Free Adobe Photoshop Tutorials Photoshop Tricks

How to Change the hair color with Photoshop

2008-09-24T15:07:00.000-07:00

Here is a simple video on how to change a persons hair color using Adobe Photoshop. SImple and easy steps.

Here is a simple way to use Adobe Photoshop to on changing someones hair color. We will be taking a blonde model and changing her hair color to red.

This is the photo we will be starting with :

The first stage is to mask her hair out, to do this, press ‘q’ then select a suitable brush and paint over her hair - dont worry if you go over the edges we will sort that out later :

Once the hair is covered in the red overlay, press ‘q’ again which will put a selection around the area, then on the menu go to select > inverse and should have something like this :

Create a new layer and then fill the area with the color of your choice, I have chosen to go with a dark red/brown :

Now, right click on the hair layer and select blending options, change the blend mode to soft light :

Thats looks better, but there will be some areas where you went over her hair line/ears etc. Select the eraser brush on a larger feathered size brush and start to clean up those bits :

When you have it looking how you want, duplicate that layer to make the hair shade darker and again you will see some bits which need to be cleaned up with the eraser brush, choose an even larger feathered brush for this (size 65 or 100 for this image) and blend it in a little bit more :

You can also switch between the two hair layers, slowing working on tidying it up so it looks natural - you can also delete bits on top of the hair and the strands to give the impression of blonde highlights. Play about with this untill you get the desired effect, here’s our finished image :

You can also download the psd for this tutorial.

Website Design Tutorial how to design a web site

2008-08-26T12:26:00.000-07:00

This is a Photoshop tutorial on building a website using Adobe Photoshop. This website tutorial using Photoshop will take you through a step by step process on how easy it is to design a website using Photoshop. This should provide you with a decent path to creating further websites in Photoshop. If you enjoyed this tutorial, please leave your comments and feedback below and I will take them into consideration when I create another tutorial on how to make a website using Photoshop.

Required Files: World Map Businessman

STEP 1: As with any project, you must first create a new document in Photoshop by either using the shortcut CTRL+N or by clicking File>>New. Create a name for you website ( I used D-SOLmedia.com) and set the width to 1024 pixels and the height to 1200 pixels.

STEP 2: Enable the ruler to be displayed while you work by clicking CTRL+R or going to View>>Rulers. Once the ruler is displayed, right click on it to make sure that you have “pixels” selected.

STEP 3: Now for the fun part, let’s start building this website design in Photoshop. First select the Rectangle Tool or click SHIFT+U until you see this icon. Drag a long rectangular square at the top of the page about 70 pixels high and across the entire page. At this point, we will not be editing the background layer as this will allow us to edit above layers transparency.

Ensure that the rectangle you just created is black. This can be accomplished in photoshop easily be double clicking the "layer thumbnail" that will appear as the left thumbnail on the top layer as shown here and selecting black from the colour picker (#000000).

STEP 4: We will now repeat step 3 and create another rectangle shape below the one we just made. The size should be roughly the same, but here we will change the colour of the rectangle to light green (Colour: #b0d584).

STEP 5: Creating this next layer we will be utilizing the drop shadow effect in Adobe Photoshop. Create another rectangle the full width of the page and approximately 230 pixels in height just below the light green rectangle you just created. Colour this layer an army green (Colour: #556543). Once you have created and coloured this rectangle, lets add a drop shadow effect on it. There are many ways this can be done, but the two simplest ways will be to either double click the layer just to the right of the layer name, or you can click the button that is located at the bottom of your layers palette. This will bring up your "Layer Style" dialog box. Click on the Drop Shadow tab, set the "Distance" of the drop shadow to 10px and the "Size" to 6px as shown here.

STEP 6: Create a darker green rectangle (Colour: #11150c) which will act as the body colour of the background. In this step, there is no effects added. This height of the rectangle should be about 750px or so.

STEP 7: Finally, to complete the various layers, place another BLACK rectangle to cover up the white spot at the bottom. This is where we will be placing and copyright and design by information. The final design so far should look something like this.

STEP 8: Now that we are done designing the background of the website, lets start adding some character to it. No, I'm serious, go grab your Horizontal Type Tool and add your company name at the top of the page on the left hand side. I used the Arial bold font and 36px. Once you have typed out your company name, it's time to duplicate that layer so that you have two layers of your company name. This can be done by either going to Layer>>Duplicate Layer or by using the Adobe Photoshops short cut key CTRL+J. Once you have that duplicated later, select the top layer that has your logo text and go to Edit>>Transform>>Flip Verticle. Drag that layer so that the top of the layer you just flipped is touching the bottom of the logo layer below it. We are trying to create a mirrored look Once you have this mirrored look to your logo name, lets add a the fade to it. On the flipped logo layer, click on the "Add Layer Mask" button located again at the bottom of the layers panel. Then click the gradient tool and make sure that your gradient slide is set from black to white like this . To create this effect. start from the top of the right side up logo to the top of the mirrored logo, like this:

The final result after you have completed this should look like:

If your company name has two or more letters, play around with the font style, size and colour to give it a really nice apperance. Should you choose to also include your slogan as well, I would suggest a good Photoshop Website Design technique would be to use a different sized font with each section of your name and slogan having different level of brightness to keep the colour within the same hue. Take a look at what I came up with in the end.

