more. And it's going to be slower versus a regular computer. This is a very long subject, but let me tell you the essential points bit by bit. So let's go through the list. First of all, you don't need any fancy graphics card for the Photoshop. Any GPU will work fine. It doesn't matter if it's 50 bucks or a $2,500.01 it will not help Photoshop. Next, in terms of displays, IPS monitors are best for the Photoshop work. Please avoid TN and VA monitors. Next, I don't like four K monitors, so I can't recommend them. 1920 by 1080 is best. Or at the most, two K was called two K, 25 60 by 14, 40. I had a gorgeous four K display. But I returned it, I just couldn't get used to it. For the web design work, 100% say no to four K. That's my advice. Now in terms of processors, this is by far the most important thing on your computer for Photoshop, the most important to see which one is best at this moment in time. Please use this website called Budget Systems. You can use this filter system on the left side. Click on Photoshop, then open up any article and you are bound to find a chart like this one. That's how you can see the differences between all sorts of processors. Now for memory, Ram 16 gigabytes is a great starting, 0.8 is usually not enough. Photoshop might move slower as for Ram frequency. Photoshop really doesn't care all that much, it's quantity over quality. If you have to choose between faster memory and more memory, always go for more next SSDs. These are going to make a big difference in terms of your performance. Keep at least 50 gigabytes empty at all times, and you should be good to go. Finally, for the best possible experience, I recommend a mechanical keyboard. This is optional, but again, for me it's made a big difference. Mechanical keyboards are quite expensive. But again, for me, one of the best investments I've ever made, I use a computer six to 10 hours a day, every day. So for me, it's absolutely a game changer. I can't really describe it. It's basically expensive champagne versus a cheap one. Or driving a brand new car versus one from the 1980s. It's a major change. Next for the mouse, Any gaming mouse is going to do, but it has to have programmable buttons. And I use one particular shortcut. This is again something that I totally love. Show Desktop, so why do I love it so much? When I have lots and lots of things open, I click on this side button and everything gets minimized. I absolutely love this feature, especially since I download everything on my desktop. Okay, now let's jump into Photoshop to set up some things. Hit control K desk command on a Mac. This new window choose Performance. Okay, you should increase your memory to 60 or 70% depending on how much you multi task. The history states refer to the number of times you can go back, you can undo. Now, for the older computers, my advice is you limit it to 20, maybe 30 states that's pushing it, but if you have a strong computer, you can raise it to 50 or even maybe 100. Now on the left side, you may be wondering what this is all about. In short, if you use lots of layers or web design work, for example, you're going to use this one if you're the photographer who works with absolutely huge images. The last one will be a go to choice if you're not sure the default one is best. Now I personally use the first option and that's what I recommend. Now scratch disks are very important on older computers when you don't have enough Ram, photo shop will take up space on your SSD or the hard drive. To see if that happens, let's hit Escape and close this window. Go to the bottom and click on this small arrow from this list. Please choose Efficiency. As you work along, as long as you're that 100% you're great. You have enough Ram. And Photoshop is going to work just fine. But when this goes under 100% you will really feel it. Photoshop is going to slow down a lot. And if that happens, please add more memory if you can, but if you can't add memory sticks, please open up preferences. Once again, control or command K go to scratch disks. Here, make sure you have them stacked in the correct of the. Because this is a list, it doesn't look like it. But trust me, this is a list. If you have an SSD, it should be at the top and it should have, again, at least 50 gigabytes of free space. Finally, two settings which are a personal preference under the interface. This option here, please use the darkest one. Then under the units and rules, please change it to pixels for both of these drop downs. That's how I like to set up for Sha. You also have a PDF attached in case you want to review some of this information. Have fun and I hope this was helpful. 9. AI Art - Dall-E, ChatGPT - will they replace designers?: Welcome back. We're learning about Photoshop and it's all fine and well, but you've probably seen the craziness about artificial intelligence or AI for sure. For example, lens AI creates something absolutely incredible, That's incredible. Avatars when you feed it a few photos of yourself or chat GPT, which seems to be Google on steroids or in supersen mode or Ali, that creates any artwork that you can think of. This is extremely exciting, but it's also worrying to some people it's exciting because it opens up a world of possibilities that we can't even dream of right now. Think about the Internet at dial up speeds in the '90s and think about what it is today. Technology moves so fast. Any shortcomings that you see right now are exactly that, very temporary. For example, some people say, hey, you know, chat, GPT sometimes gets it wrong. Sure, totally. But you know what also was horrible at the beginning. Phones with touch screens that required the certain amount of pressure. That was the early days, or remember the whole era when you had to literally wait 20 minutes to download the photo on your phone and it was solated as hell. Well, now I can download movies legally at 80 megabytes/second for about 15 bucks per month. The current state of AI right now is nothing compared to what it is going to be. That's the exciting part. The future looks incredible. But what about the worrying part, Especially for the designer? Yeah, it will probably replace loads and loads of designers. Here's why. You can simply tell Dolly, any other AI to make a new version just like that. Make it friendlier. Boom, you got it more serious. You got it, make it red, you got it, make it retro futuristic. Black and white, whatever, whatever you can come up with, the AI makes it in a matter of seconds. And think about the old way of doing it. You hire a bunch of designers, You need to have meetings, you need briefs, a creative direction, various types of people on staff, which simply means a lot of resources, time, money, and a slow cycle. With AI, you can keep 10% of that department, the design department, and have the AI do all of the heavy lifting. Now, more than the salaries of the designers, the time saved will be tremendous and the amount of friction will be drastically reduced. Now I have a friend that does incredible artwork, right? He's in the ballpark of what you see right here, Mike, from Creative Mints. So this is absolutely fantastic right now, my friend is nowhere near this amount of skill, but still, he's been practicing for hours on end, years and years, right? Years of practicing and studying and whatnot. But as any person, my friend has feelings, moods, Sometimes he's in the flow, sometimes not so much, right? It's a difficult thing being able to create this level of design work, right? When some people from corporate say, hey, you know what? What about making it pink? Girls like pink. Well, obviously that creates friction. The designer gets upset. He needs time to reboot, to reset, and start over. They need a new meeting in a few days, maybe in a few weeks. This is why it's inevitable that AI will slash designers left and right. All that talent is probably going to be sold for pennies on the dollar. Where a ten year design veteran was a precious asset to any company now, or better said, in the very near future. He's just another guy off the street Now, my take is this, for the games, for the movies, for the very creative stuff, AI is probably the future, No doubt about it. Now, for the Facebook ads, for the banners of all sorts, for newsletters, logos, brochures, flyers for retouching, and so on, I still think there's a very long way to go. Same with app design, web design. I do think that eventually AI is going to get there, especially for the retouching. But until it's mainstream, we still have loads and loads of years to go. The first ones that I think are going to fall will definitely be the top creative designers that create this type of stuff. Right now, the only possible salvation is this. Currently these AI models gather loads and loads of materials from the web. They recycle it and they recreate it. That's why some AI artwork has some signatures in the corner because it's various bits and pieces from real artists. Whatever you as a designer put on hands, Dribble, Instagram, whatever the AI takes that and puts a spin on it, that's not exactly legal. That's like you taking a few popular songs and mashing them together. Sure remixes are somewhat allowed, but it has to be a clear line stealing and what's inspiration all in all. I think that may slow down AI art, but it won't stop it. And it's no point in trying to oppose it. Sure. As designers, we shouldn't let people steal our art. But I think AI will gradually replace designer positions at specific types of companies. Again, games, movies, fancy animations, things of that nature. But here's why I'm personally not worried. H and M sells high quality shirts, they have very affordable prices. But still tailors exist even though they charge more, even though they are slower old fashioned, or still do very well. That's what you need to focus on. Being a designer that knows a company inside and out and helps it with the things it's struggling with. If you sell white cookie cut of simple T shirts, obviously it's going to be tough. H and M is always going to destroy you. Or when you sell something extremely complicated where corporate executives would do anything to get rid of you. Yeah, again, it's really going to be tough. Think about movie sets again. Absolute massive companies. Those want to optimize costs. But if you're a designer and you cater to small and medium businesses and you address death specific needs, I think you're going to be fine. You know, sometimes I buy from H and M, but most of the time I do prefer getting the attention and the human interaction of a tailor and I get exactly what I want. Something that's specifically for me, something that suits me, not something off the rack. And most business owners feel the same way, especially small to medium business owners. Plus, and I'm going to end with this one. It's going to be expensive. Ai art. Sure, costs are going to come down, but I assure you that your local restaurant, for example, or tons of local businesses won't be switching to an AI art generator right now. They can barely use Google Maps on their website or they set up a QR code for the menus. Don't go selling the farm just yet. Graphic design is still very much alive and it will remain alive for the good enough period where you shouldn't stop learning to design. So that's my take on it. It's quite exciting and you shouldn't really worry about it. Focus on yourself and your skills and you're going to do great. 10. Remove anything in one click – REALLY!: Welcome back. I have to say it again. Photoshop really is magical with this new release. Here's the thing. Hot key, J as in James on the left side. Click and hold in this area. Look for remove tool, which describes exactly what it does say we want to remove this person on the right side. The removed tool acts like a brush. This means we have to click hold and draw. What we'll do is we'll check the size from the options bar and we can adjust it. You can use this drop down here. Or better yet, you can use the squared bracket keys on your keyboard. For this image, I think about 100 should be fine. Now go around this person in a rough fashion. What you want to do is you want to cover him completely, but not spill too much into the background. But yeah, make sure you cover him completely. Okay, after you release your mouse, Photoshop is going to think for a while and then boom, that's it. Fantastic. This looks really great. Now let's switch to a new image. Let's start with the top shelf with the plant on the right. Say that for whatever reason, I don't like it. Well, again, activate the removed tool, hot key, J. Choose a decent size brush and then roughly encircle it here. It's fine. If I select just a bit of the shelf, it shouldn't cause any major issues. Just like that, it's totally gone. Now to make sure you have enough flexibility, let's do this. This is what I strongly recommend. The options bar enable this feature called Sample all layers. This is quite important now. Make a new layer from the bottom of the layout. Spanelkay. Great. Now let's focus on say, the second shelf. Say these yellow bottles. Brush over them with a removed wall. Obviously, it's going to remove them. Now in case you have something left over, not a problem, just use it again. Now what's different, This is on a different layer, flexibility. In case we change our mind, we can just hide this layer. This is the recommended way of working. Let's do it again. We start off with a brand new layer, Now let's take care of this plant here. This is a bit tricky because there's also a shadow. But no worries. Use the removed tool with Golden, just encircle it. Good to go again. If you need to go a second time, that's totally fine. But if you need 34, maybe five tries, then you may want to reevaluate the situation. Now, could you use this tool for small imperfections, for example, the dirt on the floor? Sure, of course, just click and that's it. Maybe click and drag depending on what's needed. This really is a fantastic feature that was introduced in this latest version of Photoshop. If you have an updated, please do it. It's a must. Now let's switch images. You have all of them attached. By the way here, these extra tennis balls aren't all that great. Let's remove them. Zoom in closely and choose an appropriate size. Remember the square bracket keys on your keyboard? Okay, make a new layer so we're going to work correctly. Okay, then encircle it, just a rough one. This is a tricky situation because the girl is in the background, but a Photoshop knows it and it does a perfect job. Let's try it again on this other ball that's on the white line. Remember new layout, please. Just so we have maximum flexibility. Okay, Now again, this is a tricky situation, but you know what, Photoshop magically does it. No problems. A few years ago this would have been a nightmare. Now, it's a walk in the park. What you do have to know is that this works best on large images. But yeah, you have all of them attached. Go for it, and see how you do. Try and remove certain things and see how it works. Have fun with it. 11. Discover Panel - Find hotkeys and panels fast!: Hey there. Starting with Photoshop, CC 2021, we get a new panel called Discover. In the past this was called Search, but now it's new and improved, and the search feature has been moved to the home page. I'll explain the differences in a minute. Let's get started for now. Here's the essence. Say you want to use the history panel, but you can't remember where it is. The Discover panel, Either click on this magnifying glass or use the hot key control F, that's command on a Mac. Here's the Discover panel. We have a search box right at the top, Type in history, and we'll get a list of results. At the top, you have a few suggestions, and a bit underneath, we have our shortcuts. More often than not, this is what's going to interest you. We're looking for the history panel. Let's click at Just like that, it brings it into action, and Photoshop also highlights it with a blue glow, just so it catches our eye. The program is kind enough to temporarily hide the discover panel, but if we use control F one more time, we can pick things up exactly where we've left off. To go back. We can use any of these three choices, the back icon, the close symbol, or the home icon in its default state. The Discover panel is packed full of tutorials, guides, and other content. My advice is you use it in case you're stuck and you don't want to ask a question on Discord and here's why I'm not in love with it. Or Betel said why. I think this course plus the discord chat is going to give you a much better learning experience. Say you want to apply a black and white effect like we did a few lessons ago, you don't remember the exact steps. You type in black and white. You go to the shortcut section and you find it here. Cool trouble is, it says it's under layer, new adjustment layer. While that's correct, most professionals add adjustment layers from the layers panel, from this Ying Yang looking symbol here it is. Now, while Photoshop is known for giving you the option to achieve the same thing in multiple ways, this may leave you scratching your head because it's different than what I taught you. Here's another thing. When you click it, you had met with this new pop up window. As a beginner, this may leave you confused. There are a bunch of options here that complicate the process for an experienced user. Sure, this is totally fine. But for someone who is just starting out, well, again, my method is easier and it's what professionals use more often than not Still, the Discover panel is a nice addition to Photoshop CC 2021 and it may get you out of a jam, especially when I ask you to use some tools that are difficult to remember. For example the patch tool. No idea where it might be hidden, right? Well, we could click and hold and explore some potential options, but it's just much faster to hit control F and type that in patch. And here's the shortcut. The patch tool with the hot key J, Beautiful and really useful. Now before we wrap this up, let's talk about the search feature which is similar, yet very different. So we know that we can open the discover panel through control or command F or through this magnifying glass when we have a project opened. Okay, but what if we don't have a document in play? Let me close it so I can show you. We still get this icon here in the top right side, but it's a bit different. This is the search feature and it will give you a completely different list of results, type in black and white. For example, notice this list looks way different. We have a tutorial here, some links that open up in our default browser, and at the bottom, Adobe stock, basically a website where you can purchase premium photos. That's the search feature that can be used when you don't have any projects opened. When we have one and we use this magnifying glass, get the discover panel. I realize this may be a bit confusing, but here's my advice, Don't worry too much about it. It's very unlikely that you'll use the search feature. It's unlikely that you'll actually use that magnifying glass when you don't have a project opened. As for the Discover panel, it's a good reference point when you need a bit of help fast. For example, when you need to look up a certain tool. Now just to be safe, I'll add a quick Che Che to this lecture just in case you want to refresh your memory about these two features. Thank you and let's keep going. 12. Use Photoshop’s Interface Efficiently: Welcome back. Let me show you how easy it is to understand Photoshop interface. So let's start the program by double clicking this PSD that you have attached to the lecture. Or you can use control and create any random project, the image itself isn't relevant. Okay, here we are inside the Photoshop, and there's lots to look at. Let me break down the interface. The most important part is this central area. This is called the canvas, and this is where everything happens on the canvas. This is where you draw paint design. And it's where you should focus 90% of the time. That means it's number one on our list. Now directly related to the canvas, we have the layout panel. And you can see it here on the right side. This is the layout panel. Just in case you don't have it, you can go to window and then layers. Okay, everything that you place on the canvas will also show up here. For example, I'm going to add a circle to my project, and immediately that's going to show up in the layouts. Panel two, you can see it's called ellipse one. These are connected and you can't use one without the other. If you think of driving, you can consider the canvas like your windscreen. Through it you see the most important thing, the road. In our case, the road is this image. Now the layouts panel is your dashboard where you can see information like speed, revs, fuel level, and so on. In Photoshop, your layout panel acts in a similar way, meaning it gives you information about what's going on on the canvas. Now if we talk about what's more important, you should always look at what's in front of you on the canvas. But you should also glance at your layers panel from time to time to get valuable inside. That means that number one is the canvas and then number two closely behind it, the layers panel. That's so far. Moving on, on the left side, we have the tool box or the tool bar, it's the same thing. Now, this area, Photoshop, should be accessed 90% of the time by using your hot keys. As you go through the course, you're going to pick up some hot keys. In essence, the idea is this. It's more efficient to hit B to get the brush tool, rather than moving your cursor all the way here to the left. And that's because our focus should be here, front and center on the canvas. This is where your mouse cody should be at all times. That's why we're going to use the tool bar by way of hot keys. Next at the top of photo shop, we have this menu system which contains all of options and features. Now we might use it from time to time, but the most important ones have hot keys. It's much faster to use those instead of going through all of these items. Considering all this, it lands at number four in my book. Immediately underneath it, we have this area which is called the Options Bar, which changes constantly depending on what tool you have selected. Right now, I'm using the move tool and I know that's the case because we can see that this icon is pressed. But if I click on any other tools, notice how this area changes. Basically, this is where you get to see and modify all the settings for every single tool. This is why it's called the Options bar. It shows you the options for every single tool. It is fairly important, but it also depends on the type of work that you're doing. Most of the time you're going to set it up and then that's going to be that, having said that, we can place it at number five. To sum it up, so far we have number one, the canvas, number two, the layers, panel number three, the toolbar or the tool box number four, the menu system and number five, the options bar. Now we are going to work with the first three about 90% of the time. Please don't worry about having to memorize anything. You don't need to do that. As we go through the course, you're going to start learning them effortlessly. Okay, that wraps it up. I'm going to see you in the next lecture. 13. Customize Your Workspace: Welcome back. Photoshop is a design program that can be used for lots of projects because everybody is different. The good guys at Adobe made Photoshop interface customizable. So that means that all these panels together can be switched around and adjusted. By the way, all of this, all these panels together make up what's called the workspace. Let's see what's, what start any project by using control and nothing special, right? Photoshop comes with some workspaces already built in. If we click on this icon in the top right side, you're going to see several options, essentials, red graphic and Web and so on. Please explore them and notice how the interface changes. The point is if you want to do some image retouching, you're going to need certain panels. But if you want to do some web design work, for example, you're going to need totally different panels. This is why we have several web spaces built in. Plus we can always set up our own. That's what we'll do together. For now, let's go back to essentials, so we can customize the interface together step by step. I suggest you always use reset Essentials. This way will throw away any changes. All of these panels can be detached. The toolbox, for example, is placed by default on the left side, but if you go to the top of it, click hold and drag, you're going to see it's going to detach from that side. Basically, you can leave it floating about or you can attach it, for example, to the right side, drag it across. And without letting go of mouse, move it until you're going to see this blue line. This means that you can dock it in that position, you can attach it. Okay. Now, obviously this doesn't look all that great. Let's move it back. Oh, by the way, please note that you have to grab it from the top section, from this small part, otherwise you won't be able to move it around. Okay, this is looking much better. Now, still on the tool bar, you can have it occupy one or two lines. To toggle between those states, click on this small on. As you can see, it takes up one or two lines. Personally, I'd like to switch it back. Okay. Now, regarding all the other panels, they work the same as the tool bar. Meaning they can be moved around, detached, and reattached to any other zone. Take the light vis panel as an example. Yours is probably empty, but you're still going to have it in your workspace. Let's say that you don't need it. Not a problem. You can drag it from that position and drop it anywhere. Now we've freed up some space, we can always put it back. But here's the thing. Click and drag, but don't let go. See this blue line here? This shows me that we're going to place it here in between the layers panel and the properties panel from above. If I'm going to let go, it's going to make space for itself, but let me drag it away. Once again, as you can see at the top, we have the color panel activated. But there are the few other panels here that are hidden right now. Swatches, gradients and patterns. Well, we could move lives there too. Just look for this blue highlight. Obviously, you have to be patient and move your mouse around. Let's do this again, but now let's move it next to adjustments. See that highlight. That's what we're looking for, but let's drag it out once more. We can close it off completely by using this x symbol, but here's the thing. You can always get it back by going to window from the top. This list is sorted alphabetically. Go to L and you're going to find libraries. Great, I'm not going to click it because most of the time we actually don't need it. Actually, for most of the chords, you're going to need three to five panels in total, only a handful. Let me show you how quickly you can remove them. What if you want to close several panels at once? For example, all four panels at the top? Well, we can click on this very small icon. Adobe thinks that we have super vision. I'm guessing that's why they're using these super tiny icons. Anyway, click here and you're going to click on Close Tab Group. And that's it, they all went away. Next, I suggest we enable a new panel by going to window. From here. I like to use character. This is going to sit on this Natow bar right here. And here's the logic behind it. We always want to see the properties panel because we get loads of information from it. And then we need the layers panel at all times. That's a given. It's super important. But the character panel, not so much. Rather than going to the window menu and activating it every time I need it, I would much rather have it here in this column. One click away. That's why I like to place it right here in this area. You can only have one active panel at a time. Say that we need the history panel. Not a problem. Just click here. It's one click away, and that's a bit faster. Versus going to the window menu and scrolling down and whatnot. Again, it's not a huge time saver, but it's pretty good. Now, everything that you see here in this narrow column, can we drag it away? Of course we can, every single one. Can we take one panel and put it inside the column? Of course we can. Can we put it above properties, for example? Should we can have it open at all times? Photoshop is very flexible, but my recommended workspace is this. Have the character panel inside this column. And then shrink the properties panel just a bit, make it a bit shorter. That's because the layers panel is very important in my book. Final Thing. Space is essential in photo shop. The more panels you have expanded, the less area for your canvas. Right? Obviously that's not a good idea because the canvas is the most important thing. Remember, the canvas is your windshield. You're driving a car and you need to look at the road, right? All these panels are supporting elements. They are never the Aa, they're never the most important part, right? You should be really peky about what panels should stay expanded. For example, let me just throw something together. Just add another panel to the right side just like that. We've expanded everything, as I said, space precious. So let's not waste that. Remove it and that's going to be that okay with Don. Without settings, this is how I recommend you set up your workspace Calci, panel property, Spanel, Laylpanel. I think we actually need the brush settings, that doesn't hurt, so let's enable it. Awesome. Now to finish things off, let's save our workspace by clicking here on this icon from this list. Choose new workspace. Obviously you're going to need a name. I'm going to call it Cress. Hit Save, and now you're going to find it. And this drop down here, awesome. Now why is this useful? Well, in case someone comes along and changes your workspace, dramatically, throws things around that Mrs. everything up. You don't want to repeat every single thing that we just did. Instead, we're going to do this, click here and choose Reset Cress. Everything is exactly like we left that. Okay, Please go and create your own workspace so you can get familiar with the techniques I've shown you. Move things around, collapse them, and so on. Have fun. 14. Create a New Project: Welcome back. Let's see how we can create a new project in photo shop. When you open up the program, you have two main options. Either you can hit this button right here, or what most professionals do, use Control, that's command on a Mac. First of all, let me hit Escape so I can show you how you can remove all of these entries here, just in case you want to hide your recent projects. You could change the viewing mode from this icon here. This is the list mode, though. It still has a thumbnail on the left side. I do like the other way of seeing them. Let me switch back. But again, in case you want to clear everything, you can go to the top menu and click on File. From here, go to the Open Recent List. Now this is going to be a big list, but at the bottom you're going to find this option, clear recent file list. It's that easy. Everything is nice and clean. Okay, now let's use control end and create a new project. Now without two main choices. If you're going to print your design, you have to use the print tab. This is great for the packaging for the flyers, brochures, business cards, things of that nature. But for most projects you're going to use the web tab here. There's a lot to look at, but it's actually quite simple. All of these presets at the top only change the width and the height. When I'm clicking through them, you can see that everything remains the same, just the width and the height change. But more than that, no matter what you choose, you can always change your mind at a later point. Yes, you can always resize your project after you've started it. This is for the web projects, again, not for the print ones. Now, this means that you don't have to worry about the size of your canvas. Now, next you do have some templates here that may help you jump start your projects. But my advice, don't use them, they're not that useful. They actually tend to confuse you more than anything. Back to all settings. The main thing that you should do unchecked this option called artboards. Now those may be useful in certain situations, but throughout most of this course, we're not going to use them. Now, Artboards are great for web design projects, app design projects, or those situations where you want to get a side by side comparison. It's like having multiple canvases, if that makes sense. But again, for most projects, especially the ones in this course, these are not useful. You're going to learn about them in a separate chapter. But for now, just remember to uncheck this option next. You should always use these settings at 72 pixels per inch, RGB, color eight bet, nothing else for the web projects. These are exactly what you need. Okay, let's hit Create. Now, at this point, it's essential, you know, one thing, you've made the project, but it's not saved anywhere. We'll talk about that in the next lesson. But right now, it's important that you realize that you can tell that's the case by looking at the name Untitled, which simply means no title. You didn't give it any name. 100% is the zoom level. If I grab the zoom tool and I click a few times, you're going to see 300% then RGB and eight. Those are the settings from the previous screen. Now Photoshop works like your browser. If we start a new project with control land, with any settings, you're going to see that we have them set up into tabs. These tabs are separate. They're independent. They don't interact with each other. They have a separate layer spanel. They're totally different, right? But overall, that's how you start a project. Now please continue to watch so you can find out how you can save a project in Photoshop and how you can export it. I'm going to see you in a second. 15. Get around Photoshop Fast: Welcome back. Let me start Photoshop and open up two empty projects so we can explore how we can get around the project. I'm going to add a red shape to the first project, just so we can easily identify it. Then I'm going to switch tabs, and then I'm going to add the blue one to the other tab. Now as I said before, Photoshop works with projects like a web browser. You have them set up in tabs, and that's the best way to work. Now what you should avoid doing is this, detaching them and have them floating about. Now give me a second to show you how I can easily mess up this interface. Now you might think, why would I do something like this Crest? Well, this was quite popular for Mac users a while back, where everything was just floating about the canvas, various panels, the works. Now the issue is that it's hard to know what's what, especially when you have loads of layouts in your layout panel, you don't know what project is what. Remember, you should always know what's going on inside your layout panel, what layer you have selected, what type of layer it is, and so on. That's why it's best you go to the top menu to window. From here go to a range and then consolidate all into tabs. This is the only way to work as far as I'm concerned. Please make sure that you follow this advice. Next, let's talk about zooming. Now, this can be done in several ways. I'm going to use a different project so you can see the benefits. Now if you want to see the entire thing, the entire project, use control zo command zero on a Mac. Now this makes the project fit your display, no matter how large or small it is. This is best used when you want to see the overall look and feel of the project. When you want to see the entire thing. That's because sometimes you may work to zoom then. And then you tend to hyper focus on one specific area and then you neglect the rest of the project. That's control zero, it fits the design to your screen. Now obviously it can work for small things as well. Instead of making it smaller, it's actually going to make it bigger. You have to make sure that you understand this fits it to your screen. No matter if it's big or small, it's going to make it fit. Now what I really recommend is control one, where you can remember the one as 100% This is critical for all of your projects because this is how people are going to actually see your work. If I use a very tiny font, let's say something ridiculous. Like, I don't know, eight pixels. Okay, If you work super zoomed, then you may think, hey, this is actually quite good. This is fine. I can read it, it's all good. Or I may use 100 pixels. But if I'm constantly being zoomed out, if I work all the way zoomed out, you might not notice that this is a problem. Maybe you use control zero and you say, hey, this is fine. But in short, you should always come back to 100% 100% Control one is the only true way to judge your design to see if it actually makes sense. Moving on, you may need more control with your zooming, right? Because control zoo and control one, they may be a bit too extreme. No worries. Grab the zoom tool. Hot key Z. The easiest way to work is this, click hold and move towards the right to zoom in. Now you're going to notice that your Cucl position is quite important, and that's because that's where you're going to zoom in. If you want to zoom out, click hold and move towards the left. It's really that easy to know with you that please look at this percentage, it's always in the bottom left corner. Okay, that's zooming. Click hold, and move your mouse left or right. But the absolute classic way is to click. Have a look at the options bar, this area here. Notice the plus symbol that's pressed. This means that by default you're going to zoom in. Click anywhere on the canvas and you're going to do just that with zooming in with each click. But if you want to zoom out, you actually shouldn't move here and click on the minus icon. No, Instead what you should do hold Alt. And that's the option Iono Mac that temporarily switches you to the minus symbol. Any click on the canvas will make you zoom out. That's awesome, that's Alt. To temporarily switch it. Let's do a recap. Control z though, fits the entire design on your screen. No matter how big or small it is. Control one is the most useful zoom level because it's the truest form of the project. This is what you should always use now to zoom in or out. You can activate the zoom tool Kz, click, hold, and move your mouse left or right. Or you can simply click to zoom in and then hold Alt to click and zoom out. Now this is all fine and well, but there's nothing without the following technique, without adding this to your skills. And that's panning around. To pan around. Here's what's up. Say that I zoom into this corner and I want to do something here, whatever that may be, right Then I need to move onto the other side of the project, to the other corner. Now the best way to do that is to hold the Spacebar key. Now your cursor is going to become a tiny hand. This means we can move around, and this is officially called panning. While holding the Spacebar key, click hold and drag, side to side, coordinate to coordinate whatever you want to do. Now, I've been using Photoshop for over 15 years, and trust me, this is one of the things that you have to master, zooming in and out, and panning around. Now to make sure you practice these techniques, we have an exercise in the next lecture. But for now, let me show you two more things about photo shop. If you press Tab either by mistake, intentionally, you're going to hide all your panels. Now if this ever happens, simply had tab again and it's totally fine. Now what's the purpose? Why would you want to hide everything to get a clear view of your work? No distractions, but actually very few people use Tab. Instead, what I recommend is you go full screen mode. This is done by hitting the key twice. That's once, and then twice the key for the full screen. Then you may want to use control Zo to get a great view of the project. That's the key, twice. By the way, you don't need to hit it all that fast. Every head cycles you through the viewing mode, it's quite easy to get back to the regular Photoshop work space. It's time to practice. Let's get to it. 16. Execise: Practice zooming and panning: Welcome back. It's time to practice of zooming and panning because this is such a large part in working in Photoshop. Here's the task, we have this pretty big project and we need to arrange these circles. Here's how you should work. Get the move, dual hot key v, and make sure you have these settings. Auto select is unchecked, then next to it, and this drop down, you need to have layer here, not group. Okay, now let's zoom into the first group which is for the black circles. Let's hold the control key and click on the blue one. This should not be here. Check the layers panel and make sure that it's correctly selected. Okay, this is fine on my end. Now begin to click and drag it towards the right. Now when you get to the edge of the screen, you're going to have to hold space bar. Click and drag. And then rinse and repeat. Move constantly. Move constantly until you get to that position, until you get to the blue area. Now this is going to take you quite a few times to get to the other side, but that's totally fine. That's the point. You have to zoom in and pan around a lot. Now, you really have to get used to this technique. Now, I know it seems so simple, right? So basic. But trust me, I've interviewed hundreds of designers for my design company. This is one thing that's extremely important to me. Now, another way to go about it is this. Let me hit control z though. Next I'm going to zoom in a lot. And I'm going to grab the green circle from the top left side. Now that it's selected, I'm going to zoom back out. Because here's the thing. Switching tools doesn't deselect the current layer. You can use the zoom tool, hockey Z without any issues. Okay, now that we've zoomed out, we can click hold and drag it into place. Here's the thing. We don't even need to click above it. No, because it's selected. Photoshop knows that that's the thing that we want to move. It's quite easier to work like this, really zoomed out. Now your job is to use both techniques, zooming and panning around to get used to it. To make this a bit more interesting, let's use a stopwatch On your phone, You get a timer and see how fast you can do it. Please do it three times and see how your time changes, how you improve. Let me show you how you can reset the project. Let's assume everything is completely done here, right? Everything is grouped nicely. To do the exercise, again, activate the history panel. Should have it here in this narrow column. If you've been following along. If you don't have it, go to the top menu to window. From this list that's alphabetically sorted, you need to go to the middle of it and find history. If you click this very first entry, you're going to reset the project. Okay, Now give it three tries and post your times in the comments area. Remember, zoom and pan, it's really important that you get comfortable with it. Good luck and let me know your times. 17. Save your Photoshop work: Welcome back. Let's talk about saving our work in Photoshop. Let's do the following thing. I'm going to create any random project. The settings don't matter in any way, so you can use any size that you want. Okay, now I'm going to drag in an image inside my canvas just so we have something to look at. Again, this isn't anything special you can use just about anything in this project for the purpose of this lesson. Okay, next I'm going to apply an adjustment layer, just with a nice effect right now. Let's assume that we're totally happy without work and we want to save that. This is where we need to make an essential distinction. It's one thing to save our work and then it's another thing to export that. To put it another way, you can either save the project for future use as a PSD or share it with your friends as a PNG with a Jpeg. These are two very different choices. These means separate things. Saving, exporting. Let's break it down by saving our work. We're going to create a dot PSD file, or what's called as a source file. This is useful for one specific thing for the future editing or the otherwise put flexibility. The idea is that you have a PSD file that contains all the individual layouts as you've left them. This means that you can open the project Tomordrow a month from now. A year from now, and you'll still be able to play with D settings and make other edits. This is only possible if you save your work as a PSD file. That's done through the hot key control S, where stands for save. Now as another option, you can go to the top menu to file. From here, look for save As, and that's going to get you the same thing. Now in this newest Photoshop version, a new window is going to show up, asking you if you want to save the project on your computer locally, on your drive, or on the other hand, you can save it on the cloud. This is similar to Drawbox or Google Drive. For the moment, we're going to focus on the standard method of saving your project on your computer. This is what I actually recommend as well. It's quite simple. Now, in this window, please choose a location that you know about. For example, I like to use my desktop as a tempered saving point, then give it a name without any special symbols, without any special characters, no dollar signs, asterisks, brackets, things of that nature. Keep it simple, right? Next, notice the file format. It's SD and then these two other ones. This is exactly what you're looking for, nothing else. Don't change it then. After you've saved your PSD on your desktop, you may want to create another folder somewhere on your computer so that you can keep it safe. Now, obviously, it's best that you organize all your projects from this quads into a folder so that you can check them out at a later stage. Okay, now I'm going to start the new project. So I can show you the differences between saving and exporting when you start a new project. Before you can say that you have to do something, anything, you have to do one action. For example, I'm going to use the brush tool. But it can be anything right after you did one single action. Now you can say that, now you can use control less, and you're going to see this list again. You can choose any format here, but here's the thing. While you can choose any format, you should never, ever choose anything except for PSD. This is the only choice SD, And that's because when you choose something else like Jpeg and J Gift, you're no longer saving your work. No, you're actually exporting good work. And that's covered in another lecture. Here's the difference in a nutshell, when you open a PSD file, you'll saved work. You're going to get a bunch of layers through which you can edit your work. With a lot of flexibility, you can change your mind, you can do loads of things. Imagine that you worked, I don't know, maybe 6 hours on this project, right? And you have tons and tons of work. Well, you can just pick up where you've left off, but if you export it as a PNG and you open it in Photoshop, this is what you're going to get, a single layer. That means you're editing. Options are very much limited, especially if you wanted to play for example, in this case with that adjustment layout, slided a bit more. So you have no options here. You're going to have to start again from this point. Basically that's the main difference between saving your work as a PSD, keeping all your layouts, and then exporting it as a PNG Jpeg with any other format. In the first case you can continue working with, you've left things off. In the second case, you have very limited options. Exporting makes sense when you want to share your work with your friends, posted on social media, and so on. In that case, obviously uploading a PSD file doesn't make sense. But again, we'll talk about sharing our work, exporting it in a few minutes. Now you may encounter the situation where you won't know if the project is saved or not. So here's how that works. When you start a new project, you're going to see it's called Untitled, and that's about that, right in this tab. You're also going to get the zoom level, the color mode, and the bit depth again, which by default should be RGB and eight. Now here's the thing. If you do anything whatsoever in this blank project, let's say create an empty layer, right? Notice something changes in the tab. Starts, you're going to see layer one shows up. That tells you the current layer that's being selected, that's its name. Now if you switch to the background layer again, the tab is going to change. But here's the important bit. If you're going to hit control less and save this project as a PSD file, call it whatever you want. Crest dot PSD, whatever. Now look at the tab, you're going to notice a difference. This is how you can tell a project is saved as a PSD. You look at it tab, let me create a blank project once again, so you can compare them. This one here, where there's no extension, it's simply called title. Okay? And this saved project looks like this. Now you may open up various other file formats. For example, let me drag an image from my desktop. If we take a look at the tab, we're going to see that this is a PNG file. It's not saved as a PSD. Okay, right now, there's no need for that. But if you do any edit, any changes that we might adjust later down the road, saving it as a PSD is the only way to go. That's about that, regarding saving your files as PSD's. Now here's something else to keep in mind. When you save a project, chances are you're going to continue to work on it. In this case, for example, I'm going to create a new layer and I'm just going to scribble something with the brush tool. That's not important. Now, please focus on the Tabat. Again, notice something new. An asterisk has just appeared next to the clothes symbol. This is Photoshops way of telling you that you have unsaved work. That's not to say that the PSD is not saved on your drive. No. Instead, this tells you that you've made some additional changes that have not yet saved. Going to hit control less and then the asterisk is going to go away. But again, if you make any changes, any edits, no matter how big or small, even if it's like creating a blank layer, again, the asterisk is going to show up. Now, your job isn't to make sure that this symbol goes away. It's just a friendly, subtle reminder that you have unsaved work Now, professionals often hit control less every couple of minutes in case the computer crashes. Please make a habit out of using that hot key. It's unanimously considered the lifesaver use controls very often. That's about it. Regarding saving your work, let's do a quick recap. Saving a PSD is needed because it allows you to continue working on your project no matter how much time has passed, right? Plus, saving your PSD is fantastic when your power goes out or your computer crashes. My advice is you work for 10/22 then save it as a PSD. Then constantly use control less. That's the best way to work. That's how professionals work as well. Now exporting your work as a PNG at a Jpeg is covered in another lecture. And that's useful when you want to share your work with your friends. Okay, awesome. One final thing, control Les will initially ask you where you want to save your PSD, be it on your computer or your cloud. After you save it, you should continue to use control less. Like I just said, control less every few minutes because that's the best way to go about it. One final thing. Always have a look at the project tab to see if it's saved as a PSD. And glance from time to time to check if you have unsaved work, which is indicated by an asterisk. That's about it. Thank you so much and please continue watching because it's really interesting to see the complete picture about exporting your work. Thank you. 18. Export Your Work in 5 Ways (as a PNG/JPEG): Welcome back. Let's talk about sharing your work with the world. This doesn't mean sending them the PSD file with all your layers and edits? No. Instead, it's about exporting the project as a PNG or the Jpeg file so that you can send it or post it anywhere on the web. I have a random project here with a few layers. This is how I can share it with the world. The best method number one on my list is old control shift W, Basically all of your modifier keys. And then now that's quite long. All control shift, it may be easier to go to the top menu to file. From here, go to export, then export, as in case the file is quite big, this may take a few seconds to load up. From here, you have quite a few settings. For example, the file type PNG gives you maximum quality, but the file may be quite big in terms of kilobytes. Jpeg is a decent choice too, and you do have a slider that controls the quality. You're going for my advice, stick with PNG, moving down, you may be working on huge images, chances are you don't need them at such a big size. You could scale them down either by putting in another value in one of these boxes, width or height, or what I like to use. And what I recommend, use the scale drop down. Don't play with the canvas size, and these other bits are fine as they are. Now, you could potentially export the same project at different sizes by using this part here. But to be honest, most people never use it. Let's move on. Let me hit Escape and show you the second way of exporting that's quite old and I don't actually recommend it. The old one is old control shift and instead of W, you get, this is the version from Photoshop S six from 2012, ages ago. Now the main functions are still here. You can select the file type, you can change the size of the image. It's much, much better to use the newer version. Before we go to number three, let me say this, absolutely, ever. Go to File Save As, and then choose from this drop down, a format like PNG a Jpeg. Please don't do it. The end result won't be optimized, and this is a horrible choice. Please never export this way, okay? The third way to export is by going to the layouts panel and right clicking from here. You can use Quick Export as PNG. This is much faster because Photoshop will only save that specific layer, nothing else. Obviously, it has downsides because it doesn't save the entire thing, the entire canvas. But when you want to export maybe an icon, maybe a few certain layers, this is awesome. In case you don't want PNG files, you can change the format by using control. That's command K on a Mac. Go to export from here. You can change this drop down to whatever you want. My advice is you keep it set as PNG. Now to recap, you write Click, and you choose export as PNG. This is very fast, but it only exports that specific layer or group. The fourth method is actually quite similar. Go to the layouts panel and choose export. As after you write click, you get the same window as with all control shift W, the first method and the recommended method. But this is different because it only saves that selected layer. Remember, the first choice exports the entire project, all the layers. But with these last two methods, 3.4 these only export selected layers. Layouts or groups. Look, we can exit and select multiple layers. I'm holding down control to select several layouts by clicking on them. Okay, now we can write click and choose Export As. And on the left side you're going to see multiple layers. See this part. But if I hit escape and use the first method, Alt control shift, we'll only see one single thing. To sum everything up, use Alt control shift the first method, or go to file export, export as, which is exactly the same thing. That basically concludes of four ways of exporting your work. Please see the attached image in case you want the shirt version. Have fun with it. 19. How to Crop and Straighten Photos: Welcome back. Let's crop and straighten a photo. Please open up this PSD file that you have attached or open any other image with control that's Commando on a Mac. Now the first thing that I want to do is straighten this image because I'm not in love with its perspective. Now to straighten an image, I'm going to enable the crop tool by pressing C C for crop. If you want to make sure you've selected it right, check your tool bar on the left side. Okay. If needed, please pause the video and check all of these settings here. Okay? Otherwise you may get some weird behavior. Okay? Immediately you're going to get this dotted stroke on the edge of the image. This shows you the crop tool is active. In case you have to zoomed in, you can use control zero to fit the image to your screen and now you should be able to see the handles. That's control zero to fit the image to your screen. Next I'm going to go to the options bar and I'm going to enable straighten, Is this one here. Luckily, this image has some straight lines and those will help us. Here's what you do, You click and you drag alongside this edge. Once you're happy, let go, and Photoshop is going to show you a preview of what you're going to get. This is fantastic stuff. The result is nearly perfect. We can hit Enter or we can use this check mark here. I'm not going to do that just yet. Notice the grade out area outside of this region, that's going to be thrown away by Photoshop, But it's quite a shame because I love the fourth, this background. Here's what we can do. Starting with the latest Photoshop edition, we now have a dropdown in the Options Bar and it's fantastic. That's in this area here. This is called Options Bar. Again, this is only available in the latest Photoshop edition. If you haven't upgraded, please make sure you do it because this is fantastic. One thing though, I sometimes pin Photoshop to my task bar, say the 2023 version I've upgraded, but the pinned one is still the old one. I may launch the old one by mistake. Please take a note of that. Make sure you pin the right one. The latest one. Okay, Back to it. In the options bar, I have a drop down now. The background means the bottom color from the left side and basically nobody uses that. Content Aware is Photoshops, local artificial intelligence, AI. That's pretty good, but it's not amazing. The star of the show though is generative. Expand select it and then use the check mark. Now this Generate feature talks to Adobe servers. It uses artificial intelligence to fill in those areas. It works very well. But just in case you're not happy, you do have two other options here. Now let me undo and show you the previous version, Content Aware, which isn't as smart. You don't have to repeat this process. By the way, just watch and learn. Now as you can see, Content Aware is decent, but it's a lot worse than generative fill. The conclusion, if you want to fill in an area with the crop tool, make sure the fill is set to generative fill. Now the question is, Chris, does this always work? No, of course not. For example, take this image of myself, nice and serious. Now let's say that you want to see my legs and you try expanding into that area. Needless to say, it doesn't work all that well. Now, this latest Photoshop version is amazing. Yes, but it's still limited. Here's another example. We have this lovely image of a beach, but it's in portrait mode, right? We need to make it much wider so we can use it in landscape mode. Well, we're all excited to use the crop tool and generative fill. We hit, we grab a cordon handle, we make it super wide. Trouble is the result is going to be fuzzy. There is no detail here. That's another limitation. This artificial intelligence is currently limited to a certain size. What you can do is slowly expand the photo bit by bit, slowly in small chunks. That's going to give you slightly better results. But even then, in some cases, it's not going to work all that great. You will see some artifacts, some weird bits. This fill option overall, we love it, but we need to be realistic about what it can and what it can't do. And here's one thing you have to be aware of. Let's start over. Totally fresh. Say that I'm on the move tool, then I decide to remove part of this image with a crop tool. Right? I activate it by using C and then I can use any of these handles to resize cool. When I'm done I'm going to hit Enter and the handles are going to go away. But I'm still on the crop tool, but there are no more handles if you want to crop again, this may be a bit confusing. No worries, simply switch to the move tool, hot kev, then switch back to the crop tool, hotkey C, and now you'll get back those handles. I repeat, if the handles go away, switch to a new tool, any tool, then activate the crop tool yet again. Right. Let's see other things that we can do. Say that you want to remove the bottom part. Not a problem. Just grab the middle handle and drag up. Once you're happy, hit enter. If you're not happy with the result, you can drag it back down and you'll still get those peels. The image is going to be just fine. That's because I have this option unchecked. If I enable it, delete cropped pixels, then I remove part of my image. Those pixels will be lost, permanently lost. Let me drag again and hit Enter. Okay, now let's get the crop tool and expand the photo in that area. Yeah, as you can see with getting transparent pixels, enable this feature only if you're sure that you want to permanently remove that area. And here's something else, if you don't want to use the handles. You can also click and drag anywhere on the canvas. Initially, Photoshop is going to show you a preview of your selection. And then obviously you can refine it or move it around or use the date handles. Now I'm just holding down my mouse click by the way, and I'm dragging, nothing else is being pressed. You have quite a lot of freedom here. When you're happy you can hit Enter. Finally, most Photoshop users prefer to resize the canvas with the crop tool, and that's because it's so easy to do. Simply activate it and make sure you disable content aware or generator fill, then grab a corner handle and drag outwards. If you want to enlarge the entire canvas equally on all four sides, please hold down Alt, that's the option, Kono, hold down Alt and you're going to resize from all parts. The great thing is Photoshop is going to tell you your measurements. You can decide when it's best to stop, when you're happy head enter. And that's how you can easily resize your canvas, make it smaller or bigger. This is not what the crop tool is used for, but the loads of people use it that way. Basically, that wraps it up. Remember you have this image attached. If you want to work on another one, please use control. Go for it and have fun. 20. This is how Photoshop saved me $9000: Welcome back. I want to take a quick break and give you a bit of context. Why should you learn Photoshop, right? There's artificial intelligence, there's Canva.com There are loads of templates of all sorts. Why would it matter if you know Photoshop, right? Well, here's how. Photoshop has saved me over $9,000 for my healthy food company in Romania. Let me start off with one of the biggest things, my granola packaging. I designed everything myself. I got the empty template from the printing company and then I started playing with it. I did version after version. I experimented with different looks. In the end, I came up with this design. I quite like it. They have two versions actually. There's a glossy one made of plastic and then there's a paper one that's biodegradable. Now, the second one isn't as lovely to look at, but it's more eco friendly. That's one thing that I did through Photoshop. Moving on, I needed labels for all of my products and I did those myself as well. I went to Version after the version, I asked the printing company for some samples, and then when I was happy, I pushed them into production and I did the entire thing, about 40 labels in total. Of course, I also designed the entire website, the desktop, and the responsive version. And if you've seen my web design courses, you probably know that I took the company from about $10,000 per month, in terms of revenue, to over $60,000 per month just by making small design changes, like editing the gallery, changing the size of the titles, putting the views in a different position, adding some check marks in good places, and so on. All small design decisions, all done by editing the design and Photoshop and telling the coder what to do. And right now I'm designing my own packaging for my oatmeal cookies. This is going to be a cardboard box and it's in the same style as the granola packaging because I'm already in one hundreds stores across the country to keep it short. I also made business cards. I made Facebook ads, flyers, brochures, menus of all sorts. I did just about everything that you can think of. This is easily worth $9,000 but more than the money I saved, I got to experiment with various looks. See, when you hire a designer, the more you change your mind, the more expensive it is. It makes sense, right? But by doing it myself, I had the confidence that I was getting the best version. But back to why learning Photoshop is amazing. You may not have your own company, right, no problem. But you can create this type of stuff for the other businesses, for the business owners that don't know photo shop and that's how you are going to get good money. Photoshop is not just about beauty, retouching, making means, or just playing around. No, you can actually create immense value to the width. Just think about this simple example, right? For example, I designed ten Facebook banners, right, for Facebook and Instagram. Out of them, three clearly got more flex. What I did was I talked to my marketing agency and I pushed all of my budget to those three banners. This is very valuable to any company because more clicks means more sales, but those bands are not that hard to make. This is why you should learn Photoshop. You can make it into a career, but you can also make it as a part time freelancing thing. You can get a remote job, you can do a lot. Photoshop opens up so many doors and you don't have to be talented or creative, or know how to draw. It's a method of following my design rules and principles. And you're going to be able to design these things as well. That's the main idea. You should learn photo shop, not just to edit your vacation photos or have fun with it. That's definitely an option as well. Sure, of course. But you can also use Photoshop to create valuable designs that can help any business grow. If you can do that, you're going to be paid very well. It's really up to you what you want to do. Now let's continue learning Photoshop. 21. Open Images in 6 Ways: Welcome back. Let's talk about how you can open images in Photoshop because we have a bunch of ways of doing the same thing. And I attach the file to this lecture where you can get the short version. Each method has its own advantages. Let's take them one at a time and see what's what the very first way, the most basic option is to right click the file and then choose open with, from this list, choose Photoshop. Now in case that is not there, you're going to have to browse your computer for this particular file. This is what you're looking for, but in general, it should be there. Okay. Once I click it, the photo will load up immediately. And this is going to be the single layer, the only layer in the project. You can see it here and it's called background and it's locked. That's not a problem though. To unlock it, we have to double click it from this new window. Hit Okay. Now we can move it onto the canvas. Okay, this is the first way. Right click open with photo shop. The second method is what I use more often than not. And that's control. That's command on a Mac where O stands for the open. Now in some cases, you may see this window which is related to Cloud documents. Don't worry about it. Just click here and we'll be back to our computer. Okay. Now this is a familiar window and you can use it to find the file that you're looking for. Now, in case you don't like the hot key control, you could go to file and then you're going to get the exact same window. Now, I don't have anything opened, right? No project to speak of. I just launched photo shop. Right. This brings us to the third way of opening an image, and that's dragging it into Photoshop. I'm going to go to my desktop, select the file, click Hold Photoshop open, and then drag it here. Now as you can see, this is quite similar to the first method where I have my layer locked by default. But what happens if you have an active project? You're working on something, and then maybe you want to start the new one by dragging a photo inside the program. That's method number four. Here's the thing. I'm going to go to my desktop. I'm going to select another image right when Photoshop pops up. I won't let go above this canvas area. Not here, this is not the place. Instead, I'm going to go above it, just underneath my Options bar. This is where I'm going to drop it. And now once I let go of the click, it's going to open in a different tab. Now you might be wondering what happens if you drag an image above an active project, right? So just above the canvas, well, that's method number five. So let me go back to my desktop. I'm going to choose a bunch of photos and then I'm going to drag them. Now when Photoshop comes up, I won't go above my canvas. Instead I'm going to release them here. Okay? Now, as you can see, the first image is placed on the canvas. It has these lines. We're in transformed mode. This means we can resize, that, we can move it around, we can do whatever we want. Now, the drawback, the negative point is that I selected three photos, each of them will ask me if I want to transform the image before I place them onto the canvas. This means that I have to hit Enter for every single photo. It's not a big deal, but it is something to consider. Now they're placed as a different layer type. These are smart objects. That's actually an advantage, but we'll discuss that later on in the course. Finally, option number six. The last one covers the case where I want to open these four photos in Photoshop, but in separate tabs. Every photo a different project. Now, that's actually quite easy to do in case there are no projects whatsoever. Photoshop is fresh, nothing is opened. I can simply drag them inside the program and I'm going to get them inside the individual tabs. That's quite easy, but in case you do have an active project, in case you're working on something and you want to bring them in, I'm going to drag them above my canvas area in this position, and now I'm going to release them again. We're going to get the same thing. Each image will have its own tab. That's how you can do it, basically, that's it. What I suggest is you stick with control low. But some of these options might come in handy depending on what you're trying to do. Try each method out and let me know your favorites and the comments. Again, for me, that's control low. Have fun with it. 22. How to resize a photo (shrink & enlarge): Welcome back. Let's talk about resizing an image. And you can do this in several ways. First of all, if you open up an image with control or dragging it inside Photoshop without any active project, the layer is going to be locked. No worries about that. That's totally fine. Double click it and hit Ok to unlock it, that's the first thing that you have to take care of. Now, resizing it, the first and best way to go about it is control. Where you can remember, as in transform, this is going to give you some handles around the photo. If you can't see them, simply use control zero or simply zoom out. Now most of the time it's best to use a cordon handle and it's really that easy to shrink a photo. When you're done, hit Enter and that's it. You're good to go. Now, there's a very small chance that when you hit control and you begin to drag, the image may act like this. It's being distorted. This is one of the worst things that you can do in Photoshop. In case this happens to you, please focus on the options bar at the top between W and H, which stand for width and height. You should have this chain icon. Now make sure that this is, and this should be good to go. What you can do is this. Or you could also do the following. I'm going to leave the chain unchecked, unpressed. You can see the other way to go about it, this resizing is not going well, right? But if I hold down shift, all of a sudden, this is great to recap. If you want to protect the image, make sure the chain icon is pressed. Or hold shift if needed. That's the first way control. The second way of resizing is through the options bar. After you hit control, this is a bit different now. By default you get percentages in terms of width and height. The thing you can write, click and choose pixels that allows you to work with precision, especially if you have a certain size in mind. Now the chain icon must be pressed because you need to protect the image. If you need something like 1,200 by 500, you may actually get, I don't know, 1,200 by a different value, just so you don't distort the image. But let's assume that you need that specific size no matter what. Here's the third way of resizing. You can use Alt control C to change the size of the canvas. Now put in whatever value you want. Technically, you're not resizing the photo, you're changing the canvas size, but the end result is the same. That's Alt control. Now you may get a warning, but that's totally fine. Then you can also reposition the photo if needed, if that makes sense to you, that's awesome. Okay, here's another way to resize a layer. And that's through the property spanel. You should have it in your workspace. If not, use the main menu. Go to Window. Then properties select the layer that you want to work on, and then you're going to have transform at the top of this list. It's the same thing as hitting control. This is slightly faster because you only need to select the layer and then put in those numbers. Those are four ways of shrinking a layer. Number one, control and use the handles the second way control, but then use the options bar to put in certain values. Number three, use all control C to resize the canvas. Finally, number four, use the properties panel that's shrinking it. What if you want to enlarge it? Well, if it's a single layer, you can use option number one, Alt Control, where I stands for the image. Previously we used Alt Control C, where C stood for canvas. Here you can put in a bigger value, but here's the thing. Don't exaggerate. Making it 20% bigger is fine, but making it ten times as big is not reasonable. See, Photoshop is great, but it's not magical, right? It can't do miracles. If your photo is very small and you want to blow it up ten times, it won't do a great job. You're going to get a blurry, pixelated image, so make sure that you enlarge by a small amount. When you want to make a photo bigger, it's best that you start off with a decent size. The bigger the initial photo, the better. Trying to enlarge 200 by 100 photo, extremely tiny, this is nearly impossible. And by the way, you could potentially use Alt control eye to shrink the image as well. Obviously you can make it bigger or smaller. It goes both ways. Yeah, when I want to enlarge something, this is the best way to go about it, number one. Now here's the second way of enlarging a photo. It's probably what you're going to use more often than not. First of all, you should dry click the layer in the layout panel. From this list, choose Convert to smart object. This is absolutely needed because it's going to give you a better result. Look for this specific symbol in the layers panel. If you have it, then this means it's a smart object and you're good to go. Then you can use control and enlarge it. Now just in case the canvas isn't big enough, you could hit Enter switch to the crop tool. Simply make the canvas bigger. Or of course, we just saw that we can use all control C to resize the canvas, make it fairly big, and then use control yet again, this is probably what you're going to use. Now, before we end, let me give you some bits of advice. Number one, don't use control on text layouts. Don't resize them like that. Instead, use the character or the property spanel and put in solid values like 70 pixels or whatever you need. But if you use control on them, you're going to get very strange values like 54, 79. That's not ideal. The second thing, hold shift, if the resizing isn't working well. For example, we know that we need the chain icon pressed when we're working on an image, right? Because this maintains the aspect ratio, otherwise said, with not distorting the image. Right? But what if we working on a rectangle and we want to make it wider, right? Well you might use control and then grab a handle on the right side and then drag, right. But look what happens. It's actually becoming taller as well, and that's because of the chain icon. To get what we want, we simply hold shift. And now we can do whatever we want. We can make it wider without any problems. And that's it about this tip. Finally number three. When you have a small image and there's a lot of empty space around it, go to Image, to the top menu, and then trim. Use these settings and hit, okay, basically you just shrunk the entire canvas. Now if you can't remember this part, just do the following. Get a crop tool and use the handles to shrink the entire canvas. Okay, remember to watch this video again. You make sure you get the main points. Have fun with it. 23. Shrink your PNG/JPEGs without losing quality: Welcome back. Let's say that you finish the project and you want to upload the design to your website. For example, maybe for your portfolio, maybe you want to attach it to an e mail, something like that, right? Trouble is when you export the image, althochifW, you may see the PNG is going to be huge, over 20 megabytes. Now for printing purposes, that's fine if you want to actually transform it into a physical banner or print the image on a canvas, maybe as a painting or something like that. Okay, that's totally fine. But just as an idea, most companies will actually ask you for the PDF file, not PNG but back to it. This design is likely going to be used on the web. Do you really need 4,000 by 4,000 pixels? That's super high, especially if you're going to post it on a regular website. If you want to upload it to any social platform, it's going to be squashed the bets, because all of these major platforms compress your photos and some of them even resize them. It's not a great idea to upload such large images, but let's say we want to make a small load of cells, right? We can use this scale feature. Let's lower it to something like maybe 33% right? This gives us a decent size. But the PNG is now only 2.3 megabytes only. Now this is a huge saving, but it's still too big. Now you may ask Chris, why are you so obsessed with it? 2.3 It's not that big. It's quite simple. The loading speed of your website matters quite a lot. It's one of the most important ranking factors as far as Google is concerned. This has been made known by Google for years on end. Google wants your website to be as fast as possible, but this actually also happens with newsletters. Mail chimp says that when you add huge photos, your E mails are actually going to suffer. You open rate isn't as good. Why? Because not everybody has an incredible Internet connection. Sure. On my end, I'm using a desktop computer. I have super fast, super cheap Internet. Sure. But that's me. If you're stuck on three G and you're paying 50 bucks for 1 gigabyte, the file size actually matters quite a lot. Looking at your file size is actually quite warranted. Even 2.3 is too big. What can we do now? I recommend two websites, and that's Tinypng and Love Img.com Now, both of these do a great job. In the past, I've seen that I love IMG works a bit better than TinypNG, but it does change from time to time, case by case. In short, you can upload your image. This is going to strip it of various information, made a data and whatnot, and shrink it. The main thing is it's not going to lose quality. And that's fantastic. It's going to look impeccable. Now to be fair, tiny PNG doesn't accept very large images without paying. It's 5 megabytes. I believe IloMG has a limit on how many photos you can actually do at a time. I actually use the premium version and I'm very happy with it. The great thing about it is that when you compare these two from Photoshop and the compressed version, you're going to see little to no loss in quality. Now one thing you should avoid is using the Jpeg format. While Photoshop will give you a smaller file size, the quality is not going to be great, it's going to be really visible. Png plus one of these websites is the best bet. There's one other option. It's not that great, to be honest, but I'm going to mention it in case you have loads and loads of files and you don't want to pay for the premium version, you could potentially use a standalone program, and that's PNG Gauntlet. Now this program looks like it's from the '90s, but it works fairly well. As far as I know, it's totally free. It's a super tiny program, it's fast to install, it doesn't have malware, it doesn't have viruses. But the downside is the compression, it's not as fast and it's not as good as those two websites I just mentioned. Now from my testing for this file, I think I'm going to get something like a file that's 550 K. Now PNG gauntlet after quite a while is going to give me something like 2 megabytes, from 2.3 to about 2 megabytes. The result is far from perfect. But again, you may want to use PNG gauntlet in case you have hundreds of files. But let's actually mention something that's cutting edge bleeding edge That's Web Web is a pretty new format that's used on websites. If you want to have the lowest possible size with decent quality web, P is the right choice. Now in general, you should expect to find various web press plug ins that handle this file format. Basically what happens is you upload your regular fat PNGs and then the plug in does its thing and changes the image to web. That's what's going to be shown. Now it does that in a clever way because not all browsers accept web. It's a complicated discussion, but just to be clear, you shouldn't try to export web files from Photoshop. Most likely than not, a plug in is going to do that job. In general, codes handle this part of the website. When in doubt, just ask a developer about how you should approach it. Now for my web design projects, that's what I do. I export as a PNG, then I go through, I love IMG, then web through a plug in. Now to be fair, I'm not sure if I love IMG is still needed when you use a web plug in, but it's just a matter of seconds, so why not? Plus, it makes transferring images much faster. That's what I recommend you use as well, PNG, and then we have these websites, and then you're good to go. If you're into web design, talk to your code about web, and that's it. Have fun with it. 24. The Powerful Properties Panel: Welcome back. Let's talk about one of the most powerful panels in Photoshop, and that's the Properties panel. This can be activated by going to the top menu two window. This list is sorted alphabetically, so go to the bottom and click on Properties if you don't have it. Now here's a massive disclaimer. What I'm about to show you is the new and improved properties panel. This has been around for a long time, but now it's being revamped. I'm currently using the latest edition of Photoshop, but if you're using an older version, you won't see all of these options. Actually, you're going to see that it's quite poor if you're using something from 2015 or something like that. So please keep that in mind as with working, use the latest edition of the program. So if on your end you're not seeing everything that I'm about to show you, then that means that you haven't upgraded to the latest version of the program. Okay, let's get to it. So this panel is filled with all sorts of useful controls that make your life much easier. We talked about many different techniques, Windows and hot keys. But the properties panel brings together some of the most common actions you might want to use. So this is it. This is basically a big shortcut list. Let me start a new project. So you can see there's nothing fancy going on, right? So a new 1920 by 1080 canvas, for example. Right? Here's the properties panel. We only have a single layer in this default project, so this means the properties panel will show us a lot of options, a lot of general options. For starters, we can flip these values, click on this icon, and Photoshop is going to ask you if you're sure, hit Proceed. And that's it. So basically now the canvas is in portrait mode. It just flipped it and of course you can flip it back though. You should expect the same warning. And of course, by having these two fields here, you can manually type in any value. For example, 1,000 by 500. You might want to check this box so you won't see the same method every time. Plus, here's a tip. I like to hit Tab to move to the second field, I put in the width, and then I hit Tab, and that's it. Automatically, it changes. Now this feature is great because you no longer have to use all control C to adjust the size of your canvas. This is a neat shortcut, but remember, we don't have any layers here. Okay, moving on, we can immediately change the background color from white to black, for example, or we could make it transparent. Of course, this is great stuff and it's all right here in the properties panel. You could also choose a custom color for beginners, this is absolutely awesome. It's quite easy to move around fast. Now moving on down, these two icons are especially useful for those who want to work with precision. The first one activates the rules which we're going to talk about at a later stage. The idea is that instead of remembering the hot key control R, you simply click here. Now you can get guides, you can drag them out from this position right here, and you can get maximum accuracy. Now when you're done, you can click here again and hide them. Tempodetally hide them. But what about that blue line? Do you get rid of that as well? Well, the classic way is to remember this hot key and that's controlled semicolon, obviously that's not for everyone. You could also do this, you can use this menu. This is quite big and you will find it somewhere here to actually show what hide your guides. Now in comes the properties panel to simplify things. Click here and it's hidden. There's a lot more to say. But we'll break things down in more detail in separate lectures down the road. The critical part regarding the property spanel is that it's contextual. That means it changes what it shows you, depending on what's being selected. Right now the project is empty, it's default state, right? The property spanel is showing us general options. But if you add the rectangle to this specific tool, look what happens. The properties panel changes. And we can actually do a lot of stuff for this specific rectangle. We can change the width, the height, and whatnot. But notice this is not for the canvas, this is for the rectangle. As you can see, as I'm playing around, the shape gets immediately adjusted. Now again, we're going to explore all the details in several lectures, but for now, I want you to know how you can change from one state to another state. For example, let's add a text layer right by having it selected. The Properties panel shows me a lot of options specifically for this layer. This is what I mean by contextual. All of these settings affect the text layer. Now you may want to go back to the general settings from the start. How do you do that? It's quite easy actually. You deselect by clicking in an empty spot in the layouts panel. Not to the side of a layer, by the way. No, you're going to select that. Instead, look for the place underneath your layouts. That's how you can get these initial options from here. For example, you can crop your canvas. By the way, notice these fancy handles. These have been slightly updated in 2020, I believe. Photoshop CC 2020. They act the same way, but they just look a bit nicer than before. Now let me hide the text layer because I want to trim all the excess space around this rectangle. Here's the situation. No more fiddling with the top menu. Just click here and you're done with it. This is the trend command always available in the properties panel. That's it. Basically, the properties panel is very beginner friendly and it brings together the things you're most likely going to use. Because it's contextual, it's a very good idea to have it always shown in your workspace and give it enough room to be clear. This panel is just a shortcut. For example, instead of clicking this crop button, this place you could easily hit C to activate the crop tool, or you could just go to the tool bar and click on its icon, right? But this is more approachable for people who aren't used to follow shops interface right now. Is this something new? Is it a game changer? No far from it. There are no new functionalities here. In case you don't have it or you don't want to use it, you're not missing out on anything. Again, it's just a series of shut cuts. Thanks for watching. And try and use the properties panel and see if this makes sense to you. Thank you so much. 25. Optional – Save your work to the cloud: Welcome back. This lecture about saving your work to the cloud is optional because this feature will no longer be available for most people, starting with 1 February 2024. Here's the situation, say you have three computers, one at your home, one at your office, and then maybe a laptop. And you constantly switch back and forth between them whilst working on various projects. Now, in case you want to have access to the latest version of your work at any given point, it's best to save it to the cloud. This just means that it's stored on the web and you can download it. You can sync it to your current computer as long as you have an Internet connection. This is called synchronizing to download is automatic. And it's a great way to work because you don't have to constantly use a USB stick, a USB drive, an external hard disk, or constantly e mailing the project back and forth. I'm sure you're familiar with Drawbox or Google Drive. Well, be decided it's time to offer something similar. Let's try it out and see how it works. This is a new project just created and I'm going to add any random layer to it. Okay, Now hit Control less and choose to save it to the Cloud. This feature is only available if you have a paid subscription. In this new window, you'll be asked to give it a name. But you can see you at other files that are already on the cloud. These are specific to my account. Of course, you can adjust you at viewing mode either as a list or what I recommend, thumbnail mode. But you can also create folders through this icon here so you can better organize your work. Once this is saved, you're going to notice a brand new icon next to the project's name, see the difference. If I switch to any other computer and I log into my Creative Cloud account with my user name and password, I'm going to get access to that PSD. The great thing about it is that once I do any changes on any computer and I hit Controls, the cloud receives the latest edits and subsequently I can switch between computes and still have access to the latest version. This is fantastic for multiple computers, it's also great for them projects. Now please notice that besides the cloud icon in the project tab, you also have a new extension. This is PSD, where the C stands for cloud, just in case you're not sure about it. This is another indication that you're dealing with a different type of project. But just in case you want to save this project locally on your computer, simply go to the top menu to file, that's the Photoshop tab on a Mac. From here, choose Save. As. From here, you can opt for the regular saving method. Simple classic. In case you want to see all of your cloud documents outside the Photoshop, you can use your Creative Cloud dedicated program for that. Here's the latest version. If yours looks a bit different, you may have an older version from here. Switch your view to your work now click here. Initially, you may get your libraries, but you can click on this icon here and you're going to be good to go. But yeah, from my point of view, this is quite useful because you get more screen real estate. Other than that, there's actually no additional functionality. There's nothing important here that you don't have in Photoshop. But say that you've dabbled with Cloud documents and now you want to clean your slate. Here's what I propose. Close your projects from the home screen and you're going to focus on the left side from here. Choose Cloud Documents from here. You can select them by using this checkbox. You can, of course, reorganize them into folders and whatnot, but that's not what we want. Instead we want to delete them. Click here, and that's going to be that Photoshop is going to give you a second chance though. As you can see, you have another option here called deleted. This is the classic Windows recycle bin. From this place, you can either restore your projects or permanently delete them. That's what I'm going to do now. To sum it up, do I recommend saving your PSD's to the Cloud through Adobe service? Actually, no, not really. Don't get me wrong, I think saving your work on the cloud is great for exactly the reasons I mentioned above. You can use several computers and you get access to the latest file that's obviously going to make your life easier. But here's another more important thing that you have to note, why you should use the Cloud. Hardware may fail at any point, whether it's hard drive discs, SSD's, USBs, especially USB sticks. Losing all of your precious data is a serious issue. Using a service like Drawbox or Google Drive is absolutely a must. Now why I don't recommend the Adobe service is because this is limited PSD files on Google Drive or Drawbox. You can put absolutely anything that you want. The pricing is also very good. More than that, as I said, Photoshop is going to limit your cloud capabilities. This is going to be reserved for team accounts and big companies enterpiz. Basically, you won't have this option starting with 2024, 1 February. I use Drawbox and I love it and I've been using it for about six years now. I strongly recommended but you do you whatever you choose, Just remember to always savior work and have a backup. Thank you. 26. Review: Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed this section. We learned a lot about Photoshops interface as well as how you can open and save your work in various ways. The most important thing is that you work along and you try these features out. Please don't just sit around and watch me work because you won't get the most out of this horse. I know you might understand everything that's going on, but please get active. Post your work in the common section. Write about your favorite method of exporting your work. And of course, please let me know what photos you straightened, what you cropped, and what you did. Tell me your experience about it. We're at the beginning of our journey, but I want you to know that I'm here to help. So please post a question in the comments area and I'll be sure to answer it as fast as possible. But I want my commitment matched by yours. So please show me you are just as involved as I am. And I promise you that this entire process will become a breeze. You're going to have fun with it. By the way, please leave a rating on this course and let me know if I can do anything to make this a five star experience. I'm doing my best, so I would love to read you the views. Okay, let's move on to the next section. 27. This is the biggest improvement in Photoshop's history: Welcome back. Over the last few years, not a lot has changed in Photoshop. If you're using a slightly older version, you might be happy with it because it works 99% the same as the most recent version. But this is where things change neural filters. This is a brand new tool that allows you to significantly edit photos in a dramatic way. But before we continue talking about neural filters, you need to understand that this only works if you have a paid subscription on Adobe.com If you're not paying for the photo shop, you won't get these filters. Now the question is, are they worth it $10 per month? I say yes, they totally awesome. As you're about to see in the upcoming lectures, we're going to go through them. But I want to give you some context because that's the most important bit. Imagine that you don't have an internet connection and you have a library of movies, right? If you want to watch something, you have choices based on what you already have, right? You may have a few movies, maybe you have a lot, be it on your computer, on DVD's, on USB drives, whatever. But your library doesn't change, so you're stuck watching Home Alone for the 20th. But if you add an Internet connection and maybe a subscription to Netflix, Hulu HBO, whatever, then you get loads more options. You get a vast library, a huge number of choices just at your fingertips. It's the same thing with neural filters. Photoshop is pretty smart and it can do some wonderful things, right? But when you connect it to the Internet, it gets way, way smarter. And that's how neural filters work. For example, when you want to colonize an image just as a random example, Photoshop can look on the Internet and see how other similar photos look like. That's how it can do the job. So well, now my explanation is simplistic and it's not 100% accurate, but in short, that's how it works. That's why you need a paid subscription, because your local Photoshop program is going to send your various projects to various servers on the web, is going to use lots of resources that are on the web, machine learning software and various things. And then it's going to come back to your computer with a great result. But maybe you're not interested, right? Maybe all those neural filters, maybe you don't care about them. But here's the thing. This is a sneak peek into something that's not yet available. I repeat, this is not yet available, let's say that we need a great selection here, with the hair being the tricky part. Well, in the near future, we may have this option available for every Photoshop user. Use Photoshop resources alone, the local version of your own library write or the better choice process the image on the cloud. This is Netflix Hulu, Everything you get access to, the entire world, all the resources in the world. This indeed gives you much better results, especially for tough cases. Even though you're not into colorizing images of those various neural filters, you're still going to benefit hugely from using the cloud. This is why you should really use the latest addition of Photoshop. Look, the interface is just about the same. The toolbox, the layers panel, the hot keys, the principles, everything is the same, but with a connection to the Internet through the use of the cloud. You're going to unlock new and fast ways to work. More than that, your results are going to be sharper, more polished, even if you're the beginner. If you're not sure if $10 per month is worth it. It's now clear this date that yes, you should definitely get a subscription. Now let's explore these neural filters and see what's what. 28. Colorize a black and white photo: Welcome to this lecture where I'll teach you how to colorize a black and white image from this to this in just a few clicks. This is very powerful stuff and it's part of the neural filters that we've just introduced in Photoshop CC 2021. I know neural filters sounds a bit odd, but it's actually awesome stuff. Let me show you how easy it is to get great results. Let's jump into it. Here we have a black and white photo. It doesn't matter how you open the image. Just make sure that particular layer is selected. While the image does have a certain charm to it, say we want to bring some color into it. Go to the top menu to filter from here, choose Neural Filter, which is Adobe's way of telling you that all these options are based on artificial intelligence and machine learning. Go to beta filters and you may have to download them before you can use them, but that's fast and you can do it through one click. Okay. Click on Colorize. But to activate it, you actually have to flip the switch. It's that easy. The difference is significant. Photoshop did a really good job here. Remember to use this icon to see the before and after shot. You can see that Photoshop even handled the walls in the background, the coat and the scarf to just a splash of color. So it brings everything to life. When you want to go back to the regular Photoshop work space to export it or that edited, please remember to change the output. I suggest you use smart filter. This is why it doesn't really matter how you open the image, Dragon drop control or any other option. Hit, okay, and have a look at this panel. This is a non destructive technique, meaning we haven't permanently modified the pixels. Or to put it another way, we can always disable the effect by clicking here. But my favorite way to work is with the mask. Click here to activate it and then grab the brush tool. Say you don't like how the color was applied to her cheeks or her chin. No worries. With a soft brush and a very low opacity, you can paint with black to slightly remove the colorized effect. You need to be subtle about it, but just so you can see what's going on, I'll bump up the opacity to 100% Please don't do it in actual projects. With the mask selected and with black as the top color, I'm removing the effect. As you can see, it's quite dramatic. Hit X to paint with white and that will reapply the colorized filter. You have complete control over it as long as you use the layer mask and the brush tool. Let's move on to another case. Here's another lovely photo. Apply the same neural filter one more time. Keep in mind this is still in beta. Things are only going to get better moving forward. Not to mention the fact that Adobe is planning a bunch more filters. You can see how many are planned in this workspace. Back to it enable the colorized option. But say you want the sky to be a bit brighter, more saturated. Click on this color swatch, which is currently white and it features a red diagonal line color picker to choose a very saturated blue so you can really spot the difference when you're happy with it. Hit okay, and you won't see any changes. That's because you have to apply the color in the photo. You have to use this preview here and we'll do just that. There you go. The sky just got revamped but the bottom part is still somewhat washed out. No worries. Hold the alter option key and that will allow you to duplicate the point. Move it somewhere near the bottom, and there you go. This is fantastic. In general, you should use fairly muted colors, otherwise it will look fake and unnatural. The great thing about it is that you can toggle between you points and change the color. This means this is selected and obviously this one isn't make it darker or washed out, whatever you want. Keep in mind that you can always use control Z to undo, so you don't have to worry about making mistakes. It's all about experimenting. And of course, you can also click here, and that will remove that specific point that's selected. I don't want to do that. I'll keep going. Let's click on the trees too. Initially they'll be blue, but change it up to green. This will really saturate them, which is a bit much. But again, you have complete control over the effect through the layer mask. Regarding these sliders, I'm not a big fan. You can apply a tint that really changes the mood of the photo, the vibe of it, but I can't say I'm in love with them. Hit okay, But only after you've changed the output to smart filter and there's your result. If there's a hint of blue on this building, no worries, just double click and add a touch of gray there to clean it up. This only takes a second, and I'm really happy that I can do it. Colorizing a photo is always a time intensive project, but with Photoshop's help, you'll now have a much easier time with it. It may not give you a perfect result, but it's a great starting point. Have fun with it, you have both photos attached. 29. Automatic Skin Smoothing: Welcome back. Let's talk about the first and neural filter and that's skin smoothing. Now before we start, please make sure that you right collect the layer and transform it into a smart object. You're going to see why that's important a bit later on. Now this is the symbol that you're looking for. Okay, let's go to the top menu to filter. From here, go to neural filters. And you'll have to wait a little bit until this new panel loads up. Okay, now initially you're going to see a cloud icon instead of a toggle switch. That means that you need to download that filter from the web. Now, as I said before, you do need to pay for the Photoshop to get access to this stuff and you do need an active Internet connection. Okay, now let's click on Skin Smoothing though to enable it, you will have to flip the switch, okay? When you're using a big image, you may not see the difference. But notice that tool both on the left. This shows you that you can pan around with the hand tool, but more than that you can zoom in. Let's zoom in and see the differences. Now to truly judge this one click Wonder. You're going to have to click here. This is how you can see the before and after. Click it a bunch of times and you can spot the differences. Now the result won't be perfect, but it's a very good tool. Those cases where you quickly want to improve a photo and the accent is on quickly, that's the main thing. One thing you may notice is that the blur amount is quite substantial. Now, you could potentially play with these sliders though. The second one in this specific situation is just about useless. You could potentially lower the blur and see if it improves it just a little bit. You do have the image attached just in case you want to work along while you could potentially increase the blur, I don't think that's a good idea. Overall, this did improve the skin quality a bit. It's definitely not perfect, but it is what it is I'm going to hit. Okay, and I want you to have a look at the layer spanel. Now notice that we have this white square here, that's a mask. And we won't touch it, at least not now. Underneath that, you can see neural filters. This is why we made this layer into a smart object. Because this format allows us to edit the filter for starts. I can turn it off, then turn it back on. Though again, it may take a few seconds to reapply itself, or the most important thing, I can double click it and now we can continue where we've left things off. That's why it's best to convert the layer to a smart object before you apply any filter. Okay, let's move on to another photo, so we can see this in action once again. This time I'll leave it as it is so you can see the issue. Let's go to filter neural filter. And I'm going to enable skin smoothing. As before, we have to zoom in a bit and have a closer look at the skin quality. Now this again, it's not perfect. This is maybe a 30% improvement, right? The dark spots are less obvious, the wrinkles are a bit finer. But it's not a night and day difference, right? Basically that skin smoothing from neural filters for you, it's not magical. It's not a huge transformation. But that brings me to my next point, the most important thing, what are your expectations? See if you're working on a photo for the avatar on Linden. Maybe your CV, maybe a bit of blurring, maybe a bit of skin smoothing. That's totally fine. Avatars in general are quite small, people won't really spot the blurring. If this is what you're going for, this filter is a great choice. Flip that switch and you can expect anywhere from a 20% to a 50% improvement. That's what you should expect Now in case you want to become a supermodel with perfect skin, neural filters can help you out. But to be honest, I really don't recommend it. I don't think it's a good idea to completely change the facial features in a dramatic way. I'm going to show you an example in the next lecture. But back to skin smoothing for the moment. Here's the thing. Remember, we didn't make this into a smart object, so I'm just going to hit okay. Now by default we're going to have a selection. You can see this dotted line around the canvas to get rid of that, simply use control. D, D as in D select. But have a look at the layout spanel. We can still see that this is a single layer that's locked as it was before, but there's no neural filter here. There's nothing here that means we can't edit it. We can't disable it. We can't adjust it because we didn't first convert it to a smart object. Now if you convert it now, you still won't get access to the previous editing. But for future filters, yeah, of course you will have them here. But yeah, that's why you have to do it before, that's why you have to convert it to a smart object before you apply any filter. Okay, now let's move on to the final photo, which is quite important. Let's transform this into a smart object. First and foremost, this should become an automatic habit. Now we're going to enable skin smoothing. See, this is the issue, this is what I want to talk about. These freckles, in my view, are part of this person's character. They're not a defect, not something you should cover up. I agree that it's a complicated discussion about freckles, acne, wrinkles, what other features and what other flaws. I'm not the one to judge, but I can say that I don't recommend you use such a filter for such a case. Some people may prefer you remove the freckles, but I'm not comfortable with that. I'm going to hit cancel, and I'm going to end with this. I think skin smoothing is totally fine as long as you want a 30% improvement and you don't want to transform yourself into a Barbie doll, into a completely different person. If you have that approach in mind, 30 to 50% improvement should use this feature with confidence. Now, in case you do want to take it to 100% magazine cover, the touching, there are a few lectures later than the courts. Well, I'm going to show you some advanced techniques or there's another neural filter that really changes things. It's absolutely incredible. Again, I don't really recommend it except for certain cases, but let's have a look at that in the next lecture, and you can judge for yourself. Thank you. 30. Look like a model with Smart Portrait: Welcome back. We saw how skin smoothing can slightly improve your skin quality, right? Well, let's use the same image so I can show you how you can transform it into something completely different. How you can look like a top model right now. That's smart pol traits. Now, before I flip the switch in the Neal Filters, I'd like to tell you my personal view, I think that are only a handful of cases where you should use this type of filter. Okay, let's enable it. And I'm going to do a V minus change. I'm going to change the happiness slider to something like minus five. Wait a few seconds and you'll be quite surprised to see that this looks like a different person. What happens is this. We let photo shop, analyze the web and come back with certain beauty standards. And then it applies it to this image. Have a look at the teeth for example. The smile is totally different. The teeth are whiter. The straighter, Hollywood like Right? The face is also a bit slimmer. Looks like he lost ten pounds or something like that. The wrinkles aren't so obvious anymore and this is a very small change, Happiness minus five. That's it. Now let's have a look at the facial age. If we slightly edit it, let's just make him a bit younger. Wait a few seconds, basically, again, you're getting a new person. The hair is just about perfect in terms of what algorithms consider to be perfect. The color of his skin is much more uniform. It has less variation overall. This is a new person as far as I'm concerned. Now to be fair, if you check the settings drop down, you're going to see a slider here that says, retain unique details. Adobe is very much aware that you can use these sliders to make this into a completely different person. Now to be honest, at least in this case, the slider doesn't help all that much. You can try it out, but the differences are minimal. There are other parts here that are quite interesting, like the head position or light direction, but those don't work all that well, at least not in this specific image. Now, I think smart portrait is awesome for the very specific cases, right? Maybe there's a group photo and someone just sneezed or something like that. Maybe someone was blinking, maybe someone was angry for the split second, then yeah. I think using this is totally fine. Another use case, maybe for your headline. If your head is thinning, if it's something that you're having trouble with, this can really help you out, things that you're self conscious about. You may refuse to pose for the glue photo because of those things, but with this feature, it can obviously help just a little bit. Now more than that, when you cut someone from the background and the head selection isn't looking all that great, you can really hide those imperfections. Again, these are very specific cases wouldn't do. I wouldn't use these sliders on my own photos and upload them to Instagram, Facebook, or any dating app. This is very powerful stuff. Sure. But don't try and fool people. It's one thing to slightly retouch some imperfections you're insecure about. It's another thing to try and become a top model and subsequently a different person basically fool other people. While I appreciate the technology and I'm in amazement of the improvement, I really don't recommend you use it for your own social life now for an avatar on Twitter or inside the game. Sure, totally. You're curious about whitening your teeth in real life and you're curious how that would look like getting braces. Again, this can help you out, but that's about that. Let's move on to another use case that shows this filters limitations. This is a groove photo, and there are loads of people here. Unfortunately, some of them are not getting picked up by the program. You can see these white squares. These are your choices. While you have the hand tool selected, you can actually click on any of them. And basically that's the person you're going to work on. You could also use this drop down here. This is a decent use case, right? Say this is your only photo of your classmates and this person isn't too happy in the photo even though he had an awesome time. Well, you can single him out by clicking on this square, it turns blue. Now, maybe we can ramp up the happiness slider. Or maybe the surprise slider to it does change the facial features just a little bit. But if you know this person well enough, you should know how much you can actually use these sliders. My advice is you always go for less, just minimal editing here that I'm using quite big values so you can actually see the difference. But yeah, that's smart portrait, a neural filter that can totally transform you into a different person if you let it go too far. But it can also be a lifesaver of those moments where a photo was snapped at the wrong time. But maybe hiding certain insecurities, hiding certain things you're self conscious about. Because again, maybe you want to do a beautiful album, right? Maybe of your wedding, maybe of a special moment. Maybe you're a bit upset about maybe some acne, something like that. Some imperfections you're not really confident about. Well, you can snap them in piece. You can know that you have that moment captured on film inside the camera. And then you can use something like this to clean it up. That's how I would use it. 31. Improve your portrait & change your background: Welcome back. Let's try out these neural filters a bit more and see if we can create a nice portrait. Here's a photo that I snapped with my camera. I did some very minor thing and camera raw. But now I'd like to remove the background and maybe touch up my face just a bit. I need a fast result. Five, 10 minutes. I don't have a couple of hours. Let's start by getting a selection tool, hot keyW, it doesn't matter which one. Let's select subject. And please make sure that you use the cloud version if possible. Okay, this is good to go. We have a selection. Now I'm going to add a mask by clicking here. So far, so good. Okay, now file up your browser, Go to slash.com or any other website and look for some abstract backgrounds. Here's one photo that's fairly interesting. Now I'm going to drag it in, but as you would expect, it doesn't fit. No worries. Either use this field to increase the width or grab a coordinate handle. Click and drag outwards. Hold Alt key while you're working, so it goes a bit faster. Now in case you get stuck and you can't see the coordinate anymore, just use control zero. Now you're still going to be in free transform mode. Again, you can hold Alt and drag outwards. And by the way, reposition the photo if needed. Okay, when you're done, hit enter Now move to the layers panel and drag it underneath my photo. Now it really depends on your abstract image, if this works or not. My advice is you load up many images and hide them one by one. That's how you can see what works best. Don't assume that your first choice is always going to be best. No. When I'm not filming, I typically select at least five images. I don't exaggerate, I never go over 15 images. Yeah, I do like to test things out. Okay, now let's touch up my face, select that layer, otherwise nothing is going to work. Next, get the zoom tool, hot Z, and let's bring my face into focus. Now we can finally enable Adobe's neural filters. Now in this case, I'm going to use smart portrait. I have two main sliders that I like to use. That's facial age. A very small value, like minus five or something like that. This improves my skin tone, but it also changes the texture of my hair. With initially, I did have quite a few white hairs. This facial age makes everything much better. That's the first thing that I like to use. Then the second thing, hair Technus, again a very small value. This makes it a bit darker, but that really matters when you're dealing with a close up shot. Otherwise it's not really noticeable. Constantly use the before and after the shot and see if this makes sense. Now the question is, can you still recognize me? If the answer is a clear yes, then we'll get to go. But here's where you can really mess up. If I use the happiness slider, things change dramatically. Even with a very small value, my facial features change dramatically. Now, I don't think that this represents me anymore. I don't like it at all. I'm going to bring that back and you can see how this is much more natural. This is me. Well Betel said it's closer to reality. That's how I like to use D portrait. One final touch, let's make a new layer, an empty one that sits between the background image and myself. Get the brush tool, hot keybo, right click, and drop the hardness to 0% and increase the brush size quite a lot. And I do mean quite a lot. Check my settings at the top in case you want to get the exact same result. Now with white as the top swatch here, in case you have a different set of colors. Head D, D is, and default, now it X to swap them around. White is the top swatch, okay? Now go somewhere around this position. And click once, and then you go a soft, glowing light. Obviously this is way too much, but move to the layer spanel and drop the opacity. Maybe 20% maybe less, maybe more. It really depends on your background. But yeah, that's a quick and easy way to use neural filters to create a lovely portrait image. Try it out on your own and see how you do. You really should have a portrait shot for your CV, for your linked in profile. Maybe even Twitter, Skype of Discord. I hope this helps. Have fun with it. 32. Bokeh Effect: Use depth blur for a beautiful look: Welcome back. There's another awesome neural filter that allows you to blur your background, like you see in this photo. Now to be fair, this is shot on an expensive camera. More specifically, it's shot on an expensive lens. And it has been retouched. But I think we can appreciate the lovely blur in the background, which really makes the subject pop. Now a lot of people call this effect bouquet, and Photoshop can help you achieve it. Let's open up this image of a girl doing yoga. This is from Unsplash.com and it hasn't been edited. Let's transform it into a smart object and we can see what we can do with it. Now, before we get to it, let me tell you that there's loads of room for improvement and this filter is far from perfect. It's actually in beta right now. Okay, let's enable a depth blur, which is currently found under the photography. Now, Adobe is adding more and more filters every day. If you see more of them right here, that's totally fine. This is a very dynamic area in Photoshop. It changes all the time. Okay, let's flip the switch. But notice at the moment, again, it does say beta. That's another way of saying, hey, lower your expectations. This is going to be good, but it won't be amazing, okay? Now, by default, this isn't anything to shout about, but let me show you what can happen when you actually ramp this up. First of all, my advice is you enable focus subject. This tends to give you better results, especially if you're not into photography and you're not really sure what focal distance and focal range mean. Now the first one is automatically disabled. This makes odd lives easier. Next, let's ramp up blur strength quite a lot so you can really see the difference. I'm going to go up to 90 or something like that. As you can see, immediately, the surroundings have been blurred. Use the before and after the button to check things out. Still here, we can raise the brightness up to maybe plus 30, something along those lines. By the way, this is quite intensive. You will have to wait for the photo shop to process the image. I have a very powerful computer. Neural filters are in general getting faster than faster. But again, you might need the powerful computer and a very strong Internet connection for the best results. Okay, now in terms of focal range, I found low values work best. They give you the most amount of blur. Now my advice is you take it case by case and you play with the extremes. Either use very low values or very high ones. Now the result looks quite nice, but if you zoom in, you're going to find some issues on the edge of your subject. You're going to get some strange artifacts. You could potentially remove them in some different ways, but here's the easiest way to get rid of them. Disabled, focus, subject, and instead, use this small preview here. Click anywhere on the girl, and you're going to see that the edges become cleaner and there's less weirdness in the image. I still think that focus subject in general is a great choice. But in this particular case, with the lake in the background, that's causing a bit of issues. Now, one more thing, let's increase the saturation just a little bit. Something like maybe plus five. I really think this filter is going to get constant updates and it will eventually become more powerful. But for nonprofessionals, I think this is quite good. One stylistic choice you do have is haze. You could push it to something like 20 or something like that. That will make the photo look a bit more interesting. Now it does wash it out just a little bit, but hey, it's really up to you now in terms of output. I prefer smart filter, so make sure you choose that in the drop down it, okay. And have a look. Now, to be fair, I would open up the image in camera Raw, and then I would play with the image just a bit more. We have an entire chapter on Camera Raw, be sure to check it out. But in essence, by playing with just a few filters, by playing with just a few sliders, you can achieve something like this. Maybe Basically, this is night and day from where we started. Thing images can take hours on end. You never know when to stop because you can always do more. But let's go back to depth blur on another image. This is going to show us how we can make some fine adjustments to our blur. First, I'm going to manually select the subject by clicking on his face right here. Then I'm going to turn up the blur to about 100 or so. We can have something to work with. Focal range is set to zero and focus subject is unchecked. Okay, The before and after shows us that the wall itself is quite blurred. A bit too much for my taste, but that's fine for the purpose of this lecture. But notice the forearm, this is getting blurred as well. That's not really okay. What I do like is the blur on this part right here, it really moves the center of attention to the person. Now, we could potentially enable focus, subject like this with a few seconds, then you're going to notice the fom isn't blurry anymore. But there's another issue, quite a big one, with his fingers, the pot is now no longer blurry in the foreground. We need to fine tune the result. Let's uncheck focus subject and I can show you two choices. The first one which I really don't like, at least not in this version. It's using these two tools right here, the plus and the minus symbols. Basically, you can use these tools to add or remove the effect from certain places, say the forearm. Trouble is this looks quite bad, it's not beginner friendly at all, it's quite difficult to get around it. I'm going to use control Z to undo. That's the first option, but let me show you what I prefer to use. Set this as a smart filter from this drop down. And then hit Ok. Now in the layer spanel, you're going to notice this white rectangle, that's a mask. But the mask is only applied to the filter. The mask is not applied to the layer itself. Now what does this mean? You can get the brush tool, hot keyb. Please make sure you have the tool selected because B can actually bring up several tools and then have a look at the options bar. Pause the video if needed. These are the settings that you're looking for now with black as my top swatch, if I paint, I can remove the effect black hides. When you're working on a mask, you can remember it as closing the light in the room, in the dark you can see it. Black hides. Okay. If we paint over the four alumn, it's all good. The blur is getting removed. Basically, we're removing part of the blur. This is what's going on right here. But please be aware the white square is selected, not the layer itself. If you try to paint over the layer like this, you're going to get an and that's no good. The reason why I'm showing you how to work with a mask is that this works on every filter. If you learn how to use the brush tool in this situation, you're goble don, sure. You may need to shrink the brush size. Maybe make it bigger. Maybe change the opacity. Make it softer, make it harder. For example, a soft brush is going to give you a very gradual transition, right? While a hard one, well, that's going to be quite obvious. The difference is super obvious. You will need to spend time on it to make it look better. It look good. But yeah, overall this is my approach. And, you know, zooming back on things, the depth blur feature isn't perfect. It's still in beta and it's likely going to improve. See how it goes and try it out on your own photos. Good luck with it. 33. Cut out a person and replace the background: Welcome back. Here's a very popular request. Say you want to remove the background and replace it with a different one right now, develop loads of ways of doing this in Photoshop. But can we do it in a method of clicks and still have a realistic look? Well, with the help of neural filters, I think we can. First of all, this image is from unsplash.com And if we're going to check the size A control C, or if we simply have a look in the properties panel, you can see that this is a huge image. Now this is important because the bigger the image, the better the result. Okay, let's go to the layers panel, rechlick and convert this layer to a smart object. Next, we have to find another photo that we want to use as a background image as a new one. Right, This is what I've selected. But please be aware that when you drag it in it may be smaller. No problem. Use control z though. If needed, grab a coordinate handle. Old Alt and drag outwards. Now if you can't manage to do it like that to the options bar and increase this value right here in the W field, obviously, Make sure that the chain icon is pressed. Okay, this is it. Let's hit Enter. Now as you can tell, the image is covering the girl. Go to the layers panel, click hold, and drag the forest down. Okay, it's completely hidden, but that's totally fine. Next, select the layer that contains the girl. Okay, now hit on your keyboard. Now that should activate one of these tools through which you can make a selection. If you click here and hold, you can see you have a bunch of options, but all of them have the same feature that's Select Subject. This is what we want to use in the latest Photoshop version. You get this drop down narrow and that gives you the power of the cloud. This means that your selection is going to be much better than what Photoshop can do by itself. Again, this is if you're paying for the Photoshop and if you have the latest version. If you don't have it, I can't help you. Okay. Click on Select Subject, and you're going to have to wait for a few seconds. Your local Photoshop program is going to connect to Adobe servers, analyze the image, and then come back with the selection. That's what this dotted line means. Basically, we isolated this part of the image. We have loads of lessons about selections, but for now, let's keep it simple. Go to the Layout spanel and click on this icon between X and the Ying Yang looking symbol. Just like that, you've created a mask. But more than that, the original background went away. Well, this look isn't overall terrible. It's not great either, right? The girl seems to be fake. It seems to be edited, right? Well, there's a neural filter for this specific case. First of all, before you do anything, check the layout panel. See this highlight. This means that the mask is selected. If this is the case, and you go to the top menu to filter neural filters, is going to be graded out. Now to fix it, click here on this thumbnail, the thumbnail of the girl. Now we can go to filter neural filters and we can continue working from this new window. We're looking for harmonization, which sounds a bit iffy, but it basically means make it look realistic. Now, turn the switch on, but nothing seems to have happened, right? And that's because you have to select the other, the pots layer. Once that's selected, photo shop is going to think for the while. And there you go. This makes it look that much more realistic. Basically, Photoshop blends the colors together. The girl doesn't stand out so much, it doesn't seem that fake. Use this button to check the before and after. It's quite a big difference for the output. Select smart filters, then hit Ok. No worries. If you don't get it just yet, we're going to do it again in a second. But let's take this one step further. Right? We've just learned about depth blur. Let's try it out here. First of all, hold the control key and select the other layer. Now with both of them selected, use control E as in Eric. This is going to combine the two layers. The official term is merge and you can find the command in the top menu on the layer. Now this isn't ideal way to go, but trust me on this, it's fine. Scroll all the way down and you're going to have this option here, merge layers. Now this is a standard layer, it's best we make it into a smart object. Once again, when that's done, we can open up neural filters yet again, turn on depth blur and crank it all the way to the max. Now my advice is you have focused subject enabled, that's going to give you a better result here. But yeah, now this looks even more realistic. Obviously when you're done, you can export it with a control shift W and post it anywhere. We'll share it with your friends. But let's do it. Once again, I'm going to use control low and I'm going to open another landscape image. This time it's a beach and there's a lovely sunset in the background. Next I'm going to drag the girl inside photo shop. Now please be aware I'm not using control low. Instead, I'm just dragging it from the desktop. Okay. Hit Enter, then click on If you are not there already, okay, select the subject and wait a few seconds. Now that we have the selection, click here to make a mask lovely. Click on the thumbnail to select the actual layer. Then go to Filter Neural filters. Always choose the one from lower down, please, not the first one. This is super important. Okay, let's enable harmonization and choose the beach layer with a few seconds. And this is it with grade, the colors match it. Okay. And we've just about done. If you want to take it for the select both layers by holding control, merge them together with control, then make them into a smart object though it's optional at this point. Go to filter neural filter, the one lower down, not the first one. Enable a dep blur this time around. For the settings maybe go for 90 for the blur and about 20 for the haze. That's how you can quickly combine two images and make them look real now. Does this always work? No. Do you need big photos? Totally, but that's the quickest way of doing it. Try it a few times and see how you do. Post your own work in the comment section, I want to see what you can come up with. Good luck with it. 34. Restore old photos with neural filters: Welcome back. If there's one neural filter that's magical is the photo restoration one. Now I absolutely love it. Here's how this goes. I have this image from the 1920s in Berlin, 100 years ago, and it's obviously in poor condition. Right? It's scratched up, it's black and white. It's not exactly impressive, right? But we can convert it into a smart object and then bring up some neural filters. Now, the photo restoration one is still in beta, but let me quickly enable it along with Jpeg, artifacts removal and colorize, The combination of three neural filters is going to totally transform this image and bring it to life. Have a look at this, to be fed with, losing some bit of detail here and there. If you focus on this hand, you're going to see that Photoshop basically blends it together into the clothing. It really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But considering how many things are going on in this photo, I'm super impressed. My advice is you raise up scratch reduction to the max. And same with photo enhancement though. Be aware that beta means that sometimes this breaks example. If I try to enhance the faces in this particular photo, it will say another has occurred and that Photoshop has disabled the filter. But yeah, you can use these combinations, these three filters, or you can turn off color eyes. You keep that old charm of the photo. As with small portrait, it's one thing to push the technology to the limit. Seeing it in color is obviously fascinating, but then there's the human element. By seeing it in black and white as it was snapped, it has more of an emotional connection to that era. 100 years ago, maybe that's just me. But if I were to have a set of these photos, I would actually keep them in black and white. Restored. Yeah, but in black and white overall. I love these features because just a few years ago people would spend ages on these tasks. On restoration, it would actually be a lot of manual labor with the clone stamp tool, healing brush tool, and it was quite tedious work, hours on end for the one single photo if you wanted a great result. Nowadays, Photoshop is getting smarter and smarter. I believe this is just the beginning. If you have old photos, scan them at a high DPI, put them into Photoshop and save them for the future. Try this out and see how you do. Good luck with it and have fun. 35. Make a photo 4x bigger (GREAT quality): Welcome back. Neural filters are impressive. Sure. But if you don't care about that creative stuff, you may not be excited about them. Right. At the end of the day, not a lot of people are going to use photo restoration, right. Or the landscape mixer to generate some never before seen pictures. Right. I get it, but smart portrait is very powerful. Harmonization is very useful. The depth blur may help you here and there, but if there's one filter that takes the cake, that's super zoom and you got to use it, you got to try it. Super zoom is absolutely amazing, hands down, incredible. It's the best piece of tech ever seen in Photoshop, and let me show you why. Now here's a photo of my healthy food product right now. Use all control C to check the canvas size or have a look at the properties panel. This photo of my product is 800 by 1,000 pixels. This is not small, but it's far from being generous, right? Let's make it into a smart object in general. By making it into a smart object, Photoshop will do its best to keep the image nice and sharp when you enlarge it. Let me actually do that by using all control. I'm going to make it way bigger. I'm going to keep it simple. I'm going to use percent in this drop down, and I'm going to use a ridiculous value, 400% four times as big. Now if you've ever played with this type of thing, making images much bigger in Photoshop, you probably know that the end result is going to be rubbish. It's going to be blurry, pixelated. It can't be used anywhere. This is the latest version of the program and it's doing a decent job. Although this isn't perfect, this isn't all that great. This is still miles better than the previous versions of the program. When you compare something like this to what you would get in CS six from 2012, the difference is night and day. In Photoshop six, you could probably spot individual pixels. Now I'm exaggerating, but you get the idea, this is a solid improvement in the latest edition of Photoshop. It's much better. But let me say this because this is not what I want to talk about. Okay, let me open up the image again. In another tab, I'm going to check and see if this is a smart object. Next, I'm going to go to the top menu to filter from here. Let's choose neural filters. Wait a second. And from this list, I'm going to enable super zoom. This is the biggest improvement I've ever seen in Photoshop. No discussion here. You can use this symbol to enlarge the photo foul. Lex means 400% You can see that it says four x right here. And of course, you should enhance the image details and you could potentially enable this other feature as well. But before I get into all of these settings, let me tell you the essential point. You should change the output to new document in case you want to have the entire photo blown up. Otherwise you're just going to get a small part of it. And if that's the case, you may not be happy with that. In case you do want a small part of it, just use this pre view to adjust what you're going to get. Okay, now I'm going to hit okay because I want the entire tang. But you may not realize how much of a difference this makes. Super zoom is from another world. The standard resizing method was already much better in this latest version of Photoshop compared to previous ones. Sure. But when you check it out versus super zoom, wow, it's fantastic. Now to change the viewing mode, go to the top menu to window. From here go to a range. I like to use two up vertical. Finally, to make sure that we're looking at the same spot, go to the same menu. Then from this list, choose match. All this is the simplest way of going about it. Okay, check out the differences. Superzoom is miles better. It's less noisy without sharper lines. It's seriously improved versus the standard resizing method. That's through the use of neural filters. Which is basically a way to which Adobe applies machine learning to various situations and comes up with a better result. Now sure the result isn't perfect. You can still see some issues, especially in the label with the small text is getting a bit hard to read, but still this is fantastic. Four times as big. We didn't even play with all those settings that allow us to sharpen the image to try and maximize the result out of the box. This is something that's going to completely change the way we view upsampling, making an image bigger. That's upsampling before, this was quite a challenge. Now it's a piece of cake. And that's because it's not reasonable to ask 400% right? An increase of 400% In general, you may need 200% maybe 300 at the most. And you might even start out with a bigger photo than this 1800 by 1,000 If Super Zoom works so well with these fairly modest conditions, then you can really put it to good use in more realistic situations, right? My advice is you try it out and test it and see how it goes. For me, 200, maybe 300% is the absolute max. And I'm pretty comfortable printing a photo after using Superzoom on it. For example, if I take a fairly standard situation from 2000 by 3,000 pixels, doubling that to 4,000 by 6,000 I mean, that's still very generous just so we get a sense of things. Four by 6,000 pixels means about 13 by 20 ", what, 34 by 51 centimeters. As far as printing goes, that's more than decent, you know, and that's just doubling it. If four times gives you these results, doubling it is going to be awesome. Give it a go and let me know your thoughts now. To be fair, I'm probably more impressed than the average person because I've been working in Photoshop since CS four throughout all of these years up until 2022. Enlarging a photo was quite a challenge. Now that's no longer the case, good luck and have fun with it. 36. Get creative with your nature photos: Welcome back. This is a quick lecture. It's about the fun filter that you can use just to have some fun with it, just play around. It's called landscape mixer, and as before, we need to make our layer into a smart object. Okay, you can find the landscape mixer under the creative category. This is something that totally transforms your image based on a few presets. Basically, click here and watch how the photo becomes something completely different. Photoshop maintains the structure of the photo, but you can play with the look in a dramatic fashion. This is honestly very impressive, but it's not exactly a filter that I have a specific use for. Some of these results are quite odd and not usable in the slides. And considering you have so many sliders here, you can basically create just about anything that you can think of. Now, to what purpose? Again, I don't think there's a clear cut technique or the specific case that I could recommend. I see this exactly for what it is. Playing experimenting, trying to get your creative juices flowing. I think Adobe is doing a good job of giving us these types of things. Sure, we love to have better selections. Right. Better results when we're enlarging an image. But I appreciate this type of stuff as well. My advice is you go try it out for 20 minutes or something like that and see if you like it to be fed with AI generated art. This becomes less valuable, but in case you don't want to mess with artificial intelligence, this is probably the next best thing though. It's something very similar to that. You can have some alien looking scenes or just enhance your photos from your vacation. The sky is the limit. One feature that I really like right here is the night slider that totally changes the look and feel of the scene. It's something that transforms it. Though I found that low values tend to look a bit better. You can easily mess things up. If that happens and it's bound to happen, please use this arrow to come back to the default settings at the time of this recording. This is still in beta on your end. If you're using the latest version of the program, it may work better or you may have some different presets. But idea remains, this isn't all that practical, but it's fun and lighthearted. Give it a try and let me know in the common section, if you like this type of stuff, have fun with it. 37. Instagram filters in Photoshop: Welcome back. Let's say you want to play with your images in a creative way similar to what Instagram offers you in terms of filters. Well, now we can do that through neural filters. First of all, let's make this layer into a smart object. Okay, next, go to the top menu to filter. From here, neural filters, wait until the new panel loads up, and then under color you're going to find something called color transfer. Now at the moment of this recording is still in beta, which means you should lower your expectations, but still this is working well enough for my taste. Flip the switch and you're going to get access to these presets. Try them out one by one and see how the image changes into something completely different. It's very similar to an Instagram filter. Now, some of these are great others, not so much. If there's one major drawback about this filter is the fact that it does take quite some time. It does take processing, meaning if you're using an older laptop, this may be a paint to work with. See every time you click on a different one photo shop has to think, in my case, that's pretty fine. But I'm using an expensive desktop computer. If you're on the go, your laptop may not cooperate. Another thing, you may think, hey, this yellow one, for example. This is absolutely terrible. But the thing is this, you never know which you're going to get. Yeah, for this specific photo, the yellow one doesn't look all that good. True. But let me change to a totally different photo. I'm going to do the same steps. Okay. Now, here's the thing. This new image, the yellow preset, is actually looking quite decent. That means that you have to play with these presets until you find the one that works best with your photo, according to your taste. Of course, now to be fair, you could spend a lot of time by playing with these sliders, because these dramatically change the result By working in the lab colored space, you get access to all of these features through which you can adjust the effect. Now my advice is you stick with the presets, even though you could potentially upload your own image. Now again, you never know how Photoshop is going to interpret your upload. I think it's best that you stick with these sliders with them until you get a better looking result. I think the Dob is going to add a bit more functionality here. But let me actually show you something a bit different, a different way of getting some awesome Instagram looking filters. I'm going to hit Cancel from the same top menu from Filter. We're going to use Camera Raw Filter. Now this is the latest version of the program and the latest version of Camera Raw. If you're using an older one, please upgrade. Now click here on this icon above the three dots right here. You're going to get loads and loads of beautiful filters, so to speak. Now these are actually presets, camera raw, presets. The great thing about it is that these are structured in categories. If you have something in mind, just go for that, open that drop down, and then simply covered every one of them. What I love is this is super fast. Photoshop really doesn't hesitate choosing one that looks awesome is a breeze. Now for example, in this specific case, I think I'm going to use the Autumn category, probably I'm going to go with the first one. M one, the very first choice in the list. Now we do have a complete section on camera Raw. Please make sure that you check it out. But once you're happy with it, I click here on this icon that will allow you to customize this luck, because basically all the sliders are already moved according to that preset. For example, say that you want, I don't know, maybe less vibrant. Okay, sure. Go ahead and tone it down. When you're ready, you can hit, okay. Now finally you can export your design with Alt control shift W, or if you can't remember that long hot key, go to the top menu to export. Then as usual, export as choose PNG for the maximum quality. Basically, that's it, you're good to go, have fun with these, Try them out and see how you do. You can get more camera raw presets, but in essence it's all about playing with those slide us, so it's really up to you. Have fun with it. 38. Introduction : Welcome to this new section where we'll talk about layers. And this is one of my favorite topics because I covered a lot of tips and tricks and techniques that are going to completely change the way you work. Now I know you may already know a thing or two about layers, but in this section I'm going to show you fantastic ways to improve your workflow. This is the key thing here. I'm going to show you how you can make your life easier by approaching tasks the right way. I'm also going to explain the subject that most Photoshop designers that have applied for the job at my companies have failed. I'll spare you any potential embarrassment if you stick with me until the end of the section. Plus we'll have fun with some exercises that are going to test your knowledge. So without any further ado, let's get going. 