I recently made a tutorial on all the new features of Photoshop 2024. I got a lot of questions and comments on Youtube and various social medias, so I’ll address the most asked ones here. There is also a video well worth watching above (It’s more in depth).

Is Generative Fill a paid add on?

A lot of talk about this one!

Generative Credits

Adobe is introducing Generative credits. The easy way to understand this is like a phone plan or data plan. An unlimited data plan allows unlimited data, but once you pass a threshold the speed may be throttled during peak time.

If you are a paid subscriber, you will get fast processing credits. Once you pass that limit, you can still generate without extra costs, but the speed may slow down if the servers are busy.

You don’t have to pay for the credits. Each month your meter will refresh.  AKA top off. You can’t accumulate credits and roll them over.

You can see the amount of credits you will receive each month in this chart from Adobe’s website. FAQ here

This doesn’t begin until Nov 1, 2024

Main ones are
Full CC: 1000 Credits per month.
Single app (aka Photoshop) 500 per month,
Photography + Lightroom CC 250 per month. New subs after November 1 will get only 100 per month.

What if you run out of credits?

To be honest, Most people won’t get though 1000 or even 250 credits per month. But if you do, then what? You can continue to use the feature and you may experience slow downs, or even a daily cap  (We don’t know what that means yet, because it hasn’t happened, but my guess is the cap is to stop people abusing the system, like starting a generation farm and selling as stock).

If the speed throttle is bad, you have the option to buy more credits fro $4.99 per month for 100. So basically it gives you priority processing, and you go to the back of the line when you use your monthly credits. They refresh each moth like the minutes on your phone.

Generative credits do not apply to the Remove tool to other ai features in Photoshop, only Generative Fill and Generative expand. Adobe express and Firefly it also applies to Text effects and Text to image.

Is resolution still limited to 1024 x 1024

the generated resolution is 1024 x 1024 px

This means 1024 px on the longest side. If your selection is larger than 1024  high or tall, the generated pixels will be enlarged to fit the selection resulting is a softer looking image. At selections of 2or less, the resolution should match your image.

I have a tutorial here on how to get high resolution fills in your image, see the tutorial here

Where is High Resolution?

Here is my best guess. I don’t know for sure, if Adobe had told me, I won’t be able to talk about it because of NDA, but I don’t, so I’m only speculating.. but it’s an educated guess

On Adobe’s site they say future capabilities may include Higher Resolution, may incur additional Generative Credits or additional cost. Lets examine that

If you compare to Mid journey, you have the ability to generate new images, or to upscale any of the variations.the U1-4 mean create high res on demand.

When you generate high resolution, it costs 1 credit.

My guess is Adobe will allow us to generate in low resolution (like now), but in the future we may be able to choose to redraw a variation in high resolution. This is like the current practice of using Adobe Stock for free in low res with a watermark. When we are happy with the results, we license the image and it’s replaced with a clean, high resolution version.

Maybe that high res generation will cost 1 credit, or even 5 depending on the resolution. We will see.

Is it Photoshop 25 or 2024?

They are the same. Photoshop is at version 25 as an app, but all the apps in Creative Cloud 2024 are called 2024 no matter their individual app versions.

Where are my Presets, plugins etc

When you install a full dot version update, (25 vs 24.7 etc) sometimes preset and plugins might be missing or not working. (I actually had good luck with my plugins this time and they all work)

Your plugins should be in: Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop 2024\Plug-ins folder

The key is to not replace your old version until you can be sure everything is working.

When you choose update from Creative Cloud, don’t remove old versions.

You can uninstall them later if you like.

Also if you do this, make sure you turn off Auto Update, I strongly encourage this anyway, or it could update you and wipe out your presets without your knowing. It’s happened to me before.

Running the correct version of Photoshop

If you need to reinstall an older version of Photoshop you can. To get back discontinued functionality like 3D.

Click the menu in the Creative Cloud app next to the open button in Photoshop

Click other versions

A menu will appear with other versions. You can install multiple versions at once.

Where are the new tools?

You may have the new version installed. Make sure you are launching the correct version if the new features aren’t there. You might Have added 2024, but still launching 2023. Check the name next to the icon.

Where is the Remove tool?

If you are using a workspace that didn’t include the Remove tool, generative fill or other new features at the time, they will be missing from your toolbar.

Click and hold on the toolbar options, you will see a fly-out menu.