STEP 9: For any business to be successful, there has to be a way to contact them. For this Photoshop website design, lets put some way for clients to reach the company on the top right hand corner of the webpage. We won't need to do anything fancy here, just plain white Arial text.

STEP 10: Now it time for you to add in some navigational text. Type in what you want your website navigational buttons to be or use the ones that I used.

STEP 11: Now since there is some empty space in the left hand left of the navigational bar, lets fill it with some graphic. Select the rectangle tool and draw a rectangle covering up that empty space to the left. Make sure that the rectangle is black. Now lets add a pattern to the black rectangle you just created. Double click on the layer to bring up the "Layer Style" menu and select "Pattern Overlay". In the patten overlay section choose a pattern that you like. This is a subjective option, so I am going to leave it up to you do determine what looks best.

STEP 12: Now lets create a tag line for our website. Here we will be placing it just below the pattern we just made and using that pattern to centre our tag line. Centreing text to the pattern can be done just by eyeballing it. I used a mixture of Photoshops Arial Italic font & Photoshops Arial Black Italic font with most of it being white and the word "Network" being gold (Colour: e1b327).

STEP 13: Lets add some photoshop phunk to this website by using this world map picture. This is a high res picture of the world so you will have to resize this image down (CTRL+T to resize) so that the top left corner of this world map picture is touching the bottom right corner of the pattern we just made earlier. The rest of the map should be covering the rest of the dark green bacground that is to the right of the tag line you just created. To make this map blend in with out website, make sure that you have it selected in the layers panel and change its blending mode to "Luminosity".

After you have changed the blending mode of that layer to luminosity, your result should be similar to this:

STEP 14: Creating some dividers to the content area of our photoshop website layout will be both pleasing to the eye and add the professional appeal. We can easily do this by selecting the line tool (SHIFT+U). When you select the line tool, prior to making any lines, ensure that you have the line weight at 1px, you are using shape layers AND NOT paths, and that the colour is black. Here is what your tool bar should look like.

Once you have your tool bar looking like this, draw your vertical line first approximately 670px from the left of the webpage. A neat little trick to make sure that the line goes straight down is to hold down SHIFT while dragging the cursor. This way the line is locked, when you reach the end of the line, let go of the mouse first and then release the SHIFT key. When you have the verticle line, we will apply a gradient to give it a fade effect. Double click on the verticle line layer to bring up its "Layer Style" dialogue box and goto the "Gradient Overlay" option. Keep all options within this section as default but double click the gradient bar to change the colours. Change the gradient colours to flow from 282c24 --> FFFFFF --> 282c24. Here is what both of the dialogue boxes should look like.

To create the horizontal line in photoshop to have the same apperance as the one you just created we must first draw the horizontal line approximately half way down the content or body of the webpage. We then simply apply the same gradient overlay that we just did on the verticle line, but with one important difference. The angle of the gradien must be set to 0 degrees. Make sure that your gradient effect panel looks like this.

STEP 15: Now that you have the diveders in place, lets place some content to make is look good. Feel free to redesign or place the content where ever you find it best, but here is a simple layout that I came up with that I think give this photoshop website layour the professional touch. Here, you'll place the picture of the businessman to give the content a little more photoshop phunk and to make the whole content of the site flow better. This is what you should have so far.

Once you have your photoshop webpage looking like this, let's get rid of the black background on the businessman picture. Simply select the picture on the layers panel and choose the "Lighten" option in the blending mode. This will rid the image of any darker areas than that of the layer is it on top of (the green background).

STEP 16: Once your satisfied with how the content section on the left looks, we'll get started with the content on the right. First we must create the two boxes to serve as the background for the text. Again, select the rectangle tool (U) and create a box at the top setion of the right panel. Colour the box with a dark army green colour (Colour: 667455) and make sure that you set the layers opacity to 20%. So far you should have:

Once you have the box looking like this, lets add the drop shadow effect to it. Double click the rectangle layer that you just created and select "drop shadow". This time, we will just use the default settings that the drop shadow has to create this effect, click "OK". Now we need to create the same box right below the one we just made. The easiest way to go about this will be to just duplicate the layer CTRL+J or Layer>>Duplicate Layer and once the layer is copied, move it down just below the other one. Again, a nifty tip to make sure that the boxes are aligned is to hold down SHIFT while moving the box below the top box as this will force the alignment. Your photoshop website layout should look something like this.

