Photography Bay

Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips

5 Things You Need to Know About Photoshop Layers

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJW2gRreYo0&w=700]

Adobe Wordwide Design Evangelist Terry White is back with some more helpful tips. Last we saw 5 helpful tips about the Lightroom catalog. This time around, Terry is showing off 5 cool features that are worth knowing about Photoshop layers.

These are rather new features for the Photoshop CC crowd, so if you are using an older version, these tips probably don’t apply. Here’s a quick list of an overview of the tips from the video above: [Read more…]

 

How to Combine Multiple Nighttime Exposures in Photoshop

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In the above video, Adobe’s Russell Brown shows us how to combine multiple nighttime exposures together with Dr. Brown’s Stack-O-Matic script using Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop CC. By automatically creating layers set to lighten the layers are stacked with star trails revealed as you import them into Photoshop.

You can download the Stack-O-Matic script here on Russell Brown’s website.

Mastering Photoshop Layers – New Book

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Mastering Photoshop Layers

Mastering Photoshop Layers is a new book from Juergen Gulbins. “Layers allow for both global and local adjustments to images and can be used to create a number of special effects. Best of all, layers allow for nondestructive editing of your original image. New Photoshop users often see layers as too complicated, and they miss out on the program’s full potential.

This book will remove the confusion factor by providing an in-depth introduction to layers. Clear, step-by-step instructions and illustrations help the reader quickly master the tools that are relevant for photographers.

In this book you will learn about:

• Working with and building multiple layers
• Blending layers and which Options to use
• Using layers to enhance and retouch your images
• Creating and using layer masks
• Creating luminosity and saturation layer masks
• Using Smart Objects and Smart Filters
• Advanced layer techniques
• Time-saving shortcuts, tips, and tricks”

Mastering Photoshop Layers retails for $44.95; however, it is currently available for $31.02 on Amazon.com.

5 Ways to Use Layer Groups in Photoshop

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwITfIidzC0&w=640&h=360]

Do you use layer groups in Photoshop just for organizing your layers?

In this quick 10-minute video, Julieanne Kost demonstrates 5 ways to make use of layer groups in Photoshop that go well beyond organization. All of these techniques can be used in Photoshop CS6 or Photoshop CC.

Here’s a quick summary of the 5 ways to use layer groups.

  1. Blending modes apply to group of layers to make the effect appear as if the layers have been merged.
  2. Styles for layers (e.g., drop shadows, etc.) in groups are applied as if the layers have been merged.
  3. The ability to restrict how the layers interact within the group versus the layers in the rest of the document. For example, a black and white adjustment layer can be restricted to layers within group.
  4. The ability to clip a texture or another color to a group by using a clipping mask.
  5. Mask multiple layers within a group with a single mask.

Watch the video to see how to make these work in the Photoshop interface.

Massive 750,000 Layer PSD Took 4 Years to Create

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Digital photo-realist artist extraordinaire, Bert Monroy, spent the past 4 years cooking up this masterpiece of Times Square that serves as a tribute to the “who’s who” in the world of digital imaging.

The flattened image is 6.52GB and was built with almost 3,000 individual Photoshop and Illustrator files.  The image is zoomable on his site if you want to get closer up to personalities like Russel Brown, John Knoll and Scott Kelby (among many others) within the image.

The finished image will be on display at Photoshop World in Orlando, Florida from March 30 to April 1, 2011.

[via John Nack]