General PhotoShop Techniques

Saving To keep what you’re working on fully editable, save as .psd (photoshop document) To be able to place your finished work on a website, must be saved as .jpg (or .png)

Resize/Resample

Image menu Image Size…

Units: Pixels best for web Inches for print When checked prevents resizing out of proportion – if you change width – will automatically scale height (and vice versa) For Web: 72 good choice For Print: 300

Cropping Choose the Crop Tool

Select the area you want to keep

Either double-click the selected area OR Click the check-mark to complete the crop

Matching Tonality Between 2 Photos If you are going to PhotoShop someone/thing into another photo, will be a better match if you first match the tonality.

Open both photos

Make this photo’s tonality match tones from other photo Photo to Match widget.jpg bike.jpg

1 – Select Image to Edit 2- Image menu.. Adjustments.. Match Color…

Select Image you want to pull tonality from

Lasso Tool – Selecting an Object Select a specific part of a photo (irregular shape)

Draw carefully to encircle and select You can now Delete or Copy and paste onto another photo

Content-Aware Fill Will guess based on rest of photo what is behind the object you delete Hit Delete when have an object/section selected. Will be asked if you want Content-Aware fill of just want to show background.

Default value is Content-Aware Other choices – will show solid color through area

Sometimes works better than other – but this isn’t too bad

Eraser Tools Used to cleanup edges

Selects areas of similar color and deletes them with single click Scrub over to erase areas manually – will only erase currently selected layer Selects areas of similar color and deletes them with single click Can make more or less tolerant of differences in color

Before After cleaning edges

Blur/Smudge/Sharpen If edge of added object is very clear/obvious – can smooth it out so not as obvious Apply around edges

After blurring/smudging edges Before After blurring/smudging edges

Blur/Smudge/Sharpen If edge of added object is very clear/obvious – can smooth it out so not as obvious Apply around edges

After blurring/smudging edges Before After blurring/smudging edges

Apply Effects/Filters to Whole Composite Image

Highlight Right-Click Merge Layers Merge the Layers

Try some Light Blurs – Use low values to doesn’t get too blurry

Apply Photo Filter Over Whole Thing Mess with Settings

Basic Rule: No Rules: Try out other adjustments until it looks like you want