STEP 17: Once the boxes are aligned, we will proceed to adding the content. To keep with the professional look I would suggest keeping the headings the same font size as the headings that you have on the left, but change the colour slightly to add some variety. I have choosen Articles & Reviews and Popular Netowrks as my two sections, but don't feel like you have to as well. Come up with two that you think will work best for you. This is how the results should appear.

STEP 18: Now that we are farely well done, we still need to add some very important content at the very bottom of the screen where we have the black border showing. Here is where we will place a copyright notice, disclaimer and a privacy policy. If you feel the need to, you can add more information here like sitemaps, links, etc. In the end, this is what you should have:

STEP 19: Now that you have completed the entire website design, this is what you should have in the end. I really hope that you enjoyed this tutorial and please leave comments and feedback so that I can take them into consideration when I create another tutorial for you. I hope you enjoyed this. Have a GREAT day!!!

Photoshop Photorealistic Coloring Techniques Tutorial

2008-06-30T15:41:00.000-07:00

In this tutorial we will color a black and white photo using gradient maps, solid colors, and the "color" blending mode. Using these techniques, you will be able to hand color any black and white photo in a way that looks photorealistic.

Final Image Preview

Before we get started, let's take a look at the image we'll be creating. Before and after images are shown below.

Step 1

Double click on the background image to make it an active layer. Create a new group by clicking on the little folder icon located at the bottom of the layers palette and put the layer in the group. Name the group 'girl'. Draw a path around all the hard edges of the girl. This includes the face and the shoulders. Don't worry about the hair for now, we will do that separate. Save the path. Make a selection of the path by holding CMD+Clicking on the path thumbnail in the paths palette. Hit ALT+CMD+D and feather the selection by 0.5px. Apply the selection as a mask on the 'girl' group.

Step 2

Disable the mask on the 'girl' group by holding SHIFT+Clicking on the mask thumbnail. Now in the channels palette duplicate the red channel by dragging it to the New Channel button at the bottom of the palette. Apply a harsh curve, like the one below, to separate the hair from the background as much as you can.

Step 3

Hit CMD+I to invert the red copy channel. Re-enable the mask on the 'girl' group. Load the selection of the red copy channel with your background color set to white. Hit DELETE(backspace) to fill the selection with white on the 'girl' mask. If you hit ALT+Click on the mask thumbnail, you can see the mask as a channel. Clean up anything that looks as though it shouldn't be there, like that line between the hair and the face.

Step 4

Now lets start to add some color using a Gradient Map. In the 'girl' group make a new Gradient Map adjustment layer just above layer 0. Hit OK without doing anything, and set the Gradient Map layer's blending mode to Color. Now Double Click on the Gradient Map's layer thumbnail to open up the settings again.

A Gradient Map uses the grayscale data from the image below it to apply the gradient that you create. The left side of the gradient represents the darkest parts of the image. The right side represents the light parts. We need to make a gradient that represents what the woman's skin tone might look like from dark to light. I used the gradient below.

Step 5

Draw a path around the eyes. Load the selection of the path and feather it 0.5px as we did before. Make a Curves adjustment layer just above the skin layer. Then lighten the eyes a little bit. Now make a Gradient Map layer just above the curves layer; hit OK, before adjusting any settings. Set the new Gradient Map layer's blending mode to color. Now hit ALT+CMD+G to apply it as a clipping mask to the curves layer. Now change the Gradient Map's settings to a pink to white fade like below.

Step 6

Draw a path around just the iris of the eye. Note that we need only the path to follow that one curve between the iris and the whites because the adjustment we are making will be applied as a clipping mask. Load the selection and Feather it 2 px. Make a solid color adjustment layer just above the Gradient Map from the previous step. Then set it to a dark faded green. Hit ALT+CMD+G to apply it to the same clipping mask you made earlier. Set the blending mode of the green layer to color. You might have to go back and adjust the green until you get a color that looks real.

Step 7

Repeat all the previous steps for the lips, except for this one we'll leave the blending mode of the Gradient Map to Normal, and set the layer's opacity to 65%.

Step 8

We need to get more variance of color in the skin tones to make it look more real. I made some selections around the eyes, nose and cheeks. Then I feathered them 20-40px, created solid color adjustment layers, set the blending modes to Color, and brought the opacity way down to 10-20%. Below you can see my selections as quickmasks. The layer palette shows the colors I used for the different areas. As you can see I used some red to add some blush to the cheeks, some red around the nose, mouth and eyes, and some blue to go on the bags of her eyes. These small details make all the difference.