Click Edit Toolbar

Click restore defaults and done and everything should be there now. If you had a custom workspace, update that workspace, or the tool will disappear again the next time you reset the workspace.

Wrong version is opening in Lightroom

When you right-click on an image in Lightroom classic, you can choose to Edit In>Photoshop

Some people are only seeing beta and can’t get it to open in the regular Photoshop

For Mac users, go to preferences>External Editing

Change the Photoshop version

When you right-click you will see the correct version of Photoshop, You can target the beta or other versions if you prefer.

For windows users, you need to First Launch Photoshop and then when you choose Edit in, it will open in Photoshop 2024.

I hope these tips are proving useful for you.

Drop a comment and let me know!

Thanks

Colin

By the way, I heard from some people they were waiting for Generative Fill to come to the main Photoshop because they didn’t want to mess with the beta. Well, it’s here now.

As you may know, I made a course on Generative fill (the first and as far as I know, the only course) and everything on the course works exactly the same in the final release, except you don’t have to download the beta anymore. If you missed the discount before, I thought it would only be fair to offer it again here if you are now ready to jump in.

I’ll give you a week to use the code GENFILL2 to save 20%.  Grab it here (If you already bought the course, you don’t need to buy again, it’s unchanged, as the features are unchanged)

The post Updating to Photoshop 2024, Your Questions Answered appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.

Remove tool is now out of beta and available in the current version of Photoshop

In the toolbar, choose the Remove tool.

There are 2 options

Sample All layers: No matter what layer you are on, everything visible will be used. If this is off, only the contents of the active layer can be affected. (Ill explain more as we go on).

Remove after each stroke. If this is on,  the tool will activate each time you lift your mouse. With it off, you can apply different strokes to different parts of the image and then press Enter of the check mark to apply the adjustment all at once.

Turn on Sample all layers

Create a new layer

We will work on a new blank layer and it will work because Sample All Layers is on. This will enable us to work non destructively.

Turn off Remove after each stroke

Paint over the object we want to remove. You would probably remove distractions and not the woman in this photo, but it will demonstrate how this tool works.

Change the brush size with the [ and ] keys. Paint over the area to remove, going just a little larger than the object.

Click the checkmark at the top, or press the Enter key on the keyboard.

The object will be removed.

There are still some artifacts and a shadow remaining.

The remove tool can also do the touch ups. Turn on Remove after each stroke.

Paint over the areas to remove.

Example #2 removing distractions with the Remove Brush.

This example is more of a real-world scenario, we will be removing objects and distractions.

Paint over each of the letters on the STOP.

Notice it does an almost perfect job of this one.

Paint over the pole in the stop sign.

Worked nicely, it even automatically recreated the manhole cover!

Paint over the stop sign

And here is is with everything removed easily. You can see the actual process of this on the video at the top.

Example #3 Flying Car with the Remove tool.

Here is a picture of a classic car.  1963 Lincoln Continental.

You can see on the video as I remove the wheels and arches in a few simple brush strokes.

I think the Remove tool is going to really help retouchers save a lot of time. In some cases, it will be the only tool you need for certain tasks, and you can use it in combo with the other tools to get a perfect result every time.

I hope you enjoyed this week free Photoshop tutorial. Browse the website here for 100’s of free Photoshop tutorials. What makes PhotoshopCAFE unique is that most of the free tutorials contain BOTH written and video.

Great to see you here at the CAFE

Colin

The post New AI Remove tool in Photoshop, How to remove anything from a picture really easy appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.

Hey, everyone. I’m excited to show you Adobe’s new AI application, Firefly.

Let’s explore what it can do, discuss it, and see where Adobe is headed with it in the future. On the homepage, there are several things coming up, but we will  focus on the two live features: text to image and text to effects.

Text to image is image-based generation. By simply typing in a phrase like “close-up of a bee on a flower,” Firefly generates images based on the text you provide.

One of the biggest criticisms about AI image generation is the use of copyrighted material, but Adobe sources all its images from within Adobe Stock to train its ai. Its doesn’t reproduce the images, but rather learns fro all the different images and then creates art based on what it has been trained on, like a machine version of inspiration. Adobe is also discussing a form of compensation for Adobe Stock contributors.

It’s much easier to use than other similar programs like mid journey since we can simply click on things. We can choose the content type of graphic art or photo, and set different parameters like style, movement, theme, and technique to get the desired result. We can even choose materials, color and tone, lighting, and composition to create unique and realistic images.

