The ultimate editing software for professional and amateur photographers

A Photoshop Action is a preprogrammed command or series of commands that one can record and replay in order to save time and reduce the monotony of the repeated actions often required during the development of visual media. It includes all automated commands available within the program through its various menus. For example, if there are a series of steps that a designer prefers to follow in order to achieve a certain effect, that artist can program those steps into one Photoshop Action with the option to create a shortcut key for that action so that this effect can be applied automatically. As another example, if there is a certain format in which a designer must save all of his or her work, a Photoshop Action can be recorded that goes through the entire "Save As" process. This would result resulting in a save that can be completed with the push of a button similar to how one would save a project with the default extension, which can save a good amount of time.

How It Is Done

A Photoshop Action is programmed as follows. Initially, one must ensure that the History/Action window is visible. If not, one can select "Show History" or "Show Actions" from the "Window" menu. Once the History/Action window has been identified, select the "Actions" tab. From there, select the right-pointing arrow just below the "Exit" ("x") button, which opens up the window's menu. From the menu, select "New Action...," which appears first on the list. One can then name the action, select the set under which the action will fall under (this does not need to be changed if one is not interested in stratifying his or her actions), set the color scheme that is associated with this action, and select the shortcut key that will initiate this action, if desired. Once this is completed, click the "Record" button that appears above the "Cancel" button.

The window will disappear and the user can then perform the set of commands of which he or she would like the Action to be comprised. Although the program would then be recording the commands input by the user, it does not record the amount of time it takes to perform these commands. Therefore, any amount of time can be spent recording the commands so that no mistakes are programmed into the Action as well. Once all of the necessary commands have been performed, the user can then open the menu from the arrow in the Actions window and select "Stop Recording," which will likewise be the first option on the list. The Photoshop Action is thus created. A user can then apply this action whenever necessary by either selecting it from the list within the Actions window or by pressing the designated shortcut keys.

One must bear in mind that Photoshop Actions only apply to automated commands within the program. Subsequently, it excludes all actions performed through the tools menu, such as hand drawn lines, selections, erasures, and paintbrush functions. It is merely used for a series of steps that would otherwise require navigation to various menus followed by numerous selections. In other words, one can program an automated shadow rendering Action by manipulating various menu settings such as the creation of adjustment layers, copy-pastes, the application of bevels and other filers, layer property adjustments, and rasterizations. Alternately, one cannot automatically shadow an object by recording various maneuvers using the dodge and burn tools.

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Author: Mandi Pralle
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There are some excellent tips to be learned from a video Tutorial For Adobe Photoshop, especially when it comes to learning how to work with type. You sill for instance learn the technique of changing the size of font previews, working with the bounding box, figuring out the use of Smart Guides to align type layers. You will also be taught as to how to change Type Orientation using the palette, rasterize from the palette menu, and how to use the fast wrap text options

The Vanishing Tool Tutorial For Adobe Photoshop will teach you the ability to paint, transform and clone image objects, while maintaining the perspective of image. This particular tutorial will highlight the skill of drawing a grid that is compatible with the perspective of your photograph, as also teach you the skill of setting new source points and subsequently clone and paint inside the grid. The Camera raw Tutorial For Adobe Photoshop CS2 will showcase how a very dark image can be corrected, and the technique of using the new Auto Correction settings in Camera RAW CS2.

So whether you are a painter, illustrator, 3D artist, web designer or digital video artist, Adobe Photoshop will be able to enhance your capability with its dozens of extremely useful tools. A video tutorial will be able to walk you through, step by step, the intricacies of the software. In this training videos and movies will make you better appreciate the finer nuances, and transform you into an able user as soon as possible.

The benefits of learning Adobe Photoshop through video tutorials are many. The tuition is conducted by renowned experts. A narrated training video better demonstrates the key techniques and tools. Training is conducted in user friendly and jargon free language. You have the convenience of undergoing step by step video training on your own desktop either through CD ROM or online. The tutor is able to pass on knowledge quickly and efficiently. You are able to understand the concepts behind all the applications clearly and precisely. Moreover these courses are fully compatible with PC and MAC. All in all they are a wonderful alternative to boring books and expensive training courses.

To top it all you can learn at your own pace. Adobe Photoshop is amazing software with absolutely mind blowing features. Though very user friendly, they may appear terribly intimidating to beginners. Video Tutorials are the best way to make beginners try their hand at getting to know the basics. There are of course advanced tutorials too conducted by leading experts from the field which enable even adept users to learn even newer applications of this awesome software. To be able to take complete advantage of it one needs to be tutored sufficiently well to be able to understand the ins and outs of Adobe Photoshop.

These Tutorials For Adobe Photoshop being audio-visual in nature, lead to faster assimilation by just about anyone. The trainers take care that their instructions are easily understood, by even lay people, who want to use the software for very basic requirements, as well as cater to the specialists, seeking to fine tune their skills.

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Author: Dave Martin Peters
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If you're a beginner then getting the hang of Photoshop can be difficult, especially with all the different tools available. Many of the shortcuts are right there on your keyboard, and within this article you will find a few to get you started with your Photoshop Editing.

Faster Editing with your Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts

When editing pictures and photos, it's always useful to zoom in to get the precision just right. To zoom in, simply press the Z key! (to zoom out hold down the Alt key.)