39. OPTIONAL: What Are Layers?: Welcome back. In this lecture, I'm going to explain what are layers and why they're so useful in Photoshop. If you already understand the subject, please feel free to skip to the next lecture, as this is for beginners. Now to help you understand the concept of layers, I've opened up this PSD that you have attached to this lecture. You can think of layers as transparent pieces of paper that stack on top of each other. Each layer is an opportunity to create something new. If you look at this project, you can see we have several layouts. In the layouts panel, we have a background layer, the frame, all of this text, and so on. When you look at this project from this perspective, all of these individual pieces of transparent paper are stacked on top of each other. What you end up with is a canvas that looks like a flat image. If I were to hide this layouts panel, would you be able to tell how many layouts this project has? Of course not. It looks like a single image, but when we open up the PSD file, we can see the true story. Here, I illustrated how this project would look like if we were to see it from the side, so to speak. Now this perspective shows us the truth. Each individual piece of paper, meaning each layer has something different on it. This first one shows the background, the next one contains the frame. The third one has the piece of paper, and so on. When you bring them close together, you can see the end result is very similar to what we see in the other tab. Let's go back to it. You may be wondering why the trouble, well, let's get the brush to, well, by pressing, you don't have to work along. Just see what's going on. Now look at the toolbar. You have these options right here. Now I'm going to start painting and look what happens. I have the background layer selected. You know it's selected because photo shop highlights it. As you can see, nothing happens with my frame or anything else. That's because even though this looks like a solid image, it's actually made out of several layers. Because I have the background layer selected, the changes are only going to affect that layer, nothing else. Press control Z to undo. If I switch to the paper layer and I repeat my brushing, you'll see that the wood layer looks like it's compromised. But that's not the case. If we switch to the move tool by pressing V, we can see it's safe and sound. It seems like it was affected because each layer is transparent. Photoshop has been working like this from CS for the ages, Why? Because it gives you freedom if you worked for hours on end, days on end, to create the perfect background. You don't want to ruin it by a slip up. Instead of risking all your work. Create a new layer that will sit on top of your existing project and you can continue without worries. This gives you flexibility because you can isolate every element. Now, how many layers can you create? Well, it's really up to you, and we'll talk more about that in the upcoming lectures. One important notice before we wrap up the order of these layers metals quite a lot. If I bring the background layer above the paper, you'll no longer see the paper. That's because, yes, layers by default are transparent pieces of paper. Transparent. Sure. But I can choose to completely fill this layer with the color, hence why it's no longer transparent. So you do have to be careful with your stacking up. In the layouts panel, we're going to discuss the subject in greater detail in this section. But yeah, I know that this metals quite a lot. Lower down means further back, higher up means on top. Okay, that wraps it up. I hope layouts are no longer a mystery. They're transparent pieces of paper that give us flexibility. Let's continue. 40. Start Using Layers: Welcome back. Let's talk about how you can work with layers effectively. Let's start with a blank canvas and then we'll move on to another tab. The first thing you may want to do is delete the background layer. It's currently locked, but it allows partial editing. I can paint over it, I can erase parts of it, but I can't move it. Plus, maybe you want a transparent background to begin with. The command to remove a layer is the delete key on Windows or the backspace key on a Mac. You can press it, but you'll notice that nothing is going to happen. And that's because Photoshop needs at least one layer in any project. It can be an empty layer, but you can't have a project with nothing inside that. Let's add one from the bottom right side. This is the icon that creates a new layer. Click once and a new one has just come up. Now I can switch to this other one and delete it, even though it does have the lock icon right now. If you don't want to move your cursor all the way down there, you could use the hot key control shift N. This does the same thing, but it also shows you this window through which you can adjust various things. But my advice, just click on the icon. It's a bit faster. You don't want that pop up. Now, your project should be properly organized. Double click here to name it. Now you can call it whatever you want. That's how you rename any layout in Photoshop. You double click it. What's nice is that you can give multiple layers the same title, and Photoshop won't complain. But please be aware if you click anywhere else outside of its name, you're going to get this pop up window. If that's the case, press escape and try again. This usually happens if your layer name is very short. Obviously, it's hard to click exactly on top of it. Same thing applies if you double click the thumbnail. This isn't what you're looking for if you want to rename it. Okay, let's switch tabs on this lovely image. I want to add a message in the top right coordinate that begs the question, when is it the right time to create a new layer bed with me, as I'm going to explain in a second. First of all, I'm going to write something with the brush tool. Please don't focus on the actual techniques on the brushing, because that's not the point of the lecture. Okay, I have this handwritten message, right? But I also want to add some herts, for example. Nothing special. I'm just having fun, just doodling here. Finally, I'm going to add some random lines to further embellish it, right, To make it a bit special. Now I'm done, but say that I'm not happy. Say that I want to change the color of the hearts and maybe the last word should be written in a different style. See the problem. The thing is, I created everything on a single layer. Now I'm stuck more than that. I permanently marked this image because I actually worked on it directly. Bad practice. And you should always avoid working like this. This is no good. You don't have any flexibility. If I try to erase my work, look at what happens, This does actually more harm than good. I'm going to use the history panel to go back to the start. Here's how you should approach it. First of all, it's best that you have a rough idea about what you want to do. You don't need to be precise, but you should have a general idea in mind based on that, you can make some key decisions regarding when it's best to create a new layer. I'm going to do that now. Okay, Now I'm going to write my message. Okay? Say that I have my first part done, but now I'm going to create a new layer for the last word. Note something here. It all depends on what I want to do. If I want ultra flexibility, I could place each word on its own layer. Now I think that's a bit too much. That's overkill. But if you want maximum flexibility, then you're free to do it. Here's another thing. If I didn't want to change the color of this last word, I could have left everything on one single layer. Nobody can give you a specific definitive guide on when it's best to create a new on a new layer. It depends on what you want to do and how much freedom you want to have in each project. For example, for my three hearts, I would definitely add them on a different layer. In general, separate components. Separate elements should be placed on different layers. The hearts are obviously a different element, They're not connected to my handwriting. It does make sense to put them on their own layer. Now again, do you want them to be treated as a whole one layer for three hearts for example, or do you want to style them individually? If you ask yourself these types of questions, things are going to go much smoother for me. I'm going to go with the second option. I want to edit them later, but not as a whole. In total, I'm going to create three different layers for every single heart, okay? Please be aware of the highlight. This shows you the active layer. When it's time to move on to a new one, simply click on it and that layer is going to be highlighted. This means you have drawings won't interfere with each other. Please take a moment and rename all the layers. Okay, good stuff. Now, through various techniques, I can adjust my work without affecting anything else. That's the key word here, that's what we want. I can change the heart's color, but nothing is happening with other two. That's perfect, that's maximum flexibility. I can erase this last word and write something different, maybe in a different style or whatever. This is how you should work with your layers. Use them to gain as much freedom and flexibility as you want. One piece of advice is to never leave your layouts unnamed. You really have to stay organized and name them accordingly. If you're not going to do that, you're going to get in a world of trouble. It's going to be quite difficult to go through this project. Okay, now that we have a few layers in our project, it's time that we talk about groups, groups, or folders. It's the same thing if you think about your operating system, your computer. When you install a new program, you create a folder for that, a special fold exactly for it. And that's because all those files go together and you don't want them misplaced. It's the same thing in Photoshop. These three hearts are related to each other. Let's group them. Here's how I recommend you do that. You hold down the control or command key and then you click on the names. Once they're all selected, press control. Just like that, we have a first folder, Don't worry, your layouts haven't been deleted, they've been moved inside of this group. If you click on this arrow, you're going to see they're safe. And sound control is quite easy to remember because stands for the group. If you want to get rid of it, you shouldn't use Delete, because that will trash all the layouts inside it as well. No, instead you should try click it. This list is going to show up ungroup layers, and you're good to go. Your layouts will be kept as they are as an overall thing. It's the same story with groups, you can create as many as you want. In general, you should have at least two layouts inside one group. Otherwise it doesn't make much sense. But kids, one thing that you can do, you can create a group for these hearts. Okay, please rename it. Now select everything except for the background layer and group again. Now you have a folder inside of a folder. You can continue with that line, but I would say that no more than three levels because otherwise you're just going to get chaotic. Now, these are called nested groups, folders inside folders. As you can imagine, by having everything together, it's quite easy to reposition them or edit them in all sorts of ways. This makes your life easier. Just look at how simple it is to play around with my entire composition. Grouping layers is an essential part of getting the most out of your projects. With that, we've concluded this lecture. Go open up this PSD and follow my steps. Have fun with it. 41. Here's my best tips for the Layers Panel: Welcome back. The layout spanel is essential for any project in Photoshop. Let me show you a few things that will improve your workflow. Before we do anything, activate the move tool, hot key V. Now look at the top left side in the options bar. You want this feature unchecked, disable auto select. If it's enabled. You also may want to change this drop down to layer just in case it set the group. Okay, we already talked about creating layers and groups. Now let's dig in a bit deeper. Say that you're not familiar with this project, you don't know it, and you want to know what's inside of all of these three folders. Now, you could open them manually, but what if it had 20 folders, 40 folders? What? Then here's my tap. Before you click on any closed group, hold down the control key. That's the command key on the Mac. And this will expand them all at once. As you can see, all three have now opened up. But notice there are two other folders that are still closed. That's because holding down the control key only works on first level groups. These are first level groups still. It's a nice trick and it works the other way around. If you want to close them all, hold control and this will collapse them, it will close them. Okay. Awesome stuff. Now just in case you really want to expand everything, you want to open up absolutely everything. Hold down both control Alt and then click. Now you're going to open up absolutely every single folder. Now if you want to close them again, the same thing. Control Alt and click, and that's going to close them off. Okay, another interesting feature in our layer spanel is this symbol. This controls visibility. Say that I only want to work on the right flyer and the left one is distracting me, the problem. Simply click on the folders icon and it's going to disappear. It's not deleted, it's hidden. Notice all the layouts inside this group have grade out icons on the left side. That's because you can't make a layout visible if it's inside the hidden folder. That makes sense. Look at what happens if I do try to enable the visibility of the first layer inside this folder. This will activate the icon for the group or the folder because Photoshop sees that I want to work on it. Now that's something to be aware of. Moving forward, you can toggle any layers, visibility. What's nice is that instead of clicking several times, you can click once and then move your mouse up or down. This is how you can easily hide a bunch of layers with little to no effort goes vice versa. You can also do this when you want to reveal them. But say that the project is absolutely huge, maybe it has hundreds of layers. How can you hide everything except one layer or folder? Well, here's the trick. Hold down Alt and then click on the eye next to the folder or layer that you want to keep visible. There you go, everything is hidden. If you hold Alt and click again, everything is going to be revealed. Now, by the way, I know that this is quite a lot of information, but don't worry, I've created a nice cheat sheet. You can check it out at any time if you want to refresh your memory. Now let's continue with another piece of information. Some layers go together more than others. For example, let's have a look here. Texture base and shadow base. If we move them on the canvas, we can quickly see that they actually form one unit, one element, they're quite important. What we can do is we can click them to select them. We have all three of them selected. And then we can use control G, as in group. This is useful because we can move them as one unit, as one element. You can also do loads of other things, like resizing them maybe change the opacity, whatever you want. Groups are a great way to work faster and smarter. Just select them and use control that's command on a Mac. Finally, I want to show you a few ways to duplicate any layer or group to create copies. The method that I use most often the knot is control J, as in James. Let's test it out on this top group. Okay, a new folder has appeared and it's called left flyer copy. It did work. I'm going to move it on the canvas so you can see it better. By default it's going to be exactly on top of the old one. Okay, now let me apply the same command control J on any other layer. Again, there you go. It works just fine. Double check on the canvas if need be. Okay, now I'm going to delete it, because I want to show you another technique that I use all of the time, and that's the following. When you have one layer or group selected in the layout spanel, hold down Alt, click and drag whenever you delease. That's where the Photoshop is going to make a copy. Here it is. Now what I love most about this feature, this all to drag technique, is that you can use that directly on the canvas. Let's select this one layer at random, and let's say that we need a copy. Now it's quite simple, from the canvas area, I'm going to hold down Alt. I'm going to click and drag. I'm basically repositioning it so that's two birds with 1 stone. I'm making a copy, but I'm also repositioning the copy. And that's because most likely we want to reposition it somewhere. Right. Okay. So again, once you let go of your mouse click, you're going to get that copy and it's fantastic. Alt and drag, or if not control J, that's totally fine. Okay, this wraps up this lecture, but stay tuned for the next one because it's closely related to this subject. So please make sure you watch it right now. 42. Select Layers: Welcome back. A large part of your time in Photoshop is going to be spent selecting layers. I'm here to help you better understand this process and improve it with some essential tips. First of all, let's focus on the layouts panel. If you click on anything here, obviously that's going to be selected. I have my move to active. So that means that I can move it around. I can also switch to a group, say eyeglasses. And now I can work on that. Simple stuff, nothing all that special. If I want to select several items in my layers panel, you probably know this already. You can hold down the control key and click. Every time I click multiple folders or layers are selected, which is totally awesome. Moving onto the canvas, I can click and drag, and I can see that all of my selected items are floating about. I'm always going to use undo with control Z. That's something that I'm not going to constantly mention. But yeah, every time I move something to make sure that I understand what's going on, I'm going to use that hot key control Z. Now if you have a bunch of items selected and you don't want that anymore, how do you deselect? Well, two main choices. You either click somewhere in the layout spanel, specifically in this empty region at the bottom. So that's one option, and as you can see, nothing is highlighted. That's not always available, but it is one option. And then let me select a few more so I can show you dotted option. What I do in my everyday work, I simply click on any random layer or group. And that's basically it. Every time you click, you select no method what you have selected. It doesn't matter if it's a layer or a group. Okay, awesome stuff. I still have a bunch of tips, but don't worry, you don't have to memorize them. We're going to use them throughout the course. Of course, you do have a cheat sheet that's attached. You can quickly refresh your memory by using it. Okay, the next thing, you can also use Shift to select a bunch of layers or folders quite fast. Here's how I use it. I left click on any folder, no other key S, press right, just select that. Next, I'm going to go somewhere quite down. I'm going to hold Shift and then I'm going to click on this one. Notice how all the layers and groups in between are now selected. This is totally awesome. That's shift, you select one end and then holding shift you select the other end. The real magic comes from combining all of these steps into your other. We flow shift technique is really helpful when you open up one of these groups, say the first heart folder. As you can see, it's made out of several layers In case I want to select all of them except the shadow. Maybe shift is going to help me out. I'm going to get the top layer just clicking on it. Now I'm going to hold Shift, and now I'm going to click on the bottom one. Fantastic. All of them are selected. Or in this case, because there's only a handful of them, I can do the following. Let me select if there's only a few of them. I can hold control and click on them individually. It's really up to you which you want to use. Control typically is for only a handful of layers. And obviously you can use control on any single point inside the layout spanel. But shift is one continuous line, the start and then the end. It has to be continuous. Okay, so far we've talked about the layer spanel. Now let's see how we can select layouts of folders directly from the canvas. This is how I actually work. Now this is a very large PSD. If I want to select this particular heart, the necklace thingy, I would have to drill down. I don't know, I think it's four groups. I want to avoid all of that trouble. I don't want to do that. Here's what you can do. Make sure you're on the move tool. Next, hold control and simply click directly over it on the canvas. Notice it's now selected in the layout spanel, you can now identify as folder. This is how you should work most of the time. Keep your mouse over the canvas and then use the control key to quickly select this or that layer. That's how most professionals work. I like to use my left hand and click on the control key. Finally, even though we haven't covered locking layers, I'm going to do the following, a superb technique. I'm going to click on the background, and I'm going to use it by clicking on this icon. Okay, awesome stuff. Now I'm holding down the control key. I'm going to click and I'm going to draw out a box. Anything that's inside this box is going to get selected. I'm not letting go. So you can see how a bunch of layouts and folders are lighting up in the layouts panel as I move towards other areas. This is shown in the layouts panel. This is helpful when you have tons of layers scattered everywhere. By using this method, you avoid looking for them one by one or doing loads of clicking. Please remember, this technique is one of my favorites, but you do need to lock any background layers. Some cases, you may have several background layers and you're going to need to lock every single one of them. But yeah, that's how you select layers of folders inside Photoshop. Please watch this lecture again and work alongside me. Pause as often as you need to hit a space bar key and then see how you do. 43. Move Layers like a Pro: Welcome back. I showed you several ways to select layers. Now let's talk about moving them. Let's start with the canvas. You already saw me use the move tool so far in this course. You select any layer or the folder and you drag it into its position, including outside the canvas area. Though that's not a great idea now that's easy to understand. This applies to several layers or folders at the same time. When you have multiple active tabs, you may want to move stuff in between projects. For example, say that I want this top card in my other tab, in my other project. Here's how you do it. You select the group from the layout panel. You make sure you're on the move tool. You then click from the canvas. You drag again from the canvas until you go above the other tab with a moment, and Photoshop is going to show you that project. Now let's go anywhere on the canvas and that's it. You now have a copy. This process is done by working on the canvas. I don't recommend you drag that item from the layout panel. That's not ideal, again from the canvas. And here's a great track, say that I want to position this business card in the middle of that new project. Here's how you go about it. You select the card, you drag it, but then you hold down shift. Now when you're going to let go, the copy is going to be placed in the middle of that new project. Awesome. Now, going back to the initial tab, don't worry about it, because the card is set up right where it was. It didn't move. What you saw was just temporary. The only exception is when you let go of your mouse click as you drag it across, for example. I'm going to move it just a bit, I'm going to release my mouse click and then I'm going to click, drag, and move it in the next tab. Now obviously when we go back, the card is no longer in its original position. Why? Because I moved it in two steps. Okay, now when you want extra precision while moving layers, here's what you can do. You can use your addo keys to nudge in one pixel increments to move something in one pixel increments. Right now I'm tapping the left a key. Each tap means that this group is moving another pixel towards the left. This is great for the fine tuning purposes if you really want to be precise. But here's the thing. You don't want to mesh your keys all day long. If you don't want to span them, you can do the following hold shift as well as the ado key. And this is going to move the object in ten pixel increments. Three tabs means you're going to move it 30 pixels. That's shift plus the arrow key. Here's how I actually work. Let's say I use three tabs towards the left, right? Then I let go of shift and I tap it three times in the opposite direction. That means in total 30 minus 327 pixels. That's how I achieved this specific value. That's how you would use these Do keys in any real world projects. Again, at key one pixel shift plus a key ten pexels. You have the PSD attached. Try it out and see how you do with that. We've concluded this lecture. Please practice, because in the next video we're going to do an exercise. Okay, let's get to it. 44. EXERCISE: Layer Dexterity: Welcome back. I hope you're ready for the next exercise, because this is going to be fun. Open this PSD file that you have attached and you're going to see that things are pretty much hectic. We have layers all over the place. Nothing is labeled. There are a few groups, but they're randomly created. Overall, this is a mess. Here's your task. I want you to select. Move and group all of these layers based on the color, these five in total, yellow, teal, green, white, and pink. You have to efficiently select them, however you want to do that, group them into individual folders and label that folder with that respective color. And then finally, move that folder, that's called yellow, pink, white, and so on. Move that folder to a separate side of the canvas to be clear. This means that all of the yellow layers should be placed in the top left side of the canvas, teal in the top right side inside the folder. The same thing for the bottom sides and then the fifth one in the middle of the canvas. Now what's important is you have five folders at the end of it that are properly labeled, properly named, and that the layers are separated from all Ted colors. Here's a few tips going to have to zoom in and out. Because some layouts are quite small and tricky to select, you can use control to directly select from the canvas or control shift click to select multiple ones. Review the cheat sheet from the previous lecture and then find the best techniques for this job. You can use the existing groups, the existing folders, or you can delete them and create new ones. It's really up to you. Again, the same thing. You can focus on the layouts panel or you can work directly on the canvas. Now what I want from you is to time yourself, Gill stopwatch, and time yourself. And then you're going to do it twice. You're going to do it the first time, then you're going to do it the second time to see if you've improved. See how you do. And then post the comment with both of your times. Please stop the course right now and go for the exercise. That's because in the next video, I'm going to show you how I would solve it. But please, it's super important that you try to do it on your own. Remember, do it right now and then post the times. And then only after that, move on to the solution. Please. I look forward to seeing your times in the comments section. Let's have a friendly competition between you and all the other students. Let's have fun with it. That's the only thing that matters. Thank you so much. 45. Solution: Layer Dexterity: Welcome back. Did you do the exercise? Did you post your time in the comment section? I really hope that you did because I'm really curious how you handled it the first time around. Now let me explain how I would do it. First of all, I would toggle the visibility of each group so I can see if they're useful. Now as I'm seeing it just going through them one by one, it doesn't seem like they're quite useful. What I'm going to do is I'm going to select all of these layers with the help of Shift. Remember this works best for selecting lots of layers. Then I'm going to write Click, and then I'm going to choose ungroup layers. That's because these folders are absolutely useless and I would rather create ones myself. I selected every single layer because this command still works. Rather than individually picking them up, I would just select everything. And then right leg. Okay, here is where you have loads of options. Now the slow method is to start from the top of the layer spanel and toggle the visibility of each layer. After you find it on the canvas, you can then rename it to green or whatever color it is. Now this is going to take ages. Here's my approach. First of all, I'm going to select the background layer by control clicking it. Next, I'm going to lock it by clicking here on this icon. This is going to allow me the box technique, to select several items quickly. Now I'm going to choose any color. Let's say yellow because it seems a bit easier. I'm going to hold control and I'm going to select this heart layer. Next, I'll keep holding down the control key, but I'm also going to add shift control shift just like that. I now have four out of six layers, selected yellow ones. That is, this one is transparent and it's overlapping with the white circle. I do have to be careful with it. I'm going to click in that region, but if I want to check which layer I've selected, I'm going to move them a bit to the side. Okay, this is not correct. So what we're going to do is control Do. Okay. Now with both modifier keys held down, control and shift, I'm going to click again on this circle, this time on its bottom half, so I can easily deselect it. Now I'm going to switch to the zoom tool. By pressing Z, I'll go in much closer. And now I can click again on this icon. Please don't let go of control and shift. Otherwise you're going to lose the layers that you have already selected and you're just going to be stuck with this single one. That's not the case here. In total, I'm going to have five. Okay, let me zoom out with control one. And I'm going to get the last yellow icon from the left side. Great stuff. Okay, now let's use control and we have our first group. Let me double click it, and I'm going to call it yellow. Of course, we're not done. We've selected them, we've grouped them, but we also have to move them into a separate area on the canvas. Let's place all of these layers in the top left side. Open your folder and move them one by one. In that region is the slow version. But it still works and it's easy to follow along. Now this is why this exercise has dexterity in the title. It's not incredibly hard, but you do have to be fast with your hands. Now, I'm going to move to the teal color, blue tal, whatever you want to call it. Start with the bigger shapes, for example, this circle. But this time, let's increase our time by repositioning each layer. As we select it, I'll pick it up with a control click technique, and then I'm going to drag it into the top right corner of my canvas. The rest of these items are quite big, we won't have many issues with them. Select control, click, and reposition them as fast as you can. It goes without saying that you should keep one hand on your keyboard and one on your mouse. Okay, this is done, but they're not grouped. The problem, I'm going to hold control and I'm going to draw out a shape like so anything inside this box is going to get selected. The box technique, that's why I call it that way. There you go. I have all six of my tal layers highlighted in the layouts panel. And now I can use control G to create a new group. Then double click it to rename it to T or Blue, whatever you want. Of course, you could have done the same out, locking your background layer, but that would have required a few more clicks here and there. Don't feel bad if you didn't do it this way. It's not important at this point. Now this white layer poses a challenge. I'm not sure if you see it, but here we have a very tiny period symbol. Now in most cases I would suggest you zoom in real close and click on it. But let's take advantage of all locked background. I'm going to hold control and I'm going to make this shape, there you go, easy. Now I can place it, say in the middle of the canvas. Now I'm going to speed up the process. While I do the same with all the other ones, I'm going to use the drag selection technique, the box technique, because it comes in really handy. Remember, we always want the fastest result. You don't want to slave away by doing manual labor now if there's a fastest way you got to use it now as an exercise. Sure, totally fine. Manual work is fine as a practice to get your speed up. But then always work smarter no matter if you're working on personal projects or you're using your skills as a freelancer, maybe for your job. Really important that you understand that nobody cares if you did it in 2 minutes or 2 hours. People just look at the result. That's what matters. At the end of the day, the result, 2 minutes or 2 hours, that's only on you, The client, your colleagues, nobody cares. If there's an easier way to do it, please take advantage of it. Okay? I'm just about done with my PSD. Let me know in the comment section how you did and how you like this approach. 46. Arrange Images Quickly: Welcome back. Photo shop is built for precision. Even though you may not be an architect, you should strive to design Pitzelperfect designs. Now this, of course, means aligning everything precisely. But luckily, we have many tools and features that help us do that. In this attached PSD, you have two active rectangles on the canvas and there's a third one hidden in the layers panel. Now we're going to use them to explore all of our options. First of all, we're going to talk about smart guides, which are turned on by default. If not, you can go to the top menu to view from here, The move to show and then smart Guides. Now if you're on the moved tool and grab one of these rectangles, move it around, you're going to see some pink lines show up. Those are smart guides and they help us position everything precisely. You may also feel that the element wants to snap into place. That's really helpful. Please make sure that you try it. You're going to really feel it in your mouse and in your hand. Now, smart guides are fantastic. They have these pink lines. You can use them in a number of ways. They show you just about everything that you need to know. This is how you position things precisely. Now next let's talk about guides. Keep in mind we talked about smart guides. These are just guides. Now to use them, you first have to use control R on the top and on the left, you're going to have these measurements. These are fairly okay. They're not all that useful to be honest. But here's what you can do. Move above it, click and then drag. You're going to see this can line, can light blue, whatever you want to call it. Now this snaps into place, for example, if I want to place it in the exact middle of this rectangle, smack in the middle of it, all I have to do is make sure that this layer is selected. Then as I drag, you're going to feel Photoshop is going to nudge you towards the center. This works both horizontally and vertically. Again, you're going to have to try it out to really believe me. Again, Photoshop will nudge you. This allows you to take all of the guest work out of it. But again, it only works if the layer is selected. Now if you want to place a guide with precision, you can go to the top menu to view from here. Click on New Guide. Now what's different from here? You can specify exactly where you want the guide to be. Just put in a number, say 100 and press Okay, that's great stuff. Now if you want to hide them, to avoid any distractions, you can use control semicolon, and that hides all your guides. Or of course, you can go to the top menu, though nobody does it. You can go to View and then show from here. Again, nobody really uses it, but here you can select or de select guides. Now don't worry about remembering everything. You have a cheat sheet attached, plus most of these are also in the properties panel. Now please note that if you're on the move tool, you may accidentally move a guide. You may not want that. As you can see when I hovered over them, this icon changes. Now Photoshop helps you out because it allows you to lock your guides. The command is control Alt semicolon. Now, no matter how much I hovered over it, you won't see that icon. I won't be able to move it now. Still, you can hide them with control semicolon. But yeah, you can't move them by mistake now when you do want to unlock them. No worries. It's the exact same command control Alt semicolon. Okay, good stuff. Finally, let's talk about this section up top, which I absolutely love. These are the alignment tools and they help us arrange things fast. These alignment tools are absolutely fantastic, but they need at least two elements selected in order to work. In case you're using odd boards, One layer is enough, but are here within regular Photoshop mode. Okay, here we have only one layer selected, all the alignment tools are not available. And that's basically because we have only one thing selected, we need two, that's the only condition, we need at least two items. So what we can do, we can select the entire canvas, for example, control. And now we do have two elements. Now this entire region lights up, we have the alignment two Ls, not all of it, because some of these require three elements. But we'll get to that in a second. Okay, now please, one thing, we don't have two different layers selected. And that's because a selection is considered an element two, we need two elements. In this case it's the rectangle and the selection. Photoshop shows us the available options Because we have that condition met, we have two things selected. Okay, now if you simply click Observe each icon, you'll immediately understand what every one of them does. It's awesome. I'm repositioning the selected layer based on the canvas because that's selected. Yeah, it's totally awesome because it's fast and it's precise. Now, the alignment tools are great, and I use them all of the time. Okay, our two elements are a selection and one shape. But let me do the following. Let's deselect with control D and see how these alignment tools work. When we have two items selected, two rectangles, I'm going to use Align top edges, for example. Now this looks at both layers. It uses the one that's higher up on the canvas as a reference point. Then once you click it just moves the other one up. This is fantastic. The great thing about it is that it's easy to understand. You can use it with confidence. Align top edges, you know what layer is higher up on the canvas and then obviously the second one is going to be moved up. Now on the other hand, let me move things around. For example, we can do the following aligned vertical centers. Now both layers are going to be moved equally. As you can see, this is a bit less predictable but still overall a fantastic tool. Please be aware that this works on any type of layer, on any shape, any size text layers, whatever you want to do now. Finally, let's just reset once more. We can use a line bottom edges. In this case, the layer that's lower on the canvas is going to be used as a reference point. You can easily explode all of these icons by simply moving them around on the canvas and clicking again and again. Now if you don't see the panel, you do need to be on the move tool. Moving on to distribute vertical centers. Here we need three items selected. I'm going to show my third shape. Now when you select all three of them, this is going to allow you to have the same distance between them on the y axis or on the X axis. What you want to do is you want to make sure that they're all spaced out evenly. This helps you do exactly that. It's the same thing if we use this one. Distribute horizontal centers. This gives us the same space on this axis. Now you can repeat a few times until you get the hang of it. I know that this seems like quite a lot, but the icons really do tell the story. Plus if you get it wrong, just use control Z and try again. You'll get them in no time at all. You just have to practice. Now let me show you another helpful feature. While you have one layer selected, hold down the control key. That's the command key on the Mac. This is going to show you the distance between your layer and the edge of the canvas. These are the smart guides we initially talked about. This enables you to have pixel perfect precision, plus if you it over with another layer, you're going to get measurements between these two items. This is absolutely fantastic with it. You can check the efficiency of the alignment commands. You can make sure everything is pixel perfect. As you can see, this is totally awesome. That's the control key. And hover it over whatever you want. Now, one important thing say that we have two shapes positioned exactly like we want them. This is absolutely perfect. But here's the thing. Someone comes in and says, hey, we need this element in the middle of the canvas. Well, if we have both of them selected and we use Align horizontal centers, they're going to center amongst themselves. And that makes sense. The program looks at what's selected. Obviously it does just that. Now if I have both of them selected, we select then the entire canvas with control A. That's the third thing. Now we use Align horizontal centers. Again, the shapes will be placed in the center of the canvas, but we'll lose the previous positioning. Now, undo and we're going to do this to make sure that we keep them as they are. Say that this is perfect. This is exactly what we want. We're going to first group them with control. Now we have two things selected. We're going to have this folder, one item. Then the second thing, the canvas. Now we can use these alignment tools and we can place this item in the middle of the canvas. Awesome stuff. With that, we can continue to the next lesson. 47. Layer Opacity vs. Fill: Welcome back. In this lecture, I want to take a moment and address something that a lot of Photoshop users don't know. At the top of the lay off spanel, we have opacity 100% and fill 100% The question is, what's the difference between these two? I have two identical layers on my canvas and I'll drag down the opacity to say 60% for this one. I can type that in and hit Enter. As you can see, the shape becomes translucent, semi transparent. I can also adjust the opacity by clicking once in this field. Now I'm going to hold shift while I use my mouse scroll, and this changes the value in ten pixel increments. Now remember that does the same thing when you're using your Add keys on your keyboard to reposition something. Shift equals ten pixels. Okay, now here's one more way to actually change the opacity. If you tap two on your keyboard, that's going to set the opacity to 20% If I press five, that's going to change it to 50% Now please be aware, zero takes it back to full opacity, 100% But if you tap it fast like 25, that's going to be 25% Okay, great stuff. Now let's get back on topic now. Let's move on to the other layer and turn down the fill to 25% Now the thing is there's no difference between these two. This one has the opacity to 25% this one has the fill set to 25% I've interviewed over 200 designers for my design business, and the vast majority couldn't explain the differences. Now here's the situation. I'm going to click on this small FX icon at the bottom of my layer spanel and I'm going to enable a stroke. I know we haven't discussed it, but we'll do that a bit later on. For now, let's just focus on this topic anyway, a large red stroke right now. Here's the key. If I'm going to change the field to 0% look at what happens. This controls the transparency of the layer itself but not the effect, not the layer style. This means the stroke is not affected. I can change it however I want. The stroke remains the same. On the other hand, if I repeat the process on the other shape with opacity, then you're going to see that the entire layer is going to be affected including the stroke. Including the effect, that's the difference between these two. If I set it to 0% you're going to see that the entire thing is going to disappear from the canvas while on the other one, even though you set the fill to 0% you're still going to see the stroke. This opens up a world of possibilities. That's why Adobe separated fill and opacity. In short, opacity affects the entire layer. The transparency of the entire layer, including any effects, will fill, only works on the layer itself, not on the effects. That's it. Let's move on. 48. EXERCISE: Fast Alignment: Welcome back. It's time for the note of exercise. This time we'll focus on aligning layers as fast as possible because it's an essential part of any efficient worth flow. I believe that if you master this skill, you're going to be much quicker in your everyday projects. Here's the task. You have nine rectangles that need to be arranged in a perfect grid. Be as efficient as possible and make sure everything is lined up perfectly, pixel perfect. Use all the knowledge from the previous lectures because you're going to need it. You can work with smart guides, guides, the alignment tools, and of course, a combination of all of them. Do it several times, in multiple ways to really cement your understanding of them and see which method is faster. Now here's the twist. If you truly want to master aligning layers besides arranging them, please make sure that you have the exact same distance between them. Let's take this middle layer, position everything in such a way where all the distances are the same, say 25 pixels. That means between every single two layers, you should have 25 pixels, both horizontally and vertically. You can use any other value, not exactly 25, that's less important, but you have to be precise about it now just in case you don't know how to do it. Don't worry. In the next lecture, I'm going to solve it. You can compare our workflow choices, but please stop the lecture right now. Download the attachment and get to work. It's really important. Now as a bonus, make the background layer red and post the entire thing in the comment section along with your time. Okay, now have fun with it. And again, please pause the video right now. 49. Solution: Fast Alignment: Welcome back. I love this exercise because it comes down to your speed and knowledge of the alignment tools. It's not fairly complicated, but you should strive on solving it in the lowest amount of steps possible. Be fast and efficient. Here's how I would approach it. Not necessarily the fastest way, but definitely by using all of the tools that we have at our disposal. First of all, I would say the out of side of this three by three cube. Let's get the three shapes on the left to align perfectly. Select all three of them and then use age left edges. Of course, now we can repeat the process for the right side, select all three of them and press a line right edges. Just like that. So far, so good. Now we have to do the top. And then finally, of course, the last one, the bottom now for the top is the same procedure. Get all three, but this time press on a line, top edges, I'm sure that it's quite clear by now. Then the square on the left will be used as a reference point because that's the highest of the lot. Now at the bottom, we're going to press on Align Bottom Edges. And we've done with that to nothing too complicated, but we're just covering lots of tools. Okay, Next we're going to select each row and we're going to use distribute horizontal centers. This is going to give us the same distance between them. Okay? Looking good. Great progress so far, we only have one more step. Now, the next thing, select each column, okay, on a vertical line, of course. Now use distribute vertical centers. You're going to have to repeat that a few times to get the perfect result. Finally, even though this is optional, say that I want this grid positioned in the center of the canvas. Not a problem. Remember, we have to first group all nine layers like so, and then select the entire canvas with control. Thus, we have two elements selected. Photoshop lets us align them first vertically, then horizontally. Now we can click and choose Ungroup Layers. That's the exercise basically. Now as an alternative, I would love to see you get the same result, but only by using smart guides. I can use 12 to revert or use the history panel, whatever you like. Basically, go to the motions. Again, this is about patients and using Photoshops to wills and aids to benefit. Of course, this is the latest version of Photoshop and it's really helping me out. Now I can press the control key and it's going to show me every distance. But even without it, the smart guides will surely help you out tremendously. And you'll see from time to time that some squares will snap into place. Here, I'm going to go with a 20 pixel distance on all sides. I'm using my Ado keys to nudge every layer into place from time to time. I'm going to add shift into the mix, and that's because it's really easy to get the same spacing if you count out every tap. Let me slow it down so I can show you the process. I'm going to drag this layer right next to this one, right? I'm going to make sure they're touching. Now I can tap my Ado keys while I'm holding down shift. This is going to give me exactly 20 pixels. If I'm somehow off, I can nudge it into place with my ado keys. This is another lesson in speed and dexterity. You'll surely be able to complete this exercise by yourself. If you try again, that's not the point. The goal here is to get you comfortable with all the alignment options and increase your speed. Once this is done, change the background color if you want and basically that's it, that's the exercise. Let me know. How did you manage? Use the common section would come on this court so we can have a chat. Thank you so much. 50. Review: Hello, Hello. We've talked a lot about layers, but I promise you with just getting started, these are Photoshops backbone. And they're needed in just about every single project that you can think of. I hope you found the exercises both interesting and challenging. As we progress, our projects are going to become more and more difficult and exciting. Please stay tuned and one thing, Please review the attachments for this entire section. They're always attached and I do hope they're going to help you with your practicing. Now it out, a few things that you should always keep in mind. The layers panel is permanently connected to the canvas. When you select a layer in one place, it's selected in the other place as well. Next, if you want to work efficiently, use the control click technique to pick up layers strived from the canvas. Use control G to group layers that go together. And remember your incomplete control when it comes down to how many layers you want to use and how many folders you want to create. What matters is you work in a clean and organized fashion. Every layer and group must be properly named. When you move layers around, please remember your ado keys will nudge them in one pixel increments. But if you hold down shift as well, they will change to ten pixel increments so you can move them with precision. The alignment tools are fantastic. If your project has lots of layers that need organizing, they're awesome. But of course, the smart guides are always a helping hand. They help in just about every single project that you can think of. Remember smart guides pink, while regular guides are teal or blue, whatever you want to call them. Regular guides are dragged from the side when you hit control R. That's how you can spot the differences between the two. Finally, opacity controls the transparency for the entire layer, including the layouts panel. Well fill only works on the layout itself and not on its tiles. In another example, that was a stroke. Okay, let's continue. I'm going to see you in the next section. 51. Introduction : Welcome to another section where we're going to talk about layers. These are the meat of all Photoshop projects, so that's why we're spending so much time on them. If it were up to me, I'd spend 5 hours on this subject. Luckily, I know what it's like to watch a boarding video for hours on end. So that's why we're going to pick up the pace. We're going to be short. And to the point in this section, we're going to talk about Photoshop layer types and how each of them has a specific role. You'll learn how to choose the best ones to ensure maximum flexibility. We'll also talk about customizing your layouts panel because they have some great tips that can really help you shorten that learning curve. You'll also pick up on certain tricks that can help you identify and manipulate layers in various ways. These are techniques I use in my everyday workflow, so there's no fluff in this section. I'm excited to get going, so let's get to it. 52. Layer Types Explained: Welcome back. Photoshop uses different types of layers for different purposes. In this lecture, we're going to do a quick overview of each of them so you can better understand what's best for you of projects. Later on in the course, we'll get into loads of details. Let's start with shape layers. This is a red rectangle on all canvas, and we can recognize this is a shape layer by looking at its thumbnail. In the layout spanel, I'm going to zoom in so you can see it better. Okay, That's how you can identify its type through this symbol. Whenever you see it, you know that this is a shape layer. Now, to create a shape layer, you're going to have all of these tools on the left side, the rectangle tool, the lips, and so on. All of these can create shape layers. Besides them, you can also create shapes through the pen tool, which we're going to discuss in a later lecture. Now the biggest advantage of shape layers are divected properties. Vector means you can simply enlarge it at any size and it won't lose quality. I'm going to hit control to transform it and I'm going to make it as big as I can. Now as you can see, it's still going to remain sharp. No fuzzy edges, and that's because this is a vector. These types of layers are often used in web design and mobile lab projects. They also help out in other scenarios, but that's where they really shine. Think of a main menu, a button, and so on. Those are all rectangles. Now, they do have one major drawback. They don't allow complete editing. Sure, I can change its size, I can change its shape, its color. By the way, for the last part, simply double click its thumbnail and then you can play with the color picker and you're going to see the changes immediately. But can't paint over it with a brush. I can't use filters and various other tools. Those vector properties come at a price. Shape layers don't allow this editing. If I click anywhere with a brush tool, I'm going to get a new layer in this latest version of Photoshop. In previous ones you would have a forbidden sign. Now the only way to get complete editing power is to write. Click it in the layouts panel. From here you could choose rasterized layer. Now I say could because you really shouldn't do it. Here's why. If I try to enlarge a rasterized layer, look at what happens. Let me zoom in so you can better see it. Its edges of now fuzzy. It's no longer a vector. Its quality has gone down. It's like having a brand new car, but replacing its engine with something from the 1990s. In short, you should not rasterize shape layers. Now let me go back a few steps. So it's still a shape layer. By the way, it's important that you realize that it doesn't matter how the layer looks on the canvas. That doesn't matter. Only it's symbol in the layer spanel. You can't know what type it is just by looking at it on the canvas? No, you have to check the layer spanel. Okay, let's move on. Raster layers. This is what you get when you create the new layer from the layouts panel, from this icon here. This is a star layer. Now, how do you recognize it? Well, it's actually quite simple. It doesn't have any symbol. It's the only one that's this way. That's how you recognize Rastolayouts. No symbol in the layouts panel. What's the deal? Well, rasta layers give you complete freedom. They gladly accept all editing. This means they're very versatile. You can use them in all sorts of situations. I don't know, Let me get the brush tool and I'm just going to play around. You can do whatever you want. You can erase, you can apply filters, you can do absolutely anything. It seems like a fantastic choice. But the downside is, when you try to enlarge it by over 20% for example, it's going to give you fuzzy edges. Even if you make it only slightly bigger, you're going to make it fuzzy. That's the drawback. Next, smart objects, it's the gear icon on the canvas. You may be wondering, hey, this looks like the Resta layer and yet they do look similar on the canvas, but they're not the same type. Check the layer spanel, you're going to see that this has thumbnail. This symbol shows you that this is a smart object. And smart objects are special layers that hold onto their information. For example, if I resize it to 50% sure, it's going to be smaller, right? But did we lose that information? No, because it's a smart object. If you hit control yet, again you're going to see 50% right here. And again, this only works because it's a smart object. We can set it back to 100% It's looking great, nice and sharp. Now you may think that's normal. But that's not how resta layers work. If I shrink this rest layer to 50% and I hit Enter, well that's it. Photoshop just threw away half of that layers information. It cut it in half control and you're going to see that this is actually 100% this is the new layer, this is the new normal. We can't actually get back those previous pixels. Now, could we make it the same size? Sure, we could double it, but the quality just isn't here. That's because Photoshop threw away that information. So that's one huge advantage of smart objects. They retain information. They sound amazing, right? Actually, they're much more than that. Any layer can be transformed into a smart object. But more than that, let me show you something that's absolutely my favorite. We can enable any type of filter on a smart object. I'm going to do something at random here. You don't have to follow my steps. Just watch and see what's what. Let's just say that I'm super happy with this effect for now, but I would like more flexibility down the road. Maybe I want to adjust the effect or maybe even turn it off at a later point. Okay, no problem. Because this is a smart object. I can make all of that happen. This would not work on a raster layer. Again, a major advantage to smart objects. But here's the catch. Smart objects are not directly editable, similar to shape layers. They are not directly editable, not because a Abe wants to mess with you, but every layer type has its own purpose. There's no competition between them. They actually go together like this. Moving on, the next layer type is a text layer. This is similar to shape layers, meaning you can resize them to whatever size and it's going to remain crisp, nice, and sharp. Text layers are also vectors. Now if you want to change the appearance, you're going to have to use the character panel. Go to the top menu to window. From here, choose character. From this new panel, you can do just about anything. Phone, family, weight, size, color, you name it. It's all here. Now please be aware of something. When you type something and you head enter, you're going to move to a new line. When you're done, you have to actually use the numerical enter or use the check mark from above, or move your mouse quite far away and click. That's how you actually finish editing a text layer. Now next the adjustment layer, it's actually not represented on the canvas. You can't see it on the canvas because it doesn't have any actual pexels. These layers are created from here, from this Ying Yang symbol. Basically, the goal is to adjust existing pexels, Hence the term adjustment layer, Something that goes above your existing layers. Now in my layers panel, I have such a layer, you can see it here. It has a vastly different thumbnail. If I double click it, we can see that this is an adjustment layer that controls vibrancy and saturation. I can move these slides up and down, and obviously the background layer changes. Now the other layers remain untouched because the stacking order is critical. Any adjustment layer will only affect layers underneath it in the layout spanel. That's quite important. Let me say that again. Adjustment layers are going to affect all the layers underneath it in the layers panel. This is why the other ones remain as they are. If I place it higher up, obviously that's going to change. As you can see, it does change things. As you can see the stacking the methods a lot. Now, all adjustment layers have different thumbnails. Let me just add a few more. As you can see, these are different icons for every one of them. But when you see this type of thumbnail, you can assume that that's an adjustment layer. Now one final layer, type, a brand, one related to generative fill and artificial intelligence. It's this one here with the stars next to the thumbnail. That's why I said Photoshop is magical in this latest release. It seems Adobe feels the same way, hence these stars. Now there's not a lot you can do with these types of layers except cycle through these variations. You're going to get this layer type only in the latest paid edition of Photoshop. The latest one that's paid. Okay, now that wraps it up, I know you still have questions. This was just a quick overview but attached you have a small cheat sheet and you can use it anytime you want. Okay, let's continue. 53. Customize the Layers Panel: Welcome back. The layouts panel is an essential component of your work space. It makes sense to customize it so it fits your needs. I'm going to use this file that's attached so you can work along. Now, here's how the layouts panel initially looks like. This is pretty much standard. The first option is the thumbnail size. If you write click any of them, you're going to get the following list. Here, you can see that this is set to small thumbnails, but we do have other choices, let's go through them. No, thumbnails simply shows you the symbol we previously talked about. This card, BG is a shape layer, while BG is a smart object. If I open ingredients, you can see this group right here. We can see that this is a rested layer. Now the reasoning behind this option is this space is very limited in Photoshop, in your interface. No matter how big your display is, no matter how big your monitors are, you always want more room for the canvas. Any panel that eats into your canvas is a bit of a problem. That's why most professionals prefer to use compact panels to keep everything nice and tight. Don't open up a bunch of things because you have less screen real estate, less space for the canvas. Now, going back to the thumbnail size, please note you should right click in this area. If you go towards the right, you're going to get a completely different list if this is unclear, if you can't manage just right click anywhere near the bottom where you don't have any layers. Now let's change it to large thumbnails. And as you can see, this is quite generous and it makes more sense. And this works well only if your project has very few layers here. I would say that this is the maximum amount of groups and layers for this particular setting. If you have more than these, you're just going to end up scrolling way too much. Why would you use it? Large thumbnails. Well, beginners love it because they may forget to rename layers. But because this icon is much larger, you get to see what's, what you can identify layers that way. But yeah, again, it's quite tricky because space is at a premium. Yeah, that's why you have to be careful with it. Now here's another option, focus on this layer called icon. Now from its thumbnail, you can barely recognize what's what. But I'm going to write Click. And I'm going to focus on this area here. I'm using clip thumbnails, document bounds. Okay, this is the current one. Let's switch it to clip the nail to layer bounds. Now the icon is very much easy to see, It's a star. And if we glance over the canvas, we can immediately spot it. This is quite nice. Plus I can see the heart icon from the title and all other layers. This option is fantastic for those who work on projects that only have a few layers. Now let me show you why the previous setting is also helpful in certain situations. I'm going to select the star icon and I'm going to make it quite big. I'll also make it red, so it's easy to follow. Now I'm going to place it somewhere in the top left corner. Notice the thumbnail. Clip thumbnail to document bounds. Now this is showing me the position of the layer on the canvas because I placed it in the top left side. The thumbnail is also showing me that. But if I move it to the right side, the thumbnail updates itself. Did you notice? Let me do that again, only this time. I'm going to place it at the bottom of the canvas and there you go. Okay. Another cool option is the following. In most projects, you'll duplicate layers quite a lot if I do that. Now with control J, you're going to see a new layer has appeared called copy icon copy. Now, I already mentioned that Photoshop allows you to use the same name multiple times. Why not have it just be icon, just have multiple copies with the same name. Now we could rename it obviously, but that's a bit DS. Here's how you disabled that copy label. Go to the top right side of the layers panel and find this very tiny icon. Click it and you're going to get this list. Look for panel options. From this new window, we can see the same stuff we already talked about, the thumbnail size, the thumbnail contents. But look at this option, add copy to copied layers and groups. By default it's enabled. Uncheck it and you're good to go. Now let's test it out, control J, and as you can see, no more copy. Okay, one last thing before we go, in case you're working on a large project or you sometimes temportharily hide some layers. Here's how you can keep track of things. If you right click on the symbol next to each layer or group, you're going to get the following options. If you click on any of these colors, you're going to see that reflected in the layouts panel. Now you have seven choices in total. And that's more than enough. In general, I like to use these color codes when I hide something that I don't want to delete by accident. Maybe a variation, maybe a different color, maybe something where I'm a bit uncertain. This is fantastic for keeping things organized. With that, let's continue. 54. How to prepare a design for printing (packaging): Welcome back. As you might know, I use Photoshop for my healthy food business quite a lot. I designed just about everything myself. And in this lecture, I want to show you how I prepared my granola packaging design for printing. First of all, I did not start Photoshop. Yeah, actually, I started Google to find out what I'm looking for. I typed in granola packaging, then cereal packaging, and so on. And that's because I didn't know that this bag is actually called a doy pack. A doy pack is a stand up pouch made out of a flexible material which typically stands upright by itself. It was important to find the actual name of the packaging because if you just type in cereal box or granola box, you might get a cardboard box. And that's not what I was looking for. Okay. After I found the correct name, I opened up about 20 companies that provided these bags. But only half of them offered customization or personalization. Personalization, I think that's how you call it anyway now, basically only half of them were able to print my design. Then I found three companies that were willing to send over samples. Now these were paid samples, but nonetheless they were quite helpful. And that's because there are various sizes. I wanted 300 grams of product, but as I found out, it's one thing to have 300 grams of coffee, another thing to have 300 grams of tea, 300 grams of granola, and so on. Apparently, you can easily order the wrong size, but more than the size, the material itself was crazy difficult to pick out. Now just have a look at some of these choices. And this is just one company. Various companies have various choices. Now, while Transparent is pretty much clear, okay? Without the choices, it's glossy, mat, and recyclable. I have no idea that's what the other ones again, I had no idea how aluminum paper was different from metallic. This is bound to happen in most situations where you want to print something instead of guessing, you ask for samples. After a couple of weeks, I did get samples from three companies and I could look and feel each material, each bag then realized that the sizing on the website was completely different than what I had imagined having them in my hand completely changed debating, I really want to make sure that you understand, you need to get samples and feel them in your hand. After I selected the material, the size, I then negotiated the price. And then, and only then did I start Photoshop. Actually, that's not exactly correct. First of all, I requested a template. Now, all these companies should give you a template will look something like this. This is going to be a PDF file. Usually they'll have some type of documentation that explains that the green line is the bleed area, that the blue line is the resealable zipper, and so on. Always ask for documentation for the instructions on how to use the template. Now I won't get into it because the main point is this, do your research up until this point. That's what you need to figure out, that you have to do your own research. Now, any project doesn't simply start out in Photoshop, it starts on Google. Then you get samples, Then you talk to the printing company so they can give you the correct specifications or specs. Even if I knew that I wanted a ten by 15 centimeter inch bag, I would still n star Photoshop. Because back to the template, after seeing the directions, the instructions, I knew that this is the front, this is the back, and this is the bottom. I repeat, this is only for this specific company, for this particular bag, that other models that have other companies, that have other templates where the layout can be totally different. Then finally, I could get to work. Let me show you the finished design. This is it. The bottom is the area in the middle. And I kept it clean, no information. I'm going to hit R to rotate my canvas. Okay. As you can see, the website does come across the zipper, but over all that's not a big deal. That's fine. Initially. To be honest, I wanted to place the website in a horizontal fashion, but I didn't like the look. Notice I'm staying away from the edges when it comes to the sides and at the bottom. But at the top, I decided to risk it with this orange bar, with this orange rectangle because I did want to have that line show up. By the way, in case you want to reset your rotation, hit R and then go to the options bar. From here you're going to find reset view. Okay, After I did several versions, I then asked for the print test. Again, this was a paid test. Now the print test actually gives you a sheet, not an actual bag, but it's really worth the money. Only after that, I said, okay, go ahead. Print 10,000 units and it was a few thousand dollar, it was quite expensive. Now, what did I give them? I gave them a PDF file. Never the PSD, by the way. The PSD, Anything else? A PDF is usually good. Go to file, save As, and then choose the highest print quality that's available here. Take your time with it. It's nothing special. Again, it's best to check with them. The PDF is going to be huge, but that's totally fine. Use draw box, we transfer Google Drive, whatever, okay. That's how you're going to get maximum quality. Now when it's all said and done, I now have my packaging. But I actually made a big mistake the second time around. See in the first of the, I chose glossy plastic. Man, it was beautiful, it was fantastic, I loved it. But then, you know, I got some complaints about not being eco friendly. I changed the material from plastic to recyclable paper. Well, the printing company actually warned me, but I was so busy with other problems in my life that at the time, I really didn't understand the issue. Now, they had a technical limitation where they couldn't print on paper the same way that they could print on plastic. Now don't ask me why, it really doesn't matter. All of a sudden I got 20,000 units like this. 20,000 bags like this with these huge white margins. Now to say that I was disappointed, that would be a massive understatement. But it was totally my fault. Luckily, my customers, they really didn't notice all that much and they said that the plastic version, all that equal friendly overall. I think they were quite happy with it. Now I totally agree that we should go green. In the end, I did decide that Let's stick with the paper version even though it doesn't look as nice Now, again, that's because it has wrinkles. It's easier to damage, to get scratches on it. Overall, it's not as good, but hey, you know, compromises. Now, if you want to learn more about how I designed this type of thing, this type of packaging, I have a course on building your portfolio as a designer that includes over 40 projects. Now let's do a recap. So first of all, please do your research, look for what you need. The second thing, ask for samples, even if they're paid. Third, ask for specifications, documentation, whatever you need to actually get the job done. The fourth thing, use the template. Always ask for the template. And finally, number five, give them a PDF. By using Drawbox, we transfer or Google Drive. In the final version, you should hide the template, otherwise they will actually print those things in your design. Now, before I end, please don't ask me for the name of this company. You have to choose what's best for you in terms of shipping, time, quality, price, and so on. Because, look, I had a different company that promised me something like 50% off a much better price, right? But I had to invest in some custom tooling. Basically, you pay a bit more on your first print, something like two $3,000 but then you get a much better price. Trouble is besides that upfront cost, the delivery time, 12 to 16 weeks. That's why I can't recommend any company for any type of packaging. You have to do your own research. What I can help you with is Photoshop. Let's continue with that. 55. Identify Layers: Welcome back. Sometimes you've got to find the layer fast in a big project. Well, if you're using the newest version of Photoshop, this is super easy. The technique is as simple as it gets and it's foolproof. So all the added options in the video though, they're still valid, they're miles behind this one. Here it is. Hold the old key, that's the option key on a Mac. And then click on the layouts name in the layouts panel. That's going to move you to that particular layer. You're going to be really zoomed in if it's really small, but this is going to help you identify layers fast without any headaches. This is officially called Fit layer on screen. You can also find that in the top menu by clicking on View. Here it is. Now, of course, the hot key is much faster. Now please be aware that you can hold Alt to option key on a Mac and click on the layouts name, but this also works on its thumbnail. The only thing that you have to avoid is actually clicking between two layers while holding down all. I'm just hovering between these two and the cursor has changed. You don't want that? That's not what we want. Now if you're going to click, you're going to get a clipping mask and it's not right. Again, hold the old key and then click on the layer's name or the thumbnail to zoom to it and make it fit your screen. This also works on groups, and I find it quite useful if you want to try it on very small layers. Again, your zoom level is going to be incredibly high, you're going to get really close. But yeah, overall, this is the best way to identify a layer. But like I said in the beginning, this only works in modern Photoshop versions. In case you have an older one, you're going to have to use some of these options, some of these alternatives. Here's another option, you can toggle the visibility. You do that by clicking several times on its symbol to the left. And then you look at the canvas and you see what's going on. Click a bunch of times and see what's happening. Now it's best to reset your zoom level with either control one or control zero. Control one is 100% while control zero fits the entire project. On your screen, you can see the entire thing. Now in this case, we're pretty zoomed out because it's quite big. That's how it works, fit the entire thing. So you can see it all. Okay, let's try it. Photos, the viewers galleries, things look pretty good. You can see what's, what you can identify them quite fast. Now let's go back to 100% and see some fine details inside the subhthogroup. We have three folders, 321, we can toggle the visibility to identify them or the second, the second alternative, you can move them on the canvas and see what's what with the move tool. Of course now here it seems that one is the group on the left, It contains this entire element. Once you've spotted it, use control Z to put it back into place. That's how this works. You move it and you use control Z to put it back. Now let's open any of these folders and see what they contain. We have several text layers, an icon, but I'm not sure what ellipse two is. If I toggles visibility, I don't notice any particular change. And that brings me to the third technique, to the third option. Now when you can spot any changes by playing with the visibility, you can create a selection. Here's how this works. Hold control, that's the command on a Mac, and you click on a stem nail. Once you've just created the selection, we have an entire chapter talking about selections. But the important thing is you get this stroke around it, this border, and now you can clearly identify it. This is a shape layer that has a very washed out color. Now besides that, the opacity is set at 20% Okay, now let's see what else we can find in this huge project. Layer 22 from the top of the layouts panel is a great candidate. Let's try everything so far. Number one, toggle its visibility, but when I click, I really don't notice anything. It's a huge project after all. Let's change the zoom level and try this again. But if you're working along, you're going to see that nothing really is happening. I don't notice anything. Now let's try the second technique. Let's move it and then use control Z. Now I can see that my smart guides are lighting up the pink lines. It's something in the middle of the canvas, but I'm not exactly sure what it is. You can play with the zoom level, but yeah, I'm not really sure what this is. Let's use the third technique. Let's create a selection. I'm going to hold control and I'm going to click at thumbnail. Okay, no other message. That means that we do have a selection somewhere that's a good sign. And looking at the project up and down, the thing is, I can't seem to find that this is a tricky situation. You may not get PSD's that are this big, that you don't know. But if you're going to be part of a team, this may sometimes happen. Or if you download it from the web, what can we do? Tip number four, when nothing else works, you can use the Marque tool and the alignment tools. Let me show you the technique, even though we haven't really talked about selections all that much up until this point. Here's the thing, Get the marquee tool, hot key, M. It's this one from the tool bar. Now, drag out a box anywhere that you want. Just a medium sized one, right. Next, switch to the move tool, and then we can use the alignment options. Press on Align Vertical Centers and Align Horizontal Centers. This is going to move the layer in the middle of this box. Here it is. If we zoom in, we can actually see that this is actually two tiny black dots. Obviously, now we have to put it back. Let's use control z. Okay, this was actually placed over the dark image, that's why we couldn't actually see it. If I make a selection again and if I zoom in, sure we can now see it. But zoomed out, yeah, we just couldn't do it. The next step is something I don't encourage, but some people really enjoy it. Again, my advice, don't use it While on the move tool, you can enable this option from here, Show transform controls. Now if I select any layer whatsoever, just click on it. It's going to look like I'm using control to transform it. Actually, if you go with any of these handles, you can actually resize it. Now some people like it because you can obviously see the edges of the layer and you always know what's selected. But I really don't think this is a good option. I want to see the layer clean, nothing else. That's why I suggest you disable it. You uncheck it and you always control click to select a layer. Then glance at the layouts panel and with good to go now let me switch tabs to a different one. This project is much smaller. It doesn't look that difficult. Why do we need so many ways to identify a layer? Well, let's take it from the top. Let's toggle the visibility of layer eight. Now if you're the regular hawkeye or the sniper, maybe a championship player in counter strike, you may have noticed that this layer contains the leafs details. This visibility technique, in short, doesn't really work all that well. Let's try the selection method, right? You control click but we actually get an error because the details are so fine, almost transparent Photo shop is having a hard time finding them, that's something to be aware of. The same thing happens when we try to make a selection based on layer ten. We get the same error. But if we use tip number two, move it and then undo, we can actually see that it's this part here. Now I hope that you understand why you need to know several ways to identify a layer. You never know which one is going to suit you best. But yeah, if you have the reason version all is the key, hold Alt, click on the thumbnail or on the layers name and you're good to go. You have these PSD's attached. Go through them and have fun. 56. Filter Layers: Welcome back. Let's see how we can filter out layers quickly so we can find something specific. Now, sometimes working in Photoshop is all about making your life easier. That's exactly what the filter system does. Let's use this PSD as an example because it's quite big. Now we saw how we can identify straight layers here and there. And we talked about each layer type having a distinctive symbol. Cool. Now if we focus our attention at the top of the layouts panel, you're actually going to be able to recognize them. These guys have an order. This is the rested layer. Adjustment layers, text layers, smart objects. If I click on the first one, this is going to show me all of the rested layers in this project. To do this option, we can easily rename them, we can group them, we can edit them in various ways. When we're done, we have to press on this icon so we can return to the normal viewing mode. So let's enable the shape layer filter and I'm going to show you how I use it in real projects. Here I have several base shape layers. If I select them and move them around, I can easily identify them as being these white rectangles. Notice they have a shadow effect, but I'm not in love with it. I would love to get rid of it. This is where filters shine. Instead of going through potentially hundreds of mislabeled layers, this cuts down my work tremendously. Now I'm going to write Click, and I'm going to choose clear layer style. And that's it. No more shadow. This works for no matter how many layers there are. Now please note that once this filter is active, you can see this red button in the top right. This means you won't be able to select any other layer that doesn't fit this particular filter. Let me show you what I mean. Say that I want to move all four white rectangles along with this headline. I'm going to hold control and shift and I'm going to click on them to select them. Right now as you can see, nothing happens when I move them from side to side. Only my rectangles get repositioned and that's because this text layer actually didn't get selected. If I perform the same action on this button, I immediately grab it from the canvas, and that's because any other layer type cannot be selected With this filter being active, Let me drop the shift key. And I'm just going to hold the control key so I can try to select this text layer. As you can see, I'm getting this error. If that happens to you, make sure that the filter is not active. If you want to disable it, you're going to have to click on this red button, okay? Now obviously I can select anything including a text layer and move it up or whatever. Now I'm going to enable the filter again and I can continue working on the project. This is a real case scenario. Okay. Now, so far we used the default settings, right? Filter by layer type, or how Photoshop calls it, layer type, layer kind, it's the same thing. Now, one of the most useful options right here is name. This is why I'm constantly telling you, please label your layers properly, rename them. I know that all of my white rectangles are called base because I named them, right? I can now write that in. Now I can focus my attention only on them and is fantastic for large projects because you get to stay consistent, right? This works great on large projects, especially if you stay consistent with your layer naming. Basically, you can work faster quicker even if you don't rename them. Here's what you can do. I'm going to write rounded, which is added automatically for every rounded rectangle on the canvas here. I have several buttons. I'll most likely get them here if I didn't rename them. Of course, you may be wondering, how do you know which is which? Well, that's why we had a separate lecture on identifying layers. In this case, I'm going to use control zero and I'm going to use technique number three. Create a selection by control clicking the thumbnail in the first one in the layers panel is the last one on my canvas. As I move down in this panel, I can see how each button lights up on the canvas. But say that you have no idea what your layers are called. Okay, it may happen. All that you remember is they had a stroke effect on them. Okay, not a problem. This drop down, I'm going to choose effect to the right. I'm going to have all the available layer styles in Photoshop here. I'm going to choose Stroke here, all the layers that match. As you can imagine, this is a very powerful tool for any user. But here's one feature I love, that's attribute. Now the name attribute may not tell you a lot, but let's enable it. And you're going to see another list right here. This one is huge. You can select just about anything you would like. Now, for example, if you're in the habit of creating lots of layers, some of them may remain empty. Well, this filter has your back enable it and they are going to show up. This makes it very easy to clean up your PSD. If you click again, we can also see not visible here, which helps you see hidden layers. This is something you may do quite a lot. You're going to duplicate the layer for insurance purposes just in case you screw up. Okay. But then you do a good job and you carry on with the project without deleting that layer without removing it. Well, this filter comes to your help and it's a big one. It does help you clean out your layers panel. Now, the last one I want to discuss, color. This doesn't refer to the color of the layer per se on the canvas. No, it's about its label. We have a few ones, Red, yellow, and so on. Through this filter, I can isolate various layers and focus my attention on them. Basically, this is how the filter system can supercharge your work. With that, let's continue. 57. Test your speed with this fun exercise: Welcome back. It's time to put out skills to the test with a new exercise. You have this PSD attached with several layers that are unnamed. Please take the time to label them according to the file type they belong. When you recognize a layer, double click its name and change it to whatever format it is. Shape layer, raster, Smart Object, and so on. This means your layers panel should have layers that are called Smart object one, Smart object two, and so on. Now after you rename them, place each type into its own folder. That means, for example, that all the text layers should have their own folder. After you've done with the layers panel, move over to the canvas and visually separate them. I suggest you place them in columns. But any other way works, just separate them so you can clearly see what's what. Now what's important is you practice and then try to increase your speed. This is all about dexterity and making smart choices, difficult exercise. But if you choose the wrong techniques, you may spend more time than needed. The very last task is to go through each layer type and further separate them based on their color. That means you should look at all the shape layers, for example, and move the red ones into their own folder, then do the same for the green ones and so on. Now, the entire process can take anywhere 5-20 minutes. But yeah, this exercise will test your speed. You hot key knowledge, your ability to identify layers quickly. But more importantly, you really should take a moment and consider what's the best approach. Really think about it that's essential. Like I said, Photoshop is a versatile program in, or you could move each layer on the canvas by matching your addo keys. Right now, one pixel at a time doesn't seem all that great. Right, that wouldn't be ideal. But then that begs the question, what would be the ideal technique? Find out the answer photo self, and let me know in the comment section the first time you do it and then the second time, use a stopwatch and see what's what. Please pause the video right now. Because in the next lecture, I'm going to solve it myself. Pause the video and do it yourself. Thank you. 58. Solution: Sort Layers: Welcome back. How did you manage, how did you find the exercise? I know that you've already used some of these techniques before. But I guess what, the more you practice, the better you get at it. My goal is to get you to a point where you no longer think about what needs to be done. Instead you straight up do it, no hesitation. That comes after practicing for quite a lot. Now I left you with a question. What would be the ideal way of solving it? Well, we can do it in several ways. Here I'm going to show you the first approach. First of all, we can focus 90% of the time on the layer spanel and basically not touch the canvas until the very end. That's because we can use the filter system to do all of the heavy lifting. For us, this is the easiest way of doing it, and I recommend you use it on the first go. Now the initial task is to rename them based on the type. Let's do that now, starting with the smart objects. Now this is the icon for smart objects. Let's filter them by the way, just in case you forget the symbols, just hover over them and you're going to see their names filter for smart objects. Great, now with this active, we immediately see all of the layers that meet that criteria. Now we get to work, can double click on the first one and I'm going to call it smart object space blank. Now we can copy that title so we can easily paste it for all the other ones. Of course, we do need to type one for the very first one, but yeah, after that, as you can see, just copy paste control V and then put a number on the end, 456, up until nine, that a nine smart objects in total, just in case you have won the ring. This is a good way to practice you at keyboard scales as well. Now back to it that have nine layers for each type, smart objects, which we've just done, the nine shape layers, text layers, and finally rasterized layers. All of them can be identified and sorted by using the exact same method you rely on Photoshops filter to do most of the work. Now in most situations, you'll have to look at the thumbnails and recognize them by their symbols. But here I want to show you the fastest way. Okay, let's just say that we've finished all the layer types and now we can move on to the next task. That's actually quite easy, it uses the exact same filter. All that we have to do is select the first one and then use shift and click on the other end. This is how we get them all. Press control to group them, that's command on a Mac. Repeat the process by filtering them one after another. There's a less effective method, but a more rewarding one, that's to use control and shift and select each layer as you find it in the layout spanel. That's going to be much slower though. I didn't want to be cruel, I didn't include 200 layers. But yeah, In general, you should try an assortment of techniques to make sure that you fully understand each hot key. Once you have done, you can close the filter by pressing on a small red button. And now you have to rename each folder, open up each group, and see what layer type it contains. Label them accordingly. And basically that's it, no fuss, quite easy to do. The great thing about it is there's only a few layer types in Photoshop, so it does work quite fast. And now we can move on. Let's separate all of these layers on the canvas. Four layer types means four columns. Now the basic way of doing it is to select them one by one, the control click technique, and then move them in a column format. Now, this is a bit time consuming. It's not optimal, but obviously for learning purposes it's just fine. Now the easiest way of doing it is to use the alignment tools from up top. I can select all the layers inside the group and then I can left align them. This is quite good now. I can place them anywhere on the canvas, and then I can use this command to separate them. Distribute vertical centers, I get more space between them. Now you may have to repeat this a few times until you're happy with the amount of space between them. Then once you're happy, just move on to the other layer types. This is another under used technique, mostly because a lot of Photoshop users don't really love these tools, they haven't played the round with them. But yeah, they're incredibly efficient and they're pixel perfect. The accuracy is super high, as you can see. Overall, these tasks are not that hard to pull off, but I promise you that a lot of people are going to skip over these exercises and they're not going to have that speed. That speed is really what matters in this day and age, especially if you're looking for a job. People are going to look at your speed now. I totally get that you can understand what's going on if you're sitting back and just watching. But it's one thing to watch on your couch, on your sofa, watching this on a big screen TV, maybe on your mobile phone. But trust me, it's a much better experience to use a desktop computer and work along. If not, a laptop works as well. But yeah, make sure that you work with me. Okay. Now we rename them, we've grouped them, we've separated them on the canvas. Now it's time to sort them based on their color. For this step, it's important we have the background layer locked. Make sure you have this lock icon next to it, not any other symbol. If you don't have it, select it and click on this icon. Okay, now you're going to notice some of these shapes are quite small. This is just one of them. To easily select them, we'll have to either zoom in really close and use the control click technique or bit of yet, click and drag. We've done this before, but in case you didn't get it on the first go, let me explain it again, with the background locked while on the moved wall. With this feature unchecked, I can drag, I can draw out a box and everything inside that box is going to get selected. Of course, we don't want any extra layers, so we're going to use the following approach. After we select one, we're going to hold down control and shift so we can get another one. Now this requires dexterity speed, but once you get it, you'll be flying. You just need to practice again with your eyes on the layer spanel. Once you select the first layer, you need to hold both control and shift. And then you can click and drag to select another one. Then use the same control G hot key to group them. It's really up to you if you want to rename them now or at the end. But yeah, it would be better to do it now because you can see the colors. But for the sake of your flow, you can continue with the click drag technique until you finish up. This is going to take some time, but this is really going to help you. Let me zoom through these steps since it's not going to do you much good if you see me do the same thing 20 times. But yeah, basically that's the essence of this exercise. Like I said, if you don't choose the proper techniques, it's one of the most difficult ones because it involves a lot of manual labor. But remember, we initially sorted them with the filtered system from the top of the layout spanel. Now I encourage you to take them one by one from the canvas with a control click technique. And if you work this way, you can separate them by the type and put them into columns at the same time. There is an advantage in working like that. This means you have to repeat the exercise. But yeah, that's totally fine. Please do it again that way and you're going to see the benefits down the road in the end. This is how the project should look like. Have a good look here. Pause the video if needed. Okay, please try again and see how you do. Post your time in the comments section. Thank you. 59. Manipulate Layers: Resize, Rotate, Transform, Flip: Welcome back. Say that we want to edit layers, resize them, rotate them, the works, how do we do that? Well, of course control is our bread and butter. In terms of resizing, that's command on a Mac. Once you get these handles, you can click and drag and quickly resize any layer or group. Now resizing has one super important thing that you need to keep in mind, that's this chain icon. If the chain icon is pressed, you're constraining your aspect ratio, You're maintaining it. That's great when you're working on a photo, for example. As you can see, I'm resizing it proportionally. Now if we hold shift, look at the chain icon. It's no longer pressed. This means we have complete freedom. This is actually terrible in this case because the photo may end up getting distorted like so. Now I'm exaggerating, but you get the point. The chain icon is super important and you should always leave it on, right? Well, not exactly. See if I add any rectangle to my canvas. Let's say this one here. Let's just assume that I want to make it wider. I'm going to use control, right, to resize it. But look what happens when I drag from this handle. It's becoming wider. Yeah, but it's also becoming taller. Why That's because of the chain icon. That's not good. Not in this case anyway. Again, this maintains the aspect ratio. It expands it or shrinks it proportionally. But in this case, we absolutely don't want that. We don't need to have the chain icon pressed. Now, what should you remember out of all of this? Well, if it's not working correctly, hold shift, that's it. Nothing else. If the resizing doesn't work as you would expect it to simply add shift to the mix, hold it, and that should fix it. That's because by default this chain icon may be pressed if you click on it or if you click it again. It's going to remain that way for the next time around. Basically, Photoshop remembers your choice, but let's not complicate things if it's not working right, just hold shift and that's it. Next, let's talk about rotating our layers. Now, I'm going to keep using the same shape, but this applies to all layers and groups. After you've hit control, you can move to a corner and you're going to get this new cursor. Now this tells you that you can click hold and rotate. You'll get a pop up that shows you the current angle, But if you need extra precision, you can use this field in the options bar. This is it. Simply type your value and you'll see the change without even having to hit Enter. Now I do have to mention something that I really dislike. Let's say that you're resizing a layer. Maybe you're rotating it right. If you move your mouse too much outwards, then the cursor is going to change. And if you click well, you've just de selected. It's like hitting Escape or Enter. I don't like this behavior, but Adobe seems to like it because it's been this way for the last couple of years. Beware of it. If you go too far out, if you click, you're just going to hit Enter. Basically, you're going to commit to all those changes. You got to stay close. How close? There's a certain range here. If you look at the mouse, you're going to see what's what. It's a bit annoying, but it is what it is. Now back to it are a bunch of options that you may not be aware of. After you hit control T, you can then right click and you'll get a brand new list of options. The same thing applies, you got a right click somewhere close to the layer. If you're too far away, you're going to deselect once again. But yeah, anyway, if you right click, you're going to get some of these options like flip horizontal or flip vertical. These are best used on photos about all those other choices from the list. I don't really recommend them. We don't really need them in all everyday work. Because of that, I think we should skip all of them. Maybe accept perspective. I think this one is quite fun. Let me show you how it works. Say that I have this nice card, but I want to play with its perspective. Well, no problem. Let's use control. And then right click next, we'll use perspective. Nothing happened, but that's because you need to grab any corner of handle to see it in action. As you can see, this is a bit of a three D effect. It is quite interesting now, are we going to use it that often? No, not really. But it's cool and I wanted to share it with you. And with that, we can continue. 60. Best Hotkeys: Welcome back. This is a lecture all about hot keys. But there's a cheat sheet attached, so you can see everything nicely laid out. In case anything is unclear, you can always check out the cheat sheet or come to this quad. Okay, now let's see what's, what hot keys are. Absolutely fantastic. They can help you work smarter and faster. So let's get started. I'm going to focus on what I use daily and I'll throw in a few complicated ones just for the fun of it. Control J, J as in James, one of the most used hot keys in Photoshop. It makes a copy of the current selected layer or group and it places it above it. This is great because you always need copies in Photoshop. Basically that copy can act like, as an insurance in case you mess it up. No word is you have the original one. This hot key also works on several layers or groups at a time. That's control J, as in James. Now control G as in group is another hot key I often use, and it's absolutely fantastic. But please note, if you use control G without anything selected, you're going to create an empty group. No word is though, you can simply drag your layers inside it. But the way I recommend creating a group is to first select your layers, either holding down control or using the shift method. And then once you have them selected, use control G to group them. The next one I'm sure you know what control, this is an essential command because you will need to resize, rotate, distort work, play on perspectives, and so on. In Photoshop, control is absolutely awesome. You're going to use it quite often. The next one, all control C. This is great when you want to shrink or enlarge your canvas, but you need precision. Please be aware that if you want to add, say, 100 pixels to the top of the canvas, you actually have to click on this bottom middle arrow. I know this may sound confusing, but let's do this again. If you need space in a certain section, say the left side, you got to use the Ado on the opposite side here. I'll move it to the right, and that leaves me three empty squares to the left. That means any value that I put in is going to be reflected in that region. Let me press okay. Hopefully this makes sense. In case you don't use these arrows. Photoshop is going to distribute the value equally. For example, 100 extra pixels is going to mean 50 on each side. That's alt control, the re size command. You can always use the crop tool, you can use that, obviously that's a bit faster but not as precise. The next hockey is quite similar, It's a control, as an image, that's the image size command. I suggest you either shrink it down by using percent or if you specifically know what you're looking for, you can change it to pixels. I like to use this when I want to resize absolutely everything. The first one, all control C, resizes the canvas, but all control resizes everything inside it. Next, this one is quite long, but I do actually use it, and it's a control shift, and now this creates a new layer that contains everything that's visible on the canvas. Now if you don't want to remember it, think of the merge command, which is control that basically makes two layers into one. On top of that, you can add all the modifier keys on your keyboard, Alt and Shift. Okay, the next thing, control one, brings your zoom level to 100% and I recommend you make a habit out of using it. Control one is absolutely essential. Now the next thing about your viewing mode for the full screen mode. Hit it once and you're going to end up like this. Hit it again, and you'll hide absolutely everything and you can focus on your work when your project is quite long. I suggest you toggle between control one, which is 100% zoom level, and then control zero. Control zero makes your project fit the current screen size. So this is actually quite nice because obviously you want to see it from top to bottom, from left to right. Now let me show you how I use a combination of these hot keys in a real project. This is quite a long canvas and if you check out the scroll bars, this is quite serious. When you're working on such a project, control one just isn't enough. You don't have the full picture right then you use control Z though. And then I'm going to tap the key twice to get into full screen mode. I take a good look. Then I switch to the zoom tool z. And then I click a few times, not too much, but just so I can understand it a bit better, I'm a bit closer. I never use my mouse scroll to go up and down. That's because it's going to take me forever. What I do is I add shift to the mix shift and scrolling. And as you can see, my view jumps quite a lot. It only takes me 23 swipes and I get to the other end. You can think of it as page up with page down again. That's absolutely fantastic shift in your mouse scroll, if you want to easily remember it, just remember what shift does in most cases. If you're moving a layer with the Ado keys, shift makes a jump in ten pixel increments. If you're adjusting your capacity, for example with your mouse scroll again, it does the same thing, shift the magic of shift. It makes sense to use it when you browse around a large project, a very tall one especially note, it works even if you're not in full screen mode. That shift and your mouse scroll finally control and the squared bracket keys. But I actually love it. This helps you move a layer inside your layer spanel. On the other hand, Alt and the squared bracket keys selects a different one. Try them out and see how you do. Now there's loads of other hot keys, but these are the most important ones that I suggest you integrate in your daily workflow. With that, please check out the cheat sheet and now we can continue. 61. Use Blending Modes: Welcome back. Let's talk about blending modes in Photoshop. First, blending modes refer to the way pixels from different layers interact with each other. The first way to adjust the blending mode, or the blend mode, is from the layers panel. By default, it's set to normal. This means the layers won't interact with the ones underneath each other. You have this project attached here. You can see how every one of these blending modes changes An image here is the original one with nothing added to it. For all the other ones, I added a red rectangle above them and then I changed the blend mode rectangle. Spxcels are going to interact with the winds from the image. The first one doesn't work. If we leave the opacity set at 100% it shows us the layer that's above, and basically that's it. But if we lower the opacity, notice how the image dissolves. Now I group these on the canvas based on how they're separated in this list. Now as a general guideline, the second row tends to darken an image. You can predict that based on their names, like darken, multiply, burn. All those things imply a darker image, a darker outcome. Now, the next set of blending modes lighten an image. Again, the names suggest that the rest can't be grouped in any way. They're a bit out there. Maybe the fourth one can be called the extreme ones because the results are quite out there. But yeah, as you use them more and more, you'll get used to them. But frankly, it's quite hard to predict the outcome by simply seeing the images side by side. Now most designers, what they do, even I do this from time to time. They just click on this drop down and then they scroll through them pretty quickly. Then you narrow things down to maybe one or two that you really like, and then you decide which one is best. Again, remember that this is a showcase of these effects when you combine an image with one solid color. But if you combine two images, the results are going to be quite different. This group will still provide a darker effect and these ones will still lighten things up. But yeah, overall it's quite hard to predict. To make things even more complicated by adjusting the opacity, you add another variable into the mix. It's truly something that requires a lot of play, a lot of trial and error. And the same can be said about layer styles. For example, these three don't work well by default with the default settings, But let me show you how I play around with them. Here I have these pre set now, they are disabled right now, that's why the eyes are grayed out. But if you click here, you're going to see that these become active. Now let's see what, first of all, we have a colored overlay that's set to color Dodge with blue set as the color. If this was set to normal, we wouldn't see anything else. Next, the gradient, this one is set to multiply with a radical colored set from red to green, quite extreme. Now finally, we have a pattern overlay with color burn and diagonal lines going across the image. Now the outcome is quite interesting and it only took me a few moments of trial ever. The takeaway is that blending modes are powerful, even though you have no idea what they do, even though they're hard to predict, they're still worth trying out. Download a few images, overlap them, and change the blending mode to the one that's on top, see what you get. Have fun with it and maybe post your image in the comment section. 