Once we find the image we like, we can download it. But, it will have a watermark on it and content credentials saying that it was created by AI. At this point, the images are only for testing and not for commercial use. However, when the program is officially released, we will be able to use it commercially in different ways.

Overall, Firefly is a new AI application that has a lot of potential for generating unique and high-quality images and it will be incorporated into Adobe products in different ways..

How to Get Firefly

You can sign up and join the wait list, they will contact you when its your turn to get in.

There is nothing to download as its web based.

Learn all about it in my video

Firefly is here

See what I think about all this ai stuff (Will artists and photographers be replaced by ai?)

The post Adobe made an ai art Generator, Adobe Firefly ai appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.

In this tutorial, I want to share 5 powerful tips for Camera Raw. Check out the video and here, Ill post all the written steps too.

And the tips are…

ACR Tip 1. Batch Process ai adjustments

This one is a huge time saver. In last weeks tutorial, I showed you how to create a smart preset in Camera Raw 

Now, we are going to take this further. You can apply an adjustment to an almost unlimited number of photos and you don’t even need to make a preset or open Camera Raw or Photoshop to do it.

First we have to make an adjustment. It could be any adjustment. We will use the ai masks, because this shows how cool this feature is. It could be a sky adjustment or anything really. To keep it really obvious, I’ll do a basic hair coloring, so you can see the result easily. Remember, this can be used on ANY auto mask tool.

Open Bridge and right-ciick

Choose Edit in Camera Raw.

Choose Mask and select the person.

In this case, we will just select the hair mask, it can be multiple masks if you want.

Click create.

Move the hue slider to make the hair pink.

Press done.

Back in Bridge, you can see the adjustment has been made. The pink hair is hard to miss. Also look to the top right of the image and you will see a badge that means adjustments have been applied.

Right click on the thumbnail and choose Develop Settings>Copy Settings

The settings are now loaded in memory

Choose the photos that you want to apply the settings to.

Right-Click and Choose Develop Settings>Paste Settings

You will see a dialog box.

Choose what you want to apply. We will only choose masking on this.

And just like that (after a little time for processing) you can see that the ai masks detected and masked the hair on all of these images. Color me impressed. (Pun, not intended, or was it?)

ACR Tip #2. Select Anything

We know the ai masks can select things like skies, backgrounds, people and object, but can they select what we want them to select?

Yes.

Choose the Mask button and then choose Objects

Loosely Paint with the brush to tell ACR what you want to select.

When you release, you will se it did a fairly decent job, but it’s far from perfect. (I hear comments from people, “the masks aren’t perfect” and neither are most things. Lets make them perfect shall we?

Paint over the areas that were missed such as the top left of the cog.

When you release, it is added to the selection. Repeat until you have everything selected.

Oftentimes, there will be things selected that you didn’t want selected.

Hold down Alt/Option and paint in the areas to be removed from the selection.

Not bad, better. There are still small areas to work on.

In the Masks panel, Choose Subtract and then brush

Zoom in and manually touch up the selection

And now you can make any adjustment you want and it will just apply to the area you selected.

ACR Tip #3 Color Grade Video

In Photoshop, choose File>Open and navigate to a video clip

The video will open in Photoshop

In the Layers panel, right-click on the thumbnail and choose Convert To Smart Object.

If you don’t make it a smart object, the adjustment will only apply to a single frame of the video. Wrapping it into a Smart Object ensures the entire clip will be affected.

Choose Filter>Camera Raw

You will see a frame inside Camera Raw.

Make adjustments just like you would with an image. Be aware the warping tools won’t work, but most of the adjustments will.

Press OK

And the color grade is applied to the video.

Choose Export>Render Video to get the video out of Photoshop.

ACR Tip #4. Hidden Helpers

Helpers are things that help us visualize our adjustments as we are working.

The hidden key is the Alt (Windows) Option (Mac) key. When you make adjustments to the whites, hold down alt/option as you move the slider to see where the image will clip and lose detail/

See how the detail is gone.

Same with the Blacks. Hold alt/option to see the dark areas that are too dark and lose detail.

This tips works on all the highlighted Adjustments.

Not only that, there’s more. This trick also works really well on sharpening.

Here is is at work on the Sharpening Masking. Watch the video at the top to see it in action and get an explanation of the 4 sharpening sliders.

