Category: tutorial

Weekly Video tip is finished

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The regular video tutorial for this week has finished production and is ready for viewing here at Canon Blogger. This week’s subject: Using path selections to define your workspace. This is a great technique for adding text in a non-linear path (horizontal or vertical). You can use any of the pre-set marquee shapes and sizes, or make a custom one for your needs. Today, I used this technique to create an alternate logo for Canon Blogger. Other outputs could include posters, stationery, web graphics, designs, templates or pretty much anything that needs some graphical influence.

Shots of the completed housework should be forthcoming within another day or two as well. It’s been a week-long process, but I am almost done (just as well after all the electrical, plumbing, painting, and drywall work)… more news on that later. For now, just enjoy the vid, and as always feel free to leave feedback here or via email: jason <at> canonblogger <dot> com :

Path Selection Tool

A special “Thanks”…

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Today we honor all veterans of the Armed Forces of the U.S.A. I would like to take a moment to thank each and every one of those that have and those who continue to serve to protect our country. Our freedom and way of life was paved by your predecessors and continues to find new outlets in the world thanks to the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform. To all those who serve – we salute you!

One of the side effects of honoring our veterans is that I got an extra day off work today. So…lucky viewers and listeners, I was able to get another podcast out, which means there will likely be two this week (I may even get an extra “in the can” for next week”!) So…first up is a technique for creating reflections of objects or selections inside of Photoshop. Great for making web graphics, outputting to holiday greeting cards, and for presentations in many venues. Check it out at the link or the embedded version to the blog:

Visit here: Reflections in Photoshop

or watch below:

Selections tutorial is finished

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Just under the wire…the selections tutorial production has been completed and has been posted for viewing. At a total of just over 8 minutes, it shows three different selection techniques, that when used in concert with one another, can select exact selections with professionally feathered borders for transitions into other graphics. This is particularly useful if you are porting images taken into web designed graphic backgrounds for things like headers and banners.

ETA: The closing audio was positioned incorrectly, so a correction had to be made in post production. I ran that overnight and am uploading the replacement now…it should be functional within about an hour. (6:30 or thereabouts)…apologies for the technical mishap.

Flash Version is here

Windows Version is here

Or, stay on the blog and view the WMV file natively! Any way you like it…enjoy!

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Creative Presentations

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The aforementioned tutorial is now recorded and up for your viewing pleasure. Lots of content here including multiple layers, layer masks, gradients, keyboard shortcuts, and marquee selections in place, so hopefully a helpful tutorial all around. In the interests of providing a web-based version and a downloadable version, I am going to embed the flash one with this post, and provide a link to download either a WMV version or a Quicktime version. Fair warning, but the Quicktime version has a short feedback issue from when I re-recorded the intro vocals…will attend to that today (hopefully), but if you skip over the first ten seconds, a new musical intro is also in place (yup, I’ve been busy…new vocals, new musicals, and new tutorials!) So, without further ado, here’s today’s tutorial:

Mac Version

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Centering Objects

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Just a quick video podcast today, I ahd a few ideas on what to do, but the hours in the day ran short on me yet again, so, in time for the weekend, here is one on how to center objects inside of Photoshop. I used text here, but it really would work with any object you want to have completely centered across an entire image area. Check it out – it’s only 3 minutes total! Thanks for watching, and don’t forget to tune in next week when my new audio equipment will finally be up and running – microphones, cables, phantom power supplies, wall mounts and all!

Life Lessons (and a tutorial)

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The last week has been an interesting one… I got a call at work saying that my wife was at the doctor’s office and they were transferring her to the hospital as a precautionary measure for some elevated blood pressure levels. Needless to say, the next few days I was not thinking much about getting a new podcast tutorial out. After getting every test known to mankind done, the good news is that she is fine and will be sticking around for a while. The bad news is that she needs to go on some blood pressure medication and she has now joined the ranks of Vytorin membership (although her dosage is lower than mine).

That was Wednesday and Thursday.

Friday was pretty much a “recovery day” and I attended to the typical daily minutia that was not taken care of on Wednesday and Thursday.

