Erase backgraound of your picture easily with adobe photoshop CS3

This tutorial will go over a simple tool that is capable of erasing backgrounds. It is not the most complete tool, but it is very smart if you do it correctly. My tutorial will show you how it can be correctly used to make areas of your photos disappear. From there you will be able to do whatever you want with the space! As you know I am doing this in Adobe Photoshop CS3 if you see any difference in your version of Adobe Photoshop. Let's begin the tutorial.

You will want to start by opening up the image you want to work with. The one below is my truck and boat just after a fishing trip. It sure was fun!

Image #1

Now you will select the Quick Selection Tool. This tool is like the magic wand but not as automatic. It lets you take sections at a time by dragging. It basically works on a color redundancy equation to guess what an object is.

Image #2

As you can see that I have selected the area that I want to erase the background in. Now you can do the same with your image.

Image #3

Now you can select the Background Eraser Tool to begin the process of erasing the background.

Image #4

From the picture below you can see that I drag the icon around in the area that that I marked off. What you don't know is that I pulled the cursor over the area that wasn't marked off as well. The background eraser tool only works within the confined areas that you give it. If you select an area inside an image, it will only be able to erase the background in that area. That is why it is such a cool feature.

Image #5

Now you can see that I have pretty much completely erased the whole area. It would have been a lot easier if I had increased the cursor size though. You can do this by going to the top of the program when the Background Eraser Tool is selected and changing the brush size from the default 13 to something higher.

Image #6

Now we can go about filling in the area with something else. The area will still be outlined during this process. I am going to just fill in the background with a color just to show you it is possible. You can add any kind of image in that section of you please. To fill in the area just navigate to Edit/Fill.

Image #7

Now you will select a color for the background.

Image #8

Now you will change the blending mode if you desire or the opacity of the color you are filling the area with.

Image #9

Now you have the finished project.

Image #10

This tutorial is fairly easy, but many people are not aware of this great tool. So took a little time to make a demonstration and post it as a tutorial for your enjoyment. Hopefully, it will be easier to find than it is right now. Of course this tool is great for other things as well. I will let your imagination run wild with those thoughts though.

What are alternatives to adobe photoshop?

While Photoshop is far and away the industry standard, it is also very expensive. Adobe has introduced the cheaper Photoshop Elements for people who don’t want to shell out for the full package, but its functionality is limited. While they’re not generally suitable for very high-end work, there are a few Photoshop alternatives that you might be interested in.

The most popular free (open source) program for replacing Photoshop is known as the GIMP – not the most politically-correct of names, but then it was never really intended for the mass market. Originally a Linux application, it has been ported to Windows. While it performs most of Photoshop’s functions effectively, the interface is awkward at best.

To solve this problem, some people set about taking the GIMP and adjusting its interface to make it into a virtual Photoshop clone. The result is called Gimpshop, and works quite well – if you’re looking for a free Photoshop, this is pretty much your best option.

Apart from that, you could try Paint.net. Originally intended as a replacement for Paint, the simple drawing program that comes with Windows, Paint.net has quite quickly turned into something more on the scale of Photoshop. Developed by university students from the ground up, it is a project to watch, and runs much faster than Photoshop does with an arguably more intuitive interface.

Of course, if you’re just after a simple program for converting file formats, rotating pictures and removing red eye, then all of this is complete overkill – even something like Paint Shop Pro is really too advanced for these simple tasks. Instead, you should be looking at programs like Microsoft’s Digital Image, IfranView and Google’s Picasa. At heart, these are simple photo management programs with only the functions that you’re likely to need for digital photo adjustment, avoiding all the distractions that high-end tools like Photoshop can bring.

How to Resize a picture Using Adobe Photoshop?

Photoshop is a wonderful tool for graphic design, web development and any other form of digital media creation. In this article, we discuss resizing an image using the program.

Photoshop has many uses and is a very powerful program with many different capabilities and functions. Photoshop can have a high learning curve and may be a little overwhelming at first because of all the different tools and options available to use, but I am sure you thought the same thing about learning to read. Now look at you, you are a pro.

As with any thing in life practice is the key to becoming better at things you don’t know or think are too difficult. Try not to become intimidated and don’t be afraid to try new things and experiment. Someone famous once said that learning from failure is the key to success.

While Photoshop may be a lot more program than you need to resize an image, it is an important function to learn because it is a common technique in digital media development. Why would you want to resize an image in the first place? There are numerous reasons, but the most common is to make photos fit on web pages or print material.

Ok, as for the actual steps involved in resizing an image here they are:

1. Open Adobe Photoshop and the photo you wish to resize.

2. Once you have your photo open navigate your mouse to the tool bar that runs along the top of the screen and click on “Image”.

3. Once you click on “Image” from the tool bar, a drop down menu will appear. Select “Image Size” from the drop down menu. A window should popup with the images properties.