ACR Tip #5 Using Color LUTS in Camera Raw

This one is pretty huge. You can use actual LUTS in Camera Raw as well as Lightroom. Spoiler, if you want to use them in Lightroom, you have to actually create them in Camera Raw like we are about do do. You can’t do it directly in Lightroom. Also when you create a preset or profile in Camera Raw it will also be available in Lightroom and vice versa.

Choose the Preset button

Normally you click the new preset button to make a new preset. Here is the hidden hack.

Hold down Alt/Option as you click create preset.

Instead of a new preset being created, create Profile comes up.

Give it a name

Look to the bottom of the panel and click Color Look Up Table

When you click, the finder (windows explorer) pops up. YOu can now load any LUT that is in the CUBE format. How to make LUTS in Photoshop

You can also use the set that comes with Photoshop under applications>Photoshop>Presets>3DLUTs

Choose one and click load.

Click ok to create the profile.

Using the LUT in ACR

Ok, let’s use theLUT we just loaded int a profile.

Click the profile browser (the 4 squares).

Find our profile and click on it to apply

You will see an amount slider where you control the intensity of the LUT

Choose other LUTs if you prefer.

If you would like some free LUTs, presets and profiles, download then for free here
If you receive our newsletter, don’t sign up again, open any newsletter and click the direct link to the vault from there to instantly download.

I hope you enjoyed these tips and found them useful.

It’s a taste of what’s included in my new course Adobe Camera Raw for Digital Photographers

Don’t forger to browse our hundreds of free Photoshop, ACR and Lightroom tutorials here at the cafe

Great to see you here at the CAFE

Colin

The post 5 Hidden Tips for Adobe Camera Raw appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.

Happy New year! If learning and growing your Photoshop skills is on your list of resolutions, this article will be perfect for you!

The tips for rapidly improving efficiency and creativity in Photoshop include learning keyboard shortcuts, using readily available assets such as textures and stock images, being observant of light and design elements in the world around you, building core skills through practice, and using resources such as tutorials and books. By following these tips and incorporating them into your workflow, you can create professional-grade images and elevate your skills in Photoshop. Watch the video for more in-depth information.

Tip 1. Learn keyboard shortcuts:

Keyboard shortcuts can save a lot of time and make it easier to perform tasks in Photoshop. For example, holding the space bar while using the elliptical marquee tool allows you to move it around, holding Shift constrains it to a perfect circle, and holding Alt or Option draws from the center. You can also use keyboard shortcuts to copy or cut and paste layers, and to select and align multiple layers.

This shortcut cheat sheet can be downloaded from the vault. 

Tip 2. Use readily available assets:

Using textures, stock images, and artificial intelligence (AI) tools can elevate the appearance of your images and improve your productivity. You can use your phone as a creative tool with apps like Adobe Capture, and access free resources on Adobe Stock.

Did you know that Adobe Stock offers a collection of free images that you can use in your projects? These high resolution images can really elevate the appearance of your work, and the best part is that you can access them for free. Here’s how:

1. Go to Adobe Stock’s website and change the search parameter from “All” to “Free”.

1. Type in the type of image you’re looking for, such as “texture”.

1. Adobe Stock will show you a list of free images that match your search.
2. To use an image, click on the “License” button and it will be added to your library.

1. You can then access the image in Photoshop by going to the “Libraries” panel and double clicking on it, or by dragging it onto your image.

1. From there, you can adjust the blending mode, add a mask or use a soft edge brush for a more polished look.

There are over 75,000 free textures (and lots more photos, templates and more) to choose from on Adobe Stock, so take advantage of this resource to elevate your images and add professional-grade elements to your projects.

There are also lots of free Photoshop extras at the PhotoshopCAFE vault. Grab brushes, images, cheat sheets, keyboard shortcut sheet, presets, brushes and lots more. Access is free here. If you already receive our newsletter, the direct link is at the bottom of each newsletter, you don’t need to sign up again.

Tip 3: Observe and pay attention to details:

To increase the quality of your images, it’s important to observe and pay attention to details in nature, light, and the environment. This can help you with your design, illustration, and photography. Take a close look at things and try to understand what gives them their essence, such as what makes glass look like glass or how shadows and light interact. By applying this attention to detail to your work, you can set it apart from others.

I like to ask people a question. When you see chrome, what color is it? And most people say silver, but it’s not. If you just glance at it quickly, yes, it could appear to be silver. But if you really look at chrome, what it’s doing is just reflecting the environment. All the different colors are there if you look closely.

