February 2013

Introducing Photoshop Actions – A Phlearn Video Tutorial

pixelmove.com

http://youtu.be/TgbjalO-ytQ

Check out the full post at: http://phlearn.com/introducing-actions-contest-to-win-phlearn-pro

Introducing Actions

We are so excited to announce the newest section of Phlearn – ACTIONS. If you have never used actions, your life is about to change. Photoshop Actions are basically an entire workflow in photoshop stored in a document. What this means, is that all you have to do is press PLAY, and the action does the rest for you!

Contest Winners!

Click here to send us your details

Brian – Credit for the Green Gold Sparkle Action
Maga – Light Yellow Glow
Guest – New Old Tone – Renamed from Cindy Prins
What You Will Learn

0:30 – Announcing Contest Winners
1:50 – Changing PRO release day to FRIDAYS
2:50 – How to load your actions
3:30 – Why we give you flexibility in your Actions
4:20 – Activating your Action
5:10 – How these Actions apply to any image
5:30 – Step by step instruction for actions
7:30 – Applying the action to a different photo
8:30 – Before and After
9:00 – Announcing this week’s contest .

Website: http://phlearn.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Phlearn
Twitter: https://twitter.com/aknacer
Google+: https://plus.google.com/105267656376269695918/posts

For more tutorials and how to videos check out our extensive Photoshop and photography video channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/PhlearnLLC
We cover everything from Photoshop tutorials, photography tutorials, how to videos and more!

How To Make Your Own Photo Textures Pt 1 – A Phlearn Video Tutorial

pixelmove.com

http://youtu.be/BRNILY5CEjI

Check out the full post at: http://phlearn.com/how-to-make-your-own-photo-textures

Why Making Your Own Textures Is Important

Often times finding textures on the internet will mean that they come with a few restrictions. The biggest restriction is often resolution. Very few textures are at a high enough resolution to fit on a full size image without being scaled up. Scaling a photo up too far can really take away a lot of the details that make textures nice in the first place. The second restriction is copyright. If you do not own the texture you place over your image, you can get in trouble legally, and that is not a place we want to be in. Be sure to credit the person who provided the texture if you do choose to use one you have found online.

How to Make Your Own Photo Textures

If you make your own textures, you can make them as high resolution as you want, and you own the copyright to the images. It is a win win situation, and we cover the entire process.

Start out by looking for organic materials, things like stone, fibers, wood, metals. All of these have surfaces with will interact with light differently, producing different effects. The biggest thing to look for in choosing your subject material will be the difference between darks and lights. If you want to add subtle cracks to your image, look for dark cracks on light pavement. If you want to add sparkle, look for small light flecks of stone in a dark granite countertop.

These stark contrasts between dark and light make the process of texturing much easier, because you will be able to use blending modes to do most of the work for you.

What You Will Learn

0:30 – Intro to our 2 part series on making and using your own textures
1:00 – Defining texture
1:20 – Artist Highlights Rosie Hardy & Brooke Shaden
1:50 – Where to find good textures online
2:30 – Issues with using other people’s textures
3:10 – What to look for in making a texture
4:10 – Exposure compensation when photographing textures
6:00 – Taking Photos and explaining blending modes
7:20 – Help focusing on dark subjects
8:00 – Alternate places to photograph textures
9:00 – Challenge to make texture library .

Website: http://phlearn.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Phlearn
Twitter: https://twitter.com/aknacer
Google+: https://plus.google.com/105267656376269695918/posts

For more tutorials and how to videos check out our extensive Photoshop and photography video channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/PhlearnLLC
We cover everything from Photoshop tutorials, photography tutorials, how to videos and more!

How To Make Your Own Photo Textures Pt 2 – A Phlearn Video Tutorial

pixelmove.com

http://youtu.be/UA5kG3oCpd8

Check out the full post at: http://phlearn.com/make-photo-textures-2

How to use your photo textures

So you have taken some amazing photos, and are excited about turning them into photo textures, now what? In this episode we cover how to turn your photo into a great texture.

Your best friend when it comes to using your image as a photo texture are BLENDING MODES. Blending modes will take the information in the image, and blend it in different ways depending on what blending mode you choose. For instance if you have an image that is mostly dark, with a few light areas, and you want the darks to dissapear, try using SCREEN or LIGHTEN. In contrast, if you want the LIGHT areas to disappear in your photo textures, try DARKEN or MULTIPLY.

Most Used Blending Modes

These will do the trick about 90% of the time.

Soft Light
Overlay
Multiply
Screen
Color
What You Will Learn

0:30 – Intro to textures
1:15 – Most common blending modes
1:50 – Copying your photo textures onto your image
2:30 – Showing an example of a texture in use
3:10 – Explanation of Blending modes
4:10 – Using levels to enhance your textures
5:30 – Duplicating textures to add more variation
6:30 – Adjusting SATURATION with the HUE/SAT slider (CMD+U)
7:10 – How to quickly flip through your blending modes
8:00 – BLEND IF adds even more control to your texture
9:00 – Masking out areas of your texture to make them less visible in places
10:20 – Why using textures at a low opacity is important
11:00 – What is your opinion on textures? .

Website: http://phlearn.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Phlearn
Twitter: https://twitter.com/aknacer
Google+: https://plus.google.com/105267656376269695918/posts

For more tutorials and how to videos check out our extensive Photoshop and photography video channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/PhlearnLLC
We cover everything from Photoshop tutorials, photography tutorials, how to videos and more!