62. How I quickly edit a website in Photoshop: Welcome back. Here's how I use Photoshop just about every single week, and that's to transmit certain things to my developers. So here's the situation. Let's imagine that I'm working on this website. It doesn't really matter in what situation. Let's just imagine that we want to edit it, we want to change some things about it, right? The best way to go about that is to use Photoshop and simply make those changes rather than telling the developer, hey, you know, I want the photo to be smaller, I want some other photos underneath it. I may want a different font, maybe a bigger button. Instead of saying all that in an e mail or making a zoom call about it, just do it in the Photoshop and show the developer exactly what you mean. Well, this is for the presentation, this is for the meeting. Maybe it's a discussion with your business partner. It doesn't matter the situation. Here's how I go about it. The first thing that I do is I take a screenshot. I usually use this one fire shot, I can use control shift and this is going to be totally nice. I'm going to save the full page and then I'm going to download it next. I'm going to drag it into Photoshop. Here's the plan. Here's what I'm going to do. First of all, the layer is locked so I can get to work immediately. Let's have a look. I don't have anything specific in mind, we're just going to play around with it. But the idea is we're not going to do the entire design, we're not going to make it pixel perfect. This is going to be a rough draft, something to go on, something that we can build upon right now, within the sketching phase. Let's get to it. First of all, what I would do is I would definitely make this smaller. I'm going to get the marquee tool, hokey M, the rectangular marquee. I'm going to select this entire thing and then I'm going to use control J. That's basically separated. Okay, awesome. Next I'm going to hide this part right here, the hide it. We could potentially do the following thing. Just get the rectangle tool and just hide it, but I'm going to use control z. Then I'm going to do the following, still with the marquee tool. This is going to be our favorite tool by the way. I'm going to make a selection like so on this layer by the way, Control, move on down hold shift. And that's it. Basically we are done. Awesome. Now we can do the following thing. We can get a rectangle tool. I'm going to hit x to flip it. This is black. We can now do something like this. Awesome. Now let's actually drag out the guide, just for the hell of it, that's control R. And then at the guide, okay, we're good to go. Awesome. Now we have a rectangle. What I'm going to do is I'm going to move this down. I'm going to call this website, then this one here. Boom. There we go. Control, all we have a clipping mask. I'm going to say this is main photo, okay? Now we can actually adjust this again. Control. And let's see, something like this. Maybe like this, okay? And now we can move it up. The main advantage here is that we're playing with everything by ourselves. We don't need the designer, we don't need the developer. We don't need a project manager. We're just playing with it and we're seeing if it makes sense, right? That's what I really love. We can check the existing website, we can go back and forth. Yeah, definitely. This is a good choice. Making it a bit smaller, maybe even smaller than that. Yeah, this is what I love because I can play around with it for hours on end. And then you finally show the design and say, hey, I want something that looks like this. Make it 100% But yeah, something like this. Next, definitely, I want a bigger button. Let's get the rectangle tool. Let's make, whoops, sorry about that. The rectangle tool. Let's make it much bigger. Oh, it's in the clipping mask. No worries. Drag it up. All control G. Now let's see, Could we use this orange? Let's have a look. Okay, pretty good. Pretty good. Let's round it out, maybe very high value. Let's see, Maybe 25260. Okay by 48. Okay, that sounds reasonable. Let's actually do 48 on the dot now, enable. See it again. Okay. Now let's say add to cart. But first we have to actually choose a font. Okay, let's have add to cart. This is poppins, right Now, let's actually change it, maybe 30, make it pure white. Move it here. Let's actually go with some time, Monserrat. Now the idea is you should actually reserve at least ten, 15 minutes and have a look on Google Fonts and see what interests you. We have that covered in the course. But yeah, basically have a look here, see what looks interesting enough. The idea is to make sure that you have something with a bit of personality, right? Because some of these are very basic, very boring, is interesting in the slightest sense. I do want something that is a bit interesting, maybe something like this, Maybe 22 control R. Let's select it and actually center it. It's still too big. Let's go with 18. Yeah, by doing it yourself, you're saving quite a lot of money. I do appreciate the fact that I do get this freedom. Let's say something like this. Okay? Add to cart. Good. Pretty good. Now, obviously this part is way too small. Let's, let's do this. This is button, raise it up. I think we're going to do the same thing. We're going to select this guy. We're just going to control J on it. Beautiful. Hi. Let's call this plus and minus. Now let's actually hide this part as well with the Marquette will again control hold shift. Beautiful. We now have this and this. Okay. Raise it up. There you go. Now we're going to make this one bigger. Now this is a rest of layer, I'm just going to convert it to a smart object. It's going to be just a bit sharper, something like that, I believe. 100% Okay, Pretty good. Yeah, I think that makes sense. The whole thing is to make sure that this is as tall as the button. But yeah, we don't have to be perfect about it. I think this is pretty good. Okay. Next, let's see, the price. Yeah, the price just isn't working for me. Let's actually do the following thing. Let's hide the price yet again, the marquee wall. Okay, let's see what we can do. I think the quantity should be on the left. Then let's say something like 79, 99, something like that, whatever. Okay? Make this probably something like this. Dark color, maybe. Orange. I think orange is actually quite nice. Let's put $1 amount as well, okay? Maybe make this a bit bigger, maybe even bigger than that. This is the type of thing I like to do. I believe that Photoshop works great on this type of stuff because again, you can just play with it and do whatever you want. Again, it doesn't have to be perfect. Maybe you decide to change things dramatically, place them in a different, you can do just about anything that you want. That's what I love about Photoshop, can just play around and see what works best. Yes, something like this, you know. But maybe we can actually do the following. Let's actually remove this. Let's add the title here. Snack pack, nutritive packets of nutrition, whatever. Maybe set it on two lines. Let's go 36. Let's let the line, we have something nice right here. Maybe do something like this, right? I think something like this might work a bit better. And actually, let's remove the line as well. We don't need it again. Control. There you go. Yeah. Now, all of a sudden, we can do the following. We can do this, boom, something like that, right? Maybe raise this one just a bit. Okay? Something like this. And actually we may use a divider, indeed we may use one right here. Okay? Something like that. But not pure black. Maybe something else, maybe something like this. Gray, dark gray. Actually, a light gray. Okay. Now you can see that this font isn't centered. Actually, we steal it. Can we easily steal it? I think, yeah, there we go. Let's actually hide this one as well. As you can see, we're hiding quite a bit. But yeah, this is the process. It is what it is. Okay? We're going to have to do some backspace action right here, but that's not a problem, okay? Okay, okay, and okay, I think we need to change the color though. We should probably make it dark gray, very dark one. Probably 22, maybe 16, maybe all caps. Let's have a look. I'm not sure. Let's fix it though. I'm going to match the Spacebar key and then I'm just going to copy paste. I know this is in Romanian. You might not understand the menu, what the menu says. It's totally fine. The main point is to make sure that you got the technique, that you understand the technique. Yeah, this is 100% and it's still too big. Yeah, maybe something like this. Okay, We can write Align it and now we can use the key tool to actually center. I'm going to make a selection like switch the move tool and then use this one. Align Vertical centers and boom, there you go. The first one may be orange as well. All right, now let's have a look. This is the existing one and this is the new one. And I think it's quite a big difference. We can obviously move everything on towards the left. But let's actually do this. I'm going to teach you how I like to work. I'm going to select the background and then I'm going to lock it. I'm going to use this guy right here. And now I'm going to select these guys like so, and then simply move them. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Now for this one just a bit higher up, we don't actually need this much space. Yeah, obviously we don't want it crowded. But yeah, maybe just a bit lower down. Again, you can take your time with it with only 10 minutes in. Obviously, I'm going quite fast. But yeah, you can take an afternoon, a bunch of hours, 23, 4 hours, and just experiment. Maybe this one is going to look better in a darker color. Maybe actually do it in two colors. Something like this. I'm not sure if you like it. Maybe we can do this one in all caps. Okay. Actually we can do this in black, so something like this. Okay. Maybe as you can see, I'm just playing around with it. And I love this type of thing in Photoshop because you don't have to be right every time. I think. I think this is fine actually, but yeah, just play with it and see if you like it. If you don't, no problem. Just use control Z. And that's it, This is lovely. Let's raise this up just a bit now. Let's add the font here as well. Okay, there we go. We, I'm in a hurry right now, and I do have my microphone right in front of me. That's why I'm actually doing quite a lot of miss clicks. It's not a problem. There you go. Obviously when you want speed, you will sacrifice some precision, Regular light, maybe. Why not? Let's see. I'm not sure. Okay, so 16 was going to need a bunch. Quite a lot of line height. Okay. Regular, maybe. Maybe medium. Okay. Okay. Okay. I think this is fine. 1 second because we do have some extra space here and it's bugging me something like this. Okay. Yeah, I think this may be a much better choice. Now in terms of color though, I can't say that I'm in love with it. Maybe something like this. I'm not sure if you can see it, but this brown may be a much better choice. I'm not 100% sure. Actually, let's just go with this one right here. So just keep that clay. As you can see, I'm bottom aligning it. This is quite nice. We can actually do this. Boom, there you go. Quite nice. Then probably, let's do this. I'm going to make a copy, I'm going to merge them. I'm going to make them into a smart object because I don't really care about the size. Maybe do something like this. We have to hide the arrows because otherwise the developer might get confused. Let's use the following things. We're going to select it, shift the five content aware. Okay, that's it, this is good enough. It's not a problem that it doesn't look good. It's totally fine. We can actually do a better job. But why would we just keep, keep it classy, Keep it simple. Okay? Something like that. And then in terms of the actual rectangle, let's have a look. I think we should actually keep the aspect ratio, Let's do this, make this one smaller, something like this. Do we want three or four? That's the question. Let's go with four, I think. Let's go with four. Okay, there you go. We have all of them select them, and boom, there you go again. It may be one or two pixels off, that's not the point. I'm obviously a fend for the attention to detail. I love being super, super careful about this stuff. But yeah, in general, you shouldn't really care at this point. Because the entire thing is not to be super careful about all of these things. The idea is to get the job done fast. But obviously, I've been working in Photoshop for quite a while and I've actually, I've done web design professionally in Photoshop quite a bunch of years ago. Yeah, that's why I'm actually quite careful with this stuff. Okay, that's about that. This is quite good. Nine pixels. In between these guys, we have ten pixels. Okay, let's just do one more. Again, this is just the part of me that's super careful about the details, but in general this shouldn't matter. Yeah, this is what I wanted to show you, how you can do this type of stuff. Let's do this part as well. Just control J, move it here. And then, yeah. Hi. Including the line as well, because the line isn't positioned correctly. Actually, we have it here. Yeah, just bottom line. It all of a sudden we have our selves, a brand new website, let's hide the guide, let's go full screen mode. And yeah, this is much more like it actually. This should be increased a bit because we do want a bit more white here. Yeah. Then boom, that's it. Because again, the logo does need a bit of a breathing room. Yeah, this is what I propose. I think this is miles better than the existing one. With this very quick thing that we've done in what, 15 minutes or so, this is something that we can talk about. I can go into a meeting, I can jump onto a call. Rather than explaining things, I can just show it. Show it to my developer, to my business partner, to whatever, to another designer, whatever. Yeah, I think this is the type of thing that you should strive for. Just drag it in and do all sorts of edits until you're happy. Another thing that you can really do is get inspired by other websites. For example, the review is part right. For example, this one seems lovely. Okay. Not a problem. Just steal it. Simply steal it. Why would you steal it? Because this is just a place for the inspiration. It doesn't mean that you're going to use exactly the same thing, right? It's just something that you can mock up and then you can show to your developer, whatever your shareholders, and say, okay, what about this? What if we put the views here and then we're going to have the rest of the design again, let's do a big selection and then simply move it up because again, this is a rester layer, so we can easily do this type of thing. What if we do something like this, right? Boom. There we go. Full screen mode. Yeah, that's it. Obviously you can make this, rather than being green, You can make it orange. You can left the line. This part, you can do loads of stuff. But the whole thing is jump into Photoshop, take a screenshot and then just play with it. And you saw how I did it. Just use the marquee tool, use control. Just go through the motions really fast. It doesn't have to be perfect. You can do all sorts of things that aren't perfect, that are a bit messy. But yeah, overall, that's fine as long as you get into this mindset. Because, for example, if you jump on a call and your business partner says, hey, why are these guys orange? Why is this a different font than the one above? Okay, that's not the right attitude. You could potentially design the entire thing itself, make it pixel perfect. Sure, that's totally fine. And I do have a Photoshop course about that. But that's not the point of this lecture. The point is to get inspired, jump into it, and be okay with the fact that you may not know. Maybe you're going to do a different font here. For example, let me just show you. Maybe we can do something like this. For example, let's go zilla slab bold. I don't think so. Maybe medium. Change this to sharp, right? Maybe make it a bit darker. I have no idea. I have no idea if this is fine or not. But I'm going to do it. I'm going to have a look at it and then I'm going to decide is this good or not? If it's not good, okay, let's just change it back, you know, change it back to monster, right? And that's it. So that's the type of thing I really want you to explore, jump into it, and have no fear if it's fine, it's fine if it's not just undo and you have another look at it tomorrow. Because usually that's how the best ideas come about. I have a look here, I think this is fine after 20 minutes of work. But then tomorrow after the good night's sleep, I may say, okay, let's make this one even smaller. Let's raise this up. Maybe make it something like this. Then raise up the thumbnails as well. Yeah, you can do a bunch of stuff, but the whole thing is be fearless about that. Don't try to be perfect. Just jump in and see how you do with that. This is Chris signing out. Thank you so much. 63. What’s Adobe Bridge and this why you should care: Welcome back. In the past, in my opinion, Adobe Bridge was an old, clunky program that really didn't have any real world use. I saw older designers use it, and I couldn't figure out why. Well, recently Adobe Bridge has gotten a lot better. It's also free to download and use, and I really think that you should use it. This is Adobe Bridge and you can think of it as a program that helps you organize your files. It doesn't have one specific thing that's going to blow your mind. No, it's actually a series of helpful little things that make you faster and more efficient. Let me give you a clear cut example, you can better see what's up now. I have a few photos from my camera, but what are they? What's inside them? As you can see, these guys are set to open up in Photoshop. But this is a pain because the process is super slow. Opening them one by one is a major headache. If you don't know what's inside these files called IMG 6568, IMG 6569, then it's going to be difficult to work with them, right? More than that, when you're on vacation, you're going to snap a lot of photos, but a good part of them are going to be blurry, out of focus. Fuzzy. You're blinking, you're sneezing, you can't use them. How can you quickly clean them and only keep those that are actually good? Out of 500 out of 1,000 2000 depending on your spousal partner, right? Adobe Bridge helps you with that. Now it's true your operating system may give you some of these thumbnails, right? But they can help. Can they show you if the image is in focus? Can you see if the image is grainy or noisy? No, not really. Now, you could potentially use a different program like ACDC. Now in the past, I did the following trick. I copy pasted a photo inside this folder, and then I renamed it to one or something like that. I changed the name, so it would be the very first file in this folder. Then because this photo was a Jpeg with a PNG, it would open up ACDC and I would get to see the preview of all of those files, be it PSD files or raw files from a professional camera. That was the trick I used in the past. But ACDC is not a free program. Adobe Bridge is more than that. Adobe Bridge helps me swat my files based on various filters like isolating, shuttle speed, apple chit. But I can also give them a score, one to five out of 500 photos. I'm going to only be left with a few of them that are actually good. Those with I'm not sneezing or blinking adobe bridge is awesome and it's really helped me grow as a designer. In the next few lessons, I'm going to share everything that's actually helped me in my workflow. This is not going to be an A Z section on Adobe Bridge because you can spend loads of time dissecting every single thing in this program. And that's not what I like to do. I'm only going to focus on things that you can immediately use. And with that being said, let's discover Adobe Bridge together. Let's get to it. 64. Organize loads of photos with Adobe Bridge: Welcome back. Here I am in Adobe Bridge. I'm using the latest version at the time of this recording, and the very first thing that we should focus on is the workspace. We know Photoshop has different workspaces depending on what type of work you want to do. Well, it's the exact same thing here for previewing and giving ratings to photos. I like to use the film strip. Now it's this one right here on this side, I have filter as the active tab. Now from time to time, I'm also going to use essentials, which gives me a smaller preview on the right side. And I can see this information right here, the meta data. Now one thing that you have to remember is that you can always resize these panels, for example, this one here. Move your cursor until you see this symbol. Then resize as needed. And trust me, you will need to do that. Now, you shouldn't worry about missing things up, because as always, you can reset your workspace. Just use this panel. Moving along, you can see about loads and loads of things here my advice is you focus on the very basics. For example, the size of the preview on the right. Resize the panel as needed though in the essential workspace, you shouldn't really have a preview that's too large. That's what the film strip is for. Now, in terms of your actual files, you can hold control and use your mouse scroll to make them bigger or smaller. That's for the thumbnails, of course. Now, just in case you don't like hot keys, you can always use this slider here, and that does the same thing. Now let's focus on practical things. The file names tend to be rubbish, right? Same thing with the folder names. This is what my camera typically gives me when I download my movies and pictures. Now it's either the date or some random numbers. This is quite difficult to wrap your head around. Hit on my first two steps. First of all, inside the exploded, you can click here in this area that's called the address bar. Use control set to copy it. Then come back to Adobe Bridge. Here you have the exact same address bar. Click once and then that's right. You can paste it. Enter, and you're going to be taken to that folder. Again, if you can't manage, you can actually use this panel here to navigate inside your computer. Now I'm here, inside this folder by using the first method, But what's the second step? It's renaming them. That's the second thing that you should really focus on, going to select the first red box by clicking it. Then as in most applications, I'm going to hold control and I can select the other ones. Now with a bunch of them selected, I can go to the top menu. Click on Tools. From here, use batch rename. There's also a hot key, but let's keep it simple. Now for the settings, we want to rename them in the same folder, but we do want names that we can actually understand. Let's call this red box cookies. Now I'm going to keep the underline and the sequence number that are two previews. That's one underneath this is the new naming structure or you could hit on preview from this side here. This shows you the entire list. Now why is this important? Because next time around we can use the search feature and look for something like box. Or if we rename the other ones, we can search for the individual cookie. Let me actually rename the other ones as well, just so you have a better idea. Individual cookies, maybe separate cookies, whatever you want, singles, whatever you want, just call them something that you can recognize. As long as you choose the name, you're probably going to remember it. Okay? This is much more logical and it's obviously easier to find files that are labeled properly versus IMG 4316. Right, So to recap the first two tips, Use the address bar to quickly find your way to a specific folder on your computer. Then the second thing, use tools, then batch rename to better name your files. Now the third tip is actually creating folders, which is exactly what you do in your regular operating system. Adobe Bridge is exactly like your file exploded, right? We can write, click, and create a new folder, give it any name that you want, and then you can drag and draw files inside it. The process is streamlined because Adobe Bridge knows how to handle these types of files, be it raw files or regular J pegs. Now you can't see your folders, you can always click here. Now from this list, choose Clear Filter, because sometimes we might apply various filters like only show me the types of files that have five stars or something like that. And then we may fool ourselves into thinking that, hey, with missing files from this folder, okay, back to it in case you want to do. Obviously use control Z and the file won't be placed inside it anymore. But here's the thing, cut, copy, paste. They still work the same way as in your operdating system. Use your hot keys to move stuff around or maybe drag drop them. What you want to do, you can do it here in Adobe Bridge. And if you have a look at the top left side, you're going to see another feature that's quite familiar, a back arrow. You don't have to use the address bar. You can go back and forth to these lovely arrows. Now to finish this off, Adobe Bridge is incredibly useful in terms of viewing and organizing photos, but nowadays it's also fast. Previously it was slow and clunky, but this version works very well on most modern computers. Good luck with it and keep watching so you can see how many other features you can use in your everyday workflow. Good luck and have fun with it. 65. Rate your files – the unknown hero!: Welcome back. As you may know, I have a healthy food business in Romania and I have about 30 products in total. I've been working with a professional photographer, but I've also tried my luck with snapping photos myself. Now at the end of the day, this is what you can expect from an amateur. Loads and loads of images. Now trouble is a good chunk of them are not usable and if they're taken by me, obviously the vast majority are going to be horrible. Even with a professional, at least 20% I'm not going to be good. But yeah, with so many photos, how are you supposed to decide which ones are worth keeping? We know that we can improve just about any image in camera raw or photo shop. But some of them are the lost cause, for example, this one here, simply not enough light. It's really not great. Now we could delete it altogether by hitting the delete key. By the way, when you hit it, you're going to get this message. Basically, Adobe Bridge is asking you if you really want to remove it from your hot drive or just hide it from this list. In most cases, you probably want to remove it. You want to delete that. It does say that you can use control, delete to immediately move it to the recycling. And now I'm going to cancel though. Now the issue isn't with these horrible photos. These are clear cut, trash them, remove them. The real issue is with those photos where you're a bit unsure about them. That's where the rating system comes in, switch to the film strip if you don't have it already so we can better see what's what here. You should have the following options, checked titles, and then use control for labels and ratings. This means that if I hit control one, this is going to apply a one star rating to this photo. You can also see it on the left side than this filter tab. We have a bunch of photos with no ratings. A few of them with five stars, and now a single one with a single star. Now I repeat, one star usually means this is horrible. You can remove it. Now, ratings actually help you with closer situations. For example, this photo is a five star photo and I've already enhanced it in camera raw. But what about this other one? Well, the jar is a bit more towards the back. I think I'm going to give it three starts control three. Or you can actually click on the star rating right here. In case you want to clear it, click again. Or you can hit the cancel symbol to the left of the star rating. But yeah, three stars because it's not a good look that the last jar is more towards the back. Now, what about this other one? Well, I would say this is a four star photo. It looks pretty good. But seeing the other one with cookies on the ground, I think that's clearly better. I will prefer that version. But in case that falls through, for whatever reason, I'm going to come back to this one, because here's the thing, Maybe you're working with a client, maybe we want to decide, we want to use a white background. This is why we have 3.4 star ratings as a backup. If we come back after the week, after the month, after the year, we can quickly come back to this project. You don't have to rely on your memory. Now, if you rename the files with batch renaming, and if you use the rating system, you should have a bunch of 34.5 style photos. Now for five styles means we can improve them in camera raw and Photoshop and upload them to my website. Four means it's a solid alternative to a five star 1.3 styles works as a backup. Here's the situation, my photographer has loads of photos that he has to snap for me, I requested the following, individual photos on white, individual photos on black. Then as a group in terms of categories, then as an entire group, the entire thing, that some odd images, then as products without sugar and so on. It's a big checklist. So he may get confused. So here's a clear situation where the rating system is needed for the Gvanola Packaging. I needed a clean, isolated photo of the bag. Okay, I have three in total. The red one is here. It's done. The magenta one, it's done. The blue one, it's not done. There's only this photo with the bowl next to it and it's covering a part of the bag. This is a three star photo, not because it's poor quality, but because the arrangement is off. In case I don't have another photo that maybe the photographer forgot to send, I'm going to be forced to use this three star image. Here's another one. Let's assume that all of my images on the home page have to have a white background, right? But there's only one available photo that's a bit too dark or it's a bit too grainy. Well, if you have a look at the image, especially when you zoom in, you're going to see that it's super noisy. That's because of the very high. So, but that's another discussion. Fact is, the quality is poor. This is a three star photo, but if it's the only one where I have a white background, I may have to use it. That's how you actually use a star system. You download all of the photos and you open them up in bridge. You batch rename them based on the category by the background color, with any other criteria that you want. Then you quickly rate them at the end. You shouldn't have any unrated photos. The ones that are the one or two are typically blurry, out of focus, grainy, too dark over exposed, and so on. Those can be deleted with control, delete. Then moving on, those that are awesome can be given a five star rating. Those that are solid but not top notch four stars. Then as a back up three stars, after you rate them, you go back to the filter system and you start editing the ones with five stars. You edit them, you enhance them in camera raw, you save and export them. If they look great, you put them on the website. If you upload them and they're not great, you can go back to the four star ones just in case you're looking for something different. If you're in real trouble, for example, you're missing something, then go with the three star ones. Now in general, I do like to edit the four style ones after I'm done with the five star ones, just because I like to have loads of material for social media. But yeah, overall, that's my system. That's how I use Adobe Bridge to rate my files and decide what's worth editing in Photoshop and Camera Raw. From what I've seen, this process isn't all that popular. Adobe Bridge is fairly unknown, but I really think that this is a game changer. It's fast, efficient, and logical when you're dealing with lots of photos, whether it's from a photo shoot or you've been on vacation. I think this is a godsend. Good luck with it and have fun. 66. Are you a beginner photographer? Start here!: Welcome back. I'm not a photographer and I'm not planning on becoming one. But I would still like to be able to take a few snaps here and there, right? Whether it's for the vacation photos, special moments, or maybe even some product photography for my products. Now trouble is I have no idea what shuttle speed, aperture, so focal length mean, and so on. There are a bunch of terms that make my head spin right now in case you've been in the situation. I've been in this situation. So here's a quick solution through Adobe Bridge. So here's the case. I recommend you set up your camera on a tripod or keep the same position somehow. Then go through every single setting that you can think of, right? Snap the same photo with different settings and then have a look at them in Adobe Bridge. Switch to the essential workspace and have a look here, the meta data section. Now here you'll see a bunch of numbers, but these are the most important ones. Aperture, shuttle, speed and O. Now to have an easier time with it, switch to the film strip mode and let's use the filter system, for example. Let's switch to the highest, SO that's 4,000 in my case. Now the list is going to refresh and we have a couple of photos. Now, initially these look fine, right? It doesn't seem like we've uncovered anything. But let's open them up in camera Raw. By the way, it's going to open up in camera Raw by default because this is a Raw file, it's not a Jpeg. Most professional cameras are going to give you a Raw file. Now, more on that in the camera raw section. Anyway, back here, zoom in and you're going to see that this is super noisy. All of these grains, these look like dust. This is actually caused by a high SO value. Now I could explain that. So is the cameras sensitivity to light? But that definition really didn't help me all that much. What did help is this outcome. Now do you think this is a good look? No, far from it. This would be a three stop photo in my book. Now, could we potentially improve it by ramping up noise reduction from the details panel in camera raw? Sure, that does help, but now it's going to be a bit blurry, a bit unfocused. This is why it's a three star photo. We can do various things to make it usable, but it's not ideal. Now let's go back to Adobe Bridge and uncheck this filter. This time around, we're going to use the lowest. So by the way, this is not the lowest possible O in the world or what the camera is capable of? No, actually this is the lowest. So picture inside this particular folder that's 0640. Yeah, think okay, let's load it up and see what's what. Now here's the thing. If we're going to zoom in, we're going to see there's far less noise. It's actually quite a decent photo, but notice something else. This is a lot darker typically. That's what you're going to get with a lower, SO you're going to get a cleaner image with a darker one, from what I understand. And please take this with a grain of salt. Now what you want is a very low. So like 200 coupled with great lighting studio lights. Now in this case, I didn't have a great light source. It was just my window. Hence, why this is quite dark. Now here's the thing. Could we improve it as well? Sure, we can raise the exposure and do lots of other things. Actually, you know what, I'm just going to hit auto because auto will do a bunch of things. Yes, it does raise the exposure. Quite a lot of other settings, this is far more usable than the high. So one that's basically how you're going to learn. Now in this folder, you can see that my subject did change, but I recommend you snap photos where you have the same position, the same product, the same light, and then just change the settings. Let's go back and talk about the aperture. Again, you can filter by using this panel here. Now again, the definition wasn't really all that clear. It's really something that may interest you if you're into photography. Now, I'm sorry, I'm not into that. No disrespect but it's just difficult for me to grasp it. What I do is I look at the photos here. I have a few photos shot with 2.8 Now, if we look at the preview, we can see that there's a blur effect in the background. This is quite nice and for this specific photo, I love it. Now more than more phones are actually capable of having this natural blur effect. Some people call it bouquet. A lower value will give you a blurrier background. You can read all about that in this article. But yeah, basically a high aperture like 11 or F 16 is going to make the background sharper. Everything is going to be in focus, right? In Adobe Bridge, I don't have a high value here. The highest is 40, which is still fairly low. But yeah, overall, that's my suggestion. If you're a beginner, use Camera Raw to get a better sense for these values. I spent half a day playing with all the settings and analyzing the results in Adobe Bridge and Camera Raw. And now I know what I need for my product photos. And same thing with my videos. It does take quite a while. You do need several takes, but if you use Adobe Bridge, you're going to be golden. Give them a rating and you can clearly see what works best. And once you know how these settings affect the look and feel of your snaps, you're good to go. Put Adobe Bridge to good use and compare different settings. See how you do. Good luck with it. 67. Optimize viewing mode and clear cache: Welcome back. Here are a few things that have really helped me speed up my workflow. First of all, in the film strip viewing mode, I like to hold control and select two photos at a time. This gives me a good side by side shot and I can quickly make a decision. In this case, this is not clear and I need to go into full screen mode. For that to happen, I like to use the Spacebar key. Now obviously, the Spacebar takes you into full screen mode. But here you can use the arrow keys on your keyboard to go back and forth between the two selected images. Now I can really hyper focus on certain parts of the image to make sure that I'm choosing the best one. Now you could also de select and have a single highlighted image. Then hit the Spacebar key to get into full screen mode. Now you can go to all of your images, plus in case you want to zoom while you're in full screen mode, you can simply click, and that's going to bring you closer. If you click again, you're going to zoom back out. The focus here is on speed. You don't have complete control, but that's not the right mindset You want to do is you want to quickly sort and select images, then bring them into camera raw or photo shop. But in case you want to control your zooming in full screen mode, you can use the plus and minus keys on your keyboard. I like to use the numeric keys from the right side of my keyboard, and the zoom level shows up in the top center part of the screen. Finally, you could use your mouse wheel as well. It's really up to you. Now, one thing that I'm not 100% certain of is how you display the name of the file right here on my end, this works by hitting the Zo key. But I haven't found anything in the official Adobe Bridge guide now. Still you can use that Zo and see what's what. Okay, now while you move around from photo to photo, you can still use control five to give it a five star rating for example, or any other value. The great thing is when you head escape, you're going to be brought to that particular file actually, there's no need to remember the file name in full screen mode. Of course this does help you a bit. But yeah, head zo and you should see the name in the bottom left side. Now one of the reasons Adobe Bridge shows you all of these previews so fast is because it uses cache. Trouble is if you have a small drive, it may fill it up in case that ever happens, you may want to hit control K to open up the preferences panel. If you don't like hot keys, go to the top menu to edit. From here, go to Preferences. Okay, wait a moment. And then in this new window, go to cache. Here you can set the total amount of space that Adobe Bridge can use to store these previews. Basically, it's going to load faster when you click on something. Boom, you're going to have it. Now This seems like a large value, but it has a huge impact in terms of performance. If you want Adobe Bridge to be as responsive as possible, this is the price that you have to pay. You may want to enable this feature that says purge cash that's older than 30 days, but it's a matter of how much you're willing to sacrifice. In case that you really need some empty space, you can switch to cache management here. This is the nuclear option, so to speak, where everything is going to get purged. Now for me, after heavy use, this was only about two or 3 gigabytes now, To be honest, I was expecting more. But hey, at least now you know how to clear everything. Of course, once you clear everything, Adobe Bridge will thank for the bit. It will load up, nothing major, but you will see some loading messages every time you click on any preview. Okay, those are my tips for Adobe Bridge. Make sure you put them to good use when you're dealing with lots of photos. Have fun with it. 68. Create a beautiful PDF presentation in seconds: Welcome back. Let me show you how you can create a beautiful PDF presentation in Adobe Bridge in just a method of seconds. First of all, make sure you have your photos inside the folder. Like so, you can obviously use the filter system from the top right side to only show you maybe the five stop photos in case you gave them a rating. Now let's switch to output. Now, this is going to take you a few seconds to load. Please have a bit of patience. The whole thing is this. Say that you need to talk to someone about the look of the project, right? Say that you're unsure if you should use a light or dark background for your photos, but maybe you're about to print a sales brochure or some type of printed photobook for the special moment and you're not sure what images need to be included. Well, you can actually use this feature. Choose a template from the top area under the output settings. Four by five is my go to choice, because I really don't need large images. This small grid will work just fine. I'd rather have a nice grid of smaller photos that I can easily print and present. Now in terms of printing, you do get the international standard here, like 45 and so on. But if you check this drop down, you'll see that you're going to have loads of templates, loads of choices. The thing is you really don't have to print it. You can e mail the PDF or maybe have a zoom meeting about it. But this is much better having everything inside the PDF rather than going through tons of images one by one. That's the main point. Now I'm going to leave this set to four. Now I'm going to hold control to select several photos and drag them over this preview right here. Now you have to give it a second and you're going to see the layout is going to refresh. This is fast and easy. You can see that we have the option to add several pages, but I'm going to stick to a single one for this example. Now, more than that, you can click on any image hold and reposition it. Imagine you're selecting photos for the holiday album, right? You might want to arrange the album in order, right? Preparing the bags, arriving at the airport, landing, arriving at the hotel, and so on. Being able to arrange them nicely is quite helpful. I've actually gone through this process and it's a bit tricky because you see photo books have a set number of pages, like 24 or 36 or whatever. You really have to be careful about what photos you choose to include. Selecting them through such a PDF is awesome. It really helps, especially when you have someone to talk to. Now one thing that I always do is I keep the file names inside this document. I don't need the extensions though, so I'm going to uncheck that option. Preferably, you've batch renamed all of these photos, but as long as you can easily search for the names of numbers, that's totally fine. Okay, now without quite a few choices here in this panel example, under the PDF properties, you could set up a password, only certain people can open it. You can also set it to open in full screen mode. You can even set up a watermark just so you're protected. Now I'm not going to play with all those things, because there's another section that actually needs our attention that's grid and margins. By default, Adobe Bridge is very generous with its spacing, especially the vertical one. My advice is you go to that cell spacing and tone it down quite a lot. Now please be aware that these gray areas, they won't show up in the actual document. These are shown, so you can better gauge the space. Okay, let's tone this down. Something like that. Now the template from above is going to change to custom, but that's totally fine. Just in case you want the PDF to be as light as possible, you may want to change the resolution. The default one here is 300 PPI pexels per inch. Image quality is set to eight. Now if you drop the resolution to 150, you're going to get a lighter PDF that's bound to open faster, especially on slower machines. It really depends on what you want to do. 150 is great for the on screen use 300 if you're about to print that. Okay, with that being said, let's hit, okay, let's hit export to PDF. Wait a few seconds, give or take, depending on your computer. Then you should have your PDF show up. Have a look and see if this works well for your purpose. In case that a final details inside your photos, you may need a different grid for logic ones. For logic photos, let's go back to Adobe Bridge and change the number of columns to three. Keep the rows set to five. This is going to give you a larger thumbnail and this will help you judge minor details shown in your images. It's really up to you, but I think using Adobe Bridge, a totally free program, to create these quick PDFs is quite useful. Try it out and see how you do. Have fun with it. 69. Camera Raw – A must-watch introduction: Hello. Hello everybody. This is Chris, and I want to welcome you to this part of the course, Camera Raw. Before we jump into it, I have to tell you a few things about it. Camera Raw is a beast. It's incredibly powerful and complex. If you're into photography, this is an absolute must. But it's not reserved for power users alone. Camera raw can help you improve a photo in just a few clicks. Even if you're the beginner, no fuss about it. Now I'm more for this second part. I'm a casual user. I'm not a photographer nor do I want to become one. The reason I got started with camera raw was out of necessity. I needed to fix some very washed out or some very dark photos and this was the right tool for the job. So basically I take on a relaxed approach. Here's how I see it. I'm personally a perfectionist. I want to show my best. Every time I put something out, I started working on some product photos from my own website. And on the first one I spent 1 hour. On the second photo, I spent 2 hours. Now indeed it was better, but I looked at my website and I saw I had 80 other photos I had to do. I mean, 2 hours for everyone was not feasible. That's when I decided I need to compromise. I need to be happy with an eight out of ten. For me, there has to be a balance between speed and the quality of the result. And that's what I'm going to show you in this section. It won't be perfect projects, but I will show you my techniques and how you can improve your photos fast. Then it's basically up to you if you want to spend 10 minutes, 10 hours per photo. Lastly, this is recorded in the latest Photoshop and Camera raw versions. If you have an older edition of the program, you'll have to have a whole lot of patience. Most of the sliders and features are still there, but it's shown in a different fashion. It's quite different. I can't say it's going to be easy to follow along on an older version. My advice, please upgrade it is worth the $10 per month. And with that, that's it, Liz. Get started. We'll see what's what in a moment. Thank you. 70. The most important thing about editing photos: Whether it's working in camera Raw or in Photoshop in general. Some students have asked me, Chris, how do I know when I'm done editing? Or Chris, how do I know if it looks good or not? Now, those are decent questions and they bring us to the most important thing about editing photos and that's the fact that there is no finish line, there's no set point when you know you're done To illustrate the point, you can get any photo and use this auto feature, okay? And it does look better than just one click. Now are you done? You could increase the sharpness a bit more or maybe the contrast. Now, are you now done? You can also apply targeted edits, meaning you can focus on a few key areas here and there. Then you can apply a vignette and on and on it goes. When are you done? The point is you have to understand that there's no finish line with editing. You can do as much as you want, depending on your time and patience and skills. You have to get comfortable with the fact that there is no clear end. Now, for the second question, how do you know if it looks good? That's another part. Tell me, does this look good or does this look good? Or how about this one? It's the same photo, right? And I can show you lots of other different effects and moods, different vibes, You can do just about everything you want. The whole point is to experiment and have fun with it. Sure that at some mistakes that are quite obvious, like too bright or too saturated, maybe too dark. In general, I'm going to teach you how to avoid those issues. Beyond that though, it's really up to you and your eye. There's no set standard that you have to reach. Now if you want my advice, you can do this. Look at galleries that you love or stock photo websites, have a look at images that grab your attention. See how bright, how saturated, how sharp they are. Then try to do the same thing. Now, in most cases, you'll see that you need a fine touch. Less is typically more. But again, to get a sense of your edits, look at some examples that you like. Then go back in camera raw or in Photoshop and do your thing, go back and forth and see if you're going in the right direction. But at the end of the day, your mindset is the most important one. Don't put pressure on yourself with these edits. The more fun you have, the better you're going to get at it by understanding that is no finish point and no set standard. This means that you can play with your edits and see where you end up. If you don't like it, simply try again. That's the spirit of these types of projects. Please have fun. I really mean it. 71. Most common edits in Camera Raw: Hey there. Let's dive in and start editing this photo in camera raw by using the most common techniques. I'm going to explain everything in detail as we move forward, but for now I want you to get active. Please be aware that raw files are typically huge. Your computer may be quite slow at times. If you can't work on raw files, please use Jpegs from unsplash.com Okay, here we have a dark photo that doesn't look all that great. To be honest, you can always click on auto and see what Photoshop things. To be honest, the result is quite good. It did a great job. But I want us to get familiar with this interface and be able to do everything ourselves. Let's get to it now. First of all, I want you to notice two things. The red blotch on the sky and these blue parts in the grass. Now those are warning signs. Those tell us that there's no information in that area, no detail. It's just pure white and black. Now if you don't see these colors, click on these two small icons now they're very small. If you can't tell if they're enabled, you can look at the border. If you see it, then they're on. You can also use your keyboard. Hit U, and just like that, you should be able to see these spots. Now again, these will show you that some parts are not right to fix them. We can use these deals here. First, I'm going to lower the highlights to -50 and that should do the track for the sky. Now, how do I know to do that? Well, we're dealing with too much light. Okay. There are three things that can help us here. Exposure, highlights and whites. Now, let me bring this back to zero. If we're going to play with the exposure, the entire thing gets way too dark. That's not the answer. If we go back and then we lower whites, well, it does work, but we have to use an extreme value that's not all that great. By process of elimination highlights, it is. -50 Now going back to exposure, the entire scene needs more light. Let's raise this up to about 1.5 or so. Now again, how did I get to that value? I simply went back and forth a few times. That's exactly how you should work as well. Play with the slider and see where you end up. Next on the list is contrast. I like to click here and use my up and down nathows while holding down Shift. This is how you adjust D settings and ten pixel increments. Now in general, a higher contrast will give you a better looking image. Plus 30 or so should be just fine. Now at this point, you may have forgotten how the original image look like. Right? No worries. We have this symbol right here that will help us see the before and after. Click it a few times and see how far we've come in. Just a few minutes. Now, if you're into hot keys, use your slash next to the Enter key, right next to this icon. There is another one that helps you see the before and after in various different modes, but to be honest, I don't really recommend it. Hit it, or better yet, hit Q on your keyboard. And you can cycle through various viewing modes. But again, I'm not a big fan, so I don't recommend it. Again, you can use to switch between these modes, but keep it simple. Okay, now let's go back to shadows. The blue zones tell us there's a problem, so shadows will help us out. I'm going to use a positive value plus 20 or so. Just like that, the issue went away. The red and blue areas are not a huge deal, but it's best to minimize them, okay? Now, back to the sliders. You can play with whites, but in this case, nothing is going to happen. This obviously varies from photo to photo. As for blacks, well, if we make them more intense, the blue will start coming back. And that's not ideal. I'm going to leave it as it is moving down a bit. Let's go to vibrance. This is what I strongly recommend. I use it all the time. I'm going to go with plus 30. Vibrance makes your colors feel more alive. Now, saturation does somewhat the same thing, but with less refinement. You can bump it up to ten though. But here's where I'm going to repeat myself. A lot of times you can do your own versions, there's no right or wrong way. For example, I'm going to quickly drop the texture to -40 and then the clarity to minus ten. Okay, next I'm going to switch from Basic. This part right here, two effects here. I'm going to add a vignette. I'll make the edges white like this is from a movie. Like this is a scene where you remember something from a long time ago. A dreamy ethereal space. Right? Okay. So that's one thing you could do but then you could also drop it. For example. I could add a lot of texture and clarity. Say plus 20 and plus ten or something like that. And now you can see just about every single blade of grass, the image feels rough. This is another vibe, that's why I'm saying there's no right or wrong way. It's all about how you want to express a feeling. Here's another, we can raise the temperature to say 6,500 or even more than that. Now, the grass doesn't have the same freshness. It's more towards fall than spring, right? Let's do a quick recap. Number one, there's no right or wrong way to go about it. The second thing, if you see red and blue zones, this means that all potential problems that you might want to address, you can enable those warnings by using these two icons or by hitting U and O on your keyboard. The most common edits are done from the basic panel. You have lots of other ones, but most of your time is going to be spent right here. When you want to see before and after, use the slash or this icon here. Assuming you're happy with your edits and you want to share this work, please open it in Photoshop. I like to open it as a smart object, just a good habit to have. Okay, now when you're in Photoshop, you can export it. Please remember that the image is huge, have patience. And you might want to use the scale feature to shrink it to 30 or 40% or something more manageable. That's how you'll be able to share it more easily. With that, this has been a first journey in camera raw. Please upload your own version. Sad, happy, spring or fall, cold or warm. Use whatever you want. Just play with it and have fun. 72. How to adjust parts of a photo in Camera Raw: Welcome back. We just saw how we can use the sliders from the basic section to edit the entire photo. But what if you only want to adjust a certain part of the image? Well, let's open up this raw file and you'll notice some red areas on the lights. Those are over exposed, meaning that way too bright Photoshop lets us know, we should tone them down. Now a quick note. If you have this area here underneath the photo and you want to close it off, use the slash key. The one next to shift, not the one next to enter. Again, toggle this area by using this forward slash, the one next to your shift key back to it. To adjust a certain part of a photo, you can use this area here called masking. This is only available in the latest Photoshop version. Okay, this will open up a new panel that will allow you to target any area from the photo. For this lecture, we're going to keep it simple. Choose brush. Now, there's a lot going on here, but we're going to take it step by step. First, let's change the size from this part. If you're not sure about it, move your cursor over the photo. In this case, I think a size of around ten should do the trick. You can also use the square bracket keys. Okay, now that's fine. Let's paint over these lights. As we begin to paint, the red blotches go away, and a new red comes into play. This faded red tells us where we've painted, what we've selected. Now we can disable it. And you can do that by clicking here on Show Overlay. But my advice is you leave it alone. You can also change it from red to any other color, but again, it's fine as it is now. We can move to the sliders and turn down the high lights, maybe even the exposure. Notice that as you're moving the sliders, the red goes away, so you can see your result. Believe it or not, this is the entire workflow of adjusting a certain area in camera raw. You go to masking, you select any of these tools, for example, the brush tool, you paint over that area that you want to edit and then you get to use these sliders. It's really that simple. Now when you're done and you want to exit this masking mode, you can simply click here and you'll be brought to the general edit mode. This will affect the entire picture. Now notice that the red blotches went away. Next, we can do various types of edits, like playing with the exposure, contrast shadows, and so on. But I'd like to stick to masking and the brush tool, so I'm going to leave this part up to you, but make sure that you try at least two different vibes. Make a bright and happy look like the one I've gone for here. And maybe another one a bit darker, maybe more cold, something like that. Something completely different. Right. Now, to practice our masking with the brush tool, please open up this second image. This is a raw file, but again you can use a Jpeg. Just go to filter camera, Raw filter. I want you to divide this image into at least five different areas and make strong edits. Here's how this goes. Go to masking and select the brush. You can also use the hot key K immediately. We're going to get a new mask in this small panel. Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to go with this blue house on the left. The problem is if I'm going to brush too fast with a large brush, I may go over the road or the orange house now. No worries. If that happens, this is very likely. Please hold down the Alt or Option key on a Mac and your cursor is going to show a minus symbol. Now you can clean it up if you paint way too much. Just remember, hold down the Alt key and remove the unwanted parts. Now what I suggest is you constantly make adjustments. You have brush settings and work zoomed in. Hit the Z key and I suggest you do this. Click and hold now move towards the left, and you're going to zoom out or move towards the right, and you're going to zoom in. Please practice this part as it's quite essential. The final piece of the puzzle is to move around by holding down the space bar key. This is going to be your actual workflow. Zoom in, zoom out, move around, and repeat the process. When you're done with your painting, you can make some crazy adjustments. I'm going to raise the saturation, maybe the exposure, whatever it may be. I just want to make sure that it's obvious. Now let's assume that we're done with it, even though it does need a lot more work. Let's move on to the next house. This is critical. Please click here on this plus symbol and choose brush once again, because we want individual controls, each house should have its own edits. In essence, this panel right here is like your layers panel. Let me quickly brush over the house and then we're going to go back to it. The idea here is to stay organized and understand how this is supposed to work. Please play with the sliders and do your thing, okay? Now notice we have two masks here to keep it clean. Please double click on the first one and rename it to Blue House. Okay. Now do the same to the second one. Now here's the thing. Like I said, individual controls, right? Say you want to fit the edit the blue house, Just click on it and you'll notice that the brush is already selected. This means that you can start painting, It's easy. Now I have to say that this does take time and patience to get it right, but the actual technique is fairly simple. Now it's your turn. Please do the other buildings, maybe even the road and the sky. Only use the brush tool for this exercise. When you're done, open the imaging Photoshop and export it at a lower scale, maybe 50% maybe even less. Remember, have fun and rename your masks after you use this symbol, one mask per area, please. Thank you. 73. Here’s a smarter way to adjust specific parts in Camera Raw: Hello and welcome back. Let's open this image so I can show you better tools to a just specific parts of an image. Please go to masking. And here we've played around with a brush tool, which is one of the things you have to master. It's like learning how to chop in the kitchen. If you want to be a gray chef, you need awesome knife skills. It's the same thing in Photoshop. Master the brush tool and you'll be golden. Now after you all set, you can move on to these fancy tools. For example, select Subject. This is awesome. Photoshop will use its magic to select the girl in just a few seconds instead of painting over her with a brush. Photoshop does this automatically. Now we can make any edits that we want. I'll do some pretty big ones so we can really spot the differences through the recording. But my advice in general is to not exaggerate with these edits. Okay, just like that, this is improved. Now what about the background? Here's how you can work smarter. We know Photoshop can select the girl all by itself. Well, what if we flip it around? If we exclude the girl, then that means the background is going to be selected. Right? So please do this, rename the first mask two girl or subject, anything you'd like next. Right click and choose duplicate. Now, don't be scared by this crazy look, just rename it so we have everything organized, okay. Now, right click again. This time on this part here called subject one. From this list, choose invert. Now the background is selected and we can make any types of edits. Now let me explain again what we did. We first selected the subject, meaning the girl can say that we isolated her, we cut her away from the background, and then we made some edits. Next, we wanted to select the background, But the smarter way to work is to duplicate the mask. Then invert it, or flip it inverse, whatever you want to call it. Think of it this way. Let's say that we have a huge canvas and one small dot. If you want to quickly select the huge canvas, you can select the dot. Then tell Photoshop to invert, meaning please select everything else except this small part. And it's the same thing here. It's just faster to work this way. Now here's another example. Let's open up this image of the sky, choose Masking. And from here you can select sky. Now let's make any types of edits. Pretty big ones, they're quite obvious. Now let's just assume that the sky is perfect, even though it's obviously not. But as you can see at the bottom, this is way too dark again. Instead of selecting it manually, let's invert the mask first, make a copy, because we want to keep all the edits that we just did. Now the sky has two edits on it and it's way too much, but no worries. Move down here and right click now. Choose Invert. Now I'll do something crazy like raise up the temperature by a lot. Just like that. A big part of our work is all set. Now you might ask, why did I make you use the brush tool so much when we have these awesome tools, Select subjects, select sky and so on. And that's because you can't really rely on them. I'm using great examples here. Huge photos, raw files chosen specifically for these lectures. But in your projects, these one click wonders may not work so well. That's why you need to know about brushing and making manual selections. And when you combine both things, brushing plus these fancy features, then you're all set. Then you're good to go. Please practice before you continue. Thank you. 74. Discover better tools to make edits in Camera Raw: Hello and welcome back. You will truly start to enjoy working with Photoshop and Camera Raw when you feel like. You have options when you feel like you know at least two different ways to achieve the same thing. Here's the same landscape photo. We know we can use the select sky feature, but here's another fancy track, linear gradient. Select it and your cursor is going to change. Go over the photo, click and drag. Don't let go. As we expand, you're going to see this red area. And this means we'll adjust that part of the image. If you hold shift, you're going to get a straight line. Now let's adjust the exposure. For example, you might notice it's not the result that we're looking for, but not a problem. Go back to it and modify it in such a way where you're happy with it. But remember, don't rely on a single feature for all your edits. In this case, let's add another mask, this time for the bottom part. As you can imagine, we could use the brush tool. We could select the sky and invert it. Or we can add another gradient options choices. These give you freedom. In Photoshop, I'm going to go with another gradient and I'm going to lighten up this area. The shadows are way too intense. Camera is showing those blue dots to help us out. Now what you'll notice is that even with this second gradient, well, the left side is still not looking great. That's why I made you paint all those houses before with the brush tool. So you can get familiar with this panel here. Simply add another mask, a brush this time around, and target this specific area. The goal is to make sure that you're comfortable switching from mask to mask, from tool to tool. That's why I always suggest you take your time with it and always rename your masks. This way you can go back and forth and make edits as needed. That's the thing. When you change something, it modifies the entire vibe of the photo. Chances are you might need to adjust other things. Now my advice is you remember what I said at the beginning of this section. Have fun with it. There's no finish line, there's no standard of quality that you have to hit. If this looks good to you, then so be it. In time, you're going to get better and better. And you might even come up with your own style. Just make sure that you understand on which mask you're working on. And remember that a mask is used to isolate a part of an image. If you don't want that, go back to the general slide deals from here now. Okay, let's take a short break. 75. Raw image format vs JPEG: Welcome to this lecture where we'll talk about raw files and Jpegs. As I said at the beginning of the course, most cameras will give you two files for every photo. Use Snap, a Jpeg, and a Raw file. Now, in short, if you want to edit that image, there's no discussion about it, use the raw file. It contains much more information and it will respond to your edits that much better. Always work on the raw file if you have it available. Now let's talk about file format. My camera gives me a three file, Yours might give you something else. That's totally fine. Actually, the loads of raw file types depending on your camera, Sony cameras will give you a file. Panasonic, R, two, Fuji film, RF, Canon, depending on how new the camera is, will give you a two or three file. Dng is yet another very popular format and the list goes on and on, but that really doesn't matter. The essential point is that you open it in Photoshop. That's it. Don't worry about the extension, just go for it. Okay, let's get started. How do you open camera raw? Well, just in case you have not seeing a Photoshop icon on your Raw file, right click it and then use open with from this list, choose Photoshop. The alternative is to right click again and hit properties there. You'll be able to see how the file will be opened when you double click it again. If Photoshop isn't there, you'll need to select it. Now this is bound to happen if you use programs like ACDC. But once you tell your computer that it should use Photoshop, you should be good to go, assuming you can't find Photoshop in this list and you can't browse for it for whatever reason. You can't just drag and drop the file into Photoshop like so. Please be aware that Camera Raw takes a bit of time to load up. It's not exactly lightweight, so please be patient about it. Let's talk about editing a Jpeg versus editing a raw file. The raw version is opened and I'll edit it by using the auto function. The result isn't perfect, but it's a big change. I'll leave it as it is. And next I'm going to open it. Now this is the raw file, and if you'll ever end out, look at the file name. R three. Okay, now let me drag in the Jpeg into a new tab. Remember, when you drag, you have to go above the canvas area. The image will open in a separate tab. Okay, you can see it says Jpeg right here. Now let's go to Filter camera, Raw Filter. This is how you're supposed to open PNG's, Jpegs and whatnot, especially if you're using photos from Unsplash.com or similar websites here. To keep things simple, I'll apply the exact same changes as before. I won't use the auto function because that may give us something else. Instead, I'll click here on these three dots, this list. I'll select Apply Previous Settings. Basically, I'm copy pasting my edits so it will be a fair fight, right? I'll change my viewing mode so we can compare them. I have to warn you, this won't be a night and day difference, especially through the recording. But trust me when I say it's not a great idea to work on a Jpeg when you have the raw file available. Okay, have a look. The Jpeg has a nasty blue tent applied to it. The raw file is much more natural. This can be refined and chiseled into a great looking photo. The other one, not so much. I'll zoom in to 100% on my hand. Now the name of the game here is natural here. My nails are hilariously pink on the other side. They're normal. Now, again, I know that this doesn't seem like a big deal to most people, but it is important when you need a good result. While we're here, look at my shirt, this is absolutely horrible. In my book, the blue seems to have been applied with a pain brush on the other side. It looks fine. Now let me switch back to my normal viewing mode. I'll use consolidate all into tabs if that didn't convince you. Here's another argument, a more logical one. I'll focus on the control we have over raw files here. With the raw file opened, I want you to have a look at the temperature slider. If you're not into photography, this may not tell you all that much, but this is an international standard. If we have a look at color temperature, we can see how these values are assigned to a certain light source. For example, anything over 5,000 Calvin, that's the unit of measurement. By the way, Calvin is a cool blue light, studio light falls into this category. If you're into cars and if you're old enough, you probably remember that most cars yellowish headlights back in the day, but today they're laser blue. Nons are pretty much the standard for the more expensive models. Well, in camera raw we get to edit the actual temperature of the shot. This is fantastic. This is basically us modifying the camera settings after we take the photo. The fact that we get to edit all these things after we snap the photo to me is absolutely amazing. That's the temperature slider. In the raw file, it's in Kelvin and it's the actual value from the image. Now let me switch to a Jpeg. Okay, even though we're in the same place, camera raw, our control is actually different. Focus on the temperature slider. It's set at zero and it ranges from -100 to plus 100. And there's no unit of measurement. This means it's applying the effect on top of the image. In a sense it's forcing get it's not an actual value in Kelvin and the result will never be as good as editing a raw file. Now let's wrap this up. In conclusion, if you have the raw file, please work on it, not on the Jpeg. If you don't have the raw file, it's perfectly okay to use the camera raw filter. You'll have to be smart about it and not exaggerate with the slides, but all in all, that's the essence. Thank you. Let's continue. 76. How to quickly view lots of images: Hello? Hello. Let's see how you can quickly preview your images. This is really helpful if you have lots and lots of photos, especially raw ones. Take this example. I have over 1,000 raw files here that I personally snapped. And I know that more than half of them, to be honest, are garbage. They should be deleted. So how can we quickly sort them? How can we see which ones are great and which ones are garbage? Well in comes Adobe Bridge. This is a free program that Adobe offers that can really help us out. Now here it is, and I'll be short suite. I never liked Adobe Bridge because it always felt slow and complicated. But as I started taking my own photos, I realized that this is a must. Here's how I like to work. After I copy paste my photos to my computer from my camera, I like to click here and copy this address control. Then I moved to Adobe Bridge. Here's the address bar. Click Paste and hit Enter. This is so you don't waste any time going through lots and lots of folders. Okay, now you can customize this space by using this region. Here I suggest film strip, and you can always adjust the preview as needed. Now here's the thing. You can quickly go to your photos, but the best part is this one. To begin with, you can delete the files immediately if they're blurty or low quality or you just don't like them, hit the delete key and you'll see this warning. It's asking us if we really want to delete the file or just remove it from the list. I'd like to delete it in the future. I'm going to use control, delete to skip this part. That's one part taken care of. This means we can quickly clean up all the bad photos. Next, you can give star ratings to your photos, so you know how to sort them. Here's the thing. I'm a beginner photographer. I take lots and lots of photos. I then go back and forth like so I like to use my adult keys for that. Then I decide which one is better. If it's pretty good, I'm going to give it four stars. Maybe five stars for example. In this case here, I'm going to use control four. And you'll notice the stars have shown up. This one here is not as good. Three stars, control three. By the way, if you don't want to use the control key, just click here. Now you can simply use 12345, and that's it. Now, repeat this process, and then you can use this filter system To the left, you can see that I already have a few five style photos in this folder. Now check that box and you'll see them at the bottom. Now you can open them by right clicking and choosing open end camera raw. This is how I actually work when I take photos for my oatmeal products, for example. Again, I never like Adobe Bridge, but in this case, this is the best way to go about it. Imagine having to open 1,000 plus photos in camera raw to check if they're usable. That would be horrible. But that's why Adobe Bridge is great, to be honest. This program is a beast of its own. You can customize it in every which way. You can do many other things with it. But I want us to stay focused on editing photos, so we're not going to explore the rest of its features. This is more than enough to get you along again. Adobe Bridge, download it if you use lots of raw files. With that, let's continue. 77. My workflow in Camera Raw: Hello? Hello. Let's talk about my workflow and camera Raw. Here's the deal. I double click the Raw file, and that's going to open up. In the bottom part, you'll find some information about the image. If you click it, you're going to get these preferences. Most people agree on the following settings. The cuddle space should be Adobe RGB 1998, and the depth should be set at 16 bits per channel. Having said that, 16 bits is quite taxing on my computer. If you're using an older model, or even worse, a laptop, you may want to stick to eight bits. In short, it's all about working with more information. And you are going to look nicer if you're going to use 16 bits. Considering I'm recording this, I'll leave it at eight. But note that 16 is recommended. The next thing is crucial, please check this option open in Photoshop as a smart object. This is the most important bit. When you enable it, have a look at the open button from the bottom, this changes to open object. Now I'll keep this simple. Say you're not sure about these preferences and you just skip them. I'll hit Cancel. I'll then hit the Auto button from the top right and say I'm done with it now. Well, this is what's essential. Click here on this arrow next to open from this list, choose openness object as before. Now why is this incredibly important? Because we get to do the following. We can double click the thumbnail and that will allow us to continue working on the image. All the sliders are exactly as I've left them. When I'm done, I can hit okay, back to Photoshop. I can now continue to work on the image, maybe sharpen it, maybe do some skin retouching, whatever. When I'm done, I can export it as a PNG or a J peg. So I can share it with my friends. But let's take it one at a time. If you only want to work in camera Raw, do you need to save the project as a PSD? The answer is no. That's because of this XMP file that shows up next to the raw file. You can see it has the same name as the raw file. If we close Photoshop and then we open this image by simply double clicking it, you'll notice that all your edits are still there. You get to continue working on it, and it's all due to this XMP file that appeals automatically when you make some edits. Now, let me close Photoshop and I'll delete it. As you would imagine when I now double click the raw file, the sliders are going to be back to the defaults. To sum it up, if you're only going to work on your image in camera Raw, make sure you take care of your XMP file that automatically appears next to your raw file, okay? In that case, you don't need to save the project as a PSD if you're only going to work in camera raw. On the other hand, in most cases, you will want to apply other edits to the image. For example, one of my go to techniques is applying a 50% gray layer that's explained in another part of the course. But the idea is that once you have a few things in the layers panel, well, it's best to save it as a PSD, no matter if it's one layer or 20. Save it to keep it editable. Once you do that, you don't need to worry about the X and P file. That's my workflow. I open the raw file, I check my settings, I make my edits, and I open it in Photoshop as a smart object. If I limit my edits to camera raw, I'll keep the X and P file safe. If I want to do other changes, I'll save it as a SD. Then in both cases, no matter what, I export the image as a PNG or the Jpeg. Typically at a much lower size. I don't really need the 6,000 by 4,000 image in the export window, I generally choose to scale it down. This is a general size, but not humongous, all in all. That's my workflow. 78. How to add optimized images to a website (gallery): Hey there, as a designer, you may get this task. Here's a website that needs photos for all these products. And when you entered one of them, you're going to get a gallery, more photos here, right? So how should you go about it First, you need to understand that size is crucial in two ways. A big high quality image, maybe 5 megabytes, it may be ten, even 20. This means the website is going to load very slowly. Everybody hates that. So we have to do our best to shrink that size. As a general rule, under 300 K per photo is pretty good. Under 100 K is fantastic. The smaller, the better. These 2345 megabyte images are no go. Now the second part of the study is the actual size. The dimensions people love, big photos, 1,800 by 1,200 right? Beautiful, big, beautiful photos where you can really see all the details. But the bigger the dimensions, the bigger the file size. Now we could go for 900 by 600 and that would be more reasonable. But never go for something like 400 by 250 because that would be way too small. To sum up this point, you have to test and see what works best for that specific website. Your objective is to have a small file size while the actual dimensions are as big as possible. Here's how I personally work. I use Adobe Bridge to square my photos. I then select all the five start ones and I edit them in camera raw, one by one. I'm not going to show you the entire process because this can take as. Now, when I'm done in camera raw, I always open it as a smart object. This is essential. If you don't see this option here, please hold shift. If that doesn't work, use control or command K. Then in this new window, go to Work Flow From here, check this option. Okay, back to it. Once I'm here, I can't really use this file. We can check the canvas size with this hot key. And you're going to see that this is huge. The most popular screen size right now is 1920 by 1080. We have to be much smaller than that. But here's how I like to work. I don't resize this photo. Instead I start a new project with control in the width and height. I'm going to put in my final values for this oatmeal website. I chose 960 by 540, hit. Okay, and this is where the magic is going to happen. First of all, drag the smart object from the other tab. This is going to be way too big, but hit Control, The problem is that we don't see the handles, but we can use this field here, select the entire thing, and replace it with another value like 100. Now we can see the handles and we can resize as needed. Now I'm going to save the PSD, this is quite important. Next, I'll add more and more smart objects in the same way from bridge. I'll continue with my five Stop photos and I'll open them in camera raw if the image is very similar to the previous one. Well, here's the track. I love using this feature here. Apply previous settings. This is how you can really be efficient. Now, every raw file is going to open up in a different tab, like so. I'll drag them inside my new project and I'm going to resize them one by one, going to fit my canvas size. This is going to take a while. Finally, when I have all my photos here, it may be even 50 or 100, I'm going to export them. To do that, go to the layout panel and select all of them. You can use control to select them one by one. Or better yet, click on the first one, then whole shift, then click on the last one, and that's how you get them all. Now, right click and choose Export, as this is obviously going to take some time. Please be patient. I hope you have a strong computer now. The same shift approach works here in this new window. Select all of them, then change the format. I'd like to use Jpeg with a fairly high quality. You don't need to worry about the dimensions because they're all set to 960 by 540. And you can see that right here. Okay? Export them anywhere. And then there's only one more step. Use this website called I Love Mg.com and this will compress your images, go to the motions. And after the few seconds, this website will make them much smaller without losing too much quality. From a 20 megabyte file that was 5,000 by 4,000 you now have a sub 300 K 960 by 540 photo that's ready to be uploaded. If the quality isn't there you can re export as PNG's. That's going to give you a better quality but a bigger file size. What's essential is that you play around and see what works best for your other website. Now you may ask Chris, why did you save the PSD with all these smart objects? Well, let's assume that you're not happy with some of the photos. Not a problem. Can double click this thumbnail and your back in camera raw. This means you get the full image and you get to continue editing. After you save you can re export and compress. This is how I actually work on an everyday basis. You don't have to copy my exact steps. I'm sure you can do it in other ways, but I hope this was helpful. Good luck. 79. One-click wonders in Camera Raw: Hello, hello. In this video I want to talk about one click wonders. Actions that take little to no time yet, they produce great results. I'm using this website to download some raw files because I'm no photographer, and this features awesome ones. Let's open this one and we'll use it to explore presets. To activate that part of Camera Raw, please click here. As you can see, these are structured into several categories. In general, this would be a bad thing because the more choices you have, the harder it is to make a decision. But here's why I love this part of camera raw. As you go over each one of these options, you immediately see a preview. This is fantastic. This is beginner friendly, yet the outcome is rock solid. Well, most of the time, as you can see, some presets work better than others, but it's up to you to see what fits best. In this case, this is a fairly dark image. Obviously, certain presets are not going to work well. Let me switch to another image so we can continue to explore them. Please remember that I'm using the latest version of the program. If you don't have your interface looking like mine, then you're probably using an older photo show version that are tons of presets to explore here. Please go through them and see what's, what get used to them. I especially like the vignette effect, which is something a lot of people look for. This makes the edges a bit darker and it creates a nice mood. But here's the thing, say you click on one of these presets. There's a good chance it's not going to be perfect. But here's where the fun begins. Go back to the edit part and continue working on it, Be it with a brush or whatever else you want to do. There's a lot more to be said about presets, how you can look for new ones on the internet, load them up, disable them, and whatnot. But here's the thing, the best thing that I ever did for my website, for my business, was to create a preset for my product photos. Here are some of my images. Lovely jars filled with Kia pudding and various other things. By the way, we say Kia, but Chia also works, okay? If you've played with camera raw up until this point, you may know that auto is a good place to start. Trouble is depending on the image and its background, it will give you a different result each and every time. Because of that, you may end up with a gallery that changes its mood with each photo. Otherwise, I said you may improve your images and they may look lovely. But when you scroll through them as a gallery, they'll seem disjointed. That's why I created a preset that will ensure I have the same look and feel across tens, if not hundreds of images. Just think about it, remembering the color temperature for each one. The texture slider, the sharpening, the vibrant, all that is handled through a preset click on these three dots and it Save Settings. This will bring up this window from which you can pick and choose just about everything you want to include the stuns here. Professionals will feel right at home for the regular users. Just hit save. A new window is going to show up, asking you to name the preset. Notice is going to be saved as an XMP file. Call it whatever you like, but make sure you place it somewhere where it makes sense for you. Then when you want to use it. Don't switch to the precess tab. Just click here and load that file. It's as easy as that. While we could work on adding more precets here, I don't really advise it. Instead, I strongly suggest you focus on developing your own precepts for your own photos. The prebuilt ones are more than enough as a starting point. Okay, try it out and have fun with it. 80. Bonus: How I work in Camera Raw for product photos (30 minutes): Welcome back. This is Chris and this is going to be a live session where we're going to take all of these photos and enhance them. Here's the situation. I sent all of these photos to a photographer, and then obviously he snapped a bunch of photos. Now in general, what happens is the photographer fixes them, he enhances them, he does all things, and then he comes back with the final product. But I actually asked for the raw files, I asked for everything like this. So you can see some of them are quite horrible. For example, this one, it's actually quite underexposed. You could potentially fix it though. To be honest though, it's not all that great. But yeah, basically I asked him to send everything and because of that, it's way, way cheaper. So that's one of the ways I can easily save a bunch of money. Instead of getting ten photos, I get about 150 for the same amount of money. And obviously I can fix quite a lot of them. Instead of having ten final pictures, I can get maybe 30, maybe 50, maybe something like that. This is what I have right here. Actually, I think I have another one right here. Yeah, there you go. I need to obviously edit them. This is going to be done in camera raw and this is how I like to work. Now, obviously this is going to be completely live. You may see a bit of gaps, a bit of hesitation here and there. Hopefully you can bear with me. But this is my entire process from start to finish. The idea is we're going to do all of these photos so we can actually upload them here to my website. You can see that some of these are already brand new, but these ones are the old ones. We obviously have to fix that. Let's have a look and see how this goes. First of all, what I'm going to do is I'm going to copy this URL and I'm going to open bridge. I'm going to open bridge, I'm going to paste it right here. Now you may have a different layout. If that's the case, go to libraries essential. But basically what I like to use is film strip. Basically I paste the location here so I don't waste any time in actually finding the photo. And then obviously I can just have a look here and see what's what. Now, some of these are already handled. Again, you can see them right here. I've already edited a bunch of them, but for the cookies I still have to do. These are some of the cookies and I'd like to handle them. I'd like to fix them and see if this is a good if these are great photos, not Let's see what we can begin with. I think these ones, these black ones. Let's have a quick look here and see what's what. Okay. There you go. Now if you don't have Adobe Bridge, that's totally fine. Which you can use is something like ACDC or something like that and simply have a look. Obviously in Windows you can just zoom in and see what's what I usually take, the last two digits or the last three digits, and that's how I can quickly identify a photo. Now in case you do have Adobe bridge, you actually don't need to do a lot with it. Once you get into film strip mode, you should be able to simply glance at them and see which are the better ones. Then you can actually give them a star rating. This star rating is actually quite helpful in case you have hundreds and hundreds of photos. Let's have a good look here and see where we're going to begin. Let's see if this one is pretty good. Again, some of them have been already edited. But no, this one hasn't been edited. Okay, this is pretty good. Now again, in general, what I would do is I would use control five and this would be five stars. Then have a look, five stars, basically there are very small differences here. You can actually zoom in and see min, min of details. Probably this one would be a bit better because it's a bit higher up. Again, control five. This one is the only one. Control five, though, this is very wrinkled, there's a lot of problems with it. I'm not sure if we're going to use it. Obviously, we can correct absolutely everything. We can fix everything in Photoshop, but it's a method of time when you have so many files here, it's quite difficult. Let's have a look again. Okay, this is lovely, this is probably better. It's a bit zoomed out. We do have to take care of the, of the labels. We should make sure they're there in focus. Okay. This one I think this one. Okay. Let's do the cookies first and foremost, then we're going to see what's what. Okay. Okay. Let's start with this one, the chocolate one. Double click at it should launch immediately in photo shop. Okay, let's have a look now. Immediately I'm going to test the auto feature. A pretty good, it's a good starting point. Let's have a look in terms of exposure. A bit higher up, I would say temperature. Now I'm going to copy this default one now. Let's see. Okay, I usually like to go to the extremes and see what's what, probably something like this. In general, what I like to do is I'd like to make sure that all of my photos have the same temperature, especially if they're in a set, usually look a bit better Then I'm going to leave it as it is highlight. It's this part right here, the white right here. I don't think we need that much. In terms of shadows, okay, there's a big problem with the noise level here. You can see all the scratches and whatnot. The texture, we have to really bring it down and this is quite nice as you can see. This is a huge difference. Let me just quickly turn it up so you can see every single detail here, which is lovely inside the cookie, but it's horrible right here. Let's do this in terms of clarity. We're going to leave it. We're going to ramp up noise reduction quite a lot, though It's a bit too dreamy, so to speak. It's like in a dream, it's a bit blurry. Let's sharpen it just a bit. Okay? Okay. Obviously this is going to get cropped. I think this is pretty fine as it is. Let's see what else we're going to do here in terms of color. I'm going to raise the vibrance a bit more. You can see what the difference it makes right here. Huge. This is tho this is for 50. Okay, 50 texture. Let's go with clarity just a bit. In general, I really don't like clarity all that much. Clarity is great on the edges of the jar. This is a glass jar. This is quite okay. Pretty good? Pretty good. Now let's see what we can do here. Basically what we've done so far is the entire scene. Now we have to take care of the label. Let's hit K. And that's going to open up a brush. It's this panel right here. And we're going to shrink the brush with the left square bracket key. Now we're just going to paint over this guy right here. Let's see what we can do. It's a bit tricky. Unfortunately, the left side is over the, exposed, the right side, it's way too dark. Let's see exposure first and foremost. Okay, not all that nice. The shadow doesn't really work. We might have to split it in two, which is not ideal. Do something on the left and something different on the right. Let's try a bit more, okay? The whites may be less more contrast, okay? Okay. Quite tricky. This is why photographers charge quite a lot. Because you do have to go through loads and loads of these situations, okay? Do we not have enough coverage? The blue is actually bleeding out a bit. Let's go see though here. Saturation is fine. Let's decrease the texture, which should help us right here. But again, it's a bit, I'm not sure I like it. Again, we should potentially split this up, but we're going to be here all day and I'm not sure that I want to do that. Clarity can't actually use that. Let's have another look here and see if we can do something else in terms of highlights. We can bring it down just a bit of this bar right here. Yeah, I can't say that I like it. I can't say that I like it. It's okay, but it's not great. Let's do another mask. I just hit K once again. Let's increase it and let's do this par right here. The actual cookie for this one, I'm just going to increase the texture quite a lot. You can see the difference that this makes something like this. Clarity. I'm not sure. Let's the chocolate is beginning to pop. It may be a bit too much. Let's do something like this. Okay. And I think that's it. Maybe a bit more contrast. You can see that it's becoming more brown, Brownish, golden, yellow. Yeah, I think I like that quite a lot. Okay, so this is quite nice. So this is the top part. Mass two is basically the top part. You can call it just that top part, but yeah, this part right here, I'm not in love with it. No, it's not great. Unfortunately, it's not great. So I just deleted it. Now, let's hit K once again. Whoops. Nope, let's go with A. Let's go with brush. Okay, let's try this again, this time with only going to focus on the left side. What's going on here? Show over. Yeah, there you go. Okay, let's try this bar right here for the exposure. Okay, now, I don't think we can use the exposure all that much. Maybe increase the feather and paint just a bit more. Okay, let's have a look here. What can we do? What can we do? It's great, to be honest. It's not great. I think we're going to leave it as it is. But yeah, it's not ideal. It's not ideal. Let's not go at it. I'm not too happy about it. Diltulti'm do is I'm going to hit okay. I'm open it as a smart object. Now we can continue. We can see what's the idea is that after we have the first one, you can see it just change right here. We could potentially just open up a second one then once this is loaded up, we could apply the previous settings right here, apply. Boom, there we go. Now obviously it doesn't apply the secondary mask at the top and at the bottom. But yeah, overall, this may be quite a better starting point. Let's have another go here. Let's do the first part right here, increase the contrast, then the texture. Okay, maybe the clarity a bit. Yeah, just a bit. Okay. I think this is pretty good now. Could we leave it as it is? I think, I think so. This might be a bit better, to be honest. Okay, let's have another go at the whites, okay, then the contrast. Okay, open the object, let's have a look. Yeah, this is better. It's a bit too much, though it's a bit too much. If we have a look here, I think it's a bit too much. The vibrance is all over the place. I'm going to do is I'm going to close this one. I don't need it. Then for this one, the vibrance is way too much. So I'm going to tone it down. Let's have another look here. Vibrance, Let's turn it back down. Something like 20 maybe. Okay? Okay. Okay. I think this is pretty good now at this point when I'm, I'm not going to save every single PSD. That wouldn't make any sense actually. I'm going to do the following. I'm going to open up a different PSD. Let me see where it is. Yeah, this is it. Basically what happens is I have a certain size in mind for every single photo. This is the wide one. Sorry about that. I need the other one to portate one. Yeah. Okay. Basically, I need a certain 800 by 1,000 whatever that is. Let's have a look. Actually see 800 by 1,000 What happens here is I'm going to do this, this is completely done, right? Let's say I'm 100% happy with it, okay? Then I'm going to take this, I'm going to move it here. I'm going to hold down shift, let it go control. And then re obviously it's going to take a bit, but Yeah. Re like this. Okay. Okay. And that's it. Now, basically what I'm going to do, I can close this off and you're going to say, okay Chris, but what if we want to change anything? Not a problem. Simply double click camera is going to start and we have all of savings here. Why is that the case? Because there's an XML file that's actually saved in this particular folder. Everything is saved. There's a separate file for that, we can continue working, but we have this PSD. Basically what we can do is we can select all of them. Export and that, that we get the perfect size. Actually, let me do one layer. I know where I've left things off, we can actually change the color and that's it. Basically what I'm going to do is I'm going to continue, I'm going to do more and more. I'm going to drag them in. Now, the issue with this aspect ratio. Let me show you the mobile version because that's the biggest thing in terms of the mobile version. When you click on a photo, you get something like this. It's fairly narrow and quite tall. But how are we going to do this situation? That's the tricky bit we're going to see. We might simply not use that. That's going to be quite difficult. Let's get back to it. We did the chocolate one. You can see that before and after, Right here. Quite a big difference. Let's do this one as well. We can immediately apply this one. This doesn't look as good. It's a bit too dreamy. Let's have a look contrast a bit more for the texture. We might raise it up just a bit and decrease the clarity. No, this is actually good. Okay. The sharpening is quite high. This is good noise reduction. Yeah, I think we need to lower this one. This one, I don't think it makes any significant difference. Okay, Yeah, we're just going to leave it at 50. Okay, let's have a good look here. The contrast is fine. First, let's get a brush. Do this part right here. I think I got a bit too much. I'm going to hold down Alt and I'm going to remove this bed right here. Okay, let's go for a contrast. Typically, contrasts might go to choice for the most because most photos are actually washed out, texture clarity. Okay, just for the fun of it, let's have a quick look what would happen if we actually enable this part. No need for that. No need for that though. The overlay should actually remain active. Okay. Okay. Okay, this is overall quite lovely. Again, quite a lot of scratches, that's not a problem. Open the smart object, I'm holding shift when I'm using the open feature, bring it in. Actually, let's do this. Let me hit Escape. What I like to do is I like to it the same size, because obviously all the photos have the same size. And there you go, boom, boom, boom, boom. Pretty good. Again, we do have some noise here, but I'm not all that bothered by it. I think that's fine as well. But yeah, pretty good. We have two out of four. Ah, okay. We chose this one. Let's do the same thing, apply previous. Now, in general, what tends to happen is you should actually spend a lot more time on every single photo. To be honest, you should spend hours on end to actually make every single photo totally beautiful. What I'm doing right here is a glimpse into what it's like to be an entrepreneur and doing everything by yourself. It's great, it's not ideal. Because you're going to do a great job. You're never going to do a perfect job. This is going to be a seven out of ten, maybe an eight out of ten. If I'm lucky and I have, I'm in a great mood. But yeah, in general, you delegate leave a designer to do all of this stuff. That designer, that's not in the rush because I have to do a lot of things right now, 20 other things. Obviously, my mind isn't 100% focused on this task alone. But yeah, it is what it is. When you're busy, you try and do the most that you can whole shift open the object. Okay, come on. Okay, control. I'm sure that you may do things a bit in a different way, but again, when you're in a crunch, you have to make sure that you're as efficient as possible. 20 minutes for the 34 photos isn't great, but it's a good starting point. Yeah, again, we could use the clone stamp tool and see what's what, we have a bump here as well, But you know what, I'm going to do it, I'm not going to do it because I don't want to waste any time. It's a small detail and I don't think it's worth the extra effort because I do have at least ten other photos to handle. Previously, I've done 50 and you can see the PSD, how many I actually did. But yeah, right now I'm not going to record the entire thing and show you the entire process. I'm just going to do a few of them. Yeah. Okay, this is good. Shift open the object, let's see how many we actually have. In this one, you can see, actually the scroll is absolutely humongous. This is why I'm saying that as an entrepreneur, you should delegate. And you shouldn't do everything by yourself. You can see this is absolutely huge. It's massive, yeah. This is why I'm taking this approach. Because time is money and you can't spend too much time, you know, on the very small stuff. Now, this is a clear defect, obviously it's a defect and it shouldn't be here. Could it? Could we fix it fairly fast? Yeah, sure. But again, I don't want to do that because I still have loads to do. Let's have a look here. We could potentially do this. Let's have a quick look. Maybe we can use it as a category photo 1 second. Let's do this. Okay. Okay, let's do the texture. Make a smaller dough. Okay. Here as well. Hmm. There you go On the big ones. Contrast, okay? Texture, okay? Clarity, maybe just a bit okay. There you go. Now, again, this is going to be a problem because we can't actually use it here. But let's give it a go and see how it is. I do have another PSD for landscape mode. This is almost decent. I'm going to save it, but it's not ideal. As you can see, it's far from ideal. Let's see what if we enlarge it actually. Nope, nope. Okay, save it and let's do the following. Let's export these guys quick export as PNG. Let's save them on my desktop. It's going to take a bit then. Yeah, I was saying that we might use the landscape one on the category side, which is this one right here. We may actually do that. We do like this white one though. The labels are really washed out. We're going to have to see, okay, let's go here, let's select the photos. There you go. Huge by the way, initially that always going to be huge as you can see. A major improvement. Okay, now we're going to export it. Okay, good to go. Now I'm going to open my Wordpress website and we're going to go and see those specific products. Then we can obviously upload every one of them. Let's have a look. Let's go to Biscuit. This is, was in Wordpress. This is pretty standard. Let's actually upload these guys. I'm going to open them by clicking on the scroll button. Let's have a look here and see what this is, what I'm going to replace. You can see the actual photos here. Yeah, let's handle and see. Let's remove this one. This is the salted version. Boom, the salted version is this one. It's black. The previous version was white. I think white was a bit better. Let's go for it though, Doesn't matter. Let's go for this is this one, okay? Okay. It does take a bit of time for it to load up, that's why I'm going quite fast, and that's why I'm working on three different tabs, four different tabs, because you got to keep up the pace. Again, time is money. This is what I've learned as an entrepreneur. As a business owner, you really got to make sure that you're on your game and you keep on working. Okay. This is done. Okay. Now we can update it. This one is done as well. Okay, Update. Yeah, this is how I typically work. Now, to be honest, I do actually change something. Let me show you in this new tab, usually I do type in something different here. This is a keyword and it usually helps for the SEO purposes. Then let's just hit Update and let's have a look if this is looking okay or not. Let's reload. I do think I have some caching going on. Okay. Pretty good, but a bit too big. We might need to make them a best model so they fit better. But yeah, overall, I'm quite happy with it. I think this is on the right track. Yeah. Let's have a look at the other ones here. You can see that the jars bit better placed. This is a bit to zoom. Then we would have to make the probably something like this, something like this. A very small difference. But yeah, I think I'm going to do that. Actually, let me just say that. Okay. Now, I think I'm going to leave it as it is, but yeah, this is my actual process. I have a look at all of these photos, I give them a rating, then I sort them by rating. I only see the five styled ones. After that, I do my thing in camera raw, and then once that's done, I put them in a separate PSD. And when that's done, I'm totally good. Although to be fair, what I tend to do is this. Let me actually show you that part and then I'm going to close the recording. This is why it really pays off to have a strong computer. Let me do this then. I'm going to take all of these guys, all of these layers. We did only five, to be honest. I probably continue working on these for at least two more hours. But yeah, I'm going to take them, I'm going to put them here. This one fits perfectly. This is quite nice. Okay. Then I'm going to actually actually, all of these guys are quite okay. Quite. Okay. Yeah. I think I may actually leave them as they are, although we could at any point come inside here and obviously do a bit of healing here and there. As you can see, this is quite easy to do, It's a matter of just taking the time to go for it. Boom. There we go. Much better. Again, could we do a lot more? Totally, we can do loads of things here, but yeah, it's a method of time. What I'm going to do is I'm just going to save it. I'm going to close it, I'm going to continue working on the portrait mode. Once that's done, I'm going to use lo IMG. Then finally I'm going to upload them to my back end. Once this is finished, on the thumbnail is finished, I'll obviously do this part right here, the gallery, because when you go inside the product, you obviously have a gallery of photos as well. As you can see, these are the old ones. I do have to update them. This is the landscape one. This is not correct. I need to make sure that everything is nice and updated every, every single photo. And I think I have about 45 photos per product. And I have about 30 products, 34 products that's over the 150 photos. When you put it that way, you really have to make sure that you're deficient. But yeah, I hope you enjoyed this process. This is how I actually work. This is how I spend my time. Hopefully this was useful, a useful glimpse into how I can obviously sort everything out and make sure that everything is nice and editable. The PSD is huge. This is 6 gigabytes, 5.6 gigabytes. The other one I think is nine, nearly 9 gigabytes. But yeah, I find that this is one of the best ways to work and I get the exact size every single time. Okay, this is Chris signing out. Thank you so much for tuning in and hopefully this was insightful. Thanks. 81. Conclusion: Hey there, this is Chris. We've wrapped up this session, but of course, there's loads more to learn. Camera raw is something that would require a completely separate course, but I hope these lessons gave you a glimpse into its power. As I said, experiment with the sliders and make sure you master the adjustment brush. As long as you do that, you'll be able to improve your photos dramatically while we focused on raw files. Please don't be shy from using camera raw on PNGs or Jpegs. Sure, it's not the same thing, but you can still make your photos pop. You don't have as much freedom, but that's fine if you don't have the raw file. It is what it is. On a personal note, I struggled a lot with my DSLR camera. When I first bought that, everything seemed so complicated. Loads of settings, loads of tutorials. And the most important thing, automatic settings, were unanimously considered terrible. Then it was all the terms is so aperture lenses shut of speed the works. So many terms, so many things to learn. But as I allowed myself time to play with them, I grew more confident. There wasn't one specific moment where I felt n I got it. Instead, I didn't allow myself to get frustrated. I think that's the most important part. I believe it's the same thing with camera raw or anything else in general that seems impossible to learn. Take it step by step. Don't put too much pressure on yourself and you'll learn it in due time. You're not on a deadline. Stay focused and you'll get there. Good luck and remember to have fun with it. 82. What are cloud documents?: Hello and welcome to this lecture where we'll talk about something that's going to dramatically change the way we work in Photoshop, and that's cloud documents. The subject isn't all that exciting from a visual standpoint, it may be a bit boring, but trust me, this is one of the biggest changes in Photoshop CC 2021. Let's jump straight into it. Before we get into all of that, let me briefly explain what cloud documents are. When you save a file to your computer. You're saving it on a hard drive or on a solid state drive, an SSD. If your computer, let's say, catches fire or there's some accident or your data is destroyed, and that's because the information was stored on a physical device. If you're old enough, imagine burning a CD with your photos or your movies. If you break that CD or if you lose it, that's it, the information is done for. But then comes the Cloud, Drawbox, Google Drive, Cloud and many other services are now doing the following. You save your file to your hot drive or SSD, but they also automatically upload that file to the Internet. They basically clone it. They duplicate it, and every time you save it, the file on the web gets updated. Now if something happens to your computer, be it a mechanical failure or whatever, the file is safe and sound on the Internet, the clone is 100% protected because it's not stored on one single computer that's prone to malfunctions. It's actually stored on thousands of computers, thus being completely safe. Now besides the safety feature, files that are saved on the Cloud are easier to share. You don't have to use a file sharing service like we transfer or whatever else the file is already on the web. The only thing that you need is a download link is especially great for the places where internet upload speed is quite slow. Finally, for people like me who work on several devices, my home computer, my office computer, my laptop. Because I save all my files to the cloud, I always have them with me. That means I don't have to waste any time with USB sticks or constantly e mailing files to myself. That's the value of the cloud. It protects your data in case something happens to one of your devices. It helps you share those files with the world and you always have the information at hand. Well, as long as you have an Internet connection, that's the only potential downside. Now Google Drive and Draw Box are the biggest players in the game, but Adobe wants to play two. This is actually the biggest difference between these two. Photoshop plans, the photography plan only comes with 20 gigabytes of cloud storage at the moment of this recording, of course. But if you buy the more expensive option which doesn't come with Adobe Lightroom, by the way, you get 100 gigabytes of cloud storage. That's actually quite important as you're about to see before we move on to another part of this topic. Let me tell you that with Google Drive or Drawbox, you can save any document to the cloud no matter it's format, file size. Adobe's cloud is geared towards creative work. This means images, PSD's, and whatnot. One final thing, Adobe isn't trying to directly compete with Draw Box or Google Drive, which by the way, they offer up to 3 terabytes of cloud storage. No, Adobe is trying to make our lives easier as designers. So that's the angle for cloud documents. 83. Saving to the cloud vs locally (on your computer): Hello and welcome to this lecture where I'll show you how to save your projects on your computer AK locally, versus how to save them on the cloud. Keep in mind you need an active Photoshop CC subscription for this to work. If you're using CS six or an older CC edition, you won't be able to follow along. Please update if possible. Let's jump straight into it. Okay, first of all, let's start the brand new document. Any settings will do. And let's do something really simple. I'll add a rectangle to the canvas. Okay, great. Now I'll use controls. That's command on a Mac. And because this is a brand new project that hasn't been previously saved, I'll get this window just in case you've checked this option, don't show again, and you went for the class on your computer version. You can do this from this standard window that's been around for ages. You can now click on Save to Cloud Documents. Great. Okay. By the way, it goes the other way around. You can click on this button called on your computer to go back to the classic version. Okay, saving locally is straightforward. You choose a location on your computer, be it on your desktop or inside any folder, and basically that's it, call it rectangle. Whatever you want, save it. And that file will always be there, you know where to look for it. But of course, you're not getting all those lovely benefits that come with saving to the cloud. Let's create another project. This time I'll create an ellipse, AKA a circle. Hit control less, but this time I don't want to save it on my computer. I'll click on Save to Cloud Documents. Here we can see other cloud projects that are already saved on my personal Adobe account. The interface is fairly simple and intuitive. We can change the sorting, the viewing mode, we can arrange the projects into folders and so on. But let's focus on the cloud part. Call it circle, and go ahead and save it. Simple enough. The first thing that I want you to notice is the cloud icon next to the project's name. This tells you that this is a cloud document. Though this is pretty obvious. Don't go looking for this file somewhere on your computer. That's not the right approach. You do have a temporary copy saved on your computer, but when you want to open it again, you do this, close it, and go to the home screen by clicking on this icon. As an alternative, you can use control low, but I'd rather use the home screen. Okay. Click on Cloud Documents from the left column, and that will show you all the projects that you've previously saved. Sure enough, here the circle, if you want to open it, just click it, and that's that you can continue working on it. To sum it up so far we've saved the PSD locally on our computer and it's called Rectangle, and we've saved another document to the cloud, that's the circle project. If I open up my laptop, by the way, or any other device that has my credentials, Adobe account, basically, I'll have the same projects there. That's beautiful. Everywhere I log in with my Adobe account, I'll have the same files. Okay, now here comes the key question. What if you lose Internet access for whatever reason? Can you still work on cloud documents? The home screen answers that. If you see this green symbol, the answer is yes, you can still work on it. On the other hand, here's another project that I saved from my laptop. I never actually accessed it from this specific computer. And I can see I can't work on it without an Internet connection. If I'm flying, for example, and I need it, well, tough luck. But here's the good part. Let's assume my Internet is back online. If I know I need permanent access to this specific file, I can make use of these dots from this list, choose, make available offline, always. It sounds a bit strange, but it does get the point across. Now I can rest assured that I'll constantly have access to it. I'm still getting all the benefits of the Cloud, the automatic updates, the security, the file sharing, But I also have it available to me at all times. I can also flip this around. Maybe I don't need permanent access to it. No worries. I can click on these dots again and choose Make Available online only. And now the icon has changed. I can still access it, but only if I have an Internet connection. That's how you change up the settings. But how about the rectangle project that's saved on my computer? Well, we can use the save as command that will give us the option to save it on the cloud. Once this is done, my advice is you delete the local version so you won't open it by mistake and get confused once it's on the cloud. Forget about browsing for the files on your computer. To finish things up, I'd like to say something of a personal note. I was initially skeptical of all this. I like knowing where my files are and I don't really trust the cloud. But this feature has already been live for a while on Adobexd, a fairly new design program. I've used it for about a year now, and I have to say, Cloud documents Rock. They're fantastic. If I didn't actually see all the benefits in action, I probably wouldn't have cared. This is me giving you some friendly advice, even though this is a major change in the way you work, trust me, it's the future. Whether you like it or not, this is how things are going to be. Don't be that guy that's still on Windows XP. Just because you're comfortable with it. This way of working is inevitable and it comes with loads of advantages. Continue watching and you'll see one of the biggest things ever. 84. Version history - WOW!: Are you a designer? Is your computer filled with PSD's that look like this? Loads of variations and options for the same project. Well, no more. Use Virgin History and clean away all that mess. Virgin History is fat free, gluten free, and animal friendly. Okay, enough with the infomercial. Let's get serious because this is a major change in the way we work. I've been a designer for long enough to have had all these versions of the same project. That's because clients tend to be undecided. You have an option with a red color scheme, another one with blue. You make loads of edits on one of them, then the client changes his mind. He wants to go back to the other version that used to be a nightmare, but Virgin History is exactly like It sounds like it saves all the versions of the project automatically on the cloud. Let me show you what's what. Let's jump straight into it. Remember the circle project. Let's fire it up and I'll do a few things first. I'll create a bunch of copies, nothing special. I'm just all to dragging. But that's besides the point. Now, I'll close it, but notice something, Photoshop doesn't even ask us if we want to save it. It does that automatically. Anyway, on the home screen, without a Cloud document section selected, we can see the new state of the project. I'll open it again. I think I'll change the color of one of the circles a different color so we can easily spot it. Once we close it again, the project gets synced to the cloud. The changes automatically get saved, and if I open my laptop or any other device with my Adobe account, I'll have access to it. But here's the thing. Let me open the file. What if I don't like my edits? What if I want my old version back? No problem. Go to the top menu to window from this list. Choose version history. Again, this is only available in CC 2021 and above. And just like that we have a new panel that shows us all the states of the project. This is why you won't need any copies of your PSD. This is why working with undecided clients is no longer an issue. What's great about it is that we see this preview up top, We can see how we started with one circle, then we multiplied it, then we changed one of them. We can also get to see the time stamps and the day, in this case, that's today. This is absolutely incredible because every major change in the project gets automatically saved. You don't have to close the project for the new state to get registered here. Photoshop decides when you made enough edits that a new version is required. So think about that scenario I previously mentioned. If the client wants an older version, well, it's right here. If he's undecided, you can show him the different states of the project. What's great about it is that you don't have to trust Photoshops decision making. If you made one small change and you want to save that state, just click on this ribbon. Photoshop will ask you for a name, but that's optional. My advice is you give it a proper title like red color scheme or small logo or something of that nature. You'll notice two areas here. This part is reserved for the automatic saves what Photoshop considers different states. This part here is marked versions is the place where you decide what needs saving. This part is permanent. Well, these versions are automatically trashed after 30 days they get deleted. If you change your mind about saving a marked version, click the ribbon once more and that will demote it. It will basically remove it from this place easy enough, right? If the preview is not giving you enough information to go on, click on these dots to open that version in a new tab. Obviously, you'll have to wait a minute. But there it is. I'll close it because this isn't interesting. But note, Photoshop does ask me if I want to save it this time. It does ask me that of course, we can choose to make it a cloud document or the simple standard local document. Again, this feature was just introduced in Photoshop CC 2021, but it's been available in Adobexd for quite a while. I have to say I absolutely love it. The more I used it, the more I fell in love with it. I know it doesn't seem all that exciting, but for someone like me, this is absolutely fantastic. One thing before we go say I changed the color of the circle to something else. Okay, great. But the new version didn't show up. Well, hit can show less, and after a few seconds, the new version will come up. Notice the timestamp gray stuff. This is the brand new all powerful Virgin history panel available starting with Photoshop CC 2021. 