Mastering Text in Photoshop - Part 1

We've been blessed in the last few versions of Photoshop (CS 2 and beyond) with the font preview as we're selecting fonts.





If forever reason you can't see the preview of what your font looks go to the Preferences and select "Type".
make sure that "Font Preview" is checked.
You'll also notice that there is a drop down menu next to "Font Preview".
Sometimes the preview you get is helpful but a little hard to see exactly what you are getting. Here is a quick tip. Change the default preview size of medium to Large or even Extra Large.


The larger preview of your font makes it much easier to determine what your type is going to look like. This saves a lot of time of changing the font, not liking what it ended up looking like, then going back and trying again.

Now, for all my Photoshop friends. Stay safe.

Photoshop - How to brighten the eyes

The eyes are the most important part of a photograph. You want them to be the main focus and sometimes, because of shadows and lighting they might look a little dark. Here is all you need to do.

• Make selections around each eye.
• soften the selection edge by going to Select - Refine Edge - and make adjustments on the selection
  
• Use Cntrl/Cmd J to copy this selection to a new layer

On the eye layer, select Screen from the Blend Modes drop down. This is going to lighten the eye area of this layer way too much so change the opacity down until you get the effect you want.
For the final touch, you might want to use the eraser tool on the eye area to remove any extra lightening that was done on the nose or forehead area.
Since the eye's are on their own layer, you can continue to adjust the opacity to get the results you want without damaging the original photograph.

Fill in any pdf document easily

PDF files are everywhere. Sometimes you have to download them, print them, write in the blanks and then mail them off.
There's an easier way.
If you need to fill out a PDF form check out this site. http://www.fillanypdf.com
Upload your PDF file to the site. Click anywhere on the form to begin typing. You can even sign your form. There's also an option where you can share this link for others to fill out on this site and download.
When you are done, you can download the finished form print it or email it off.
There's no need to create an account and it's Free! Give it a try.

FREE KEWL GRUNGE FONTS

Grunge is a very popular trend in design. These dirty, abstract and urban designs have quickly become the new favorite among designers. Good Grunge fonts normally are wrecked, cut in pieces and worn out giving a very novel look.
Want to add a few nice Grunge fonts to what you do?
This site has many free fonts to pick from. I downloaded the above "Grunge Serifa" from the site below.
21 Best Free Grunge Fonts
Need help on how to install fonts on your computer? Check the following site for instructions.
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000563.htm

What is an Action in Photoshop?

Let’s take a quick look at a feature in Photoshop called Actions.

An Action is a series of Photoshop commands used to automate a task thus saving you time.An example of an action would be to resize and image, change it to grayscale then save it as a .jpg file with one mouse click. Well, that sounds handy for repetitive tasks doesn’t it? The only problem is, the set of Actions that come with Photoshop aren’t really as helpful as that, and sometimes you have to create your own Actions to do what you want.

To see the Actions Photoshop has to offer, go to Window – Actions to open the Actions palette.

You’ll see a couple of fun Actions like “Wood Frame”. To try it, just open a photo, click on "Wood Frame" then click the play button in the bottom of the palette. Your photo will magically have a nice looking frame.

Well, isn't that pretty? But let's be practical. What I need is a quick way to run Auto Levels and resize to 640x480. Or, something that I do all the time. This is where I create my own Action.

Open any photo. In the fly-out menu in the Action palette select "New Action". Give your Action a name and click Record.

In the bottom of the Action palette the round button turns red to indicate recording. Don't worry about the time you take. Photoshop is only recording commands at this point. I'll fix the exposure by going to Image - Adjustments - Levels and clicking Auto. With that done I'll go to Image - Image Size and change the size of my photograph to 640x480. This is all I need to do so I'll click the square Stop button in the bottom of the Action palette to stop recording.

My Action along with the Levels and Image Size commands display in the Actions palette for me.

The next time I open a photo that I want to run Auto Levels on and then resize to 640x480 can be done by selecting the Action I created and clicking the Play button.

You can see how a complicated process can make this really handy! Isn't it nice to know that you can customize your own Action?

Just when you thought life couldn't get any better, the Batch function is waiting for you to give it a try. The Batch function allows you to run an Action (yes any Action you might have created) to an entire folder full of images! To take this to the next step all you need to do is to go to File - Automate - Batch and select your Action in a drop down menu. Photoshop will then ask you what folder you want to run this Action on.

I've found several KEWL FREE Actions available on a few sites. An Action file is a small file with a .atn extension.
To load an Action just go to the fly-out menu and select "Load Action".

Want some Free Actions? Here is a link to some neat free Action sets for you.
Want to see more about Actions? Here is a good video in detail about how they work. Enjoy!