Photoshop – edudish

The key to having a successful website is learning how to make use of great design and photography. Unfortunately, many individuals are put off by the fact that they would need to use Photoshop in order to achieve this. People usually perceive this piece of software as being extremely difficult to work with and prefer to either delegate or to simply use templates. However, what happens when you have to adjust personal content in order to post it?

Let’s consider sharing photos. Not everyone has great cameras that can make a photo look amazing. This creates situations when the author needs to adjust his or her work in order to have the desired impact on a blog or a website. This is where the need to use Photoshop comes in.

The good part is that anyone can learn how to use it. Some things may take more time than others, but the basic types of modifications can be done in under 60 seconds.

One of the most basic, and useful, skills that you have to learn is how to brighten photos. This allows you to take ordinary images and make them look truly astounding.

In order to do this, you have to follow a few simple steps:

Use the “Curves” function in order to brighten photos;

The simplest way to brighten photos is by using a tool included in Photoshop, called “Curves”. You can access this function by going to the “Image” tab, and then navigating to “Adjustments”->”Curves”, or by simply using the shortcut “Command” + ”M”.

Once you’ve started the tool, a graph will appear on the screen. You can brighten the image by dragging the line shown on it. Keep in mind that you will have to move the line quite a bit before you will see a considerable difference. Also, make sure that the “Preview” option is checked. Once you’re happy with how bright the image is, simply click “OK” and move to the next step.

Set the desired brightness;

Go to the “Image” menu, then click on “Adjustments”, and finally on “Brightness/Contrast”. Use this tool by dragging the “Brightness” scale to the right. Move it until you’re happy with the result, and then move to the next step to correct the image in terms of color.

Color correction

If you take a close look at your photo, after you’ve increased its brightness, you will find that the colors are a bit different. This usually happens when the lighting is not perfect from the beginning. Luckily, it can be corrected without too much work. In order to restore the original look of the photos, you must again navigate to “Image”->”Adjustments”, and select the “Color Balance” tool. Alternatively, you can use the “Command” + “B” keyboard shortcut.

Once you’ve launched the tool, you will be able to modify the look of the image by dragging the sliders away from the colors that you want to decrease. Look closely at your image and try to remove any abnormal tint that may have resulted from increasing the brightness. The best way to do this is to play with the sliders until you’re happy with the outcome.

Sharpening

The final step is to slightly sharpen the image in order to make it look crisper. Click on “Filter”, and then navigate to the “Sharpen” function in the menu with the same name. The shortcut for this one is “Command” + “F”.

This having been said, take care not to over-sharpen the image as it will distort the image.

In conclusion, this is a general tutorial. Use your own settings with your own photos. There is no perfect recipe in terms of color or brightness value. You will have to choose the perfect values for you every time you edit a new photo.

Follow these steps and you will see that Photoshop is nothing to fear. Using the software may take some time in order to get used to the more complex functions; however, anyone can quickly edit a few photos. Furthermore, the fact that you can preview the changes as you are making them means that you can avoid mistakes.

As an extra tip, if you intend to edit photos that you will upload to a website or a blog, it’s a good idea to also change the resolution of the image. This can be done by clicking on “Image Size” in the “Image” menu and then setting the value to 72.

Lastly, click on “File” and then on “Save for Web”, in order to save your photo. This will enable you to upload beautiful photos that will not slow down your website.

The following two tutorials have been primarily designed to cater to the needs of bloggers, however, anyone who wants to learn how to use the Clipping Mask function in Photoshop should find them equally as useful. By following the steps below, you will be able to learn how to create custom photo layouts and great looking typography.

Don’t worry, you don’t need any previous Photoshop experience, we will guide you through all the necessary steps. You don’t even need to own the software, you can download a free trial of Photoshop on the Adobe website to follow the tutorials and get used to the application.

Using Layer Clipping Masks for Typography
1. Open Photoshop and create a new document. When you get the option to set the resolution, keep in mind that if what you want to use is going to be on the web (blog or site), you should set the resolution value to “72”.
2. Type the word(s) that you want, and create a new layer. In order to do this, you have two options. Either go to the top menu and choose “Layer”, then “New”, then “Layer” again, or simply click on the icon that resembles a piece of paper next to the trash can in the bottom right of the layers panel. This will create a blank layer on which you can draw anything you like.
3. Highlight/select your layer by clicking on it, navigate to “Layer” and choose the “Create Clipping Mask” option. If you’re doing this on a Mac, then hover with your cursor between your two layers, while pressing down the option key (on a Mac); if you click the small arrow that will appear, a clipping mask will be created.
4. Enjoy what you just created!

There are some other things that you could insert into the project, instead of creating a new (blank) layer. You can choose a photo or any kind of image, and drag it on top of the text that you wrote, after which you can create a clipping mask by following the steps above. Your words will look perfect for a blog, or any other kind of website.

Using the Layer Clipping Masks Function for Custom Photo Layouts

If you’re not interested in typography and/or need something a bit different, then you can use the same function in order to create custom photo layouts. The following steps will teach you what you need to know in order to design a grid with four images; however, there are many more things that you can do. The software also lets you create round images, larger grids, and many other things.

Select the rectangle tool from the toolbar on the left, and use it in order to create a square of any color.
Create three more identical squares. While it may seem difficult to ensure that they are of the same size, you can more easily do this by right-clicking on the first rectangle layer, and select the option “Duplicate Layer”. This will create an additional identical square, that you can drag in order to align it to the first one. You can either do this three times, in order to get the four rectangles or just duplicate the first two layers again. Once you have the four squares, make sure to align them, and proceed to the next step.
Drag an image or a photo into the document. The inserted item will then take on the shape of the square that it sits above in the layers panel. Pay attention both to how you align the photos, as well as to how you order the layers in the left panel.
Go to the menus (like in the first tutorial) and select “Create Clipping Mask”; however, make sure that the top layer is selected (the photo) when doing this. Again, if you don’t like going through the menus, there is the shortcut that can be accessed by hovering between layers and holding the option key (if you’re on a Mac). If you want to move the image, just drag the photo layer until you’re happy with the position.
The final step is to do the same thing for each photo until the layout is complete. It is a good idea to create the layouts and save them as templates, as you never know when you’ll find a use for them.

You can use these tutorials in order to do pretty much anything you want! Use them to design text or layouts for your blog, website, or create beautiful postcard-style memories with friends and family. The possibilities are endless. Also, keep in mind that the second tutorial does not limit the shape or size of the layout. You can use it to create a template for 20 photos, or make the photos round by drawing circles instead of square.

Hopefully, you will come to the conclusion that you don’t have to be a graphical designer to customize your websites or blogs. You simply need to find good, simple tutorials, like this one and others on E-Online Business Education!

60 second tutorial to brightening photos in Photoshop

Two Great Tutorials To Teach You How To Use Layer Clipping Mask in Photoshop

Search the blog