4. Initially, for our intents and purposes we only want to pay attention to “Pixel Dimensions” in the popup window. You will see that you can control the width and height values of the image in the popup window. You should also see a drop down menu for selecting “pixels” or “percent”. Make sure pixels is the unit selected in both the width and height fields. Pixels are tiny dots of color that make up the photo. If you ever look at printed material under a magnifying glass you will notice that the image is made up of tiny dots of color. These tiny dots of color are analogous to what pixels are in a digital image.

5. Okay. Let’s pretend that the image you opened up at the start of this tutorial is very large, something like 2000 pixels wide by 1500 pixels in height and we want to resize the image to fit on a web page. Most web pages are somewhere around 800 pixels wide by some arbitrary height. The reason height is arbitrary is because it is determined by how much content appears on the page. Let’s say that we want the image to take up about half the width of the web page. To accomplish this we would change the pixel width value from 2000 to 400 pixels (which is half of 800 pixels, the width of the web page). Make sure that the “Constrain Proportions” option is checked so that the ratio between width and height is preserved and the image does not become distorted.

6. Click “OK” and save the newly resized version of your image. YOU’RE DONE!

You just resized your first photo using Photoshop and are now 100 times more advanced. Congratulations you are on your way to becoming a Photoshop master.

How to remove cracks and creases from old photos?

A common problem with old photos is that they often have un-desirable cracks and creases.

These can be removed quite easily using the Clone, Healing and Patch tools found in Adobe Photoshop.

The problem is that this can become a very time consuming activity if the photo in question is severely damaged.

This article describes a correction method using a free Action for Adobe Photoshop that can take less than five minutes to correct the majority of cracks and creases in an old photo

For several months now I have been using a Photoshop Action called de-crack, developed by Tim J. Edwards, with very effective results.

The original example image (Image 1) on our web-site page is typical of the sort of damaged photos we encounter on a daily basis.

As mentioned, correcting these flaws in Photoshop is actually not difficult but can take a lot of time.

Using Tim's excellent de-crack Photoshop Action will not necessarily result in a perfect "de-cracked" photo.

Having said that, it certainly eliminates the more obvious cracks and creases resulting in you then needing to "tidy up" the outstanding cracks and creases manually with the Clone, Healing and Patch tools.

Now before we get started, you will need to get a hold of a copy of Tim's de-crack Photoshop Action which you can download for free from the RetouchPRO web-site by searching for "de-crack" at the following link:-

"http://www.retouchpro.com/pages/search.html"

You will have to download a very small .ZIP file which will contain the single Photoshop .ATN action file.

After you uncompress the de-crack.zip file you will need to save decrack.atn in Photoshop's "Photoshop Actions" folder and then "load" the de-crack action into your current action list.

You're now ready to give it a try ...

Step – 1

Open up your damaged image in Photoshop

Step – 2

Run the De-crack Action with a high-pass value of 0.3.
Run the De-crack Action with a high-pass value of 0.3 again.
Run the De-crack Action with a high-pass value of 1.5.

Each steps takes only a few seconds and should result in three new layers which collectively mask out the majority of image damage.

Step – 3

The end result is the elimination of most of the cracking damage, which will then allow you time to spend on the remaining cracks and creases, which are usually quite easy to correct manually.

If you find that the de-crack action has in-advertently lost some of the detail of parts of the image, you can easily go to the offending “de-crack” layer in question and erase the de-crack effect selectively using the eraser tool, bringing back wanted detail.

And there you have it!!

Less than five minutes of digital image manipulation to remove cracks and creases from old photos.

Digital photography Tips for Photo Editing

Digital photography has a lot of advantages over film photography in many areas, but one of the most useful is the final output of the image itself. With film cameras you had to rely on the processing lab to make any general adjustments needed to your photos to make them appear their best, but with digital photos you as the photographer have all the tools you need to enhance and edit your own photos right at home.

Of course, how much editing you do to your photos before printing is entirely up to you and there are all kinds of preferences on photo editing from those that do almost no editing at all, to those who like to make major adjustments to almost every photo that they take. And there is plenty of middle ground in between those two extremes as well.

Quite often, many basic editing tasks can be done in the camera itself after the picture is taken including some simple cropping, removing red eye from flash photos, and rotation from landscape to portrait and vice versa. For many people, this is about all that they require anyway before printing out their snapshots, and this keeps things very easy and simple.

But to start to realize the potential that digital photography puts in the hands of the average person, a photo editing software program will be needed where you upload your photos from the camera to your computer and then open them in the program. You can then begin to perform all kinds of editing tasks including more advanced cropping, change the file size or format, adjust color saturation, contrast and brightness, and apply special effects.

There are several good free digital photo editing software programs available for download that can fit the bill for most common photo editing needs. All you have to do is perform a search for "free photo editing software" and you should have plenty of results to choose from.