Tip 4: Build core skills:

Some areas of Photoshop require practice and skill, such as using brushes, dodging and burning, and painting. To improve in these areas, it’s helpful to spend some time working with these tools every day. For example, you can use brushes to add light to an image by painting with white on an overlay layer. You can also practice making selections and using the pen tool. As you get stronger in these core skills, you will become quicker and more efficient in Photoshop.

Dodging and burning is a technique in Photoshop that allows you to adjust the exposure and contrast of specific areas of an image. It’s a powerful tool that can help you create more dynamic and visually appealing images. Here’s a tutorial on how to dodge and burn in Photoshop: (Full course here)

1. Create a new layer by holding down the Alt (Option) key and clicking on the “Create a new layer” icon in the Layers panel.
2. Change the blend mode of the new layer to “Overlay” by selecting it from the drop-down menu in the Layers panel.

1. Use the Brush tool (shortcut: B) to paint with white on the new layer to add light and increase the exposure of specific areas. You can use the D key to reset the foreground and background colors to black and white, respectively, and the X key to switch between them.
2. To make the brush stroke more subtle, drop the flow to around 10% by pressing Shift+1. If you’re using a pen tablet, you can enable pen pressure in the brush settings to make the brush stroke even more natural and smooth. If you’re using a mouse, you can simply paint with it.

1. To burn or decrease the exposure of specific areas, switch the foreground color to black and paint on the new layer.
2. You can use the opacity slider in the Layers panel to adjust the strength of the dodge and burn effect.
3. Compare the before and after to see the difference that dodging and burning has made to your image.

Remember, the more you practice dodging and burning, the better you’ll get at it. It takes time and effort, but the results are worth it.

Tip 5: Use resources:

One valuable resource for learning Photoshop is PhotoshopCAFE.com (where you are now), a website that offers tutorials and tips on how to use the software. You can browse the categories of tutorials or search for specific topics. In addition to video tutorials, there are also written steps to help you learn at your own pace. It’s also important to stay up to date with new tools and techniques that are released, and to be open to learning and trying them out.

I believe in the power of books to improve skills and provide inspiration. Throughout my career as a Photoshop Instructor, I have written 21 books on the subject, starting with a Photoshop 6 book back in 2001 and continuing with my latest book on drones and drone photography. In all of my books, I try to include as many inspirational images as possible to inspire readers. I know that I can gain a lot of inspiration from looking at other people’s work, and I believe it’s important to seek out inspiration and then use it to create something of your own. I also have created a library of video courses here

I hope you found these tips useful!

Don’t forget to tune in every week for new tutorials here to help you on your Photoshop journey!

Welcome to the CAFE

Colin

The post How to rapidly grow your Photoshop skills, 5 tips appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.

The post How to use new Share for Review in Photoshop 2023 appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.

Here are more new features in Photoshop 2023.

At this time, this feature is only in Photoshop beta. Here is a short tutorial on how to get the Photoshop beta.

Live Gaussian Blur and Live Gradients, more useful than you can imagine. Let’s look at how to use these 2 tools. At the moment they are in the beta version of Photoshop, I’ll show you how to access it. In the future these will be moved to the “shipping” version of Photoshop, so you won’t need to load the beta in the future. As of this writing (Nov 3 2022) the live Gaussian Blur works only on Mac, but this will change. The Live Gradient works on both Mac and Windows.

As always, watch the short video as it doesn’t skip any steps and shows more info and tips than the written steps, which are purposefully left brief and uncluttered.

Accessing the Public Beta Of Photoshop

To download the beta go to your Creative Cloud app. On mac, its at the top bar, on Windows in in the bottom bar. If you don’t see it, download from Adobe.com.

Scroll down and you will see Beta apps.

Click on Photoshop to download it. This will be installed next to your normal version Of Photoshop, so make sure you launch the correct one. I suggest making shortcuts in the dock for both.

Live Gradients

Live gradients are a more modern way of working with gradients in Photoshop. You can do back to them and edit them anytime with the onscreen controls, powered by GPU.

Choose the gradient tool.

Make a vignette with gradients in Photoshop

Set foreground color to black. (Press D key)

Choose the foreground to transparent gradient.

Choose Radial gradient

Drag over the image

At any time you can drag points to move the gradient or change its size,

Adjust the opacity in the Layers Panel to change the amount of Vignette. This is applied as a new Gradient Layer.

