Mastering Text in Photoshop - Part 3

Putting Text into a Shape
Photoshop comes with bunches of shapes. If you don't see the shape you want, select the flyout menu and select from dozens more as shown in this first image.
After you find the shape you want, drag and size it on your canvas area. Next, select the Type Tool. Click inside the shape you just created.
Photoshop will display a box around your shape as shown in the second image.

Check your font and color then begin typing your text inside the shape you created. In this case, I just copied and pasted a poem inside the heart. You may need to adjust the font size so that all of your text fits nicely inside your shape. To make it look even nicer, I centered my text too.

What if you don't want the shape to actually show and you just wanted your text to be in the shape you selected?

Here is all you need to do.
Hide the shape layer and select the text layer. In my case the text was white so it didn't show on my canvas. When I selected my text layer I had to double click my text then, in the option palette I changed my text color to red.
How neat is that!?

Now for my video of the month.

What would happen if our old video games escaped out of our old television sets?
Check out this video to see the results.

Mastering Text in Photoshop - Part 2

Sometimes you decide that you want to change your font but need to select edit several different layers in your file. If you have several layers this could take some time.






Here is a neat trick. Select all of the layers that you want to change the text on.
Make sure the Text tool is selected then change the font in the drop down menu. All layers change to the new font.
Just when you thought life couldn't get any better give this a try.
Make sure you have all your text layers selected. Select the font box in the Option palette. Now, by just using the up and down arrow keys you can run through the font styles right on your working canvas.
You can even change other attributes like the size of the text this way too. Now you have more time to do other Photoshop tricks.
Enjoy!

Photoshop Non Destructive Contrast editing with Overlay Blend Mode

The worst way to edit the contrast in an image is to use the dodge and burn tools on the original image. You can decide which areas you want brighter or darker. This is the worst way since you are altering the original pixels making it difficult to impossible to go back in time unless you revert before saving or have enough history states to undo what you've done.
You could use an adjustment layer which is nondestructive to edit the brightness and contrast which can be changed without damaging the original document. However, a brightness and contrast adjustment layer changes the lighting for the entire image giving you no control on what gets brightened and what gets darkened.
This is where using a new layer with an Overlay Blend Mode comes to the rescue. I've seen the Blend Modes in the Layers palette but never found a good use for them until now.

Create a new layer by alt/opt clicking the new layer icon in the bottom of the layer palette. You'll get the options as shown on the left.

Select Overlay for the Blend mode when the option palette opens when doing this. Select Fill with Overlay-neutral color 50% gray. Overlay will completely ignore anything that is 50% gray thus the layer will be transparent to the photo below. Next, we'll change the 50% gray layer to darker gray where we want it darker, and lighter gray where we want to lighten the image. In this image I wanted to highlight/lighten the stacked rock formation. It's a little too dark. I used the white paint brush at 20% opacity to paint the rocks lighter on the gray Overlay layer.
The background was way too light. I used the black paintbrush at 30% opacity to darker the gray around the mountains. The gray that was darker, darkened the areas I wanted and gray on the Overlay layer that was lightened, made the rocks and foreground lighter.
This way I was able to customize the darkness and lightness exactly how I wanted and could go back with either lighter or darker painting of the gray layer to fine tune my adjustments. This method of using Overlay with 50% gray fill (the neutral/ignored color) allowed me to do non destructive editing with much more control.
Now there's a handy feature using the Blend Modes that I really like! I'll be showing you some more Blend Mode tricks in upcoming blogs and we can learn them together.
Enjoy!

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What's New in Photoshop CS 5?

I look forward to new versions of Photoshop like a kid waiting to open Christmas presents.
I'll be sharing some of the best new features in upcoming blog posts with the first new feature today.
Have you ever tried to patch out items on the edge of a photograph? It can be a tricky job.
That's where this new tool "Content Aware Fill" comes in. Select the area you want to remove, hit the delete key, and let Photoshop do all the work. Take a look at the video.
I can't remember when I've been this excited about an upgrade in Photoshop.

Best Free software for your phone

I have recently purchased a Droid phone and love it. However, I'm not sure which "free" applications I want to bother to download and test on my phone. Fortunately, someone I trust has done this for me.
PC Magazine has just come out with it's list of the top Free applications for your phone.
PC Magazine has conveniently organized the free applications by phone type.
Whether you have an iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Android or something else, you'll be able to find a neat free application for your particular phone that's been already checked out for kewlness!
Click on the link below to check it out.
PCMAG.COM