Saturday, I had a photo assignment for a real estate agency, so I headed out to Daniel Island and shot the property from every angle you could think of. On the way back, I stopped off to get some pumpkins for carving today at one of the local farmer’s market vendors. The pumpkins and flowers made for such vibrant colors I couldn’t help but take some pictures there too.

So, now it’s Sunday and I’ve settled down in to do the post processing from my shoot yesterday, look at my fantasy football setup for the day, and record a tutorial for the blog!

It’s a quickie today, but something that has a lot of uses, and is so easy once you know how to do it, you’ll find yourself playing with Photoshop more and more as a result. The subject is creating backgrounds, and it’s pretty cool. Check it out: Creating Backgrounds in Photoshop

In the meantime, here’s one of the better shots that came from the pumpkin outing:

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Tuesday’s Tutorial – Creating Actions in PS

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While I don’t have a regular schedule for releasing content, tutorials or otherwise, the alliterative bonus of having a tutorial on Tuesdays tastes terrific to tongues. And…since i posted it before midnight, it technically was released on Tuesday, even though it’s 11:20pm! Well, what was neat about this was that on my weekly visit to Photoshop User TV, Matt Kloskowski showed how he created an action for curves adjustments in LAB, and this same technique is what I used for the sharpening aspect of my work flow. While I also have the LAB action assembled, I had split that up into three different ones (one at 3 hashes, one at 2 hashes, and another at 1 hash). Check out the video on their weekly blog post here: Photoshop User TV. I gotta admit though, it was kind of cool though to see a technique I use also be showcased in the tip from the likes of Matt Kloskowski. So, in keeping with the use of layers adjustments as a means of applying different effects repeatedly for evaluating images, my tutorial follows the same theory, but applies it to sharpening rather than curves.

It’s kind of long (12 minutes) because I went through every step, AND I left a mistake in intentionally to show how you can edit an action while you are recording it! Take a peak at it here: Creating a Sharpening Action in Photoshop

As for consolidating the curves adjustments from 3 to 1 using this technique, I actually will pass on that because for me, I am usually pretty close in my “guesstimation” of what will work, and I just want the action to do that for me, not multiiple layers of different curves adjustments. Sharpening is tougher though, so I think it’s more valuable as a method in that regard. We’re all different though, and that’s what makes the world go around, so if you like it, go for it! Enjoy and have a great Wednesday. Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn’t give Matt the courtesy of a link to his site on Lightroom Killer Tips. Check them out too…I am always learning from this guy…

Applying Gradients to Text in Photoshop

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Another tutorial has been uploaded and is ready for viewing. This tutorial shows how to use layers to apply a gradient effect to text inside of Photoshop. With the layers, you can preserve the text and the gradient independently of one another for future editing and customization, depending on the need and use. Check it out by visiting the tutorial page for it today:

Applying Gradients to Text in Photoshop

As always, feedback, comments and ideas are always welcome either here or via email: Jason AT Canonblogger DOT com! Thanks for tuning in and happy shooting!

Type Tool presets

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On the heels of the last tutorial, this week, the focus shifts to pre-sets. While Photoshop is not the best program for creating style sheets for text, the presets can make things easier if you want to re-use the same format. So, check out the latest video tutorial. It’s online now and again under 5 minutes for those on the go. In the meantime, happy shooting! I’ll have some pics up from the weekend later this week. ETA: Link is fixed, was pointing to an earlier tutorial on a different tip for the type tool. Sorry for the mix-up.

Type tool Presets

Type Tool Tricks

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Today’s treat talks truthfully to type tool tricks! Terrific! I love alliteration, in case you couldn’t tell! All joking aside, since shorter videos seem to generate more interest (5 minutes or less), I’m trying to keep it under 5 minutes per video, so check out the latest one today, on manipulating text in Photoshop. Today’s is kind of neat because it shows a not often used (at least to my knowledge) palette – the character palette! Here the video shows how you can stretch a font across the width of the entire image without changing the font size or type (horizontally scale the text in other words). Check it out:

Type Tool Trick