Darken the sky with linear gradient.

Change the gradient type to linear. drag down in the sky.

Click the black point to add a little color if desired.

How to Live Gradients work – Feature tour

Lets see how these new gradients work,

Choose the gradient and drag as before (If you want to old gradients, needed for certain actions and recipes – choose Gradient in the tool bar and change it to Legacy gradient)

There is a small diamond, drag it to change the midpoint

To add a new color to a gradient:

Hover over the line and see a + sign

Click to add a new point

Double click the point to change its color.

There are 5 different gradient types in Photoshop, here they are.

Live Gaussian Blur in Photoshop

The Live Gaussian blur works a little like the gradients. This allows you to change the settings of the filter in real-time onscreen.

You can also use special brushes to add or remove the blur where you want it.

Choose Filter>Blur>Live Gaussian Blur

Change the Blur amount and it works like the old Gaussian Blur with this slider.

To Partially reduce the blur, change the brush opacity. In this case it’s 50% and paint with the – brush. (Or hold down option key for the opposite brush behaviour).

To completely remove the blur effect, change the opacity to 100% and paint out the blur.

If you adjust the Fade Opacity, you can blend the blurred effect with the original, producing a Slide Sandwich effect. (Also known as Orton effect)

Here is another example I applied to a flower.

Here are other tutorials on the new Features in Photoshop 2023

New Photoshop 2023 features and Camera Raw new Features

Lightroom 2023 classic / Lightroom 12 new features

New Selection tools in Photoshop 2023

Check out more of my tutorial and don’t forget to sign up for our Photoshop Vault to get lots of free Photoshop goodies, including ebooks, presets, sky packs, brushes and more  (If you are part of our Mailing List Community, you don’t need to sign up, the direct links are in every one of our weekly newsletters)

Thanks

Colin

The post Secret new features in Photoshop 2023 – Live gradient and live blur are useful, tutorial appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.

In this Photoshop tutorial, I will show you the newest features in Photoshop 2023 selections. We will also look at Object Selection in a bit more depth, revealing some of the hidden options that you will find useful. Make sure to watch the video because it contains a number of tips and details that aren’t in these written steps. Also check out my new feature overview for Photoshop 2023 and Lightroom 12 aka Lightroom Classic 2023.

Choose the object selection tool, it’s under the magic wand. (If you don’t see the object selections tool, make sure you aren’t using an old workspace)

When you roll over different parts of your image, you will see that object or parts of objects will appear highlighted.

Click to make a selection

Drag on any object in your image to select it. At the top there are 2 options, the marquee or lasso options.

The ai does the rest of the work in making a selection.

Choose Select and mask to refine the selection. The object selection tool is now available in Select and Mask.

Some newer option with Object Selections are the ability to select a sky with a single click.

As you roll over your image, you have the option to select the foreground, just click to select.

Here I switched out the foreground using the initial selection to show how good it is.  You can refine the selections of course, but with the updated algorithms its pretty good.

Working with Layered Images

Here is a composite with many layers.

The flower layer is currently active.

Its easy enough to select the flower because the pixels are on the current layer.

If you try to select other objects tha are on other layers, you will get an error message, because no pixels are selected.

Turn on the Stack icon in the options bar to look at the full composite.

Now you can easily select anything in the composite from any layer.

I hope you found these new additions to the Photoshop Object Selection tool useful. Watch the video for more of a walkthrough and more tips.

Thanks for checking it out

Colin

The post How to use Updated Object Selection in Photoshop 2023, AI selections. appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.

Check out the new features in Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw

The post Photoshop 2023 New Features appeared first on PhotoshopCAFE.

The double exposure is a great digital art technique and it’s very popular, because you can get really high end looking results with a small amount of effort. I’ve made more than a few of these over the years for magazine covers and editorials. Where a lot of double exposures fall short is with a boring silhouette. In this Photoshop tutorial I’m going to show you how to create a custom brush that will make the edges of your double exposure way more interesting. Of course I will show you how to create a double exposure along the way. We are using Photoshop 2022, but this will work in any version of Photoshop.

Start with a photo. A profile picture is a good way to start.

Now we will select the person in the image

Choose the Object Selection tool

Click on Select Subject to load a selection around the woman.

