Ever wanted to do abstract art? Well with computers it can be quite simple. Start by creating a new file with black as background color. Select gradient tool. Select radial mode as gradient style. Create a new layer and apply the gradient. Apply another gradient several times as shown below. Change the layer mode to “Color Dodge”. Repeat the above steps again to create more disco loops. Create duplicate of both disco layers and merge the duplicate layers. From “Filter” menu select “Distort>>Wave”. Press Ctrl+U to open hue/saturation window. Change the layer mode to “Screen”. There you have it creating disco balls with photoshop.

Okay, start out with a picture of a speaker. Now, select the base speaker on the bottom. Now, while you have that selected press Ctrl-c and make a new layer above that then press Ctrl-f and you will have your selection on a new layer, now you need to duplicate that layer two times by pressing Ctrl-j two times, once you have done that select your first duplicated layer (the one right above your original) and name that one Side, do the same for the one above it except name that one Up.Now select the Side layer and apply Filter> Blur> Motion blur and these settings Angle: 0 Distance: 15px Do the same for the Up layer except apply these settings Angle: 90 Distance 15px Now, to switch to imageready you will need push this button at the bottom of this panel in photoshop. Now, in imageready we will open up the animation panel, to do that you need to go into Window> Animation, the animation panel will now be shown. Okay, in the animation panel select the first frame, and at the bottom of the thumbnail you will see a thing like this 0 sec. then a little black arrow pointing down, click once one the 0 sec. dropdown menu, then you will see some stuff like: No delay, o.1, o.2 etc. Select the 0.1 seconds button. Now, in the animation panel push the new frame button, it looks just like the button in your layer panel. You will see it has copied the first frame, now select the second frame and change the speed to: 0.2After you have done that (make sure your on the second frame in the animation panel) hide layer: base speaker and show layers: up and side. Now, hit play on the animation panel to watch your animation.

With photoshop we can reduce the weight of the PDS up to 75%. This is something to think about, if we can reduce so much the information in a PSD it would be because this format is not very optimized, right?. Most people think that’s why there are files with compression, TIFF or JPG but they agree that keeping the original files in PSD format is much more comfortable than working with TIFF (i don’t think we need to compare it with JPG). Well, how can we do this? Something as simple as hiding the layers before saving the file, if after that you compress it with Winrar or Winzip you will save a lot more. Here you have the information of the experiment: Normal PSD: 49,2 MB PSD saved with the hidden layers: 38,9 MB PSD saved with the hidden layers and zipped: 11,5 MB The new version of Photoshop CS3 is out and we still have the same problem we will have to wait a little more. Now, if you have to send a PSD via ftp or email you have no choice than doing this.

When using your brushes it is essential to organize your them: The Preset Manager: Go the brushes palette on the left and click on the tab that says brushes. Click the small black arrow that appear when you click the brushes tab. A menu will appear with the option “preset manager”. Or go to “edit” > preset manager. When you click that option the preset manager will appear. Here you can organize your brushes. You can load several sets into the pallet, rename the brushes to something you will easily remember and create your own sets of various brushes. You can also delete brushes. Not only can you organize your brushes in the preset manager but also your swatches, gradients, styles, patterns, contours, custom shapes and tools.

Do you want to recolor this white rose into a red one. It is quite easy, start by opening the image you want to recolor. Then choose the color you would want on your image. I took a dark red color. After that you choose a hard 70px or so brush. Make a new layer and choose linear burn as the blending mode. Leave opacity at 100%. Start brushing but leave the small details for now… Now choose a small 10px or so hard brush and start brushing details. Still not perfect though. Let’s use a little blur by going to Filters > Blur > Blur more around 3 times to fix the hard edges.After that add some noise. Go to Filter > Noise > Add noise and do 2,50% Gaussian with Monochromatic noise checked.

Adding cool effects to photos is quite amusing. A fun one is to split apart a picture like a puzzle. First find an image of Guitar. Then open the saved picture in photoshop. We are going to split the image.Go to Views>Rullers.Or simply press CTRL+R.Then using the Rectangular Marquee Tool. Press Ctrl+J to copy and paste the selected part in a new layer. Repeat these steps until all the parts of guitar is selected.Try drawing different rectangles because we want to add this puzzle effect. Select a layer and choose the blending options. Again apply the stroke effect as needed. Now right click the layer you applied the effects and select Copy layer style. Go to next layer and right click on the layer and choose paste layer style. Paste the layer style to remaining layers. Click Ctrl+T and transform each layer. With some Gradient Effect you can get a better effect.

Folow these instructions to add a contemporary frosted pixel overlay to your photos. Open a picture into Adobe Photoshop. Next, press Ctrl+J to duplicate the layer. Change the blending mode to Overlay. Go to Filter> Pixelate> Mosaic and in the Mosaic Photoshop filter settings, set ethe pixels to the size that you want the squares to be. Then, press Ctrl+J to duplicate the top layer and change the blending mode from Overlay to Multiply. Now go to Filter> Stylize> Find Edges. Press Ctrl+Shift+U to desaturate the outline so that they don’t have any color to it. Go to Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur and add a little gaussian blur to the outline which will add the frosty effect.