85. The biggest drawback with cloud documents: Hello and welcome back. So far I raved about how awesome cloud documents are. I'm very used to this concept because I've been a drawbox and Google Drive user for many years. More than that, I've used the Cloud documents feature and version history in Adobe XD for many months. I have two courses on Adobexd by the way, in case you're interested back to it. I'm a professional user and I'm 100% on board, but heals where things fall apart for some people, file size and Internet speed. See, Adobexd has the incredible advantage of being lightning fast it flies compared to Photoshop. This is why I said Photoshop is like a huge cruise ship packed with features and amenities, but it's also very slow. Adobe XD is like a jet ski. It doesn't have as many features, but boy, is it fast. A huge project in Adobe XD may have only a few megabytes, maybe tens of megabytes at the most, maybe a few hundred megabytes, a couple. Because of the small file size, working with cloud documents is very easy. You click, you blink and you have the file. But see, Photoshop files are different, they're much, much bigger. I've had projects well over 500 megabytes that only feature the handful of graphics. Now there are ways to shrink your PSD, and I have a lecture about that. But long story short, PSD files are much, much larger than next D files. Because of that, uploading and downloading them is going to take a while. You have to get used to seeing progress bars and being patient. This is not going to be for everyone if your Internet connection is slow. Well, that makes things a lot harder. More than that, if you have a limited data plan, downloading chunky PSD files from the cloud is going to be a pain. This obviously differs from country to country. In Romania, for example, I have a 1,000 megabyte connection for my desktop computer for only $10 Now that's $10 per month. My phone plan comes with 10 gigabytes for $15 Internet here is cheap, fast, and available everywhere. For me, downloading a 900 megabyte PSD from the web is not a huge issue. Now for the other people that may be impossible, my advice, continue to watch the course and find out how you can shrink the size of your PSD files. Now the last aspect you have to be aware of is your CC subscription. Like I said at the beginning of this course, the photography plan comes with 20 gigabytes of cloud storage. As an example, for the web designer working in Photoshop, this may mean as little as 20 or 30 PSD files, which is incredibly low. And the only solution is to upgrade your plan to get 100 gigabytes of storage. I personally have the all apps plan so I get maximum storage. But I know most people are going to use the photography plan. With all that being said, I can't really recommend Adobe's cloud documents to everyone. If you have great internet and you know how to optimize your PSD's Sure. Then go ahead. This is for you, this is the future. This is going to be the only way moving forward. But if that's not the case, stick to saving your files locally. Again, the major problem with it is that even if you don't care about it, more and more people are going to switch to the Cloud eventually. This is going to be the only way moving forward. This is Chris signing out. 86. Soften skin imperfections: In this activity, we'll soften skin imperfections in just a few minutes. This is our starting point and in just two quick steps will get this result. Let me show you how you can use this simple yet effective technique. The first step is to improve this photo saturation and contrast. We could do that with an adjustment lab, but I want to show you another way of doing it. Go to the top menu and click on image. From this drop-down, choose Apply image. Here we have a new window with various options, but we're only interested in two things, the blending mode and the opacity. Let's change this drop down to soft light. And because we have preview enabled, you immediately see how the image pops. A 100 percent opacity is too much for my taste, so I'll drop it to around 50 percent. Okay, This is much better. This was step number one. Let's move to Part 2, where we'll soften her skin and through that effect, will hide some of these details you may not want to show in your photo. We've talked about smart objects and how they protect your pixels. That's much needed because your shorter want to adjust the intensity of the following effect. So right-click this layer and choose Convert to Smart Object. Okay, great. Next we'll apply a filter from this top menu. Go to blur, surface blur. In this new window, we get two sliders. The radius option specifies the size of the area sampled for the blur. He has something like 10 pixels should work well. The threshold option will determine how strong your effect is going to be. Please note that if you set it too high, you'll end up with plastic looking skin. You might have seen that look on glossy magazine covers where models look like Barbie dolls. Nevertheless, here all go with a pretty strong value, 15 levels. You'll see how we can fine tune our results in just a moment. Hit Okay, let me expand my smart filter from the layers panel so I can show you the before and after. This does a great job of hiding certain imperfections and it makes the skin look softer. Trouble is it's also affecting the texture of her clothing, as well as her hair. That's not ideal. So here's what we're going to do. Click on the smart filters masks, grab the brush tool and make sure you're going to paint with black. Your hardness should be turned down to 50 percent or less to ensure smooth transitions. Now start painting over those areas that shouldn't be softened. I'll primarily focused on her blouse. Notice all this detail is coming back in. Take your time with it and adjust your brush size if needed. Next, I'll move over her hair. The left side, in particular requires my attention by leaving it as it is. You can clearly tell the image is out of focus and that's not what we're going for. The right part requires a bit more patients notice the stray hairs. If you paint over them, they fade into the background. That's up to you if you want to hide them or leave them in there. Here, I think I'll remove them. Okay. Just a few more brushes here and there and we're almost done. One thing that's bothering me is this neck region. You can see it looks odd, not a problem. We have two main choices. We can turn down our Surface Blur effect because it's a little on the heavy side. That's one way of doing it. But I'd rather show you this second option that gives you more control. When you have the brush tool active, change the opacity to something like 30 percent. This will slowly bring back some detail in her skin. As I'm brushing, you can see this is a much better look. Remember to use Control 1 and Control 0 to quickly gauge the quality of your edits. If you're stuck at two to 300% all the time, you're not going to end up with a good result. Speaking of that, use the same approach to brush over her skin. The left side was pretty smooth to begin with, so I'll remove some of my surface blur from that area. Play around according to your own standards. These freckles on her nose or a cute characteristic in my book so I can paint them back in. Let me zoom through these last strokes. Okay, fast-forward. And this is what my image looks like. Let me open my history panel so I can show you the before and after. Here's our initial image. Now here's our result. I'm happy with it and it only took a few minutes. Now it's your turn. You have this image attached, so please follow my steps and see how you do. Feel free to practice on other photos too. If you have strong skin imperfections, you can raise your surface blur even more, and then you can rely on your brush skills to pinpoint those problematic areas. Have fun. 87. Introduction: Welcome to the section in the following lectures, I'm going to teach you how to use the brush tool for all sorts of things. You're going to see it's a versatile tool that can be used in many ways. But I'm going to take all the complexity out of it because that's what you need to know. You need to know how to use it for real projects, not for digital painting and stuff like that. You're also going to find out the key difference between Photoshop and Illustrator, and you'd be surprised to see how many people get it wrong. Speaking about debunking myths, I'll also teach you about image size and resolution, which are two terms that are often mixed up. We'll also do a bit of retouching by changing a T shirt color. We'll fix some skin imperfections and we're going to have fun with loads of other exercises. Finally, I'm going to explain what non destructive editing is and how that relates to the weather flow, why you should care about it. Because non destructive editing is a part of just about any interview, any job interview, you should know about it without any further ado. Let's get to it. 88. Use the Brush Tool: Welcome back. The brush tool is versatile and very powerful, but for the purpose of this course will only scratch the surface. That's because from my point of view, there's little to be gained by mastering it. Sure, if you're into digital painting, then by all means go for it. But for everyday Photoshop use, for most projects, you'll only need what I'm about to teach you in this lecture. The hot key is B, B for the brush tool. And it works with these two squares, the foreground, the one from the top, and the background, the one from the bottom. Remember, always make a new layer when you start painting. This is going to save you a lot of headaches and undoing. Okay? By default, if I click and drag, I'm going to paint with black. Because that's currently on top, right here, on the left side. I can flip these around by using x and now I'm painting with white. You can't remember the hot key x. You can click on this very small icon with these two arrows. This does the same thing. Of course, you can change these colors by double clicking and then have a blast on the canvas. But yeah, in most cases, we're not actually going to paint stuff on the canvas. No, actually we're going to use the brush tool to edit, adjustment layers and masks of all sorts. Now, black removes the effect and white reveals it. But just in case you want to have fun and you want to try painting. Sure thing. Here's a few tips to make the most of it. Let's say we have a beautiful photo and we want to sample a color from the canvas. Well, simply hold down Alt or Option. This is going to give you the eye drop of tool while you're holding down that key. That's the Alt key or the Option key. Now why should you do it? Because if you click, you get that color notice on the left side. You just picked it up. Basically, that's how you can go around and pick up colors and then paint with them. While on the brush tool, just hold down Alt and click to sample a new color. You can always flip these by using X, and now you can pick up even more colors. Constantly tap X, hold Alt, and this is going to give you a lot of speed. Try it out and see how you do. Again, this is not something for most projects, but it is fun. And you can try and see how digital painting would look like. Back to more practical things. You can adjust the brush size by using the square bracket keys. The left one shrinks your brush while the right one makes it bigger. Your cursor is going to tell you what. It's quite a visual thing regarding opacity versus flow. Again, this is only for digital painting. We're not going to go near it. Let's continue now. Let's head over to the top menu to window. From here, click on Brush Settings from the same place. You also have brushes. There's a lot going on here, but no worries. We're going to keep it simple because we want to stay practical. Now, the hardness, this determines how the paint brush interacts with the canvas. In short, 0% hardness means you're going to get a soft brush, this is going to give you a faded look. This is great for those tricky areas where you want a soft transition. On the other hand, a hard brush is going to give you a very precise application, well defined edges that's best used for the meat of the design in big areas where you don't want any soft spots. Another option is spacing. You can use it to create dotted lines, crank it up and start playing with it. In this case, I suggest you keep the hardness set at maximum. Yeah, that's how you can create dotted lines. In general, I actually use the type tool and I use the period to create dotted lines, but this also works quite well. Now please be aware that are loads of ways of adjusting you brush size and some of its settings we can lick, of course. We can also do some changes from here, from the options bar. Obviously the brush settings are totally great. And of course, the brushes panel, now that's quite a lot. But again, in general, you don't really have to worry too much. As long as you understand the size and the hardness, you're going to be good to go. Now, that is something that's quite nice here, and that's smoothing. Smoothing basically means you won't get shaky edges. Now, even with a tablet, a graphic tablet, your hand may shake a bit, so you won't get smooth lines. Well, this is exactly what this feature helps you with. The more you raise it up, the smoother the lines. Now trouble is there is going to be some lag as you click and drag. You're going to feel how Photoshop is trying to help you out, but again, there's a big lag. The bigger the value, the bigger the delay. My advice, keep at that ten, maybe 20% something like that. Going back to it, the essence is this. You saw in the first example the black and white effect. How we use the brush tool, we basically added an adjustment layer and then we use the brush tool to basically delete a part of it to remove the black and white effect from the lips area. So we removed part of the effect. That's how you're basically going to use it. More than that, when you remove a background, for example, it's super important that you use a layer mask. That's totally fine. But then you may want to refine that layer mask. That's where brushes really shine. That's how we're actually going to use them. This is why we're not interested in digital painting in flow, in several blending modes in getting custom brushes and so on. That's all for digital painting, for literal artists, we're not trying to do that. We're trying to make various things that are super practical. Projects that companies are looking for. Business cards, illustrations, icons, various things, various things that are fairly practical. Digital painting, it may be beautiful, but it's not something that I would recommend as a career. And with that, let's continue. 89. Soften Skin Imperfections: Welcome back. In this lecture, we're going to soften some skin imperfections in just a few minutes. In the next lecture, we're going to use a brand new version. Something that's much easier. But I still think that you need to learn this technique as well. Even though it's a bit older. You can use it for all things, okay? Right. This is our starting point. In just two quick steps, I'm going to get you an awesome result. This one. Now let me show you how you can use the simple, yet effective technique. The first step is to improve the photo saturation. In contrast, we could do that with an adjustment layer. But I want to show you another way of doing it. Go to the top menu and click on Image. From this drop down. Choose Apply Image. Here we have a new window with various options, but we're only interested in two things. That's the blending mode and then the opacity. Let's change this drop down to soft light, and because we have review enabled, you're going to see this immediately. Okay, this pops Now, 100% opacity is a bit too much for me. Let's take it down to 50% Yeah, this is better. This was step number one. Let's move on to part two, where we're going to soften some skin imperfections. And basically we're going to hide a few of those details that you may not want to show up. We've talked about smart objects and how they can protect our pixels, right? How they retain information. Well, in this case, that's very much needed because we may want to adjust the intensity of the effect. Right click and then choose convert to a smart object. Okay, great. Next let's go to the top menu to filter here. Go to Blur and then Surface blur. This new window, we're going to get two sliders. The radius option specifies the size of the sample diria of the blur here. I think something like ten pixels should work. You've got to give it a try and see what's what. Then the threshold option is going to basically tell you how strong the effect is going to be. Now please note that if you set it too high, you're going to end up with plastic skin, Something that looks fake, and we don't want that now. Obviously, glossy magazines, bar B and all that. Sure. But we want to keep things natural. Let's go for the pretty strong value to begin with, 15 levels. You'll see how we can fine tune this in a moment. Let's hit, okay, now let's focus on the layers panel, because I want to show you the before and after. Now this does a great job at hiding certain imperfections, and it does make the skin seem softer. Trouble is, this is also affecting the texture of clothing as well as the hair, and that's not ideal. Here's what we're going to do. Click on the smart filters, mask this one here. Then of course, grab the brush tool and make sure that you're going to paint with black. The hardness may be 50% Also, to make sure that we have smooth transitions, now start painting over. Those areas should not be softened. Okay. Black removes the effect. Now I'll focus on the blouse. Notice how all the detail is coming back again. Black removes the effect. Take your time with it, and then adjust your brush size if needed. Next, let's move on to her hair. The left side in particular really needs some help. By leaving it as it is, you can clearly tell that this image is out of focus and that's not what we want. The right part needs a bit more patience. Notice stray hairs. Now, if you paint over them, they fade into the background. That's up to you. If you want to hide them or leave them in, I think I'm going to remove them. Okay. Just a few more brushes here and there, and with almost done. One thing that's bothering me is the neck region. You can see it looks a bit odd. The problem, we have two main choices. Now we can tone down the surface blur effect because it's a bit on the heavy side. That's one way of doing it. But let me show you this second option which gives you a bit more control While you have the brush to active change the opacity to something like 30% zoom in and start painting. This will slowly bring back some detail in the skin. As I'm brushing, you can see that this looks better and better. Remember control one and control zero to quickly see the quality of your edits. If you're stuck at 300% all of the time, you're not going to end up with a good result. Constantly zoom in and zoom out. Speaking of that, use the same approach to brush over her skin. Now the left side was pretty smooth to begin with. I think we should remove some of the surface blur from that area. Now, play around according to your standards. For example, these freckles on her nose. I think that's cute. That's in my book. But if you want to remove them, that's up to you. Now in case you've come across a difficult area while brushing, you can always switch back to black, change the opacity to 100% and then hide that imperfection. Go back and forth between black and white. 100% and 30% I'm going to zoom to it because I think you get the idea. But yeah, in short, this is the After you can open up the history panel to see the initial image. Overall, I'm quite happy and we did learn quite a lot. I love one click solutions like in the next lecture. But going through all of these steps, I think you get a much more robust image of Photoshop. You get to see what the program is capable of. And obviously, if you learn to fine tune things with layer masks, with brushing with opacity and whatnot, I think this is ideal. And with that, let's continue. 90. Skin Smoothing - The Easy Way: Hey there. Starting with Photoshop CC 2021, we have a super easy way to fix skin imperfections, all in just a couple of clicks. The naming is a bit weird. It's called neural filters, but I'm sure you're going to love it. One thing that I have to tell you is that the previous technique is still best, it's king. Practice it and make sure you use it because it's versatile and you can apply it in loads of ways. Coming back to this neural filter thing, this is only available in Photoshop CC 2021 and above. Let's jump into it. Here we have the same picture as before. Smoothing effect is a bit exaggerated, so you can see the differences. Let's turn off the surface blur and make a copy with control J. Next, go to the top menu to filter from here, choose neural filters. You'll see a brand new workspace here, only two tools on the left side, but the real magic is on the right. If you click on this icon, you'll get a ton of filters that are still in beta. Beta just means working progress, which translates into results that won't be perfect. We'll go to some of these in another lecture, but for now, click here and that will reveal two options. In this specific version of Photoshop, looking full skin smoothing, enable it and immediately some magic is going to take place. Activate the zoom tool and focus on her face. With the default settings, you'll still see a pretty solid improvement. Use the icon at the bottom to turn the preview on and off so you can check the result. Because we can adjust the smoothing through these two sliders, it's super easy to get a hang of it. This is why most people will love this feature. Just play around with these sliders and constantly use the preview button that's at the bottom of this panel. You can even crank them up to a very high value, and that still will give you a pretty believable result. Obviously, you should use some restraint, but here's how massive of a difference it makes. This is great. I want you to have a look at the output. My advice is you always set it to smart filter. You'll see why that's important in a minute. Okay, and we'll be brought back to the regular Photoshop interface. My advice is that you enable the surface blur from the original layer and toggle the visibility of this copy. The difference between them is huge. The neural filter did a much better job though. To be fair, I did exaggerate the smoothing in the previous lecture, so you could really see the change overall. This is pretty good. Now let's move on to another photo. Please notice the layers panel. This image was opened to control. That's why we only have one background layer that's locked without doing anything else. Let's go to filter then neural filter. What I love about this feature is that Photoshop is smart enough to realize that have two faces in our project. This is why we have this thumbnail here that we can click on and select the other face in the photo. Note the sliders are separate for each portrait. This means we can really crank it up for the older gentleman, but leave it at a low setting for the child. Hit the preview button a few times so you can really see the changes again. This feature is amazing and it's only going to get better before we hit. Okay, please change the output to smart filter. That's important. Okay. Now, do you notice something that's a bit off? Yeah, we have a blue vertical line going across the child's face. Please double click the filter so you can have that work space yet again. Okay, notice Photoshop has a frame around each of these portraits. This line here, well, that translates to this line. This is obviously a bug, and I'm confident Photoshop will fix it in the next releases. This is one of the reasons why I said you shouldn't rely too much on these one click wonders. Sure it's easy and in general, these will give you solid results. But if you don't know how to work with a brush tool on a mask, you're really limiting yourself. Here's the deal. Because we chose smart filter as the output, we get this mask. Click it to select that. Next, grab the brush tool, hot keyB. Choose a decent size for the brush, but make sure that you lower the hardness to 0% when you're ready paint over this line and it's going to go away. Unfortunately, the smoothing effect was removed too, but as long as your brushing is somewhat decent, this shouldn't be too much of a problem. Overall. This is the easy way to soften skin imperfections in Photoshop CC 2021 and above to do neural filters. They're not perfect. But even if they were, I still suggest you know your the way around the brush tool and layer masks. 91. Use the Eye Dropper & Swatches: Welcome back. In this video, we'll talk about the eye drop, a tool, and swatches. Now, the names may not tell you all that much, but let's see what's what. First of all, a bit of introduction. If you didn't watch the brush lectures now in every Photoshop project, you'll likely need to work with colors. The main way of doing that is from this area, from the tool bar. Top square is the four ground color. We better put the current active color. The bottom one is like the secondary one. When you want to change them, simply click once and you'll get the color pecker. This is the color pecker from it. You can play around on the left side, or you can use this slider to change your color completely. Now the most popular way of sharing certain colors on the web is through a hex code. This is right here. You can copy it and paste it whatever you want. For example, you can go on the web and look for hex codes, for color palettes, and you're going to get something like this one, a nice shade of pink, F00. This is it. You can always see the new color right here in the preview. Let's hit okay and do the same for the background color. I can click it and I'm going to get the same color picker. Now let me close it because I want to show you a great hot key, you may already know it, that's X. This swaps them around. In case you don't want to remember it, you can always click here on this tiny icon. And once you click it, you're going to get the same thing. Now when you want to change these colors on the spot, you'll likely use the drop of Tool. The hot key is you can identify it from this icon from the tool bar, Click anywhere on the canvas. And the fourth ground is going to change. You just picked up that color. This is how you're going to use it In most projects. You click and you set one color. Then you use X to flip them around and then you choose a secondary color. That's the eye drop, a tool. Now you're going to notice a ring that pops up when you click. If you click and hold, you can see that this ring is divided in two parts. Now, we're not actually going to use it, but it's best that you know about it. The top half shows you what's currently sampling right. Now, if you move left and right, you're going to see that this changes. Then the bottom part shows you the current color. Basically, this is useful when you want to compare the two. It's not all that great, we're not going to use it that often, but know about it if you click and hold. Now, like we already discussed, Photoshop works with raster images that are made out of pixels. Right now, with using the drop a tool to pick up individual pixels. Now if I zoom into the maximum level, you can see this grid shows up. This grid is awesome because basically it's made out of lots of squares. And those squares, basically when you have lots of them, they make up an image. If you click on one of them, going to get that pixels color. This is called point sample, and you can see it here in the options bar. This is what I use in my everyday work. But sometimes you may want to get a color from a larger area. It won't happen all that often, but still it may happen. Use this drop down and select any of these options. For example, 31 by 31 average, get me just that. It will look at a larger area and find the color code that's an average for that spot. Now all these values are than pixels. By the way, if you're working on a larger project with several layers, you may want to change this setting and I encourage it. Now the easiest one sample current layer, This means you'll get exactly on what you click on. You also have the option of sampling from layers that are above or below the current one, as well as other combinations. But those are a bit more tricky to get a hang of. I recommend you stick to this mode. Now you will have to be aware of the current selected layer. If you can't manage, just click on this option, Sample from all layers. And basically, no matter how your project is structured, you're going to pick up whatever you click on the canvas. Basically, with this option selected, you're going to ignore the layers panel and you're just going to focus right here on the canvas. Wherever you click, that's what you'll get now. Two colors, right? But if you want more of them, not a problem. For that, you could use swatches. Go to the top menu to window. From here, go to swatches. Now I can sample a color, say a blue I really like, right? Then I'm going to move over to this panel. Recently, this has been improved. The swatches are a bit bigger and the way you save a color has slightly changed. Instead of hovering over this area and clicking now, you can use this plus icon in between the folder and the trash can. Icons in the pop up, you'll be asked for the name. But more importantly, Photoshop will ask you if you want to save it to your libraries. We'll talk about that in a different lecture, but I suggest you uncheck that. I don't think that you need libraries, okay? Okay, and that color has been saved. If you add a rectangle to the canvas, you can really see the benefits of this panel. Simply click on any of these watches and notice how the shape changes its color. This is great, but you know what? It actually works with multiple layers. This is going to give you a big boost in terms of speed if you use it smartly. More than that it works on text layers as well. As you can see, if you grab a bunch of them, they're going to update with one single click. Now, I know that these little things seem quite small, right? They save maybe a second or two, but the fewer actions, the better. It just optimizes your workflow in a way where everything flows naturally. Before we move on, please don't confuse the following. I'm going to change this rectangles color to something quite striking, like bright red, Right. Next I'm going to set my foreground and background colors back to the defaults by hitting D for default. Okay, tell me if I now click on this icon to add a new Swatch. What color is going to show up in the naming window? Is it going to be bright red from this shape or is it going to be the default black from the tool bar? If you said black, you are indeed correct. Please don't confuse these things by clicking on this button. You're creating a swatch based on the color from the left side of the screen. But just in case you want to save your color by fiddling with the color picker directly on a shape. What text layer? Here's what you can do. Let's choose a nice striking color. Then use this button, Add to swatches. Okay. And that's that you're going to see a new one in this panel. But don't be surprised to see that the color picker has shown up. Again, this is intentional because Photoshop assumes you will still doing stuff right here. But yeah, all in all, that's awesome. One thing you may not like the fact that you have a lot of swatches pre installed, right? If they really bother, you could select one of them and delete it to the trash can icon. You'll be able to tell it selected by this blue highlight. But what I love about this upgraded panel is the fact that I can select multiple swatches. For example, say that I want to select three different ones. I can hold down control, that's the command key on a Mac, and I can click to select them. Or if you're more of a mass select type of guy, you can click on one end then hold shift, click on the other end. And that's it. You have them all, of course, you can delete them. Or you can create a group for them by using this icon here. Again, this may be a great way to work and it does provide a lot of flexibility. Please note that when you want to delete the group, it's best that you first select all those swatches and drag them outside of it, like so if you rush things and you delete the group, you're also going to delete the contents. It's up to you if you want to do that or not. But yeah, overall, this is quite nice. One final thing before we go. The smaller set of swatches shows you the most recent colors you've used. These are obviously constantly changing, especially as you click and you work along. But in general, I don't really use them. But yeah, overall, that's the eyedropper and the swatches panel. Have fun, and I'm going to see you in a second. 92. OPTIONAL: Photoshop vs. Illustrator: Welcome back. This lecture covers the key differences between Photoshop and Illustrator. This video may not be for you if you're not interested in the subject or if you already know how these programs are very much different, feel free to skip ahead if that's the case. Okay, both Photoshop and Illustrator are part of the Adobe family. And you may be wondering what's the main difference between them. On top of it, they look a bit similar to. Now, I'm not going to do a complete in depth comparison because that's not really useful at this point. But I am going to tell you a few bits of information that are quite important. First of all, you have to know that Photoshop works mostly with raster graphics. Raster layers, that means images that are made up out of a certain number of pixels. You may have experienced this when you went up to a TV very close and you saw that a dot is actually one color and thousands. But said millions of dots make up an image. You can also see that if you zoom in really, really close in Photoshop, just have a look here at the zoom level. It's crazy close. And as you can see that some sort of grid that's basically made out of lots of squares, AKA pixels. One square, one pixel. Now each square contains a solid color. When you add lots of them together, you get a nice image. The more pixels, the better quality of an image. This is why 4.5 K are so desired because they contain more pexels, which means a better, clearer, sharper image. That's Photoshop, that's rest layers, raster graphics. Now on the other side, Illustrator works with vector graphics vectors. Now these images are not made out of a fixed number of pixels, like 1 million, 5 million, whatever. Now actually illustrated uses algorithms to constantly redraw the image. Now what does that mean in plain English? Well, if you zoom in really close on this steady bear, you won't get the same grid of pixels like you saw in Photoshop. Check the zoom level with super, super close. But there's nothing jagged here, there's nothing that's sharp or abrupt. Everything is super smooth, super high quality. If you toggle between the two programs, you're going to see this is night and day. It's a huge difference. There isn't anything special in these particular PSDs and AI files. But it's essential that you understand the following. It doesn't mean that Illustrator is better than Photoshop, that it's superior in some case. No, both programs have the strong points. Photoshop has lots of tools that are made for editing, designing retouching images, doing all sorts of edits. But Illustrator, on the other hand, has infinite scalability. You should also know that Coral Draw just as a side node. Coral Draw works very similar to Illustrator. That's another program that's based on vectors. Now in short, in the real world, you wouldn't use Photoshop for everything. For example, a logo, you shouldn't design it in Photoshop. Why is that? Because you may want to print it out on a piece of file paper. Sure. But you may also need to print it on the side of a building or on the side of a truck. We have a logo on screen here in photo shop. This canvas is quite small. If you were to have it printed on an outside banner, you would need that to be what? 30 feet by ten, 10 meters by two in any case. Infinitely bigger, much, much bigger than you have it here. If you try to enlarge it, well, it's not going to work in Photoshop. If you want to triplet size, it's going to become fuzzy and then when you print it out, it's going to be horrible. That's why Photoshop is not the best to world for the job. These programs are, again, vastly different. They're built for totally different things. You should not compare them by designing stuff in Photoshop that you were supposed to design an illustrator, you're limiting yourself quite a lot. But obviously, if you work in Illustrator, then resize it no matter that any size you want, it's still going to look smooth, nice, sharp, and crasp. That's the magic of illustrator. It constantly redraws the image, so to speak. But yeah, to sum it up, if you need to design something that needs to be scaled infinitely, illustrator is the best choice. This usually means logos, outdoor banners, shirt designs, but it can be just about anything. On the other hand, Photoshop is best if you want to edit an image, create a painting, create a business card, create a design for screens like social media ads, banners of all sorts and things like that. Basically fixed sizes, that's the key. Photoshop fixed size illustrated, infinitely scalable. If you try to enlarge something in Photoshop that's called up sampling. Even though Photoshop has gotten better and better at it, it's still not as good as Illustrator. As you go up and up, you're going to get fuzzy or blurry edges. The image isn't going to be sharp anymore and you're not going to be able to use it again. Both programs have the strong points. Neither is better than the other one because they're built for different purposes. 93. The Libraries Panel: Welcome to this lecture that's dedicated to the library panel, a feature that was introduced in the Creative Cloud version of Photoshop. If you're still on CS six, you will not have this panel in your workspace, right? Let's get to it. To activate it, please go to the top menu to window and scroll down near the middle of the list, you'll find libraries. I already have something set up, so this is why we're seeing all sorts of entries here. Before we get into any details, let me show you a real world example where the library panel shines. Here I have a website designed specifically a home page, and I'm happy with how it turned out the artboards are not relevant, so please disregard them. Next, I have to tackle this details page. Now it's a bit of a mess, but with the help of the library panel, I can quickly sort it out. Here's how I tend to work when I need fast results. Please note my auto select option is disabled from the options bar. I'll click this layer to select it. Next, I'll hold both the control key and the shift key, so I can select these other ones too. That was a pretty standard multi select. Next, I'll click on this entry from the library panel, from the character styles section. Just like that, all three layers have been formatted accordingly. Next, the title, which needs a different treatment control, click to select it. But this time I'll click on another item from my library panel. Beautiful. It's as simple as that. How about all these buttons? Black is surely not right. We could go with either navy blue, orange, or even yellow. These are my options because that's what I previously used. Let's try them out one by one. The essential part is you select all of them through the same technique as before. Holding both control and shift and clicking on each one. Let's try blue in one single action. All of them get updated. It looks okay, but it's nothing special. How about yellow? Far too bright for my taste. Orange? Yeah. This is clearly the best choice. And that's the library's panel in a real world project, to tell you the truth. I also used this feature when I developed an app for this company. Inside that project, I had over 50 screens I needed to sort out with pixel perfect accuracy while also staying consistent. Now you've seen it in action. Let's bring it back and slow it down. What's the purpose of the library panel? It helps you save your favorite colors, text treatments, and even graphics. So you can use them on multiple machines across several Adobe programs. Let's start a brand new project by hitting control from the library panel. Click here so you can create a brand new one. You'll be asked for a name, and I generally prefer to use the project's name. Though here I'll write something at random. This is an empty library and we can get to work. Let's take it one at a time. Let me add a random rectangle on my canvas. I'll also change its color to a bright red, so it'll stand out. Next, I'll change my foreground color to a random shade of blue. Just so the next step is going to be totally clear. Click on this small plus icon from the bottom of the library panel, and this will reveal several options. In general, you'll choose one of the following. You'll either want to save your foreground color from the tool bar, in this case that's blue. Or you can save the layers color that's bright red. In this situation, that's how you can make sense of this list. Realistically, you'll rarely want to save the strokes color. Once you click on one of these choices, a new entry is going to appear in your panel. The great thing about it is that you can double click here to rename it to something more appropriate. For example, button color, or background, or something that makes sense in the context of the project. There are several options here for power users, including creating groups, changing your view mode, and so on. But we'll cover the basics as in most cases, that's what you'll use. One piece of advice, don't use this feature called New Library From Document. As in most cases, it will add way too many things to your library's panel. This is best set up manually. Next, regarding your text layers, this also works the same way. Give me a second. While I add a bit of text and style to it, I'm using random settings, but that's less important. The great thing about the libraries panel is that it saves all the details, not just the font family, size, and weight, but also various transformations you may have applied to it. When you feel you're ready, simply click on the plus symbol. Yet again from the list, choose character style, though you can of course, only save its color To test it out. Let me create yet another text layer. And instead of manually resetting absolutely everything in this panel, I'll click here. From this list, I'll choose Reset Character. As you can see, the text layer went back to its default styling. Now with a single click, I'll transform it to our saved style. Fantastic. Finally, if you know you're going to use a photo in multiple places in a project, it makes sense you save it in your library panel. Let me go back to that web design project and I'll save one of those oatmeal photos from the list. Choose graphic. By the way, this newly introduced option is fairly complicated and not that useful, so we'll skip it. Just like that. We've added some photos to your library. Back to the new project. We can drag any one of them onto our canvas, and Photoshop will let us know we're about to place them as linked smart objects. The details don't really matter, but in short, the files won't be saved into your PSD. Instead, they'll be taken from the cloud overall. From a learning standpoint, this library panel isn't difficult to understand. What's important is for you to understand why it's so valuable. For example, I'll activate the Swatches panel from the top menu. This has been improved in Photoshop CC 2020 and we now get the option of organizing your colors into folders. Why is the library panel better than swatches? Because it's tied to your creative cloud account. This means three things. One, if I open up Adobe Illustrator, I'll find this library's panel there. Give me a second while it opens up. And if you make any changes, any edits whatsoever, the changes will spread across all Adobe programs that have this library's feature number two. This allows you to work on several computers while always having the latest resources at the ready. Just think about it. You start this project at your work computer. You make some adjustments on your laptop while you commute. And when you get back home, all the colors, text, treatment, and graphics are there for you. No USB sticks, no external hard drives, no E mailing things back and forth. Finally, number three, This allows you to be consistent in your designing. It's a lot to explain, but in short, when you're creating any large project from scratch, it's best you define what's called a style guide. This tells any developer, any designer what are the dos and don'ts. If you decided this headline needs to be shown in Monserrat bold 32 pixels, then that becomes written in stone. You're the designer, you're in control. You decide how the project is going to look. Thus nobody else can come in an eyeball it. If you set things up correctly, you'll have a style for all the headlines, for sub headlines, for quotes, body text lists and so on. This will tremendously help any client, any developer and any other designer that may jump into the mix by using the library panel. Everything is streamlined and easy to follow. There shouldn't be any loose ends. If the developer uses Monserrat regular 30 pixels instead of bold and 32 pixels, you know whose mistake it is. But if you don't use the library's feature, you might get confused among tens of pages or screens, and then the mistake will be your own. Moving back to the example with the Swatches panel, we also have paragraph styles and character styles. Again, these do the same thing, they save your text treatment, but these are tied to the PSD. It's much better to have access to all those details across all Adobe devices, across multiple computers. That's why the library panel is great. On the other hand, all this doesn't apply if you work all by yourself or if your projects are fairly small. But if you want to raise your game and become a professional designer, the library panel is something that you need to master. The good thing about it is that it's easy to get. As I hope you've seen, you can learn to use it in 10 minutes or so. The challenge lies in your organization skills. And with that, it's time to wrap it up. Try it out, and see how you manage. Good luck. 94. Resolution vs. Image Size: Height resolution versus image size isn't something most people think about yet. That's why they're constantly confusing the two terms. Even I may have done so in the past, but let's clear it up and see what they each describe. Image size is what we're interested in as we work in any project. A higher size means a better looking composition, whether it's a photo or a design project. To quickly identify it, we can use a myriad of hot keys. The properties panel is one option. Here you can see a width of 5,184 pixels and a height of 3,456 pixels. That's the image size. We also have the command control Lt. Here we can see the same thing. If you multiply these numbers, you get a total pixel value for the entire image here. That's close to 18 million. That's how many pixels you can find in this image. The more the better control also shows us the image size. Initially it will show us a percent value, but we can write click and change it to pixels. Anytime you see something like 100 by 100 pixels, that refers to the image size. What does resolution mean? Well, if we create a new project with control, you'll be able to find it here by default. For web projects that set at 72 pixels per inch. When you want to print something, 300 is a much better choice because that's going to affect your printed image quality. There's a key distinction here. No matter how much you increase this pixel density, your project won't look any better on screen. I want to stress that if you use a higher resolution for a project, but you're not going to print it, it's completely useless. Actually, it's going to hurt Photoshops performance because it will slow it down. There's no reason to work with 300 pixels per inch for an image that's only going to be used on social media networks or for other digital purposes. Lastly, regarding printing your images, if we try to digitally increase the resolution, 72-300 you won't get great results. You'll get jagged edges, fuzzy or blurred details. So it's not something you should try to bump up in Photoshop. Again, your best bet for printing purposes is to start with a photo that was shot with a good camera. Most of what we're learning here is designed for the screen, so I won't go into any more details, just remember image size refers to the number of pixels, and it's usually something like 100 by 100 pixels. Well, resolution is only relevant for printing purposes, and the ideal value is 300 pixels per inch. For digital mediums, 72 is perfect. Okay, let's continue. 95. OPTIONAL: Change T-Shirt Color: Welcome back. In this activity, I'm going to show you how you can quickly replace the color inside any image, and this method is foolproof. This lecture is optional because I'm going to teach you a better technique later on in the course. But that needs a few more steps and an extra bit of knowledge to do this technique though, anyone can use it. It's super simple and you can use it just like that in any image whatsoever. Can watch this lecture if you want the easy way. Or you can skip ahead to the next video and you're going to learn about this subject later on. Okay, if you're still with me, what I'm going to do is I'm going to duplicate my initial layer control J. And we're going to call this option one. Next, I'm going to click on my Fool ground color. And I'll play around with my color picker so that I can get a nice shade of blue. You can use whatever color you want. I'm going to go with this one now. Here's why this is foolproof. Go to the toolbar and click and hold on the brush tool. If you can't find it, use B for the brush tool, okay. From here, choose color replacement tool. Focus on your options bar, and we can set everything correctly. The mode is the most important choice here that we want to change this red shirt and make it blue. The best setting for the job is color. Luminosity will try and match the brightness of a four gram color. If we try it out, it's not going to look right. Saturation mode is great when you want to adjust the intensity of your color. But mostly it's going to wash out the red hue. Basically, it produces weird results because it tries to change the color, but it doesn't affect the saturation of the brightness. This means you're going to get blotchy spots. Not great. My advice, stick with color. My brush fairly large. It really depends on the image size. But the hardness somewhere in the middle may be 50% Lastly, my tolerance will impact how loosely Photoshop will replace my colors here. Let's start with 20% Let's start painting, and then we can adjust it as we go. As you can see, this actually does a pretty good job. This is a great text size because it forces you to use the squared bracket keys as you move along. That changes the size of the brush. That's because if you focus on his color, for example, and the brush is too big, obviously you're going to make him look like a smurf. And that's not the goal here. For smaller areas, make your brush smaller. Zoom in and then paint over it with care. As you can see, things are going pretty well except for the shoulder region there. It seems Photoshop isn't doing a great job because of all of the details in that area. The color isn't as solid as in this region. That's why we're having trouble replacing it, but that's why we have this tolerance slider. It goes all the way up to 255,200.55 at which point it will replace absolutely everything Here. I want something like 80% hit eight on your keyboard and it should jump to continue painting. And I recommend you go over each area several times. Remember to zoom in and adjust your size, otherwise you'll have a hard time with these sleeves even so it's going to be tricky to avoid painting over his skin, but that's the trade off. On one hand, this is super simple to set up, just choose a color and start painting. On the other hand, it's not very flexible. When you go over an area by accident, the best choice is to use control Z to undo. Trouble is if you're holding down your mouse for 20/32 at a time, when you undo, you're going to lose all of your progress. This isn't a perfect technique. It has some drawbacks, some negatives, but it's quite easy to remember. That's why we started with it overall. That's it, that's the technique. It's quite simple. It's not perfect, but you can get up and running with it in no time at all. If you want to learn a better method, continue watching and I'm going to show it to you. Have fun with it. 96. Optimize Project Size: Welcome back. In this lecture, you're going to find out how to shrink your PSD file. In my book, there's only one of two things that actually make a difference. Let's see what's what I have this web design project opened in Photoshop, and I have it placed in a separate folder right here so we can see it better. We can see it's quite big, about 100 megabytes, and maybe that's a bit too much for my taste, right? Here's the solution. The only way to shrink a PSD file is to rasterize your smart objects that or resize the entire project, make it smaller. Now the first one will give you the best results here. I'm going to do the following, let's use the filter system from up top, and I'm going to show you my smart objects. Now if we explore some of these photos, you'll see that most of them are scaled to about 50% of the size. This usually happens when you get images from Unsplash.com or various other websites. And in most cases, these are going to be huge. But in this project, you don't need a 4,000 by 4,000 pixel image, right? You're going to encounter this scenario quite a lot. You have a huge image that's actually made smaller, but again, the image is actually much larger than it seems. Now the thing is this, if you're assure you won't need it at a larger size, it's best to rasterize it. Now if another colleague, whether he's a designer, the code or whatever, if he wants to work on the project a bit more, it's best to ask if he plans on editing these images here. I'm all good. I work by myself. I'm going to choose every single smart object. I'm going to select them and then right click. And from here I'm going to choose rasterized layers. Now let's save the PSD control less, and you're going to see that this is way smaller. Now that's a big improvement. That's what I call optimization. Here's the thing. We didn't lose quality now. We did lose a bit of flexibility down the road. The project is no longer future proof, meaning if you plan on re, using some of these graphics in another project, you options are going to be a bit limited because you don't have the full image. What you see is what you get. But still a 50% reduction in size is fantastic. Now in the layers panel, we still have quite a few other ones that are hidden. I see no color labels for me. This means that I can delete them, save yet again, and then check the size. This is only a fraction of what it used to be. Now I think you see the downside of smart objects. While they're amazing, they're totally awesome, They retain that information. They help us work with filters. They do come with a cost, obviously, that's file size. Now more than file size, it's also regarding your computer. How powerful it needs to be. If you are working with huge images, your computer is going to struggle. Still rested layers aren't all that bad, you can still do your thing with it. Let me disable this filter. Let's see if we can do anything else. Now, merging may also help, but in most cases, rested layers don't take up much space. It's not going to help you all that much. Smart objects are the biggest thing. Now, in this case, if this wasn't a web design project, could potentially reduce the image size, the canvas size. But again, this is a web design project, so that doesn't work. But yeah, let's assume that this is something completely different, right? Let's use Alt control I. This is 1,600 pixels by 33 88. Now this is a pretty big size, but let's assume that we don't need to have it this big. We can take it down to 50% we can head save, and this is a much smaller PSD. Again, you don't always have this option, but this is the only thing besides rasterizing smart objects. With that, let's continue. 97. Non-destructive Editing: Welcome back. I want to talk about the huge principle in photo shop and that's non destructive editing. We've already touched on this subject here and there, but in these couple of minutes, I want to address it directly. First of all, what's destructive editing? Well, that refers to permanently changing pexels. Now, this obviously doesn't take into account the possibility of undoing because at a certain point that's useless. Let me show you what I mean. What we previously did when we changed the color of that red polo was destructive editing. That's because every time I'm painting with a color replacement tool, I'm changing the pixels inside this image. Once you do that, there's no going back. There's no slider, there's no visibility, There's no effect that I can adjust or disable. There's no turning back, especially if you continue to move along. You do a few other things. There's no longer the option of using control Z because obviously you lose all your progress. That's the thing. This is destructive editing, and it's viewed in the same way as taking an eraser and going over your image. It's not okay, basically destroying the image. And you may say, okay, but again, Chris, I have control Z to do Yes, indeed that is the case. But let me show you super simply what's up. We replace the guy's T shirt, right, then I'm going to continue to work on something else. For example, let's say that I'm going to add the mustache just for the fun of it, right? Let's say that this mustache is going to take me, I don't know, a few hours, right? Tens of layers. Hundreds of layers. Because clearly this is an amazing looking mustache, right? I'm joking of course, but again, you get the point. Maybe I'm going to work on a few things and it's going to take me quite a lot. Now, could I use control Z to go back to the initial shirt? No, of course not. Now, obviously I could use undo 1,000 times. That's the limit by the way. But obviously I would lose the mustache. I want to keep the mustache, but I want to change the editing of the shirt from this color to something else. That's why destructive editing doesn't work and it's bad because again, it limits your options down the road. Instead, you can do the following, use non destructive techniques. We already spoke a bit about smart objects. You saw how they transform filters into smart filters. Let me quickly show you what I mean. I'll make sure that this is the rest of layer right then from the top menu filter. And then blur. And let's say gauge and blur. This is destructive editing because once I hit okay, that's it, I'm stuck. I can't do anything else. But here's the thing. I'm going to repeat the process, only this time around. I'm going to first convert it to a smart object. Now let's apply the same filter, exactly the same settings, and then check the layout spanel. What you're going to see is this is a smart filter, This means I have complete control over it. I can turn it off or I can adjust it. At any point, I can draw 100 mustaches, no problem. I can always come back here and change it after the minute, after the day, after the year. Adjustment layouts again, they are also a big part of non destructive editing. These are great for editing existing pixels on the screen, but again, the fun stuff, they're not permanent. They act somewhat similar to smart objects, meaning you can always come back and find tunual settings, plus you can turn off the visibility. And that's also great. That's how we're actually going to replace this color later on in the course. Still on non destructive editing masks are another great way of working without permanently editing things. We're going to discuss them in just a bit, but yeah, it's important that you realize that there's one way of destroying an image and another way the correct way, Non destructive editing. Whether you have freedom, whether you have flexibility. But yeah, in this course, most of the time we're going to work correctly. That was one of the very few exceptions. Now, you may say that non destructive editing requires a few more skills, but no worries. We're going to get through them one by one. Yeah, now you know the difference. Non destructive editing allows you flexibility, turning an effect on or off, or being able to adjust it. Destructive editing is working directly on the pixels of an image, like erasing them, painting over them, applying filters directly, and so on. Try to avoid these types of things. With that, let's continue. 98. Review: Welcome back. How did you find this section? I hope you enjoyed the first activity where we soften some skin imperfections. Use smart objects whenever possible to gain footed control over your images. In this section, we also talked about Photoshop versus Illustrator. One works with rested lives and the other one focuses on victims. Photoshop with salads illustrated for the Vectorves. We've played around with the brushed tool and we saw how we can pick up various colors with the eye dropper tool. Plus we can create swatches for our projects. Now probably the most unexpected part was the fact that you can pick up colors outside the Photoshop interface. How awesome is that? In this section, we also talked about optimizing your project size. And I also showed you that the only way to do that is to actually rasterize smart objects the best don't really help all that much. Besides that, hopefully I cleared up a major point of confusion resolution versus image size. Now, this has haunted me in a lot of interactions and a lot of chats, especially in conversations with other people related to this field. But now that you've gone through this section, hopefully you won't have any bad experiences because again, there a lot of differences between these two terms. Anyway, please take your time, review everything, and if there's anything that's unclear in your mind, please ask. Now's the perfect time to ask questions. Use the comment section and I'll be sure to answer. And with that, let's continue. 99. Introduction: Welcome back. In the next video, I'm going to jump in and explain the concept of art boards, what they are, what they can do, and if you should care about them. Art boards in Photoshop not only help you organize a big project, but they also change how certain tools work. We're going to go through everything. If you're using a very old Photoshop version like CS six from 2012, Artboards were not available back then. But stick around and see what you're missing out. As always, please be patient and watch once without any interruptions, Then rewind from the start and pause to work along on your second viewing. Pause as often as you need to, but again, don't try to follow my instructions on the fu's viewing. The conclusion of the series is the following. Art boards are great, but only for certain projects. That's why in all my other videos we won't actually use them. Yeah, you heard that right. Even though I love art boards, they're not used in this course. For one particular reason, our projects don't need them. You're going to see what I mean in the upcoming lectures. That being said, let's jump into it. Let's talk Photoshop. 100. Find out how artboards can help you: Welcome back. In this lecture we're going to talk about the basics of artboards. What they are when you need to use them, and how to create one, but also how to disable artboards. All that is coming up in the following minutes. Let's talk photo shop. Okay. At this point you should know this white area is called the canvas and everything is laid out on it. Artboards on mini canvases. And you can have as many of them as you'd like in the same project. The purpose is to help you organize things. Another way to look at artboards is like super groups, groups on steroids. We know that layers that go together need to be placed into folders. We have these layers here and they form one unit, one design element. Then it makes sense for them to be grouped. Right? Will art boards take that a step further. It's another tool that can help you organize things. If you think of groups like boxes where you store things that go together, then art boards are something like shipping containers and of course they're filled with boxes. Okay, now let's take a step back and talk about when you need to use art boards that will clarify things a lot. Say we're creating an app project, right? So every screen is a sort of mini project in itself, but all the screens are connected between themselves, thus you should be able to see them all at once. That's how you design a great app. The classic route is to have each screen in a separate project. But if you have 102050 screens, it becomes a pain when you want to update certain parts of the design. Another approach is to enlarge your canvas and place all the screens side by side in groups that can work, but it's not exactly ideal. Plus the performance in Photoshop just isn't there. Besides that, you'll have a ton of groups and you can easily get lost in the layer spanel. Now this is what you actually want. Without boards acting like mini canvases, you're keeping all the screens in one project, but it's well organized. Every artboard is a shipping container filled with groups. When you want to work on something, you focus on one container. You don't open everything else, and this makes your life easier. Another example of when you should use them is in a web design project. Here again, all the pages have common design elements. The head of the main menu and whatever the photo and so on. Now by seeing them all laid out, you get two things. A, a better sense of the project, and B, you can quickly update things or make changes. To sum up this point, you should use artboards whenever your project has multiple sections that go together. Absent websites are perfect examples. But you can also use odd boards for things like a threefold flyer. Basically, if you need to see multiple parts of a project simultaneously, then odd boards are for you. Okay, let's quickly move on to creating odd boards. Just a quick scoop. If we go to file new, we'll get a ton of options. But I'm only interested in this checkbox here. Odd boards, this is what you want. Now if you want to work in the classic Photoshop mode, simply leave it unchecked. If you want an outboard, click it and carry on. Okay, you'll recognize there's an odd board present by checking the layers panel. By default this is going to be called odd board one. You can also see that name in the top left side. You might think you'll confuse it with a group, but let me create one through to G. As you can see, there's a clear difference between an odd board and a folder. If you think about my shipping container reference, you'll be flying containers, will have boxes in them, but it's never the other way around. I can have as many groups as I want in this art board, but I can never put an odd board inside the group. That's not how it works. Okay, I'll quickly show you how you can add a few more odd boards, but we'll talk more about that in another lecture how this goes. I'll click and hold on the move tool and that will reveal the artboard tool with it active. I'll drag a couple more on my screen. I'll also add a couple of layers inside them. It shapes text, layers, whatever. But say this is not okay with you and you want to remove them. The easy way is to click on the artboard's name in the layers panel or on the canvas and hit the delete key. That's familiar behavior, nice and easy. You will of course, delete everything inside it in case you want to keep those layers. You right click the artboard in the layers panel and you choose ungroup artboard. As you can see, the layers are now independent. We'll touch on that in another lecture. Just note, this is not ideal. I never recommend working like this. Either everything is stored inside out pods or nothing is, and you are in the classic Photoshop mode. Speaking of that, when you get to one single out pod, you can't delete it. Try it, but it won't work. Instead, you need to ungroup it, and this will bring you back to the normal Photoshop mode. To easily remember these steps, just think about groups, they work the same. Use the delete key and you'll trash it with all its contents. Right, Click it and ungroup it, and all those layers will remain untouched. Okay, to recap, artboards are mini canvases that help you organize things that go together. They're best used in projects that have multiple elements that go together. You can create an artboard through the new project command by checking that box, or you can use its designated tool to remove an artboard. Just use the delete key if you want to keep its elements right, click and ungroup it. With that, we've wrapped up the first lecture. Please see the other lectures to get the complete picture. I'll see you in a second. 101. The hidden value of artboards: Welcome back. In this lecture, I want to talk about the hidden value behind art boards. Sure, there's more to be said about creating and editing them, but before we get to that, I want you to understand why you should care. In this lecture, we'll focus on the great subtle things about art boards. And we'll end with a few things that you have to be aware of. Let's talk, follow shop. When you're using art boards, you'll notice a few differences. Some are great, others are less so. But let's start with the good stuff. I have a rectangle in this artboard and I have the move tool selected. Nothing special, right? But if you look at the Options pod, you'll notice the alignment tools are lit up, deactive, taking a step back in the classic Photoshop mode. These tools are available only when you have at least two elements selected, be it two layers, two groups, or the layer the group, or even a layer in the selection. What matters is there's at least two sides. Photoshop can figure out which one to arrange. Well, in odd pod mode, the odd board itself becomes the second element. The first one is the rectangle. Of course, this means I can quickly top align it. You want to do that in the regular Photoshop mode? I'm sure you know you have to select the entire canvas through control. Then use the alignment command. Then select with control D. If you don't know the procedure, don't worry about it. It's covered later in the codes. That's one of the first improvements. Now it may not sound like a lot, but with art boards you're moving two unnecessary steps. You want to left align it, just click that icon and that's it. No more selecting and selecting. Of course, you can still use control, but it's redundant. In this scenario, this has completely changed my pace. I became faster with less work. It's a dream situation. Please don't underestimate the value of this improvement. It is significant, Okay, The next big thing on my list is the art boards clipping ability. Sometimes you just want to sketch something quickly by using art boards. You don't have to be precise with your sizing. When you draw rectangles, the excess is automatically hidden. That's what I mean by clipping though. This is sloppy and it's not what I would generally recommend. It is a big time saver, you throw things around, the end result still looks great. This is another advantage of using art boards. The clipping ability. Next on my list is Photoshops ability to recognize when you want to include the layer inside the art board program is smart enough that it automatically moves the layer for you in the layers panel. Here's the scenario. You have a few layers outside the art board for whatever reason. As you drag one on top of the artboard, Photoshop springs into action. It recognizes the layer needs to be placed inside the artboard. Check the layers panel. As you can see, the layout has been moved. That's great stuff. This also works when you have multiple artboards and you want to move your elements around, most likely this is how you're going to work. You're going to steal one button from one outboard and check it out in another one. This allows you to make fast design decisions, and that's fantastic. Furthermore, what's great is that you can continue to focus on the canvas. This behavior is called automatic nesting. Nesting is a fancy term for what you just saw. The layer or group gets repositioned in the layer spanel based on its position on the canvas. Place it above outboard, And Photoshop will move that element in the layer panel at the top of the stack in case you ever want to disable this feature, which is not something I recommend, you can do that by selecting the artboard and clicking on this icon. This is part of the lock section, but again, it is a valuable feature. Please leave it on to recap. Artboards allow you to use the first set of alignment tools immediately. They hide any access. Otherwise put, they clip your content. Finally, they automatically swallow any layer group that's placed above them. Before we go, let me tell you a few things that you have to keep in mind. In artboard mode, the canvas size doesn't matter anymore. Sure, the artboard size, say 720 by 12 80, but the whole black part surrounding it is virtually infinite. Thus, if you go to the top menu to image and you select Canvasize, how most people tend to do it. Alt control, you'll get some values here, but they don't matter to prove it to you, I'll just change it up dramatically. When I confirmed the change, notice nothing happens. Photoshop may flicker for the second, but nothing has actually changed. I can repeat the process and use these Dos to tell Photoshop to ad more space in that specific part, but it doesn't make sense in outboard mode. If you want more room, just resize the outboard or create a new one. Again, the canvas is infinite. Regarding creating new artboards, we have another lecture on that, okay? The other thing that doesn't work anymore is the crop tool. If you use it outside the art board, you'll be baffled by the result. You'll actually create a new art board. P you heard that, right? The crop tool creates new art boards. I'm not sure who thought of that, but that's how it is. If you use it inside the selected art board, it will act like the move tool. Notice how the entire art board gets repositioned. Check the left side. I'm not on the move tool. The crop tool is actually active, so there's no point in trying to resize your canvas like in the classic Photoshop mode now. Are these issues, are these problems? No, I wouldn't say so. These are just odd things you have to be aware of. All in all, I hope I convinced you there's a lot to our boards. Having said that, in most cases, in most small projects, they aren't needed in order to keep things nice and simple. The other sections of the codes don't rely on odd boards. Some of my students are still using CSX and artboards weren't available back then. Plus we're not going to create any serious web app design projects. Those are the cases where art boards really shine. For those reasons, art boards are only used in this section. On the other hand, if you check out my app design codes, we use them nonstop. Okay, let's continue in the next lecture. 102. Creating and resizing artboards: Welcome back. In this lecture, we're all about working with artboards. We'll create them in many ways and we'll resize them. You learn how to work like a professional in just a couple of minutes. What's important is you make smart decisions that's going to make it life easier. Let's stop Photoshop. We already talked about method number one, you create an artboard through the new project window. My advice is you stick with two presets, 1920 by 1080 in both cases, one with art boards and one without them. To get these to show up on your end, go to the web tab and choose that preset. After you go through the motions, since this is called Rest, your latest choice is going to show up first. Okay, that's easy to get. So let's start in the classic Photoshop mode. Let's focus on the left side of a interface. Click and hold on the move tool to reveal the outboard tool. Your cuts will have changed, but the options bot is something that may catch your eye. This is the second way of creating an artboard, but it's not something that I recommend. Here's how this goes. On the left side, you get a ton of presets. You get all sorts of devices, mainly IOS ones, for whatever reasons, like iphones, ipads and whatnot. But honestly, very few professionals actually go through this list. Instead, they prefer to input the measurements manually, like so. Now hit Tab to switch to height and do the same. Notice the first drop down changes to custom. Right here is another important controller. You can decide your background color though you can opt for transparent. Okay, here's why I don't like this method where most users get confused is with the following of settings up in the options Bod. Now I'll go and create the outboard through a click, but nothing happens. I'm actually being switched to the move tool that can be really annoying. To actually create an artboard based on what's shown here. You need to click on this icon that features a plus symbol. Notice how your cursor has changed. I'll switch to the brush tool and then back to it, so you can see it again. This is the regular artboard cursor. Now I'm in the creation mode, so to speak. Okay. Click once and you'll get an artboard with those measurements. I'll undo and I'll choose a preset, say iphone X, click, click, and there you go. Method number two of creating an artboard is through the options board. You set everything up, then you click on the plus symbol overall. This is pretty tedious, so that's why I don't recommend it. Here's option three though. My favorite. You get the artboard tool, you click, and you drag anywhere. It doesn't matter if it's inside or outside the canvas, literally, anywhere. Congrats. This is how you do it. We'll talk about resizing in a second, but let's stick to creating art boards for the moment. Let me go back to control Z, to the regular Photoshop interface, and I'll unlock my background layer for the method number four. Okay, now I'll right click it and I'll choose art boards from layers. You'll get a new window, but just hit, okay. And there you go. This is useful in those cases where you have projects that you once structured into odd boards. It doesn't make sense for you to create empty ones and dragging everything inside them, you group everything together and then you create an artboard from that folder. In some cases, the artboard may not be the perfect size, but that's easy to fix. Let's move on to resizing artboards. You may think, hey Chris, method three is not accurate. What if I want a specific size, 800 by 300? Well, not a problem. You get the artboard tool and you create a random one. Then the start of the show becomes the properties panel. I dock it here, but if you don't see it, go to the top menu to window. From here, scroll down to Properties. Now focus on the NH values. Type in whatever value and that's it. This is by far the best way to go because the property spanel is a go to resorts. In most projects the chain icon constrains these measurements. If I enable it and I drop 800 to 400, for example, we'll automatically get 150 in the second field. This is not something I recommend you use, but know that it's an option that was resized, method number one. Number two is a bit more sloppy but a tad faster. While you have an outboard selected, go to any of its edges and look for this symbol. It doesn't matter if you're on the move tool or the odd board tool, this still works. Click and drag as much as you'd like. If you click and hold, you'll get this pop up that tells you the current size. If you're looking for a certain value, just take it slowly though, it defeats the point. Still it's pretty fast when you want to sketch something out, this is probably the best way to go. Method number three takes us back to the options pod. We need to have the D board tool selected, but also an odd board selected. That's quite a mouthful. Anyway, you click on this drop down and you can use your scroll wheel to cycle through these options. As you can see, the size immediately changes. I can't say I'm a fan, but again, you have to be aware of this possibility. Speaking of that, let me select a layer inside an artboard. Now, I'll switch to the artboard tool. As I'm scrolling through this list, nothing is happening. And that's because I don't have an artboard selected. Click here and now you're free to scroll. No, just in case you don't want to move to the layers panel. You can also select art boards by clicking on the names from the canvas. As you can see with a simple click, I'm switching between them now. I can change the size to the precess from the options pod. I can resize it directly from the canvas, but I still suggest you go with DW nh inputs. And that wraps it up. I'll see you soon. 103. Duplicate artboards and using guides: Welcome back. In this lecture, I'm going to show you how I actually use art boards when I'm working on a real project. It doesn't matter if it's a mobile lab design project. A website or a brochure. Setting things up correctly will help you a lot. We'll duplicate them and we'll use artboard specific guides. It's going to be quite a build up, so please be patient. Let's talk Photoshop. Let's start a new 1920 by 1080 project with the art boards featured checked. Say we're going to design a five page website and I want to use an active area of 1,200 pixels. That means all my content has to fit within that space. The best way to go about it is to use guides. Let's get the rectangle tool and click to input out Measurements. Let's go with 1,200 by 100 pixels. This has to be centered on the canvas, but like I said in a previous lecture, the alignment tools are immediately available. Great next, use control add to activate your Rulods with the rectangle selected, click and hold on this side and drag out a guide. As you're approaching the shape, you'll feel Photoshop. Try and help you. It will snap the guide into place. Now do the same for the other side. Note this snapping action only works if you have the right layout selected. Say this is going to be our main menu. Now we want to set it up so all, all pages are going to have the exact same layout. First, let's leave 50 pixels between this shape and the top part. To easily do that, focus on the properties panel. From here, look for the y field, Put in 50 pixels. Okay, once that's done, you can drag two more guides. The entire thing is well sorted. Great, I'll take a few moments to add a few more elements to this main menu. I'm going fairly fast because I have entire quotses dedicated to app and web design projects here. I'm trying to prove a point. Okay, now we have a basic main menu. But I'll select all these layers. I'll right click on the Layers panel and I'll convert them to a smart object. We have a whole lot of lectures on smart objects, More on that later anyway. Now let's add another rectangle for the slider. With my guides active, it's easy to get the perfect size. Again, Photoshop helps me out a lot. In case you can't manage or you're not getting exactly 1,200 pixels. Use the properties panel with this new shape in my artboard. I can quickly create guides by going to the top menu to view. This is much faster from here go, all the way to the bottom to new guide from Shape. And there you go. Now here's why we did all of this. I'll select the artboard and I'll duplicate it with the first method control J. By the way, Photoshop will always create an exact replica on the right side of it. Beautiful. Another way to duplicate not bot is to have it selected. And outboard tool, you'll get these plus symbols on three sides. You won't have one on the left for obvious reasons. If you straight up click it, you'll get an empty R board with the same size. But that's about it. No layers, no guides, just empty. I'll undo because there's a better way. I'm going to click on this bottom plus symbol, but I'll also hold the Alt adoption key on a Mac. There you go. The third way of duplicating not bot is to select it, Hold Alt, drag it anywhere. This works on layers but also on groups. Let's recap on how to duplicate artboards. Number one can throw J number two, use the plus symbol with or without the old key. Number three, hold down the old key and drag whilst on the move tool. What's great is that we get to keep all those guides in every one of these art boards. This will help us align everything correctly from top to bottom. It may not sound like a lot, but believe me, it's really important. Notice that as you select various artboards, the other guides get hidden. And only those specific ones light up in case you want to see them all, which I don't actually recommend. You can open up your preferences, that's from the top menu, Edit and then preferences. Or better yet, use control K under guides, grid and slices. Click on this option, show inactive odd board guides. If you look in the background, you'll already see them show up. You can change the color to magenta to really make them stand out. I'll disable it though because so far we've talked about odd board specific guides in the classic Photoshop mode. We have regular guides that are can let me zoom out and show you how you can add them in Odd board mode, it's easy. You just deselect everything in the layer spanel. Click on an empty region usually does the trek. Now go to the canvas and drag out the guide. Notice the difference in color in case you can't manage to deselect. Do this, Create an empty layer from the bottom of the layers panel. Now move it to the very top of the stack. Since it's outside the artboard, you can now add the global guide. Good work. Notice that if you select an artboard, you'll now get both sets. Now let's take a step back. What can you do with this information though? Well, it's important you know there are two types of guides. The N one is best suited for the classic Photoshop mode. While you can add them here, they don't really help you out a lot. Sure you could use them to top a line Art boards like so, but we can actually do that from the options. Bad, let me move one around. Okay, select both artboards and click here. Next, choose top a line. There you go. Global guides aren't ideal in an artboard setting. Let me drag them away, switch to the move tool and look for this curves. Okay, Now remove them. On the other hand, artboard specific guides are great because they move in sync with artboard. As I reposition it, notice how they move as well. That's gray stuff and it's really useful. Before we wrap it up, I want to emphasize this is how I work when I'm dealing with a multi page project. I set up the entire first page with my content guides and whatnot. Then once I'm done, I create duplicates and I refine them. This is the best way to go about it, because if you want to leave 50 pixels from the top to the main menu, this is the easiest way. Finally, you know that smart object I created. Well, I can double click it and I can change this rectangles colored it. Control, close this new tab. There you go. That's how I like to work with odd boats and guides. It does take a lot of patience. You do need time to arrange everything, but once you get to a certain point, you'll be flying. Try it out for yourself and see how you do. Again, you learn a lot about smart objects later in the quotes, so don't worry about it and just have fun. 104. Exporting artboards: Welcome back. This is going to be short and sweet. I want to show you how you can export your artboards in a very easy way. Plus I know some people confuse the classic Photoshop mode with Artboard mode. I'm going to teach you how you can quickly separate them. We'll start with that. Let's talk Photoshop. Okay, We'll begin a new project through control. Len and I'll quickly use one of my 1920 by 1080 presets. Thing is I went so fast I'm not sure if I have an artboard present. Sure. If I'm zoomed out, I can read all but one in the top left corner. Same thing for the layers panel, but say we missed those after all. If I right click the artboard and ungroup it, this looks extremely familiar, right? So here's what you can do First, I'll recreate the artboard by right clicking the empty layer. Though to be fair, I couldn't do through control Z anyway. Now I'll right click anywhere outside the artboard and I'll get this list. If you click inside it, you won't see the same option. So keep that in mind. From here we can customize our background color. And I like to use the light gray option. Now I'll go into regular photo shop mode. And there you go Black. Create an artboard by using its dedicated tool, and now we have light gray. This is how you can easily separate the two modes. Right click and choose a different color. Okay, now I'll switch to an app design project of mine. This is part of another quote. By the way, as you can see, I have a ton of R boards and that's because that's how you're supposed to create a mobile app project. Each screen should have its own art board. Now, the two ways of exporting are the following. Number one is the good old, old control shift W. The thing is this does take a few seconds to load up here, you're going to export every single one of them. You can customize that settings individually though. Hold down the control key and select a couple of them. Next, play with the settings on the right. Choose PNG or Jpeg. Maybe play with the quality of size. You'll see how the left column will immediately reflect those changes. In most cases though, you won't want to export 40, 50 artboards at once. We already covered quick export in another lecture, but here it is again. This time in outboard mode. You select one of them in the layers panel, and you click on Quick Export. As in my case, that's PNG. You'll have to choose a location, but that's about it. This makes it dead easy to save certain odd boards without having to grind your computer to a halt in case you want to export several odd boards. But not all of them use the control key yet again and multi select a couple. This time I'll go with export. As from the list, It's the same window as before, but we have only three boards here. Now just step back and think about having the Ab design project as separate PSD files for every single screen. Then imagine having to export them one at a time. This is why outboards are fantastic for these situations, and these two quick export possibilities really hit the spot. Okay, that wraps it up, have fun. 105. Conclusion: Welcome back. I hope you managed to get through this section now. In general, our parts are great, they're fantastic. We can use them to organize large projects and make our lives easier by using all of the advantages, their clipping ability, the auto nesting feature, using the alignment tools, without the selection, and so on. The nice, but again, I have to tell you that in the rest of the course, we are not going to use them. We tend to work on projects that require one single canvas. It wouldn't make sense for us to switch to an artboard. They really shine when you need at least two or three of them. Also, a few students are still using CS six from 2012. I know it's a bummer. For those reasons, we're going to continue without them all in all. I hope you enjoy this section. Let's keep going. 106. Use Lasso Tools: Let's start this section with the Lasso Tools. These are helpful when you want to make a rough selection. And their main advantage is there speed. You have three of them in total, and their hotkey is l, will take them one by one, starting with the first one from this list. The regular lasso tool works sort of like a pencil. You grab it and then you can draw anywhere on the canvas to make a selection. It doesn't offer any particular options other than anti-aliasing, which should always be turned on. Besides that, you also have the Feather option that creates soft edges. We talked about that in a previous lecture. There's nothing new about it here. So what's the last? Whose purpose? When you draw on your Canvas, you can't use the Shift key to create straight lines, nor do you have any other features. Yes, you can use the same modify keys that you've used for the Marquee Tool shift adds to the selection. Notice the plus symbol next to the cursor. Olds removes parts of it. And Shift and Alt combined will give you the intersection between these two. We've seen these before. This doesn't appear to be that precise, and indeed it's not an amazing tool by itself. But here's the catch in most real scenario is you'll never use just one selection tool. This is why we have a special chapter dedicated to this subject. All these tools intertwine with each other. You create a rectangular section with the marquee tool. Then you jumping with the lawsuit to remove parts of it. You use the magic wand, but then you further improve your selection by removing a big chunk with the lawsuit tools. And there are many scenarios where these are helpful. So for that reason, I decided to show you how you can use them. So the lesson tool is used to quickly pick up something from the Canvas. It's not that precise, though. If you use a tablet, you might get better results. In general, you'll use it to adjust another selection mostly when you'll want to include or remove fairly large parts. Going over to the polygonal lasso tool, this has the exact same features as the normal, lesser anti-aliasing and feather, but it has better precision because it relies on clicks. This is great when you have straight objects like the building we have here, at any point I can click and change my direction. But notice there's no gave, we only have straight lines. So if your object has any curves, this is not the ideal tool for the job. Still, this is very fast and kinda precise, which is a pretty good combination. In most cases, this can be used by itself, but in general, you might need to use a few other tools to get a perfect result. A thing to notice, don't confuse the polygon older ASU with the polygon tool. That two completely different things. This one here create shapes and we've yet to talk about it. This one creates selections. Okay, Moving on to the Magnetic Lasso Tool, this is actually a fantastic thing. Immediately we get more features at the top and those control the tools behavior. First, let's see it in action. I'll click and I'll still hovering over the edge of this building. It's important you understand, I'm not clicking at all. I clicked once for my initial point and now I'm just moving my mouse. Photoshop is automatically adding these anchor points based on the frequency I set up top. The higher I raise it, the more anchor points I'm going to get. Why is that important? Well, if the shape is complicated, more anchor points will result in a better selection. If I think photoshop isn't placing the right amount or in the right places. I can click myself to add a few, classify somehow mess things up and I don't want to start over. I can just press the backspace key. This will delete your last anchor points and you can continue on the correct line. As with all selections, you need to go back around to the original point and close it off. You'll see the cursor will change its appearance. Fun thing is you can go really fast and if the image is fairly clear, Photoshop will still do a great job. If the image is washed out, you may need to ramp up the contrast. Regarding the width. That's the area where Photoshop looks for the edge. It's usually a good idea to leave it at around ten pixels. Okay, That's the Magnetic Lasso Tool, a pretty solid option for making fast selections with fairly high accuracy. I won't cover all of these settings in depth because it's rarely, if ever used in real projects. All these Lasso Tools will probably be used only a fraction of the time compared to the Magic Wand and the Quick Selection Tool. Still, you have this image attached. So I recommend you try to use the polygonal and magnetic lawsuits to select a building. Then press Control J and put it on a white background so you can see how well you did have fun. 107. These are selections - and how they help: Welcome back. Let's talk about selections, what they are, and what's their purpose. In Photoshop, we already use selections in a few lectures, but now it's time to officially introduce them. Now what you're about to see is that they can supercharge projects. In essence, selections help you isolate a certain part of an image in order to better focus on it. For example, I'm going to get the marquee tool, hot key M, and I'm going to draw out a selection. Now all these pixels that are contained in this box are now the subject of my editing. Nothing else is going to be affected no matter how much I try. This is fantastic because it allows me to pinpoint where I want to work. By isolating certain areas, colors or objects, and so on. I get incredible control over my project. This intermittent black line that constantly moves around basically defines the selection. And it's usually called the marching ants. Ants, like the insect. Yeah. If you take a good long look, you can probably see where the name comes from. Selections can be made to do several ways, and we're going to discuss the best ones and the most important ones throughout this course. But in general, we're going to use the marquee tools, the lasso, the quick selection tool, magic wand, the pen tool, a few automatic ones like select subject and so on. Now, when you want to continue to work on the rest of your project, you're going to need to select with control. D. D as in select. Now in case you can't remember the hot key, which I doubt, you can always go to the top menu from Select, you can click on Select. Now, I already gave you this piece of advice, but here it's very well timed in case you have to zoom then and you don't see the canvas edges might experience some weird Photoshop behavior. Let me give you an example. I'm going to add a rectangle on my screen and say I just use controls to save it, right? But by mistake, I actually use control. Now the canvas is selected, but I have no idea because I'm too zoomed in. Next, I'm going to try something standard like transformment with control. But I use control and nothing happens. I'm pressing it, but because I have a selection, active Photoshop doesn't let me transform this shape. When in doubt, zoom out with control zero. If you have a selection active use control D. While we're on the subject of debugging, you might encounter the following scenario. Selections can be feathered through this area from the options bar. Now without a feather, I'm going to click and drag and create a selection. And I'm going to make a new layer, by the way. Now I'm going to fill it with Alt. Delete. Just something at random, you don't have to follow along Now as you can see, there's nothing spectacular going on. But here's the thing. If I increase the feathered value to 50 and I repeat the process, look at what happens, the edges of now soft, we have a gradual, smooth transition because that's what feathering does. All is fine and well, what's the problem? Here's the situation. If I make a very small selection, smaller than this value, Photoshop won't be able to make it. It can't create it. And here's the error. There's people all over the Internet asking this question, why can't I make a selection? I'm constantly getting this error, and that's because the feted value is too high compared to the region that you're trying to select. There aren't enough pixels in this area. Photoshop can't feather it. It can't make it happen. Now, obviously if you make a much larger one, if you increase the surface, sure it's going to work. But yeah, this fettered value remains saved. When you exit Photoshop and come back, Photoshop will remember it. That's why it's best to set it back to zero. Now let me switch tabs so I can summarize this lecture. Whenever you want to retouch an area from any project. In most cases the first step is going to be the same. Create a selection. How you do it will vary from case to case. And that's because each image will pose a different set of challenges. Now in this situation, I'm going to quickly select the sky, and I'm going to be a bit silly about it. I'm going to make it into a different color just for the fun of it. It really doesn't matter what tool I use, but yeah, do a selection. I'm able to isolate this area from the rest of the photo without any extra fuss. Once I'm done editing, I can grab the beach, I can select it separately, and then I can do the same thing, just making something completely at random. By making a selection, I'm getting both flexibility and peace of mind. That's because I don't fear that I might destroy the image or that it may interfere with other edits. Now in this case, this wouldn't be a tragedy. Of course, I'm just playing around. But imagine that you worked for hours on end, then with one mistake, you basically ruin everything. But yet, through the power of selections, you're not going to get into those bad situations. To sum it up, selections help you target specific areas with precision, and they give you comfort by setting up boundaries you can't go over because each situation is different, each image is different. You're going to have to learn a bunch of tools and techniques to truly unlock selections in Photoshop. But yeah, we're going to handle that in this course. Let's move on. 108. Modify Selections: Welcome to this lecture where we'll explore the main ways through which you can modify your selections. Use any image you like, it won't affect the outcome. I'll use this one and I'll drag a random selection anywhere on my canvas so we can start exploring some of our options. First, if you switch to the move tool with an active selection on your canvas, you can cut out that area by clicking and dragging. This will reveal our checkered background because there's nothing underneath our layer. Please note, this only works on Rasta layers. Of course, this isn't helpful in this format because this area that was repositioned is still on the same layer. Let's undo and this time I'll use control J. Remember this command is used to duplicate a layer or folder. Here it extracts this selection to a new layer. And now this is much more useful. Let me hit 12, so we can continue. If that hot key doesn't work, go to the top menu and click on File. From here, choose Revert. If you're on a Mac, the tab is called Photoshop. With another selection active, you can write, click it and select everything else on the canvas through this Select inverse option. This is fantastic for situations where you have to effect a large image except for one small part. Rather than selecting everything and isolating the tiny area, you'd rather get the small section and then use this select inverse command. Moving on, any selection can be feathered, even if you didn't use this input field from the options bar. No matter what tool you've used to create a selection, you can write Click and choose Feather. As we previously discussed, if you want to see its effect, you'll have to fill this area with color use control or Olt along with the delete key. Alternatively, you can use shift F five. And this brings up the fill command. Choose any color and you'll now see the feather effect. All these options are highly valuable because intricate selections take a long time to create. After you're done, you may want to slightly adjust it. Here I want to include another two or three pixels in this selection. Not a problem. Go to the top menu and click on Select from this list. Choose, Modify, Expand from this pop up, input your pixel value. And this is how much Photoshop will add all around your current selection. Here I'll go with something generous, like 50 pixels, so you can see the difference. There you go. This works the other way around. You can contract your selection just in case you selected too much of your layer. This command doesn't have a hot key either, so we'll have to use that top menu yet. Again, Select modify. Now hit contract, Enter your value, and you're good to go. Please note this apply effect at canvas. Bounds is helpful only if you're using control a to select the entire canvas. One last feature that creates an interesting look is border. This lies in the same menu system. Let me bring it up and I'll show you how easy it is to get a nice effect going. Okay, now it's applied and you can do all sorts of things with it. But here I'll just fill it with white great stuff. Let me clear up any potential confusion. If I write Click, you'll see two transform options, free transform, and transform selection. Their names tell their story, but I'd rather explain it just to be safe. Free transform is what you get when you press controlled. Thus, if you select it from this list, you'll be able to resize this selected area. On the other hand, transform selection is highly useful and I encourage you to use it whenever you have tricky spots. Once you enable it, you'll get similar handles like you get with controlled only this time you're only adjusting your selection and not your actual pixels. As you can imagine, this will come in handy in lots of situations. If you write Click, you'll get all sorts of options we've talked about already. For me, the star of the show is distort. This is what you'll most likely need in your real world projects. You can either select it or you can hold the control key, and that does the same thing. Notice that as I go over my edge, my cursor changes. Photoshop tells me I can grab this area and fool around with it. But if I hold down the control key, this changes my cursor yet again. And now I'm using the distort command through it. I can adjust this selection to all sorts of irregular shapes. And that's where you'll need it the most. For this lecture, I've used mainly a rectangular selection. But believe me, you'll have to select all sorts of random shapes and this is bound to come in handy. Okay, that's it. Regarding modifying selections, we have a few other interesting options, but we'll cover those in the next lectures. Please continue to watch the upcoming ones so you can get the full picture. I'll see you in a second. 109. Rectangular Marquee: Welcome back. The Marque tools are great for my work. In this lecture, I hope to show you how valuable they are. There are four in total, but actually everybody uses the first two, the rectangular make and the elliptical one. These other ones are useless and pointless. Now in this lecture, let's talk about the first one. The hot key is M, M for the marque. Click and drag, and you'll have a rectangular selection. Do that again, and the new one is going to show up. Now to select the use control D, S, and D select in the options bar, you're going to notice four icons and one of them is active. The first one, let's explore them one by one. This is the normal mode that creates a new selection every time you drag the second one, When used, will automatically add to your selection. No matter where you draw on your canvas, it can be next to it like so, or it can be somewhere completely unrelated. Now you'll notice on the second mode, by checking out your cursor, here is the normal one, then here's the second one at the selection. My advice is you keep it at its default setting, the basic one, the first one, And then use your hot keys to go through these modes as you need them. Shift adds to your selection. Basically, it activates the second mode as long as you keep the key pressed. As you can see, my cursor has a plus symbol next to it, that's the shift key. Now the third one removes parts of your selection. And the hot key is Alt. That's the option key on a Mac. Notice the minus symbol on your cursor. The final one is Intersect, but we won't really use it. It's hot key is both Alt and shift, and you can recognize it through this X symbol. This removes every part of your selection except the intersection. The idea is that you could create intricate, complicated selections with it, but then in reality, few people use it. The takeaway so far shift to add to your selection, all to remove parts of your selection. Moving on, you can see the size of your selection when you drag. W stands for the width H, full height. If you know that you need a 300 by 400 pixel selection, you could keep an eye here. Now obviously it's quite difficult to get it right, but it does the job. One thing to be aware of when you have the marquee selected and you click inside and then drag, you're going to be able to reposition that selection. But again, this only happens if you're inside the selection. If you're outside it, you're going to make a new one. Another setting from the options bar is fixed ratio, for example, one to one. This is going to give you a perfect square. But if you want to achieve the same result, simply hold shift while dragging. Now please be aware there is a difference. You click drag and you hold shift, that's going to give you a perfect square. But if you have a selection active, then you hold shift and then you click that will enable the second mode that adds to your selection. Let me say that again. If you click first, then add shift, you're obviously going to constrain the aspect ratio and you're going to get a square. But if you have a selection active on the canvas and then you hold down shift, you're obviously going to get that plus on your cursor and you're going to add to that existing selection that applies to Alt as well. Click drag and hold Alt, and your selection will expand on all sides. If you move towards the left, the selection will grow on the right at the same rate. Finally, if you click drag and then hold both Alt and Shift, you're going to grow your selection uniformly starting from where you click. Now I know this is fairly complicated. You do have a cheat sheet so you can refresh your memory. It's hard to remember, but once you play around with it, once you practice a bit, you're going to see that this actually makes a whole lot of sense. Now you've got to remember something if you click and drag, but don't let go. You can press the space bar and then you can actually move it on the canvas. You can move your selection. Going to be useful in just a few minutes, but keep in mind you do have to keep the space bar pressed, otherwise this won't work. Another thing, all that we've discussed works best on a raster layer. Not a shape layer, not a smart object, not a text layer, These techniques won't work. Keep in mind raster layer. What do we actually use the marquee for? Well, if you're using a new Photoshop version, you can use the generate feature, you draw out a shape, then you type something that you want to add. This works great when you want to add something to an existing project. But here's the second scenario. Say that you have some empty space inside the project. Well, obviously you can grab them with a marquee tool and then fill them with the same generative fill command. This is absolutely fantastic. It's nice and precise, and fairly fast. I also use the marquee tool when I want to find the layer, I draw out a selection and then I get to use the alignment tools. That's how I can easily find layers that I've misplaced. This is great for large projects. Plus another way to use it is the following. Say that I want to align this icon with this text layer. I can do the following thing, make a selection and now I can sent to them. Now you could say that I could have selected both layers and then use the alignment tools. But sometimes you want one of these layers to be fixed. In that case, using a selection works great. One final way I often use the marquee tool is this. Say that I have a screenshot of a website, no individual layers, just one single sta layer. Say that I want to change the text on this button, which is a real case scenadio. Well, here's what I can do. I can make a small selection like so, then I can use control and stretch it out. This is how I can easily cover text and then add something new here. You might be surprised, but I actually use this quite a lot. Again, I make a selection and then I use control to stretch it out. This only works if the layer is a raster layer, not a smart object. I just want to be clear with that, we can continue. 110. Elliptical Marquee: Welcome back. We talked about the rectangular key, and now let's talk about the elliptical one, the one that makes circles. Please be aware that Shift and Alt work the same way. You still have all of these features right here in the options bar. Okay, now to select it, obviously the same hot key M, or you can use shift M to switch to all of these ones. Now an option it has over the rectangular key is anti aliasing. It's this one here I recommend you always have that checked. That basically makes smoother edges, softer edges. But obviously that doesn't apply to straight lines like the ones that you make with the rectangular key. Now to see the difference, let's do the following. Let's create a circle without this feature. Again, this is Without it. Who will shift to make it perfectly round? This still applies. Then use shift five. Please be aware I'm using arrested layer. Now if you don't want to use shift at five to fill it, you can go to the top menu to edit. From here, go to fill. Okay, now let's repeat the process, but this time around we're going to activate the anti aliasing feature from up top. Okay, Now the same hot key shift at five to fill it, Okay? Now obviously the difference is night and day, but you can zoom in to see the differences. It's quite clear that this one has jagged edges, the other one is much finer. Now, obviously 99% of the time you're going to want the second option. Now, the difficulty in using the elliptical marquee is guessing where to start. If I want to select this area, I need to go somewhere in the upper left though. I'm not really sure where. I have to constantly hit control D to select and then remake my selection. Here's what you can do, Go to the upper left and drag, Don't let go. And now hold space, and that's the key. Now you can move your selection and position it, align it in one place. For example, the top left side, let go of the space bar key so you won't move it anymore. And now you can expand it just a bit. Then again, hold space if needed, and move it into place bit by bit. This is the best way to go about it. It obviously helps a lot with round objects. Now, here's another way to work though. This isn't as effective because you have to approximate with the center is, let's say this part here. Then use Alt and shift and drag. This is going to make your selection expand from the point where you click. If you know the center, you can expand from that point. Now obviously it's a bit difficult, but you could hold the Spacebar key as well. But that's a bit much for most people. Now, again, let me say this again. Take your best guess where the center of the object is. Then click and drag, and then hold both Alt and Shift. Alt makes the selection expand from the point of origin, and shift helps you create a perfect circle. Now with these two pressed, you hold the space bar as well. That's the third thing. Three keys in total. And now you can reposition it when you're happy. Let go of the spacebar first, then release the mouse click. This is quite important. Let go of the space bar and then release the mouse click. I know this seems a bit difficult, but we won't actually use the elliptical marquee all that much. In most cases, you're going to use it to select very small parts of an image and maybe add something in through generative fill. But for most other cases you're going to use the rectangular one or the quick selection tool. But now you know how this works and we can continue. 111. Learn to select objects: Welcome back. Are you ready for a fun exercise? This is really going to test your patients. But don't worry, it's not going to take you more than a few minutes. Here is the PSD file. You have it attached. Your goal is to place each of these shapes on its own layer by using the two marquee tools that we talked about. Nothing else, individual layers. Now keep in mind just the rectangular marquee and the elliptical marquee. No more than that. Here's how I want you to work after you've made your first selection. Like so just something at random use control J to duplicate it. And place it above this white layer in the layer spanel, make it visible, and make sure you don't get any blue on that layer. If that's the case, start again, use the history panel for that. One thing about this last one, this pink one here. What I want is this outer region with this white circle cut off. But here's the twist. I want you to do it in one movement. Now, if you grab the white circle and then you get the rectangular make to get the rest, that would be cheating. No, What I want you to do is I want you to use a combination of these two marques. This is how you show that you really want to learn. Believe me, you're going to use selections in a lot of different ways for loads of creative effects in Photoshop. This is a skill you absolutely need. I know it may seem a bit tricky being pixel perfect and all, but if you have a bit of patience, you're going to get it get to work. And please post your results in the common section. And please post the time as well. How long did it take you? Please be aware in the next video, I'm going to do it, so it's quite important that you stop right now. Please go ahead and try it out. 112. How to create tricky selections: Welcome back. Did you do the exercise? I really hope that you did, because as we go forward, these are going to be more and more difficult. It's essential that you work along. Please pause if you haven't done it already. Okay, here's how you should have solved this exercise. The first one is actually quite simple, but let me do it a hard way. I'm going to grab the elliptical marquee and zoom in real close. Now approximate it, center, click, and drag. Don't let go of your mouse. And now press Alt and Shift at the same time. In total, we have three things held down your left mouse. Click Alt and Shift. Now let's make it interesting, let's add the fourth one, the space bar key. This will allow you to move your selection so it perfectly covers the y circle. This is the difficult way to go about it. Much easier methods. But yeah, I really want to show you what's possible now when you're happy, use control J. Okay. Place this copy above the white layer and enable it so we can see our progress. If it's not right, do it again until you get a perfect result. Okay, let's move on to the second shape here. I'm going to repeat the process. I'm going to use the Ealytical Markey. I'll start from the center. I have no idea where that is, but I'm going to approximate it. Click Drag, and then Alt and shift to expand the selection to make it digger. As you enlarge it, you may want to release one of the modifier keys from time to time to see if that helps. When you're happy, and this may take a bit of time, you're going to have to switch to the rectangular marquee now don't worry, the selection is going to remain active. Now, hold Alt before you start dragging. That's Alt. Before you start dragging, then you're going to need to grab this entire section in order to remove it. Because with using Alt, cursor has a minus symbol. Great stuff. Now I'm going to say it's safer to leave a few extra pixels rather than to cut into the yellow shape. And that's because you can always create another rectangular selection with the old key and then remove the excess space the other way around isn't going to be as straightforward in any case we've done with this one as well. For the third one, we're going to do something different. I'll draw an initial selection with the elliptical marquee. But now I'm going to write Click, and I'm going to choose transform selection. Now with the help of these handles, I can adjust it without any problems you have. Zoom level is going to matter quite a lot. In case you're struggling, you may want to change it. Okay? Of course, you could grab a few extra pixels and it wouldn't be the end of the world. But I like to be a perfectionist. Because I'm a perfectionist, I'm going to do it again because there is a sliver right here. I'm going to use the history panel, go back and transform the selection once again, make sure you hold shift when you transform a selection, when you use those handles, because that may come in handy. Okay, Now this is much better. There is still a half a pixel here, but I'm totally fine with it. Okay. I'm going to speak to the fourth one because it's not all that special. The circle bit is standard at this point. It's a matter of being focused more than anything. For me, with all that's going on with the recording and everything, it's a bit key, but I'm going to do my best to finish it in a reasonable time. I think you now understand why I said that this requires a bit of patience. Okay, Now for the square part, I'm going to switch to the rectangular key, and I'm going to use shift. Before I click that will add the plus to my mouse cursor. That means we'll add the selection. And there you go. I can now copy it and place it at the top of my layer spanel. Now let's finish off with this last one. I'll initially use the rectangular mar que to get the large pink shape. Give me just a moment to handle it. Okay. After this is properly positioned, I have to switch to the elliptical marquee. I'll hold down Alt to get the minus symbol. Now I'll click and drag, and I'm going to release Alt for a second. Next, I'll click again alongside Shift so I can grow my selection from this middle point, looking good. Lastly, I'll need the Spacebar key to move this around until I get it right. The problem is that if you mess things up and you deselect, you're going to lose this outer selection as well. And you'll have to completely start over. Luckily, here I get it right, and now we can move forward with it. Okay. Basically, that's the techniques you should have used to solve this exercise. Again, you could have used other tools or a combination of other tools and it would have been a bit easier. But the most important thing you practiced, and this is really going to pay off later in the course. Good job and let's keep on going. 113. This tool is FINALLY useful!: Welcome back. Let's talk about the lasso tools. These help you make a rough selection and the main advantage is their speed. You have three in total, and the hot key is L, L from lasso. Now we're going to take them one by one, starting with the first one from this list, which is actually the most important one. These other two of not used at all. Okay, now the regular lasso tool works like a pencil. You grab it and then you can draw anywhere on the canvas to make a selection. Now it doesn't offer any particular options other than anti aliasing, which should be turned on by default. Then what's its purpose? When you want to draw on your canvas, you can't use the shift key to create straight lines, nor do you have any other advanced features. It's free hand. Basically, you simply draw and that's it. Now to be fair, you can use the same modifier keys that we've used for the key tool shift adds to the selection, notice the plus symbol next to the cursor. This is standard then all option that removes parts of it. We've seen all of this before, but again, this doesn't seem to be precise. But here's the thing with this new Photoshop release, the lasso tool is perfect as it is. You're going to use it to roughly select an area like so. And then you can type in whatever you want to add there. Now, before generative fell, before this bar right here, the lasso tool, well, it was just about useless. Nobody really used it because it's basically drawing freehand. But now in this newest Photoshop version, wow, it's super helpful. You can use it in loads of situations where you can roughly make a selection and then fill it with something exactly like in this case. That's the conclusion of this lecture. The lasso tool is super fast, Not at all precise, but when you use it with generative fill, you're good to go. It's awesome. Now let's quickly talk about the other two, but to be fair, we won't use them probably at all. I'm going to quickly present them, you have an idea about how they work, but again, they're not modern selection tools. They're not fast, they're not efficient, they're not all that powerful, they're just decent, but you got to know about them. Here we go. Now the polygonal lasso tool. This one here, it has the exact same features as the normal, less antilicing and feather. But it has better precision because it works with clicks. This is great when you have straight objects like buildings, for example, like what we have here. At any point, I can click and change my direction. But notice there's no give. We only have straight lines, no other options. Only straight lines if your object has any curves. This is not the ideal tool for the job by itself. Of course, you can add other tools, but yeah, by itself, not a good look, not a good fit overall. This is quite fast. It's precise overall, that's decent in most cases. Again, can be used by itself, but in general, you're going to need a few other tools to get a decent selection. Now a thing to know this, don't confuse the polygonal lasso tool with the polygon tool. Those are two completely different things, two separate things. This one here creates shapes, and we're going to talk about that in this course. This one here creates selections. The final lasso, the magnetic lasso tool. This is interesting. Up top, we get a lot more features and those control the tools behavior. That's something quite nice now. First of all, let's see it in action. I'm going to click and I'm going to hover over the edge of the building. It's important to understand that I'm not clicking. I clicked once for my initial point. Now I'm just moving my mouse. Photoshop is automatically adding these anchor points based on the frequency I set up top. The more I raise it, the more anchor points I'm going to get. Now why is that important? Well, if the shape is super complicated, more anchor points will give us a button selection. If I think Photoshop isn't placing the right amount or in the right places, I could click myself to add a few plus. If I somehow miss things up and I don't want to start over, I can press the backspace key. This is going to remove the last anchor point and then you can continue with the correct line. Now as with all selection tools, you're going to have to go back to the original point, the starting point and then close it off. You're going to see the cursor is going to change, this is what you're looking for. Fun thing is that you can really go fast if the image is quite clear. If the contrast is great, Photoshop is going to do a decent job. Now if the image is washed out, you're going to need to ramp up the contrast. Now regarding the width, that's the area where Photoshop looks for an edge. Now in general, I would say about ten pixels. That's the magnetic lasso tool, a decent option for making fast selections with a fairly high accuracy. Now I'm not going to cover all of these settings in depth because like I said, we're not going to use this tool. The lasso tools are not getting any love. The first one is fantastic, but only with the general. These are the two, most people simply avoid them, test them, see how you do. Then When you're done, obviously, right click, make a selection. And now you can use whatever you want. You can use control J with whatever else. And now you can play with that part of the image. But yeah, those are the lasso tools. Stick with the first one and you're going to be great. Let's continue. 114. Hide Pixels with Layer Masks: Welcome back. In this lecture, I'm going to show you how easy it is to work with layer masks. These are a pillar that are super important for non destructive editing. I think you're going to like them very much. Here's how they work. Say that I want to remove the background from this image. Sure, you have it attached, by the way, in case you want to work along on your second viewing. Now, a bad choice would be to grab the eraser tool and start removing some of these pexels. Now, those changes would be permanent. It's not going to allow you to do any editing later on. At one point you may want to get back that background and this applies to about any other situation. Whenever possible, you got to leave yourself options. Be flexible. This is where layer masks come into play. To create a layer mask, you got to click here on this third icon from the bottom of the layer spanel. By the way, layer masks and masks the same thing. Now this white square has appeared next to my layer thumbnail. Through it, I recognize I have a layer mask. Now, here's the deal. It's super important. I'm going to switch to my brush tool and I'm going to start painting with black. See how the background goes away? The great thing about it is that you can switch to white. Now bring it back at any point, at any time, as long as you have the PSD and I can toggle between white and black and make all sorts of edits. Then after I'm done, I can do other things to my project. Maybe add a fabulous mustache to this dog. Something really funny. Just something for the hell of it. But you know what, Maybe I changed my mind and I want to disable that layer mask. Not a problem. Just Reichl and that's that this is non destructive editing at its best. That's layer masks in a nutshell, but let's take it from the top more in depth. Slow it down just a bit. So first of all, it's essential that you make the distinction between selecting the layer and selecting the layer mask. As you can see, there's a highlight effect that shows you what you're currently working on. That's super important. If you're going to paint with black on the layer, obviously that's not going to work. Use undo Now another giveaway is your foreground and background colors. I'm going to select the layer and then I'm going to choose a few random colors. Maybe a bright red and maybe, I don't know, maybe a bright blue, something like that, right? You can clearly see them right here on the left side, right? Okay. Now here's the thing. I'm going to switch to the layer mask. Pay attention to this area. It just changed to black and white. That's because you should work on layer masks with only these two colors. Black hides, white reveals. You can think about your light in your room. If there's black, that means you can see black. Think about your light bulb. White. White shows, that's one way to remember it. Now if you're working with certain colors and you see them missing from the left side, that's a giveaway that you've selected the layer mask. The great thing about masks is that you have the brush tool at your full disposal. You can adjust the size of the brush with a square bracket, keys, change the hardness to get softer transitions and so on. Now to easily customize your brush without accessing all of these panels, you can write, click anywhere on the canvas and you're going to get a bunch of options. Now please note that as you hide pixels, the initial white rectangle now slowly becomes black. That's Photoshop's way of informing you that basically you've just hidden a few pixels. If you want to hit pause and disable the mask for the moment, you can write, click it and here you're going to have that option disable layer mask. You can of course delete it at any point from the same list or use the delete key, but I'm going to keep moving forward. Another thing about masks is that you can control click the thumbnail and you're going to get a selection. This is based on the area you've painted over. But say you want the complete opposite, you want this other part selected. Well, switch to any selection tool, for example, the marquee tool. Right click and choose inverse selection. Now you can work on this region. One thing you should avoid is the following option. When you write Click Apply Layer Mask. Basically, once you've done that, you've fully committed those changes, but you've lost your flexibility. This may come in handy from time to time, but in general, I advise you to stay away from it. One last thing before we go. In our first activity, we made a picture of black and white. Right? And then we brought back the red from her lips. Okay, That was done to a layer mask by default. When you create any adjustment layer, that layer comes with a layer mask. Let me show you. I'm going to add, say, a vibrant adjustment layer, right? I'm going to raise it up dramatically and you can see it's really affecting the entire canvas. But notice the mask To do it, I can pinpoint where I want this adjustment layer to work. Say that I don't want to enhance the dog for example. That means I'm going to paint over him with black, black removes. Remember notice the tongue, the eyes immediately they come back to their original state. Again, the adjustment layer isn't working where I'm painting because I'm painting with black. If I want the opposite effect, I'm going to use x to flip my colors, and I'm going to paint over this area with white. Now, I'll wash away everything by painting with a generous black brush. As I brush away, you can see the results. You get all of these features, and you can still maintain the original pexels. These are layer masks and they're spectacular. I know they're not exactly easy to learn, but we're going to take it step by step. We're going to practice quite a lot each step bit by bit. Let's continue. 