But there are two programs for sale that seem to meet the needs of most average photographers whether novices or even serious hobbyists, and they are Adobe Photoshop Elements and Corel Paint Shop Pro 9. Both of these programs are very highly rated in most independent and consumer reviews as being very easy to learn and use, while also handling most any editing task that the average photographer could need.

For even more high end photo editing the full Adobe PhotoShop program will provide enough editing power to meet the needs and expectations of even the most discriminating photographers, but expect to pay quite a bit more for the added power and capability.

It should be clear then that regardless of the amount and scope of photo editing that you intend to do, there is a program that will let you do exactly what you want.

Use of the Gradient Tool in Adobe Photoshop CS3

This tutorial will go over the use of the Gradient Tool in Adobe Photoshop CS3. This is a short and focused tutorial on the capabilities of the gradient tool. Many different things can be constructed from such simple features. Many new web 2.0 buttons, headers and images are using finely tuned gradients to give off a smooth effect.

I personally like this look and feel, and will be developing it into some of my new tutorials. If you are looking for a more defined tutorial on how to use this feature, you can check out of the links to the side or a webpage from the resource site link. Also there is the full package of teaching tutorials that you will find summarized at the end of this tutorial. Enough of the idle talk lets continue with the tutorial.

Let's start by opening up Adobe Photoshop CS Extended and making a document of a large square shape (500 pixels x 500 pixels). Then you can select the Gradient Tool.

Now drag a line from the top left portion to the bottom right portion like shown in the image below.

Now you will see what happens with the color patterns from blue to brown. You can see the color pattern at the top left of the program. That is the way it is shown for a gradient.

Now select that gradient box and you will see the default option within it. There are a variety of pre-made color patterns.

Let's take a look at one in use. Pick the transparent rainbow.

Now drag a line from the top right to the bottom left.

Now you will get an opposing gradient image from another corner of the document. You could do with different layers and make all kinds of cool contrasting stuff.

Now lets get a fresh document and select the Linear Gradient located at the top of the screen as shown in the image below.

Now drag a line from the left to the right.

Now you will get a linear gradient with the transparent rainbow. The transparent rainbow is nothing more than a few blending changes. You blur the rain colors and then you set the opacity to about 50% and there you go.

Let's make another clean document and select the Angle Gradient.

Select the option Foreground to Background, which will take your personally made background and foreground colors and make an angled gradient with them. You can do this with any of the gradients.

Now drag a line from left to right.

Now you will have an angled gradient. My gradient is from blue to white so it looks like it takes up only half the screen. You can make yours look like whatever you want.

Now make a new document and select the Reflected Gradient.

Drag a line from the bottom left to the top right.

Now you will see the image below.

Now select the Diamond Gradient from the top. I am sorry for not having the proper caption for this. Now select the black and white color option.

Now drag a line from the top left to the bottom right.

Now you will have an odd looking diamond speared gradient object. I probably should have demonstrated this in another color pattern.

The rest of the options are pretty self-explanatory. Next to the gradient types are the modes you can run them in. I kept it on normal for simplicity sake. They are shown below.

The gradient is a great tool that has many useful possibilities. It has been used since digital graphic editing started and it will continue on with these brilliant programs. Nothing catches the eye more than a well used gradient in an image. It mimics the changing faces of the sky that we see everyday. Some people would state that they have never seen anything more beautiful than a colorful sky. I believe they may be on to something. I hope this tutorial has taught you a few features that Adobe Photoshop CS3 has to offer with gradients.

How to Restore old photograps to their former glory?

Back in the day, when you took a photo you were pretty much stuck with it. Altering the image after the fact was a black art known to few, and available to less than that. This is no longer the case. With the advent of digital imaging and more specifically, Adobe Photoshop, image editing has reached new heights of manipulative wizardry, allowing a competent user to not only touch up a photo, but to practically reinvent the image. Let's look at a few of the more basic things that Photoshop can do in the hands of even the most novice of users.

Got an awful blemish on that photo you want to post on Facebook? Not a problem with Photoshop's retouching tools, which can render even the most hideous acne invisible with the stroke of a few keys.

Torn or worn photos? Family heirlooms that cannot be replaced? Photoshop can take a scanned photo and retouch tears and scars, water damage and more to make the photograph like new again, even to the point of reinvigorating colors that may have faded over time. This ability is worth the price of Photoshop alone.

Closed eyes in that latest glamour shot? Yes, you were the only one other than Grandma who may have been half looped to begin with, and now what do you do? Use Photoshop to open the eyes, that's what!

Let's say you best picture of yourself just happens to include a former flame that's no longer so hot. Great news! You can edit out former boyfriends more quickly and easily than it was to get rid of them in the first place! You can take almost any unwanted object from a digital image forever, and it's not a difficult thing to do!

Photoshop has a great many more features that can help transform your photos from a contribution to the circular file to an image you'll want to treasure and share for years to come.

Restoring old photos to former glory and retouching other photos is one of the great advances in modern photography, due in large part to Photoshop. Start learning how Adobe Photoshop can make your photos sparkle!