It just takes one click to make a mistake and it can be easy to panic once the mistake has been made. There's no need to worry when you make a mistake, as just pressing Ctrl + Z will undo your mistake straight away. This shortcut will only work straight after the mistake is made, so for example if you make a mistake then do something else, it will only undo the immediate action that you just did. To undo further back, the Ctrl + Alt + Z shortcut will keep undoing everything backwards.

There's no way to predict unfortunate things happening that could ruin your work, for example a power cut, which could result in you losing your work. A way to avoid this is to use Ctrl + S Photoshop Keyboard shortcut every 5 - 10 minutes, which will have your work and save your own bacon!

Pressing the Tab key will show and hide your palettes. Using this keyboard shortcut will give you more room to edit your work, which is always handy if you don't like your screen to be too crowded with things that may not need to be there.

Increasing and decreasing the brush size is essential when editing within Photoshop. Decreasing the brush size is great to get into the tighter places on the image, where as increasing it is great for when editing a larger area. The heavenly Photoshop Keyboards you'll need to decrease the brush size is the [ key and the ] key is used to increase the brush size.

There's nothing more annoying than when different parts of your photo stick together when they aren't meant to. Ctrl + Alt + Shift + N will solve this by creating a new layer.

One of my own favourites is the H Photoshop keyboard shortcut. This allows you to pan around your image with ease, by turning your cursor into the hand tool, (to be honest this is one of my most used shortcuts by far.)

Remember you can always show your Photoshop Keyboard commands by holding down the Ctrl + Alt + Shift + K buttons (if you've got enough fingers left!) This brings up the help dialog box, and is always a handy little tool!

Of course for those of you who take Photoshop professionally want not take a look at our handy tool: Editors Keys Photoshop Keyboard Sets.

They speed up your work by up to 40%, and make your workstation look great.

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Author: Fallon Morris
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If you are considering making the jump from Photoshop to Gimp, you need to understand a few basic concepts that will make your transition a bit less bumpy. If you dive into Gimp full of Photoshop shortcuts and methodology in your head, you are doomed.

Here are four killer tips to making the jump to Gimp.

1. Gimp is not Photoshop. Nope, it ain't Photoshop. It never will be. But is it as good? For most uses, especially web graphics, it will be as good. For print, Photoshop is better. The main point here is to go into Gimp like a newbie. Try to leave your Photoshop knowledge out and look at Gimp as a totally new program.

2. Read the manual. I tried for years to use Gimp, but couldn't, because I kept thinking it was, or should, be Photoshop. I complained that the keystrokes weren't the same, that the crop functionality was different, etc. When I finally broke out the Gimp manual and approached it from a newbie learning a new program, I saw the light.

3. Do a bunch of tutorials. There are a ton of excellent Gimp tutorials online. Google "gimp tutorial" and be enlightened. Remember when you first started to learn Photoshop? You did a bunch of tutorials and learned all sorts of shortcuts and tricks. That is how you need to learn Gimp. Take it slow. See how other people work with Gimp. Again, leave your Photoshop chops on the shelf and start over with Gimp.

4. Don't give up. Before I saw the light and actually read the Gimp manual and did a bunch of tutorials, I got frustrated every time I tried to use Gimp. It was maddening to do even the most simple things: make a header graphic, change font color, apply a drop shadow.

I gave up several times. In the end, my persistence paid off, and so will yours. Moving from Photoshop to Gimp is not easy, but once you settle in and treat it as a new program, read the manual, do some tutorials, you'll find moving around and getting real work done in Gimp is easy.

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Author: Rand Whitehall
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Hopefully sometime this week Adobe Photoshop Creative Suite 5 (CS5) will officially be released, although I can already expose a few of the new features in this tutorial dedicated to the latest version of Adobe Photoshop CS5.

The team at Photoshop has been concentrating their efforts in improving two major areas of improvement as they have done for each and every one of the latest CS versions. First they take a look at what needs to be improved on in CS4 - There is nothing better than user feedback, so they will have already spent a lot of time looking improving existing CS4 functions and applications.

Even though we will now be looking at the new Adobe Photoshop CS5 functions, I must stress at this stage that overall new CS5 product will be practically 90% the same as CS4, so if you do decide to upgrade, there is only about 10% of the total program that you will need to learn how to use effectively.

So the main area of improvement is without a doubt the brand new features that Photoshop add, allowing the Adobe brand always one step ahead of the competition, and these new tools will also allow us to edit photos like no man has edited them before. Are you getting excited now???

First of all, CS5 is going to allow major improvements to the way "brushes" and "painting" can function in Photoshop. We will have the ability to use a photo (or any image) like a template canvas or color palette for painting. By clicking on a certain area you will be able to simulate dipping your brush into paint. Then you will be able to drag that color out to be spread around while simulating a wet brush. You can also mix colors as much as you like, and achieve a number of different effects that will give your images a completely new look.

The second improvement will allow you to simulate brush physics while you are painting. An animated 3D brush preview will show alterations based on pressure, and rotation. This in turn will affect the means in which the paint is applied to the canvas as though you had a real brush. A variety of presets are available, although you will even be able to use your own creativity in order create your own.

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Author: Dave Martin Peters
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