115. Combine 2 Images with Layer Masks: Welcome back. In this activity, we're going to use what we've learned so far to replace this sky with this new one. We'll also improve the bottom part because it's a bit washed out, a bit dull, all of this in about 5 minutes. First of all, I have both images opened in two different tabs. You have them attached, please work along on the second viewing. I'm going to unlock this background by double clicking it. I'm going to switch over to the new sky. And I'm going to do that as well. I open both of them with control. Oh, by the way. Okay. Now I'm going to drag it from the canvas in this tab. Okay, this is where we're going to work. I've held down shift, the sky was dropped in the middle of my canvas. Again, when you move something from canvas to canvas, from tab to tab, whole shift and you're going to place it in the middle. Okay, great. Now I'm going to change the order of my layers. The initial photo should be above this other one. I'm going to say that again. The initial photo should be above this one. Okay, here's the tricky bit. We need to remove this current sky. For that, we're going to use a layer mask. The best way to go about it is to create a selection before we apply a mask. But I want you to learn to use the brush tool for this activity. We're going to skip that step altogether, and we're going to rely on all painting skills on the brush tool. Again, it's not the fastest way, the smartest way, but this is going to build up speed. Okay, let's click here to make a mask and make sure that your color is set to black. And then increase the brush quite a lot. This is quite a big project now for the top part, for the hardness 100% because we want well defined lines. Now you can start painting with big broad strokes. The goal is to do most of the work in just a few swipes. Okay, keep going and work your way towards the bottom. There is going to be more difficult here. You're going to have to shrink your brush and you're going to need to change the hardness this is. So we're going to get a better transition here. There's no secret on this mountain edge. You're just going to have to be patient and take your time with it. Now, just in case you mess up, switch to white and then paint that area back in. My advice is you use a white brush at 100% hardness for this hill area to make sure that this is going to look right. I'm going to say that again. When you're painting with black, to remove pixels, with the hardness set to maybe 50% you're going to get a smooth transition. But if you go lower down a bit too much and you mess that up, you have to fix it. When fixing it, go back to 100% hardness. Now obviously, I'm going to have to speed up the process just a bit because this is going to be a lot of back and forth. This is why you have to learn to use your hot keys, For example, x, that switches you from black to white. It's super important here where inevitably you're going to mess up. Then the next hot key, the squared bracket keys. This is how I can adjust my size on the fly. It's really important to keep your hand on your mouse and then with the other hand, just change up your size. If you right click, you can change the hardness, plus a few other things. Remember when we talked about the importance of each area in Photoshop, the canvas was set at number one. I mentioned that you have to keep your mas cursor in that area on the canvas rather than moving back and forth towards the options bar or on the side. None of that focus here. The thing is, when you're in the zone, when you're concentrating, you don't need any distractions Even if it's moving to the options bar to change a few settings. No, you really got to focus here. The thing is, in most cases, you're going to have to move back and forth every few seconds. Had to switch manually from black to white, that would really break your concentration. But by using X, it's really much simpler. Anyway, now I'm basically done. This is how the area looks like. Now some parts could be improved. Sure. But for demonstration purposes, in just a couple of minutes, I think this works well. I think you get the idea. You will have to take it much slower. Stay with this at least 10 minutes, and you're going to get a much better result. Now overall, let's say that this is fine, but the sun is way too down for my taste. Let's just assume that we want to change it. Sure. Well the thing is we can grab our sky layer and simply move it up. As you can see, there's no problem with me repositioning it. This is great stuff. Now let's tackle the bottom part. First of all, I'm going to crop out the road, since it's really nothing nice to look at, press C to get the crop tool and make sure that these settings are the same as mine. Now let's remove that section. Okay, looking good. Now the thing is the greens that are a bit washed out. Let's improve that. I'm going to hold control and I'm going to click on the mask. Now this is selected, I can add an adjustment layer. Let's go with curves, For example, this is going to be placed above my layer, by the way. Now from this panel, I'm going to grab this middle line. I'm going to move it just a bit. This is going to lighten up all of these dark areas. It will help me see the details a bit better. Something like this is fine. Let's do one more adjustment layer. Reselect by control clicking, and this time we're going to go with another one. Let's choose vibrance here. I'm going to raise up both sliders so you can clearly see what's going on, even if you're not watching in full HD. As you can see, this makes a big difference. Enter the full screen mode by pressing the key twice and take a look at our progress. If anything isn't right, now is the time to fix it. Of course, you can double click on any of these layers and do your thing. Now it's your turn. I want you to upload two things in the common section. First of all, a replica of what you see right here. Use the same photos, the same adjustment layers, and show me how well you managed to brush along the hills. That's one thing. And then next, take any two photos of your own and then do the same thing. Combine them. Okay, I look for to it. Have fun with it. 116. One-click sky replacement: Hey there. In the previous video, we combine two images with the use of a layer mask. Well, starting with CC 2021, Photoshop comes with a sky replacement feature that does the trick in just a few clicks. We'll use the same image as before. Let's get straight into it. First of all, we can ask Photoshop to select the Sky all on its own. This is an optional step, but it's something to be aware of. Go to the top menu to select from here, choose Sky. Wait a second, then let's have a look. Notice it didn't do a great job here on the left side of the screen. This is to be expected with these one click wonders that do the job for you. The result is never going to be perfect. Okay, I'll select through control D, That's command D on a Mac because that was an optional step. But I wanted to show you how Photoshop sees the sky from this particular image. Okay, to automatically replace the sky. Select that specific layer and then go to the top menu to edit. From here, scroll down to sky replacement, and here's the new window that controls all the magic. The most important bit is this thumbnail here. Click it, and you'll get a load of options all structured into folders. Because the folders they expand and they close lovely stuff, Click and see how Photoshop easily changes our default sky. In a nutshell, that's the sky replacement feature. In most cases, it will give you a decent result. It's not going to be perfect, but it's solid stuff. Keep in mind we can use the zoom tool by hitting the hot key Z so we can inspect our image. We can also pan around from side to side with the Spacebar key. We can fit the image to the screen with control zero, which is ideal because we want to see the complete picture. What's great is that we can use our own sky images. Click the thumbnail to expand your list of choices. At the bottom, you have this plus symbol. Click it, and now you can browse your computer for an image. I'll choose the sky from the other lecture. Choose a name for it and you go selected for the settings. Let's go with zero for the fade edge and -30 for the shift edge. More on those. In the next lecture, in case the new sky has some odd parts in it, you can move it around with your mouse. Just click and there you go. Naturally, we don't want these nasty edges, but that's why we have a scale slider here. Don't go crazy with it though. Small increases are the way to go. That's even a flip option here, just in case you need it. That's the new sky replacement tool available starting with Photoshop CC 2021. 117. Adjusting the Sky Replacement: Welcome back. Let's fire up the sky replacement window once more. So I can walk you through these sliders. I'll use another option from this list foot some variety. Okay? Shift edge is how you can push the new sky image more into the mountains. A very high value will make the mountains edge quite soft. And that's something we want to avoid because this ridge is very well defined. If we use a negative shift edge value, we'll get more of the original sky in case they somewhat match. That makes sense. But if the original one is, for example, bright and happy and the new one is dark and gloomy, that should be avoided. I'll reset to zero. So you can see the fade edge feature a very high value. We'll show you a smooth transition. On the other hand, no fade will give you no blending. Or otherwise put an abrupt transition because we're dealing with a mountain edge. The second option might work better here. But here's the essential point, every image is different. There's no magic formula that you should remember. In any project, you'll have to use a fine touch and spend some time on each of these sliders. Each image will require different settings. Please don't look for certain values, the likes of 80 shift edge and 24 fade edge. The results will vary dramatically from image to image. Okay, moving on down, you can make the new sky darker or brighter, but please keep in mind that all these changes have to match the rest of the design. If the terrain, for example, is really bright, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to add the cloudy sky, something that's really dark. And it's the same thing with the temperature. It should match the mood of the overall composition. By the way, at any point, you can change your sky to something else and experiment with these sliders. You'll notice that with some of these choices, the rest of the image changes to focus on the bottom part of the canvas. As you can see, Photoshop does its best to make it match with the new sky. That's something noteworthy. Again, this is a very important point, making everything match, making everything have the same vibe. I appreciate Photoshop trying to help us out. Okay, this is all fine and well, now let me address the potential problem. What a Photoshop doesn't do a great job. For example, on the left side of the screen where the selection wasn't perfect. What about that? Well, we can use the sky brush tool that's available right here. This works in two modes. You can extend the sky, the default value, or you can work in subtraction mode by holding down the Alt key. You can check the options bar and you'll see that the plus icon is activated as standard in combination with the size, hardness, blending mode, and opacity. This is one of the keys to unlocking the true power of the sky replacement feature. It's actually quite a lot of work if you want a perfect result. But no, you don't always have to strive for a ten. Don't always chase something that's perfect. If you're just looking to have fun or get a pretty good result, you could just browse around these options and let photo shelf figure out the rest. Okay, with that being said, let me show you how the sky brush works first, with the fade edge value set all the way to 100, and the brushes opacity set at 100% as well. Now this isn't going to look pretty, but it will show you how this works. As I start painting these clouds that should not have been here because they're from the original sky, they start to fade away. The sky brush in its normal mode helps us extend the new sky. The one from this thumbnail, it helps us reveal it. Now, there's a mismatch here. This part that I've just brushed over doesn't match its surroundings. The more I use the sky brush, the more evident the problem becomes. That happens because of two things. Number one, my brush settings and secondly, the maximum value from this slider, which gives us a very long and smooth transition When I come in with my brush all cranked up. Of course, it's going to create issues. But as a demo, it's great because you see the logic behind it. Give me a moment while I reset. If I lower it to zero with not getting any smoothing. Now as I use the sky brush, the original clouds go away and it looks natural, all right? Pretty good. If we can extend the sky, we can also subtract. Find the part of the image where the mountains are too soft. For example, this part here hold the old key or adoption key on the Mac and work in subtraction mode. This makes them less translucent. Basically, we're telling Photoshop the new sky has no place being here, and this is great. That's the sky brush feature. But you know what's great about it. We have this output feature set to new layers it, okay. And notice the layout spanel, this is absolutely spot on. It gives us maximum control. We have an adjustment layer here that affects the bottom part of the image. If you remember, that's very similar to what we did in the original lecture, though we used a vibrant adjustment layer there. Next we have a layer that controls the lighting. Again, pretty good. But here we have a mask for the sky. This is the essential bit, because we have a mask, this means we can work on it with the brush tool exactly like before. For example, I'll click the mask to work on it and I'll zoom in to the right side where the mountains may be a bit fuzzy, may be a bit translucent. Start painting with black, and obviously we're making it much better. The classic still stands working with a brush tool on a mask. Other way said, if all else fails, you can rely on the trusty brush tool and the mask to refine it, but shield something that you should be aware of that you can use absolutely everywhere. Hold the Alt key, that's the option key on a Mac. And click on the mask that's applied to the Sky layer. Please be aware, Alt option, click here, not on the Lal thumbnail. This reveals the mask on the canvas. Here's how you should interpret it, because the top edge of the mountain is somewhat visible. This means it's translucent, that means the new sky is going to bleed into it. We don't want that. This should be rock solid, 100% opaque. If you all click the mask again and zoom in, you'll see what I mean by translucent. See how this part is soft? Well, I'll click again and grab a brush. Make sure it's fairly hard and appropriate in size. Start brushing until this part is pure black. That's really going to improve the mountain line. But as with the original approach, you have to take your time with it. You have to shrink your brush size, adjust the opacity of the brush, and so on. If you're too sloppy, you're going to get frustrated fast. My advice is you approach this with a lot of patience and only focus on the black parts. That's because the white areas require a very fine touch. And it's best you leave that alone, leave it to Photoshop with a Sky replacement part that's automatic. All in all, this is how you work with sky replacement which is available in CC 2021 and above. 118. Discover the best selection tool (and a mediocre one too): Welcome back. Let's talk about two powerful selection tools in Photoshop. And that's the quick selection tool, which is absolutely awesome. And then the magic wand. These are the must. When talking about selections, let's see them in action. First of all, the quick selection tool, the hot key is underneath that. We have a few other tools, but we're going to get to them step by step. Now the quick selection tool acts like a brush. You click and you drag over the element you want selected. And as you can see, the selection quickly expands. And it's actually doing a great job. It's also that easy to use. Up top we have auto enhance and that should be checked. We can use the squared bracket keys to adjust the brush size, so we're going to get better selections. We can always expand a selection, but a photo shop goes too far. We can hold down Alt and you're going to see the minus symbol. And obviously when you click and drag, Photoshop is going to remove that part. The more you use Alt, that's the option. Kono Mac, the better job Photoshop will do. This is what I use in most of my selection work. This tool can't be praised enough, It's fast, it's accurate, it's very easy to learn. Just click Drag over your desired area and see the results instantly. Most likely it's going to be your favor, the selection tool as well. But keep an open mind and consider the out of options that you have in this course. And that's because each image is different. And even though the quick selection tool is pretty versatile, it's not the end all be all of selections. Now let's jump to the magic wand. It's underneath the quick selection tool, so we could use shift W or simply click and hold here. Now from the start, I got to tell you that this is not as good as the quick selection tool if you're short on time. The conclusion is, stick to the quick selection tool. Now the magic wand is decent, but it's one of the older selection tools. Because of that, it's not as good. Okay, with the magic wand, we can click once and get a nice selection. Now results vary a lot. In our case here, it's going to be quite tricky to pull off a great selection. That's because the magic wand uses Photoshops algorithms to figure out what pixels go together here with the secondary flower in the background, that becomes a bit of a pain. What's important to know is that every time you click, you reset your selection. If you want to add or subtract, you're going to have to use Shift and Alt. Otherwise, you're wasting your time. Now remember, Shift adds a subtracts. Now the tolerance is critical for this tool. The tolerance can be found in the Options bar. This tells Photoshop how loosely it should look for matching pexels. If you put a value that's too low, you're going to have to click a lot of times with the shift key held down. But if you raise it up too much, you'll grab way too many pexels. Now in general, you could start with something like 30, for example. But as you can see, I'm having a hard time here. We made this selection in under 5 seconds with a quick selection tool. But here I'm struggling. But if we move over to another image, you're going to see how magic this tool actually is. It takes only two clicks to select this entire sky. One click, get one of these buildings. What does that mean for you? Every situation must be handled in the easiest possible way. You have to decide which tool or selection technique is best for the current job. That's easier than you think. You start off with one of them and see how it goes. If you're having a hard time, just de select and start over with a new tool. That's what I want you to understand more than any hot keyod feature. Use your judgment to decide what's best for your particular image. You may be in love with a quick selection tool, but that doesn't mean you should use it for all of your work. It's situation dependent with covering all these tools. And I'm showing you several examples so you can understand the thought process and the techniques. The goal is not to copy my exact steps. Oh, it's an image with a sky. So I'm going to have to use the quick selection tool because that's what Chris used. No, it actually doesn't work that way. You have to gain enough knowledge until you get to a point where you have complete freedom in your own decision making. For that, you have to learn all the tools and figure out which works best in what conditions. Now we can move on. 119. Remove a person from their background: Welcome back. Let's talk about something that everybody wants. How to remove a person from its background. Now, before we get into the details, please bear with me for a few seconds. Now I want to point out something very important. Manage expectations. Cutting a person from a background, from a complicated one is very difficult. When you have hair into the mix, the challenge grows quite a lot. Now the thing is when you see tutorials, the images are absolutely huge and the cherry picked, the background is very clear, exactly like you see here. When you try it out on your own photos, you are going to be disappointed. If you want some advice, here it is. Start with a fantastic photo, a big one. Use free pick.com unsplash and vado elements or whatever the other website. And look for something like person on white or a person isolated. These are the types of images you should be using in, of projects. In general, the subject should be clearly distinguished from the background. This means you need a good dose of contrast. Now take this photo as an example. The background is as simple as it gets. The edge is very well defined. If we take a look at the zoom level, this is going to show you one of the most important secrets. The image is absolutely huge. Let me use the canvas size command. That's all control C, and you're going to see that this is an image with over 7,000 peg cells in width. Now when you get all of these factors together, a simple background, well defined edges, a huge image, great contrast, we can do the following thing. You can go here, then simply click on Remove Background. After a few seconds, it's like magic. Like one of those 1990s movies where someone says enhance that area and someone does something on the computer, and all of a sudden the image is nice, sharp, and crisp. But back to the real world. Yes, this did a good job. It's super beginner friendly. You simply click on a button and Photoshop will do most of the work for you. Now to see how good this actually is, you can add a solid color adjustment layer. I like to use very bright colors to check the quality of this removal. Now in general, that means the top right side of the color pecker. Now, as you can see here, the result isn't perfect. But it is indeed a very good start. Now from this point, it's best you use selected mask, which is covered in this section of the course. In short, this option shows up when you activate any selection tool, for example, the marquee, the quick selection tool, no matter what, you're going to find it here. Once you're in this editing mode, you can play with edge detection radius. You can use these sliders, You can enable smart radius, You can do a lot of things. But again, please don't think that this is easy and that you can use a super small image like 400 by 300, and that you're going to get a great result. On the other hand, I'm not saying that removing a person from his background is impossible. No, but you do need to start with a fantastic photo, the likes of this one, and the job is going to be mostly 80% done. Let's try this again. I have another image with a person that's in focus while the background is blurred. This is again a perfect candidate. I'm going to click on Remove Background. Wait a moment, and there we go. Now I'm going to switch to the marquee tool, hot key M, so I can click on Select and Mask. This is going to take a few seconds to load. It may seem intimidating to begin with, but if you take your time with it, you should end up with a 90% result. Not 100% because that takes a lot of work, but still a great result. Nevertheless, from here, I can quickly change my viewing mode. I like to use overlay. With an opacity of about 70% I can raise up this slider to about 20% though the value really depends on the canvas size. I'm going to enable smart radios to see if that helps. The thing is the edge of the shirt is slightly darker than it should be. I'm going to enable this option called decontaminate color. The truth is you can do a lot of things here like smooth the edge, make it more defined and whatnot, all depending on what you're trying to achieve. The idea is that any person that you plan on isolating is probably going to be placed inside another project depending on the details. You can spend half an hour working on slight details, but here's the thing. When I'm working for the bands, for my ads and newsletters, I really don't spend time to get a perfect. And 80 to 90% is more than enough for me because time is such a valuable thing. Okay, back to work. Remove Background is a feature in the latest Photoshop edition. Do it one more time so you can understand how this works. The idea is this Photoshop analyzes the image on the cloud. It doesn't actually remove those pixels. It doesn't remove the background. It doesn't delete that now, instead it hides those pixels to a mask. Notice this thing right here, That's a layer mask. Again, this is covered in this section. The essence is the following. If you click on the mask, not the layer thumbnail, but the mask, this is an important distinction. Clicking here, you can get the brush tool and then play with the result. Black hides white reveals black. Think of black as darkness. White, light, light reveals things. Light shows things. Now in this case, let's focus on her arm. Open the brush properties panel by clicking here. We want to use pure black with a fairly small brush. But the essential point is the hardness. We want something about 70% or so, which is going to give us a pretty nice edge, quite well defined. Now zooming close and with a steady hand paint over her fore arm. But you can use this feature right here. Smoothing though, that's optional. Now if you make a mistake, use X to flip your colors. Now, with white as the top swatch, you can paint back those parts. It all requires a lot of zooming. Adjusting the brush size, the hardness. But in the end, this can help you get a better result. Please open up the history panel. Now let's click on the first entry. Next, let's do it differently. Let's click on Select Subject. This is basically remove Background, but without the mask. The idea here is that you can start from this selection and improve it to various other tools, things like the quick selection tool, the magic one, the lasso, and so on. In essence, this does most of the job for you. It may not always do a great job, but this is a timesaver in certain cases, please be aware that you can enable this feature from the options bar as well. Just make sure you're on a selection to well like the magic wand or the marquee overall. I hope this lecture was helpful, especially regarding your expectations. I'm never afraid of hard work or showing you advanced techniques. But sometimes it's better to make your life easier and make choices that will increase your chances of having a fantastic outcome. Start with a great photo, great contrast, and then let Photoshop do most of the heavy lifting. And at the end of the day, be happy with an eight or nine out of ten. 120. Remove ANYTHING with ease by using this:: Welcome back. You've seen the magic wand and the conclusion is it's mediocre. You probably love the quick selection tool, and that's totally understandable. But here's another tool that will help you quite a lot, the object selection tool. Hot key, W, here it is. And it's only available in the newer Photoshop versions. If you have an older Photoshop version, you won't have it. Let's jump straight into it. Here we have a lovely photo from Unsplash.com and I want to select a part of it. Before I do anything, let's test select Subject. Photoshop is going to think for a while and it will give us a pretty good selection of this guy. Now that's good, but what if I actually wanted to select the cross instead? In comes the object selection tool. This is super simple to use. Once you got it, go over the cross like so and click on it. That's it. Just click on it once after the second two, you're going to have a fantastic selection. Let's break this down a bit. In the options bar, we have two essential working modes, rectangle and less. Now for most cases, I'm going to use the lasso to quickly draw around what I want selected, for example, one of these smaller crosses. But the thing is, you don't have to be precise. That's the magic of this tool. More than that, you can actually use this feature here to see how Photoshop looks at this image. You can activate this viewing mode by pressing in or by clicking here, and now we get all this pink. Now in essence, these are all the individual elements Photoshop has identified. The sky, the hills, the big cross, the smaller ones, and of course the person, it's not too sure about this stone the guy is sitting on nor this one here. Yeah, this is what Photoshop can give you through a single click. Now if this is confusing, hit in again to disable this viewing mode with this tool selected. As you go over various things in this image, you're going to see that highlight. This means you can click once and get a selection. When you see these options here, this means you can use Shift to add to your selection like so. And that's how you can pick up multiple objects. Or of course you can use Alt to remove something. This is truly fantastic, To be fair. This is a huge image and the contrast is pretty good. Let's see another one here. It's basically the same story. You can hover it over certain parts, and you can select this small piece from the left side. If you click on the other one, you're going to deselect the first one and you're going to grab this one instead. Remember, use shift if you want to grab both of them. But here's why the lasso tool is important. If we hit, we can see a lot of pink, of course, lots of highlights. But notice it doesn't see this central slice, the one that's underneath. There's no highlight here. If you try to click on it, well, nothing happens. But here's the thing within the lasso mode, right? We can roughly, and I do say, roughly outline this slice, and then Photoshop is going to do its job. This is fantastic, this is awesome. Now, does it always work? No, of course not. But for most cases, for most people, this is the tool they've been waiting for. Let's switch tabs one more time. Here's the main thing. Speed is essential. Time is everything. In this day and age, you got to move fast. If you're looking to pick up this product and insert it into a different project, you click control J, that's command on a Mac, and you're done. Oh, you wanted to grab the plant. Click, and there you go. This is what you should aim for. Not a perfect result, but a fast one that does the job with that, let's continue. 121. Make an Orange Purple: Welcome back. In this exercise, we're going to edit this photo of this blood orange to all selections and our adjustment layers. Here's how this is going to work. First of all, I'm going to make a selection of this area with the elliptical marquee. Now this is going to be difficult, but that's how you're going to appreciate the second option much, much more. Now, the next step is going to consist in an adjustment layer and we're going to edit it to the property spanel. Let's start with the marquee tool. In this case, we're going to need the elliptical one, of course. Now let's place our color around this white area. Click and drag a little bit, then hold out, that's the option. Kono Mac shift isn't really going to be of much use, but feel free to experiment and then expand the selection. As you can see, the orange is set at an angle. The elliptical marquee has a hard time picking up this particular shape. No worries though. Do your best. And then right click from this list, choose Transform Selection. Now with these handles, do your best to further refine the selection. If you simply drag them around, you'll see that this is not enough. We're back where we started to make this work. Let's hold down the control key. And this is going to allow us to distort the selection so it will better fit the orange hold the control key. As you can see now this is doing a much better job. This is distort, it's up to you if you want to limit yourself to this central area or if you want to include the M. I'm going to focus on the center. And then we'll tackle the outer area in a moment. Okay, say that I'm happy right now from the bottom of the layer spanel, let's add the hue and saturation adjustment layer. That's hue and saturation. Immediately we can change it up to the property spanel for example. Let's enable color eyes because say that we want to change the color dramatically right now. Let's adjust the hue to something like 300, right? Just something at random. This is going to give you a weird purple shade for the saturation and lightness, 50. And then 054 saturation, 04, lightness. I think this looks nice. Zoom out with control zero and see how you did. If you want to make it another color, maybe something completely strange. Go with something like a hue value of 230. That's 230, that's going to make it blue. By the way, I like the purple one. Let me go back to that one. Trouble is if we zoom in close, we can clearly see this edge. That's what you should expect from the marquee to wall, unless you use the fettered option to begin with. Now it's a bit too late for that. Now, we could go back and remake the selection, but here's another option we can undo before we add the layer mask. And then we can right click and feather the selection from there. But even that's not all that fantastic. Here's a much, much better option. Let's go back to this point. Here's why I love layer masks. If you click on this adjustment layer thumbnail, you're going to see the property spanel. Okay? Nothing special, we know that. But if you click on the mask, you're going to get completely different options. The one that we want is feather. With this lider, I can avoid all that hassle of remaking the selection or modifying the selection. I can focus on this edge and slowly move up with this lider at around this value, it's going to start to go away. Let's keep it going, okay. Awesome stuff. Use control zero and see the new effect. Yeah, this is much better. We still have the exterior part to take care of, but you know what? Let's get the brush tool. Make sure you're painting on the mask with white. Check the hardness, because we want a smooth transition. We don't want that too powerful. Something like 50% should be fine. Take your time with it, because this is not essential. Now let's hide this adjustment layer and try out version number two. That's the quick selection tool. Let me check my brush settings before I do anything, let's use a size of about 200. This is always going to depend on the image size. By the way, this feature should be checked. Okay, I want the hard brush, move it to 100% Now here's the fun stuff. Just paint across the orange. That was what, 2 seconds. The quick selection tool is fantastic, and in this case, it a much faster than the marquee tool. The reason we started with the marquee tool was for a few reasons. First of all, I want you to practice difficult tasks because that's how you raise your skill level. The second thing in Photoshop, you can always make your life easier or harder depending on the choices you make. We have somewhat the same result here, but the stress involved was considerably higher with option number one. Now in the case of selections, you now have a much better idea on how the quick selection compares to the marquee tool. Sure, you know that the marquee isn't all that great, but yeah, you got to have flexibility, You got to know how to use all of them. What I want you to do is always think about what's the best approach, how should you do that task? Don't jump in straight into it without several ways of achieving the same result. Always ask yourself what's the best way of doing this task. Okay, now please download the image and get to work. Please don't just do the quick selection method, Do the first one as well, transform the selection and use control to use this start mode. In case you don't want to do that, you can always right click and you're going to have the same option there, the start. Please post the result and show me some weird colors. Have fun with it. 122. Change the Color of T-Shirt v2: Welcome back. When you want to change the color of a specific area, what's the best approach? In this lecture, I'm going to change the color of a shirt. We already did that in a previous video. But like I said in that lecture, that method wasn't the one that professionals use, and that's because you didn't have enough flexibility. Well, here we're going to do it the right way. I'm going to use the best techniques and that's going to be non destructive editing. You can use some of your own images to try it out. Just make sure you have a pretty big size. Okay, so the first step is to make a selection. And that's vital because we can now see that the shirt almost matching his jeans. We can't use any tool that targets a specific color, in this case blue and simply blast away. No, I only want to target his shirt and we need to isolate it. For that to happen, we're going to use the quick selection tool. Let me increase the brush size. Now I can quickly paint over the shirt, and basically that's going to look quite nice. The selection is going to be quite good right from the start. Now if we zoom in, you can see there are a few problems here and there. For example, with his watch, there are also a few issues on the color. Obviously the fingers, that's always going to be a problem with a quick selection tool. What you need to do is you've got to shrink the brush quite a lot and then start adding in those areas or remove them if needed. Remember by default, the quick selection adds to the selection without having to add shift or something else. You simply click and the selection is going to grow. Now the left side is fixed pretty quickly. All you have to do is give Photoshop a bit of time to process the changes. Now, on the right side, we're going to have to be extra careful because this area is quite darker. Photoshop will be tempted to select the genes as well, and wouldn't you know it? That's exactly what it did. No worries. Hold down Alt. You're going to get the minus symbol and start removing that part from the selection. The more you go over an area with Alt, the better job Photoshop will do. And that's because basically we're telling Photoshop, hey, I don't want these types of pixels in my selection. Photoshop basically understands. Okay, while we're here, exclude the watch as well. Okay, zoom out with control zero, I'm going to leave the color alone because that's one area where we need to do a bit of fine tuning. Now we have a great selection. Go to the bottom and let's enable a hue and saturation adjustment layer. Obviously, we're going to have a mask as you can see because we had an active selection, The layer mask immediately understood. I want to work on that area. Specifically, it created a mask that contains only the shirt. The shirt is now isolated. If we control click it, you're going to see the selection. Once again, we don't need it. Let's use control D. Now for the actual color change, it's as easy as pi. Enable this colors option. And now simply move the hue value anywhere you want. Now, some colors may look a bit too bright. My advice is you turn down the saturation for the more realistic look. Either tone down the saturation or the lightness. Here I think I'm going to go with a washed out red color for my shirt. The hue, 360, the saturation, about 50, and lightness, let's say -20 So now you can toggle the before and after and see how the new shirt looks like. I'm pretty happy, except the color isn't perfect. Now, we can still see some of that blue. Let's see how we can fix it. Now in general, I always recommend you start with a fantastic selection. But in case you can't manage here something, you can always rely on the brush tool. Click on the mask, and now we can start painting. Use white. In this case, it goes without saying that you should adjust the brush size and hardness. Zoom in real close and handle all of those problem areas. In essence, you can take as much time as you want. More time, the better the results. But for practice purposes, sure, you could potentially leave some imperfections here and there. But my advice, spend a few extra minutes and do it right sometimes. I don't feature that in my recording because I want to keep it compact, I want to keep it short. But I do encourage you to take the time to do it right. Okay. This is my go to method when I want to replace a color, create a good selection, then use an adjustment layer. It's flexible, non destructive, and it's really not that difficult as long as you have a decent sized image. Of course, in the latest edition of Photo Shop, you could potentially use Select Subject, and now you can remove parts of it by holding down the Alt key. That's another way to work. My advice, there's no need for it. Sometimes you're just going to have one small part. The quick selection tool is probably the best bet. Now grab some of your own photos and try it out. See how you do Remember, go for the washed out colors. Don't make them too bright, too saturated. That won't be realistic. Have fun with it. 123. Review: Welcome back. We finished another section, but there's lots more to discover, so please keep going here. You learned about selections in general, how you can modify them. And we attacked the two Marquette walls. I know that you think I'm cruel for making you work with them, especially when we have the quick selection tool. But I promise you it's really important for you to understand there's a lot of work where you're going to need the marquee tools Now, all these fancy tools that allow you to make selections just like that, they're totally fine. But some say it's like learning to drive an automatic car from the get go now. Sure, it's much easier to learn to drive that way. But almost everybody, at least in my part of the world, first learns to drive a stick shift car. That's because you never know when you might need to rely on those basic skills. But if you haven't practiced them at all, then you're going to be in trouble. So that's the same thing with the marquee tool. It doesn't seem like a fancy tool, but trust me, you're going to need it. One thing that I really wanted to get off my chest was masks. I waited until this point of the course to present them to you because we had to talk about selections and adjustment layers as well. They go hand in hand. And even though I showed you a glimpse right at the beginning of the course with a black and white exercise, we finally talked about them in this chapter. But don't think that we've done with selections. We still have a lot of things to do. So I'm going to see you real soon. 124. Introduction: Hello and welcome back. In this section, we're going to continue to explore selections. We'll talk about the lasso tools, the pen tool, but we're also going to have some fun exercises and activities together. We're going to remove various objects from photos and we'll also clip out a person from their background. I'll also show you some other interesting things about selections and how you can improve them with just a few tricks and settings. Please note that some of these lectures will be more challenging than the ones we've gone through so far. My advice is you practice whenever there's an activity on the screen, try and follow my steps. Because really, that's the only way you can prepare for the next sections. As we go deeper into the course, you're going to need all that previous experience up until that point. Again, please get active, get involved, and you'll have a great learning experience. Okay, let's get to it. 126. This is how you edit shapes to create anything: Welcome back. Let's talk about the direct selection tool and the path selection tool. These are essential components when you're dealing with the pen tool or shapes. Now here's the situation. Say that we have a rectangle, but you want to grab one corner and move it a bit. How can we do that? Through its path and with the help of these tools. But what if we made the path now? To what purpose? You may ask to create a selection. Okay, cool. But say that we need to adjust it, it's not right. How can we do it with the same tools, the direct selection tool and the path selection tool? That's why we need to learn them. Now let's take a step by step. Path selection tool is the black arrow and its only purpose is to show you the path. Here's how this works in the real world. Let's create a shape on canvas with the pen tool right on the top left side. I'm going to make sure that this is set to shape. Nothing fancy, you don't need to work along. Okay, Now I'm going to make something at random, random shape. Okay? Now I can select or focus on something else, whatever. Okay, back to this shape. Say that I want to see its path. I can get a black arrow and click once on it. Now, for what purpose? Why do I need to see its path? Because I need to see it, to see points. Now I understand how this shape was made without the anchor points. Now I can adjust it. Now how do we adjust it? Well, we can switch to the white arrow, the direct selection tool. Now I'm going to click and draw out a box. Now this anchor point is now selected. You can see that's the case because this one is black and the other ones are white. Now I can move it and the shape changes into something else. Let's recap all shapes no matter how you create them with the pen tool, through these tools here on the left, like the rectangle tool, the lips tool, and so on. All of them have a path. That path contains anchor points, the black ones. To see the path, you can use the black arrow. You click once and you're going to see all of them because all of them are black. This means all of them are selected. You now have the entire path selected. All the anchor points are also selected. Now if you want to adjust one anchor, 0.1 of several ones, you can use the white arrow. You can grab them through a box. Now in general, I would say that you'll probably use 90% of the time the white arrow, that's the real world use. Oh, by the way, in the options bar, please make sure that this is set to active layers. We only want to work on the current layer. Now back to a standard rectangle. Say that we want to grab this corner right. So you get the white do and you draw out the box. Now I love to use shift. What are my arrow keys? You may get a warning, but it's totally fine. Now I can transform this rectangle into something completely different. You grab an anchor point and you do your thing. How do you grab it? With a white arrow. Now, why didn't I use a black arrow? Because this is a pretty standard shape. I know where the anchor points are because I've done it 1 million times. Now what you need to know is that these, these two arrows work very well with the pen tool. That's because once a path is selected with a black arrow, by the way, you can switch to the pen tool and you're going to see something on your cursor, it's a plus symbol. Obviously, that means you can add an anchor point. Why would you add another anchor point? Because that gives us more control. You can change the shape in so many ways by working with anchor points. But here's the thing. If you don't use the black arrow and you don't have the path selected, your pen to won't work as expected. Notice this symbol. It's not a plus, It's an asterisk. That means you're going to create a new path. And we don't want that, we want to edit this one. That's why we do need to use the black arrow to select the path. By the way, just in case you want to deselect the path for whatever reason, simply hit Enter. As you can see, the highlight went away. Now to sum this up, all the shapes have paths to show the path. Use the black arrow to adjust an anchor point, or several. Use the white arrow to deselect the path. Hit Enter One final thing. We do have a path spanel right here. I just want to refresh your memory. This is always here, it's always been here. If you can't see it, go to the top menu to window, and from there go to Pass. Now in this place, you can save your paths in the PSD so you can reuse them over and over. Why would you do that? Well, some selections take ages to make. You may work quite a lot on one, but then you need a break. By saving your path, you get exactly that, you get a break, but without losing any of your progress. Now, do we often use this panel? No, not really. 99% of the time. You're actually just going to adjust rectangles. You're going to use the white Do to adjust rectangles and that's about it. But now you know how these work. So let's take a break and we'll continue in a second. 127. Master the Pen Tool: Welcome back. We've talked about the Pen tool, now it's time to get our hands there. T with this activity, as you can see, we have lots of shapes in this PSD. Please download it and follow my lead. I'm going to do a couple and then I'm going to pass the torch to you. This is how you master the pen tool by working with it in various situations, one after another. Let's do it. The first shape is pretty easy because it only requires straight lines. For the second point, I'm going to hold shift and this is going to create a perfect straight line. Even though I may click somewhere, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. See no problems straight line. Now make sure you're working with the right zoom level. That goes without saying, okay. Click on this middle anchor point and now repeat the process on the other side. Nothing too fancy about it, it's just a nice warm up. Now whenever you make a mistake, use control Z. Now if you need fine adjustments, hold control. That's the command key on a Mac. And move any anchor point to the right place. Okay, let me go through these last clicks in the meantime, in these situations, if you can't line up your selection perfectly with the shapes edge, I would rather you place it a bit inside of it. That means we'll lose one or two pixels from the shape. But I think that's much better than having a white stroke all around that. Okay, right, this is done. I'm going to make a selection. Right click, make a selection and then use control J and place it above this layer. I'm going to make it visible. As you can see, my shape is looking lovely. Let's move on to the next one, the yellow one, which is going to require a bit more patience. Start from the top left with a single click now move down and click somewhere around this region just before the object starts to change its shape. Next we're going to aim for the north anchor point near this area, because around here we can find that middle point. We could try to click and drag directly to the other side, but that would require more fine tuning. Okay, undo that and let's make it happen. Click and drag towards the right. We have to go pretty much far out to match the curvature. You can see I'm just at its edge. This is what I was talking about just a few seconds ago. Instead of getting any white pixels, I would rather cut just a bit into this yellow tange right here. Use control and drag this right handle inwards. Give me a moment, please. Okay, now it's time for the next anchor point. This should it the one on the left side, but that's not mandatory. Drag until you're happy. Yeah, overall, this looks pretty good. Our next line should be perfectly straight. If we click without any modifier keys, we'll get something that will require a lot of fine tuning. I don't want to do that just yet. Instead I'm going to use A. And then I'm going to click on this anchor point. Now I'm going to get a perfect line. Remember control Alt at your friends. Without them, you won't be able to properly adjust your path. That means you won't get a proper selection. Now this right side is very similar to what we did at the bottom. I'm going to move through it a bit faster. Now, these handles are the keys to a great path. That's why I'm constantly adjusting them back and forth. Anchor points can be moved just as well. Don't be afraid of changing a placement. Now I'm going to circle back and look for this symbol to close things off. Okay, right click and make a selection. Make sure you're on the correct layer by the way. Now use control J and let's place it above if there's any white pixels. This is going to show us our mistakes. Of course, I don't want to eat up too much into the shape, but yeah, overall I'm looking for the balanced one. Okay? One more and then you'll do the rest. Let's do this circle, which is probably going to be quite a lot of work. My advice is you start from the outer part, from this place where the two colors intersect. Click once, and now move your mouse to this imaginary middle point of our shape. Okay? Click and drag towards the right. Remember you can switch to the zoom 12 to get a better view if needed. Okay, check if your path is flush with the objects edge. In this case it seems quite fine. I'll try to position the next tanket point a bit further away from this one. Somewhere near its middle right side should do the track. Now. The further apart they are, the better. But it's also going to require more concentration. No worries, we can handle it now. This needs a lot of dragging, but it's looking quite nice. If you're not having the same experience, take a slower, use control Z and with a bit of patience you're going to do fine. The next point is really up to you. Are you going to play it safe and add another point in between these two, or are you going to go directly to the end? The last option is obviously better, but it's going to require a lot more fiddling, a lot more fine tuning. Now I'm up with it, let's do it. One thing to mention, we've only done the outer part, but it's time to make a selection. Then after we do the second one, the inner path, we're going to subtract from a selection. And that's going to give us what we want. Again, we're going to make a selection right now. And then after we use the pen 12 for the inner part, we're going to make a new selection and we're going to subtract overall. I'm very happy with this outcome, especially since I'm trying to keep a certain pace while I'm recording now. Right click and make a selection. Make a copy and place it above this layer. See how you did now. If there's any problems, go back, try and make some adjustments and see what's what now you may be thinking. Could we select subject? Could we use the quick selection tool? Yes, of course, but you got to learn how to use the pen tool and this is the perfect exercise. Now you still have quite a lot of shapes left, Some are easy, other ones are quite difficult. But use a bit of patients and you'll get there. Please upload your work to the common section. Please make sure that you time yourself. Tell me how much did it take you? We're going to do a friendly competition, but it's really important that you be honest. Time yourself and see how long it took you have fun with. 128. Quick Mask Mode: Welcome back. In this lecture, we're going to talk about quick mask mode, which is quite helpful when you want to check the quality of your selections and then further define them. Now here's the situation. We have this building, and its top edge is blue. The sky is blue as well. That may throw off some of our selection tools and that's going to be a problem. I'm going to go with a sub par choice. For this job, I'm going to use the quick selection tool. I know that most people love it, but in this case, it may be better to use the pen tool for example. Nevertheless, I'm going to use it to demonstrate how useful the quick mask mode actually is. Paint over my building like so you can see it does a pretty good job in this bottom and middle area. As I go towards the top, things aren't looking as hot because I'm afraid to go over this region because I'm going to get the sky in my selection, which is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. Now, did I do a good enough job? Well, this blue on blue isn't very helpful in comes quick mass mode. And the hot key is that's a few things have happened. First of all, all of the air is now highlighted in red. Even more striking is this red that covers the sky. That means it's not selected. Quick mask mode helps you see what's selected, in this case this building which is unaffected. And then what's not selected, in this case the sky and that's covered in red. With its help, I can zoom in and focus on my problem areas. Now besides showing you all the selection issues, I also get a great way of solving them. Grab the brush to all hot key B. Now with white as my full ground color, I can start to paint over these red areas. Remember, red means it's not selected and I want to get this entire building selected. Adjust the hardness if needed, and do your best to paint over these areas. A much better approach would be the following. Get the pen tool and quickly click a few times. Don't need any curves for this specific region. Okay, now close it off and then right click, make a selection. Yes, that's allowed in quick mass mode. Once we have that, you can either paint with the brush inside it or better yet, you can use Alt and delete to fill it with white, that's alt. And delete together, that means we're going to reveal this building, which in this case translates into a selection. Okay, take care of the right side when you have a few spare moments. By the way, you do have this image attached to the lecture, please work along on your second viewing. Okay, let's say our work is complete. Fine done. Now exit Quick mask mode, either by pressing the hot key or by clicking on this icon in the toolbar. Once you do that, you're going to be left with a nice selection and then you can do whatever you want with it. But yeah, that's quick mask mode. But I do want to take a moment to point out a few things. Even though the quick selection tool is easy to use, it wasn't the best tool for the job. Yes, I could've used Alt to remove parts of the sky overall, It could have done a decent job. But again, the pen tool is N superior. Even the polygonal lasso would have worked better here. Yeah, you got to keep an open mind. More than that. I made this scenario to show you how this works, how quick mask mode works. If that wasn't the case and I wanted to get rid of the sky, I would have approached it the other way around. Instead of selecting the building, which is what 80% of the photo, I would have actually selected the sky. And that's obviously much easier. Overall, you've got to work smarter, not harder. That's the point overall. That's quick mask mode hockey. It helps you better see your selections. With that, let's continue. 129. Select a Color in a Photo: Welcome back. Here's a technique that you may use once in a while. It's not a common thing, but it's good to know about it. Let's see how we can select a color from a difficult image with the least amount of work possible. So if you had to adjust all of these pink flowers, you would first have to start off with a selection so you could pinpoint your edits, right? A selection always works best. Now the magic wand or the quick selection tool, they may do the job, but that would require a lot of clicking, because the photo has so many details. Take a look at this area here. This is going to be a paint to select. Here's an alternative. Go to the top menu and click on Select. Okay, now let's choose Color range. Let me explain what's going on in this new window. First, the dropdown is currently set at sample colors, but I can change it to reds for example. In this small preview window, everything that's white is going to be selected. Again, white means selected. We can see this reds option isn't doing a fantastic job. We could switch to highlights, and this would give us more of these flowers. But if you look at the top left corner, you're going to see with also getting a bit of the sky. That's not great. Let's change it back to sample colors. This creates a selection based on what colors we click on. That's awesome. Now you can see that as I move my cursor over the image, it turns into the eye drop of Tool. This means I'm about to sample that color. Let's click over the sky so you can see how this works. Now this preview shows me that I've selected the sky, but it's a tiny window that makes it hard to see if we're doing a good job. Well, focus on this bottom area and click on this drop down. Choose gray scale, and this will show you the preview directly on the canvas. Click again, somewhere over the flower, and this will adjust your selection. This is heading in the right direction, underneath the Save button. On the right, you're going to see three tools, the eye dropper, which we've used so far, and two other ones which can add or remove parts of your selection. Now obviously, as always, use your hot keys. Shift to add Alt or option to remove. Now let me turn off this preview by choosing none. From this list, you can see we have various shades of pink. It's unlikely we're going to get all of these flowers with one single click. This means we're going to have to slowly build up our selection by clicking several times while holding down the shift key. Let's do that now. But change the preview to gray scale yet again. Click on any flower, then repeat the process several times while using the shift key. Notice how my selection is starting to grow. To refine it, this fuzziness slider is a lifesaver. Turn it up to maybe 150 or so and see you get a much clearer image of what's going on here. Now this is a bit too much, but it helps you identify those areas that need to be excluded. Hold out and start clicking on the sky. Basically, that's it. Constantly switch between adding to your selection with Shift and removing parts of it with the Alt key. Now, depending on how much pink you want to pick up from the canvas, these sliders have to be fine tuned. But once you get the hang of it, the whole process will require significantly less effort then picking up each flower individually with any other tool. If you've selected localized color clusters, you're going to get access to this range feature. Use it to control what's going to be included in the selection. Based on the area where you click, The more you increase it, the larger of an area Photoshop will look at. For example, if I click on a flower on the right side of my canvas and I turn up the range value, notice how the left side fades away. This, in short, is helpful when you want to focus Photoshops attention on one particular spot. Now, continue to click until you're happy with your result. What's great is that you can save your work and then we can come back to it at another point. I've already done that. Let me click Load. And this is going to show us a new window. And we're looking for the dot file that's at. Here it is. I'll double click it, and now I'm going to have it available in Photoshop. Now this is a great feature because you no longer have to set aside the period of time where you don't want to be disturbed through the safe feature. You can work in small bits and not fear that you're going to lose your progress once you see the marching. As you can see that this is a pretty good job. Far better than what we would have gotten with the quick selection tool, for example. Now what we can do, absolutely anything that we want. For example, let's add a curves adjustment layer from the bottom of the layout span Ol. Now I'm going to drag this middle point downwards so I can make it a bit darker. Because I have an active selection, you can see that my mask reflects that I'm only working on the pink flowers. That's the lecture. This image was quite tricky because it had so many intricate spots. But with color range, we can make our lives easier. Now it's your turn. Try it out and see how you do. Again, this is not a common technique. You're not going to use it all that often, but it's something that you have to practice at least a few times and see what's what, Remember, have fun with it. 130. Remove Background: Welcome back. In this lecture, I'm going to show you how to remove this football from the background in just a few minutes with the pen tool. Here's how the end result is going to look like. You have the image attached, so please work along on your second viewing. This will take us roughly 10 minutes and we have several steps. Number one, remove the background number two, add a new one to an adjustment layer. Number three, create a realistic shadow. And number four, create a vignette effect. I know it sounds like a lot, but I'm going to guide you step by step now. The first one is to create a selection. Now, the pen tool may not be your first choice. I know that a lot of people would love to use the quick selection tool. I'm going to use that instead. I'm going to go over it and you'll see that this isn't doing a great job at the bottom because the shadow blends in with the grass. Now I can hold Alt and remove those unwanted spots, but it's still not going in the right direction fast enough. Nevertheless, the bulk of the work is done. The next step is to create a layer mask. Remember, we're doing that instead of deleting actual pixels, because we want to work non, destructively, that means we're going to hide pixels with a layer mask. Okay, here's the football on a transparent background, not quite perfectly cut out, but with using a layer mask. So we can further work on it. Now we've avoided the pen tool right here. This is the best option for the job. You can't avoid it anymore. If you simply hate the pen tool. Here's what you can do. You can grab a black brush. Zoom in, and start painting. Go over each area and slowly get closer and closer to the ball's edge. Now, this won't be fast, nor will it give you a great result, but it's super simple. Yeah, you could potentially do it that way. Now I suggest we do it my way. Now, get the penal, and let's start from the left side. I want to get this entire bottom half with just the click. This is going to give us a smooth surface. I'm going to click on the left edge Next, I'll go somewhere near its middle point here. The great thing about it is that we have this rubber part here. And this rubber part is going to help us position or click correctly. I'm going to click and I'm going to drag a lot to the right side so I can get a nice curve. Don't worry if you remove a small part of it. As long as it's just a few pixels, this is going to be fine. I'm happy with that. Now let's click again on the right side. Depending on how well you place the previous point, you may need to use control to further adjust that. Also, in case it's not right, just use control Z and retrace your steps. Right now, I'm going to circle back around with a few quick clicks their position, it really doesn't matter because it won't impact my selection now. Right click and choose. Make selection. Leave the father at Z though, but make sure the anti aliasing option is checked. In these cases, it's very much needed. Okay, now with this selection, grab the black brush and we're going to remove everything that's not wanted. Okay, take your time with it. And when you're all set, use control D to D, select. Okay, awesome. Now let's create a background with the help of an adjustment layer. This is the second step. Click here to see this list and choose this one here, Solid color. This is going to fill our canvas with any color of our liking. Note adjustment layers in general, they don't have pixels, they only modify existing ones. Well, this one solid color is one of the very few exceptions alongside gradient and pattern. These actually I've seen on the canvas, they don't just modify things. Okay, I'm going to go for the nice shade of blue, let's say 80ff. Okay, Place it underneath that layer, by the way, in case you have any issues with the background removal. This solid color is going to tell you all the problems. You'll see them immediately. If that's the case, click on the mask and brush away any spots you may have missed. This is looking good for me. Okay, the third thing, let's create a shadow. It won't seem like it's floating in space, right? Grab the ellipse tool from the left side. Even though I didn't officially present it, I think you're going to do just fine click and drag out a shape like this, fly squished and about two thirds of the football's length. Okay? Position it underneath the ball and center it horizontally. If needed, use the alignment tools and control A, and then use control D, or you can just approximate it. Okay, When you're done, right, click it. That's in the layers panel, by the way, and choose convert to smart object. Okay, next go to the top menu to filter from here we're going to apply a blur, specifically a gaugan blur. Okay, awesome. Now in this window, let's use something like 50 pixels. Okay, and we have one final step for our realistic shadow. Enable a mask from the bottom of the layer spanel. This is optional, but I think it's really going to help. Now here's what we're going to do. Instead of lowering the opacity for the entire shadow, we're going to do that selectively. Now, the middle part should be darker than the edges. That's how it would look like considering a normal light source. Right, What we're going to do is we're going to get the gradient tool hot key for the gradient. Please note it may be hidden underneath the paint bucket tool. Make sure you select the right one. Okay, now check the left side. Make sure you have white and black here as the foreground and background colors. If that's not the case, use now from the options bar, you're looking for this preview right here. Take your time with it and make sure you have the same thing. Now the gradient tool has multiple ways of working. Want a radial gradient in this case? And you can see this option right here. Now with these settings, please go above the shadow. Click somewhere around this point. Hold shift to get a straight line and now drag. Here's the thing, you're not going to get it right on the fun. Try swipe again and again to reset your gradient. You're looking for the smooth transition. Here's another thing. If you swipe is going to be too short, you're going to end up with a tiny shadow that's not very smooth. Repeat enough times until you're happy with the outcome. It should be a subtle transition, but overall I'm happy with this one. Now let's do one final thing of vignette effect. That's going to darken the corners of our canvas and it's going to make it much nicer. Here's one way of doing it. Add an adjustment layer at the top of your layer stack. We're looking for curves again, This one has to be way up top, okay, good stuff from the properties panel. Drag this line down somewhere near the middle. This darkens everything, but no worries. We have a mask attached. Now grab a soft black brush. I'm going to say with a hardness somewhere about 50% a pretty big one at that. We're going to remove the effect around the ball. Make sure you have a huge brush, in this case something like, I don't know, 2000. Now click on the ball and brush in a circular pattern. It's up to you how much you want to remove from this adjustment layer. Use control zero to zoom out and see the outcome. See the result. This is not bad. You can open up the history panel and see the before and then the after. I'm very much happy with it and I hope you are too. This is the pen tool, we use it to make a beautiful selection at the bottom. Very nice and smooth. And it took us 10 minutes, 15 minutes. And with that, we can continue. 131. Save & Load Selections: Welcome back. I want to take a minute and give you a piece of advice that's going to help you get out of a jam. When you spend a lot of time on a complicated selection, the last thing you want to do is lose all your hard work. So far, we've spent quite a bit of time on this and that, but as you're about to see, we're going to create more intricate selections as we go along. It's quite important you learn how to save a selection. My example, I have something say that I spent, I don't know, 20 minutes on this selection. Maybe with a pen tool, whatever it may be. Right. But then something happens and I have to work on something else. So I'm going to create several layers. I'm going to add a mustache. The works as usual. Now, I obviously need to go back to that selection to continue to work on it. Right? Control Z isn't going to help that much because I'm going to lose my fantastic mustache. Right? That's out of the question. Here's what you can do. Now from the top menu, you click on Select. Right now from this dropdown, you can choose Re Select. With that crisis averted, now I get the best of both worlds. I get to keep the mustache, but I also get back my selection. But here's the thing, this command from the Select menu won't work all of the time. If you close Photoshop, you'll no longer have it. Plus you may create another selection. And that's obviously going to make Photoshop forget about this complicated one. That's why we can actually save off selections inside the PSD, inside the project. Note that I currently don't have this saved as a PSD. If you check the tab, you're going to see that this is a Jpeg. And that means it can't save layers. The first step is go to file. Save as, name it, whatever you want, just make sure that it's a PSD file. Okay, now to save the selection, go to the top menu to select and then scroll down and choose Save Selection. It's going to ask you for the name. I'm going to say Paret or something like that. Next, I'm going to close this PSD just to show you we can get it back quick and easy. Okay, let's open it up now. Let's go to select. Okay, now load selection. This drop down, we're going to have to choose what we previously put in. That's part, that's how you save and load your selections. Again, my advice is you save your PSD even though it doesn't contain any other layers. Not at this moment. If you skip that step, all your work is going to be lost after you close photo shop. Now you know how to save and load selections. Let's continue. 132. Select and Mask Hair: Hello and welcome to this lecture where we'll take this image, remove its background, and replace it with this one. All while maintaining the detail in the model's hair. This is going to take about 5 minutes to complete, so let's get to it. The first step is to create a good selection. I'll use the quick selection tool to roughly select the girl. Apparently, it did a great job. But if you focus on her hair, you can see there are a few stands that were left out. The goal is to get them back with minimal effort. Luckily, Photoshop gives us a completely new workspace called Select and Mask that helps us improve our selection in previous releases of Photoshop, this was called Refine Edge. Note that if you don't have this button available in your options bar, grab any selection tool and you'll be good to go. It doesn't matter if it's a lasso, the marquee tool, or the magic wand. Any tool that creates selections will give you this feature. Alternatively, you can use the hot key, Lt control R. Once I click it, my workspace changes. Here on the left side, you can see we only have a few tools. The first one is the quick selection tool, because that's one of the more powerful ones in Photoshop. This is useful in case you forget to grab a spot or region underneath it. We have the refined edge brush, which we'll use in a second. A normal brush, the lasso tools except the magnetic one and the hand and zoom tools. The right side is packed full of settings and features, some of them more important than others. In this case where we're dealing with the hair, the view mode is one of the most interesting ones because we get to see our selection in various modes. For example, on a white background, this looks pretty decent. But if we change it to black, we can see we're having major issues with our selection. What's great is that you can adjust the opacity of your viewing mode so you can get a better grasp of what's going on. There's no particular one from this list that's best for all cases. You'll have to go through them and see what the right one is for the job. The goal is to see the selection at its worst, not at its best. And that's because now's the time to correct any potential problems. By going through these, you get a better sense of what needs to be fixed here. I'll use overlay as my viewing mode because this red showcases all my issues. By the way, if you want to change that red to something else, you have that option here. Let me show you how these settings work. The radius slider helps us expand your selection region, and this usually picks up on small details that have been left out. If I crank it to its maximum value 250 pixels, we can see it did a decent job at eliminating those white spots caused by the original background. My advice is to always use Smart radius when you're dealing with hair fur or any similar texture. By turning it on, we can see how we're getting back some important details we would have otherwise lost this area. Here is a good example. Let me toggle smart radius on and off a few times, so you can see the difference. Without it, this body of hair becomes translucent and that's less than ideal. It's true that when we enable smart radius, we're getting some white areas back into her hair, but those can be further edited. If you're not sure what value you need to use, go to the top and check this Show Edge feature. By enabling it, you can see the area where Photoshop will look for extra hairs. If it's zero, you won't see anything. But as I slowly increase it, you can see how this region grows. Let me take this back to zero and uncheck that feature. Smooth and feather are two settings you should avoid when dealing with hair. They have no place here because we want to get all these fine details in our end result. Whereas these two eliminate all those extra fine parts. You can increase the contrast, though here I'm not sure this helps us in any way. This target soft edge transitions along the edge of our selection and makes them more abrupt, more visible. Let me go 0-100% so you can see the difference. There are little places where it shows up. For example, this region. In this case, I think I'll skip this feature. Use control zero to fit the image to your screen. The last one here is shift edge and it's a good way to reveal even more of those rebel hairs by sliding it to the right. We're growing our selection. This reveals more of that white highlight. But again, that can be edited out because I haven't worked on my selection so far. The results aren't spectacular, even if I go to this sliders extremes. So I'll grab the refined edge brush and I'll paint a little bit around her hair so I can show you the shift edge in action. Okay, this should be enough. If I slide it to the right, we can see all these fine hairs are coming back up. But they're accompanied by white, which is not ideal. On the other hand, if you slide it towards the left, you're eating into the selection. It's similar to what we did in our selection exercises where we decided it would be best to go in a few pixels rather than get any extra ones from the background. Right, let me reset this value to zero. And I'll use control alt Z to go back several steps so I can get to work. Okay, I'll use the refine edge brush from this new tool box and I'll start painting all around her contour to bring back some of those messy hairs. My advice is you click several times rather than clicking and dragging in one swoop. That's because we can use control Z to fix any problems. So it's best you patch one area at a time. This is looking pretty good. Let me change the view mode to on layers so we can see how this would look on a new background. Okay, this isn't bad, but we're still seeing some white on her hair from the previous background. Not a problem. I'll enable decontaminate colors from the bottom and this will help us out tremendously. Let me toggle it back and forth so you can see the difference. Because I used the refine edge brush, I can also play around with shift edge just a bit. In this case, I'll increase it to 20% or so. Okay, this looks good. With that, we're wrapped up with this part. Let's hit okay and get our selection with it active. We can do all sorts of further edits though that's not the goal of this lecture. That's the select and mask work space with it, we've managed to get from here to here. Now it's your turn. See how you do. In general, selecting hairs is a pain. My advice is you stick to images that will make your life easier. As your skill increases, you can move on to more difficult cases. Okay, good luck. 133. Why do you need a portfolio?: Welcome back. The question is, do you need a portfolio? I say 100% Yes. If you want to get any type of job yet, a remote in house, full time freelancing, whatever you need to have a portfolio. Now, in the design field, this is sometimes more valuable than a CV, than a resume. In the sense that anyone can have a look at your portfolio and see where you're at. A portfolio shows your skills, your style, what you specialize in, in 2 seconds flat. Sure. On your resume, you can put the names of the companies you might have worked for, the position that you might have occupied. But the design industry is huge. So if you were to say that, for example, you were the lead designer, that doesn't really say all that much. Did you lead two people or 20 people? Did you do, I don't know, beauty retouching or graphic design, right? A CV is absolutely needed and it can't be replaced by a portfolio. But you need to realize how the hiring process works. I've personally interviewed hundreds of designers, and I've hired a few dozen. When I was going through the resumes, I always checked out the portfolio, first and foremost. Sure, I had to look at the names, the photo, their age location, but then straight into the portfolio. As an experienced designer, but also as an entrepreneur, I had a sense about every single portfolio in a matter of seconds. See, I never went through the entire portfolio like 20 entries or something like that. I never read all the details about the project. No. I looked for certain clues that showed me the type of person I'm dealing with. I was looking for things that showed me that the person is capable of learning and that he or she has a good foundation that can be improved. And that's because if you're willing to learn, I can teach you, and you can be much, much better, you can grow at my company. That's the type of thing. It's not a method of being creative, being talented, no, it's not a method of having a portfolio filled with a bunch of projects. It's about giving off the right signals. The only issue with portfolios in general is that they're not updated. Mine hasn't been updated in ages. The problem is this, at the beginning, you're dying to get projects. You do your portfolio. And then you might get lucky and you might get clients. You might jump from project to project. This is fantastic, growing, You're getting some money. Things are moving fast, but guess what, You leave behind your portfolio. This is the only difficult thing, curating it, removing old entries, and making better new entries. This takes time, but when you have actual paying projects, you don't want to take the time to work on something that maybe you perceive to have little to no return. To put it, simply say that you have 6 hours of work today, right? Do you spend those 6 hours on your portfolio and delay your paid project? Or do you handle the paid project and then go relax or maybe pick up another project? The plague of the portfolio world. Most people don't have an up to date portfolio because they're busy working. Very few designers actually take the time to maintain the portfolio in mint condition. That's why my advice is you focus on six to ten solid entries and keep it at that. You don't need 20 K studies. You don't need miles of projects, or a wide variety of projects. Keep it simple. Show what you specialize in, Show your strengths. The problem becomes obvious when you inevitably get to this situation. You have one or two repeat clients, Great clients. They keep you busy. Project after the project. They pay well, but you're working hard and you have little to no time off. After a while, the projects may dry up. That may be after a couple of months, it may be after a couple of years. Now, all of a sudden you're a good designer with a modest portfolio that hasn't been updated in ages. You want to get new projects fast to keep the ball rolling, but your portfolio is a major issue. It's not great. You can tell people in e mails or on zoom calls that you've done this, or that you can send them links, you can send them screenshots. But that's not very professional. It doesn't inspire trust. It seems like you're messy. Like you're unorganized, and those are not the traits of a person that you want to hire, right? So that's the only tricky thing about portfolios. It's tough to keep them updated. You will have entries, you will get projects. But if you don't water your portfolio, it's going to die like a neglected house plan. That's why I say that, yes, you do 100% need a portfolio because sending links or screenshots is not an option. It's not professional, it doesn't inspire trust, and the CV is definitely not enough. That's why you should always have a portfolio. But now the question is, how do you set that up? How do you do that? Let's talk about that in the next chair. 134. How do you build your portfolio? On what platform?: Welcome back. Okay, we've established that we need a portfolio. That's cool. But how should we go about it? The short answer is this, Hans.net That's it. In case you want an alternative, you can use Adobe Portfolio, which seems a bit more polished. Some designers also like to use Dribble, and that's pretty good as well. Three choices in total. But let's go into details. What about, I don't know, Wicks.com Heading your own website like crestbarn.com built on Wordpress, Shopify, Wicks or whatever other platform. In short, I strongly discourage it. See, most people don't realize that the look and feel of your portfolio isn't going to be ten times better if you have your own spin on it. Now I understand the logic. If you're a great designer, how come you're using a website that everybody else is using? It doesn't make sense, right? Your website should reflect your style and personality, right? It should be unique. No, actually that's not correct actually. This only applies to those designers that take on projects that start at $20,000 This applies to maybe 1% maybe 0.1% of designers that are based in London, New York, and on. It's something that's not for the masses. It's like looking at the Bentley and thinking that's a great car to have as your first car at 18. It doesn't make sense. Sure, it looks incredible. It's something you should aim for. But as a first car at 18, when you're just a beginner, that doesn't seem realistic. It's the same thing with your portfolio. You have to be reasonable. See, I've played myself with various platforms like we well press and so on. Did a major pain because of one thing, it takes you a lot of time to get what you want. You need to design the entire thing. Then find a good developer. Then find a good hosting company, domain name. Do a bunch of things. This is going to cost you thousands of dollars with hundreds of hours, both. I know you may be thinking, hey, I'm just going to use a template from Team Forest that's about, I don't know, 50 to 80 bucks. I'm going to get a code of Chris from five.com with freelancer for cheap. And I'm going to get away with only a few hundred bucks. Trust me, my friend, that's not going to work. Now, I'm not saying it's impossible, but based on my experience as a designer, as an entrepreneur that's been in the trenches, that still puts in the work that's not reasonable. Even if you spend that money, even if you spend that time and you end up with a fantastic looking website, then what are you going to start using? A performance marketing agency that's going to run Facebook, Tiktok, or Google ads. Are you going to spend thousands of dollars per month to get clients that will generate, hopefully tens of thousands of dollars? It's such a long road. Just because you have a website, it doesn't mean that people will come to it. It's not that simple. You need paid advertising, and obviously that's expensive. It's a difficult journey. And here's the thing. Maybe you're just a beginner. Maybe you don't even have your first $500 project, so it doesn't make sense at this point. That's the thing we all wish for. The Bentley, right? But we need to start out with something a bit more reasonable. You think you're going to build the next Facebook platform? You're fooling yourself. I'm not saying that you shouldn't dream big. I'm not saying that you shouldn't aim to get $20,000 projects. You have my complete support power to you, I hope that I can help you get there. But first things first, step by step, reasonable objectives. The issue with dreaming too big, at having an incredible unique portfolio is that you give up. You start out all enthusiastic, then you hit problem after problem after problem. Trust me, I've gone through these stages. I've seen other people struggle with them. Now, you may be resilient, but at the end of the day you're going to get frustrated, tired, burnt out because okay, you're going to have Crest Barn.com that sort of looks like what you want, right? Because as a side note, it will never be 100% what you want, what you imagine, that you'll never, ever be satisfied with the look, if that's debatable, if you're going to be happy or not with the look, let me tell you what's not debatable. Loading speed, the way the website functions. Unless you're willing to spend an arm and a leg on a talented developer and you allow him to put in the hours to go to work for weeks on end. The website is not going to work well. The website is probably going to be slow. You don't know what, you don't know overall. To cut it short, it's great that you want to stand out, but my main point is that it's not going to help you at the beginning of your career, not even after a couple of years, to be honest. That's why I recommend you go to be hands which is totally free. Set up an account, it's going to take you minutes to get up and running with it. Minutes, not months. And you can focus on your entries on your projects and not have to deal with finding codes, loading speeds, Cloudflare, Wordpress, plug ins, redirecting, name servers, and a bunch of things that you don't care about. Now, Adobe Portfolio requires a paid subscription to Adobe. But if you spend the $10 per month for the photography plan, Adobe portfolio is included. Dribble is based on invitations. It's free. You can easily get an invite. No worries about that. But let's talk about how your portfolio should look like. Let's discuss that in a second. 135. How should your portfolio look like?: Welcome back. We've decided that we need to keep it sample and use hands, Adobe Portfolio or Dribble. As a quick note. As a business owner, I love this approach because I know where to look. If I'm going to have a look at 50 portfolios in a couple of hours, I'd like to know where to look. We have to click. I've seen countless fancy portfolios that I just couldn't know how to navigate. Intricate animations that simply distracted me. I want to see your work, not what can be done with Java script or some fancy CSS code. If there's one reason as to why you should use a standard approach, it's this. It makes it easier for the employer to check out your work because everybody knows bends, everybody knows Adobe portfolio. The whole thing is this. It has to be as intuitive as possible. And that's bends Adobe portfolio or Drebble. Your work has to stand out. Unless the website is incredibly well designed and coded, it's only going to be a distraction. Okay, back to, it went be hands, right? How should your portfolio look like? I say anywhere between six to maybe 12 entries. Maybe ten, maybe 12. Some designers like to have one entry per category, for example, This could be web design, this could be app design, this would be logo design. And finally, game design, right? So that's one way of going about it. Other people use one entry per company. So if you as a designer, if you did the website that Facebook ads and the newsletter, everything can be kept nice and clean inside one entry. Now, others don't spend that much time on it and they simply add entry after entry, no matter the company style or anything else. Right, finally, I've seen people organize things in two years, 202-12-2203 This is also a nice way to see how your work has evolved in terms of quality. But to cut it short, there's no one particular style or grouping that you have to use. Instead, here's what you should go for, or on the contrary, totally avoid. Now, the most important thing that you have to include is context. Here's a designer that's followed one of my courses, right? You click on any entry and that's it. That's the entire thing. That's the design and nothing else. Now you may think, okay Chris, what else is there to add Context. Context is everything. So let me give you an example. See in one of my web design courses, I show you how I take my company of us from $10,000 per month to about $60,000 per month in terms of revenue. Right? All of this through minor design changes, things like moving buttons around, resizing elements, repositioning reviews, highlighting certain things, and so on. All design stuff. Now imagine you're looking to hire a designer for your own business right now. Do you think me mentioning how I took a company from ten K to 60 K per month to my design skills helps. Of course it helps. It's incredible. See, it's one thing to design stuff, it's another thing to frame it correctly inside any project. There should be some basic context. In 2021, this company approached me to redesign that website. They were struggling with, I don't know their conversion rates, and they felt like that website didn't speak to their primarily female audience. I designed everything in Figma, and I had a close relationship with the inhouse developer. To finish the project in under four weeks after the design was deployed, the client reported a 12% increase in sales. Does this make sense? Think this helps. Writing this stuff in your portfolio inside the century. See, slamming a design down and let it speak for itself isn't enough. I gave this example a bunch of times in my web design courses, but here it is again. Say that you redesign the website for the fitness center, right? And being vague on purpose, now you post the design and you ask people, is it good or not? Well, here's the thing. Context is everything. If the business is a hardcore body building gym, it's one thing, right? If the design is for the yoga center, it's another thing. If it's for the pilot center, it's another thing. If it's a general fitness center for everybody, again, it's something else. The design itself isn't enough. You have to give some context. Sometimes you don't have a lot to go on, you know, I realize that sometimes you don't have a lot to write. You can't say that, hey, you know, I've increased sales by 20% okay? Sure. But at least you can talk a bit about the client, the company, the process, right? Think about it in the eyes of a potential employer. This is quite important example. If you don't talk about how you only did the design and Photoshop and that the coder actually implemented the design. You may confuse people, you may get into interviews with other situations where people might think that you, my friend context, say what you did, how you did it, under what circumstances. Let me show you one positive example from one of my students ph. This is how he set up his entries. Now this is his own website, his own domain name. But it's super clear, super clean, very nice, and modern. Now what you're seeing here is impressive, but I realize that this is also scary. This takes ages to build ages, lots and lots of work. But by the way, this is a fake project. This is not a real client. Having said that, this can be seen as an investment in your design career. Yes. You're going to spend about a week going through the motions and designing everything that's here, right? But now, when you show this to a client, you can bet that you're going to make a first impression right now. I've also seen this taken to an extreme, right, where there are far too many details, where it's like a novel, right? This particular example is very close to that danger zone. When you're browsing around looking at CV's and portfolios, you really don't want to read a mini novel as a potential employer. As a business owner, you don't need to read about the hopes and dreams of the client and have the designer overcome that, all in 50,000 words. It's a bit much. Keep it short and sweet, keep it compact and to the point, going overboard with details may show certain people that you'd like to take your sweet time with it. And they immediately think, man, if this guy is going to charge me on an hourly rate, this designer is going to charge me an arm and a leg. I can't afford him. That's why you don't have to exaggerate with too many details. But all in all, let's recap. Organize your entries however you want, based on the year they were designed by companies, by the project type. It really doesn't matter. But make sure that you give context. You need to give some sense on why you took on the project, what were the challenges, how you handled them, and what you managed to achieve at the end. Don't go into a long, endless story, but make sure that you clearly explained what you did. That's how your portfolio should look like. 136. What should you post in your portfolio?: Welcome back. Okay, we know we need to have a portfolio and that we need to give some type of context about the stuff that we upload. But what should we upload? See if you follow this course, you're basically learning graphic design, which basically means everything that you can think of, right? Facebook ads, meaning banners of all sorts, Youtube thumbnails, business cards, brochures, sales presentations, and the list goes on and on. Right? If you're doing my web web design courses, that's something completely different. Next, some people like to do D work, and then they use Photoshop as the finishing touch. Other people like to do digital paintings, focus on beauty, retouching, develop loads of things that you can specialize in. But I always say this, choose your path, choose one thing, be great at it, then move on and expand. I never ever suggest that you learn Photoshop Illustrated and in design at the same time. One of the biggest myths beginners, think that if you know more programs, then you're going to be in better shape in the job market. Same thing with web designers. Some struggle with learning how to code for the simple reason that they don't have enough confidence in working in Figma, AdobXD, or Photoshop alone. They think that without learning how to code, they can't work. That's actually not true. That's not how this works. You need to specialize. You need to focus on one thing, be great at it, and that's going to give you the best results I want, the best pastries. I go to a dedicated pastry shop. When I need some cables in my walls, I hire an electrician. You're always going to get top quality if you hire someone that specializes in that. One thing, this is why you go to a foot Dr. or a heart Dr. or a dentist. It's not the same person. Now, could that potentially work? Sure of course. But as a beginner, the chances of this working well, the slim to none. It's the same thing with your portfolio. You show me that you can do it all from web design to retouching to general graphic design. This is a bit of a warning sign. This is a red flag because it shows me that you are undecided. You're not sure what you want to do. A good part of my students fall into this category. They like to do some web design stuff, but they also like to do Facebook ads, for example. Now that's cool. They're somewhat in the same ballpark, but when you mix in some D work or some beauty retouching, that's where things fall apart. The portfolio looks incredibly confusing, divided, it's not a good look. The question is, what should you post in your portfolio? The answer is the thing you want to specialize in. Initially. You may add a bunch of stuff just because you feel like your portfolio is empty, right? Having just one or two entries may seem a bit empty, right? A bit disappointing. But your job isn't to fill it with a bunch of stuff. Your job is to make a great first impression. Your portfolio should advertise your skills. While it's tempting to post all of my projects from all of my courses, I really don't think that helps you too much. My advice is you continue to explore what I teach and choose something. I typically recommend one of three branches. It's either web design, be it Adobexd or even Photoshop if you're old school. It's app design, which can be done in the first two programs. Or the third option, general graphic design, with an emphasis on helping businesses grow. Meaning if you design business cards. Okay, that's graphic design. That's decent. But is a business card really going to help the business grow? Not significantly, but if you design Facebook ads, that gives the company a lot of clicks and generates more sales, obviously, yes, you can explode the company's sales from ten K to 50 K in a method of weeks. Or to creating some Facebook ads, some banners. Yeah, it happens. It's actually true now. Anyway, there's a lot to say about general graphic design and how you can leverage those fairly basic projects to help a company make much more money, which in turn helps you earn a lot more. But the fact is you need to choose a path, once that's done, exclude all the other bits from your portfolio. It's far better to have an empty portfolio versus having one that's filled with everything, Trust me on that, is the right way to go. Specialize in, fill your portfolio with that one thing, maybe two thing stops. Okay, good luck with that. 137. Getting jobs from your portfolio: Welcome back. Say that you want to get some jobs based on your portfolio, right? What's the best way to do that? Well, as I said, you should have a couple of entries in your portfolio at the very minimum, I would say three. Now, these can be fake projects, but make sure that you clearly mention they're fake, mention that they're done. Just as practice material, right? Again, the minimum is three, but I do prefer six to ten, maybe 12. Now, once you show off your skills, my advice is you find any local company that does any type of advertising. If you disable your ad blocker, you should see ads on your Facebook desktop feed. Or when you use Google and you search for random things, it's best that you aim for small to medium companies and offer them something very tangible and straightforward. For example, I've seen countless ads on Facebook that are absolutely horrible. But because the company is paying for them, it means they're interested in growing that side of the business. They're willing to invest, design something for them 100% upfront. Don't ask them anything, then contact them. Hey, I'm Chris Barron. I saw your ad on Facebook. And to be honest, I don't think this design suits your brand. I think the quality isn't all that great. I took the liberty to design something that I feel is much closer to the value of your brand, of your company. It's modern, professional, and I think it will help you get more sales. You have it attached to this e mail. Let me know what you think. I'm happy to work with you on this project. My rate starts at 25 bucks per hour, but we can also do a fixed price if you feel more comfortable with that. I'm based in Bucharest. This is my portfolio, this is my link. And I'm happy to jump on a call with you or set up a meeting. Thank you so much. Yes. If you don't like it, just let me know you're not interested and that's totally fine. I appreciate that. Best of luck, Chris. And that's how you do it. See you have to do some free work. Totally. But here's the thing. Even if they don't reply with that free work, you may say, it's all wasted, right? But you still have something to add to your portfolio. Remove the name of that company or replace it with a generic name or the generic logo. Then you're good to go and you can always repurpose it and use it for the different company. If you go for, I don't know, carpet cleaner in your city or in your country, there's bound to be a bunch of them, right? Hit them up one by one via e mail. Whatsapp or whatever works best in your part of the world. And sending them a link to your portfolio is quite important. It establishes trust. That's critical. See these are called cold e mails and in general, people are flooded with them. Typically they're scams or dubious proposals. This is why you have to show that you're a real person, a real designer with a solid proposition. This is why you send the design in the initial E mail, not after the reply. I hate people that say, hey, I've prepare something for you Chris. It's something just for you. But please reply to this message. I get tons of these E mails. Be upfront about it and that's going to increase your chances of getting the job. Another way to increase your chances is to have a real avatar, a real name, and a decent banner in your portfolio. Don't use fake use of names like your favorite anime character or whatever. I'm Chris Chris Barn, short and sweet. This is my face, is how I look like I'm a real person and this is my portfolio. This is the type of thing I do. This is quite important because the client is always going to come from a place of being quite skeptical, right? You e mailed him out of the blue. That's normal. You should expect some resistance. But if you show your face, that really helps. And that's how you can get a few jobs. Even if you're just at the beginning of your career. You make a portfolio with your own face, with your own name and a few entries. Even if they're fake, then you work for free. For local companies that advertise they have poor designs. You pick them, especially them, because they have money to invest and you can really wow them with your skills. You can redesign their newsletters, their ads, the website that app, anything, their restaurant menu, whatever that may be. Just go for it and make sure that, A, you grow your portfolio with real companies and K studies, and B, you make some money so you can enjoy the process. Now your chances of succeeding at about ten to 20% That means one or two replies out of every ten E mails. You got to be patient and you've got to put the work in. You need volume. Please remember this, you need volume. Good luck with it. 138. Live portfolio reviews: Welcome back to this live section where I'm going to review some portfolios. All of these are taken from my Discord channel. All of these guys are my students. So let's jump into it. And hopefully this can help you set up your own portfolio and get great jobs. So let's have a quick look here. First of all, what I want to say is that the first impression really matters, right? So this is Irvin, one of my students. And unfortunately, this doesn't look all that great. On the other hand, this guy right here, a much better impression, right? The colors are beautiful. They pop, they look lovely. This side doesn't stand out. Unfortunately, the colors are muted. The thumbnails aren't all that great. Overall, the first impression isn't all that great. But here's the thing. When you actually have a look inside the projects, you're going to see that Irvin is actually a better designer. Most of his designs, which I've already gone through, did far better than this Spudson's. The initial impression counts quite a lot, but when you get into the actual portfolio, you're going to see a lot of lower ipsum. You're going to see a lot of fake content here. Overall, these designs aren't all that buttoned up. There are glimpses of a great designer here, but they're filled with various issues. For example, right here, you don't get any prices whatsoever. The font is a bit tricky. It's a bit difficult. The huge QR code, there are glimpses of a great designer, but overall, yeah, it just falls short. Now you could potentially improve it. Sure. The main point is how the first impression really changes the situation. How this one seems great, but when you get into it, you're a bit disappointed. On the other hand, this one seems bland, it seems boring, it seems outdated. But when you actually get into it, you're going to see that this is actually a great designer. So that's something to be aware of, right? Even though you're a great designer, if you set up your portfolio in a rush, you may actually shoot yourself in the foot, unfortunately. Because look again, everything that you see here, It doesn't pop, It doesn't stand out. It doesn't seem modern. This seems like a portfolio from 2010. I'm not saying it's horrible, but it just doesn't stand out the way this one does, right? And more on that. Let's have a look here, Pash, which is, again, one of my best students. And have a look here at the colors, right? Have a look at the presentation. This is awesome. This is lovely. And actually, he doesn't need all that many. To be honest, I would not add all these books here. I don't think it helps. I wouldn't add the Youtube thumbnails. I would probably cut this down to maybe nine at the most. But yeah, if you look here, you're going to see lots and lots of things that are 2022 and above, right? You can see the great use of color. The color scheme in general is beautiful. This particular font, absolutely lovely. You can see the call action stands out quite a lot. This is a good designer, right? I would say this is a great designer. This is how your portfolio should look like. Though you have to be careful about how many things you include. Because again, there's a bit too many things included here. Now, another thing you should be careful of is when you do a presentation like this, the text is a bit hard to read. Unfortunately, I think we have another example here. Yeah, Roland is again one of my bet of students. Initially. You have a look here, it's pretty good. Especially the last ones I like, the style of presentation. I'm not sure about the dark background, but yeah, pretty good. But when you get inside it now, while the design itself, it may be nice, it may not be whatever this click, you actually don't see it, right? All this becomes unreadable. It's gibberish. So basically what happens here, because it's so zoomed out, you're not seeing the final points. I can't really say if this font is great. I can't really say if the sizing is on point. I can't really say if this empty space is reasonable or not because I can't see the entire design. That's the danger with these presentations. They just completely skew your perspective. They change that perspective in a way where you can't really tell if this is appropriate or not. The size of this headline of this title, is this big? What is this small? Can't really tell. That's the problem. You may be a great designer, but if you don't know how to actually show off your work, you're shooting yourself in the foot. And subsequently this is not going to help you. I don't think Roland is benefiting from his portfolio. Let's have another look here. Maybe this one. It's the exact same style. It's exactly the same look. Have a look here at the titles of these products. This doesn't work. This doesn't work. Again, I can see glimpses of a great designer here. But unfortunately, that last 10% that's what makes a difference. A big difference. Overall. Pretty good. Pretty good. But yeah, I would probably not hire this designer because of that. Because again, if you have so many other options, you won't really spend the time to analyze every single detail. It's about first impression, I immediately hit escape and move on to another one. That's the thing. Let's have a look here. This is another student of mine. Unfortunately, the thumbnails, they don't make a great first impression, But let's have a look and see what's choosing something random. Clicking on it full screen, okay. Very small. Main menu schedule of free consultation, decent sub headline, sub jo area, great font, pretty interesting icons. The thumb, the same icon set. Pretty good. Yeah, pretty good. Okay, team members. I would remove this one. I would have only six. It's a better look. Decent logos, unique approach. Maybe more line height yet? Good. This is a good designer look here. I'm not sure what this is. Where does the design start? I'm guessing here, right? Wife, husband. This is confusing. I don't think this helps. I'm guessing this is the product page, okay. But what's here is this type of filter system. Unfortunately, see things like this, they just confuse you. When you have a chance to put something in your portfolio, make sure that it's easy to understand. You can never go wrong with a restaurant or the comma store with something like that. When you get into something like this, which should supposedly be comma store and you don't have the classic layout, it's a bit difficult. I'm guessing this is just the interior page, right? But this part right here, it's so confusing. And this part as well, I really think that you should be careful about who you cater to. Because most business owners, they're not designers. They're not going to be like me. Where I can appreciate all the fine details, right? They're going to have a look, they won't understand it, and they're going to just hit close and move on to another person. That's the mindset. Unfortunately, you would imagine that everybody, that all business owners are going to go to every single one of your portfolio pieces. They're going to really understand it, they're really going to analyze it. That's not the case. All right. For example right here, the fonts are way too big for my taste. Again, it doesn't make all that much sense. There's way too much empty space here. Why would you have so much empty space? This shows me that you don't have enough real world experience. Because in the real world, you want to make the scroll as short as possible. You want to condense the content without obviously making it busy. So because you're showing this type of thing, this type of gap right here, you're telling me that you haven't actually worked on any real world projects. Does it look nice, so airy? Yeah, of course it looks lovely, but it's not reasonable. And it's a shame because you can see that this is a good designer. He knows what needs to be done, right. He knows that he has to include all these bits. A big call to action, a beautiful gallery, although the gallery is a bit too big. Unfortunately, the main menu doesn't make any sense. You should have a decent main menu here. And that's not the case, there's no social media. And yeah, way, way too much empty space. Keep in mind, I'm looking at this on a huge display, on a huge monitor or a two K display, 24 " and it's still big. What about if you're using a laptop? An all the laptop that is, Yeah. Just way too much. I understand that he probably got inspired from Apple or something like that, but it's just way too big. It's not modern more than that, it's not practical. It's not that it's not modern per se, it's not practical. On any website, you need to make the most out of every square inch so you can actually get more sales when you have your titles at such a large size. It just doesn't make sense for the real world. It looks great in terms of presentations, but yeah, it's not ideal overall. What I would do is I would probably hire this designer because he has potential, right? I would probably avoid this designer because he has quite a lot of problems here and there. So if you have a look, this is actually only a logo design. I'm not sure why it seems like a website design. Oh, it actually is a website design. He started with the logo and then Okay, this is the actual design itself. Okay. It's in a presentation mode, so we can't really judge it at 100% a bit too much space. Pretty nice colors. Okay, I take that back. I think this is actually pretty good. Get started, I'm not sure why this is written right here. I think this should not be here. Because actually you have to question two calls to action here, okay? Pretty good, lovely food, 100% love it. Let's have another look at some of the other projects because I remember that I've gone through it and I wasn't all that impressed. K Cambridge machines, the same as the logo? That's not great. No call to action whatsoever. The font? Pretty boring, but it is what it is. It's a corporate website. Okay. Decent, A bit washed out. A logo. Too much. Laura Mepsm, we are hiring. Yep. This is why I was actually disappointed. A lot of a content titles are way too big. Let's have another look here. In general, I would not look at more than the designs to tell you the truth, but I'm giving the benefit of the doubt because I think that's the best way to go about it in these videos. Okay, this is decent, but what is it? Is it a store live with design and innovation? Laura Mepsu, I'm guessing this is an common store. The pricing is all the way down here. This is such a shame. Again, this tells me that you haven't actually designed any actual real store. Because if you did, you would know that you have to show some prices at the top. No actual store has about a page right here. It just doesn't make any sense. I'm just going to show you one of the biggest stores right here in my part of the world. It's this one right here. So basically you have a band of that shows you various off of you scroll down and that's it. You get prices. You get lots and lots of prices and reviews and whatnot. It's clear as they, that's how an common store looks like. When you enter any product, you're going to see that two card, You're going to see the price, the reviews and whatnot. The description and whatnot. Yeah, this is how a typical store looks like, whether it's Amazon or something else. This is how a typical store looks like. But then you come here, you can easily not see the navigation, You can easily not see the card, get a quote. Is this a store per se or is this something that's obviously bespoke, custom made. Tailor made because it's a bit difficult to have something standard with pricing here and then get a quote here. It just seems that you didn't actually understand the client. You're not exactly sure what this is. You just did your best and you wing you improvised. I don't really like the contrast. This is really way too washed out. I don't appreciate the effect lowering the opacity. I don't think it's a modern thing. I would not recommend that in 2020. 3.20 24. Yeah. Overall, it's not something that I love. Let's have another look here. Great looking design. I would actually use your name with something that's more relatable, like Chris Barn, Usain. Okay, and yeah, Roland, I think this is pretty good obviously. If you have a very complicated name that may not be ideal. But yeah, you might want to use something that's a bit easier to read and remember the presentation. I'm not a big fan of it to be honest. Because again, most business owners, even if they've been on be hands, they may not realize that the actual design is underneath. If they actually click here and they click again, would expect to see the entire design right at 100% Unfortunately, that's not the case and there are loads of small details here that I can't actually see. Again, if I'm a business owner and I don't know my way around hands. I'm looking at it and I can't see anything. That would be quite a shame, obviously, if you scroll down a bit, and then you click here, you can actually get to see the entire design. And this is obviously much better. Great call to action. Great main menu, lovely to section. I love this as well. I'm not sure, putting it underneath makes a whole lot of sense. But overall, pretty good tech. Pretty good, right here. Get started. Watch video. Pretty good. This is quite lovely. Trusted by companies all over the world. The logos are nice, neat, the same size. Give a take. Okay. We have the process here. Yeah, this is a fantastic design. Unfortunately, the presentation isn't all that great. I would actually probably take the Hoda and place it as a thumbnail. I think that would be much, much better. Let's have another look at something at random. You can see how my eye immediately goes to certain designs. I think this is classic. Most business owners are going to do the same thing. Decent main menu. Okay. Higher Balance Institute. Pretty good. I would probably left the line. It would make the right side emptier. It would make the right side emptier, but it doesn't really make all that much sense. Either center everything here or yeah, left the line it and put the girl right here. That would probably be a bit better. Now, I understand that the girl is probably sitting on this part right here on the dark of the shade, but it's not a great use of space, decent stats. I can't say that I'm in love with it. At least from the same icon set, the same style. Pretty good UI here. Okay, though I would love to see a bit more space right here, because the corner radius is quite big. Okay. Pretty good. Pretty good. The gallery. I'm not sure if this stroke actually helps in any way. I would probably make it white, to be honest with the low opacity. I don't think the style is actually in tune with everything else. So this is a paintbrush or something like that, and you can see that the background is actually quite noisy. I'm not sure why that is. I don't think it's intentional though, but there's a lot of noise here. If you really focus on it, there's a lot of noise and this seems like a mistake. It doesn't seem like it's a texture that was applied intentionally because you can see that everything right here is clear. But then when you move on down, yeah, it's quite noisy. I guess he used the low quality photo. He did something to it where the quality just went down. Maybe this is a Jpeg. Can't actually save it right here. Okay, Pretty good overall. Yeah, I think this is a great portfolio that needs to be improved in terms of the thumbnails here, I would probably change the name to something a bit more relatable. Let's have another look here. Yeah, this is another one of my students that posted the portfolio, though I haven't seen her active in this cord on this Coord. I don't love this font. I think it's busy. This graphic right here again, it really shows someone that has little to no experience because there's way too many styles that having the black stroke, the red, the San, it's way too busy in a shadow. Immediately, I would just leave. Based upon what I see here, I would not continue with this portfolio based on what I see here in a shadow contrast, way too many colors. This clan key stroke, this weird type face. This is not the type of person that I would hire. You can see here various other problems. The childish icon set, these icons that are actually very outdated. These colors that are actually won key. These are not the official colors. They've never been the official colors. Yeah, I think this is a beginner that has loads to learn and I would not continue. It really doesn't matter if there's a goal, mine right here. Because this shows me that you're still just a beginner and you still are making classic mistakes, fundamental mistakes, execution mistakes. Let's see if we have anything else, something interesting here. Let's have a look. This is a special platform for portfolios, and this is why I don't recommend you use anything other than be hands of the portfolio or dribble. Quite unfortunate. Let's have another look here. This is not a portfolio. This is just one part of a website. Doesn't make any sense. Let's have a look here. This person wants to apply on 99 designs. Daniel, this is pretty good. You should use capital letters here and here because that's the way they go about it. Unfortunately, this banner right here with the pink and the sparkling starts with whatever they are. This is not great, it's not really professional. It's not something that would represent you as a designer. It's a bit embarrassing, to be honest. You would much rather just use something blank or not use anything at all. Let's have a quick look here. Loading, loading, I'm guessing design is huge. Let's have a look. Okay, this isn't great. It's decent. It's not great. It's something from 2012. It's not a bad style, but it's not modern. I can't really put my finger on it. But it's all these small little details that add up, and this shows me that you're not using the latest and greatest techniques. Let's have another look. Maybe I can explain it some other type of way. These are all based on my designs from my website, from my course. Let's see, do we have something original here? Nope, we actually don't. Maybe this one is original. Okay. You shouldn't have the address here. The address is typically shown in the top part of the website, In the top bar. Too much space here. Yeah. Unfortunately, this is not a great design. Loads and loads of small mistakes. This is why it's so difficult to actually get a sense of where you're at, because no client is actually going to analyze your designs for you. No client is going to tell you, hey, I didn't hire you because you left way too much space here and way too much space here, right? There are no prices, there's no view details button, there's no description. It's just a photo. It's just a photo with a stroke. So unfortunately this is not enough, right? Do have prices here, and we do have an ad to card button, But you would not find any mainstream website that uses this type of card layout, this type of product layout. Because you can go on any shoppe fi store, you can go on Team Forest and then have a look at what the biggest players are doing. In terms of having a look here at Wordpress comes for example. You will not find this type of thing, You're not going to find this type of card. Let's just have a look at anyone at Random Live Preview. Let's have a quick look and see if there's something interesting here. Can we see a demo? Yeah, let's actually just see a demo. See what's what. Let's have a look, as you can see here a bit more details. You have a product rating, you have the price, you have the card favorite and refresher, something like that. A lot more detail. All right, let's have another look at another one. Let's say this one preview. Okay. Eight pre build demos. Okay, let's have a look, let's have a look and see if that design actually makes sense. Let's have a look at the card. Yeah, again, this is much better. So there's a big photo as it was the case here, but there's a lot more detail. This seems a bit more put together here. I'm not exactly in love with it because there's no call to action, right? There's the favorite button here. But yeah, you do actually need a C Details button. I see that there's an effect right here. But yeah, overall, I can't say that I'm in love with this one as well. Let's have another look and see if there's anything else that we can check out. Okay, I think this is quite a new one, it only has nine ratings. Let's have a look here. Shop again, not really. Is the same template, the same layout, photo, title, number of stars, and the price. Again, I'm not in love with it. I don't think overall this is the right way to go, even though the examples from Team Forest weren't exactly top notch, and they weren't exactly like the biggest shopping website in my part of the country where you can see the shopping button right here. But yeah, overall, I think you need to use what the biggest guys are doing. Let's have another look and see if there's anything else that we can review. And then we're going to close this off. Let's have a look here. Okay. We can't find this page. Maybe he removed it? Nope. Okay. Let's have another look here. See if there's something interesting here. Multiple. Okay. I don't like multiple because I actually want to talk about one person in particular. The presentation is nice, but actually this is quite interesting. We start off strong out of the gate, this is beautiful, lovely, okay? And then I'm going to go down again. I'm a potential business owner that wants to hire a designer. You sent me this portfolio, right? The presentation. Beautiful. Then I'm getting here, okay. You have a grid. I'm not sure what this is useful for, but okay, it looks nice. The colored. Okay. The typography. Okay. Then what's this? What should I understand here? I'm guessing these are parts of the design. I'm guessing the background. The background is there for presentation purposes, but you should have blurred it or you should have done something with it because it it just feels so disjointed. I'm not really sure what I'm looking at. Again, I'm a business owner. I want to hire you. What am I looking at? I'm looking at various elements that you've built. And I'm supposed to say, okay, wow, this is, the colors are so nice, the spacing is beautiful, it's difficult, again, presentation. These are the dangers of what I've said in another lecture where you take it too far, instead of actually showing the design and showing what you did for that company, writing out the contact, hey, they hired me, they had this problem, I solved it in this way. I did the design in Figma. I talked to the developers, whatever you pose, something like this. And this is only meant for Dribble. This is only meant to get you likes, this is never going to get you projects. On the contrary, I believe having a lot of friends as business owners, having friends in tech, having friends in very classic businesses, all school businesses, people over 45 years old, they're never going to resonate with this type of thing. Because it just feels so disjointed, you're not sure what you're looking at. Especially busy people, entrepreneurs, they don't have any patience. If they don't understand something, they're just going to walk away. Yeah, it's small bits and pieces of the design instead of the actual design. Just show the entire design and be done with it. Don't show off bits and pieces. Hands is a place to show off your portfolio as a designer, but it's not for the other designers, Even other designers. I'm not sure they would actually appreciate what we're seeing here. But this is for the potential clients. That's how I look at it. Anyways, when you do this type of stuff, you really have to think who is going to resonate. What do you think is going to be my reaction? What are you expecting? Are you expecting a designer to come here and be amazed at your presentation skills? Are you thinking that a business owner is going to appreciate this type of thing? Unfortunately not. Let's have another look at one of them. Let's see what this is, a X website X. As you can see, this is why I hate X, This is why this is a waste of time. You can see that. This looks like it's from 2005. My clicking on wow, okay, How do I go back? No joke. Okay? Okay. You can understand why I hate X now. To be fair, you could potentially create something nice on Wgs, but in general, that's not likely from what I've seen. Maybe I've seen one out of 50 websites on W that actually looks fantastic. But yeah, man, you can see that it's so easy. Here, click, click, see the full screen design. Zoom in, go back, exit, use the escape key, the close symbol. It's so easy. But here I have to re, learn how to navigate a website. Let's have a look. Anyways, very small design. Okay. I can use this part here. At least that makes some sense. Again, I'm not really focused on, on the design itself. This is very outdated. And I can see that this is a bugginal design even though he seems like in terms of illustrations, this is quite nice. But yeah, the rest is unfortunately quite bad. Quite quite bad. 2005 style, There's a lot to learn. You have a lot to learn. Yeah, showing off the Jpeg here, it's not a great luck. I think we can end with this. Wix is not a great choice. I can assure you that this particular designer spent quite a lot of time choosing this background image, putting this logo here, whatever, doing all this stuff right here, it's not a great luck. Come on, let's end with a high note. Let's actually do something that's a bit more positive. Let's have a luck. Hopefully we can see something that's a bit better. This person is only 16, quite nice. Okay, We can see his name right here. This is pretty good. I'm guessing this is his website now, link tree. Okay. Request my services. Okay. Okay. This is actually looking quite nice. This is actually looking quite nice. You can see some of my projects here. This is from my course. But yeah, you can see the colors. They look lovely. Now, I'm not really sure what he did. My images that make up a project, okay, developed the concept, okay? Okay, This is actually quite nice. This is actually quite impressive. What do we have here? Okay, Step by step, guide on how he did it. Okay, this is actually quite nice. Yeah, At 16, this is quite impressive. I'm not sure what this is. Make up a study project. Okay. So this seems to be fake. Okay. Pretty good. I'm guessing this is the before, then. After. Okay. So a bit of retouching. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I quite appreciate it. So even though he's 16, I would offer him a job. I would potentially hire this person though. I'm not sure if yeah. Okay. Oh, okay. I'm not sure what was the before then was the after. Okay. Yeah. This is why I said that he shouldn't actually fill your portfolio with a bunch of stuff. This should not be here, The fuel is fine, this part is fine. Let's have a look at heads as well. Let's see if this is something that's, again, you shouldn't show off this type of thing. I mean, this is debatable, but 100% this one should not be here. Let's have a look at this one here as well. It's difficult for people who can't really read this type of stuff. I think I would dare to say that this is a turn off, but yeah, everybody knows what's best for them, for the other part of the world. Okay. Project embed, come on. Yeah, I appreciate this before the after, but yet to be honest, I don't think this is a great showcase of your skills. Stick to this type of thing. I think this is a great showing. This one as well? Yeah, just clean it up, remove some of them, and I think you're going to get more projects. Having few other entries might get you more projects. Again, there's no context here. I'm not sure what this is. Unofficial paints, ads design, okay. But we have no idea what this is. Ib, no idea what this is. Why a microphone would make sense. That's why you actually need context. Okay, 16. Great potential here. I'm not really sure about this header. I think you can do something a bit better, a bit more modern. But yeah, overall, that's how I look at portfolios in general. What you should pay close attention to is how you present your work. Make sure that the first impression is great. Then inside, you add some type of context. Only a few lines, maybe at the top, maybe at the bottom. But just say a few words about the project, what you did you work, how you interacted with the client, what were your expectations and what you managed to achieve. If you do that, I think you're going to be great. This is Chris. Hopefully this was helpful. And I hope to see your portfolio here as well. Because even though I've been quite negative on some of these portfolios, I hope that you can sense that this is coming from a good place, from a positive place where I just want to help you and I want to give you constructive feedback. And obviously, focusing on great parts, on positive parts is not really all that useful. So I would much rather focus on the negatives so you can address them and actually make them into something positive. For example, have a look here. I actually appreciate this head of a bit more than this one, even though it's quite black. This is just a simple pattern. This is actually a bit more professional than this one. So if I had to choose just based on these two things, I would actually go for this one. Okay, again, this is Chris signing out, and hopefully this was quite useful. Thank you. 139. Introduction: Welcome back. In this section, we're going to work with shape layouts effectively. You'll learn how to create them, how to modify them, what's the main purpose, and other fantastic tips that will really help you out. Previously we talked about layout masks, but in this section, I'll show you a thing or two about clipping masks which are far more easier to get. You learn how to create custom shapes from scratch with the help of the pent wool. And together we're going to design some buttons for the website design, as well as generate automatic guides that will help us position things precisely. I really want to say that I do love shape layers and I think they're fantastic for all sorts of projects. And at the end of this section, I hope that you'll feel the same way. Shapes are fun. So let's get to it. 140. Create Shapes: Circles, Squares, Rectangles & Best Settings: Welcome back. Let's discuss shape layers in Photoshop and see how they can help you in your projects. We've established shapes bear this symbol in the layout spanel. They can be resized as much as you want without losing any equality. This means one of your go to hot keys is going to be control. That's command on a Mac to do it. You can modify them on the spot. Okay, we're going to focus on these tools from the left side to create these shapes, let's start with the rectangle. To add one to your canvas, you have two main options. One of them you can click and drag, and that's what I use most of the time. As I'm dragging, I also see its size, which is quite helpful because it helps me focus on what's going on. The second method is great. When you want a specific measurement, you click and you're going to get this window here. You can put something like 500 by 200 pixels. There you go. Now let's move our focus just a bit up top in the options bar. Make sure you use this setting. First of all, shape has to be selected right here. This is quite important. The fill is going to determine the rectangles color. You can always change it afterwards. But yeah, mainly this is going to be taken from the fourth ground color a bit lower down. Now regarding colors, my advice is you use any setting here because you can always double click the shaped thumbnail and you're going to have the color picker, you can play around with it, and the change is going to be shown immediately on the canvas. That's how I like to work. The stroke is another one where you should leave it as it is. You can see that the weight can be set, whatever two pixels or something. But I have this white rectangle here that has a diagonal red line going through it. This means the stroke is disabled. No matter what value I have here, no stroke is going to show up on the canvas. And that's totally fine because we can add strokes to a layer style. We're going to talk about that later. But yeah, in short, don't use the stroke feature from here. Next finally, a line edges. This is going to give you sharp and crested lines. Always have it checked. Okay. Now moving on to the tool bar, you're going to see that this is now a single tool in the past that would two, but now it's only one. If you want the rounded rectangle, you can use the radius setting from the options bar. If you put in a value of say, 20 pixels, that's what we're going to get on the canvas. But here's the thing, you see the properties panel. This pops up every time you add a new shape. This is my number one choice when it comes down to adjusting my rectangles from here, you can do anything, especially the roundness. You can easily edit it. You can change it from right here, I have a set to 20 pixels because that's what I typed in the options bar. But I can change it to zero, press center. Now the rounded rectangle is a simple rectangle, a regular rectangle. And not only you can adjust the corner radius, you can do that for every individual corner. Now by default the chain icon is enabled. It's pressed, which means all four corners are going to change depending on what you type in. Put in ten. It there, everything is going to be ten pixels. But I can hit on this icon right here. Now let's say I'm going to put in 25 or the bottom ones. As you can see, this gives me a lot of flexibility. I can also square them off by putting in zero, whatever I want. This is quite nice. The property spanel moving up, we have the width and the height values. This means we don't really have to use control to resize it. That's still a valid option. It's still quite nice. I use it all of the time, but this is fantastic when you want precision. We also have the shapes position on the canvas starting from the top left corner. I already explained how it works, but let's do it again. X is the shapes position horizontally, starting from the left side. If I change it to zero, the rectangle is going to touch the left edge of the canvas, change it to 100, and of course it's going to move 100 pixels towards the right. Now y refers to the vertical axis, and the same thing applies there. Z tho will make it touch the top edge, 200 pixels, it's going to move 200 pixels downwards. This is all nice and well, are you going to use it all that often? No, not likely. Moving down in this panel. We can also control the stroke, but again, don't use it. We're going to use a layer style that works much, much better when you create a new shape by dragging on the canvas hold shift and that's going to constrain your proportions. This means that if you're on the rectangle tool, you're going to get a square. As you can see, shift helps me make it a square. Of course, I can always let go. If you switch to the ellipse tool and hold shift going to get a perfect circle. Oh, by the way, the ellipse doesn't have as many settings in the properties panel, that makes sense. It doesn't have any coordinate radiuses to control. Next on my list, I'm not a big fan, but the polygon tool may be used to create stars and various shapes that have lots of sides, hexagon or whatever. To control the amount of sides, you can use this field from the options bar. My advice, just click anywhere on the canvas and you're going to get a new window that tells you to put in the size, how many sides you want, and various other things. For example, how smooth you want the coordinates to be. I can set it at 100 by 103 sides and leave this unchecked. And that's going to give me a triangle, as you would expect. We also have a triangle tool, but again, I don't really use it all that often. Now if I click again, first I want you to notice that my size is 100 by 100 by default. And that's not because that's the last value I wrote in. No, actually, this is taken from the last shape that I clicked on. If I select another layer, say this one, as long as it's a shape layer, once I click, I'm going to get those measurements already set up in these fields. This works for all shape layers. You get that size once you click once. That's quite nice. Now back to what I was saying, if I enable smooth corners with the same setting of 100 by 100, now I'm going to get some weird looking shapes. Obviously you can do loads of things, create styles and various things. But most of the time, you're going to download them from the web. I'm going to leave you to it to explore some of these options and have fun with them. Now let's move over to the line tool, which not a lot of people use and for good reason, you can't really do a whole lot with it. You can't click to put in the measurements, you don't really have a whole lot of options. You can set its thickness from up top, but I suggest you always keep it to one pixel besides using shift to make it perfectly straight. There's not a lot more to say. Most designers, myself included, don't use it. Because we can get the same thing with the rectangle tool. I can switch to it, put in the height of say, one pixel. That basically gives me a line. Plus I can always use control to resize the thickness. Yeah, it is what it is. Finally, custom shapes. We're going to talk about those in a separate lecture, but yeah, that's about it. Regarding a brief overview of these shape layers. Have fun with them. 141. Modify Shapes: Welcome back. Let's talk about how you can modify shaped layers. When you add the rectangle or an ellipse to your canvas, you're going to get this panel. We already covered it, but you may have recognized some of these icons from the Marquet example. Let me activate it so you can compare these two. As you can see, they're very similar. If we try to use a modifier keys, you're going to see they behave in the same way. If I hold shift before I drag, I'm going to constrain my aspect ratio. We're going to get a perfect square. Okay, we know that. But if I use shift before I drag, going to notice my cursor is going to change. We're going to have this plus symbol next to it. And that's because we already have a shape layer selected. The shape layer selected and shift. Now we're going to get this plus this means we're going to add to the existing shape. Check the layers panel and you're going to see that's the case. Now obviously, this is a brand new shape and no new layer has popped up. Instead, it got merged with the selected one. The story continues exactly like with the marquee tool, hold Alt, and you can remove parts of this shape, notice the minus symbol. But if I click and drag and then hold Alt, this is going to expand your layer on both sides at an equal rate. If I drag towards the left and I'm going to hold down alt, the right side will grow just as much or the opposite. It will contract. Okay, finally the last one, we're not really going to use it shift in altogether. That's going to give us an intersection between the old shape and the new one. Okay, great. I'm going to move on to the ellipse to walls so that I can remind you what we discussed in the elliptical Markey lecture. If you recall, we could create and expand the selection based on the point of origin where we click here. Let's try this out from the top left corner. I'm going to click there. I'm going to hold shift to get a perfect circle. Okay, but if I also use all that's going to expand the shape from where I initially clicked. And that's in the top corner, great stuff. Now a good thing to know is that the merge command control E doesn't size two shape layers. You're going to get one single layer but it's still going to be a shape. That's fantastic. Let me show you how that works. I'm going to select the rectangle on my canvas. I'm going to make it red above it. I'm going to add another one. This time I'm going to make it say green for example. Okay, with both of them selected, I'm going to use control E and they'll combine into a new layer. But notice the color, the new shape is green. If we undo and swap the positions in the layout panel, you'll find out how this works if we merge them again. The higher shape in the layers panel is going to determine the new shape color here because the red one was above it. We're now looking at the red shape. What's cool is that they're still live shapes. If I get a path selection tool, the black arrow, and I click on this one, we can see the corner radius is actually available, put in any value, and hit Enter. That's fantastic. Even though they have a single layer, you can still target individual corner radiuses. But here's the thing. If you hold Shift and click on the second one, now you have both of them selected. Go to the Options bar and click here on this icon. Here we have all the commands we covered. Shift, combined shapes, all subtracts shift and Alt creates an intersection that's not important. But here we have something else. Merge shape components, and we're going to get this warning. Okay, by hitting. Okay, We're saying we no longer want them to be treated as live shapes, instead they're going to be converted to regular shapes. They'll still have vector properties, but you won't have nearly as many options in the property spanel. As you can see, this is much more restrictive. Let me make a new rectangle on the canvas and I'll show you another thing. If we get the white arrow, so the direct selection to all hotkey, and you drag one anchor point, you're going to get the same warning. You'll transform it into a regular path. Meaning you're going to lose all of these great settings. Now, why would you want to do that? Well, this is useful when you want to create all irregular shapes that Photoshop doesn't offer. By default, you'd use all easy to understand shapes and merge them together to create something totally new and different. Okay, now here's how you can modify your shape layers to the properties panel by using your modifier keys or with the help of the direct selection tool. That's the recap loads of ways to achieve the same thing. With that, let's continue. 142. Free Transform (Ctrl+T) in CC 2024 works differently: Welcome back. In this quick lecture, I want to point out a big change in Photoshops behavior in this blank project. I'll add a random rectangle to my canvas. Now I'm going to enable free transform by using control to resize it. Simple enough, right? If I grab this middle handle from the right side and drag it outwards, notice what happens. Not only does the shape expand in that area, sure it also grows in height. I've seen loads of people confused about this behavior. I decided to make a video about it. This happens because Adobe decided to maintain the aspect ratio by default. This means that if you make the width bigger from the options bar, for example, the height will grow proportionally. This means if you make a wider shape, Photoshop will try to maintain that aspect ratio and grow the height as well. This is fantastic for the photos, for example. You never want to distort an image, right. You want to resize it correctly. The chain icon being pressed makes total sense. Sure. But for the shapes, this will probably annoy you. We already talked about this potential issue, but let me show you the solution. Just to be clear, if you want complete freedom with your sizing, hold the shift key. Now if you drag towards the right, the shape will expand as expected. If you're curious why that happens, look at the options bar. By default, this chain icon should be pressed. This is what I actually recommend as well. That means the width and the height of locked in together. But if you grab a handle, hold, shift, and drag, notice the chain isn't pressed anymore, that means you have complete freedom when the chain is not selected, it's not pressed. Now overall, to sum it up, if you don't like Photoshop behavior, simply hold shift and it's going to work just fine. Now please be aware that this change applies to absolutely every single shape layer to smart objects, text layers, whatever, rasterized layers and so on. That's what you have to remember. Use Shift. Here's another twist selection. Let me switch to a photo and I'm going to show you. It's the exact same thing. Here is a very common situation. I'm going to grab the marque tool to roughly select this object, right? Trouble is, I'm a bit sloppy with it and this part is far too big. Now of course I could de select and try again, but if you've been following along, you know that we can modify the selection quite easily with the Marque tool selected. I'm going to write click and I'm going to see a few options from here. I'm going to choose transform selection. Not free transform by the way. No, it's transform selection. I don't want to modify the photo in any way. No, I actually want to adjust the selection. Please be aware of that. Okay, now we get the same handles as before. It's pretty obvious what's going to happen as I'm dragging. The height also changes. Even though I'm very happy with the height, the solution will shift, of course now with words as expected. Overall, I know that this may be a bit confusing, but as I said, the solution is quite simple. Keep the chain icon pressed and when you want complete freedom like the shape layers selections shift. And you're going to be good to go. Thank you. 143. Design Web Buttons: Welcome back. Let's talk about call to action buttons and see how you can create fantastic looking ones by following six rules. First of all, what's a call to action a CTA? Well, websites are full of buttons, but call to action buttons are the most important ones. These ask the user to perform a certain action, hence the name CTA. Every website should have a particular goal in mind, whether it's to sell a product, to download the file, to start the membership, and so on. To make that happen, we rely on CTA's calls to action. Let's see what makes a great CTA. Now the first thing is use striking colors. The user is bombarded every second with flashing colors, animation movies larger than live photos, and so on. And with so much competition, an effective button must stand out. Now, we can't really rely on its size alone, since there's only so much wiggle room, we got to focus on choosing a great color. To that end, you should use this area of the color picker, vibrant and very saturated colors. Let's create a first one. I'm going to use the rectangle tool and I'm going to draw one out corner radius of five pixels. And regarding the size, let's say 200 by 60 pixels. Okay? Something like this. You can always use control or the properties panel to adjust it. Now for the color double click it thumbnail and let's go for the powerful red. I'm not going to give you exact color codes, Instead we're going to play around in this area of the color picker. Now for the text, let's go with check out in the following typeface, Proxima Nova, Semibold. Okay, Now for the size, let's go with 15 pixels. Select both of them and center. This is a modern call to action button. You might say it's a bit too simple, but this is the current state of web design, modern and simple. Now, by using these powerful colors, we can integrate this button in all areas and still get attention from our users, from the visitives. It's all about setting yourself apart from all the elements. Now the second thing, rounded corners are, let's duplicate this button. And let's change the corner radius. Let's bump it up to 25 pexels. Let's also resize it, make it a bit smaller, 180 by 60 for the text. Let's go with guest started. Now for the phone family, I'm going to choose railway semi bold. You don't really have to change it, but I like showing you various options now for the color. I'm going to use a nice shade of green. Again, this is a popular style that doesn't rely on gradients, drop shadows, patterns, or any additional decorations. You're going to find this style all across the web. I recommend you stick with rounded corners and there's two main directions. Either use something 4-10 pixels for the order radius, just a bit rounded. Or you go with something significant like 25, 30 pixels, something extremely rounded. This is also called a Pill button. Now the third thing, use gorgeous fonts. The best choice for that is Google Fonts. Browse around and see what catches your eye. This time with a few layer styles, even though I haven't officially presented them. Let's start with a round rectangle. Let's say a ten pixel order radius. Take your time with it. Make sure you work along on your second viewing. By the way, let's add the text. Let's go with something like start your trial. Now for the look, let's go with Monserrat. For the size, let's go with 15 pixels, Monserrat regular. By the way, even though semi bold or bold may work just as well. Now pure white, it goes without saying, because you always need maximum contrast. Right. Now, let's open up the layer styles window from this place here. And let's add the gradient. We're going to set it to 90 degrees. Click on this area here and let's customize it. Please make sure that you use my settings. You can always start with a basic gradient from one color to another one. If you click on any of these pre installed ones, you're going to get some funky ones. I don't really recommend them. Again, what you have to do is the following. You choose one side. The left side is for the bottom of the button. By the way here, let's go with a darker shade of blue, something like this. Okay, now you can always change of mind. That's the beauty of this section. But yeah, now for the right part, which controls the top of the button. Now here we want a color that's slightly different. And the key here is slightly, we don't want to use red or green or whatever. No, we want something that's just a bit different. This is called a semi flat gradient and this is considered a modern approach. Okay, now let's say that I'm happy with this gradient overall. Pretty good. Let's add the drop shadow. Now this is not actually going to be a shadow. What I'm going to do is I'm going to change the blending mode to normal sedopacity at 100% For the color, I'm going to sample this bottom region. Now I'm going to go a bit darker. You're going to see white. That's the case in a second. For the settings, let's keep the angle at 90 degrees. We're going to use a distance of four pexels and the size zero pexels. This is going to make all shadows solid. Now you can see it's looking like this button is three D. To change it up, you can use the distance slider, and now you can obviously play around with it. Now one final thing. Let's add an inner shadow, which again, is not going to be standard. I'm going to use pure white with the opacity set at 100% normal. Okay, now I'm going to go with one pixel for the size, and basically that's about it. The rest is going to be set to zero. Notice how we have a highlight of sorts at the bottom. This is lovely. And that's basically our button, though it's a bit more work and you may appreciate it. I still like the first two a bit more overall. It's a question of personal taste, but yeah, I think the first two may be a bit better. Now, let's continue with Rule number four. Now this is quite simple, don't clash with anything else, especially other buttons. Now, you may need several buttons in your design. What's the approach there? Should you use the same design, the same button multiple times? No. Instead, we're going to do the following. Let's start with a rectangle with a coordinate radius of five pixels for the size. Let's go with 275 by 60, Again, five pixel radius for the color. I'm going to go with something fairly desaturated but still striking thing like this, for example. Okay, now inside I'm going to say, take this course. Okay, font wise, let's choose open sands, light 15 pixels for the size, center it inside the button. This goes without saying, you should always center things. Now overall, let's move forward and let's say that this is 100% Then what should we do with the second one? Well, we're going to make a copy and then we're going to take down the fill next. Let's add the stroke on the inside. Now for the settings, quite simple. Two pixels for the size. For the color, I'm going to use the exact same color. Okay? Beautiful stuff. Obviously you should play around with the text as well, the same colors. By the way, there you go. This is a simple solution for the fairly common problem between these two actions. Take this course is obviously more important. I suggest you think about the priority of each button of each action. Because obviously you have to think about what's the best case scenario here. It would be for the user to buy the course. If he's not convinced, he can obviously watch a preview and then come back to purchase it. In short, always consider the importance of every action, the hierarchy, and based on that, you decide your styling rule number five, add more context when needed. Let's start with a round erect angle, but the usual 275 by say, 70 pixels, and then ten pixels for the corner radius. Now for the color, let's choose a deep purple, something that's quite striking for the text. Let's use get started and then no credit card required. I'm going to speed things up, but again, work along on your second viewing. The top line is going to be shown in Proxima Nova bold 23 pixels. Then please enable the all caps transformation and increase the little spacing the tracking. Maybe ten, maybe 15, something along those lines. Now of course center it horizontally. Now for the second row, let's go with Proxima Nova regular, and this time a bit smaller, 14 pixels. No tracking, no all caps just change the color to a nice yellow. Again, nothing all that special. Just make sure you can easily read it and then obviously center it as well. Now the goal here is to make them the same width, which is the ideal situation. But if you can't do that, if that's not possible, make sure that the second line is a lot wider. You don't want it just a little bit outside of these two imaginary vertical lines. You want it significantly wider. It just looks better that way. Now besides that, 0.1 piece of advice is this. Adjust the vertical space between these two lines until you're happy. Then to center them inside the button. Make a group first. Now select the group, and then the button, you have two elements, selected the group and the button. And then you can use the alignment tools from up top. Then when you're done, right click and ungroup. That's how you make sure that these two lines are perfectly centered. Now it's also a great idea to mix and match fonts, not only weights. Here we use Proxima Nova in both cases. Whether you could go with a handwritten font or a Sera font, play around with it and explore. The idea is to give the user some help regarding what's about to happen. Okay, I'm going to get started, but what's going to happen after that, I press the button, well, that's where the second line comes into play. No credit card required, no payment is needed. And this can dramatically increase convergence. Otherwise said, a lot more people are going to push this button. The final piece of advice, six add icons in the mix whenever they add value. First the button, 200 by 60, super rounded, let's say 28 pexels. I'm going to use the same shade of green as in my second button to save a bit of time, the text download file. Now for the styling, let's go with Oswald bold 16 pixels. Please make it all caps. Download. Now here's the thing. I already have an icon prepared. This is downloaded from flat icon.com Now let me drag it in. I usually like to leave ten pixels between my icons and my text, something like this. Awesome. Now here I'm going to repeat the process from the previous button. We're going to group the icon and the text, and then we'll select them and the button and of course, align them. Finally, ungroup. And that's how you make sure the content isn't offset. What's the idea here? We want to help the user with a visual cue. The downward arrow tells you that you're about to download something. This is where icons really come in handy, but don't use them for decorative purposes. Instead, use them when they add meaning when they tell the user something. One final piece of advice is to never make your text too big for your button. For example, in the first couple of options, I could have easily made the font size a lot bigger, but it wouldn't look as elegant. Smaller is always better. Remember, your users aren't half blind. Again, for the beautiful buttons, smaller text works better. With that, we're done. Try it out, and see how you do. 144. Use Custom Shapes: Welcome back. Let's talk about custom shapes, which are probably going to be your favorite shape layers in Photoshop. And that's because they're so easy to use. Here's how you work with them. Click and hold right here to enable this tool. If you can find it, hit U and then you can cycle through all of these tools with shift U. This applies to any hot key, by the way. Now as you can see, while I'm using Shift U, this tool changes constantly. Okay, nice. Now, here's the custom shape tool. When you want to add a new layer, you don't just click and drag, and that's it. No. Instead you've got to focus on the options bar. This is an essential step because you got to use this drop down to choose which you're about to create. By default, this list isn't going to be that big. You can obviously use this arrow and expand it just a bit. Once you have something selected, you go to the canvas, you click, and you drag. But you always hold Shift. That's because you never know the original aspect ratio. Instead of guessing, your best bet is to use shift. That's to maintain the proportions. If that doesn't work, let's go of shift. But in 99% of cases you are going to need that. This is why I advise you to avoid clicking and putting in some values here manually. Sure it could work, but most of the time you're going to end up with shapes that look like this. We have an arrow on the screen, but that's not all that exciting, plus it's also distorted again. You click, you drag, and you hold shift. Now let's explore this gallery and see what's what. Now this panel, as with everything else, can be expanded. Look for this symbol and drag. Okay, we're going to need that extra space in a second. Okay, Go to the top right and click on this tiny gear icon. This is going to show you a list of options similar to the layout panel. You can customize the thumbnail size. If you are brave, you could use text only. But if you do that, you're going to have to rely on the description, which usually doesn't tell you the whole story. Now my advice is you stick to small or large thumbnails. The big ones are quite useful because you can see all details. This particular set doesn't feature any complicated shapes as you're about to see. That doesn't mean that all going to look this way. You may find some intricate ones on the web. Now, one thing in case you want to remove some of these shapes, you might write. But a surprise surprise, The command is grayed out. And that's because Adobe made the special panel for these shapes. Go to the top menu to Window here, scroll down to Shapes. Now in this panel, you have everything that's available in the Options bar. But if you write, click the Delete option is actually available. Now I know that this is a bit confusing, but hey, that's what Adobe decided. Again, if you want to remove some of these shapes, either the individual ones or the complete folders, you're going to have to use the Shapes panel. Okay, back to work. Underneath is where you can load up additional packs. I'm going to click on Adds. This pop up is going to ask me if I want to replace or a pen. Now what does a pen mean? All that means is that you're going to add those shapes to the existing library, you're going to add more to it. So you're going to keep the existing ones and add a few more. In most cases, that's what we'll want. Now you have loads of custom shapes to choose from. The thing is, these aren't all that lovely. If you want to add them to the canvas, you're going to see these are quite basic. But here's the thing. We have the whole Internet at our fingertips. Let's find better ones now. My go to site is Shapes for free.com This has a large collection of custom shapes that are much more interesting to look at. You can use these ones without fearing that your design is going to look like. I don't know that you use clip art from Microsoft Word 1997. Here's one pack that I like. Let me download that. You're going to get an archive inside. You're going to find the file with a H extension, SH, custom shape. Now Photoshop should recognize it immediately. This means you can double click it and Photoshop is going to automatically come up from the background. Now for whatever reason, it won't tell you what just happened, you won't get any notice. But if you check the panel, you're going to see a new set added. Now of course, you can place them on the canvas and play around with them. And you're going to see that these ones are much better than the pre installed ones in Photoshop. Now, shapes for free hasn't been updated in quite a while, but it still has a lot of custom shapes. Remember, the great thing about it is that these are vectors. You can scale them as much as you want, in case you can't double click the CSH file. Go to the gear icon from this list, choose low shapes, and you're going to have to look for that CSH file. Finally, I want to remind you that all custom shapes can be adjusted to the direct selection tool. The direct selection tool is the white allow. That means I can zoom in. I can get that tool, the direct selection tool, select a part of it, and now I can do my thing, I can reposition it, I can do whatever I want. I can actually select a part of it and then use control J to make a smaller new shape. I'm free to select any individual anchor point and create whatever I want with it. With that, we've completed this lecture. Stay tuned because in the next video we're going to create our own custom shapes. Stay tuned. 145. Design Shapes with the Pen Tool: Welcome back. Let's learn how to create custom shapes that we can use in all of projects. Now I'm going to recap some general techniques about shape layers and the direct selection tool, the white arrow, and then we'll switch to the main activity. Okay, now let's add the square to the canvas. Grab the rectangle tool, hold shift, and drag one out. The size really doesn't matter. Okay, now let's duplicate it with control J. And then I want to rotated 45 degrees. We'll end up with a new shape, Use control Tpa, that then as you rotate, use shift to constrain this movement. You're going to see Photoshop is going to help you out. This is going to move in 15 degree increments. Okay, now we have the first shape, but it's on two separate layers. Let's merge them together with control. That's how you make two layers into one control. Now if you have a look here at the paths, you're going to see two separate ones. Use the white to the direct selection tool to select the original shapes anchor points. Now click and drag. That's my go to option because it's easier than clicking precisely on the anchor point. An alternative is to use the path selection tool, which also gets the job done just like that. Now in the properties panel, you should see this section. Now let's increase the coordinate radius to something quite rounded, something like this. Now let's say we're done with it and we want to save that. You can do that from the top menu from Edit. Now you have to scroll somewhere around the middle here, you can find define custom shape. And that's how we can say that. Give it a name and that's it. Make sure you've done a good job. Take a look at the preview it. Okay, let's work on this shape just a bit more and then we can switch projects. Here's what I want to do. Create a duplicate. We can have a before and after shot, move it to the side, and we'll use Photoshop guides to help us find its horizontal and vertical centers. The hot keys control R, and this will bring up the oolers, the left to the top of Photoshop, these upset in pixels because that's what I chose in my preferences panel. You can right click them and change them on the spot. That's just a side node. Let's focus here, let's drag out a guide. This is what we're looking for. As long as you have this shape layer selected, as you approach the middle point, you're going to start to feel that this guide wants to snap into position. That's a useful feature because we can immediately find its middle point without anything else. This should only take you a few seconds. Just move it around until you start to feel something in your mouse, let go, and that's it. Now if you switch the move tool, you might see this cursor. This means we can move at guides around, which in some cases may be fantastic. Here though, I want them fixed to this position. Now to do that, use Alt control semicolon, and that's going to lock them into place as you can see. Now nothing happens as I hover it over them with the move tool. If you repeat the same hot key, Alt control semiclumn, that's going to unlock them. That's not what we want. Let me glue them back into place. I'm going to use the same command. You could potentially go to the top menu to view and then lock guides in case you forget your hot key. You can always find that there. Okay, let's switch back to the direct selection tool and select all the anchor points. Next we're going to add a few more with the pen tool. These blue guides are going to tell us where to place of Maus cars. Please make sure that you see this symbol. If you see an asterisk that means you didn't select the path, make sure you do have the path selected. Then you see a plus. Okay. Now add one point for each intersection. Take your time with it. It would be ideal if you would be pixel perfect. Super accurate. Okay, great stuff. Now we have this new shape with four new anchor points. Then create two other duplicates and place them anywhere on the canvas. Now here's what we're going to do. For the first shape, we're going to select those four anchor points that we just created. And then we're going to delete them. We're going to remove them. I know it doesn't make sense, right? Why would we delete them if we just added them in? Worries, here's how the shape is going to change. Just to make sure there's nothing else going on. I'm going to switch to the background layer and activate the moved well. Now I'm going to control click on this shape to select that. Then I'll switch to the white arrow. I'll click and drag to select this left anchor point. And then I'm going to delete it with a delete key. Nothing to spectacular, right? But let me do that for the remaining three. This is going to take me a second or two, okay? Now zoom out if needed and take a look at our new shape. Pretty cool, right? Let me speed this up. Now for this other shape, I'm going to select all the anchor points, so you can see it's a perfect replica. No funny business here. No editing. Okay. Next I'm going to click on this drop down and I'm going to choose exclude overlapping shapes. And here's another interesting custom shape. With the final copy, I'm going to use my convert point tool. First of all, I'm going to use the white arrow to grab all of these anchor points. Now I'm going to switch to the pen tool and I'm going to hold all this is what I'm looking for. I'll do the top one first. But remember to hold shift as well, to constrain this movement to a straight line. Okay, now I'll do the bottom one and both remaining sides. But I'm going to speed up the process because I think you get the idea. Once you're done, use the same command, exclude overlapping shapes, and this is what you're going to get. All of these shapes aren't super complicated, but it's a great starting point for any Photoshop user who wants to create his own set of custom shapes. With that we're done, please take the time to recreate everything that you've seen so far. Please don't move on to the next video. Tell you do it okay. Have fun with. 146. Generate Guides from Shapes: Welcome back. In this lecture, I'm going to teach you how to create guides based on various shapes from the canvas. This is going to be quick yet effective. We already discussed guides in the previous lecture. But here's the rundown yet again to create a guide that's two main ways. Number one, what I recommend, use control R to enable rulers control. R. R, Four rulers. Next, click and drag from this area. And you're going to get a guide. You can recognize it by this teal color, light blue teal, whatever. The second method, go to the top menu to view here. You can go to Guide from this window. You can choose the orientation as well as the position I'm going to go with, say, vertical, 100 pixels. Remember, Photoshop considers the point of origin in the top left side. This means I'm going to get a new guide right here. If you're on the moved well, you can hover it over it and reposition it as you want. If you want to hide it, use control semicolon. This doesn't delete it, it just lets you focus on whatever you're doing on the canvas when you want to see your guides use control semicolon yet again, if you plan on using your guide as a reference point, then it's best to lock it into place with Alt control Sem column. You won't be able to move it unless you use the same hot key yet Again, the thing is, even if it's locked, you can still hide it. Now, in essence, guides help you position layers precisely on the canvas. A fairly recent upgrade is the ability to create guides from a shape layer. Let me clear my canvas by going to the top menu to view from here. Scroll down and choose Clear Guides. Now I'm going to add a rectangle to my canvas. Say I'm going to use it to create a grid system that will define, I don't know, maybe a website design to create guides from its current position. Go to the top menu to view here. Choose new guides from Shape. As you can see, they immediately show up. I'll duplicate this two more times and I'm going to distribute them evenly. Okay, I'll select all three shapes in my layers panel. And now I'm going to repeat that command view and then new guides from Shape. As you can see, this is a fast way of creating a grid based on your shapes. Before you go, I also want to show you something we haven't covered yet. Text layers. Let me write something on the canvas. Nothing all that special. Let's say this is great. Next I'm going to repeat that command from the view menu, and we're going to get new guides as you would expect. But say I'm really into typography and I want guides for every single letter. Let's just imagine that's the case. How can we do that? Well, the great thing about text layers is that they can be transformed into shapes. You heard that, right? Just right click the text layer in the Layouts panel and choose convert to Shape. Now I can no longer edit the characters. I can't change this message. But obviously I can repeat that command and get lots of guides for every single letter. Now sometimes this may be a bit of a trade off that you're going to be willing to make. On one hand you can't edit it anymore. On the other hand, you do get loads of guides that can be very useful. And that's how you can generate guides from your shape layers in Photoshop. 147. Place Images in Shapes: Clipping Mask vs Layer Mask vs Vector Mask: Welcome back. In this lecture, I'm going to show you three ways to place an image inside the shape, and it can be any shape whatsoever. Now, if you're interested in the technical terms, this is going to be a comparison between clipping masks, layer masks, and then finally effected masks. Okay, let's get to it. We have this lovely flag here and I want to place it inside the shape layer. I'm going to use a custom shape layer, but you can use a rectangle ellipse yet the shape that you want. Okay, I'm going to draw it on the canvas, but note my settings in the top left. This is set to shape, that's going to be quite relevant in a few minutes. Reposition this layer underneath the image. This is super important. Okay, now select the photo and use Alt control. You've just created the clipping mask Alt control. Notice the flag is now put inside this shape and this layer and the layer spandel is slightly indented. Otherwise said, it's moved towards the right and it has this little arrow. That's how you can identify a clipping mask. The great thing about it is that you can adjust it as you wish. For example, I'd like to get more of this pole. I'm going to select the image layer and just move it about. There's nothing else going on here. I just, using the move tool, I can also reposition the heart layer and resize it with control. As you can see, this provides excellent flexibility and it's one of my go to choices in all of my projects. It's non destructive, it's fast, it's flexible. And all of this through a simple hot key, old control G. Again, remember you have to place the image above your shape. But here's the thing. You can clip any layer to any other layer. I'm going to get the type tool and I'm going to write USA on my Canvas. Give me a second for that. Any settings will do, doesn't really matter. Okay, now I can clip this layer above this photo. Now both of them are inside this shape. You can see that if I move the text around to get rid of that effect, I'm going to use the same hot key. Okay, now I'm going to move USA underneath my photo and I'll create yet another clipping mask. Now this photo will clip to this text layer shape. It's incredibly versatile. This is how I suggest you put anything inside one shape or the text layer, whatever else. Now let me put this to the side and I'm going to show you what we've been using so far. And that's layer masks. Now the order of these two layers doesn't really matter. In this case, hold control and click on the heart thumbnail. This makes a selection. Now switch to the photos layer and click on the mask icon. You may want to hide your layer if it's on top. By the way here, layer mask. This is useful in many cases where you want targeted adjustments here. In this case it's not great because if you try to reposition it, it's going to move as a whole. If you want to resize or move any of these two layers, you'll have to delete the layer mask and repeat the entire process. That would be the easiest way of going about it. Now a better way of doing it is to click on this small icon in the layout spanel. This disables the link between the mask and the layer, and you can move it about, thus saving you all of that trouble of redoing it again. Now let me link it once again. You can of course, get a brush tool and start painting with black or white to refine it. In these scenarios, brushes aren't all that accurate. Now overall, these are layer masks. Finally, let me show you how you can create a vector mask. We won't really use this all that often, but you should know about it. I'm going to put this to the side and I'll create a copy of this photo. Now I'm going to get a custom shape tool, but I'm going to change the mode to path instead of shape. This is essential and if you're using a rectangle or any other shape layer, you'll see you have the same dropdown available there as well. Okay, now I'm going to draw my heart above, you can see it's a path exactly what I wanted. Now rechlekt and choose Create Vector Mask Layers panel. And you're going to see a completely different look versus a layer mask that we just created. Now vector masks have one main advantage because they're made from paths. You can grab the direct selection tool, the white one, and fine tune every anchor point. As you can see, this allows a father amount of flexibility. You can also switch to the pen tool to add remove anchor points. This means you can go to town and change this heart to anything that you'd like. You can also unlink your vector mask by clicking on this chain icon here. This will allow you to reposition the image with ease similar to what we did before with the layer mask. Once again, when you're happy, click it again to link them back. Now in some cases, vectored masks may be perfect, while other times they may require a bit too much attention. It all depends on your image and what you try to achieve. Now all in all, these are three ways to which you can place a photo inside the layer. Clipping masks with all contrology, what I recommend strongly recommend. Then layer masks by control clicking the shaped thumbnail. And then finally vectored masks. Not really all that recommended. And make sure you choose path from the options bar open Photoshop and try these out. Use any image and any shape and have fun with it. 148. Create a Website Layout with shapes: Welcome back. In this lecture, we're going to create a quick website layout. Well, the top part. Anyway, we're not going to create a full website design, but I'm going to use this opportunity to show you how you can use shapes to create a website layout. In just a few minutes, open up this PSD that's attached and work with me on your second viewing. Lock your guides with Alt control, Sem column. Now we're going to start adding in some shapes for the website. Now we're going to have a few components. The header where we're going to have the logo in the main menu. Then the Do area, where we're going to have a big image, some text and the button. And finally, grid of photos that can act like a portfolio. What may be a series of products. Okay, grab the rectangle tool, go to the top left. Click and drag all the way across the canvas. Watch the height as you drag. You want something, 70-80 pexels? If that's tricky. No worries. You can use the property spanel. If you went outside the canvas, that's totally normal. Just use control or yet again, the properties panel. I want this rectangle to be precisely as wide as my canvas and I want it stop edge to be aligned with the top of the work area. Here's how you should approach it. First of all, select the entire canvas with control A. Now use the alignment tools from up top and align it with the left edge and then with the top one as well. This means we only have to take care of the right side. Move over, Use control yet again and then bring this in. Good stuff. Now check the height from the properties panel and make sure you have about 80 Pex cells, more or less. Okay, next. Duplicate this layer, make a copy so we can have a placeholder for that logo use control. And as you're dragging, you may want to hold shift, maybe Alt, so you can hurry up the process. Once you have the width around 200 pixels, you can position it to the left side of the screen. The guides are really helpful because they limit the active area on my canvas. Now when you open up a website, you're going to see the essential part is within these bounds, within these guides. So this is why we're having them right here. You may see something outside of these guides, but that's going to be for decoration purposes. Just so the website looks a bit nicer like illustrations of photos. But again, the most important content is within these guides, within this area. Okay, let's move down to the hero region. Select the first rectangle, hold all, and move it down. This is going to create a copy, but if you want to see it better, double click it thumbnail and change the color. Okay? This is much more like it now in terms of the size. Let's do something like 600 pixels, so that 600. Use the properties panel if you want to work faster and with precision. Okay, now let's move over to the product section where we're going to create a grid of four entries. In this case, I'm going to use a rectangle with a coordinar radius set at ten pex cells. Click once and put in the following values, 285 by 285. I know these values because I've already done the math. And this is going to give us four rectangles with a distance of 20 pexels between them. Now I'm going to duplicate a few times with the Alt drag technique. Once I position the last one according to the right guide, I'm going to select all four of them. And I'm going to use this command from the options bar distribute. Okay, remember you have to be on the move 12 by the way, to get to this panel. Okay, Hold control. And this is going to show you your gaps, your distances. We're looking for 20 pixels on all sides, including this gap between the hero area and this section that we're working on. If it's not right, use the adult keys with shift to move them into place. Symmetry is extremely important. Okay, so far we're looking good and this is a good on top of which we can create a design. I'm going to take a moment and populate this layout with a few images and text layers. For the photos, I'm going to use the clipping mask technique and for the logo and text layers, I already have them prepared now as I work in the background. Let me tell you a few things, if you're interested in web design, I strongly recommend Figma. Adobe XD is also decent, but Adobe is going to retire Adobe XD because it just bought Figma. It's just a matter of time. Now, can you use Photoshop for web design purposes? For small projects, yes, but most professionals use Figma, and Figma is totally free. If you want to learn more about that, please make sure you check out that course. Okay, back to this project. This is just a glimpse into what you can achieve which shape layers in Photoshop. Now, a complete website design takes at least 90 minutes, but I hope I showed you how these shapes, just pure rectangles can help you create something that's quite interesting. Rectangles and text layers, that's all that is. Obviously, there's a lot of rules and principles. But yeah, once you put those to good use, you're going to see something fantastic. Now try out for yourself and have fun with it. 149. ACTIVITY: Design a Flat Illustration - Part 1: Welcome back. Let's see how we can design a lovely flat illustration by relying on shape layers and a few layer styles. Everything is going to be based on what we've learned so far in this entire course. Let's start with a new canvas that's 1024 by 800. Next, get the Rectangle tool and click to put in these values. Now we want it as wide as the work area 1024 and in terms of height, 150. Okay, Select the entire canvas with control and then use the alignment tools to center it on the canvas and then bottom align it. Good. Now double click it thumbnail, and let's change its color. There's going to be a lot of color codes, but you're going to see them on the screen. So this one is eight F Z though. D two, okay. If you don't like my colors, you can always play around with them at a later point. For now, I recommend you follow my instructions, make a perfect replica and then you can play around and make your own design. Now switch to the path selection to well, so we can see the Shapes path. We want to add a new anchor point somewhere in the first third switch to the pen tool, hot key P, and look for the plus symbol on your cuts. Once you've clicked, please hold shift and tap your up arrow key three times. This is going to be transformed into a hill of swords. Obviously we don't want it completely flat. Now, still on the pen tool, move to the last third and add another anchor point there as well. Move this down 40 pixels also. Now obviously you can play around with it a bit more, a bit less. But yeah, in short, we want a hill of swords. Now this sets the scenery, but I want to use a style that relies on thick strokes. Go to the bottom of the layer spandlen. Click on this FX button from this list, choose Stroke for the color. I'm going to go with 42394. This is a dark purple. That's going to contrast my faded L quite nicely. This is going to be used throughout the project. By the way, set it to the outside and increase the size to eight pixels. So now we could stop here, but I want to add an extra detail. Let's duplicate it with control J. Move it down maybe 2030 Pex Ls. And then clear the stroke. You can disable it from the layers panel or right click and choose clear layout styles. Okay, Now double click it, stub, nail, and change it to another shade of L. This time it's two D Z though. Of course, we're going to need to adjust its path switch to the direct selection tool. This is the white arrow at the start. We use the black one to select the entire path, but this time we want to use the white one here. Focus on this left side and bring it slightly up just enough so we get a bit of variation in our design. We want to make it look nice. Now, of course, take a moment and rename all of these layers and group them because we want to keep things clean. You can call that land or something like that. Now we're going to add a bunch of trees and mountains and this process is super interesting. Let's use the polygon tool, check the options bar, and make sure you have it set to three sides. Now click and drag to create a triangle, but I suggest you hold shift. Now my advice is you don't let go until you have it pointing up or down. If you can't manage, use control. Now for the size, I'm looking for something 40-45 pixels in width. Now for the color, we're going to use 3846. Again, all the color codes are written on the screen. Now we're going somewhere. Okay, now it's time to duplicate it and enlarge it to about 70 pixels or so. And width, you don't have to be precise, by the way, use any values that you'd like, but keep it somewhere around this region. Okay, one more. This should be slightly bigger, Something like 80 pexels. Now here's the thing. These three shapes brought together, they make a lovely tree. It's really that easy. Of course, you have to move them around a bit. But yeah, I hope you can see how easy it is once you break it down into simple elements. Finally, get the rectangle tool and add the stump at the bottom. Obviously, all trees need a stump. Now, you could make it a darker color, but I'm going to keep going fairly fast. But when you work along on your second viewing, you could choose a dark shade. Okay? Make sure you center it with all three triangles. And this is good to go. This is a felt tree. But of course, we need a few more trees. Let's duplicate them and scale them. It's one of the main reasons why I love shapes. You can resize them without any trouble whatsoever. I also like to use control, right click, and then choose flip horizontal. The design won't feel too repetitive. It's these small things that really add up. I would say about six trees should be enough of this. Canvas 678 is really up to you, but some should be smaller, while other ones can be a bit bigger. It's a method of perspective here, but you can always fine tune the position afterwards. Same thing for the size. Now one thing that's fairly important is that you group them and that you place them underneath the land folder. Otherwise you're going to have a hard time placing them correctly because of that stump. Now for the background, let's grab the rectangle 12 and click anywhere the size 1024 by 800. As for the color, let's go with eight CD EZ though this is a pale shade of blue and it really creates a particular mood. I really like it here. Now, what's a hill without the windmill, right? This is actually going to be the star of the show in my design. I'm going to place it here at the top of this hill. Start with the rectangle tool and put in a value of 100 by 150 for the corner radius. Four pixels. Should be fine for the top. For the bottom, that's not going to be seen. You can set it to z though it's not going to be seen because of the hill layer the hill should cover the bottom part. Always take a look at the layers panel and adjust this order if needed. Okay, for the color code, let's use D, D, D. Okay. Right. Position it accordingly and we're going to maintain the stroke from the hells my advice. Copy pasted. Or you could potentially put in those values manually. But I love copy pasting. Now here's the thing, we don't want to standard rectangle. Let's get the white arrow, hot key, a the direct selection tool. Then select the two anchor points on the left side and then move them towards the right by using shift and the right Tho key. Tap it two times and repeat on the other side again. Drag with the white arrow key to select these two anchor points. Now use the left tho key twice plus shift of course to move them towards the other side. Now why do we use the arrow keys? Because it's much faster. Again, that's two taps, 20 pixels. Next, let's duplicate it with control J. I think I'm going to clear the layout styles the easiest way of going about it, right click, and choose clear layout styles. This works best, especially if you have a lot of them. You may want to take a second and rename your layouts. This is going to help out quite a lot. Okay, now I'm going to change the color code. This should be B, E, move it five pixels towards the right side. And then when that's done, five pixels down. Okay, now I'm using this trick to create a highlight of swords. You're going to see in a moment what I mean. Now make a clipping mask by using Alt control G. Pay attention to the layouts panel, by the way, this creates a highlight effect. Let's rename it exactly that. Now to get some extra bit of detail, we can do the following. Let's create another rectangle with a size of 30 by 175. That's 30 by 175. This should be a lk gray because it's going to act like a shadow. The colored code is 999d. Once you have it again, please take your time with that pause as often as you need to. Once you have it, please use Alt control as well, and you're going to need to rotate it just a bit. That's done with control. Now the good news is the fact that we have this stroke and this acts like a guide. We want them side by side. Okay, here we want to see roughly five to seven Pexls. The next part is optional, but it's a nice touch hold control and click on this layer thumbnail to create a selection. Okay, now we have that selection. Now grab the most recent rectangle, the gray one, and hit the mask icon. This is going to hide the top part, and it just adds something to it. Like I said, it's optional, but I think it's a nice touch. Okay, let's create the windmills door with almost done for the moment. We're going to use a rectangle that 17 by 26, this should be fairly dark, something maybe like 848484, something like that. Again, you can play around with these colored codes. It with the base layer and of course bottom align it. Now here's the thing. We want to keep that stroke all across the board. Make sure you right click and paste it. This is going to beef it up dramatically. And the stroke, it's going to automatically curve the top edges, which is fantastic. This is what happens when you have a fairly thick stroke. It automatically curves. Now I'm going to move up to the dome because this is quite easy to create. Get the rectangle tool and click anywhere to put in these values. 58 for the width, 30 for the height, that's 30. As for the corner radius, we want 29 for the top ones and for the bottom zoo. Take your time with it. Again, you don't have to rush, Center it with everything for the colored code. Let's change it. We're looking for Ec8b5. Like I said, this is one of the stars of old design. The windmill, it has to stand out. Go to the layers panel, right click and paste that stroke. Now you're going to notice you have to place it underneath the rest of your rectangles to make it look right. You could potentially leave it at the top of the layers panel, but that's going to take away the highlight and the shadow layers. Something like this. Will do just fine duplicate with control J. Now please right click to remove the stroke. Clear that away. Okay, we want another highlight that should match the one from the base. Change the color to the following code, C622 A. Then when you're done, old control and clip it to the pink one. Okay, beautiful stuff. Now nudge it into place. Now here's the thing. I initially made the pink shade because this was one of the easiest ways to get this highlight effect without using any masks or layout styles. Basically, I wanted to showcase the power of shapes. But yeah, overall this is a good pace, will be done in no time at all. We have one major element left in the windmill, the propellers. Let's start with the central rotator. This can be made with the ellipse tool. Basically it's a circle. For the measurements, 22 pixels is just fine for the color code. Let's use the following. B928. This is a very nice shade of yellow. Place it in the middle of the gray rectangle. Now from the top, you should leave about 20 pexels more or less. Hold control and check out your distances. Okay, beautiful stuff. Now we could create some highlights and shadows through other circles and clipping masks. But let me show you how you can do that with layer styles, click on the Effect button and choose inner Shadow. Let's go through them step by step. Blend Mode, normal opacity, 65% angle, 130,100.30 degrees distance for pexels, everything else zero. And the color should be set to pure white. Of course, basically that's the highlight. Okay, now we have to do the shadow as well. Add another one. Go with the same blend mode, but now increase the opacity to 100% Now the fun stuff. Change the color code, C705, this is a darker orange. As for the angle, this is going to be -48 This is basically the complete opposite four for the distance for the rest. Now, there are many ways to achieve the same thing, but I wanted to show you how you can use layout styles. Okay, take a step back, use control one and check out the progress so far. I'm really happy with it, but we still have a long ways to go to more videos until we're done. Now, please take a moment, rename your layouts and make sure you have something that's quite similar to what you see here. Thank you. 150. ACTIVITY: Design a Flat Illustration - Part 2: Welcome back to our project. Here's where we left off, and the plan is to wrap up the windmill and move on to the rest of the design. Grab the rectangle tool and click on the canvas. The measurements 77 by 18 pixels for the color code. Let's use this, b928. Okay, now paste the same stroke effect if you still have it active. If not, just grab it from any other place. Copy paste layer style. Okay, good stuff. Now we're going to create a new rectangle for this blade. This should be the following size, seven by 22 pixels, and you're going to have to sample the strokes color. If not, you can put it in manually. The colored code is 42394 A. It's the same purple that we've used so far. We got to stay consistent with our colors and settings. This should be placed seven pixels from the left side. Now we're going to make several copies, and in between them we're going to leave the same amount of space, seven empty pixels. This is going to create a very lovely effect for the windmill blade. Now if you're having any issues, use the distribute horizontal sentence command from the options bar. After you've selected all of them, of course, basically we want the same distance between them. Okay, here, I'm good to go. One last thing before we finish up. We need something that connects the blade to the rotator. Grab the rectangle tool and let's add the new shape, the size 20 by five pixels. Okay? Now center it vertically with the yellow rectangle. In these cases, I like to control click the thumbnail so that I can get a selection, and then I can use the alignment tools. That way I won't move it by mistake. Only the small rectangle is going to get repositioned. Okay, This needs to be aligned with the rotator as well. Create a group as this will surely help out, everything should follow a nice fluid line. Once everything is set, we'll duplicate this entire folder and we're going to flip it horizontally. This will create a middle effect and we're going to finish faster. Grab them and create a duplicate. Use control and rotate them in such a way where they stand upright. Fantastic stuff. One last step for these propellers. Select all four groups and we're going to rotate them 45 degrees. This is going to make it seem a bit more natural. Now you're going to notice that the blades are a bit long, but once they're in position, that's not going to be a problem. Awesome stuff. Now the next step is going to be optional, but I think it really helps. Let's use a layer style for time considerations. Here's the process. Let's grab the ellipse tool and from the center of this rotator click and drag outwards while holding down alton shift, this is going to create a perfect circle that has its origin point right here. That's why we're using Al. I hope you remember this process from the elliptical marquee lesson. If not nowhere is when you click and hold alton shift, you're going to create a perfect circle that's going to expand from the point where you've clicked size wise, about 250 pixels or so. That should be just fine. Use the properties panel to adjust it if needed. Now for the fill, drop it to 0% Then we're going to add the stroke. We won't use the purple one. Instead I'm going to go with pure white. That's set to inside, same size as before though, eight pixels. The idea is to show some movement like the blades of spinning really fast. That have several ways to achieve this effect. But I'd like to show you lots of Photoshop techniques. Okay, this should be placed behind the windmill. Please change it up in the layers panel if needed. Now, this doesn't look all that great, but here's what's next. Right, click it in the layers panel and choose rasterized layer style. Now this is going to make the stroke part of the layer. Now I'm going to add a mask. And then I'm going to grab the brush to, well click and change the hardness to 100% if it's not already set. Okay, now with black as the fourth ground color, this is quite important. Black. I'm going to start to remove some of this stroke in these regions. Remember, when working on a mask, black hides white reveals. You can remember black as in darkness. Obviously, darkness hides things. If you ever mess up, you can hit X and then you can paint those details back in with white. Once this is done, duplicate with control J to make a copy. Awesome. Now use control to shrink it to about 210 pixels or so, That's 210, and rotated 45 degrees. Okay, awesome. Now drop the opacity to about 30% and basically we have done without lovely Windmill by the way, To change the opacity, use your keyboard. One is 10% three is 30% and so on. Just step three. I think all of these optional details really make it stand out. Having said that, if all of these instructions are complicated, don't worry, Just skip them and revisit this activity when you're a bit more comfortable with these notions. Okay, let's take a step back and see what's happening. Without project, I think the background needs a bit of adjusting. Let's use this color code. It's eight CD. Easy though. Just a small change but I think it's going to help. We have the sky region to take care of, but let's add some mountains to finish the landscape part. Grab the polygon tool and create a triangle that's about 01:50 for the width and about 01:30 for the height. For the color, let's use this colored code, 5609. Okay. Now duplicate it, control J or Alt drag. And then change the color to this 141 94c, which is just a bit darker. I don't think a choke is going to look all that great. That's why I'm playing with the colors. Okay. Change the size to about 175. That's 175. I recommend you hold down shift. This is pretty good, but let's drag it underneath the original mountain. Okay, this is quite nice. Finally, one more copy, and this time around we're going to make it about 240 pixels. 240 for the color code. Keep it somewhere in the same region. Here, I'm going to use 41b9 because we added these mountains. We may have to readjust the trees position to make them fit a bit better. Now, there's no clear guide here. Just go with your instinct. Find out what looks best in your view. We're just having fun here. We don't need to worry too much about proportions or anything else now. Right here, I'm good to go. I'm happy with it. Let's create the Sun with the lips tool. Basically, this is going to be a circle for the size 64. 64 is quite nice. As for the color, a bright yellow code is the following four, DC three. Now you could do a variation where the background is a bit more saturated, so the sun will stand out a bit more. You can play with that on your own time. We also want a bit of detail. Let's add some rays. Let's add a round the rectangle. Put in these measurements, 32 by eight, with a corner radius of about four pixels. This should be the same yellow as the sun, and you should place it on the left side of it. Try and use your smart guides to vertically align it. If you're having trouble, use the alignment tools from up top, take your time with it and make sure that you rename some of your layers from time to time. No need to rush. Now, we're going to repeat the windmill blade process. Duplicate it, and position it on the other side of the sun. For me, ten pixels is a good amount of space between them. Use your control key to check out the current value. Right now, I'll zoom through these next steps as they're nothing special. Select both shapes. Duplicate and then rotate. Now duplicate these two and rotate them so we get our first diagonal line if you want a nice angle. The trick is to hole shift, that's going to get you what you want as you're rotating hole shift. I'm trying to show you as many hot keys as possible on the screen without filling it nonstop. Okay, one more time and we're going to end up with eight perfect rays. Nice work. Now, by the way, feel free to merge them together with control E just so you have a cleaner layout. Spanelka, place the sun somewhere in the top left. And that's it with golden. Now for the clouds, we could use several tools. But I want to show you a technique that relies on shaped layouts alone. Start with a rectangle that's 80 by 26 for the corner radius. Let's go with 12 pexels, make it pure white. Now let's make a duplicate and change the size to 40 12 pixels. As for the corner radius, go at six bottom, align it with the initial shape and drag it towards the right side. Now give the ellipse tool and drag out a circle that's about 30 pixels. Now this should be placed above the existing shapes, somewhere in the top left. Now duplicate it and move it somewhere towards the right. In case you're not happy with anything, please feel free to make any adjustments. These clouds should be fun to make here. I'm going to increase the shapes width to 50 pixels. Also, the finishing touches are going to be two small ellipses, two small circles at the right side, the size six by six, I think that's small enough. Place them as you see fit. These should give the sensation that the cloud is moving. When you're done with it though, again please don't rush. Group everything together or merge them with control E. You can call this cloud and then please duplicate it several times. Make a few copies. I suggest you make some of them bigger, maybe turn down the opacity. Just make them fit in the entire project. You can also shrink one or two to create the illusion that some of them are far away. There's loads of things that you can play around with really. I invite you to take your time with it and create something awesome When it's your turn, remember initially you want to do a copy, just follow my steps, but then when you're done, you can mix it up, make your own version. Okay, here I'm done and I'm really happy with it. And then the next video, I'm going to teach you how to make a nice hot air balloon, and that's going to be a wrap. I'm going to see you in a second. 151. ACTIVITY: Design a Flat Illustration - Part 3: Welcome back. This is the state of the project and I think it looks great. I'm going to move around these trees and mountains just a bit, but there's nothing special that I have in mind. It's just small adjustments here and there. Still, I want to add something to the sky. Let's work on a hot air balloon. This is going to be really nice. Activate the Lip tool and click anywhere on the canvas For my values, I'm going to use 175 by 220. Double click the thumbnail. And for the color code, I'm going to use the following. It's going to be FC 622. Okay, great stuff. We're going to keep this orange line going. Get the direct selection tool and grab the top anchor point. Now with grabbing this anchor point because we don't want a perfect circle, so we're going to move it by ten pixels. Use shift in the down Nato key for that. Photoshop is going to tell you that you're going to convert this shape to a regular path, but that's totally fine. Hit yes. Next I'm going to add the same stroke from the hill layer. It's going to be eight pixels. Copy paste it or manually put it in. Either way, this is going to help us with our balloon. Now create another circle that's 100 by 210. This is going to be placed in the middle of the initial orange layer. Okay, Change the color code to the following. It's Fc463 and this is going to match the windmill. You're going to see what's what in just a second. This color is a bit desaturated, but I think it fits okay. Now, duplicate this layer and shrink. It's with 230 pexels, position it in the middle of these two other shapes and changes color to the original orange. Now as you can see, this was a piece of pie. Nothing fancy, nothing difficult. It's all about making our lives easier through smart choices. Now for the basket, we're going to get the rectangle tool and we're going to put in these values, 50 for the width and then 26 for the height, for the corner radius. The top ones should be squared off the bottom ones. Well, I think 12 will work quite well. Face the same stroke, but this time you're going to notice it's going to be way too thick for that tiny shape. Let's adjust that. We're going to bring it down to maybe five pixels or so. Yeah, I think this is going to work that much better. Now, regarding the color of the basket, it's essential that we maintain somewhat the same colors from the windmill. I'm going to go with the following B, E. Now this is a pretty good light gray. Regarding the position, I would say probably 40 pixels between these two should be enough. Use shift and the other keys for fine tuning purposes. Now it goes without saying that the basket should be placed smack in the middle of the balloon. Obviously, sent of them if needed. But of course, as a variation, you could rotate this entire element to show that the hot air balloon is moving. In that case, the basket could be offset. But yeah, going back to it, let's add the ropes through the rectangle to wall. This is going to be quite simple, 50 for the width, then for the height, eight pixels. As for the corner radius, go with four, even though it's not going to be noticeable, change the color to that purple from the stroke. And use control to rotate it. Now I'd say an angle of about 75 degrees should work well. But it's a matter of blending these two together without having any spots That overflow, don't get fixated on that number. Just fine tune it as you see fit. When you're happy with the first one, duplicate it. Control J of Alt, drag and then flip it horizontally. Remember control. And then right click to flip it. Great stuff. I hope you're seeing how easy it is to create a great looking flat illustration without too much work. The hardest part is getting inspired, but for that you can use Hansoldribble.com see what you like, and then save a few just so you have some inspiration. And then break them down to the basic shapes and you're going to see there's nothing all that difficult. Okay, I want to add sandbags to my balloon. So let's get the ellipse tool and create a new circle that's eight by eight pixels. Zoom in real close and select the top anchor point. Use the white arrow, hot key, the direct selection tool, move it about six pixels upwards. As you practice, I hope you're seeing the difference between the white arrow and the dark one. As I said before, the white one selects individual anchor points, while the dark one selects the entire path. Why would you select the entire path? Well, to add another anchor point with the pen tool for example. Exactly like we did with the hell at the beginning of this session. Okay, When you're done, change the color to the following F Z though. Eight D. Okay? Now, let's get the rectangle tool and create a new shape. Two by six pexels, quite small. Two by six, this should be orange, specifically C622. A try and place it above it, just so it covers the last pexel from the sandbag. Group these two together and enable the same stroke. The only change is going to be the size, Only three pexels this time around. Basically, that's our sand bag a moment and position it on the basket. Most likely you're going to connect it with the other stroke. It's all a method of find details and paying close attention. Zooming in also helps a lot. Please remember to pause as often as you need to. When you're happy duplicate it. Control J, Alt, drag and place the copy somewhere on the other side. Okay, while I sort everything out and I take another glance at the layers panel, I'd like to mention a few things you should experiment with. I think you can really play around with the color scheme. I think you can create better clouds, different shapes, you can add more trees, you can make the mountains look like they have snow on their tips. And a few other things, So there's a lot to play with. Do your best to find something on Behnds or dribble, but make sure you don't copy anyone's work. You could potentially make a perfect replica. Nobody's going to mind if it's just for the educational purposes. But you've got to make sure that you credit author in case you make a near perfect replica. Yeah, always pose the name of the original author. Let's wrap this up with the same effect that we use for the windmill. Something that's going to indicate motion. Get the rectangle tool and click to set these values. 60 for the width, eight for the height for the corner radius, four is going to be just fine, make it white, and place it to the right side of the hot air balloon. Regarding the position, that's really up to you. I personally love to use the marquee tool to center stuff. I think it's a great way to work at the end of this shape, create a small circle that's four by four pixels. I love these tiny details because they add character. Now, duplicate the rectangle but shrink it to 30 pexels. Place it about 15 pixels underneath this one, and repeat the process with those tiny circles. I'm going to speed this up while I handle the last finishing touches and I center everything. But overall, this is a project. I know it was quite a lot of instructions and hot keys, but hopefully you followed along until the end and you saw that we kept it as simple as possible. Oh, one thing. If you want to tilt the balloon, make sure you don't get these white parts as that's going to make it look like a crash is about to happen. Finally, hit twice to enter full screen mode and see what you did. I hope you're proud of yourself. This is fantastic work and I'm very happy that you made it until the end. I'm going to see you in a second. 152. Contest: Create a Flat Illustration: Hello and welcome to a new contest. I'm going to be short and sweet, create your own original flat illustration. And the best one in my eyes is going to win $25 Now I'm going to choose a winner twice per month, on the first and on the 15th. All that I ask you is to create it in Photoshop, and it has to be original. Now, if you are selected as the winner, you need to send me the PSD file so I can check it. I won't do anything with it, but I do need to see how you created it, about the prize. I can only send the money through Paypal. If you don't have Paypal or you don't want it, you can choose two of my courses for free. Now please get involved. It's not about winning money, it's not about being the best. It's all about having fun and practicing. Even if you don't love your project, just send it. It can't hurt. All that matters is that you get involved and you have fun with it. Thanks again and best of luck. 153. Review: Welcome back. We finished yet another section. Can you believe that hopefully you had no problems creating and modifying shapes, whether it's through the free transform command control, the live shaped properties panel, or through the direct selection to all. Remember your modifier keys are your friend when it comes down to merging or subtracting layered shapes. So please play around with Shift and Alt and see what you can create. Custom shapes are also a great way to start a new project, whether you load some from the web or you create some by using the pen tool, for example. Speaking of it, I really hope that you practice because I know that some of these exercises are quite hard and long, but they will really help you out in the long run. You've also learned how to use guides effectively and how you can create them automatically from shapes. You've also picked up the difference between clipping masks, layout masks, and vector masks. And finally, we saw a small web design project and I showed you how you can create a website layout in just a few minutes. I really hope that you're having fun and please write a review and let me know what's your experience so far. Thank you and I'm going to see you in the next section. 154. Introduction: Welcome to this section where we're going to talk about layout styles. In these upcoming lectures, I'm going to show you how to use layout styles, how to get the most out of them. But we're also going to get hands on and create various school effects like the ones you see on screen. This won't be a long, boring series where I talk about each effect individually. No. Instead, I'm going to teach you real stuff, real projects. So that's how you're going to understand how they actually interact with each other. Some of them, for example, don't work together. You have to do all sorts of things to actually make them work. This entire section is going to be just that, having fun and exploring them, and the pace is going to be quite manageable. You should be able to work along on your second viewing without any problems. There's no activities or exercises per se because the majority of these lectures are hands on. Without any further ado, let's get to work. 155. Layer Styles Crash Course: Welcome back. Let's talk about layer styles. You've seen me use them from time to time, but now let's officially introduce them. Layer styles are sometimes called layer effects. And they're added either by double clicking next to the layers name like so. But you can also apply them by clicking on this FX icon. That's why people call them layer effects. Now I have a rectangle selected. I can give you a quick overview on how these work. When I enable a drop shadow, this window is going to pop up and through it you can fine tune this, this effect. One thing that's fairly new is that you can add multiple layer styles by hitting this plus symbol. Let me enable a stroke so you can see what's going on. Okay, first of all, I'm going to add a red one on the outside of this rectangle. I'll go with five pixels for the size. Next, I'm going to add another one, and this time I'm going to make it blue. Currently, they both have the same size, we can't see them on the canvas. Instead, Photoshop follows the stacking order. It's top to bottom. That's why we're only seeing the one that's on top. But if I change this to only two pixels, now of course we can see both of them. Now each layer style has its own unique way of working. Though most of them have certain settings in common. For example, the opacity of the effect and the blend mode can be found in just about every single one of them. Speaking about strokes, let me take the field down to 0% so I can show you something. I'm going to zoom in on a corner and I'm going to disable one of them so we can better see what's going on. Now here's the thing. If the stroke is set to outside, even though this is a regular rectangle, zero pixels for the corner radius, not a rounded one, This corner will have a curvature because that's how this style works. The more I increase the size, the more rounded it's going to become. Now if you want to prevent that from happening, you're going to have to change it to inside here. I'm going to set it at ten pixels. Now if I were to change it to middle like so this is going to add five pixels on the outside and five on the inside. Nobody really uses it though. Now let me show you another important thing. I'm going to change it back to outside. We can make sure that it's set at ten pixels. Okay, I'm going to close this window and I'm going to make a copy. Then I'm going to zoom in and I'm going to leave say, ten pixels between these two rectangles. Ten pixels, right? I can double check that option with the marquee tool, you're going to see that this is ten pixels clear as day. But here's the thing. If I hold the control key, notice what Photoshop tells me, 30 though. Why is that? Strokes that are set on the outside of the shape don't change its size. If this is set at whatever, 250 by 100, and I add a stroke of any size, those values won't change. The shape is still 250 by 100, that's why Photoshop is showing us 30 pixels. As far as the program is concerned, this effect does not modify the pixel information of this shape. It doesn't resize it, it doesn't make it bigger. Photoshop sees 30 pixels. Now if you want to double check this information, you can select the entire canvas with control. Then you can use a line top edges. If the stroke was an integral part of the shape, if it modified it, you would expect it to touch the edge of the canvas. But look what happens. The stroke is outside of our canvas because Photoshop only recognizes the edge of the rectangle. It sees this edge of the rectangle as the endpoint. These bits of information are going to help you out because you won't scratch your head about it. Why did Photoshop do that? In short, remember, strokes don't increase the shapes dimensions. Another important information about layout styles, some of these don't work together by default. For example, the overlays, I'm going to add, the gradient overlay. These are quite ugly, to be fair, the pre installed ones. Now let's say I'm going to add the color overlay, but look what happens. The gradient is no longer being shown on the canvas. That's because colored overlay is above this other layer style. The stacking order is super important and you can't change them. If you do want to use it, you're going to have to adjust its opacity or blend mode, nothing else. Now we can see both of them. It's the same thing with pattern overlay. These three overlays can't be used together without adjusting the blend mode or opacity. Next time you try to use them simultaneously, make sure you adjust their settings, the opacity and blend mode. Still on these styles. If you enable any of them, your clipping masks aren't going to work anymore. Now this layer has disappeared and that's because of the overlay effect. If you want this shape to be clipped, you'll have to use a layer mask like so. Let's release the clipping mask. If you want this shape to be clipped to this particular shape, you're going to have to use a layer mask like so. Control click this thumbnail and now add the layer mask. Most people prefer to do it another way though. I don't recommend that they convert this layer to a smart object. And now it retains it absorbs that gradient but then you can also clip any layer to it. All control G works just fine in case you don't want to do that. That is yet another way. Let me undo. You can see all of these layer styles here. Rechlk this layer and choose rasterized layer style. Now it's no longer a shape, instead it's a raster layer that contains all of those styles. Please note one thing. You can rasterize the shape without rasterizing the layout style. That's an important distinction, I don't recommend it. You don't have to memorize this stuff because it's a very small case. Not something that you're going to use on a day to day basis, but it is something worth knowing. You can rasterize the layer style or you can rasterize the shape. Going back to it, let me add a few more layer styles to this shape. I'm going to quickly enable a bunch by clicking here on the left side of the names. Now the settings really don't matter for this demonstration. Now say that this is an amazing look and you want to use the same styles on a different shape. Let me add the new one to my canvas, something at random. Here's what you can do and I strongly advise it. You can write, click and then choose copy layer styles. And then you can go to that new layer, click and choose paste layer style. This works on several layers at once. Now moving on, you've probably realized you can disable each layer styles visibility by using this symbol. You can disable the whole group by using this master icon here. And that's quite nice. Or you can disable them individually. Now one thing that's quite important is to use this arrow to make your layers panel a bit cleaner. That basically wraps it up. I'm going to see you in a second. 156. Create Gold Text Effect: Welcome back. We're going to create a gorgeous three D text effect that looks like it's made out of gold. Here's what you can expect to see at the end of this video. The fun thing about it is this is editable text, live text. You can replace this word with anything else and it's going to look just as nice. Okay, let's start with a new canvas, 1,000 by 500. Now for the text I'm going to write gold. This is going to be formatted as follows. The typeace is going to be this one here. You can download it from the attachment, You can copy paste it and see Windows fonts. I'm going to show it in all caps for the size about 300 pexels. I'll also increase the letal spacing to 60, so we get extra breathing room. Okay, now about the color. Don't worry about it, because we're going to use a lot of layer styles. But now I'm going to leave it black. But I'm going to center it on my canvas, both horizontally and vertically. Okay, next I'm going to convert it to a smart object. Now let's enable a color overlay. This is going to be yellow. The color code is as follows, ff00, leave everything else as you see here. Next, let's go for an inner glow. To start creating a con. To work for the three D, look for the color. Let's use the following code, F DE two. Set its opacity to 90% but change the blending mode to linear burn. This is going to darken the outside of the text. The technique should be set at softer, with the source being the edge of the type. Currently nothing is showing up because we need to increase the choke to 45% that's 45, and change the size to 25 Px Ls, 45% and 25 Px cells. Now we're getting somewhere. These are all values that work with this particular size. If you want to apply them somewhere else, you may need to change them. Now let's continue. Let's activate an inner shadow and change the color code to the following D7f 72, the opacity 100% but change the blend mode to normal the angle. I decided to use 140 without the global light feature checked. Finally, for the slides, I'm going to use 515.20 for each of these fields 515.20 I know it doesn't look like much at the moment, but here's the twist. We're going to change this contour from its default value Cove, Shallow. This is something I played around with until I got an interesting result. There's no theory behind it. Just experimenting. And now, yeah, this makes much more sense. Please note that if you click on this arrow, you won't get the same window you've just seen me go through. That's because you actually have to click here on this preview. Okay, we're just about done with this layer now let's add a drop shadow for the color, pure black opacity, about 35% 35. Keep it set at a 90 degree angle, but change the distance to five for the size. Let's go for ten pexels. Okay, pretty good job. This looks pretty boring. But then let's add a bit of gloss to it. Duplicate this layer, and we're going to start working on the top. Copy the top one, that's quite important. Drop the fill to 0% and clear all of these existing layer styles. Okay, good stuff. Now let's add a stroke. This is going to be set at ten pixels inside my text with the following color code, E de00. Now I'm going to add thebivalent emboss, which is going to give us that nice solid look. Now for the settings here they are, use a stroke effect. With the technique set at Chisel hard, the depth should be set at 12, 5% 125% direction is up with the size of 30 pixels and no softening whatsoever. Okay, so far so good. The shading will transform the look. Let's have added 100 degrees for the angle, no global light. As for the altitude, 40 is going to work just fine. Again, I just played around with them, nothing is set in stone. We're going to change the conor to the second one in the list, but make sure you have anti alias checked. That's quite important. Okay, To finish off this effect, change the high light to 75% opacity, but keep it at its default settings. This means the blend mode is set to screen and the colored code is pure white. Six times for the shadow, I'd like a cream color. Let's go with the following. A, B, B 73. As for the opacity, 75% the blend mode should be changed to linear burn. Oh, by the way, set the fill to 0% Finally, we have a very complicated gradient that will create a gloss effect. You have it attached, so please just double click it and you're going to get it in the gradient library. Here it is. It basically creates some reflections based on white that fade away, nothing all that special. Now it does require a few points, but you're better off using a pre made one rather than creating one from scratch. Okay, now I need to customize it. Settings, play around with the blend mode and see what works best for you. Normal might work well, but luminosity might be more flexible for future use. Enable ter, which is going to make sure that the gradient won't have any issues with its quality. It's going to be nice and smooth. Opacity is something you can find tune for yourself here. I think I'm going to go with 50% for the angle. Let's go with 55 degrees, but ramp up the scale to 150% to cover more of the text. Of course, if something isn't looking right, you can always adjust that. I think this reflection is one of the most important effects from this project. Please take your time with that. Things are picking up nicely. Let's add one more copy of this layer to the canvas. Again, I'm going to clear the layer styles and I'll position it at the bottom of the stack. Now I'm going to nudge 34 pixels underneath everything. This is optional by the way, but I think it's going to help. I'm going to add several drop shadows to my text. Hit at the Settings. First I'm going to add the colored overlay effect that will have a slightly richer goal tone. The color code is Fd220. Now that's done. I can finish it off with some drop shadows. Hit a My settings, the blend mode normal, the opacity, 10% Okay, considering my color scheme, I'm going to stay away from pure black. Instead, I'm going to go with a brown color. The code is 90509 for the distance. Let's do five pixels for the first one, and then ten pixels for the size. This is where we're going to play around with the next one. Let's add two more by clicking on this plus icon. Okay? The first one from my stack can be left as is 5.10 okay? For the second one, I'm going to add five to those numbers. That means ten pixels for the distance and 15 for the size 10.15 Then the third one, the final one going to be 20.25 but I'm going to increase the opacity to 20% for the stronger luck, basically that does it. That's how you can create a golden three D text effect by using layer styles and a bit of nudging. I hope you enjoyed this lecture and that you managed to get to this point. Now you can play around with it and change anything that you would like. Change the blending modes, the slider values, and so on. After you're done, try and make your own version and post it to the platform. Have fun with it. 157. Embed Text in Photos: Welcome back. Let's have some fun and see how we can achieve this effect. The key here is to make the text look like it's been applied in the real world. This means it should follow all the bumps, all the crevices, all the holes, and so on. Now this technique will work on just about any texture out there. For even more realism, I decided to make it a bit faded in the lower region. Maybe rain snow, the course of time has taken its toll, so it's partly washed away. Okay, the first step is to open this brick wall image. With control, it's quite important to use control. Don't drag and drop it now, save it as a PSD file. Anywhere you'd like. I'm going to put it on my desktop and I'm going to call it Display, but the name is not important. Now let's write something on it, on this wall. Something clever. Something that banks, maybe you would say. He's a very well known artist, let's say written in stone. Something like that. Now for the font choice, I'm going to go with Monserrat, bold and pure black at a size that's absolutely massive. Now this is a Google font, by the way. You can feel free to download it or use something else. Now, as in most cases on the canvas, both horizontally and vertically, I always do a quick file approach. It's control A, then the alignment tools then control D123. I hope you've gotten used to it by now. The next thing I'm going to convert the text to a smart object. Nothing all that fancy. Here comes the magic. After we have the smart object, go to the top menu, then click on Filter. From here, scroll down to distort. Finally, click on Displace. This is the magic right here. Quite an old feature, but it still works well right here. We're going to use 20 for both of these boxes. The rest we're going to leave it as you can see here. Now just for the bit of context those values set, how much the text is going to follow the stone wall. Remember, we made it a smart object. This means we can always adjust it if the values aren't all that right. Now to see the effect, let's lower the fill to 0% We're going to control the color anyway through a layer style. Specifically, we're going to add the color overlay. Now for the code, let's go with the following, AC 3131, Then for the blending mode, we're going to go with overlay. This is a trial and or process. You have to experiment and see which blending mode gives you the best result. Here it's overlay and now we have this lovely effect. Again, this works on just about every texture out there. And you could do a few other things to improve it by 20% or so. But I really don't think it's worth that this technique is simple and quite easy to replicate. Now, besides the colored overlay, we can lower the opacity to 50, maybe 70% for the more washed out effect. It really depends on how strong you want it. I'm going to keep it at 100% though, so you can better see what's about to happen. I'm going to add another effect. This is going to be satin, this is going to burn the letters on the outside just a little bit. Think of it as an inner shadow, but without adding depth. Now for the settings for Sat, then I'm going to use pure black. And then the opacity, 50% or so for the blend mode, multiply then the angle 90 degrees. Nice and simple. Basically, that's it. For the distance and size, I'm going to use 12 and then 38 pexels. Oh, by the way, please make sure that invert is not checked, otherwise you're going to be looking at something completely different. One final step, now I'm going to add the layer mask. You can do that from the bottom of the layer spanel and make sure the colors are set to black and white. If that's not, you can use D, D as in default. Okay, grab the gradient tool, hot key, then make sure the mask is selected. Now click and drag. This fades away the text, and depending on how much you drag, that's going to decide how smooth the transition is going to be. Notice that if I shorten it, the effect is going to be quite sudden, so to speak. That's usually not what we're looking for. Instead, go with a longer gradient and then find unit if needed. Now please be aware that this is the latest Photosho version. The gradient tool has been improved. If yours looks different, please upgrade. Now going back to it in case you don't like working with gradients or you want even more control, You can get a black brush. Set the opacity at 20% of, so adjust the size as always. And then you can paint with black to remove parts of this text. Now this only works if you have the layer mask selected. It's quite important you have the mask selected. Not the smart object. You can easily spend a few extra minutes and get a more realistic look, a worn out stencil. Now my advice is you take each letter and put your own personal touch to it. Make everything worn out at random. And by the way, if you ever want to change the text, that's quite simple. Double click the smart object, then you're going to open up a new window. You can get the type tool and change it, whatever else, just have fun with it. Then hit control list to save it and close it. That's going to switch you back to the initial tab. Basically, that's it. You now have complete freedom and you can have fun with it. You have the image attached, so be sure to practice. I'm going to see you in a second. 158. Use Global Light: Welcome back. Let's see what global light is and how we should use it. This is an option that shows up in your layer styles window on lots of effects. Bevel and Emboss has it in a shadow, drop shadow. All of these make use of global light and we can enable it or disable it. But what does it actually do? Well, here's the scenario. I have a rectangle on my screen and I'm going to add a drop shadow with the following settings. Blend, mode, multiply for the color. I'm going to stick with pure black opacity, let's say 70% Now the angle is important bit. I'll enable global light, and now I'm going to set it to 125. So 125 degrees for the distance. And then size, you can use anything. I'll have them set at 40.30 pexels. Okay, now when there's a single layer that uses this global light option, there's nothing too interesting going on. But now I'm going to create two more copies. And these will obviously have the same feature checked because they're perfect copies. Right? Okay. Next I'm going to click on any of them and I'm going to adjust the angle. I'm going to change it to 45 degrees, 45. And notice what happened. All three of them received this new value. And that's because global light means we have a single light source on the canvas. In this case, if the shadow is going towards the bottom left, that means our imaginary light source is somewhere in the top right. This is how you maintain a normal light setting on your canvas. Let's have a look at the photo. Can you tell where the light is coming from? Of course you can from the back. This is relevant in Photoshop only if you want to maintain the standard way of working on a canvas. And that's by having a single point of light that comes from a certain direction. That's why we use angles to adjust the light source. How about this one? That's pretty easy as well. The light is coming from the left side. In general, when you're dealing with any outdoor situation, you'll most likely have photos that have one shadow. That's because for at least the moment, we only have one sun. Now you could try and add another light source and you're going to end up with two shadows. Here's the thing, in Photoshop, you can create imaginative light sources for every single layer. And all those independent light sources can be said to affect only that particular layer and not the rest. Let me show you what I mean. On the canvas, seeing it is much easier to understand it. We have this coffee cup and with watching it from above, right now, I'm going to shine a flashlight on it from the top left. This means we're going to get a shadow that's going to go towards the bottom right. Simple enough. If we add another coffee cup with a global light, that will look like this. Well, the shadow will probably have a slightly different angle, but in essence, that's roughly how it would look like. Now, here's what you can do in Photoshop, which is a bit unnatural. On the same canvas, let's say, on the same tabletop, you can have two separate lights that shine on these coffee cups independently. The catch is they don't interact with each other. This left light does not create a shadow for this cup on the right. If you want to be accurate, you'd have two additional shadows on the canvas, this one and this one. That's because these sources of light should have an effect over the entire canvas, right? But Photoshop lets you control that aspect by not using the global light option. Photoshop won't create these two additional shadows. Now, this seems unnatural if your canvas is a tabletop, right? But in most cases, you may want independent shadows for various reasons. If you want to justify such a case, you can consider this tabletop as being huge, and these coffee cups and lights are very far apart from each other. But let's get back to our rectangles In this case, for this middle shape, I'm going to check use global light. And that means the drop shadow won't adhere to the normal settings where we have only one light source. Now I can customize it independently as if it had its own light shining down on it. But it only affects this layer and not the other ones. In essence, it's pretty simple to find out how this works empirically. But I wanted to give you a complete explanation so you can better understand what's going on. In UL projects, a lot of professionals, even on fantastic galleries like dribble off the hands still mess up their shadows. Photographers are very keen to point out when a light source is unnatural. Again, Photoshop allows you to have complete control. It really depends on what you want to do. To sum it up, in case you use global light, be aware that anytime you change it in one place, it's going to update everywhere you have this option checked, enable global light. Thus, this can be a real time saver or a pain in the neck. If you customize each shadow independently, be aware that some people might find it strange if you place two completely different shadows, one next to another, like I've done here, especially photographers, they're going to be quite unhappy. The design might seem off to them in general, not just photographers. Overall, the design might seem off. It might seem odd. Most people won't be able to pinpoint the problem that's bothering them, but they still feel it in their gut. My advice is you uncheck global light. Because there's going to be lots of cases where we need complete control. My advice, don't use it, even though it may seem a bit unnatural. But for our projects, for what we do in Photoshop, that's usually best. With that, let's continue. 159. Create Shiny 3D Text: Welcome back. In this lecture we're going to create an awesome shiny three D text layer in about 10:15 minutes. We're going to use a lot of layer styles, but we're going to convert the text to a smart object, so we keep it editable. That's the main thing. This way you can replace your text with any other word while keeping the effect. Start with a new project, 1,000 by 500 pixels. You can always change the size if needed. Get the type tool and write anything you want. I'm going to go with shiny three D. Now for the font, we're going to use the same one as before, the size 200 pixels. I want to condense it just a little bit. I'm going to enable free transform mode here. I'm going to adjust the width alone, make sure this chain isn't pressed. I'm going to drop this width to 70% Now for the moment, I'm going to make it white. I'm going to make the background black so you can see what's going on. This is a very useful hot key, by the way. If you can't manage, just use a black rectangle. By the way, about the font, you have it attached, feel free to download it now on the canvas, you absolutely have to center it both horizontally and vertically, Then convert it to a smart object. Just right click and find that option in the list. Now comes the fun part. All of the layout styles. Let's start with the gradient overlay and set it to multiply. Change the blending mode to multiply, make sure dither is checked, because that prevents a phenomenon called bending. Basically, it just means that the gradient has to be smooth. If you want to have it nice and smooth, dither is the way to go. Okay, set it to linear at 90 degrees for the opacity, 100% For the actual gradient, we're going to need three colors. You can start with the default one and we're going to edit it like this, the first bottom handle, and use the following colored code. It's 00fc. This should be left as it is for the second color code. You can click anywhere near the middle. Okay, now here's my value. It's B41f. Now this has to be positioned at the 50% mark. I suggest you use your mouse scroll and your shift key to change this value in ten pixel increments. Okay. Click on the last one and set the final handle. The colored code is going to be the following. It's E, 83 F. This should be positioned at 65% These colors are really going to pop once we get a few more effects going. Currently, there's not a lot going on, but we just got started Now in case you're wondering, we set it to multiply as the blending mode because we're going to add a pattern overlay in just a moment. Okay, Now hit, okay, we can change the background back to white again, I like to use the hot key gray stuff. Next, let's add an inner shadow, keep set to pure black for the opacity, 45% or so. For the blend mode, go with multiply. Now for the settings quite simple, 15, 15, and then ten. These are all values I ended up using after a lot of trial and nothing all that, specially you just got to experiment. Now for the contour, I needed something interesting. Basically what I do is I click on this area that's going to open up this contour editor. Now from this drop down, I chose half round. Again, just cycle through them and you're going to see what looks interesting. Half round was my choice for me in this case. Now this immediately changes the in shadow. I think basically that's it. We can move on to path of overlay. Now before we get into its settings, please download this file that's attached. You simply have to double click it and Photoshop is going to pop back up. That means it's installed. You won't get any message, any notice whatsoever. Photoshop is just going to pop up. That's it. It's a bit strange, but it is what it is. Okay. Now from this list, this is what you want. This diagonal line, okay, Set it to normal with opacity. Set to the max from the scale slider. Turn it down to 80% So, so we can have a bit more lines in our design. Now let's have the drop shadow, nothing special here, multiply with pure black as the color. Now the opacity should be fairly low, maybe 30% of. So keep it set at 90 degrees without global light in general, I don't recommend you choose that option. Now for the slides, let's go with the following. It's 50 and then ten. Remember to always go for barely visible drop shadows as anything that's too noticeable is going to be considered a mistake. Great progress so far. I know it doesn't look like much, but we're going to ramp it up quite soon. Let's close this window and then create a copy of this smart object control. J is your friend. Now let's clear all the layer styles because we're going to need new ones and it's just easier that way. Now for the fill, let's drop it to 0% Now the goal here is to create a very chiseled look. Let's start with a stroke. This should be placed on the inside of the layer. For the size, I'm going to go with something fairly generous, eight pixels. I'll stick with black as my color, but I'm going to turn down the opacity to 40% This is not going to be enough. I'll click on this symbol to get another stroke. This time around, it's going to be a very vibrant TL color. The code is one, Bf2f. Leave it set on the inside, but drop the size to five pexels. Review all of these settings and make sure it's starting to catch shape. I think this needs to be increased back to 100% Yeah, I think this is much better. Next, let's add the Bbl and Emboss. Here we have a lot of settings. Let's take a step by step. First, set the style to stroke Emboss for the technique. Let's go with chisel hard. That's the lock we're going for. Keep the depth at 100% With the size of five pexels, we want it fairly soft. Use five here for the shading. Keep it at 90 degrees, but with a very low altitude, five will work just fine. The contour that works best in this case is the second one, okay? The high light mode can be left at screen with 100% opacity. Now in most cases, I leave it said to put white because that's how you get this nice effect at the top of the letters. If you take it down to 0% you can see that it actually makes a pretty big difference. Now for the shadow, change the blend mode to linear burn. Again, this is something I do quite often for the colored code. Let's go with the following. This is the code, it's 125173. Widow, opacity, I think about 40% of so now, I know that was a lot. But we've done with the heavy stuff, take a moment and see how we're looking. We've made good progress, but we're not there yet. Let's add the gradient overlay. It's the same one from the goal text effect. In case you don't have it installed, it's attached to the lecture as well. This needs to be said at 40% opacity and 125 degree angle for the blend mode normal is going to work just fine. This is going to give us some fantastic reflections. This reverse option, oh, don't forget about the scale that should be set at 150% gray stuff. Okay, we're done without second smart object. Now we have to take care of some extra details to give this that extra duplicate the top layer and place it underneath these two. That's quite important underneath. Now clear all the layer styles and here's what we're going to do. First, a drop shadow. Now for the settings, we're going to go with pure black. Quite classic the opacity, 25% multiply is fine. As the blending mode leave it set at 90 degrees with a distance of ten pixels. For the spread, 10% is going to be just fine. As for the size, let's go with eight pexels. In case you haven't done so already, please pause the video and make sure that you have all of these settings exactly like you see them here. I know it's quite easy to copy paste a layer style, but it's not the same experience. Finally, let's add thebivalent emboss, where the style is going to be set to emboss. Leave the technique at chisel hard, but change the depth to 135,100.35%. We're looking for the size of ten pixels. No softening whatsoever for the shading. I've ended up using a 130 degree angle. That's 130 with a 25 degree altitude for the contour. Open up the gallery. And let's go with, I think, half round for the highlight. I don't want anything, but we are going to need a strong shadow. Crank it up to 100% and change the blending mode to multiply for the color code. Let's go with the following. It's 212 36c. This is a nice shade of blue that will create a three D look. Basically, that's it. This is much better. If you want to push it even more, add another drop shadow. This one should be set to black 20% opacity for the distance 20 pixels and the size maybe 15. This is an optional step but I think it helps basically that's are the shiny three D text layer. A lot of techniques but now you know how to use them and hopefully you're a bit more comfortable. 160. Create Neon Effect: Welcome back. This is another classic effect you have to know how to make. It relies mostly on layer styles and a qual font, so you don't need much to pull it off. Let's get to work first, the background. We're going to use this one because it seems fitting for the neon sign, but because it's so bright, we're going to need to tone it down with a few adjustment layers. First of all, click here and choose human saturation. We're going to remove this color from it, turn down the saturation to -100 okay? Now, for the lightness, go with -25 okay? Now let's add another adjustment layer. This time brightness and contrast here. Turn down the first slider to minus 120, okay? This is good stuff. Now select the background, then go to the top menu. Click on Filter, then Camera Raw Filter. That's a good idea because we gain more flexibility. Okay, now we're looking for the vignette effect. You can do that by clicking here. Now there's tons of options in camera raw. But again, we just looking for the vignette now for the amount put -100 and for settings, you can leave them as they are. Basically, this is the background, we just wanted the edges a bit darker. That's all that the vignette does. Now let's get the type tool, hot key, t, click and write neon. Quite simple. Now for the formatting, I use the very specific font that's Clicker script. This is a Google font, so you can download it and install it super fast. Obviously you could choose another one. But I think this one suits the design quite well for the size for 50 of quite big. By the way, I forgot to mention the canvas size. It's 1920 by 13 86. Now, that's an odd number, but that's because I use control to open this image. That's quite important. So please use control as well. That's why we have this strange number for the height. Okay, Now for the color code, we're going to use the following. It's one B BCF. This is a very fitting blue for the neon sign. I think it looks great. Now as always, make sure you centered on the screen horizontally and vertically. I hope you got used to control the linement tools and then control D to D select. Okay, for the effects, we're going to do the following. First of all, the stroke, we're going to set it to the outside two pexels. The opacity 100% For the color code, it's 003f. Now this is a good start. Next, inner shadow for the blending mode, let's go with multiply. For the color kept pure black, opacity 50% So now for the angle, I'm going to use 30 degrees. With the global light option checked this time around, we are going to use that distance. Three pexels, size seven pexels. Okay, looking good, gray stuff. Good progress. Now let's enable an inner glow for the blending mode. Let's use screen for the opacity. 75% quite strong. The color pure white technique softer. And for the source, go with center. Now for the size 16 pixels, I think this works well here. Finally, a drop shadow to finish everything off. Now this is quite important. Let's take a step by step blend mode normal. Then for the colored code, we're going to use 323f. Okay, great stuff for the opacity, 100% with an angle set to 90 degrees, 905 pixels for the distance. And then for the size, quite generous, 25. This is our effect so far. But here's the thing. A neon sign usually has a reflection. We do have to show that on the brick wall. Let's create a new layer and put it underneath the text. This is quite important Now, change the blending mode to soft light gray stuff. Now here's the thing we're going to paint with a soft brush. The hardness has to be adjusted, 0% maybe 20% is really up to you. But a soft brush and then the color code, 003f. Okay, now the opacity and flow, they're going to value a lot. What you have to do is you have to gently paint over the font in the surrounding areas. The reflection has to be subtle. If you overdo it, you can lower the opacity of the entire layer. Or you could potentially use the eras of dual. We haven't used it officially because in most cases it's not that great. But yeah, here it can work. By the way, use your hot keys to lower the opacity. Please make sure that you understand the difference. If you use five, that's going to lower the opacity to 50% sure. But in this case, you're going to lower the opacity of the brush, not for the layer itself. Make sure you understand that in this particular case, you are going to control the opacity of the brush. Keep that in mind, okay. Basically, work the way and make sure the effect is nice and clean. Again, don't overdo it. So make sure you go for fine touches. Basically, that's it, that's our lovely neon effect. Have fun with it and see what you can do for yourself. Maybe try a different color, maybe pink, maybe green, but have fun with it. 161. Design a Laughing Crying Emoji – Part 1: Welcome back. Let's design an MOG. This is just the first part of the series, because after we're done with it, we're going to make it a jiff. Here's the result for the first phase, the design phase. This is what we're aiming for. Here's the animated version. Okay, let's get to work. First of all, a new document, 500 by 500 pixels. This is more than enough for the MOG. Now grab the ellipse tool and click anywhere to put in your measurements. 