Press Cmd/Ctrl+J (Cmd mac / Ctrl Windows)  to copy the selected area to a new layer

Now we will add a solid white layer between the original and the cut out

Choose new Adjustment layer and Solid Color

Select white for the layer and drag it underneath the cutout layer.

Choose an image that we are going to use to overlay with our person. I am using a photo of a tree. Choose FIle>Place Embedded to get the second image, or dig it in from another window or library (How to combine images in Photoshop)

If the image is underneath out person, drag it to the top of the layer stack.

i

To fit the image inside the cutout, we will make a clipping group.

The your curser inbetween the 2 layers in the Layers panel, hold down the alt/Option key. You will see an arrow. Click to clip the top layer into the one under it.

This is what it should look like with the top layer clipped to the shape of the cutout.

Let’s blend the layers together.

Top layer selected, Choose Normal and change it to screen on the layers panel.

In screen mode you will see the 2 images blend together.

Screen blending mode produces a result like shining 2 projectors with different images at the same screen.

Press Ctrl/Cmd+L to open levels.

Move the white triangle on the right towards the center. As you do this, you will notice the brighter areas turn white and make the effect look even better.

As you can see the blend looks really nice. However the edges are a little dull. Let’s spice them up by adding tree branches all the way around.

Making a Brush in Photoshop

To add the cool looking twigs or branches, we will make a brush out of a photo.

Find a photo of a tree

Press Ctl/Cmd+L to open Curves

Make the white slider to lighten the bright areas.

Use the black slider to make the shadows darker.

The more contrast the better when you are making a brush.

Press ok

Now we need to blend out the bottom. Those hard edges won’t work well on a brush.

Choose White as the foreground color.

Choose the gradient tool

Select foreground to transparent as the gradient type and linear

Create a new layer

Apply the gradient to blend out the bottom

Grab the rectangular marquee tool

Make a selection around the area we are going to turn into a brush.

Choose Edit>Define Brush

A new brush will be created and added to your brushes library.

The brush will also be active in the brush tool.

Create a new layer just above our cutout layer. We will be painting onto the new layer.

Before we paint we need to unclip the new layer from the cutout and clip the top tree layer to the new layer. (move curser between layers and alt/option+Click) This will allow us to see whats happening as we create the new edges.

The screen effect won’t show on the woman right now, but it will show on the new brush strokes we create, we will easily fix that that later.

If any part of this is confusing, please watch the video at the top as its quite a simple process once you see it.

Your layers panel should look something like this. Note: The levels adjustment shows because the tree layer is a Smart Object. If it wasn’t a smart object, you won’t see levels, either way will work the same for this tutorial. If you don’t see Levels, it doesn’t matter..

Make sure the bush tool is active and set the color to black, although the color won’t really matter much.

We are going to be changing the brush a bit and painting on the edges. Here are some shortcuts to help you with the brush.

Use the arrow key to rotate the brush, so the branches are pointing out from the middle. If you don’t see the brush overlay, use the [ ] bracket keys to change the size of the brush.

As we paint with the edges of the brush we will see the branches start to appear around the edges of the image.

This type of brush shouldn’t be dragged. Click to stamp with the brush.

Open brush settings and use Rotation, flip X, Y and size to vary the brush stokes so they don’t look too repetitive.

Here we have painted all the way around. It’s a bit more repetitive than I like on the arm, but it will work. (If the size had been varied, it would look even better,)

Notice the screen effect is working on the edges, but not the woman. Let’s fix that now.

Hold Down the Shift key and click on the woman layer in the Layers panel.

Both layers should now be selected (the edge and the woman)

Right click and choose Convert to Smart Object

The 2 layers will now appear as one and the screen effect should be working correctly.

If not, make sure you clip the top layer to the woman layer.

We now have the basic double exposure.

If you want to color it, create a new solid color Adjustment Layer on top. Change to color blending mode

Adjust the opacity for effect. This is all shown in the video at the top.

Here is what the final result looked like after I added a few more elements and did a bit of masking.

Of course, there are so many directions you can take this.

Thanks for checking out this weeks tutorial.

If you like this kind of tutorial, this is actually an example taken from my brand new course I released today!  Photoshop Layers, is all about using Layers and masks in Photoshop to create digital art, design, collages, composits and more. There are introductory lessons on the basics and then we jump into several projects to make the learning experience practical and fun.

For the Launch week take 20% off with the code Layers20

More info here.

If you prefer the online Streaming option, check it out here. 

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