470 by 470. Okay. As always, center it on the canvas. Control A, then the alignment tools. Then control D to D. Select the classic approach. Okay, for the color, we'll choose a very distinctive yellow. The color code is F00. Rename it to Base. Now I'll add a couple of layer styles. Okay, let's start with in a shadow, make it pure white. But change the blend mode to linear dodge. Ad drop the opacity to 20% and set the angle to zero degrees uncheck. Use global light just in case you have it activated for the distance. Let's go with four pexels. That's what the size 55 should work. Well, now I know that this doesn't do all that much. It's just a highlight, but it's starting to catch shape. Let's add another inner shadow. This is going to be more of a shadow. Now. The color code is going to be the following. Fd 9228. Change the blending mode, multiply and increase the opacity to 55% for the angle. Go with minus 13z though that's -130 degrees. Now the next settings are quite high, but these will help us get a three D, look the distance, 100 pixels, the choke 30% and then finally the size, 250 pexels. And now indeed it is starting to catch shape. Now coming up next, we're going to add a glow in this top region. Let's handle that. Let's use the ellipse to wall. Please click and put in these values with going forward, 355 by 275. Okay, Now this new shape should be white. And of course, it should be centered without base layer. Personally, to center things, I prefer to make a selection by control clicking the thumbnail. And now it's much easier to reposition the ellipse with the alignment to wells gray stuff. As always, control D2d select. Okay, now let's move it down about five pixels from the top to get that three D look okay, great stuff. Now let's add the layout mask that's done from the bottom of the layers panel. As always, switch to the gradient tool, hot key G, and we're going to fade it away. This is the new gradient tool, by the way, in the latest Photoshop version, if yours is different, please upgrade. All right, we're looking for something like this, a fairly soft transition. Okay, the next step is something new, we're going to fit it off shape. But note, I didn't say mask, we've done that several times softening the mask. But here we're going to have a different approach. Select the layer, not the mask, the layer. Now in the properties panel, you're going to have by default D settings, we're not interested in those. Instead, click here and this will give us the option of feathering the shape move. This slider about eight pexels. Also, you can use very high values to see what this does, but we're looking for eight pexels. Basically, it's starting to fade away. This is exactly the liquid going for quite soft, brilliant stuff so far. Now the eyebrows, these are going to be done through a series of transformations. Let's start with an ellipse. Please click and put in these values. We're going to use 150 by ten pixels. Okay, gray stuff. Now, switch to the pen tool, hot kep. Now what we want is to hold Alt. This activates the convert point tool. Keep holding down Alt and use it on the left side because we don't want to curve there. That's the tip of the eyebrow. Okay, Hit Enter and make it black just in case you haven't done so already. Okay, enter the free transform mode control and look for this icon in the options bar. This will allow us to significantly modify the shape. We're not going to free styled because I want you to have specific guidelines. Start with an Arc preset. Okay, great stuff Now change the bend to -35% gray stuff. Hit Enter and now we're going to repeat the process, only this time we're going to choose shell lower. That's shell lower from this list. Now for these settings, we're going to go the following. A bend of 10% and a horizontal distortion of 55% Yeah, this is starting to catch. The only thing that's left to do is to shrink it down a bit. Use control one last time and change the width value to 70%. This is going to be the right eyebrow, we need to rotate it a bit. Advice is you use this field and put in 30 degrees, okay, great stuff now for the position on the canvas, so we get it right. Use your smart guides. We want 60 pixels from the top edge. That's 60, and then 100 from the right side. Okay, now for the other one, the process is actually quite simple. Use control J to make a copy, drag it towards the left, and then hit Control. We could leave it as it is, but I want to change it just a bit, so we get some extra style points. Right click and flip it horizontally. And then after that's done, change the width and height values to 115. That's 115% just a bit bigger. Okay, great stuff. Group these two together. Control G and please rename that folder to eyebrows. We want to keep the project nice and clean. Now I need the subtle drop shadow, so let's make it happen. Pure black for the color, nothing all that special for the opacity, quite low. 30% leave it set to multiply with a 90 degree angle for the distance and size. Put in four pixels. And that's it. Next odd list are the eyes. Now, to tell you the truth, I created them by using the same techniques. But this is a good chance to exercise our pen skills. Grab the attached file and drag it into Photoshop Place, set appropriately in the layer spanel, preferably at the top. And this is going to allow you to use the pen tool with ease. Basically, we're going to trace it. Hit P and change the working mode to shape. That's done from the top left side. Okay, start with the left eye from this point. Now click somewhere on the arch and drag towards the right. Try and match the existing line. But to be honest, it doesn't have to be perfect. My goal is to make sure that we have a smooth shape. Click again towards the right and drag a little bit. But you're going to notice you are now covering up the template. No problem. Drop the opacity to 30% by hitting three on your keyboard. And this is just perfect. We can continue hold Alt and click on your last anchor point so we can change direction. Okay, this is going quite nicely. Now click a few more times and make any adjustments as you see fit. You may want to add or remove an anchor point or use the old key yet again, what matters is you get something that looks like this. Raise the opacity back to 100% And of course, this should be pure black. Now for the right side, I'm not going to repeat the process. Instead I'm going to make a copy and then flip it horizontally. Remember control, right click, flip horizontally. Please take your time with it. Don't rush. Remember to work along on your second viewing. Finally, I'm going to drag the width and height down to 90% to create a sense of perspective. Now these two should be grouped in the new folder called eyes. As for the position, I'm going to leave that up to you, but there's only so much wiggle room on this canvas. Again, probably around here. This should be quite nice. Oh, by the way, let's enable a bevlent emboss on this group. Let's go with pillow emboss that set to smooth change the depth to 215% The direction should be set up, the size and soften values should be 15 pexels. Again, it's a lot of settings, but we'll take it step by step. As for the shading, keep the angle and highlight at 90.30 degrees respectively. For the highlight, I'm going to use white with an opacity set to 85% But here's the thing, let's change the blending mode. Let's use hard mix. As for the shadow, crank it up to 100% and set it to multiply. If it's not already set, we want to keep the color scheme going, use the following color code. It's going to be E500, but you know what? I think 15 is a bit much. Let's tone it down to 78 pixels. I think this works better. Remember to pause as often as you need to. That's it. So far, we've made great progress. I'm going to see you in a second. 162. Design a Laughing Crying Emoji – Part 2: Welcome back. Here's where we've left things off. Let's create the tiers because this is a crying mog. And then we'll wrap it up by creating the mouth. This is best done with a pen to well, though you could potentially use ellipses and warp them, that's less exciting. Let's grab the trusty old pen. Instead of free styling, I'm going to use my template. Let's start on the left side with the smallest one. Click at the top to start things off, then move down near the middle of the left edge, click and drag to curve. Now once again, click and drag near the bottom of the tier, somewhere in the bottom right. This is three clicks in total, So far, three anchor points, Then it's up to you if you want to do an intermediary point in the middle of the right side or simply close it off, I'm going to close it off because it's a bit faster just in case something is not right. Remember, you have a series of tools at your disposal that can help you for the refinet. In this case, the direct selection tool, hot key, is one of my top choices. It's the white arrow here. I'll move on to its design. The colored code should be the following one. It's D52f. This is a nice shade of blue that works well with our orange base. Let's add some layer styles. The first one is going to be inner shadow. Now change the blending mode to normal, about 70% or so. Now the color code can be the following. It's 1493 FF gray stuff. Now the distance and choke, both of them should be set at seven. While the size should be nearly double that, 13. Maybe 14 pixels, basically. Yeah, this is it. This is done next, we have an inner glow. Now for the inner glow, let's do the following blend mode. Normal opacity, about 70% Now for the color, let's use this code zither 149f. For the choke, let's go with eight. And then for the size three pex cells, the technique should be softer with the source point at the edge with going along nicely. Now let's add a drop shadow. This is going to be pure black set to normal blending mode, 30% for the opacity, quite low. Now for the angle 18,100.80 degrees distance, I would say two cells. Same for the spread 2% And then finally for the size six pex uls, that's basically our first drop. This needs to be repeated three more times, but I'm going to move ahead quite fast. I'm going to skip ahead because there's nothing to it. Just more of the pen tool. Then I'm going to apply the same layer styles by simply copy pasting. It's a major timesaver. Totally use that feature now when I created them, I tried to maintain a certain curvature that matches the roundness of the Mo. I think that's probably one of the more important aspects. You don't want any sharp edges Now, these tiers are also useful for the animation part. That's why I chose a crying mog. I think seeing the tiers move, it's going to be quite special. I hope you see that the pen tool isn't all that difficult. If you mess up, just use the white arrow hot key, the direct selection tool, and adjust any anchor point as needed. Remember, you can also use your ad keys on the keyboard to move things around. Okay, now let's tackle the out which will make this MOG come to life. Grab the rectangle tool and click anywhere to put in these values. Let's go with 300 by 200. Now for the corner radius, we're going to change it to something quite odd. We're going to have 40, 40, then 158, and finally one for one values are not even because the Mog is slightly rotated. Okay, Make it pure white gray stuff. Now let's keep it going. Let's use control and enable Wp. Worp is a fantastic feature we haven't used at all that much, but it's actually quite nice. Now from the preset, make sure you choose Arc. It's this one here. Now from the options bar, we have to put in some values for the bend. Let's go for 12.50 in the next field, 9.5 and finally 6% This is a method of trial and th, and constant tweaking. This is where I spent quite a lot of time trying to make this work as fast as possible. Now, when you're free styling, it's much easier. But for this tutorial, I actually wanted to slow it down quite a lot so it's easier to follow. But yeah, this is what we have so far, Hid Enter and now we're going to resize the shape for the width. Let's go with 75% While the height should be different, the height should be 85% for the angle -1.75 I know that's a bit odd, but again we want it slightly tilted. And this is the foundation for the mouth. Let's enable an inner shadow, have it set to black with the normal blend mode selected. Okay, for the opacity quite low, I'm thinking 20% and change the angle to 98 degrees. Finally, everything else should be set at zero except the size, which should be set at six pixels. I know this doesn't seem like a good starting point, but it will make sense in a few moments. This can be called mouth base by the way. Create a duplicate and then move it 30 pixels down shift and you're down Nato key three times. Now the next thing, let's use control to make it a bit bigger. Now I'm looking for the 112,100.12% Use the chain icon if you don't want to put in the same value twice. Now about the angle, let's set it to 1.2 degrees, quite small, but it does make a difference. Okay, Now move it 20 more pixels down, and let's change the color code. We're looking for the dark red, the colored code, 69000. Again, so far it doesn't look like much. But now we're going to clip it to the white part. Use Alt control G. Of course, this makes much more sense, but let's apply some layout styles. Let's make it look nice. Now, the first one, in a shadow, the color has to be set to pure black. For the blending mode, normal and the opacity, 100% all the way to the max, change the angle to 100 degrees. Now for these three, let's go with the following distance. Zero, choke zero, and then size 120. Quite a lot, 120 pexels. Now this is the first one, but we need another one. This one should be set to multiply with the same maximum opacity. Change the angle to 80 degrees for the distance. Go with 12 pixels for the size 32 will do just fine. Now it's beginning to make even more sense. Finally, let's add an inverted drop shadow, pure black, set to multiply, but here's the deal. Go with an angle of -85 degrees. This way it will appear at the top, not at the bottom. For the settings, let's go with the following distance. Zero spread, 12% size, ten pixels. Fantastic progress so far. Thank you so much for sticking with me to all of these measurements. I think there's a problem with the wide shape. It's not well defined. Let's change the in shadow. I think we need to increase the opacity from 20% to maybe 90% or so. We got to make sure it's easy to see at a smaller size, not just when we've zoomed in. Yeah, this is much better. Now, the last element is the tongue. Start with an ellipse that's one oh five by 100 pixels. This should be a very strong red. The color code should be the following, four to two. Now to make our lives easier, duplicate it with Contholj or Alt. Drag and move it 50 pixels to the left. That means five taps on your left, a key plus shift. Now move at ten pixels downwards, select them both and merge them with control. Now let's add some styles. First, in a shadow, the color should be a light pink. Here's the color code. C28, F88. Now, change the blend mode to Linear Dodge Add. This is a new one, but yeah, it does work well in this particular case. Drop the opacity to 25% Okay. For the angle, let's go with 15,100.5 degrees. That's for the size 24 pexels. This should be set at zero. Okay? Now we need to show that the tongue is inside the mouth, so we're going to have to add another inner shadow. Now this time I'm going to choose a burgundy color. The code is five 0a00 for the blending mode, keep it set to normal. And the opacity 100% for the angle -77 degrees. As for the distance and size, go a 70.55 pexels. One final drop shadow and we're done with it. Pure black set to multiply. As for opacity, I think half is quite nice. 50% for the angle -90 degrees. Again, please remember to pause as often as you need to for the distance zero spread 23% And finally, for the size 40 pex cells. Okay, to make this make sense, we're going to need to clip it with Alt CatholG. Then the alignment is really up to you, move it back and forth. But yeah, basically all of these elements should be positioned as you see fit. There's no particular size that I have in mind. By the way, we also need bevel and emboss. The settings are already good to go based on all previous work, but pause the video if needed to check things out. Take one last look and see if there's anything that needs adjusting. There's been a lot of instructions. You may have missed a blending mode or maybe something isn't just right. But yeah, overall here, I'm very happy with my MOG. The great thing about it is that you can use this base and create an entire set. But yeah, this wraps up the design side. In the next two videos, we're going to animate it. We're going to give it life. I'll see you in a second. 163. Animate an Emoji (GIF) - Part 1: Welcome back. Let's animate our lovely G. In Photoshop, though there are better suited programs for creating animations, Photoshop does give us several tools that can help us create a nice looking Jeff. Now start by duplicating this PSD just so we won't have any surprises. In case you mess up. No worries. You still have the original one. Now to get into animation mode, go to the top menu to window, then scroll down to timeline. And you're going to notice this large bar has appeared at the bottom of the program. And you may want to resize it now. I'm going to keep it fairly big so you can see what's going on. Okay, click on this button to get started. Now the first step is to adjust our settings so we can work on the same interface. Please click on this small icon and from here choose panel options. Now from this new window, change the time line units from time code to frame number. Please notice the bottom left corner. Currently we're at frame zero, which is the starting point. You're going to have to focus a lot on this field because this is how we're going to work next to it. You're going to notice the current FPS frames per second. Now the default is 30. 30 frames per second at my old Android design studio, When we create the Mogis, we actually use the different value. Click here again, and from this list, choose set timeline frame rate. Now from this dropdown, we're going to use 23.976 It's a bit of a random number, but we found that this works best for us. Okay, great. Now here's how it works. Now all the layers and groups from the layouts panel are shown here. When you modify certain things like capacity with position, those edits are going to be shown here and this timeline, that's how we're actually going to work now. Initially it may seem scary, but you're going to see that the process is actually quite easy. Let's start with the eyebrows. First of all, these should be set at the top of the layouts panel. It's not important, but I like to use the top to bottom approach. Okay, inside it you should have two shapes, but we need to convert them to a single smart object to keep things simple. Now that we've done that, we need to focus on the timeline and expand this folder. Now click again to expand this part. Here you're going to have three things, transform, opacity and style. Now for the eyebrows, we want to move them up and down. That means we'll use a transformation. While on frame zero, click on this stopwatch icon, and this is going to set the initial position. You're going to notice a yellow symbol has appeared on the timeline. That marks a frame point. Now grab this blue handle and move it towards the right. Keep an eye on the bottom left side and stop when you get to four, in case you're having trouble, click on this icon from the bottom, which is going to increase your zoom level. There you go. This is much better. Next we need to raise the eyebrows while on the move tool hold shift and tap the up arrow key twice, two times. When you do that, you're going to get a new symbol on the timeline. That's Photoshops way of telling you that it's noticed a change in position. Right now we have the foundation of every animation. If you move the handle back and press space, you're going to see a preview. Eyebrows raise up. That's the foundation for this entire process. Hit control and we'll also slightly enlarge them to maybe one oh 8,100.8% This is going to make it a bit more interesting. What comes next is just a little bit of back and forth. We have all the initial position in frame zero, the up position in frame four. Now we need to bring it back down again. Move the slider to frame 12. And click on this small icon that's going to create a new one. Through these two arrows, you can jump back and forth between frames. And this is quite useful here. We need to copy the properties of the first frame and paste them. Right click and choose copy, then right click and choose paste. Basically we made the eyebrows start from their original position, go up, then move back down. Frame 16 is a repeat of frame four where they move up again, copy pasted. This is going to be the situation throughout this process. By the way, I hope you're patient and you're ready for it. Finally, we're going to go to the last frame 23, and we're going to paste frame Zose properties. Because this is the end of the loop, we're going to need to bring this right handle exactly above frame 23. The thing is, the longer you make your frames, the bigger the jiff size on a desktop. That's not really an issue. But we actually designed 30, 40, 50 MOGs per pack for the mobile use. In that case, size is critical to test out the animation. Let's click on this icon from the right side. Yet again, from this list, choose loop animation, which means the animation will constantly play. This is how your eyebrows should move at this point. Think about it. Normal up, normal up, normal frames 4.16 are up, while the other three are set at the default. This is great stuff. Now with this knowledge, we're going to go through all of the rest of these layers and groups and we're going to end up with a fantastic MOG. Let's do the eyes next. Close this group, and open up another one here. It's the same story with these two layers. They have to be converted to a smart object. I don't want to merge them because I want to be able to edit them later on. The first step is to always create the starting point. Click on the transform stopwatch or timer, however you want to call it. For the next frames, we'll actually imitate the ones from the eyebrows, expand that group because it's going to be easier to follow. The next frame is number four. Move your handle over there and repeat the repositioning process, 20 pixels upwards. The frame is now automatically added. Now follow this guideline from the top to add all the other points. Remember they alternate Frame 12 needs to match frame zero. Frame four is paired with Frame 16. It's just a method of copy pasting. And remembering how this works, I'm going to fast forward with the bit because I'm quite sure you get the idea. It's exactly the same process as above. Okay, let's press the space bar and test it out. Yes, this is working as expected. Great stuff. I'm going to see you in a second. 164. Animate an Emoji (GIF) - Part 2: Welcome back. We've set the foundation of our animation. Now it's time to continue and finish the job. Here's how it looks so far. Not bad if I say so. Now let's move on to the tiers that are four layers and we need to convert them to individual smart objects. Please don't make one single smart object because we want separate animations for every one of them. Now to help you better understand what I'm working on, I'm going to switch to the move tool and I'm going to enable show transform controls. This is going to tell you what's selected on the canvas. Okay, now let's expand the first tier. Now the first frame should be different. Now the tier should form from the edge of the eye. We won't create a new point on our timeline just yet. Instead we're going to use control and we're going to resize it to 70% both for the width and height. Now I'm going to move it somewhere next to the Y. I'm going to say about 20 pixels towards the right and about ten pixels up. But this is obviously, for this specific case on your end it may be more or less. But the essence is the places somewhere where it makes sense. I'm also going to drop the opacity to 0% With these changes done, it's time to create new points on the timeline. Click on the transform timer as well as on the opacity one, because that's what we changed. Okay, now move to the next frame and increase the opacity to 100% So far, the tier hasn't moved. Let's make that happen, Switch to frame six and move it slightly down. I would say about 20 pixels towards the left and 20 pixels downwards. But again, this is going to vary from case to case. Use control and resize it to 90% but change the angle to minus eight degrees. Coming up is frame 12. Here we're going to move it 20 pixels down and to the left, change the size to 70% Yet again, as for the angle -21 will do just fine. Okay, add another opacity point. This is not mandatory as we haven't adjusted, but it's a habit I picked up from my design team. Okay. Move the blue slide, one frame. This is number 13. And click on both timers. Now, change the opacity to 0% Believe it or not, we've completed our first tier. Press the Spacebar and see it in action. Great stuff. Now, all the other three are going to be created by using the same technique. I'm going to speed up the process and I'm only going to mention the important bits for the left big tier. Move it towards the edge of the eye and resize it to 60% Mark this initial starting point on the time line. You're going to notice that when you're on frame zero, Photoshop doesn't automatically add these points. You actually have to click on the time of yourself. So that's quite important. Set the opacity to 0% okay? Then move to the next frame and set the opacity to 100% from invisible with making it visible the next frame, number six, where I'm going to move the tier 30 pixels down and ten pixels to the left, set the width and height to about 80% or so. And change the angle to minus four degrees, that's minus four. The next frame number 16, increase the size back to 100% and change the angle to -13 degrees, that's minus 13. Move it down 30 more pixels on frame 17, we'll change the opacity to 0% and will mark it on the timeline. Okay, those are the essential points, and basically we've done it, we've done with this part. Now for the other two on the right side, I'm going to edit that part out because it's exactly the same thing. But yeah, through the wonderful magic of editing, we're left with only one thing to animate the mouth here, we need one single smart object from these layers. Not individual ones, but only one single smart object. Okay, we'll have this shape move up and down to simulate laughter. Let's set of starting position by clicking on the timer. Note that if you forgot to move your slider to the beginning, right click your key frame and then delete that. Okay, Now use control and resize it to 80% This is all starting point. The mouth should be smaller to begin with. Then move on to frame number six. Move it up 40 pixels, 40. And then change the size back to 100% Next frame, 12, click on the transform timer. Now copy the initial frames properties and paste them here. Copy, paste. Nothing complicated. Now this needs to be repeated for frame 18. There you're going to need to copy the sixth frame and paste that. Finally, for the endpoint, we need to set the final frame number 23, Copy the initial one, the starting frame, and paste it here. Basically, that's it. You can press the Spacebar key and check it out. See how it looks like. I think this is totally fine, lovely stuff in case you missed anything. I've attached to cheat sheet with every single point you need to know, with everything you need to know about each key frame. Don't stress about it. Use the cheat sheet and take it slow. Now to save it, To export it, we're going to use Alt control shift, not W, but, and then choose the Jif preset here. You don't care about any of these options, just make sure the colors drop down is set to 20056. Now my advice is you focus on the looping options at the bottom, change it to forever. And that's it, you have a continuous loop. Save it. And that's it. This is animated, go ahead and try it out on your own and have fun with it. 165. Create & Animate an Emoji: Welcome back. It's time for the an assignment. Get active, start Photoshop and create another cool looking MOG and upload it to the platform. The goal is to experiment with all the techniques I featured. For the beginners, you may skip the animation part and you can reuse my body from my MOG. You have the PSD attached, so that means you can focus on creating a nice facial expression. And that's going to be enough if you're feeling confident, and I hope you do. Here are a few MOGs my team of fantastic designers have created back at my design company. These are just a reference point, but please try and think out of the box. You can mix and match elements. Feel free to experiment and try and create something on your own. You shouldn't have any problems in finishing this project in about an hour. Remember for the animation part, it's all a matter of moving layers up and down and resizing them. And as long as you create a constant loop that goes like 100% zero, then 50% then zero, then 100% You're going to be good to go. Please don't limit yourself to one MOG. I'm not saying you should create an entire pack though. That would be wonderful. But yeah, try and create a few and see how you do. These are fun, and once you do one of them, I think you're going to see it's quite enjoyable to do. Now, I'm going to review all of your work, but don't worry about being perfect. Just have fun with it and give it your best. Make it silly, make it fun, make it lovely. Okay, I'm going to see you in a second. 166. Create a Fire Text Effect: Welcome back. This is a classic text effect, but my version is completely editable. It's easy to make and it only takes a few minutes. This is how it looks like and as you can see in the layers panel, it's still a live text layer, so I can easily swap out the text. Of course, the flames do need rearranging, but that's not difficult. Okay, with that being said, let's get started First, the background easy stuff. The canvas is 1920 by 1080. I'm going to unlock the initial layer and I'm going to apply a gradient overlay. Now this time around, it's going to be a bit different. We're going to set it to radial, not linear radial. Now for the colors, we're going to do the following. For the left side, the code is 1d11d. Then on the right side, we're going to use the following. It's 333. Basically, this is the background. Sure, it's nothing amazing, but it's going to give us a nice contrasting effect and it takes no time at all. Now for the real hero, let's get the type to a hot ket click and right on fire. Now for the formatting, let's go with the following type, Face Oswald for the weight, go with bold. This is a Google font. So you can download it and install it in no time at all. Okay, regarding the color, that really doesn't matter at all that much about the font. You can set it in all caps. And I'm going to change the size to 320 pixels, so a bit of a random number. But that's what I used to create that. Now for an awesome layout style, the first one is going to be a stroke. Now for the size, let's go with four pixels. Set it to outside. We're going to use pure red. The color code is the following, f0000, This is super bright, okay? The next effect, we're going to go for the outer glow. For the blending mode, let's change it to normal, the opacity 100% all the way to the max. Then for the color code, the nice yellow, this is it, it's Fa00. Okay, for the technique, we're going to use edge. As for the size, let's go with 32 pexels. By the way, I didn't make the effect in this order, but I think it's easier to follow along from the top, towards the bottom in this particular window. Okay, Now, for the set en, set it at multiply 50% opacity with the same pure red color. And that's f0000, the same one as before. Okay, for the angle 90 degrees. Nice and simple. The distance quite a lot. 50 pixels and the size 80 pixels. And of course when you're using satin invert is not checked. Now the gradient overlay really sets the tone here. We're going to add that next. This time we're going to use linear, not radial, set to 90 degrees for the left color. Let's use the following code. It's going to be f0909, good stuff. Now let's move over for the right side. We're going to use the following color code. It's 8d202. This is looking great so far. Let's go for the out of the glow. This out of the glow is going to be set to normal with 100% opacity. The color code is going to be the following, D23c. Okay? Now the technique is softer and the spread is set at 15% and that's what the size. Let's go with 25, 26 pixels. So remember, nothing is set in stone. Please make sure you adjust it as needed, but now you can follow along. But when it's your turn, you may want to try a different size. Maybe scale it up or scale it down. Just have fun with it and experiment. Finally, let's add the drop shadow. Even though this is an optional step, the background is quite dark anyway. But let's go for it now. Opacity, 70% pure black. Of course, angle 90 degrees, distance 40 pixels. And for the size 40. Once again, now this is our effect and it doesn't look half bad. Now we could do all tricks to add fire, but I want to make it as simple as possible. Let's do the following. You have this image of a fire attached. Please drag it in. This is from Wikipedia, just in case you win the ring. Now, this layer should be above the text, of course. Now hold down the control key and click on the text layer thumbnail. This is going to create a selection based on its outline. See the Marching Ants again, you hold the control key and you click on the thumbnail. This works for absolutely every single layer, not just text ones. Now with this selection active, while you're on the file layer, this is quite important. You're going to select the file layer, click on the mask icon. Did you get that? What we did was the following. We made the selection of the text layer and then we told photo shop, I want to see the file effect only in that area. This allows me to keep my text editable, but it also gives me the freedom to adjust it as I please because I can work on the mask. And that's what we're going to do next. Of course, we don't want to keep the effect like this. We want the fire to extend beyond the top of the text layer. We're going to use a brush for that. Now the hardness, you can set it at 0% quite soft. The opacity anywhere 150-20% It's going to be a step by step process. For example, I'm going to start with 50% so I can paint over the top of the text with white and this is going to reveal the flames. And it's really up to you how much time you want to spend on it. I'm going to go pretty fast, but ideally you'd want to start with a lower opacity, so you get nice individual strands. But even at a fast pace still produces great results. Remember, black hides, white reveals when working on a mask. Now at the bottom, you may want to paint with black at 100% and that's because we don't want flames there. You want to make it look like the top is on fire and it's slowly eating away your text. Okay. Now it's really a method of slowly painting your way to the effect, but it's quite easy to do. It's really about brushing and lowering the opacity. I'm constantly changing that by using my hot keys on my keyboard. Two for 20% five, 50% zero for the 100% and so on. These are all the default hot keys, so you don't need to do anything. Remember, with changing the effect of the brush, not the layout itself. That's pretty much our effect. Now you can hit and change up the text however you want. Of course, now I would need to redraw my mask, but I think you can see how easy that was. It's not really all that difficult, so you can really have fun with it. Okay, now it's your turn. Make sure you practice. You have the fire image attached and the font is called Oswald, and it's available on Google Fonts. Have fun with it. 167. Review: Welcome back. At this point, you should know how to use layer styles to obtain a variety of effects. You saw how some of them are quite tricky. In particular, I'm talking about the colored overlay, pattern overlay and so on. Those don't work together if you simply enable them. So I do hope that you watch that lecture and make sure that you understand how they work together. Now another thing to remember is that pre made layer styles that are available on the web, they aren't all that great. Those that are interesting, they need a lot of work. You need to scale them and make them work. For example, my blog, this looks grade.net is filled with various textiles. So you have to make sure that you check them out. And again, adjust them based on your needs. Now, next thing, the global light lecture, that explains an important topic that could help you out a lot. My advice is you uncheck it in most cases. Finally, I know that some of these instructions were a bit hard to follow, but you have all the PSD's attached and you can always check them out. In this section, we made text that's made out of gold, we made the neon sign, we made the layer style that seems like it's on fire. And these types of projects are really fun and I do hope that you enjoy them. I think this is one of my favorite sections because I use layer styles in most of my projects, especially in my web design projects. Um, learning how to use them in a skillful way can really dramatically improve just about any project. Web design of no web design, just in general. So again, please make sure that you do all the exercises all by yourself. And with that, let's continue. 168. Smart objects explained: Welcome. In this lecture, I'll teach you what smart objects are and how they can be used in your projects. Smart Objects are a layer type in Photoshop among raster, shape, type and adjustment layers. You can identify them by checking the thumbnail in the layers panel. This is their distinctive symbol. Then main characteristic is that they hold on to all the pixel information inside a layer, thus allowing for lots of editing without permanently modifying the pixel content. On the screen, we have two seemingly identical layers. The one on the left is a smart object and the one on the right is irregular raster layer. Let's select them both and resize them to about 10 percent. Now let's enlarge them back to their original form. I'll use Control T. Once again. The smart object is impeccable, while the rest of it looks terrible. That's because photoshop was instructed to keep all this information by having this layer as a smart object. Please note that when you use Control T on a restaurant, when you resize it and you hit Enter, That's the knee, 100% value. To showcase this change, check the options bar. I'll now shrink it to around 80 percent. Now I'll hit Enter. Next, I'll enter free transform mode yet again. But notice we have 100% here instead of 80%. That's because raster layers are inferior in this aspect, too small to objects, they lose all those pixels. And that photoshop sees this as a brand new layer, albeit with less pixels. On the other hand, if we repeat the process on this smart object, you'll see photoshop remembers what value we put in. In this case, that's 80 percent. And that's really useful in many situations. Furthermore, smart objects allow you to apply filters non-destructively. Here on litigation blurred to my raster layer. Give me a moment while I do this. Once I commit to this effect, that's it. There's no turning back. As you can see, the layers panel shows no effect. I can toggle on or off. If we switch to the smart object, apply the same filter through the hotkey control alt F. We'll see there's nothing to worry about. My Layers panel is going to show me that I've applied a filter to this smart object and I can toggle its visibility. Just to reiterate, this is only available for Smart Objects. But here's the great thing. All lead types can be converted. So if I add a rectangle on my screen and I want to use the same filter on it. I'll first right-click it in the Layers panel and choose Convert to Smart Object. So that's fantastic because all their types in Photoshop can be changed to work in this mode. The downside is that you can't directly edit smart objects. If we grab a brush, you will see a forbidden sign on the canvas. So as smart as they are, they've done to allow this type of editing that arrest Allah would have no problems with. Okay, you probably need these facts from a previous lecture, but now it gets interesting. But defaults when you drag and drop a new image in Photoshop that will automatically be placed as a smart object. On the other hand, if you're used to using Illustrator, you may want to import some graphics from it, is one design I like to use in Photoshop. Use Control C to copy it and go back. You may feel a little delay when you switch between programs, but don't worry, it will soon pass. After you hit control V to paste, you'll be able to place that design is various types, but I always recommend you go for the smart object option That's going to provide you with the best result, no matter the design. One last feature I would like to showcase is the ability to retain your Smart Objects free transform settings. Let me show you an example. I'll add two layers on my Canvas. One of them will be irregular rest delay while the other one is going to be a Smart Object. Next I'll go to town on this raster one. I'll enter free transform mode and I'll change its perspective. I'll also rotate it just so we can have another transformation. Lastly, I'll use the distort Command by holding down control. Okay, fast-forward done. I've completely changed this raster layer. Give me a moment while I do the same to the smart object. I want to similar effect, but I won't strive to get a perfect replica as that's not the point. Luckily, I can speed up the recording so you don't have to watch me go through the same steps yet again. Okay, here we are saying I want to adjust this rest. I'll add just a little bit, maybe work on its perspective, right? If I use Control T on it, I can see all my work has gone away. This transformation box shows is if this is a regular rectangle, so I'll have to start from scratch. On the other hand, if you enter free transform mode here, you'll see how everything is exactly as I left it. That's immensely powerful because you can revisit an older project, whether it's been an hour or a year and continue to edit it from where you left off. That's the power of smart objects. We still have a long way to go, but we'll take it step-by-step. Okay, that wraps up this lecture. I'll see you soon. 169. Design an Android app icon: In this lecture, we'll create an Android icon that will be used on Google Play. At the end of it, we'll put smart objects to good use. This will take you roughly 15 minutes to complete, depending on how intricate your icon design is going to be. This will be used for an app of mine called keyboard plus. If we check the Play Store, we can see SwiftKey is using a minimal approach, but there were also other ones that follow the same line. And that's what we're going to go for two. Before we get into it, I want you to think about how you'd approach this project by yourself. Follow my instructions and replicate my design. But then at the end, I want to see a brand new option uploaded to the platform, more on that at the end, Let's get to work. Start with a new canvas That's going to be 512 by 512 pixels. Grab the Ellipse tool and click ones, type in 512 pixels for both fields, as these are the official dimensions for Google Play. Now use Control a and sent to the shape on the Canvas. Also hide your background layer, since our icon has to have a transparent background, go to the bottom of the Layers panel and click on this fx icon so we can add a gradient for its settings. We'll keep it basic normal blending mode with the opacity set at 100%. I want a linear gradient with an angle set at 0 degrees. This means it'll be a horizontal gradients, not vertical because this is very much in style at the moment. For the left side, I'll use the following color-code. Dc 16, F3. This is a pink, purple nuance that's used throughout the app. What can I say? I think it's a very striking and memorable color, so that's why I've used it. For the right side type in F3, 16, B8. This is more towards pink. As you can see, the gradient is very subtle and that's exactly what I wanted. Far gone are the days where our app icons were lifelike representations of actual keyboards. Now minimalists in, and I'm going to keep that in mind as we continue working on this icon. Next, I'll add in a shadow to the base of my icon. I'll zoom through this style is it's nothing relevant for the subject. I want it set at screen with an opacity of 35 percent. Pure whites will be my color of choice for the distance. So I'll go with 20 pixels. The idea behind it is to create a highlight effect so our icon doesn't feel so Barron. It's true. We're keeping it clean, but we don't want it under designed. I'll add another one by clicking on this plus icon. This is going to be underneath the initial one, and I'll change its blend mode to multiply. I'll also turn down the opacity to 40 percent. But they should act like a shadow of sorts because it will help create a contour for my icon. Go with a minus 90 degree angle for the color. I'll keep it in the same pink region, C to 0 be 91. And with that, I'm happy with my base. Let's add an uppercase K symbol that stands for keyboard. I've already selected a font asap bold. I'll enlarge it to 360 pixels, and I'll make it white. Center it both horizontally and vertically. This contrast is fantastic. This is exactly what I'm looking for. Let's add a little something extra to it. Launch your layer style window and enable an inner shadow effect. Don't worry, we won't add a nasty black effect to it. Here's what I'm going to use. Blend Mode, Multiply, Color easier. 00, 00. See A7 opacity, 15 percent angle minus 90 degrees distance eight pixels. This gives it a 3D look, if you will. This is just my first option, but I can always create other variations where I changed my mind and keep it completely flat. Next, I'll add a plus symbol because the app's name is keyboard plus. This should be placed somewhere in the bottom right. It shouldn't compete with the k. So let's make it about 180 pixels, which is half of the Hero Element. Copy and paste that layer style because we want to use the same inner shadow that we've previously set up. Even with it, white on white just doesn't work. But here's what we're going to do. Control click this thumbnail of a plus symbol. This will create a selection. As you can imagine, we're going to use a mask, but we need this selection slightly bigger. To fix that, go to the top menu and click on Select. Now go to Modify, Expand. This will help us out. Let's expand it by five pixels. This should be enough. Now switch to the k layer and go to the bottom of the Layers panel. Hold Alt to create an inverted mask and hit this icon. Great stuff. One final thing, and I'm happy with it. I want a long shadow. This can be done in many ways, but here's a foolproof method. Go to your toolbox and grab the Rectangle Tool. Now, drag one out on the Canvas fairly large. Make sure it's black though you could go with a darker shade of pink. Now rotate it in such a way where you can line it up with the top left edge of this case symbol. This will require you to precisely move your mouse around. But if that's no good, use your arrow keys from your keyboard. If it's needed, rotate it just a little more so you can also align it with the bottom of the k. Now this isn't right. So hold control while still in free transform mode. Your cursor will change because you've just entered distort mode. Grab this anchor points and place it correctly. Now here's the thing. Even though you may try to align it, you'll most likely have to use the pen tool to create one or two extra anchor points. That's because we have some excess black in these regions here, that's unacceptable in my book. For the moment, hit Enter so you can commit to this change. Here's where I place these points. If you're having trouble seeing them, you can temporarily change your color. Now with the mom my path, I can use the direct selection tool by pressing the Control key and move them around in such a way where my shadow is going to be perfect. This requires knowledge of the Pen tool which you should have at this point. But just to make it easier, I'll undo and I'll show you an alternative method. So this is where we're currently at. We have this large black rectangle that needs to be converted to a long shadow. First, lower its opacity to about 30 percent. Now we need to fade it. So go to the Layers panel and add a mask. Now get the gradient tool and make sure you have white and black is your foreground and background colors. Here's how my option bar looks. Everything is set at their default values. Now swipe a few times. Most likely you won't get it on the first go. So try and longest wipes for a smoother effect or short ones for a more abrupt transition. It all depends on what you want to do. Take your time with it. In the meantime, please notice there's clearly a problem near the plus symbol that could have been avoided if we use the pen tool on our rectangle. But I wanted to show you the easy way of fixing it. Grab a black brush by pressing B. Check your signs and hardness. I'll go with something like 20 pixels and the hardness, let's go with 50%. Now while on the mosque, start to paint over these problematic areas. Zoom in and make sure you remove the shutter that has no place being here. While we're on the subject, you should repeat the process for this top right region of the k. You should have another one going from here to here in this direction. I'll skip that so we can continue with our work. Before we do that, I'll rasterize my rectangle because I want to get rid of that extra part that's hanging outside my Canvas. If you use Control T, You'll see it. That's going to bother me later on. So let's right-click it in the Layers panel and choose Rasterize Layer. Great. Now click the layer mask and choose Apply Layer Mask, which will merge these two together. It's not gone yet though. If you hit Control T, you'll see it's still there. But here's the easiest way of removing it. Get the crop tool. Now make sure this delete cropped pixels is checked. Now just tap the Enter key and that extra part will be removed. Let me check just to make sure. Okay, we're good to go. Now it's time to bring in the smart objects. I'm showing you thinking, hey, the jobs already done, why do you need smart objects? Well, here's the deal. I just found out. I need this icon designed this current size of 512 by 512. But I also needed at 256 by 256, 128, 64, and 32. This will be used throughout the app, not just for presentation purposes on Google Play. Hence, I need a robust project that can make my life easier. That means I have to create for duplicates of this exact icon. But I'm not that excited with this current design. Most likely I'll update it somewhere in the near future. Does that mean every time I make a change, I'll have to go through that process for extra times. Well, that's why Smart Objects come in and save the day. I'll grab all these layers and I'll right-click in the layers panel. Now we'll choose Convert to Smart Object. Next, I'll increase my canvas size a lot. Duplicate this four times and place them around the canvas. Use Control T and change this present value to pixels from the Options bar. Now I'll enable the chain icon on all right, to 56. This will immediately be applied for the other field. Let me do the rest for all the other sizes. This is going to take a minute, but then we've made, as the cool stuff is right around the corner. Now, the moment we've been waiting for, after all this buildup, he is the star of the show. Say I've changed my mind. Instead of that pink gradients, I wanted to make the entire Eichengreen not a problem whatsoever. I know there's nothing available in the layers panel besides smart objects. Double-click any of them, and you'll enter into a new project that has a dot PSB extension. Here you have all those layers you right-clicked and converted into a smart object. I'll now make any crazy adjustment and I'll use Control S to save it one, toss me for a location or anything like that is this is still part of my initial PSD. Now close it and witnessed the power of Smart Objects. All the copies have been updated. This is how you truly benefit from working with smart objects. These are identical clones that update immediately after one of them is edited. This means you can design your icon at any size and you'll immediately see what it looks like with a completely different image size. This is also great for web design projects work once, but see what your project would look like both on a desktop PC and a mobile device at the same time. All I had to do with duplicate my smart object. Nothing else happened. Okay, that wraps up this lecture. I'll see you in a second. 170. Here's your task: In this exercise, I want you to take everything you've learned so far and put it to good use by creating an app icon. This can be used for both iOS and Android. What I'm interested in is how you use smart objects to create a presentation, but also how you design this icon. This will take anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours. Here are a few tips to get you started. For the product itself, it's best to have an idea about the app. I don't recommend you jumped straight into Photoshop and design something for an imaginary product. Instead, I suggest you wanted to use one of my apps, keyboard plus or SMS plus. Go and look for apps that could have their icon improved. That's because an icon has to tell a story in one way or another. To get the essence of a product, you have to first use it, then read it's backstory. Both my apps have presentation sites where I showcase their qualities. Plus you get to see my existing color scheme. Take everything in and see how you didn't prove it. This is a challenge, It's not a laid back experience. You have to dig deep into it and figure out what the competition is doing, how you can outsmart it, and how you can create a flagship design. Speaking about it, you have to keep it simple. In general, avoid using clashing colors. This means having blue text on an orange background. That's a major no-no. Stay away from too many elements as well. Initially, when I discussed are I come with my team. We tried to integrate some keys to show that this is a keyboard app. Fact of the matter is there's not enough room. If you bumped up to many elements inside a 512 by 512 Canvas, it won't look right. Plus, whenever you are designing, you'll have to use a mock-up. Here's how this works. You've done to work on a big display, say one or two 24-inch monitors. And you'll be seriously zoomed in. Of course, you can see all those tiny details and differentiate between three or four elements. On the other hand, if you bring that design to your phone by using a mock-up, you will see how everything is tiny and it's much harder to figure out what's going on. Here's how we designed an app icon is on Android Design Studio. We take a screenshot on our phone from Google Play. Here we can see several competitor apps. We had a rectangle over one of them preferably with square corners, so we can create a clipping mask. It's essentially your icon is exactly the same size as all the rest of them. Even if it's 10 percent bigger, you'll naturally be more inclined to like it more. Now once your design is taking shape, drag it here and create a clipping mask to see how it stacks up against all the other ones and alleles. What's going on and take action. Do minor tweaks and see if you can nudge it to perfection. This is going to take time. You will not likely going to get it right on the first couple of tries. Remember, keep it simple but don't under design it. To many photoshop users will slam a solid color and a white icon and they'll be happy with it. That's not enough. Speaking of that, most app icons don't feature any text. So I'd be wary of slapping a keyboard text layer on top of it. Let's switch gears and say you'll use SMS plus as your starting point. It deals with messages, so you'd be inclined to use an envelope of sorts rights. It's not an instant chat app, by the way, so it's not a competitor to WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger. If you use any envelope that's available on the web, your icon will lead character. Remember, this is the face of a business, so it has to be interesting. That's why in my life version, I used modified fonts. You want to be unique and distinguish yourself from everyone else. If you're using a font that's available anywhere on the web, chances are your icon will lack personality. To sum it up, do your best to create a fantastic looking icon. Show it at all sizes, starting from 512 and take it all the way down to 32 pixels in the screenshots, please also include a mock-up that shows your icon versus its competitors. I suggest you visit my sites and choose r, the keyboard plus or SMS plus, but feel free to use any other app on the market. What's important is you do your research and you put some thought into it. The same applies on iOS. I'm less interested about the platform differences and more so in your choices and your use of smart objects. So if you are an iPhone user, don't let this discouraged. Upload your work onto the platform and I'll be sure to give you my feedback. Other students may chime in as well, so you'll get a lot of constructive insight. Okay, please stop the course and get to work. 171. Breaking Smart Objects: Hi, In the previous lecture, we designed an Android icon for my Android app called keyboard plus. At the end of the video, you saw how smart objects can help you visualize the same design at different sizes by simply duplicating them. In this lecture, I want to show you how you can break that link. Because sometimes that amazing feature may actually be amazingly annoying. Before we get into it, I want to show you how I updated my app icon design. In this short break, there are only a few changes. I switched the direction of the shadow because I thought it looked cool and this way, especially since I also included another one for the plus symbol, as you can see here, the shadow is doubled by also change the typeface because I wanted something unique. I started from a specific font, then I further adjusted it with the pen tool so I could have something that nobody else has. For the moment. I'm happy with it. Ask me tomorrow and I might change it. Finally, I've added these diagonal stripes by using rectangles with different shades of pink. These all clipped to my base layer. The idea is simple. You create a rectangle like so. Now you create some copies and you drop the opacity. Now you select all of them with the help of control T. You rotate them, place them over your ellipse and use a clipping mask. Or if you have a gradient applied, use a layer mask. And that's it. Back to our topic. We have this design and we'll convert it to a smart object. Now, I'll make two copies. And what you previously saw, I can double-click on any one of their thumbnails and I'll gain access to all those files. If I delete the shadow and I hit Save, that's going to be reflected on all of them. But sailing only want that to happen on certain copies. How can I prevent a smart object duplicates from acting like an identical clone? Well, you get these clones no matter how you create them, either through Control J or by using the Alt drag technique straight on the Canvas. If you want to create a standalone copy, you have to right-click in the layers panel and choose New Smart Object via Copy. This sounds like it's exactly the same thing, but here's the deal. I'll place it separately on my Canvas. These three are tied together, while this one is independent. I'll edit any of these clones, but this time I won't double-click the thumbnail. Instead, I'll use the Properties panel and I'll look for this button, edit contents. This does the same thing. I'll move the K symbol into a totally different place and I'll save, check the initial tab and noticed that independent lab has no business with all these clones. That's how you break smart objects. That's not an accurate way of describing what happened, but it's the shortest way of saying that's how you create a copy of a smart object that doesn't update like all other duplicates. So to sum it up, when you want perfect replicas, duplicate your smart objects through Control J or by using the drag technique. Those will be clones that will update no matter which one of them you change. If you want an independent smart object that won't react to any other changes, you have to right-click in the layers panel and use this option. This is really useful if you have two or three icon designs and you want to see them side-by-side. Most likely you will start with one icon and then you'll want to have some variations. Well, this is how you optimize your workflow. You create independent replicas, and then you use those to create clones to showcase the design at various sizes. It's all about being efficient and making your life easier. Try it out for yourself. This PSD won't be included because I'll actually use this design on Google Play. But you should have an icon of your own at this point. So please use that. Have fun. 172. Showcase Your Work Professionally: Hi, In this lecture, I'll teach you how to show off your work in the best possible light through the use of smart objects. Here's the situation. You spend day and night trying to design a fantastic looking design. Maybe it's an app, a website, it's a T-shaped designer book cover. No matter what it is, you still want to showcase to appropriately. You finally get to the end of the project and you're extremely excited to show it off to the world. Maybe you want to post it on Facebook, or if you're brave enough on websites like Behance or dribble that are filled with amazing entries submitted by professional designers from all over the world. If you upload a JPEG, you'll see it's not that special, even if your design looks good. And that's because a lot of professional designers spent quite a lot of time preparing their shots so they can get more likes, viewers or retention in general. Here's how you do it. You download a free mockup from the web that's created around a small object. On screen, you have such an example. In select this PSD file, you'll very likely to find a smart object, among other things. Double-click it and you'll be able to edit it. This is the place where you need to place your design. Before you do that, check the Canvas size with Control Alt C So you can make sure your image will fit this project appropriately. I already have two screenshots prepared, so let me drag them in. This is a screen for an Android app of mine that asks for the users review. I'll place it inside this PSB file and I'll hit Save. Like magic, the old screen was replaced with this new one. That's how you can make use of these mockups. I have another screenshot. This time it's a smart object. If you download these mockups and you try using a clipping mask, you won't get the same result. And that's because you'll likely have to transform your image, resize it, changes perspective, rotate it. And this case right here is pretty easy to handle. Imagine if the phone was lying down on a table, or maybe you want to feature your app inside a three-quarter view shot. Those are tricky situations. So avoid all that trouble by using mockups that are photoshopped ready. If you go to File New, you will find quite a few of these templates as well. Make sure you go to the web or mobile category. And you'll get quite a few mock-ups that you can immediately use. Almost all of them rely on smart objects, so it'll be easier to get started with them. Okay, that wraps up this lecture. Remember, next time you finish a project integrated into some type of presentation through the use of smart objects. Have fun. 173. Realistic mockup: Hey, there, In this activity I'll teach you how to create a realistic mock-up in just ten minutes. Here's what you can expect to see on your Canvas. By the end of this video, you have this image attached. Please work along. So what we'll do is add any photo inside this iPhone fast and easy through the use of smart objects. There's no additional layer in this project. It's completely flat. Start with a rectangle that has a size that matches the phone specifications. In this case that 750 by 13, 34 pixels. I'm not an Apple fan and as far as I know, this isn't the latest model, but it'll do just fine for this activity. Please note your rectangle's size has to be on point. Otherwise the mockup won't be as good. Change its color to red because this will help us out in a moment. Next, we will convert it to a smart object from the layers panel. Position it in a way that it lines up with the top left edge. Now into free transform mode we've controlled t. Next will distort the image in such a way where it will better match the phone's screen. You can use a number of options to achieve the same thing. If you want to explore some of them, right-click and play around with each one of these additional transformations. In this case, I'll use distorts through its hotkey, the Control key. This will give me a good result in no time at all. Drank these two points as best you can consider in your zoom level. You can't switch to the zoom tool while in this free transform mode, but you can switch between 100% and fit to screen through Control 1 and control 0. You can also pan around with the help of the Spacebar key to get to the bottom edges. This process requires quite a bit of patients and back and forth. You'll have to hit Enter and zoom in a few times so you can match this up to the best of your abilities. I'd like to leave a two or three pixel gap because that's how most phones look in these mockups. Your best bet is to try and have an equal gap on all sides. This will likely be the most time-consuming step out of the entire process. This is why I made the rectangle read. It makes my life much easier because black on black would have been a nightmare to sort through. Okay, fast-forward, and I'm done. This is looking pretty good. Now, double-click the smart object and let's add a screenshot of any app. I'll use this basic one in this case, as you can see, it perfectly fits because this is a real screenshot made from this specific device. This is why we used a rectangle that matched the phones specifications. Hit Control and close this tab with Control W. Okay, this looks pretty good, but it's a bit too bright. You can tell it's not real, but we have many available options to improve its look. First, let's drop the opacity to about 90 percent. So the original black screen will show through just a little bit. Next, we'll add a gradient layer style. Click on this area and choose one of the preset gradients. I'll go with the second one that goes from black to Transparent hit. Okay, and let's drop the opacity to something like 50 percent. I'll also make sure the angle is set at 0 degrees. In case this isn't looking right, you can flip it by using this reverse checkbox or you can change the angle to 180, and that works just as well. This part depends on the image you're working on. And it's usually a good idea to hide your smart object and see if there are any reflections on the screen in the original photo. In this case it's pure black, so we have nothing to go on. Not a problem. After you play around with this one, go and find another image on the web and perform the same steps. Then upload it to the platform so others can see your work and give their feedback. I'll chime in as well. Of course. Let me show you one last thing before we wrap this up. Grab the pen tool and check it set to shape from the top-left side. Set your first anchor point here. Then follow the phones line and click here. Now go back up and to the right side. Finally go around to your original point. This is going to act like a glare. Make it white, and drop the opacity to around 20 percent. If you didn't position it right, get the direct selection tool and move these points around. Nudge them into place. If you don't want it to look like a solid triangle, add a layer mask from the bottom of the Layers panel. Now grab the gradient tool and you know what's next. Start to swipe until you get it right. My advice is you always hold shift when you're using this tool. After a few tries, you should get your bearings. Okay, I'm happy with that. Show me your version and upload a new one to hopefully in a different position. If it looks nice, I'll upload it to my blog and it may be downloaded by thousands of people. Remember to be patient and use the distort mode after you've used Control T because that will give you fast results without too many problems. Lastly, always use rectangles that are sized according to the phone specifications. Do that before you convert it to a smart object. Okay, that about does it have fun? 174. Linked smart objects: Welcome to a new lecture about smart objects. In these next few minutes, I'll teach you all you need to know about Linked Smart Objects. Here's the situation. I downloaded this mock-up and I want to replace this diploma with a cool photo. Not a problem. This is a smart object, so I'll double-click it to get access to. It's less. When I enter this PSB file, I'll get this warning that tells me I don't have this font installed. I can ignore it by pressing don't resolve, or I can replace it with another phone from this list. In this case, Photoshop shows me Myriad Pro. No matter, Let's continue above all these layers. I'll drag and drop my own image. Here. It isn't. I think it's going to look nice inside that frame. I'll drag it inside Photoshop and I'll resize it so it'll fit on this canvas. I'll use Alt and shift for that. Okay, let me hit Enter and we can switch tabs so we can see how it looks. No bad. But here's the thing. I'm not working alone on this project. Maybe it's a group project or a team effort in one way or another. So I don't get the final say regarding this image. So I need to ensure my team can try out new photos with ease. A problem. Let's enter this smart object yet again. And I previously mentioned that anytime you drag and drop an image inside Photoshop, it will be automatically placed as a smart object inside your project. You can see this option one layer has the smart object symbol. If you look at the properties panel, you'll see this button that says convert to linked. You can also find it if you right-click this smart object. Here's how great it is used. That feature and Photoshop will ask you where you want to save this photo. Google Drive or Dropbox would be a fantastic choice because that's where your team is most likely going to upload some new choices. Anyway, I'll save it here and I'll minimize Photoshop. Next, I'll rename this file to option two. If we switch back to the program and nothing has changed. But if we double-click the smart object, we'll get this error that says photoshop can't find that particular image. I have the option of browsing around my computer by using this relink button so I can find it. I'll hit Cancel because a new images just arrived. This is now option one, so it uses the exact name that Photoshop expects. Let's go back to the program. Now. It won't gets updated immediately because you have to approve any change in your PSDs. But if you double-click again, you'll see a new icon has appeared at the top of your Linked Smart Object. This shows you something happened with it. Even though it seems like we're still working with the old file. Once we double-click this one too, we'll see there's a new image placed inside the smart object. If you're okay with this change, you'll have to tell Photoshop you want to use it to update it, right-click over it in the Layers panel and choose Update Modified Content. After a second, Photoshop shows you the new file. That's how Linked Smart Objects work. This isn't limited to images. For example, I'll close this tab and head over to my main project. Say I designed a logo with my team and I want to use it as a Linked Smart Object, but I don't want to link to a JPEG or PNG file, but straight to its PSD. Not a problem. You go to File Place Linked. You'll be asked to upload your project. And here it is. I'll position it somewhere in the top left corner of this mock-up. Notice it's currently black. I'll close everything and we'll imagine a team member open that logo dot PSD file, and he changed the colors from black. He went to read according to some new indications from the team leader. Well, once I open the initial PSD yet again, I'll have the same warning icon that tells me something has been edited in the Linked Smart Object. It's pretty small, but if you glance at your layers panel, you're shorter, see it. I'll double-click to see the change. And this is looking nice. So I'll close it, Right-click and update my layer. Great stuff. By using Linked Smart Objects. You also lower the PSD size. That's because this lead does not get stored in this project. Instead, it's just placed there as a flattened version. If you want to send this design to another person, including all its Linked Smart Objects, you have to go to File Package. You'll be asked for a location. Let me choose this place on my SSD. Now a new folder has popped up that contains the PSD file, as you'd expect, but also another folder called links. Overall, this is a great feature in Photoshop, does a good job at helping you work with the Linked Smart Objects. If we right-click again, we'll get an option to reveal that linked file in Explorer. So if someone created a messy project with files thrown all of your hard drive, this will be a lifesaver. And if you're done with linking smart objects, you can just embed them. Press this button and it's as easy as that. Now you no longer have any dependencies or strings attached. Again, Linked Smart Objects, so very useful when you're working with someone else. That also Greg, when you're designing something over several PSDs. So you have a web design project and you don't want to use art boards, you design 15 PSDs once for each page, but then the client changes his mind about the logo. Instead of replacing it in each file, you'd much rather update it once and have that adjustment spread through all of your files. That's where Linked Smart Objects really shine. So next time you plan on working with a team or of a multiple PSD files give Linked Smart Objects are shot. Okay, that concludes this lecture. 175. Filters with smart objects: Hi, In this lecture we'll talk about using filters with smart objects. A quick recap before we get into it. If you apply any filter to a regular raster layer, you'll permanently modifying its pixel structure, which seriously limits any further editing. To gain more freedom, we first convert the layer into a smart object. Right? Now let me show you a new feature photoshop just introduced in its previous release. It's called D Hayes. And as you can imagine, it clears up any excessive fog or mist. This is a perfect example on screen, so let's try it out. Unfortunately, it's pretty well hidden away, but you can find it under filters, Camera Raw Filter. If we drag it towards the left, will actually accentuate the fog, which might be useful if you're trying to create a spooky composition at some crosses here and there, maybe a skeleton. And you can create an interesting piece on a guy walking through a graveyard. That's not what we're here for though. So let's increase that value as I slowly move it towards the right side and getting stronger, better looking colors, the contrast is improving. But please note if you take it too far, you're bound to get some artifacts. Just look at this top left spot here. Because the image was shot on such a misty day, there's little information in this region. So you have to tread carefully. In this case, I'll apply various other filters. So I'm not that worried about it because we're here. Let's also add a vignette effect. Let's take this amount to minus 20. A vignette simply means you're darken the edges of the photos. Of course, you can also lighten them, but I'd rather go the other way. Hit Okay, and we're ready for our next filter. Go to the top menu and choose pixelate mosaic. This produces an interesting look through which you can create fantastic 8-bit art from regular images by increasing the cell size you further pixelated. But I don't want to take it too far. So I'll stick to somewhere around 30 squares. I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that all smart filters come with a mask. You can see it here. But notice the difference. This is not a regular mask that can hide or reveal pixels from the actual layer. Instead, this only applies to your effect. If you want a layer mask for your photo, that's possible to just click here and you'll get it. I know it may seem confusing having to layer masks for the same smart object, but this happens when you use smart filters by default that replied with a fully transparent mask. I'll right-click and delete this one. Now I'll grab a brush and I'll paint over this person to remove parts of this smart filter. This is one of the best ways of working with them. You either create a selection and then you use this top menu, or you simply apply a smart filter, all of your photo, and then you remove parts of it with your brush tool. It really depends on how you want to approach it. Okay, I'm happy with that. Lastly, I'll aggregation blur. In this case, I'll go with a pretty strong effect. So let's say 10 pixels for its strength. Now it seems I've just lost my mosaic filter, but as layers stack from top to bottom, so does smart filters. So I'll grab the second one and drag it above my Gaussian blur. Now my canvas shows how I can get the best of both worlds. So in case something isn't looking right when you have several smart filters applied, remember that besides toggling the visibility and adjusting their values, you can also modify their stacking order. Okay, that wraps up this lecture. I'll see you soon. 176. ACTIVITY: Create a Business Card Part 1: Welcome to this activity where I'll teach you how to create a beautiful business card for yourself. This is going to take about 45 minutes to complete, and this is how your end result is going to look. It's clean, it's professional, and you can easily change both its design and content. The goals of this activity. One, teach you best practices for creating business cards. To use smart objects to create this awesome presentation. Please note that you'll have to use a professional business card company to print it out using your own printer isn't going to cut it. Speaking about cutting, depending on what service you use, they'll require your designed to follow a specific guideline. I went ahead and I found a template from moo.com, one of the biggest companies in this field. On the screen you can see their requirements. I won't get into it is That's not important for this lecture, but you should know your Canvas should have a resolution of 300 pixels per inch. Regarding canvas size, that it's going to vary from company to company. Not to mention, you may have business cards in all sorts of formats. Here. Moo.com wants me to use 3.46 by 2.32 inches. This is important for them because that's how they can ensure your cards will come out perfectly. You have this document attached to this lecture. Please download it instead of starting from scratch. The most important thing is you don't design anything outside this dotted area. So we'll make sure our elements will be positioned according to this guide. Okay, let's get to the design phase, but feel free to hide some of these extra layers. Start with a rectangle that will cover this entire canvas. Pixels, that means 1038 by 696 change its color to two to one day 19. This is a dark brown that will provide us with excellent contrast in case you can't see it that well, right-click anywhere outside your canvas and choose another color for it. Something much lighter, we'll help you out. Now let's add a bit of a texture through the Bevel and Emboss layer style. Here are the settings I'll use. Style inner bevel with a smooth technique, depth, 600% direction up with the size set at one pixel. For the shading, I'll use a 90 degree angle to the Highlight Mode to 10 percent opacity and the shadow mode to 35 percent. The next step is important enabled texture from the left side. Here, click in this region to open up your library of Patton's. Click on the gear icon. And from this list will choose a set called color paper. Photoshop will ask us if we want to replace the existing set or append. I'll completely replace it because there's nothing interesting here. Here. You can play around with these textures, but I'm looking for one in particular, metallic black. It's this dark one from this second row, though, highly depends on your window size. For the scale go with 215% and for the depth plus 50 percent should be fine. Leave this link with layer option checked. All these specific measurements have been obtained through a trial and error method. Nothing fancy about it. An important notices this, we're using this texture for presentation purposes only. If you're going to send this design out to be printed. You don't want to add a fake paper texture. That's because you'll inevitably get some real texture from the actual paper that's going to be used by the printing company. In case you want to better understand why I used that particular depth or scale, try out various options and see how the design changes. In this case, I wanted pretty high values. So you can see the grooves inside the paper, the dark of the background, the more you have to turn up these sliders. Let's add some content to this card instead of using my name. All right, This looks great just for the fun of it, which is my username on all sorts of sites like Dribble, Behance, Facebook, Twitter, et cetera. This is going to be all in lower caps in a serif font from Google Fonts. It's name is bitter, and I'll use it in bold for the size, go with 80 pixels or so, but this will depend on the amount of characters you're using. For the color. I'll choose a light cream one, a3, nine, see a1c. Underneath. We'll add a second line that describes what I do. In my case. That's Photoshop instructor. I'll keep the same color, but I'll drop the size to 40 pixels. In this case, I'll mix this serif font from up top with a sans serif one, Josephine Sans Regular. This is also available on Google, enabled the all caps transformation. So this will be roughly two-thirds of the headline. Use your Control key to measure the distance between them. Notice Photoshop considers this G character or part of its imaginary rectangle. Let's leave a little under 10 pixels between the two. Speaking about their alignment. So I want to leave about a 100 pixels from each side, and I also want to align their left edges about the overall look. Here, I'm going for something very conservative. Business cards are a reflection of yourself. That's why I suggest you keep things and clean and elegant. Don't get shouting about it. She will add a dash of color and personality, but never go overboard with it. I'll show you my personal business card at the end of this activity. But in general, you should look for a blend between creativity and professionalism. Now I'll add a line through my rectangle tool. I want to maintain 100 pixels on both sides. So that means its width will be 838. For its height, something like three pixels should do just fine. Position it at the edge of our top line. You shift and your down arrow key to move it down. Okay, the title Photoshop instructor should be placed roughly 15 pixels from it. Next, I'll duplicate it and place it pixels underneath it, just so I don't have to use the marquee tool to center this text layer vertically. The g, of course is dragging on this line. So let's mask away that part. At a rectangle that's a bit wider than your letter. Hold control and click on its thumbnail. Now switch to the line layer, hold Alt and click here. That will create an inverted mask. Finally, delete that extra rectangle and we're good to go. We now have a gap. You could have used a brush, but creating a selection from a rectangle is more precise. For that color is I'll keep this cream line going. Double-click there thumbnails and sample from any of these texts layers. So far. So good for my contact details. I already have a bit of texts prepared in Notepad. Let me get it and paste it in because I want to keep this pace going. For the settings. I'll stick with Josephine Sans Regular 40 pixels. For the line-height, something like 60 is going to be just fine. Okay, we've made quite a lot of progress. Let's pick this up in the next lecture. 177. ACTIVITY: Create a Business Card Part 2: Welcome to this activity. Let's continue where we left off. We added these contact details, phone number, email, Facebook ID, and location. We're going to need some icons. But in the short break, I took the liberty of finding some. Here they are. And I've already resized them to 40 by 40 pixels. Give me a second while I drag and drop them into our project and place them accordingly. I have them 20 pixels for my text layer to make sure they're properly aligned. I won't rely on the distribute vertical centers command. Instead, I'll use the marquee tool and do it manually for each one, it's going to be a bit more time-consuming, but this will give me a perfect result. As I work in the background, I'd like to remind you to follow my instructions and create a perfect replica. After you're done with it, make a copy of that PSD file and start adding your own twist to it. Maybe add an interesting pattern instead of this texture, use a brighter color instead of this brown and cream color combo and so on. Here, this design is as safe as it can be. Okay, these abdominal wall group them together, leave about 80 pixels from the bottom line. As for the left side, I want to add a bit of detail in that region. Grab the ellipse tool and click anywhere on the canvas. Let's create a circle that's 90 by 90 pixels. Align it to the left side of our project with the help of our smart guides. This should also be top aligned with our contact details. Here's when you're smart guides will help out quite a lot. Make sure you zoom level is okay. It may happen that you are too close in to see what's going on. Here. This seems fine. Drop the fill to 0% and some will add a stroke effect. This is going to be placed inside the shape. Six pixel should be enough for its size. As for the color, for the moment, we'll use A3, nine, C, eight, C. This is good to go. Let me create a copy and bottom align it with our left element. Between these two, I want the exact same distance as before. That means 80 pixels. Now is the perfect time to take a step back and see if there are any issues with our work so far, It's bound to happen from time to time. Maybe you've lost something in the process. If that's the case, review the lecture and see if you've skipped a step. If that's not the case, you have this PSD attached to this video. Now, let's group everything in one single folder except for the background layer. I'll do that because next I'll add a couple of layer styles to all these components. Let's get started with a bevel and emboss. For the style I have it centered in a Bevel with a chisel hard technique. Crank up the depth to 100%. The size should be fun at one pixel and we don't want to soften it for the angle, go with 90 degrees. Moving on to the highlight and shadow, have the first one set at 75 percent. For the other one, drop it to 0 because we don't want any shadows creeping in. This doesn't look all that great. But next we'll add a gradient overlay. Have it set at normal for the blending mode with an opacity of 100%, change its style to linear if it's not already set. And for the angle go with 0 degrees, this means we will have a horizontal gradient. Let's input our colors. For the left side, I've chosen FE F9, da. This is a very light yellow color that should stand out nicely on this background. For the right side, I wanted something more intense, FF DB 61. And that's all sober business cards so far. Now it's time to create its presentation. And if we see anything that doesn't seem right, we can go back and arrange it. First, created duplicate of your entire Layers panel and convert it to a smart object. We're going to use it in a different tab where we'll create a cool presentation for it. Start with a canvas size that's one hundred, ten hundred by 800 pixels. For the resolution, 72 pixels is fine because we're not going to print it. This is just to showcase our work. We have to place our cards on some type of floor. So I've prepared this wood texture. You have it attached to this lecture. Let's drag in our smart object and we'll resize it to about 600 pixels or so. Make sure the chain icon is clicked so the height will resize as well. Now the next step is to make it look like it's laying on the floor. So enable free transform mode and we'll get to work. Hold Control and drag each corner in such a way where you can guide yourself with the floorboards. The idea is to try and maintain our current parallel with these gaps. This will require a lot of fiddling because we want to make it look as real as possible. The idea is to be patient and explore different looks. Drag a corner to a new position, then take a step back and see how it looks. If you're not happy, reposition it again. So all four points after receive a fair amount of attention, I can immediately spot some things I want to change. But first I have to wrap up this task. In case you're having a particularly hard time, go to Google images and look for some examples. You can even drag them inside your project and take down their opacity to 20 to 30 percent. Thus, you can use them as a guide. Okay, fast forward. And I think this is looking good. Next, I'll create a stack of cards by creating several copies of this smart object. Here's the process. Use Control J to create a copy. Then select the layer that's underneath it and not get four pixels downwards. Repeat this process at least four or five times. So we can get a chunky stack of business cards. You'll notice that as I'm creating more and more duplicates, they seem to blend together. And that's because in our original design that's intended for print, we didn't include any sorts of shadows or highlights. But now we can get to work. I'll select the first one from the layers panel, and I'll add an inner shadow for this right side. This will be set to multiply 40 percent opacity, pure black. The angle is important, I'd say something like minus 25 degrees should work out well, but this will depend a lot on your light source and how you place these cards on the floor. Two pixels for the distance, two for the size. Next, I'll add another one this time for the bottom region. This one should be white, set on screen. For the opacity, 20 percent should be fine. The angle all going for is minus a 150 degrees. One pixel for the distance, zeros for the rest. Okay, So far, so good. But I want to add a gradient overlay to for its settings screen for the blend mode, 25 percent opacity. For the style, I'll go with linear and the angle is going to be set at 45 degrees. In this case, I want to show a light source that's coming from the bottom left side of the screen. Click the gradient and we'll choose a predefined one. It's this one here, from black to transparent. But instead of black, I'll double-click and change it to white. As for the right side, I'll remove this handle. Okay, our gradient is good to go. Feel free to toggle its visibility so you can see the before and after. Finally, I'll add a drop shadow, pure black, settle, multiply with a 25 percent Taipei City. For the angle 45 degrees should be fine for the distance and size. Let's go with three pixels. Remember, all these settings can be later adjusted then not written in stone. Press. Okay, and now we'll paste this effect on all the other gods. Okay? Now this looks much better. Each card seems to be independent, so then no longer mushed together. Great stuff. Let's handle all the finishing touches in the last part of this series. I'll see you in a second. 178. ACTIVITY: Create a Business Card Part 3: Hello and welcome to the last part of this series. Let's finish our business card design. But first, I want to change a few things. First, I'll change up my contact information by making it bold. Right now it's a bit too skinny for my taste. I'll also increase the line height to 70 pixels, which means I'll have to rearrange all these icons and circles, but that's not going to be the end of the world. A lot coming my username on it, but let's change it to my real name, Christian baron. This means we can delete that layer mask because we no longer have that hanging G character. Because of that, I'll also space out these two lines of text because they're too bunched together. All these ideas come from a moment of breather. Once you take a step back, have a shower, get back to the project. You'll bring fresh ideas to the table. This is one you should never rush into a project. If you can't rely on a second pair of well-trained eyes, at least give yourself the time to review all your settings and design choices. Okay, Now, I'm happy with it. Let's make another copy and place it somewhere on the side of this stack, not completely separated from the group though, just a little bit for presentation purposes. Let's also rotate it, a nudge it until we're happy with it. Ideally, I'd like to see at least 1 third of my design, otherwise it doesn't make sense. Okay, something like that will work. Next, I'll grab the pen tool so I can create a shadow for this stack. Make sure you have it set to shape from the top left. Now start from this corner of the god and go towards the top right. Remember our light source is coming from the bottom left. Okay, I'll close it off at this bottom right edge of my business card. This is looking good, but it's too strong. Drop its opacity to about 20 percent and place it underneath your copies in the layers panel. Good stuff. Add a layer mask so we can make it fade away. Swipe a few times until you're happy with the result. We don't want it too soft little bit. Surely we want people to notice it. Previously, we achieved the same result by using a rectangle. Here. I wanted to show you the alternative. Good stuff. I'm pleased with that. To further illustrate the point, I'll darken this top region and there are a number of ways to do it. Since we've just used the pen tool, I'll switch tactics, create a new layer and place it above our stack. Now get the gradient tool and make sure you have your colors set at black and white. Swipe a few times to get this type of effect. Of course, this is way too much, so I'll switch its blending mode to Multiply. I'll also drop its opacity to 30 percent. Now this is much better. Take another look and see if there's anything out of order or all that needs extra attention. Okay, Overall, that's our project. It required quite a few steps, but it was ambitious. If we weren't making this presentation, we could have got away with it in about 15 or 20 minutes. But with it, you'll probably need over 30 minutes just in case you're curious, I'll show you my current business card design. This is what I'm rocking. This is my company's logo and it's called theme junkie Apps. Underneath my title, I have a short description because a dung to seeing people will know what theme junky is all about. That's what I suggest you do as well. Unless your headline is Joe's Plumbing, most people won't know what your main occupation is. I feature my full name, phone number, Skype ID, and personal blog. The minimum, you should have your email and phone number. The rest are optional. I know that nowadays business cards aren't used as much as they once were. But having a great design still makes a good impression. I'm using this striking pink because we have it all overall walls at the office. We use it in some of our apps as well as in the logo. That's because we wanted something different, something bold and once more remarkable than this striking shade of pink. It seems a bit feminine, but nowadays I've seen so many vivid bright colors that it's anyone's game. Now, I'd like to see what you come up with. Please resist the temptation of featuring some sort of big image from a stoke website. Usually those look tacky and it's best to avoid them. Your personal touch on this project and try to be different while sticking to the rules of the game. You can use this presentation, but I'd much rather you show me something else. Upload your work to the platform, and I'll be sure to give you some feedback on it, will have a friendly competition and see which student has the best looking God, I hope you're up for it, get to work and have fun. 179. Create a cute character: Welcome to this fund projects where we take everything you've learned so far and put it all together by creating this cute little guy. I've yet to decide if it's a monster, a cat, or a mascot, but it's lovable and that's all that matters. This will take about 30 to 45 minutes to complete from start to finish. And my inspiration was my new character for my Android app called SMS plus meet Octavia. He inspired this lecture. So let's get to it. Start with a new canvas That's 1024 by 1024. Let's set our background color by using a rectangle. This should be the same size and it needs to be positioned appropriately. This point, I'm sure you're familiar with the alignment tools. We could have used this existing background layer and filled it with Alt Delete, but I personally prefer to use rectangles. Next, get the ellipse tool and click to set your measurements. We're looking for 500 by 500 pixels. As for the color, go with FF, 95, 36, this is a nice orange that will stand out against the background. Next, we have an important step. When I created this design, I quickly sketched out something that would serve as a guide. I realized that free styling is hard to do when you haven't created projects like this before. So please download this attached sketch and place it on your canvas. This needs to be underneath your ellipse, by the way. And our goal is to get this body shape right. So lower the ellipses opacity to about 70 percent also, we want it slightly transparent so we can see the sketch. Now we've controlled t stopped to drag these handles to a point where it starts to match up with your template. You'll notice some parts need to be dragged inwards, while other handles need to go outwards. Even so the result won't be perfect, but will enable walk from the options bar. And this will help us out a lot. Here. I'm not going to use a preset because we have this sketch. The essential part is the lower region where we need to make it look like this guy sitting down. So click and drag, but don't worry about being precise on the other side. Take care of the cheek region as well, and you'll soon be flying with it. You could have cost skip this step altogether, but you'll shake, won't be as cute in my opinion. We want to fairly chubby character. Okay, I'm done and I'm happy with it. Leave the opacity as it is because we have more work to do. Next, we'll use the pen tool to create all these other components, the ears, the legs, the mouth, and so on. Make sure you have it set to shape from the top-left. And if you don't have it selected, change your color to orange. The code is FF 95, 36. So let's get started with this top left ear. Ideally, this should be created in only three clicks. Let's see if we can make that happen. First, I'll start from slightly inside the body layer with a single click. Next I'll go to the apex of the ER, click and drag towards the upper right. I'm trying to follow this curvature. Remember you can always hit 7 on your keyboard to drop the opacity to 70 percent in case you haven't loaded at this point. Now we'll click somewhere inside the body yet again. But that's not going to be a problem because all the overflowing parts will be hidden behind it. In case the curvature is not correct, you can hold the Control key and drag this handle to another position. It really depends on how much you drag, but remember, this needs to be a fun process. I don't want you to get stressed out by these details. If it's not 100% like the sketch, don't worry about it. This is just your first try. Finally, bring it back to the origin point. And this is wrapped up. Coming up is the inner ear. Here. It's the exact same procedure. Click once, then click and drag towards the top right. Click again to create the meat of your layer. Now close it off. If you do need to adjust it, now's the time to do so. Okay, this is looking good. Raise your opacity to 100% and change the inner ears color to a slightly darker orange. We'll focus on the actual color scheme and defects a bit later on. Now it's up to you if you want to duplicate this and flip it horizontally. By the way, this is a good time to group and rename your layers. My advice is you create another year by using the same techniques. Let me do that now. I'll click about five pixels inside this layer. Here. I'll go up, click and drag towards the right. Here. If you click again towards the bottom of the year, your curve might look terrible if your handle isn't in a similar position. So you may want to hold Alt and click on this top anchor point. This will convert it and it will allow you to change the direction of your shape with ease. The downside is that it will be a bit pointy, but that's acceptable in my book. Still, in this case, I'll do my best to make it look like in the sketch. Okay, there you go. Once you're done, repeat the process for the inner ear. Take your time with it and in case you are having issues, please revisit all the Pen tool exercises. Those are valuable lessons that will teach you how to handle these types of shapes. Great stuff up the opacity and change the colors if needed. If something is off, remember these are shaped players, so you can always switch to the Direct Selection Tool and nudge any anchor points into a better position. Plus by following the sketch in the background, you should have no trouble with it. Next, I'll tackle the feet. I'll speed through these elements is then nothing new. Remember Control zed is your friend. So when something isn't right, just undo. And although it looks cool and sexy to create as few anchor points as possible, sometimes you just have to add a few extra ones to get the right look. Okay, this is done. Let me move on to the rest as I work in the background, but I hope you're enjoying the course so far. I've made it my personal mission to create the best possible learning experience. And although some parts are fairly repetitive, like in this case here, I always try to keep it as hands-on as possible. Okay, finally, I'll tackle what might be considered. It's from pours in this case, after the first one's done, I'll duplicate it and position it on the other side. There's no need for anything special as these will only be seen at the bottom part anyway. So that means you don't have to worry about how tool the shape should be. But I advise you to go at least towards the middle of the body layer. Later on, we'll fade them out with a mask so you'll need enough height for that. Okay, our progress is spot on so far, this is actually one of the hardest parts. After we're done with the pen tool, you'll see we'll be flying through the project. It's a great idea to constantly adjust your colors because otherwise you won't be able to see any potential issues. For example, the feet should be placed underneath the body layer. So things like this can only be observed if you're constantly adjusting your orange nuances. Let's finish this lecture by creating the eyes. Here, a very low opacity should help you out. Start from the left one and click in the top middle part of the sketch. Click and drag towards the bottom, just whether cheek line is placed. My advice is you hold Alt and you click on this anchor point so we can set a new direction. Great. Now, click and drag yet again. Always go down as much as it's needed. Here. I think I'll use Alt yet again, but that's not a problem. Now, here's where you can be a hero and try to walk this up with only one click, but I'll make my life easier by creating another intermediary point. Good stuff. Now I can close it off. That was the hard part for the rest of the I will use ellipses. Please note you may need to constantly switch between 100% opacity and something like 20 or 30 percent if you haven't changed it already, this custom parts should be white. Okay, Let's continue. Get the ellipse tool from the Tools Panel, click and input these measurements. The first one should be 99 pixels. This needs to be clipped to the custom shape we just drew. Now change its color to 000 68. This is a nice shade of blue that will create a contour. The next shape can be created with Control J, resize it to 97 pixels or so, and this needs to be clipped as well. Now ideally you should have somewhere between 24 pixels between the shapes. So do your best to nudge this top one into place. Make your life easier by changing its color to 21, 9D C6. This will help you out quite a lot. Finally, click and create a 45 pixels circle that's pure black. Position it in the center of these two existing ellipses, and we're good to go. Oh, it seems I forgot about this small detail which makes the character that much more appealing. With the ellipse tool selected, click and input a width of 140 pixels. As for the height, something like 160 should work well, though will mask the bottom part a bit later on. So that's less relevant. Position it in such a way where it lines up with the sketch. This will acts like an eyebrow of sorts. Okay, Let's wind things down and do a quick check. Take a look in your Layers panel. And at this point it's likely to be a mess. Take a minute and clean it up. Check your colors on the canvas and see if everything is looking right. Now is the time to max out the obesity. Once everything has been handled, group all these layers. Now duplicate it and place it on the right side. Finally, use Control T and flip it horizontally. The only concern at this point is the pupil size. If it's too big, it may look like the character is scared or that it's staring at something. Here. I'm all set. I know this was quite a long lesson, but the other one should go faster. I'll see you in a second. 180. Cute character: Add Layer Styles: Welcome back to our project. Here's our progress so far it doesn't look like much, but here's the good stuff. In this lecture, we'll add all sorts of layer styles that will make this look fantastic. Let's get to it by starting with the biggest shape on our Canvas, the body. Let's add a gradient overlay. Leave it at normal with the opacity set at 100%, but change its style to radial. Let's input our colors starting from the left side, which is the inner part of it. Here, I chose FF 82, 83. This is a light orange that will create a highlight effect. For the right side, we need a powerful color. So let's go with F 7941 day. And now this is catching shape. Thing is, I want this highlight more towards the top region of the body. So here's what we'll do with this window active. Move your cursor over the shape, click and drag upwards. This will move it even though you won't see anything is happening in this panel. Okay, this looks good. Next, let's go with an inner shadow. I'll add two in total. This one is the software of the pair. Blend mode, Normal opacity, 100% for the color use, FF 99, 38, set the angle of minus 90 degrees. Now for these sliders, go with 10 pixels for the distance and 20 for the size. I know you can barely see it, but once we have the second one, you'll see it makes a big difference. Click on the plus symbol and let's get to it. This one should be set at multiply with the following code, da 64, 2, 3. The angle can remain minus 90 degrees, but increased the distance to 50 pixels and the size to 100. Now you can see this is catching shape quite nicely. This creates a contour effect that makes the body pop. And if you're curious about the top Inner Shadow, try and disable it. As you can see, this creates a nice glow for the belly region. Nice job. Let's move on to the paws. I'm not sure where you're at with your colors as we went through these pretty fast in the previous lecture. But make sure you're using FF, A1, 32. Okay, before we apply any layer styles, let's group them together. That's because coming up next, we'll add a Layer Mask. You probably know what's our move switch to the gradient tool and we'll start swiping to fight them away into the body. Now, depending on the length of these shapes, you may need to swipe more or less. What matters is you have a smooth transition in case you're having a tough time. Use Control T on these two layers, not the group. Mind you, and resize them. Okay, I'm happy with them as they are. Let's enable an inner shadow. Select one of the legs. We're not going to apply anything else to the group itself. Okay, here are the settings. Blend mode, Normal opacity, 100% angle minus 90 degrees with an orange code FF 9938, distance seven pixels, size 10 pixels. The first effect doesn't appear to make that much of a difference, but let's add a second one underneath it. Set it on, multiply with the following code, da 64, 2, 3. As for the settings 20 and 40 pixels will work best. Please note this darker inner shadow has to be set underneath the lighter one. If you're having issues with it, reverse that order by using these arrows. So far so good. Let's move up to the eyes so we can get this rolling. I know this looks pretty creepy, but you'll see how much of a difference these layer styles will make. Let's start from the outer parts with this white layer. Here I'll add a two pixel stroke that set to outside for the color-code, go with EC 6718. Next, add an inner glow with the following settings. Blend mode, Normal opacity, 70 percent color wise, we need something to match this blue. So I ended up with 21 A5 CC. The technique should be softer with the source point set to edge. For the size 13 pixels will do just fine considering our proportions. Finally, max out the range to 100% is this will create a feather effect, looking good. Now, everything we do needs to be mirrored on the right side. Right-click in the Layers panel and choose Copy Layer Styles. Move to the right eye and use the paste command from the same list for the inner blue circle. So not this outline. Let's add a gradient overlay, set it to normal 100% opacity. It needs to be linear set at 90 degrees for the colors. Let's set them manually. For the left side, I went for a light teal shade five, a EB F4. As for the right side, 000, six be 99 is my choice. Okay. Close this window and take a look at your progress. The outer part needs to be addressed. So select it from the Canvas and change its color to F9, a 32. Now at a layer mask, and we'll need to swipe a few times to get our bearings that we don't want a long transition. I want the effect to be pretty short. So do your best to mimic my result. As always, remember to hold shift when you're doing these types of fades through lemmas and the gradient tool. As for the other side, let me show you how you can make your life easier. Of course, it needs to have the same color code of F9 eight A3E2, but you don't need to repeat that swiping action. Instead, click on the mask in the layers panel and hold Alt. Now, drag it above the other shape and let go. Like magic, you get the very same result. You could have duplicated this left eye after everything was completed. But I found it weird to work on a cyclops character for so many minutes. Let's wrap it up by working on the ears. Start with the outer shape and make it the following orange, FF, A1, 32. Everything has to be mirrored so I won't repeat myself about it. Activate an inner shadow. And let's play around with the settings for the color. Go with FTP DB Seven, a blend mode, Normal opacity 100%, set the angle to 90 degrees. Distance seven pixels, size 18 pixels. This helps us further transmit that 3D feeling. We don't want our character to look flat. So these small little details make all the difference. They're not optional by any means. For the inner ear, change its color to F3 84, 000. As you apply it, you can already see it's looking pretty good, but let's add an inner shadow as well to create a sense of depth. Blend mode, Normal opacity, 100%. Keep the same angle and change the color code to EIA 73 000. As for the distance, 24 pixels is a good value for the size used 35 pixels. Okay, I love the progress we've made so far, and you have lots of room to experiment with different ideas. We'll talk more about your assignment at the end of this series. And you know what? Since we're on a roll, let's design the pause as well. First, merge them together with Control E. Now we'll add some styles that will continue our existing line. Let's make our lives easier and copy what we did for the body layer. Now pasted on our pause and we're good to go. Yep, this was a good goal. It doesn't seem out of place, but it allowed us to move to the next area or a bit faster. That's a nice shortcut for you. Okay, that concludes this lesson. I'll see you soon. 181. Cute character: Finishing Touches: Hey there, Let's set our finishing touches and bring this project Home. First, the nose, which will start to create by using an ellipse. Make it 70 by 40 pixels. And I advise you to zoom in as we're about to warp it manually without any specific numbers in mind. Before we do that, center it on the body layer and position it somewhere near the bottom of your eyes. Hit Control T, right-click and choose Warp. You'll get this grid. And what I'm aiming for is to create something that resembles a triangle with its tip pointing down. So grab this side and move it inwards. Now move over to the other side and repeat the process. Bring these points together. Inevitably, you will have one part's slightly different than the other one, but don't worry about it. It doesn't have to be pixel perfect. Just do your best. Plus, if you hit Enter and you're not liking your results and to warp mode yet again, it's true Photoshop won't show you where you've left things, but you can still further manipulate it until you get something that looks like this. Here. I'm happy with it. In case you can't manage, grab the pen tool, bring up the sketch and start clicking. Okay, I'm good to go, so I'll double-click its thumbnail and I'll change its color to FF 71 BB, which is a lovely pink. I'll continue this line from my eyes that relies on strokes. So let's add one here. It should be set on the outside of our shape with two pixels for the thickness. For the Color CC, 7, f is perfect. Next, I'll add the same to punch in a shattered combination. The top one is as follows, normal set at 100%. The pink I'm going with these FF B6 DC angle is 90 degrees. As for the distance and size 4 and 13 pixels respectively will do the trick. For the bottom inner shadow, we have a more powerful pink, d2, 418. See, this is set to normal, but the angle should be reversed minus 90 degrees for pixels for the distance, 13 for the size. And we're done with our nose. For the mouth, we could use ellipses as well, but I'm not personally fond of this approach. Instead, I'll grab the sketch and I'll place it above all my layers. Now, I'll drop it. So pay City and I'll try to match it with my design to the best of my ability. Looking good so far. Grab the pen tool and let's create this mouth shape. Stop from this top middle point by clicking ones. Next, click and drag for the left side. But don't worry, I know it seems like we're going in the wrong direction. Hold Alt and convert this anchor point. Great. Now we can click somewhere near the middle of this mouth. But if you can't manage to mirror this top anchor point, remember you can hold the Control key and nudge this into place. In general, I'm very particular about being pixel perfect here. I don't think it's worth too much trouble. Speaking of that, let's hold Alt and click again as we close this shape off and we'll duplicate it. This makes much more sense than trying to manually create a matching right side. So position your duplicate on the right side and flip it horizontally. Great job so far. Merge them together with Control E, and let's change its color. Ff 71 BB is what I chose. And as you can imagine, we're not going to leave it as is. Let's start with an inner shadow. Blend mode, Normal opacity, 100% bf to see 79 for the color-code with an angle of 90 degrees, set the distance to 14 pixels and adjust the size slider to 27. We haven't used any drop shadows, so var, but it's time to get them involved. The top one should be set to normal and I'll use a cream color. Fa D6 73 angle 90 degrees with five pixels for the distance and six for the size. For the second one, change the angle to minus 90 degrees and the color should be a bright orange, easy row 509, 0 F. And that wraps up our layer styles for this layer. Please note that it's essential, we position it underneath the nose layer in this panel. Otherwise, all these effects are going to bleed over it and we don't want that to happen. As you'll repositioning the mouth, you may notice the two halves that created this shape. If you want to get rid of them while on the ellipse tool, go to the Options bar. From here, click on this icon and hit Merge Shaped Components. And that does exactly what it says. It permanently fuses those two shapes together. Let's see what else we can do to spice up this design. We haven't created any cheeks. So let's handle that through the Ellipse Tool. Click and set these values. 215 for the width, 130 for the height. Make it white and position it somewhere near the eye region. Ideally, they should follow the contour of this shape. But if that's not the case, war Pitt and it's bound to fit. Not to mention you could use the pen or direct selection tool on it. Next, we'll add a layer mask and swipe a few times. As I'm doing this in the background, let me tell you these types of designs take a lot of energy and discussions. When we decided on a mascot at our office for SMS plus, we spent a lot of time brainstorming and voting for various ideas. Afterwards one of our best designers, Alex V, sketch something out. And after a lot of back and forth, we ended up with Octane. Okay, back to our project. The cheeks are set, but I want to create a snout as well. So resigns one of the Shape layers and place it somewhere near the nose. You want to leave a few extra pixels above it, but most likely you'll need to turn down the opacity. If these three layers overlap with each other, I suggest you swipe a few more times on this central piece that should fix any issues. Give me a moment while I do this. Okay, this is done. The next thing I want to address is the glare in its eyes. You sold them in the sketch and they're a great touch. Start with a rounded rectangle that's 30 by 70 pixels. Set the corner radius to 15 pixels. Make it white and hit Control T. Rotate it to about 145 degrees from the Options bar. This requires a pretty interesting layer styles. So let's drop our filter 0% and enable a gradient overlay. Set it to Linear Dodge, Add, change the opacity to 60 percent and set the angle to 135 degrees. As for the actual colors, will first click on this second swatch, which is a pre-made gradient, grab the lower left handle and remove it from this area. I've done nothing else. I've just dragged it away and Photoshop removed it. As for the right side, Double-click this bottom Handel and make it pure white. This is the gradient we're looking for, but it doesn't seem all that special because we need to hit reverse. Ok. Now this is much more like it. Now the tricky part, we need to warp it, hit Control T and right-click. You know the procedure at this point, my advice is you follow my steps on the screen, even though you should realize this is more of a personal preference, I like to try and match this curvature with my shape, but also leave enough room for a second one. This is pretty time-consuming, but it is an essential step. Note that the warp command is the same no matter if you activate it from the Options bar or if you right-click after you've used Control T, I'll fast-forward is there's nothing interesting going on here. Just constant refinement. That's going to be the case for the other shape to my advice is do not be afraid of messing it up. If that happens, start over. And if you're having a particularly hard time, open up my final result and use it as a guide. You can always switch to the pen tool and create the shapes. Here. I'm happy with it. So let's continue with the last finishing touches. Let's create a shadow that will go behind these front paws. First, we need to make sure we have a group that contains the body and both these shapes. Okay, here we go. Next, create an ellipse that's 4, 8, 5 by 1, 35 pixels. This needs to be clipped to our folder. And of course, centered for the color-code, use C6, six, c 3, 8. We're not done. Change the blend mode to multiply from the top of the layers panel. I always want it feathered, but instead of using a Gaussian Blur, I'll rely on my Properties panel. Click here and drag this up to nine pixels. Now this is looking nice. And since we're talking about shadows, let's create one that shows this cute guy is standing on the ground with the Ellipse Tool click and input five-by-five for the width and 70 pixels for the height. This needs to be a dark purple. So go with 810096, change its mode to Multiply as this will increase its white. Place it underneath all your layers and center it with the body layer. I personally prefer to use the marquee tool when I'm working with white shapes and I need to center them horizontally. That's because I avoid any headaches that might occur due to an unforeseen positioning of the body layer. That's bound to happen if your shadow is wider than it. Okay, Finally, let's feather it. That's done from the properties panel. Go with 10 pixels and everything should be good to go. You might want to tone down its opacity to about 50 percent or so, but that's up to you. You can always revisit it later. Finally, I'll add a vignette effect. Let me show you a cool way to create it. Start with a new empty layer. You shift F5 and fill it with 50 percent gray. This is a fantastic technique. Now change its blend mode to overlay, which makes it look like it went away. Now convert it to a smart object, though this is optional. Next, go to Filter, Camera Raw Filter. Don't worry about all these settings. We're looking for the Effects tab. From here, move the amount slider to minus 50. And this will darken the edges of our Canvas. Since it's a smart object, you can always go back and further refine it. That's a cool way of creating a vignette effect on a separate apparently transparent layer. The design is now done. I hope you found the process interesting. In the next lecture, I'll share some thoughts about how you should approach things. I'll see you there. 182. Final thoughts: Create A Cute Character: Welcome to this assignment. Well, you'll have to create a cute character of your own. This should take anywhere from a few hours to a few days depending on how complicated and intricate you want it to be. My advice is you first get some inspiration by looking at various design galleries. As always, Behance.net and dribble.com are my suggestions. Once you're set on a certain shape, try and sketch something out. It doesn't matter if you can't draw, just grab the brush or pencil tool and lay something out on the canvas. Even better, grab a piece of paper and a pencil and start drawing. Once you have a decent sketch, take a photo and drag it into Photoshop, most likely you'll be more comfortable working with a real pen or pencil. One thing I suggest you focus on is the details. For example, without these glaciers in its eyes, this would have gone down significantly. Same thing applies for this belly shadow. That brings a lot to the table. Now I realize you might not have the experience to add these in, but use those inspiration sites I mentioned and write down some details or finishing touches that sparked your interest. Now, I could have taken this even further, but I didn't want to bore you with every single minute detail. In this short break between videos, I created a speech bubble for him. I didn't include it because it's a simple as it can be, stopped with a white rectangle that's decently sized. Next, add lots and lots of ellipses all over it. Smaller ones, bigger ones just make it random. When you have enough, merge them together with Control E. That's how this was done. The font here is called chewy, and it's 160 pixels big for its color code. I went for a nice blue 33, C8, F9. I also have two inner shadows that create this blue contour, but you have the PSD attached. Feel free to explore it. Going back to your assignment, get involved in our community and share your work with other students. It doesn't matter if you think you'll work is rubbish. I promise you it isn't. Let me see it and I'll give you some pointers on how to improve it. What matters is you have fun with it and you get social. I look forward to your designs. Good luck. 183. Remove Skin Issues: Welcome to this lecture where I'll show you one of the easiest ways to get rid of skin issues. The upcoming techniques rely on the spot healing brush and the healing brush tools. These are very ACT use and they work non-destructively. This activity will take us five to seven minutes to complete, and this is going to be our end result. Let's get started. The spot healing brush is probably one of the most useful tools for beginners. That's because it gives fast results, but it doesn't require any knowledge whatsoever. It's hotkeys j, but you're better off long clicking and selecting it from the left panel. With the active, I'm going to create a new empty layer. You could potentially use it directly on your image or on a duplicate. But I'd much rather use this tool non-destructively. And that's because it has a particular setting that allows me to do that. From the Options bar, choose sample less. This will now look for all the pixel information that's available on my canvas, no matter if it's above or underneath this layer. That works to our advantage because we can have all our edits on a completely separate layer. That's a great way to showcase the before and after shots. But even more importantly, you can always turn down the opacity or further adjust those corrections with maximum flexibility because they're separated from our image. Now we can click and like magic, the imperfection goes away from the Options bar. Make sure you're set to content aware that will produce the best results. This works wonders on blemishes, pimples, any problems of the skin that are obvious when zooming into such a high degree. So this can give you a lovely portrait shot without too much fast. As you can see, I'm constantly clicking and all those spots go away. Because this tool relies on a brush, this means I can quickly adjust my size and my hardness. For the latter option, I suggest you stick to a hard brush because that will give you better results. But overall, this is useful when you're dealing with a particularly tricky area because you can use the square bracket keys to change the size on the fly. My advice is you work on small regions and you have your brush slightly larger than the spot you're trying to fix, you could potentially click and drag, but I find that method less reliable. The spot healing brush isn't infallible, so use Control zed whenever you see it doesn't do a great job. And that may happen from time to time because you have no additional control over it. In general, it'll do a decent job, especially if your image size is generous, the more pixels, the better. This tool tries to maintain all of your images details. Sometimes it won't be able to save all these small pores. But in general, it blend those new spots into the surrounding area when you're happy toggle this layer's visibility and see your edits in case you went too far. The great thing is you can switch to the eraser tool. For example, we can get back some of these freckles. These might be considered a flaw or a special trait, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Back to our task. This is why it pays to work on a separate layer. I can constantly go back and forth between removing spots and adding them back in. That's the spot healing brush, a great way to fix some problematic areas with ease. Next we have the Healing Brush tool. Don't confuse the two. They work in different ways. I'll hide this previous layer so we can start from scratch. This tool allows us to work on a separate layer as well. So let me create a new one right now from the options bar, we want to sample from all layers. In this case, my project is empty, so I don't have to worry about picking up any unwanted pixels. In general, I'd advise you set it at current and below. That means you can have all sorts of layers above it, but the healing brush tool won't pick up that information. That's the first thing about it. Secondly, this needs a reference point. So while the first tool made use of Photoshop's magic gleich engine. This requires you to set up a point where Photoshop can sample some pixels. I want to welcome the nose and I'll use the clear part of the cheek as my reference point. To set it up, I need to hold down Alt and click. Notice my cursor has changed. Now when I let go and move over to the nose, you'll see it's like I'm about to paint over it with that cheek area. Don't worry, the end result isn't going to look like that. So now I'm painting over it. You might not realize the difference it makes. So let me go back to the original state. As you can see, it does a nice job. But why do you have to specify an initial area? Well, this makes the end result much more natural. The Spot Healing Brush Tool can sometimes render results that are clearly fake, either fuzzy, blurry or just out of place. This tool allows for more control because you can tell Photoshop, hey, use these specific pixels. So it's a toss up between the two. Sometimes you might want to rely on Photoshop's Content Aware technology that was created by wizards or ancient aliens. Other times you might want to get more control of your results and switch to the regular Healing Brush Tool. In my experience, I always go back and forth between them. When one fails, I always try the other one. Remember to always resample and pay attention to how much you drag. Let me illustrate the issue. Say I want to fix the chin region based on the cheek area. Simple enough. I'll sample to the right of the mouth because that's the best looking skin out of the image. Now I'm going over her chin, but look what happens. As I click and hold. I have two cursors on the screen. The one that I'm painting with and the other one that shows me where I'm sampling from. This completely changes the outcome in a negative way. This is why you should work in small increments on small areas. The best work is subtle and natural looking. So keep that in mind. I find I need to constantly re-sample as I progress with my retouching. If you don't remember to do that, photoshop will give you a rude awakening. One particularly interesting feature is this aligned feature from the Options bar. Currently it's unchecked. Let me show you how this works. I'll increase my brush size dramatically with my square bracket key. Now we'll hold Alt and I'll sample over her eye. Next, I'll paint over her cheek, which is going to create a very weird effect, but it will show you how this works. Okay, we have an extra eye. Now. I'll move down an old paint again. As you can see, I'm getting yet another eye. That's how this healing brush tool works. If you don't have aligned, checked, you sample your source point and photoshop remembers it no matter where you move your mouse cursor. Let me undo these steps and now I'll enable it. I'll set my source point here yet again, an old paint over her cheek. Same results. But here's the difference. I'll move towards her chin area. And once I start painting, notice where my second mouse cursor is positioned. Right now, it's over her nose. So instead of painting in another I, my source point is moved with my cursor, and thus I'm creating a nose in this area. That's the difference between having this feature enabled or turned off. I can't say I recommend either one of them because I use them both. It varies case-by-case, image by image, spot by spot. And these are the healing brush tools. Please download the image and have a go at it yourself and see how you do. Have fun. 184. Remove Watch & Necklace from Photos: Hi, In this lecture, I'll show you how to remove accessories from photo is by using retouching tools. Will focus on the Clone Stamp tool to remove this watch. And we'll use the healing brush to remove most of her necklace from this image. Let me show you the final result. As you can see, they magically disappear. You have both the PSD and the images attached. So let's get started. I'll create a new layer and I will first illustrate the difference between the Healing Brush Tool and the clone stamp tool. We just learned the Healing Brush Tool samples from an area and then tries to apply those pixels to a new spot by blending them together. This may be great for certain scenarios. For example, here for her necklace, I could use it with ease. I'll sample a similar colored region from this right side. Now, I'll paint over this line pretty fast. As I approached this chunky politic might give me some blotches, but if you insist on them, the healing brush will remove them. And that's because it tries to blend everything together with our surroundings. Let's also remove this top spot. I have to sample again somewhere to the right side. Great. It went away and I'll continue to paint in this fashion. And because I'm on a separate layer, I have complete freedom to remove some of my edits with the eraser tool. On this left side is where things start to get tricky and we begin to see this tools limitations. As I tried to remove these little details, blurry spots start to appear. This is going to be the same story for this dark spot here, as well as for her shirt. In these cases, I'm not happy with it. Let's pause this task and switch tabs. Here. I want to remove her watch. I'll sample a clear parts of her skin and I'll start painting over it. You can see it doesn't look right, and that's because photoshop tries to blend these pixels together and keep some of those initial details. In this case, that's not what we want. So this is one clear case for the clone stamp tool. Let me step back and create a new layer for it. I'll name it Clone Stamp watch. Okay, This relies on a brush as well so we can quickly adjust our size and hardness. Besides that, it has the same aligned feature, but in this case, I strongly suggest you leave it checked. Okay, well, use it non-destructively by working on a new layer. Thus, the sample mode has to be set to current and below. Here's how this tool works. Whether Healing Brush Tool tries to blend pixels together, the clone stamp tool just paste them in. It works by setting a source points. In this case, I'll sample the left edge of her arm. Now. I'll position it somewhere over the bracelet of the watch. And what's great is we get this preview that showing us what we're about to paint. Mind you, this is exactly what we're going to get. There won't be any blending or pixel matching of any kind. Okay, I'll click a few times and you can see how the watch slowly starts to fade away as I move inwards. So does my other mouse cursor because I'm using the aligned feature. This means on now matching the watch region with her own skin. And because the shadows follow the sign line, I'm getting a pretty good result. Just to reiterate the difference. If we create a new layer and focus on her face, we will see she has some spots. Say we want to get rid of them with the clone stamp tool. I'll sample somewhere from this left side. Now, I'll paint over these two guys. But look what happens. Because we have a bit of shadow on that region. The perfectly translates here. So the clone stamp tool, as its name suggests, produces perfect pixel replicas. Let me delete this progress and focus back on my watch. Here, It's a process that takes a bit of time and constantly resetting your source point. I suggest you keep it on a click by click basis that you can click and drag if you are very confident in your results. The watch slowly goes away and because I'm using her own skin, I don't have to worry about losing any texture are all making it look fake. What's essentially is you constantly follow the natural lines of your subject. Here, I'm trying to keep my source point on the same imaginary vertical line in order to keep the shadows on the edges. You'll see I'm going to have some problems because her hand isn't perfectly straight. But that's not going to be a problem because I'm working on a different layer. That means I can further adjust these edits with a number of tools. Here, I'll use Free Transform by hitting Control C. Now I'll switch to walk through this grid. I can nudge things back into place. So how natural line is going to be left intact? If you hurry along, you might not get a perfect result. But I'd say if you spend about 15 minutes on this watch alone, you should get a nice blend. In the end, it's a matter of going back and forth and adjusting your clone stamp layer. I found a softer brush does a better job, but you can always right-click and adjusted on the spot. Another piece of advice that might sometimes help you out is creating another empty layer for another region of your subject. So what's the right side is buttoned up. You might want to switch layers for the left side. And as you work, you'll constantly resort to a myriad of tools you've learned up until this point. I'm going over it pretty fast because we still have that Nicholas to tend to in the other tab. If some spots a particularly tricky switch to the healing brush tool and see if that can help you out. Unless it's a challenge, you have to make your life easier, not harder. Okay, let me wrap up this watch so we can apply the same techniques for the other project. In the end, they sees how her arm looks without the watch. The before, the, after. Bringing it back to this necklace, I'll switch to the clone stamp tool and I'll focus on this left side. Let me grab a new layer and label it accordingly. This is going to be cloned. Okay, back to it. All sample has shut and I'll click a few times. You have to make sure you're lining up with this crease. This is a pretty tricky area, especially on her skin because we have this gap between it and the shirt. No matter all, adjust my brush size and here it might be a good idea to adjust your hardness as well. Honestly, there's no one tip or piece of advice I can give you other than try your best. And in case it doesn't work out, either undo with Control zed, or remove your correction with the eraser tool. I won't keep you any longer. So that's why I'm speeding through it pretty fast. I think you get the approach in the end. I'll sum it up by saying the healing brush tool is great when you want to blend pixels together and make them match that surrounding area. The clone stamp tool is perfect when you need to add pixels without any other interference from Photoshop. And it's my go-to option when it comes down to removing people or objects. Okay. This wraps it up. Let me show you the initial shots. This is our starting point. And now here's the after shots where we've used the Healing Brush and the clone stamp tool, no necklace, know, watch. I hope you found these examples useful. Now it's your turn. So please download the images and start working. Have fun. 185. Clean Up Face Imperfections: Hello, In this lecture, I'll teach you how to clean up any imperfections on a portrait shot. This will take about 10 minutes to complete and we're going to transform this image to this one. So we'll remove all skin imperfections and at the end we'll even add 10 to water drops on her face. Just for the fun of it. You have this image attached, so please download it and work along. Here's what we're going to do. Let's duplicate this layer 2 times. The first one is going to be called blue, while the second one can be renamed to texture. This will help us in just a minute. Hide this layer and select blah. Of course we'll add a blur effect, but in this case, I'm not going to transform it to a smart object because that will complicate things unnecessarily. Considering the size of this image, four or five pixels should be enough. Okay, now reveal the texture layer selected and go to this top menu. Click on image from this list, choose Apply image from this new window. We have to make sure we use the following settings for the layer. Choose the one in the middle from the layers panel. That's why we renamed it. The blending mode should be subtract. As for the scale and offset, these need to be set at 2128. These are settings that work best for eight bit images, which is what you'll encounter most of the time. If you want to check, go to image mode. From here you can see this is set at eight bits and these particular values seem to work best. What's going on here is we're placing all of her texture on a different layer. That's because when you read touch a subject that has wrinkles, pause, and overall lots of skin details. It's best to keep them. Sometimes you might want to Barbie doll look, but for a more realistic approach, I recommend you try this technique that will preserve all those details. Just in case you're working on a 16 bit image, you'll have to change the blend mode to add, set the offset at 0 and the scale value should be set at two. You'll have a cheat sheet attached with all the steps and settings. Right next, we'll have to change our blending mode for this layer because we can't see what's going on. Click here. And from this list, choose linear light. This seems like it's hiding the lab, but in fact, we're just keeping her skin texture. Switch to the blood. And now we'll grab the pen tool. Here's what we're going to do. We'll divide the face into several regions and we'll apply another blur to each part. Make sure you have it set to path from the top right. Here's how the process is going to go. We'll click fast and select different parts of her face. You don't have to be precise. You don't need to cautiously place each anchor point, just roughly select one area. In this case, we'll start with her forehead. Once you've closed your path, right-click. From here, we'll choose, Make selection before we hit. Okay, let's set the feather amount to anywhere between 15 and 25 pixels so we can get a soft transition between our retouched areas and the rest of the photo. If you want to see how your feather looks, hit Q, this will activate Quick Mask mode, and here you can see your current feathering for me, this is looking good. Let me take a step back and do this again so you can clearly see what's going on. I'll start from this left region and work my way around her forehead. My advice is you keep a steady pace and don't concentrate too much on creating a pixel perfect selection. Here I can put close to her eyebrows because the selection is going to contract due to my feathering. Just in case you get some of her hair, that won't be a big deal since our texture is placed on a different layer. Once you've finished your path and you've clicked on your initial point to close it off, right-click and create a selection. Set the feather radius to 20 pixels. Now go to filter blur. From here we'll choose Gaussian blur yet again, but we'll crank up the value to about 10 or 15. This is what I'd regularly use and I can toggle this filters visibility by using this checkbox. Because I want to make sure you're seeing a clear difference. I'll increase it to 20 pixels. Hit Okay, and now I'll systematically take each area of her face and perform the same steps. Let me do this left side. I'm not rushing because I'm recording, but because this technique is very forgiving, I think it's a great way to make friends with the pen tool. When you want to reuse the same filter with the same settings, Alt Control F is the fastest way of doing that. Again, this makes a big difference for her skin tone. It evens it out and you'll soon see this makes a world of difference. While I work in the background for each region, please note that all these water drops are not affected. If I used another retouching technique, I would have had a farm or difficult job. This is why I chose this particular image. It really showcases the value of this approach. In case you're curious, this is called frequency retouching, and it's fairly popular because it produces brilliant results. I've tried it with different variations that don't rely on the Pen tool, but to be honest, it's a great way to practice. Okay, Now I'm done with this part and I want to show you the before and after. Let me group these two layers and I'll toggle the visibility. Here's the original image. Now here's our progress so far. I think this makes a world of difference and it works on all sorts of skin issues. So feel free to try it out on all sorts of pimples, blemishes, acne and so on. Now for the second part of our activity, I'll tackle her skin texture. You can see on this left side we have a bit of a problem. Get the clone stamp tool from your left panel. It's hotkeys S. By the way, my advice is you use the following settings. Change the blend mode to lighten, leave the opacity at 100%, but uncheck this aligned option. It's essentially you choose current layer from this dropdown. Otherwise you'll have issues with your effect. Now hold Alt and click somewhere in this region where her skin is pretty clear. Make sure you adjust your brush to a moderate or small size. Now start painting over this blemish and you can see how it goes away. Take your time with it. It's an in-case. You find the clone stamp tool is too strong. Take down the opacity to 50 percent or so. Here I'm happy with it and I'll focus on another aspect. I want to add a few more drops to her face just to showcase how fantastic this technique is. Still on the texture layer. Change the clone stamp tool to normal sample over any wet area from her face. Now we'll paint it anywhere else. I can either click here and there, and we can see how a couple of new dropped show up. But I can also click and hold to completely drenched this cheek area. It really depends on what you're trying to do, but I really hope you can see how this process is fast, easy, and powerful. And that wraps it up. Try it out on some of your own photos and see how they do. I think you might fall in love with this technique. Have fun. 186. Move People in Photos: Welcome to a new lecture where we'll take this image and move some of these people around. This is going to be done through the Content Aware Move Tool. You can get it from your toolbox. It's usually hidden underneath the spot healing brush. When you select it, you'll see this cursor and if you click and drag, it will act similarly to the last sue tool. This means you'll need a pretty steady hand if you're to use it like this. Here's how it works. In the Options bar, I have two main modes. I can either move an element or I can extend it, which means I'll create another copy. Let me copy this Siegel. I'll roughly create a selection for it. Now. I'll drag it to another part of my canvas. Now, depending on your settings, you might get a different result. And that's because these two controllers are fairly important for this tool. The color slider adjusts how much you're willing to let Photoshop changed the colors from your initial selection. Here, I'm getting some sky elements. So if I have this set at 0, that means photoshop will create a copy without changing the colors at all. This will, of course result in a G that's not blended into its surroundings. But if I crank it up to ten, this looks much better. Of course, you might still get some issues here and there, but those can be corrected with various tools. For the structure setting, I'll use this skater that's hovering in midair to show you what's what. I'll drop it to its lowest value, change the mode to move. And now I'll roughly grab my skater. I'm not worried about precision as Photoshop will do a pretty good job in identifying what I want moved. Here's the thing. This setting controls how much the program is allowed to modify my selection in order to match it to its new spot. In this case, a value of one will give me a weird outcome. Please note that it sometimes takes Photoshop a while to process the changes so you have to be patient. Okay. This isn't what I'm looking for. Let me undo with Control Z and I'll crank it up to 10. I'll also enabled transform on drop, which will enable me to resize my subject once it's moved. Okay, Here you go. Now I can grab this corner handle and I'll resize it while holding down shift once I hit Okay, we can see how this is looking much better with the highest structure value. In essence, when you're dealing with a welcome toward subject, whether it's a person, a car or a ball or anything else that solid. A higher value in this structure field will work better. Let's switch tabs and I'll show you how I prefer to work with it. Grab the Quick Selection Tool and let's paint over this center, figuring this is going to go fast because we have a pretty clear contrasting background. Now switch to the Content Aware Move tool and notice your selection is still active. That's because we can use this feature on any type of selection. That means you don't have to rely on your last Sue tool skills to create a good outline. Plus this also helps the Content Aware Move tool do a better job on well-defined objects. Here, I'll have it set to extend and I'll use the maximum structure value. And for the color, I'll set it at 0. Click and drag. Now hold Shift to move it in a perfectly straight line. Because I have transform on drop active. Once I position it on the left side, I'll right-click it and I'll choose flip horizontally, hit the check mark, and we're good to go. Now, if you experiment with these sliders, you'll see how they work and why this combination produce the best results. That's quite disturbing. And if I increase the color slider, that will also make the copy look worse. Overall, that's how the Content Aware Move Tool works. It's great when you want to create a copy of an element from the Canvas. But it also works well for repositioning things. Try it out and see how you can benefit from it. My advice is that you first use a selection tool rather than relying on its last Sue like capabilities. 187. Enhance Faded Photos: Hey, there. In this video I'll show you how you can take your washed out photos and transform them in a few easy steps. Here's our starting point. After I've applied some adjustment layers will end up with this affect. The colors are much improved and the contrast is also better. Let's get started. The first thing I want to fix is the angle of this image. You'll notice it's slightly crooked. The right side is going up and that kinda ruins it for me. Every time you shoot straight lines, a bit of adjusting and Photoshop is always welcomed. Grab the crop tool, and let's move to the Options bar. Click this icon to straighten it. Now let's drag across this stone wall. The preview is showing us what's up and I'm happy with that. It's not a major change, but it's a small improvement. Next, I'll add a curves adjustment layer. Let's see what we can do in this panel. If you're an experienced Photoshop user or you want full control, you may want to adjust your contrast manually. In simple terms, increasing contrast means you have to dark in your shadows and light in your highlights. That's exactly what the curves adjustment layer allows you to do. The bottom-left side represents your shadows while the right side controls your highlights. This gives you a fantastic control over them in case you're interested. This is called a histogram, and this chart shows we have some shadows going on here. We have a dip in mid-tones, which is not ideal, but the highlights are very strong, hence this spike. So you can say this is not a balanced shots just by looking at its histogram. If we take this bottom part and drag it down, slightly, darker parts are immediately going to pop. That's what we're going for. We could use this adjustment layer to lighten our shadows in case we had too many dark spots. Notice that as I'm dragging it up, the entire curve changes, which means the entire image is getting affected. What's nice is that we can add a secondary point by clicking somewhere on this line. Now we get more control over our shadows. Of course this doesn't look good because we want the complete opposite. If you want to revert to your initial settings, you could use this third icon here, but you can also delete these points by using the delete key on your keyboard to make sure you're targeting the correct one. Make sure it's filled with white. This one is not selected and it's hollow, delete. And that's that. The more points you set, the more control you're going to have. But you may want to keep it simple. We have some presets available in this drop-down here. I'm interested in increased contrast. You can see we're getting an S shape here and it finished. Once I started, it moved this curve down so we can get more contrast into our image. It also slightly adjusted the top part. But say this is too much. Well, we have other options in this drop-down. For example, medium contrast, and that works a bit better. But remember, we can control this layer's opacity. So I'll revert to increase contrast and I'll take it down to about 70 percent. Okay, this is good to go. Next. We'll add a vibrance adjustment layer. If you've ever played around with it, you might be unsure about how these are different from one another. They both seem to increase saturation. But here's the idea. The saturation slider will affect everything on the Canvas in an equal and linear fashion. It targets all your colors and it increases or decreases as you move right and left. Vibrance, on the other hand, focuses more on areas that I'm too saturated. This means it can target muted areas and give them life. In this example, if we take vibrance all the way up to 100%, you'll notice the city skyline is really improved, while her jacket and hair, while fairly strong and not over the top. Let me bring it back to 0. If we repeat the process with the saturation slider, yes, we'll still get stronger colors for our Skyline, but the girl is oversaturated. Same thing goes for this rock wall. So in this case I'd lower it to about 20 percent and I'd ramp up this vibrant slider to about 60 percent or so. This is the look we're going for and that's our result. If you want to see the before and after shot, use F2 to revert back to the original image state. Now use Control Z, and this will show you all are edits. Quite a big improvement. I hope you found this interesting. You have this image attached, so experiment with it. Have fun. 188. Dodge, Burn, Sponge tools: Dodge, burn, and sponge. These three tools are great for adding detail to an image, making certain elements pop. Before we get started, I want to show you how you can protect your original image and work in an optimal fashion. Remember, the goal is to work non-destructively wherever possible. First, we're going to create a new layer from this icon here. Next we'll press Shift F5 to get this window. Alternatively, you can go to Window edit. Fill. From this dropdown will select 50 percent gray. This looks a mess but we're not done. Finally, we'll go to the top of the layers panel and choose Overlay from the blending mode. Now it seems this layer is disappeared, but it's actually still there. This allows us to use the Dodge and Burn tools without permanently affecting the original image. We can also create several layers like this, one for each component of the image or one for dodging and one for burning. It's up to you how far you want to take it. Right now we'll get started with the dodge tool. In essence, this lightens things up, while the burn tool darkens things. As you can see, the effect is pretty obvious and that's because we have its intensity turned up. We can adjust that by lowering its exposure. Currently, it's set at 50 percent. Remember to always use very small values in order to get a nice result. And a thing too obvious is not going to cut it. I'd say you can go with ten to 20 percent in most cases and always have Protect Tones checked for this tutorial depending on the device you're viewing it on and the quality of your Internet, you might not see all the details. So I'm going to exaggerate them quite a bit. Please keep that in mind. Okay, in general, you want to lighten those areas that already have some light on them, but not enough. I'd like to get more focus on the teeth in this case. So I'll paint over them and I'll constantly adjust my brush size with the square bracket keys. I'm clicking several times to compound the effect. It's better to do that with a low intensity rather than cranking it up from the beginning. You may notice I'm changing the range from time to time and that's because this gives you better results. To learn them, it's quite easy. Highlights target the brightest parts. Midtones are in the middle, and of course, shadows affect the darkest parts the most booked the Dodge and Burn tool have the same options. I can focus on their nose and a little bit on the forehead. I can take my time with it. If this was a serious project, you'd have to spend at least 30 minutes on it. Otherwise, it's just playing around. I can focus on other parts to like the cheek or the eyes. But I think you get the idea. I'll speed it up just a bit, but I won't show you the before and after because you usually don't notice how much things have changed unless you toggle the visibility. Of course, when you're working on a real project, you have to do that. But here, I would like to surprise you. So let's say this is done even though it's quite sloppy work bear that in mind. Next for the burn tool, we can focus on the eyebrows for sure, That's a great place to start. We can also target the scalp in those sensitive parts. And again, this takes time and refinement. It's something I suggest you work your way up, make some adjustments on your own photos where you can barely tell the difference. The goal is to show it to somebody without them noticing it's been worked on in Photoshop. Then work your way up. The lips also can be a bit brightened up, so I'm going to use the Burn tool on them as well. Midtones is probably the best setting here. Okay, Let's move things along. I'd like to show you the sponge tool last. For this tool, I'll work on the original lead. It has two settings, D saturate and saturate. You should leave vibrance checked because it helps with the effect regarding flow. We already talked about it. You should have it at a low setting. But here I'm going for something dramatic. Okay, saturate. I'd like to further improve the lips. And as you can see, the impact is very powerful. This is why I keep emphasizing subtlety. For example, look what happens when I use it too much on the blonde girls hair. It looks terrible. Let me go back a few steps to undo that. Okay. So I can use it only eyes to just a bit. And well, I could spend a lot of time on the hair, but I think you get the idea for the D saturate option. Here. We don't have that many places to use it, but in general, it's used on the background. You want the model to stand out. So one of the ways of doing that is to meet the background. Here I can focus on her blouse more than the background to illustrate how it works. Okay, these are the Dodge Burn and Sponge tools. I absolutely love them. And I think that one of the best tools for touching up portrait's in a natural way. Ready to see the difference. There you go. Now, I know you might be saying, wow, that looks worse than the original, but I went completely overboard with it. You can tell from a mile that's been Photoshopped. But if you went patiently and with a low settings, you'll get a much better result. Speaking, uh, which that's your next exercise. You have this image attached and I want to see how you do on the first go. Take your time to learn the tools. Do exactly as I did, exaggerate. Then do it properly with a low settings and fine adjustments. When you're done, post a screenshot in the comments section. Have fun. 189. Red eyes: Hey there. In this quick lesson, I'll teach you how to remove red eyes from photos in just a few clicks. Here's all before image, where the subject has a terminator vibe going on with these huge red eyes. And here's the after shot. Okay, let's get to it. Here's one way of approaching this task. We can grab the Quick Selection Tool and we'll click on this left pupil. Now that we have a selection, we can use several adjustment layers, but I'll go with hue and saturation. In essence, what we need to do is remove some read from this photo and replace it with black. From these sliders, I'll drop the saturation to somewhere around minus 60. The likeness should be turned down as well to about minus 75. And we have a pretty good result. Trouble is we still have to feather our work. Otherwise, we'll end up with red rings in this person's eyes. But more importantly, a transition that's too abrupt. From this panel, we have to switch to a mosque by clicking on this button. Now we can easily federate. Let's increase this value to about 2.5 pixels that we still have to manually brush some parts in. We're still getting some red on the edges of the people. So bear with me as I grab a white brush and fix it up. The hardness should be somewhere around 50 percent and this will require a significant zoom level. Brush around and you'll slowly start to fade that red away. We could have also modified our selection by expanding it several pixels that would have worked too. Okay, let me speed this up because this is one way of doing it though. Here's the deal. There's a tool in Photoshop that fixes red eyes automatically. I wanted to show you an alternative technique so you can better appreciate this red eye tool. Here's how it works. First, I'll remove this adjustment layer. Now I'll go to my toolbox and we'll find it hidden underneath the spot healing brush tool in this last slot, here it is. This doesn't have any complicated settings in the Options bar. I've always left them at their default levels 50 percent. This tool works like a marquee, so you click and draw out a rectangle. Then photoshop will immediately remove any read it finds in the people you've selected. Let me undo just for a moment. Please note that your book should be fairly big. Otherwise, look at what happens. Some strange black spots appear in this people. So it's as easy as that Marquis the entire eye. And you're good to go. Repeat the step on the other side, and we're golden. That's how easy it is to remove red eyes in Photoshop. One thing to note is that this tool works destructively. We can't create a new layer and isolate our change from the original image. But 90 percent of the time it does a good job. So we can let it slide. When you compare this to creating a selection and using one or two adjustment layers, there's no competition. Okay, that wraps it up. A quick and easy way to remove red eyes from fructose. 190. Batch resize: Welcome back to another lecture. You just learned how to automate your work in Photoshop through actions. And in this lesson we'll take it even further. Here's how you can resize lots of images fast. In my case, I have 10 images that are way too big for my needs. I'm using a program called AC, DC, and this shows me the image size in the bottom left. Most of these are huge, but I want them limited to a maximum of 2000 pixels whites, or height-wise. As you can see, some of them a shot him portrait mode, while the others are wide, meaning they're in landscape mode. Whatever value is bigger needs to be toned down. So here's what we'll do with Photoshop opened, but without any active projects, I'll go to File scripts from this list. I'll choose image processor. This is a fairly old piece of technology, but it still does a pretty good job. Here's what's important. First, we'll select our folder that contains all files. Just browse for it's unselected. In case you have some additional folders inside it, you may want to check this option as well, include all subfolders. Step 2 is essential. I always suggest you save your work in another place on your drive. If you leave it at its default setting, you'll overwrite your source images, which is not ideal. But number three, we can choose our file quality and type, which is limited to JPEG. Hence, why I said this is pretty outdated stuff. Because of that we can't export them as PNGs. But don't worry, I'll teach you an alternative in just a moment. The quality goes from 0 to 12. Most likely you'll want to stay within the nine and 12 range to get decent results. On this right column is where the re-size magic happens. Check this feature and you'll be asked to enter some dimensions. Now, this reflects the maximum width and height values. It does not mess up your aspect ratio. So if I put it in 2000, by 2000, we won't get square images. Instead, those set their maximum values. Finally, because we just learned about actions, we can enable one from point number four. In my case, I just want to resize them so I'll hit Run. Photoshop is going to open each image and it will perform that resize. The faster your processor, the sooner the program will finish this task. Okay, we're done. Let's check out on new image sizes. Focus on the bottom-left as I move from image to image, they see is a pretty good results even though it's limited to jpegs. That's how you can resize images fast through the built-in image processor. Here's an alternative that exports PNGs. This is called Layer saver, and I give huge props to its author. We've used this script for over a year at all, Android design studio, and it's something I use in my professional web design projects as well. Here's what you need to do. You have this file attached to this lecture, so please download it. I would have loved to link to the author's website directly, but it's origins of foggy for me. Now copy this file and place it inside your Photoshop folder, more specifically in presets slash scripts. On a Windows machine, this means C Program Files, Adobe, Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 presets. Paste it in here, and now you'll need to restart it. If you tried to immediately, it just won't show up. Once you're back in Photoshop, we'll have to change our interface to another color scheme so we can better understand what's going on. That's because this script is not something that's officially supported by Photoshop. All that's been created by Adobe. There are many individuals out there that create fantastic scripts, but more often than not, they create them for free and share them with the community. As Adobe constantly launches updates to the program, most contributors don't update their scripts. I imagined this is what happened here as well. Hence, the darkest interface. Well with this script, so I'll change my color scheme to the lightest one. Okay, here we are. For this to work, we'll have to load up all these images inside of Canvas. Give me a moment while I do this. For my app or web design, PSDs, this is not a problem because everything is already inside my projects here in case you want to resize hundreds in Photoshop, this may be a downside, but just in case you want to skip pressing Enter several times, there's a setting for that in your preferences. Open up with Control K and in the general tab you'll find an option called skip transform. When placing. This means it won't show you those transform handles every time you add a new image to your Canvas. That's how you can speed up the process. Okay, once these are loaded, I'll go to File scripts layer saver. Immediately. I want to focus on Save as where we get PNG, among other options like JPEG and PSD. So this is a major advantage for the output details. Please choose any folder. In this case, since these images have various sizes, are also enabled trim layer, so we won't get any excess transparent space. Now all enabled custom fit image. And this will ask me for my dimensions. I'll write 2000 in both boxes as before. There are a few other options here, but let me hit process. Give it a moment to run. The bigger the photos, the more resources this process is going to require. Okay, phospholipids and here we are. Let's check out their size. First. We can see that PNGs, which is great, but also their size is limited to 1000 pixels. Brilliant script. But there's another thing I really appreciate about it. Let's go back to Photoshop and I'll add a black and white adjustment layer at the top of my layers. This is a pretty common situation where we need to simultaneously merge and Export Layers. This script is fantastic because it allows us to save layers along with the top layer. This means that all our images are going to be exported as black and white photos because we have this layer at the top of our panel. Furthermore, we can do the same thing with the bottom layer. This is great when you want to save each layer alongside your background. Finally, we can do both. This opens up a world of possibilities and it's one of the more exciting parts of Photoshop, perfecting your workflow to get the most out of your time. For me in a professional environment, whether it's web design or app design, this is a fantastic time-saver. Okay, Let me repeat the process where we resize these at a value of 2000 pixels, but I'll choose Save all layers along with the top layer. Let's hit Run and we'll check the results in a moment. Here they are. As you can see, all these images or PNGs that black and white and they've been resized. We've used this so much in our offices that we created an action for it. Open up your actions panel and let's record a new one. It's on this icon, and let's name it something like layer saver. I'll change the function key from none to F2. Now let's record super easy, it's only one step. Go to File scripts, lifesaver. In here. We're not going to do anything, so just hit Cancel. Finally, we'll stop the recording. Now when we want to launch, it will just use F2 and we will save the trouble of drilling through all those menus. Please note this is supremely versatile. It works with groups 2, and you can also run actions on your selected layers. Overall, this is a great way of exporting your photos fast and without headaches. Whether you liked this layer, save a script or the image processor method. Please try it out on your own batch of photos and see how you do. Have fun. 191. Text layers explained: Hi, In this lecture I'll teach you how to work with texts layers like a pro. When you want to add any text to your Canvas, you have to use the type tool from your toolbox. It's hotkeys t, and it works in two main ways. First, you can click and start typing. Please be aware that starting with Photoshop CC 2019, when you click, you'll automatically get a couple of words in Latin. That's dummy text, popularly referred to as Lorem Ipsum in all Photoshop versions up until 2019. This doesn't happen. When you use this method, click and start typing. You're creating what is called point text. You'll find out what that means in a second. The other method of creating a text layer is the following. You click and you drag out a box that will constrain your texts to that region. This is referred to as paragraph text. Again, in this latest release, a paragraph of Lorem Ipsum is automatically paste it, but I don't like it. As you can imagine, this is better suited for large amounts of copy because you can fine tune it through these handles. This will make it easier to position it in a design. At any point you can swap between the two methods by right-clicking in the layers panel. I'll do that for my point text layer. As you can see in this list, I have the option of converting it to paragraph text. I'll hit it and I'll move back to my canvas. Now if I click on it with the type tool, you'll notice constraint to this box. If you try to add more characters, they won't show up. But you can always resize this area. So that's not a problem. Let me do the same thing for this other layer. Right-click it in the Layers panel and choose Convert to point text. Now those handles are gone, but you may get a warning message that says you have extra text that's outside your visible area. When you convert it to point text, photoshop will delete it if you're happy with that, press. Okay. I'll press Cancel and I'll expand it so I'll keep all my paragraphs. Okay, let me do that again. Right now those handles have gone away. You might ask, why go through all this trouble, but you'll see this is important in electrode down the road. An important point when you add a new text layer and you want to finish editing it, you can click anywhere on the canvas and you can move on to the next task. This only applies to Photoshop versions above CC 2017, and you have to be outside a certain range. If you've seen my lectures on rotating layers, you'll be familiar with this behavior. But let me explain it again. I like to make the type tool and click anywhere. The program will give me those two dummy words. Now focus on my mouse cursor. If I click anywhere in this region, nothing happens as you can here I'm clicking, but it's all for nothing. My arrow looks like the move tool. And that's because if I click and drag, I can reposition this text layer. Now I'll start to move further and further away. No rush. Just observe the cursor a bit more. And there, that's the point where the cursor goes outside the editing range. If I now click here, the text will be committed. This applies to all sides and it does take some getting used to. But let me enter editing mode yet again. In this latest release of the program, you can also commit your text through the escape key. A bit odd because you'd expect the following. You click and you see those two words and you want to discard them, you quickly hit the Escape key, but surprise, you've just left editing mode. So that's something to note. In the newest Photoshop versions, you can commit your text layers either by clicking outside that range or by using the escape key. For all other versions, you have to either use this check mark from the Options bar or use the numerical enter. That's the Enter key from the right side of your keyboard. If you use the main one, you'll just move to the next line of text. So remember, if you have the latest version, click anywhere and you're good. If not, use the checkmark or the numerical Enter. Most likely this is not what you want your text to look like though. To make any changes, I suggest you use the Character panel. You could change it up from the Options bar. But I find this panel much better suited for all my edits. I always have it docked here and I'd like to move it underneath the paragraph panel. By default, they'll show up the other way around. So you'll have to reposition the manually. If you don't have it, just go to Windows character. From here, you can change just about anything you want from it. The first one is font-family, pretty straightforward. It tells you what font you're using. The default one in Photoshop is Myriad Pro. If you're not seeing what I'm seeing, go to the top right and click on this icon from this list, choose reset character. And this will revert all your settings to their default values. On the right of our font-family, we have our font weight. Photoshop calls it font style. Here you can expect to find quite a few. In general, you'll have light, regular bold, black, et cetera. That's why I call it weight, but also because that's the official CSS term, each font will have its own font styles. You may find ones that have over ten weights, like in the case of Myriad Pro, while others will only have one. In case we don't have any options, you can use faux bold and italic. Foe is French for fake. This makes the font look like it has a bold or italic style, but it's not something I'd recommend using. Moving on to the font size, I like to type in my values manually. And I've got used to using pixels instead of points. That's what I recommend you use as well. Points are used in the printing industry and those who recommend you use them usually come from that background. To change your unit of measurement, hit Control K to open your preferences. From here, choose units and rulers. In the top-left you'll find type. Here. I have it set to pixels as should you. Okay, Let's close this window. When you want to adjust your size, you have various options. You can click and use your mouse scroll. You can add shift, and this will make the value jump by ten pixels. You can also type in any value and hit Enter. If you go over this area, you can click and drag, and once you let go, the new value will be applied. Finally, you can also use this drop-down to choose one of these existing values. Personally, I recommend you click and use your mouse scroll. That's what I use in my day-to-day projects. And like also add shift whenever I need to jump to a much higher value. Here's an essential notice. When you want to make any changes whatsoever. If you use my recommended method, meaning the Character panel or you have to do is have the layer selected. As you've seen so far, I can change its size, color, or just about anything without having to do anything else. Okay, next to the font size, we have lead-in, which is also called line-height in CSS. I'd prefer that term because it's self-explanatory. This controls the amount of vertical space between lines of text, thus the name. It's great for improving readability and I think it's a must when it comes down to paragraphs, be generous with it. The auto option makes the text look cramped and nobody wants to read something that looks like this. Anywhere from 1.5 to about two times the font size is a good reference. So if my text layer is set at, say, 15 pixels, my letting should be no more than 30 pixels. As you can see, this is a bit too much, but if I scale it down to something like 26, this is looking nice. Going underneath the font size we have kerning, but that's not really interesting, so we'll skip it. It's one of those things specially reserved for type enthusiasts. I'd rather spend your precious time on things you'll actually use in your day-to-day projects. To the right of it, we have a feature called tracking, but I like to call it by its CSS name, letter spacing. And its name describes what it does very well. It controls the overall space for groups of letters or entire paragraphs. This is something that completely changes the way your text looks. It's quite easy to use and you can clearly see its advantages when we increase tracking to 10. This increases the space between our letters and thus it gives it a more airy feel. This improves readability and aesthetics in most cases. You can also go the other way around and squeeze the text in. Minus 20 is a good example. The results aren't dramatic, but that's exactly what we want. Subtlety. This is great for a few words in a title or a headline, but for paragraphs of text, you should avoid it. You can also go to town and input some large values. It's up to you depending on the type of effect you want to get. The other options in this panel. Very important, it's for those users who are really into typography. So I wouldn't get intimidated by all these buttons. Let's focus on the color which is easy to adjust. Initially, the text uses the foreground color, but with a click, you get to see the change immediately. That's it. No fuss about it. Okay, The last thing I want to point out is this hyphenate option that's available in the paragraph panel that's right next to the character panel. Always uncheck it because your texts will look way better without it. This is one of the things I've seen people struggle with because it's not in the Character panel. They just didn't know about this setting. Besides that, you're good to go. So I'll see you in the next lecture. 192. Font types: Welcome to this lecture. In the next few minutes, you'll then the main font types and how you can categorize them. This video is aimed at teaching you what you need to know for your everyday projects. Thus, I've skipped all the boring stuff about how each font type emerged, how they were developed over time and all that jazz. While it may be interesting to a handful of users, I prefer to stay down to earth and have a hands-on approach. The main classification you should know about divides type faces based on their look. We have two fundamental categories, serif and sans serif fonts. We have two examples on screen. The first line is written in Droid Serif, while the second one uses Droid Sans. The difference between these two lungs in these tiny decorations. Let's focus on the TI characters. You'll notice the serif version has these extra bits that make it a bit more distinctive. This is the entire story across all characters. In general, you can associate serif fonts with a more elegant look. They're very common in the print industry, especially in newspaper format, but also in professional documents and other mediums that require a greater amount of seriousness and elegance. Some argue serif fonts are easier to identify by a reader and thus it's recommended you use them if you'll. Text is fairly small. I don't wholeheartedly agree, but each medium has its own set of rules. It's one thing to look at type through a 27 inch display and another to read it on an 85 piece of paper in a book. If you want to easily remember the difference between Serif and Sans Serif fonts, I recommend you keep in mind the definition of Sends, which means without the Sans Serif can be remembered as without decoration. As for identifying this type face on the canvas, I have no particular advice other than look at them and see if it features extra decorations. Besides these two main classes, here are some other ones you're bound to encounter. First, we have the handwritten fonts which are pretty easy to understand. They tried to seem like they were written by a person. You'll also find script fonts, which are sometimes referred to as calligraphy fonts. These are extremely elegant and they are best used in large sizes. Decorative fonts or another classification. And these have an excess of personality. They're very easy to notice because they usually shout for attention. Photoshop uses these classes I just mentioned, and you can find them in the Character panel by clicking here. Thus, you can look for a specific type of font. So you'll cut down all the other ones that don't fit that class. Please note that as you browse around various typeface galleries, you're likely to find other categories, but the basic ones of the same everywhere. Serif, sans serif, handwritten script, stroke, calligraphy. Another way to divide phone sees based on their type, and there are two categories, open type fonts and true type fonts. They are extensions differ. One is don't OTF, while the other is TTS. And there's loads of information on the web about them. But here's what you need to know. In general, you should prefer open type fonts over true type ones because they contain additional features and options. Let me show you what I mean. On my canvas. I have a paragraph written in Minion Pro Italica. This is an open type font, and I can tell by looking at this drop-down. Notice that o symbol, that stands for Open Type. We previously skip this region in the Character panel, but let me quickly show you what PSAP. Basically, if you have these features available, this means your type is going to have some extra decorations, even more so than the regular serif fonts. Let me enable the first one, but focus on the text, not on this panel. Did you notice the difference? Focus on Syfy, for example, as I toggle it on and off. As you can see, photoshop identifies that this typeface has extra special characters called glyphs, that are available in certain circumstances. Here, it sees the opportunity to combine F and I together. And that's exactly what it's doing. Why? Well, it looks nicer. And that's the story with all of these features. Let me activate this third one. Focus on lists. When I enable this feature, I'll type gains a dash of personality. This is very useful when you want to boost of creativity, but you're limited to text layers. And all this is possible because this font has these extra characters built in. The same can't be said about true type fonts. So this is the main reason why you should look for open type extensions. But don't get me wrong. It's not like TTS fonts are useless far from it, I actually use them in most of my projects. But if you have to choose between two similar typeface is, I'd go with one with more options. And in most cases, if not all, that's going to mean a ETFs. One final note, most fonts, even though they might be open type, doesn't contain a lot of these extra glyphs. So if you switch to another font and you see most, if not all of these icons are grayed out. That's because that particular typeface doesn't have these additional glyphs. Okay, that wraps up this lecture. I'll see you soon. 193. Install new fonts: Hi, let me show you how you can get fantastic looking typeface is in just a few minutes. There are two methods are completely free option and another one that requires a Creative Cloud subscription. I'll start with the first one and it's my main choice for my design projects, fonts dot google.com. This features over 800 font families, and it's one of the easiest ways of exploring large amounts of type faces. When you visit the site, you'll see a lot of things on your screen. Let me break it down. In the top rights you have various categories to choose from. By default that all enabled. But say you're looking for any handwritten fonts, not a problem. Uncheck the other ones and the website will reload without having to refresh the page. You'll notice Google classifies fonts in a different way. Photoshop had some other options, but in essence the main ones are covered. For example, handwriting also contains script typefaces, so you're not missing out, It's just a labeling thing. For the down. You can adjust how these results are sorted and you have a few options trending, popular and alphabetical. My advice is you constantly switch things up so you can diversify your knowledge of typefaces. If you constantly use the same ones, you're not going to grow as a designer. Further down, you have various sliders that help you pinpoint a certain style. You're looking for something that extra thick, not a problem. Click on this checkbox and move this slider towards the right. Great stuff. Let's clear all these filters by clicking here in the bottom right. These phrases are not randomly chosen by the way. They aim to show you as many letters of the alphabet as possible so you can get an accurate representation of the font. More interesting is the fact that you can write in your own text. Click here and use Control a to select all this text. Remove it with your backspace key. And now let's write, this is an example. Now I can easily decide what's best for my project if this were a real headline from my design. Besides getting the typeface, his name and author, you also see how many styles, aka weights it features. Roberto has 12 styles, meaning it's very versatile. You can use it for headlines in bold, for paragraphs in regular style, quotes in Italica and so on. On the other hand, features only one style and that's very limiting. Once you have an idea on what you want to use, click on this download icon in the top right. Now you'll download a zip archive and that will contain all your choices. Now I'll extract it and each font is going to be placed in its own folder. Here they are. Copy them with Control C, and now we'll place them inside our operating systems fonts folder. In my case that see Windows fonts. It will usually take a second to load. But once you'll then use control V and you'll paste all those typefaces that you may get an error if you've already got it installed. If that's the case, you can skip it. Great. Now you can jump back to Photoshop and you'll find they're available in most cases without having to restart the program. As you can see, if I look for a newly installed font, I find it in this list. Nice one. Let's talk about the second way of getting funds and that's through Typekit. This is available only for those who have a Creative Cloud subscription. So if you're paying for Photoshop, you get to use this amazing gallery for free. If not, your best bet is to stick to Google phones. As you can probably tell, this makes a big difference because some type faces only work in certain conditions. For example, headlines allow for more creative and interesting fonts because of their generous size. This means the viewer can appreciate all those fine details. Whereas if we're talking about body tags, aka paragraph text, a small size is needed and we want to choose something clean for the sake of legibility. As you can see, we can filter this list based on their recommended use. This just points you in the right direction. It's not bulletproof by any means, but I appreciate the fact that Adobe's trying to help me. I love this redesign because it's so easy to use. But let's cut to the chase. Say I love this font family, right? I can see it has a ton of variations, which is great because it means I can use its many weights and styles throughout my project to download it. You don't have to jump through hoops like we did with Google Fonts. Nope. All you have to do is click on this slider. This will synchronize it. And as long as you have your Creative Cloud program running, you'll get a notification saying those fonts were added. Don't go looking for them on your drive because you won't find them, at least not without any significant effort. Now you can go back to Photoshop and try it out. This is a fantastic experience. So the Adobe deserves a round of applause. Going back to Adobe fonts, if you're a web developer, you can click on this symbol and that will prompt a new web project for us that's not needed, but know that it's there. When your project is going to be coded, your developer has to know about this feature. Finally, when you click on a typeface, you'll get this listing which should have everything. You'd expect, all the weights, the possibility to activate only certain ones so you don't have a crowd, your system, the option to customize your viewing mode, a slider for the tech side, an area through which you can change your sample text. Really, this is a fabulous experience. So your typography games should be on point. That's it for now, Take care. 194. Learn Typography Best Practices: Hello and welcome to this lecture. In the upcoming minutes, I'll teach you everything you need to know about topography rules, best practices, and how you can make educated decisions for your designs. This is going to be a two-part lecture, and at the end of it, you should know what fonts to use, what colors, how to combine typefaces, and so on. One of the first things you should be aware of is that some fonts look good only in certain sizes on my canvas. So I have a wonderful script font named Aquafina. While it's aesthetically pleasing in larger sizes, once you shouldn't get down to under 20 pixels, not only does it look worse, but it becomes unreadable. On the other hand, rubato is extremely versatile and can be used in any medium and in just about any size. As you can see here, I can shrink it all the way down and it's still maintains a good level of legibility. I'd say that's an exception because most fonts, especially decorative ones, are best used only in certain sizes. So keep this in mind when you're choosing your next typeface for your project. Not all of them work well in all sizes. It may look great on Google fonts or Adobe's Typekit. But once you use it in your project at a different size, things might be dramatically different. Next, always strive to get maximum contrast. While it's true, a dash of color helps your design stand out, trying to avoid striking colors. As you can see, red and blue on a dark background just doesn't do the trick. And it's the same thing when you combine read texts layers with a blue background. This is not what you're looking for because it's not visually pleasing. Yes, you could potentially read this text, but nobody would willingly do that because it's too harsh. Instead, trying to use colors that are easy on the eye. While typography should be considered an art form, it's best to understand the legibility comes first. I'm sure you may have seen some awesome graffiti pieces in your city, but no matter how intricate they are, if you can't understand it, it's pointless. Thus, use a good level of contrast and stay away from experimental combinations. If the user can't read it with ease, then it's no good. My rule of thumb is this. If you haven't seen your combination on a mainstream website, then you should stay away from it. Think about which sites you visit daily. If you think they look good, trying to apply the same principles in your own designs. And if your project is a book cover, a business card, or a poster, browse some of the most well-known galleries out there and see what works and what doesn't, don't try to reinvent the wheel. Let's move on to anti-aliasing, which is a fairly boring subjects, but I'll keep it on a need to know basis. Anti-aliasing helps smooth out your fonts and it prevents jagged edges from showing up in your designs. If we didn't use this feature, we get texts layers that would look like this one. You don't have to zoom in to see the problems. But the closer you get, the more you understand this is not ideal. This happens when there are no intermediate pixels to bridge the gap between your typeface and your background. Photoshop provides six anti-aliasing choices, each one of them having a different impact in your types appearance. My advice is you stay away from strong and sharp. The first one adds artificial weight to your type, while the second one is a bit rough. I'm not sure you can pick up on these differences is they're difficult to spot. In this example, notice the S character at the bottom. We can clearly see some differences between the two. Same thing here and here. Shop has another two pixels that helps smooth this transition. While the strong anti-aliasing option has them completely filled with color. You might think these semi-transparent pixel should be avoided because they look blurry. But when you zoom back out at 100%, you will see these help the text look better. Paragraph length should always be kept at a moderate size. If you squish it in a very narrow column, the readable have a hard time navigating it. On the other hand, if you stretch it out over a vast area, this achieves the same unwanted effect. The potential reader is likely to skip that area. We've learned about paragraph texts layers. It should be easy for you to grab these handles and resize these lines of text to a moderate size. This is what you should aim for. I won't mention a specific length because even if that's the case, say 90 characters per line, it would be hard for you to strictly enforce it. My advice, use your fair judgment and stay around this length. When you're choosing your next font for your design, think about the atmosphere you're trying to portray. Is this a presentation for the office or is it for a birthday party flyer? Maybe it's a document for your lawyer. All these circumstances matter. Based on that, you can choose an appropriate font. Notice the difference between these two lines, which one seems more friendly? How about this one here? Font do you think is more appropriate for this context? The sentiment you're trying to transmit should be reflected in your design choices. If it's a playful project like a birthday party fly for a young kid. Your short-term want to use something whimsical, playful, may be fairly rounded. For an official document, go with something sober, cold, professional. So this is how you choose your fonts. You take into account the sentiment you're trying to get across. And based on that, you tailor your choices. Okay, let's continue this topic in the next lecture. 195. Combine fonts: Hi, In this lecture, we'll continue to explore rules and best practices that will help you improve your font choices. A very popular approach is to combine multiple fonts in one project. Here's what you should know about it. Mixing typefaces is fine as long as you limit yourself to a maximum of three, I'd say two is a better choice. But if you're working on a particularly large project, that may not be enough. When you're mixing fonts, it's best to stay away from similar looking ones. Most readers come pick up on subtle differences. So when you're using something like this, it will most likely be interpreted as a mistake. Not to mention that it doesn't look particularly good. It feels like something is off though you can't put your finger on it. You'll type face transmits a feeling. We already covered that in the previous lecture. By sending mixed signals, you're not doing yourself a favor. So here's what you need to do when you want to combine two typefaces, make them as different as possible. Choose typefaces that have a distinguishing personality. Here are a few examples on your screen. This one, for example, features are condensed font coupled with a handwritten one. This is what you're looking for. Some best practices are the following combined fonts from different categories. Serif with san-serif, calligraphy with san serif and so on. Use different sizes to this also helps differentiate them on a visual level. It also ties into the fact that some fonts are best used in larger sizes. Use various colors whenever possible. This is how you make your type stand out from the crowd. Implement these changes and you'll see your work will improve considerably. Speaking of size, type hierarchy is essential. I'm sure you may have heard of H1, H2, H3. If you've ever dealt with web design, that simply refers to a headline one, Headline 2, and so on. That's a particular format that you apply to your text. The goal is to highlight the importance level of each section between these layers. Which one do you think is more important? The bigger one? Of course, this helps structure your file B. It's a document or a poster because it helps guide the uses sites to the most essential parts. That's how we read a magazine. We initially scan it and we analyze each particular section. If it's headline is interesting, then we might read it. This hierarchy must be reflected in your project. It should be clear who's boss and who's the sidekick. That's why headlines are always bigger than paragraphs of text. They have completely different roles in a project. So you'll font formatting should reflect that. One thing you may have noticed is that I've constantly interchange the terms font and typeface. In essence, it's acceptable to do so, but if you want to be more accurate, a typeface is a family of fonts that has various whites and styles. Some examples are light, Italica, regular, semi bolded, cetera, those variations of fonts. So when you hear people say, I love Open Sans, most likely they're referring to the entire typeface with all its styles. When they say Open Sans Light set at 30 pixels is lovely, Then they're talking about a specific font. So it's a subtle difference. But unless you interact with typography lovers, it's acceptable to interchange them. If you want to remember this difference, you can think of the Johnson family. Johnson is the family name as Open Sans is the typeface is name in sight this family you have belly and polar. Those are part of the Johnson family. But when you want to talk to them, you use their specific names. Billy and Paula. Nobody says, Hey, you Johnson's come over here, though that would be correct. It's not specific nor very nice. In our case, Open Sans Light can be associated with Billy. So an individual with distinct characteristics, that's part of a family. Okay, and with that, we've concluded this lecture. Hopefully, all these tips and best practices will help you make better choices for your projects. 196. EXERCISE: Hands On Text Layers: Welcome to this exercise where you'll learn how to manage a full-blown project that has tens of texts layers. This is the PSD you're going to be working on, and it's a design for one of my Android apps. Your task is to fix all these problems regarding font size, color, line-height, positioning, and everything else that's type related. They should take you roughly 15 minutes to complete. So set aside a bit of time and get to it. Here's a list of tasks to help you solve this exercise. One installed a font from Google Fonts. I've used railway in this case, and your project will give you errors if you don't have it installed to adjust the font color so it matches its backgrounds. Three, play around with the font size. So all these headlines and paragraphs of texts will look better for the line height, aka letting and increase it where you deem appropriate. Five, center, align and position these texts layers correctly. Take this button as an example. You don't want this text layer to be touching this top edge of the button, right? So that's what this task is all about. Six, improved the topography, however you see fit. This is an optional task, but if you think you can do anything to improve this design, Go for it. Okay, please pause the video and start working on the project. In the next lecture, I'll show you how I'd approach it, but please try it out for yourself. 197. Solving the previous exercise: Welcome to this lecture where I'll show you how to solve the text layer exercise. Did you try it out for yourself? This is your last chance to pause the recording. Okay, if you're still with me, Let's go through all the steps. Installing the font is easy. We've already discussed it, but here's a quick overview. You go to fonts dot google.com, and you'll have to use the search box type in railway, and you'll immediately find it. Click on the orange plus symbol, and you'll add it to your library. Open up this window and tap the download icon. You'll get a zip archive that needs to be extracted. Once you get the file, copy paste it into your operating systems fonts folder. If you're on a Windows machine, that's going to be C Windows fonts. So that takes care of this first task. Let's fix all our colors as fast as possible. From what I can see, most of them are pretty well sorted except this one in the hero area. And these three that are above this band. Let's select them all with the control-click technique. I'll grab the first one and then I'll hold shift as well. Now from the Character panel, I'll click on this color swatch. We want them pure white. So we'll go all the way to the left side of this color picker. Notice we've just changed texts layers in one action, so there's no need to select them individually, since we already have them selected. Let's change them from Myriad Pro to railway. Initially I'll go for a medium weight because now it's time to customize each one according to its surroundings. Let's take it from the top with this one beautiful typing. There's no right or wrong way of improving its look regarding its size where shorter want something that stands out because this top line is huge. So it's a bit too small for my taste. Let's ramp it up to 22 pixels. Because the headline is in all caps. I'll also enable it here. This seems decent. Let's change its weight to something more dramatic. Well, after going through all of these, I think black is a good option. Trouble is the text layer is a bit too short, meaning the headline from the top takes up, I'd say about 600 pixels in width. And this is really tiny compared to it. We could increase its size even further, but then it would compete for attention. Thus, I think our best bet is to increase its letter spacing. I'll use my mouse scroll to do that. Okay, as I'm increasing it, I'm confident that this is a good choice, but let me see how far we should take it. I think it would be ideal for it to match the length of keyboard. This means I'll use a value of about 480. Yeah, I'm happy with that. Regarding its spacing, I'd say you can go both ways. Currently, it's about 20 pixels away from the first line and about 40 from this paragraph. We can see that distance is somewhat match between the buttons and these three lines of text. So we could leave it as is. But in this case, I'll center it. Grab the Marquee tool and draw out a selection. Try and be as accurate as possible. Now switch to the move tool and use this align vertical centers command. Okay, That's looking nice. Let's tackle the buttons. First. Let's select all these three layers and change them to railway medium. These are barely visible, so let's raise this up to 13 pixels. It's not that much, but here's what's next. The essential parties, Android and iPhone, right? So let's grab them and increase their size and weight. Let me try out some things. It's a process where you have to experiment. Okay? I think I'll stick with 18 pixels with the style set up black. I'll keep the old caps theme going to give me a second while I apply this to the other one. While I do this, I'm really curious about your own approach. Please participate in these exercises. I think there are a great way of getting feedback. Okay, this is looking nice. Now give me a moment while I apply the same treatment to watch video. These three are equally important from the looks of it. So I'll stick with Railway black 18 pixels. Let's move down and fix this headline. In these cases, big headlines are popular. Let me see what's going on above. Since we already have this setup, it's much better to follow this line. Okay, this is Railway thin 70 pixels seems good. Let's increase the first line so it matches that value. Oops, I forgot to change its font family. Let me do that now along with all these other texts layers from this region. Okay, let's go with Railway medium yet again. Back to the headline. This doesn't work at all. The blacks character. Let's change its color from black to something like 3, 3, 3. Actually, let me select all black text layer and use this color code on all of them. It doesn't make sense to repeat this action several times. Give me a moment while I do this. So far, I hope you've seen there's nothing overly complicated about it. It's just a process that requires a bit of patients and a dash of thinking. As long as you follow my essential rules for working with type, you should be good to go. Right? This is done for the headline we saw the one from above was set at 70 pixels, but I'm not feeling it here. It's just too big. Let me drop it to about 50 pixels and I'll also change its weights to light syncing to fuzzy in my view. Yeah, I'm happy with that. For the second line, I'll introduce a bit of color. Clear. This pink purple is favored. So let me see where we can pick it up from. This. 100 themes has some color, but notice the character panel shows black in this swatch. That's because this folder has a color overlay style applied to it. Let's double-click next to its name and identify that color-code. Okay, it seems it's FF 000 6, 8. I'll add that as my foreground color so I can reuse it later. As for the sub-headline, I'll follow the style from the three buttons from the header region. That means railway black, 18 pixels. We've already manipulated this layers letter spacing and we saw how it improved. I'll look. I think this is far too condensed to squish together. Let's increase it here as well. How much is really up to you here? I think something around 200 should be fine. Okay, great progress so far. Let me pick up the pace so we can wrap this up because I'm confident you get the idea. Before we move forward, I'll apply the same treatment to all headlines and sub headlines from this design. Again, the top line is Railway light, 50 pixels with a colorCode of 33 3. And the sub-headline will use this pink from our foreground swatch coupled with Railway black 18 pixels. The letter spacing, aka tracking, should be set at 200. Please also enable all caps. Let's fix these two areas and I'll leave the rest up to you. What's usually referred to as body text. Let's see how we can improve its look. It surely has to be larger. So let's play around with our mouse cursor. Well, I think 16 pixels is a good choice, but this white isn't doing it for me. Let's go with a bolder, more powerful option. By going through these, I think semi bold is a nice choice. I've saved the best for last, the line height here, let's go with the maximum value. That means two times its font-size. 32 pixels is a lot, but considering the proportions of this area, I think it will do just fine. Now for the final bit, this area here. So let's tackle this size and style. I suggest you use your mouse scroll yet again and see what draws your attention. This seems like a very important region from this design because it showcases all the best features of this keyboard. Having said that, I think somewhere around 20 pixels in size as best as for their weight, semi bold or bold work just as well. Take a step back and see if there's anything that needs to be adjusted, all things considered. I'm happy with my progress in this amount of time. Okay, I hope I've given you some insight into how this exercise should be solved. There are a few more texts layers that need your attention. So please finish up and post the results in the comment section, especially if you tried different fonts. I'll see you soon. 198. Identify any font: Hi, In this lecture, I'll teach you how to identify a typeface in four different ways. Here's the situation. There. We're going to be cases where you see a headline that looks fantastic and you might want to use it in your own projects. That's all fine and well, but if you don't have years of experience, you might not recognize that font. How are you supposed to know what you should look for on Google fonts? So Typekit. After this lecture, you'll have four solid ways to identify most fonts. Option 1, use your browser's inspect tool. This is particularly handy for those who have some sort of coding experience. Whether you know, CSS or not, this technique is still going to be fairly easy to use. Here's a nice example. The site's name is pretty strange. It's psi dot IM. Nevertheless, this font is very crisp and it looks lovely on this particular background. If you want to find out what typeface was used in this case, here's how you do it. I'm using Firefox, but this works just as well on most mainstream browsers. You right-click this bit of text and you choose Inspect Element. You're going to have this Window expand from the bottom of your browser, but don't get overwhelmed by all this information. What we're looking for is the Fonts tab. Here it is on the right of my screen. Click it and it will reveal what font was used for this headline. Here it seems this is Futura PT web light, fantastic. We can also see it's being loaded up from Typekit. So this means I can probably sync it to my computer and immediately use it. Yep, here it is on top gates. We can see it has 18 styles in total. And this light version is what we're looking for. Fantastic. Moving back to the site, if you know a little bit of CSS, you can switch to the rules tab. Here you'll find things like it's specific color code. Here it's pure white. We can also see its line-height are what's called lending in Photoshop. It's this bit here, by the way. So all sorts of interesting things, though it's not for everybody. Options 2 and 3. He come from what? The font.com. This is a website that specializes in identifying fonts. It features a pretty cool software program that tries to match fonts automatically with its database. That's option two. The third way is based around what the funds community, which is pretty substantial and it's mainly topography lovers. You'd be surprised how fast these guys react when you asked for their help. So let's try it out. I have this image opened in Photoshop and I want to find out what font was used for this. But if text, if I can't get a precise results or at least like a similar alternative. So we'll do the following. Grab the Marquee Tool and make a selection around this last line. Next, use Control J to place it on its own layer. Now we'll export it directly from the layers panel. She's Quick Export as PNG. Nice. Now we have it placed on my SSD drive. Let's fire up what the font, the full address is, my fonts.com slash. Watch the font. Here we're asked to upload an image. Take a moment to read these tips because they're likely improve your results. Basically make sure your text is fairly well spaced out. Have it on a horizontal plane, have it in a pretty large size, et cetera. Our example takes all these boxes. So let's upload date. Okay, let's hit Continue. Now we're brought to a new page where we're asked to confirm what their software identified. We can see it did a great job, but this OH, from you was interpreted as 0. That's not good. So let's manually change it. Okay, now let's see what this site offices as results. Well, in this case, didn't do a fantastic job. We can see a few similar looking fonts, but if you analyze the K, you'll see they're not close. Still. This one here is pretty decent. It really depends on how accurate you want the result to be. If you're looking to add to your existing sentence, using another font will most likely give you bad results. So option number 2 isn't reliable in this case, but in general, I'd still recommend it. I've successfully used it in the past, but it all depends on your circumstances. As for option number three, This requires you to click on consultant expert. Let's do that now, but I won't actually submit this case. Here. There's only two things to fill out, the name of your file. And optionally you can include a message. Some tips here that are worth reading. In essence, if you provide a bit of context, it's far more likely you'll get help. So if I leave it like that, it's going to be harder for someone to identify it. Nevertheless, I've had great results in the past. And by that, I mean, some people replied within an hour with the exact name and weight of the typeface. Finally, option for was newly introduced in CC 2015 DOT 5, and it's called Match Font. In this 2017 version, it works pretty well, though nothing is as precise as the first technique from this lecture. Let's see it in action. I'll first create a new layer where all right, you make, I'll place it underneath this last line of text and I'll make it somewhat similar in size. Also enabled caps lock. Next I'll grab the Marquee tool yet again, and I'll make a selection. Try and grab a few words, but keep it on one line. Now go to type from the top menu and choose Match Font. I already have my text layer selected. So as I click on these results, my layer immediately updates and I can see if it's a good option or not. These first entries are already installed on my computer. The ones from the bottom are available on Typekit. So if you want to try them out, so you'll have to click on this small icon to the left of their names. It's going to take a second to sink, but afterwards you can try it out. Here. In this case, I'm pretty happy with this font. I've actually used it in the past, so I'm pretty familiar with it. In case your result isn't as good, move around your selection. You can refine it with these handles where you can move it to another line. In some cases, you'll immediately get a completely new list of results. While other times you might see a couple of fonts pop in and out on this list. Overall, it's a pretty good technique, but it's not full proof. Initially when it first came out, I was really disappointed. But as I used it on several cases, I understood its results vary from situation to situation. So long as you understand nothing is as precise as using your browser's inspect tool, then these are good options to identify a font and that wraps it up in case you are looking for the condensed version. I have a cheat sheet to attach to this lecture. Have fun. 199. Stay consistent: Welcome. Let me show you how you can improve your projects by being consistent in your font choices. Chances are you're bound to work on a larger project that will feature large amounts of text. In those cases, you have to set yourself up for success. Let me teach you how to use the character and paragraph styles to your advantage. First, this is only available in Photoshop CC and CS6, CS5 DOT 5 or a previous version. This isn't going to work for you. To open it, go to Window paragraph styles. You should get these two icons on your sidebar. One is character styles, the other one is for paragraphs. The difference between them is pretty obvious. One is for paragraphs of course. So for large chunks, while the other one is best suited for a few characters or words. Let's try them out. Get the type tool and draw out a rectangle to create a paragraph text layer. Then go to the top menu and click on Type from this list, choose Paste Lorem, Ipsum. This is a great feature by the way, because you no longer have to leave Photoshop to get some dummy text. Let me customize its look. Although with Montserrat Regular 16 pixels in size, 28 pixels, line-height, FF 0000. 0000 will be my color-code, an extremely bright red. But you'll soon see why I went for this option. Let's say this is how I want all my next 30 paragraphs to look. But here's the thing. I may jump to a different site of the project and that can cause problems. One thing you may have noticed is that as you control click various texts layers on your Canvas, your character panel will also change. That can be a blessing or a curse. For example, if I select this text layer, my character panel is going to pick up all its formatting. Now if I grab the type tool and add some, you'll see it's going to look the same. That may be okay in some cases, or it may annoy you. For me, I want a more reliable way of styling lots of paragraphs fast. So this is the best way to go about it. Here's what I'm going to do. I'll get the type tool and I'll click on this layer. Now, I'll use Control a to completely select it to avoid any issues with the following technique. Now it's time to tell Photoshop, this is what you want your paragraphs to look like. Open this paragraph style panel and hit this third icon that looks very similar to the Create New Layer symbol from the bottom of the Layers panel. Okay, a new entry has appeared and it's called Paragraph Style 1. Let me double-click it. In this new window, we can see all the settings I previously put in my Character panel. We have our size, line-height, this neon read the works. What's great is you can adjust the settings and by default, the preview box is checked. So if I play around with the color, you can see that that's immediately reflected on the Canvas. Let me call this body text. Next, I'll select one of the other layers and my character panel is going to show that formatting. That means that now if I create a new paragraph and I paste in some dummy text, it's going to look vastly different from my red paragraph. That's not a problem. Instead of manually inputting all these values or undoing. I'll do this from the Paragraph Styles panel. I'll click on body text. Next, I'll press this first icon that tells Photoshop to throw away all the existing formatting and use the one we previously stored. And then you go, now this paragraph is identical to the previous one. Let me repeat that one more time. I'll select another text layer to mess up my settings. Actually, you can click on the background layer and do that yourself. Great. Now I'll paste in some paragraphs. These don't look right, so I want to make them fit my existing formatting. Click on the first icon and there you have it. But here's the deal. Say this red is bothering my eyes. How can I fix this fast? Select the initial layer and let's make it black. Now if we check the Paragraph Styles panel, we can see our body text has a plus symbol next to it. This means we've made some changes compared to the point when we save this style. If we want to update it with this black color, which we do, we have to click on this checkmark. This will tell Photoshop that you've changed your mind. And this is how you'd like this style to look. Once you press it, the other two text layers will update as well. Now in this case, I only changed the color that could have been easily edited through the Character panel. But think of cases where you want to change just about every setting in the Character panel. That's where this feature truly shines. Finally, I'll click on this other style and I'll create a new paragraph with it. Bear with me for a second. Now saying like changed my mind yet again, this is how I want all my paragraph layers to look not a problem. I'll just overwrite the existing style by pressing on this check mark icon. And there you go. Well, it looks terrible, but that's the power of this panel. You can always double-click and further adjusted. Regarding the character styles, you'll probably use them less. Let's add a new text layer that says Me and my friends. That's what an ampersand, not with the word. And we'll select it and change its font family to Georgia Italic. We might change its size or its color. What's important is we make it stand out. Now we have this stylized word and we want to save these settings. This is where character style comes in. Get the type tool and select the ampersand. Then with your character styles panel, open, press home this only cone to create a new style, cool it, ampersand, and you're good to go. Now you can select any word from any other text layer and from the Character Styles panel, you can select ampersand. Click on the first only go on, and that's going to be immediately updated. Fantastic stuff. So these are the uses of paragraph and character styles. All these profiles are saved in the PSD file. So this means when you start a new project, you won't have them, but you can import them. First. Let's save this PSD, call it test and put it anywhere you want. Now let's open a project. You can see we don't have any styles in either panel. No problem. Go to this very small icon and click it. Here, you'll have Load Paragraph Styles. Click it. And Photoshop will ask you to choose a PSD file from which it should import them. And when you switchover, you'll have the other one, load character styles. This means if you're constantly using the same body text in most of your projects, this can help you a lot. Or if you're working on a ten-page project and you want to be consistent and fast. This is bound to help. That concludes this lecture. Try it out because that's how you submit your knowledge by putting it into practice. 200. Align text layers: Hi, In the upcoming minutes of this lecture, I'll teach you how to efficiently align text layers on your Canvas. Apparently this doesn't seem to be a big deal yet. You'll soon find out the process is a bit more complicated than you might expect. Let's start out with some rectangles. I have three on my canvas and I want to evenly space them out. This isn't a big deal. You get the move tool, you select all three, and then you focus on the options bar. Here we'll find all our alignment tools or compress, distribute horizontal centers, which is this middle one here. And immediately they'll rearrange. I can check the accuracy of this repositioning by selecting the middle rectangle and holding down the control key. This shows me the distance between them. For the left and the right side. You can see they are identical, which is what you'd expect. Let me hide the green one and I'll do this. I'll drag this red one near to the bottom of my canvas. Now, I want this blue one to be aligned with it. Again, we know how these alignment tools work. We need to select both of them and we'll click on align bottom edges. Easy, and more importantly, it's predictable. Now let's do the same thing with some texts layers. Here are three individual ones, but you can clearly see they don't have the same distance between them. Let me control click the middle one so we can see the initial distance. Okay, it's clear the one on the right is further away. Now let's distribute them with the same command from the Options bar. Well, this doesn't look right. It's actually worse. I don't even need to hold the control key to measure it out. It's clear this isn't correct. No matter, Let's repeat the second test. I'll drag this last text layer near the bottom of the canvas. Now I'll select another one with control and shift. So nothing special. I'll click on Align Bottom edges and let's see what happens. Apparently this doesn't make any sense. You can clearly see how the second layer went further down than it was supposed to. This can be explained by checking out this client testimonials layer with the type tool. If we click it, we can see it's being constrained by a box and much larger. That's why Photoshop place this other leg further down than it was supposed to. Actually with this paragraph text expanded, we can see it actually did a great job. So when you're dealing with text layers and you want to align their bottom edges, make sure they're converted to point text. Let's do that now. Right-click it in the layers panel and hit Convert to point text. Now if we repeat the process, you can see that place correctly. So this would fix the issue, right? Just make sure it's point text and not paragraph text. Unfortunately, that's not the case. If I replace this word with place, you'll be in for another surprise. Let me click on align bottom edges once again. As you can see, client testimonials is moved further down. And that's because the p from place is taken into consideration. If we drag a guide from the top, we'll see Photoshop did a good job in its view. Remember the program is looking at pixels. It doesn't see things as you see them. To sum up my point, you can't precisely position text layers through the alignment tools from the Options bar. Here's what I suggest. Instead, it's simple, yet effective. Instead of having these menu items placed on individual layers, delete them and place them on one single text layer. Give me a moment while I add them back in. Once you're done, go between the first two items and hit the Spacebar several times. Once you're happy with that gap, copy it with Control C. Now pasted in between all the other menu items. In this case there's only one other spot. But if you have 67, 10 menu items, this will surely be a lifesaver. It's a bit crude, but it gets the job done on the horizontal axis. Vertically. You don't have lots of options. You can convert your layers to point text. But my advice is you position them with the help of your smart guides. I'll enable one more text layer and I'll reposition it vertically so it matches this other one. Notch it back and forth with your mouse. And these pink layers, meaning your smart guides will show up to help you out. This is what you're looking for. So that's how you align your text layers precisely. You place them on a single layer instead of separate ones, and you paste your empty space between each item. If you want to align some texts layers vertically, do it manually with your mouse and with the help of your Smart Guides. 201. Glyphs Explained: Welcome to this video where we'll talk about glyphs in Photoshop. This isn't a particularly interesting subject, but I think I may save you from a lot of headaches. You might have come across the following situation. You have a bit of text here and you want to add another word, easy enough will get the type tool we'll click to the left of how and we'll write and in front of it. Okay, nothing fancy about it. All that's left is to change the capital H to a lowercase one. Let's select it with the type tool and hit H on our keyboard. But look what happens. Nothing. Let me press it again. Still nothing. Instead, there seems to be a window of sorts that constantly shows up. That's an improvement that was introduced in CC 2015. That window is showing you an alternative glyphs for that particular character. On one hand, this can frustrate you and stop you in your tracks when you want to perform a simple action. On the other hand, this is a very valuable tool for designers who want to take their typography to the next level. So let's break it down. When Photoshop detects your font has multiple symbols for a particular character, it will offer those options in this small pop-up. This may happen for only a few letters or for most of them depending on your font. As a rule of thumb, fonts marked with pro usually have several alternatives. These glyphs, you can take your designs to another level. Let's take a quick look at an example from creative mints, which is a very popular user on dribble.com. In this design, you can see how this ampersand really stands out. You can achieve a similar result through this Photoshop update. Moving to another example, again from Mike aka creative mins. Here you can focus on this S at the beginning of this paragraph. You can use something special that stands out while still using the same font. So it's clearly a powerful feature, yet sometimes it may annoy you. How can you disable this popup? It's easy. Go to Preferences type. I prefer to use Control K to quickly launch it. From this window. Uncheck this last option enabled type layer glyph alternates, hit, okay, and now we're free to replace that H without any interruptions. Don't worry, you still have those alternate glyphs available. You just have to open them up from Window Glyphs from this new panel. By default, you have alternatives for selection active. This means that as you select a different character, this panel will immediately update with new possibilities. If I want to use this fancy a character, I'll just double-click it and that will update on my canvas in an instant. Now if I select this, H will see it's alternates here. What's nice is that we can close this panel. And if you take a look at our selection on the canvas, you'll notice this area here that tells us that this character has alternate glyphs available. Another option you have available is to open up the Glyphs panel and switch this setting to entire font. Now you can explore everything this font has to offer. These controls make it super easy to increase or decrease the size of the symbols. But you can also fine tune the size of the grid to. As you can see, it's very intuitive and straightforward and I think Adobe did a great job. It's true that you'll eat up a lot of Canvas space with this panel. But if you're serious about your typography, you'll have to pay the price for it. In my work so far, I've had the best results when I've used these specific categories from this dropdown. And there are quite a lot of them ranging from extended Latin characters all the way to currency and math symbols. You also get all sorts of glyphs for dashes and quotes, punctuation symbols, you name it, it's here. It's going to say most fonts won't have these features. But when you find a typeface that gives you all of these options, make a mental note of it. My language, Romanian is a Latin one. So these additional symbols really helped me out when I worked on copy made for Romanians. But like I said, this is also helpful for currency symbols. The pound or the scent. Don't have a simple hotkey on your keyboard. So it's great that you can find them here. I also like Designer Favorites, which features lots of interesting ones. So that's the glyphs panel overall, I love it, but this pop-up integration is not for me. If you feel the same way, remember to disable it from preferences type. No matter your choice, using these special symbols will definitely improve your projects. Have fun. 202. Make Your Teeth White: Hi there. In this video you'll learn how you can improve your smile through Photoshop within minutes. First, we're going to grab the last sue tool and make a selection. I'm using it because the Quick Selection Tool will certainly pick up parts of the gums and lips. Feel free to try it out. But I think you'll spend too much time holding old to remove the excess. As you can see, it requires too much attention. So I draw the trash this idea, use Control D to de-select. Okay, back to my approach with the last sue tool active, zoom in and start working. You don't need to worry too much about accuracy. That's because you can always use Shift to add to your selection and you're bound to get some unwanted parts. So hold olds to remove them. This requires a bit of patients, but the bigger the smile, the easier the job. Plus, this is also a good way to practice using the ASU tool when I introduced aid. So I promised you you'd find it useful in certain scenarios. Well, here we are. I need to feather my selection so the effect will appear not trolled. To do that, click on Select and mosque from the Options bar. If you don't see it, make sure you have any selection tool active. For example, the last sue. This particular button is available only in the latest releases of Photoshop. If you're using CS6 or a previous version, this is going to be called Refine Edge. Don't worry, the idea is simple. From this new workspace will increase the feather to about 2.5 pixels. This value is based on my image size and my Selection. Other images may require different settings. Next, I'll go to the bottom of the Layers panel and click on this icon. From here, I'll choose selective color, which is the last one in this list. They seize an adjustment layer that will allow me to remove some of that yellow from the teeth. That's what I'm going to choose from this dropdown, yellow. Here, we can see four sliders, but we're only going to focus on yellow. I'll drag it all the way down. If we toggle this less visibility, you'll see it's already made an improvement. Now if your selection wasn't all that great, this is the time where you can jump in with your brush tool and tackle some of those bits that weren't included. Make sure you're painting with white. Right-click and check your hardness. To maintain that feathered edge, you'll want something fairly soft. So surely under 50%, I paint away any of those yellow spots that you might have missed here. I'm good to go. Before we go any further, I've got to say that I want natural looking teeth and the change has to be subtle. If you plan on using this on Facebook or some other social platform, please resist the urge of cranking the settings. There's a bunch of other tutorials out there that make you smile Hollywood like yet, I feel that's too big of a change. I won't subtle improvement, not a completely different smile. With that said, let's proceed to Step Number 2. I need my selection bag, but don't worry, you don't have to grab the last sue tool and redo the same job. Instead we'll control click our Layer Mask and this will re-enable our selection. This is a real timesaver. Now I'll choose another adjustment layer from the bottom of my layers panel levels. Here. You don't need to worry too much about all these details. I'll move this middle slider to the left side around 1 200 or so. And this will get me a great result on your image. You may need more, you may need less. Work with the sliders and constantly check the result. If we hide these adjustment layers to see the initial image, we can see we've made a big difference and it's still believable. That's number one in my book. If you plan on modifying your look, make sure you're reasonable with your adjustments. Otherwise, it's just going to look silly. Let me show you another way of removing some of that yellow nuanced from this image. I'll re-enable my selection by clicking on this mask. Now, instead of using selective color, I'll activate a hue and saturation adjustment layer. Don't worry, we're not going to break his teeth or read, instead will enable this tiny icon that will allow us to tell Photoshop exactly what we want to talk it from our photo. So click anywhere on his teeth and you'll now see this drop-down has automatically changed to yellows. We did active. You can turn down the saturation. How much is up to you, but I wouldn't go pass minus 75. Move it left and right and see where that sweet spot is. You can also adjust your lightness from this panel and that may further move things along. Overall, his all before shot after shot. I'll either method is fine, just a matter of fine tuning your settings. So that's how you improve your teeth. One, make a selection, in this case with the lasso tool, to use the selective color adjustment layer and drag down the yellow slider. Alternatively, you can use hue and saturation and click on his teeth to pinpoint that color. Three, re-select and use the levels adjustment layer to control your brightness. Joint out on your own images and see how you do Have fun. 203. Reshape Faces: Welcome. In this lesson, I'll teach you how to manipulate your facial features with 0s. Here's our starting points and after a few minutes, we'll end up with this result. Please note that everything is done in good fun for demonstration purposes. I don't agree with digitally enhanced images. I think everyone should look after themselves, live a healthy lifestyle and be happy with their own body. Having said that, let's keep things light and play around with the Face Aware Liquify tool. Let's get to it. The first step is to convert our layer into a Smart Object. This will allow us to easily adjust our settings in case we're not happy on our first go. Next, I'll go to the top menu and I'll choose filters, liquefy. This is improved in this latest release of Photoshop and we get to control just about all of her facial features previously. And CC 2015 85, we couldn't control her eyes individually, which was a bit of a drag. Now we get to do that. Before we get into it. Please note that this works well for group photos because we're able to go through all detected faces through this drop-down. The only restriction is your subject, he or she has to face the camera if you get a site shots or if the head is too far tilted, this face aware feature won't work. Here we can see because we also get this overlay and I'll abbreviate. Let's see what we can do. First the upgrade, we can control her eyes individually. Here due to the nature of this photo, we can see her eye from the left side of the screen is smaller. That makes sense, but you'd be surprised to find how many people have unequal eyes in straight up images. Thus, I can drag this slider up to about 70 or so. And you can see this small change. Everything here is subtle, though you can crank it up to a 100. The difference won't be night and day. And I applaud this limitation implemented by Adobe. Next, I'll slightly adjust her eye height, but I'll enable this chain icon which is turned off by default. Here, I'll go with something like 15. If you're into Animate transformations, you could raise it up dramatically. But here I won't do that. Moving down to her eye width, Let's also increase it to about 20. But what ever reason these sliders can't be controlled through your mouse scroll? I'm sure this is a bug that will get fixed pretty soon, but it is something you should be aware of. Next, we can make us smile with her eyes by using this Tilt feature. There's an array of emotions available at our fingertips, but I'll stay out of it. On the other hand, the no slider is something that produces dramatic results. Here, I'll decrease the height to about minus 30 and the width to about minus 50 or so. At this point, we've done quite a lot and you might be wondering if you're on the right track. Well, we have a preview checkbox here at the bottom of this panel, but I prefer to use its hotkey. That's p. Since we're in a different workspace, you won't get the pen tool by mistake. Okay, So far so good. Her mouth is also a critical component after her nose. Let's make this smile a tad bigger by upping this slider to 50. I know having luscious lips is important nowadays, so let's increase the upper lip Valley to 55. I advise you to skip the lower lip. I've played on some images of my own and they produce creepy results. For the width. The value of 50 is going to improve it. And let's do something similar for the height. Press P to toggle the preview so you can see the progress so far. All right, I'm happy with it, but now I'll adjust her face shape, which will completely transform this photo for the chin heights. Let's go with 25 or so. As for the jaw line and face width, I find negative values work best on women. Here, I'll go with minus 50 and minus 65. And that's it. Let's press. Okay. Let's see our before and after on our Canvas. But please note this is quite an intensive process. So photoshop will think for a while before reapplying the effect. I think the before and after is dramatic to dramatic I might add, but again, Let's keep it all in good fun. Let's double-click it so I can show you a better way of adjusting your photos. This slide is an iffy in this release. So what you can do is hover over the different parts of her face and these guides will show up. Now you can adjust her mouth, for example, right on the spot. The same goes for her nose and all of her facial features. This is a really powerful tool that's easy to use. Yet I suggest you apply all these changes to photos where you see someone that was captured in a less than ideal light. Slightly increases smile, make both eyes the same sizes, little things of that nature. And with that, she wrapped up this lecture. You have the PSD attached with this particular result. So feel free to experiment with it. 204. Create a Lens Flare: Welcome to this lesson where you'll learn how to add a lens flare and customize it to better fit your photos. Here's an example on screen of our end result. This is going to take only a few minutes to complete stumped by creating a new empty layer from the bottom of the Layers panel, you shift F5 to fill it with color. More specifically, we're looking for 50 percent gray. This will allow us to place our lens flare on this layer and have more control over it. Hit Okay, and you may want to convert it to a smart object. This will give you extra flexibility in the long run. Now change its blend mode to overlay. Great. Now we can make it look like the sun was really shining when we captured this photo. Go to the top menu and choose Filter from this list. Go to Render lens flare. Here you have a bunch of options to choose from. And these presets of fun to experiment with. My advice is you keep the brightness at 100% because we can always change it later by manipulating or less obesity. As you move through these, this preview shows you what you're about to get. I'll stick with the first one and it's already looking nice. In case you want to adjust it, you can do so by clicking in this preview window. Considering our approach, that's not essential. The reason why I opted for a 50 percent gray layer is that I now get extra freedom to manipulate this lens flare. For example, I may want to soften it up with a blur. I'll go to Filter blur from this list. Let's go with the classic Gaussian blur. Anywhere around three pixels will start to soften it up. Furthermore, if you don't like this red highlights, you can easily change it with another adjustment layer. That's the power of this approach. Activate a hue and saturation adjustment layer and clip it with Control Alt J. Now I can use this hue slider and I'll drag it to plus 40, which will give me a yellow, green color that's better suited for this environment. I can also take down its saturation to minus 100, and we'll be left with a series of white rings. It all depends on the look you're trying to achieve. Plus we can also use Control T and resize it to our heart's content. For example, I can enlarge it quite a lot. I can reposition it on the canvas or rotated. Please note that when you resize it or move it dramatically, you may end up with these edges. Can you see what's going on here? That's not ideal, but no worries. These filters come with a mask by default. So click on it and grab a brush. Choose black as your foreground color and increase it dramatically. That's for the hardness and the thing under 50 percent will work just fine. Now paint over those edges and they'll go away. Now we have a smooth transition. And in case you want to avoid brushing, you can always undo and use the gradient tool. I'm sure you're familiar with it at this point. While on the default colors swipe and get your bearings. Depending on which color is on top, you may want to swipe in the opposite direction. And there you go. That's how you can get more freedom when generating a lens flare on your Canvas. I hope this will be a good use to you. Have fun. 205. Tilt Shift: Miniaturize Objects: Hey there, this is going to be a fun lecture because we will take an ordinary photo and transform it into something completely different. It's like all these cars have been miniaturized. And this is all a board game where everything is made out of plastic. Let me show you how you can obtain the same effect in only five to 10 minutes. Start with vibrance adjustment of that because we want to increase the intensity of our colors. I'd say a vibrance have plus 10 under saturation of plus 30 is going to be enough, but it's all going to depend on your image. Please note you have this photo attached as well as the PSD. So please work along. Okay, now let's convert it to a smart object because this effect relies on several filters. Go to the menu system and click Filter from the list, go to noise, reduce noise. The goal here is to smooth out any harsh edges and details that are not seen in plastic toys. I've repeated this technique on several other images before I started this recording. And in most cases, reduce noise does a fantastic job. Here the result won't be as dramatic, but it will still help us make sure you have the preview settings checked and increase the strength to its maximum value 10. We don't want to preserve any details, so take this down to 0, and in this case, I'll also reduce the color noise to 0% as well. If you want to see what this does, focus on this red guy in the middle of the intersection. Notice that at 0% he's pretty sharp. While if we bring it up to a 100 percent, is colors bleed away. Now for the sharpened details slider, Here's where you'll have to experiment based on what you see in your preview. In some cases like here, I've set it to 0%, while other times I've cranked it up. Remember, it's a smart object, so these values are not set in stone. Let's move on to the next filter which is going to be median. This is hidden in the same filter menu in the noise category. We'll use it to soften everything up. This reduces the difference between pixels that are close together and it kind of adds a glow effect. If you use high enough values, we don't want to get crazy with it. So stick to a radius of three to four pixels. The next and final filter makes all the difference. It's called tilt shift and you'll find it by going to Filter, blur Gallery. Click it and you'll get the following workspace. This central region set your focus point. So everything that's between these two lines will retain its sharpness. Inside it. You'll find a controller that adjusts the amount of blur you'll apply to your canvas. As you click and drag, you'll increase or decrease your values. Though my advice is you use this slider on the top right side. This panel is much more user-friendly. As for these dotted lines, these set the transition point between the focal point and the out-of-focus area, drank them closer in and you'll have more blur on the rest of the image. But this increases the miniaturisation effect dramatically. Okay, Let's set our value to something like 10 pixels. Hit, Okay? And let's see our result, right? This is looking lovely. It's as if these old toy cars, and that's exactly what I was going for. But because this is a smart object, I'll double-click on blur gallery yet again, and I'll flip this effect around. So instead of using it horizontally, I'll go out scientists and I'll rotate it so we get the same effect on this diagonal line. It's great that we have the street to guide us. This time. I'll also move these dotted lines further away from the center so you can see the transition a bit better. Once you're happy, hit OK yet again and take a look at our result and full screen mode and see if there's anything else you can do to improve it. In essence, it's all about those filter values we put in. Here. I'm happy with it. Let me show you a quick way to reuse everything. I'll minimize Photoshop and I'll drag this image inside it. I'll adjust it so it will better fit my Canvas. Right now this needs to be placed above our original lab, but underneath the adjustment one. Now hold Alt, click and drag from this smart filter listing release on top of the new photo. I'm like magic. You'll have the same settings applied to it. He, uh, we could use a higher value, but you get the idea. Thus you can use the attached PSD to quickly get this effect on all your photos without too much hassle. Have fun with it. 206. Add Glowing Lines to Photos: Hey there, let me show you how you can add glowing lines to your photos. This is a widely popular effect because it's fairly easy to create, but it's quite impressive in its simplicity. This is the end results and we're going to recreate it in the next ten minutes. The effect relies on your pen skills. So this is a great exercise to practice working with it. Let's select it with the pK and make sure you're on the path option from the top left back to the Canvas. I know a lot of people struggle with their curves. Sometimes it's hard to get them right, especially if you want a lot of them, like in this case here. As you can see, I'm making a mess of things and we want to smooth effect just isn't going to cut it. So let me go back a few times. Well, instead of clicking and dragging, you can simply click and create straight lines. Afterwards we'll use the Convert Point tool from the pen. And this way we can bypass all the headache. How much you click is up to you, but I'll going fairly fast here. One click per side, one on the left, one on the right, all the way down. Preferably your subject should be distinguished from the background. Here. This is a good candidate, but I'm sure you can find lots of photos where you're standing, so please try it on your own photos afterwards. Okay. So I went through it pretty fast and clearly I have some issues, but this is why I love this approach. Well, on the pen tool, hold down the Alt or Option key on a Mac. Go to the second click and drag downwards. If you want to make sure you're getting a good result at shift as well. And this will keep you in check. Now this is done. I can move on to the next one, and I can repeat this process as many times as it takes. You'll notice some of them won't be positioned properly. That's not a problem because we can manipulate this path easily with the Direct Selection Tool. Instead of switching to it, I'll hold Control or the Command key on a Mac. And this will change my cursor to this white arrow. Now, I'm free to reposition it as I please. My goal is to get these lines to look nice and smooth. But this is going to take a minute because I click lots of times there with me as I speed up the process and convert each point. This is one way to get familiar with Bezier curves without all the trouble. I think this is a great way to practice. So even though you may not love the end result, it's still a valuable exercise as far as the pen tools concerned. I suggest you zoom in and pan around with your Spacebar key so you can see what's going on. It's up to you if you want these lines to be closer to her body or further away. If you want to make something more interesting, you could start with just a few pixels distance. And as you move down, you can increase the distance. That's more time-consuming, but it'll give you a more impactful effect. By the way, in case you're having any issues, grab the path selection tool and click on it. An alternative is to completely switch to the direct selection tool because we won't be needing the pen tool for any important work. Right now we have this setup. The next step is to create a new layer, and this is important, so don't skip it. Then switch over to the brush tool. As you can see, the path remains active since we didn't do anything to dismiss it, choose any brush, but it should be fairly small, I'd say under 20 pixels, but this depends on your image. For the hardness, you can experiment with anything from 60 to 80 percent. Please make sure you have white set as your foreground color and that your brush opacity is maxed at 100%. Greats. We've set up our brush. Now we can go back to our Pen tool and right-click anywhere on our Canvas, as long as the path is active, will get a bunch of options, but we're looking for stroke path. Once we hit it will have this new window. From here we'll choose brush and we have to check this option to simulate pressure that's usually used for tablets. But here it's going to create a nice effect. Okay, here's our result. Please double-check this on its own layer. And in case you're not happy, now's the time to use Control Z to further adjust your curves. Once you apply your brush, that's it. So take your time with it and don't rush it. Okay, I'm happy with it. Press enter so we can get rid of our path. Now we need to hide parts of this trail. So we have the option of working destructively with the eraser or non-destructively with a mask. Of course, we'll go with the second option. Now with our mask active, we can begin to paint with black. You'll need to adjust the brush size, of course, but that's easily done with the square bracket keys. I know I told you lots of times already, but this keeps your flow going. The idea here is to make it look like the line is sometimes going behind her, while other times it's placed in front of the girl. This needs patients and a lot of zooming in. In case you mess up, use X to flip your colors and paint that area back in. Of course, you could potentially use various selection tools to speed up the process or diversify your workflow. But on demonstrating this effect with the brush tool, because I've seen this is less intimidating for beginners. As I'm working in the background, I'd like to tell you how to troubleshoot a potential problem in case your brush isn't looking like this. It's probably because Simulate Pressure didn't work. If you want to make that happen, enable shape dynamics from the brush panel. In this window, you'll have to look for control. From this drop-down. You'll have it set to pen pressure even though you may not have a tablet. In my case, even though I have one connected, I'm not going to use it for this exercise. Even so, Photoshop is still showing me a warning through this symbol here. Nevertheless, I'm just about done with my line removal. Okay, here we are. Now we can get into our layer styles, but this step is easy. First, we can change the color to white with color overlay just in case you didn't paint with it. Here, I'm good. The magic happens without a glow, but we don't have any complicated settings. We'll keep the blend mode to screen and set the opacity fairly high. 80 percent will do just fine. The technique is softer, the spread is 10 percent. Next, this setting will expand it. So let's start with 10 pixels. For the color code, you can use whatever you want. I'll go with a bright magenta. It's color-code is FF 000 D eight. Now hit Okay and inspect your result. Most likely you'll now see some issues around her dress that are caused by this glow, but no worries. Grab the brush tool and start painting. Please make sure you click on the Mask thumbnail and not on the layer. There's a huge difference between the two. So always glance at your layers panel to be sure you're on the right track. You may want to adjust your brush hardness as well. This is going to take a few minutes, so I'll fast forward because there's nothing special about it. The goal here is to get a lovely effect, not see me perform manual labor over and over. That may be entertaining as well. Nevertheless, here's where we're at. Now, if you want to take it further, Let's duplicate this layer. Okay, the effect intensifies, but that's not what I'm after. If you want to achieve that effect, gun play with your Outer Glow settings. Remember we used a 10 percent spread and a 10 pixel size, but you can take it up to any value. Okay, move it down, say 30 pixels. That means you have to tap your down arrow key three times while you hold. Now we can change the outer glow color to something else, maybe a bright teal or something like that. I'll also learned my settings to 5, 5% pixels just to get some variety. Of course, with this repositioning, you'll need to adjust your mask because it doesn't fit anymore. But I'm sure you are well accustomed to working with it. I won't take any longer, so I'll show you the end result. Here it is. This is on glowing lines effect and it took about 15 minutes in total to complete with all my brushing and editing. Make sure you practice and you try it out on some other photos. Have fun with it. The possibilities are endless. 207. Add Light to an Area: At focus to a specific area with light. In order to bring attention to a certain part of your image, we're going to do the following. First, go to the bottom of the Layers panel and add an adjustment layer by pressing on this icon. You already know this by now, but there's a twist. Now we're going to select curves from the new panel that appears from the center, raised the line up significantly. This will brighten up the image dramatically. Now press Control I, and this will invert the mask. What does this mean? Before everything was affected by the adjustment layer. Now with the inversion, nothing is, but it's not useless far from it. Select the brush tool and make sure you have the hardness set at 0% and the opacity under 50 percent. Having white as the foreground color, start painting on the area you want to brighten up. In our case, it's the couple. Sometimes depending on your background and on your brush hardness, you may end up having a lousy effect. Don't worry, after you're all set painting, double-click on your adjustment layers thumbnail, and press on this small icon here. Make sure you have your mask selected by clicking it. Otherwise, this whole panel will be unlit. Now drag the feather slider up. How much really depends on the image size, the opacity, and the hardness of the brush you've painted with. Here. In my case, it doesn't make a significant difference. But I wanted to show you this step as a precautionary measure if nothing else. The second step is to add another curves adjustment layer, but this time make it darker. What's really nice is that you don't have to worry about getting it right the first time. These layers can always be adjusted by double-clicking on their thumbnail. So if something's too powerful, you can easily tone it down a bit. Here, I'm going to exaggerate the effect. So those that don't have the option of watching in high definition can still see what's going on. Great. Now we have a second curves layer, press Control I to invert it again. Paint with white around the edges of the coupled to make a really nice effect. Make sure you adjust your brush size to get the best result. I always use my square brackets on my keyboard. I'll go just about everywhere around them, even a little bit on the sun. If you go too far, press X and paint with black to remove some of the effect. After that said she can always adjust both the lightness of the girl or the darkness of the age is by simply double-clicking and moving the line around. But you can also lower the opacity of your layers. I like to use my one through 0 keys on my keyboard. One stands for 10 percent, two for 20 percent, and so on. 0 goes back to a 100 percent opacity. Great. Now let's see the before and after. Quite a big difference and in only a few steps, remember to dial it down. You don't need too much to get a nice effect. I can't stress that enough. If it's too obvious, it's been photoshopped, it really takes a lot away from it. You want to slightly enhance, not completely redo the image. Go have some fun with this technique. 208. Final thoughts: Hey, this is Chris, you're the photo sharpens shot there. Wow, you've made it to them. And I want to congratulate you from the bottom of my heart, because this is no small achievement. A lot of people set up goals for themselves, yet they failed to follow to do. And you're one of the good ones for the finishing this war's ultimate Photoshop Training from beginner to bro. I do hope this was a great learning experience and I hope to read a review. Please take a few minutes and write something out. Again. Thank you so much for choosing the Azure teacher. And I'm gonna see you in another course of mine. I have quite a few, all the best. And remember, work hard, work, smart, work long enough, and results are surely going to come. This is Chris signing out.