Step 9

Make a loose selection around the face and neck and feather it 50px. Make a curves adjustment layer just above the 'skin' Gradient Map that we made earlier. I just went in and tweaked the colors a bit to get a little more color variation in the skin tone. You can download the curve file I used here.

Step 10

Now we need to make a selection of the hair. I used the path that I saved from Step 1. Then I modified it a little to line up with the hairline's shape and softness. I did this by using Quickmask Mode(Q), and using brushes of various sizes and softness to match the hairline.

Make a new Gradient Map adjustment layer at the top of the 'girl' group. Make the gradient a similar to the image below. I left the blending mode at Normal for this layer.

Step 11

Make a selection of the shirt. Then make a new Gradient Map adjustment layer. Hit OK and set the blending mode to Color, as we have done before. Edit the gradient so that it looks something like the one below. You will have to play around with the gradient until you get a good separation between the green and white stripes.

Step 12

Choose a Sky image. I used one I shot myself, but there are plenty of stock images you could use. Bring it into the document below the 'girl' group. Hit CMD+T, and size it to fill the frame. It looks good, but notice that our hair mask still isn't really looking that good against the blue background. The hair turns a muddy gray in the transition between hair and sky. To fix this, make a new blank layer just above the 'layer 0' (the image of the girl). With a large and soft black brush paint over those areas with an opacity of 15-25% until the transition looks better.

As an added bonus, I applied the techniques from the Super Quick and Easy Facial Retouching tutorial to smooth out her face a little bit. As you can tell, I decided to make her red hair, but you can make your gradients whatever color you would like. She just seemed like a redhead to me. Here is the final image.

Create a Wavy Blackberry Style Wallpaper Design

2008-06-30T14:14:00.000-07:00

In this tutorial I will show you how to create an abstract background image using Photoshop only. The design has a cool wavy pattern with interesting lighting effects, like the Blackberry 9000 wallpaper. This is a tutorial you can sit down and complete in less than an hour, let's get started.

Final Image Preview

Before we get started, let's take a look at the image we'll be creating. Click the screenshot below to view the full-size image.

Step 1

Create a new document, use a black color for the background.

Step 2

With the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M), create a rectangular selection. Then select the Gradient Tool (G), and use red for the color of the gradient for both the start and the end, but use 100% and 0% for the opacity. So the gradient will go from red to transparent. Then create a new layer, and fill it with the gradient, as in the image below.

Step 3

Go to Edit>Transform>Distort, and distort the rectangle, as in the image below.

Step 4

Go to Edit>Transform>Warp. Then select Flag and use 20% for the Bend.

Step 5

Create another Rectangle, and fill it with the same red to transparent gradient. Set the height smaller than the first one. Then repeat the Warp command, however this time make it to the opposite way, as in the image below.

Step 6

Lets add a Layer Style to the shape. Go to Layer>Layer Style>Inner Shadow, use a light pink color (#ffb3b3). Set the Angle at -90 degrees, Distance 45px, Choke 0%, and the Size 70%.

Step 7

Now go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur, use 2px for the Radius.

Step 8

Repeat Step 6 for the other Shape.

Step 9

With the Pen Tool (P), create some paths, as in the image below. We will use them to create some light effects.

Step 10

First create a new folder, and rename it "Lines". Then change the Blend Mode to Screen. Thereafter select the brush tool. Grab a basic brush with 0% Hardness and 13px size. Then with the Direct Select Tool(A), select a path. With the right button of the mouse choose Stroke Subpath. Then the dialog box will open. Make sure that Simulate Pressure is not selected and Press OK.

Step 11

Lets create a Layer Style for the lines. Use Inner Glow with Color Dodge for the Blend Mode. Set white as the color, 100% opacity, Choke 0%, and Size 8px. After that select Color Overlay, use pink for the color (#ff5c78).

Step 12

Repeat Step 10 with the other paths. Always create a new layer for each path. You can vary the size of the brush, and you can use Simulate Pressure with some paths, as I did in the image below (1, 2, and 3).

Step 13

Let's Mask some paths, and create new ones duplicating existing paths. With number 1 Select the layer of the path and go to Layer>Layer Mask>Reveal all,. Then select a brush with 0% hardness and a medium size, like 50px. Then select black for the color and start masking that line. Repeat this with numbers 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Step 14

Here we'll make some adjustments to the shapes. Yet again, select the Shape Layer. Then go to Layer>Layer Mask>Reveal All. Then with a black brush, start masking some areas of the shapes. Tip, you can simply delete the layer as well, just use the Eraser instead of masking it.

Step 15

Create a new layer beneath the lines, but above the shapes. Then select red, and select a big 100px brush. Make sure that the hardness is 0%. Click 1-2 times, only click enough times to create an effect like the one in the image below.

Step 16

Go to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Hue and Saturation, make sure you select Colorize and use Hue 11, Saturation 82, and Lightness +4. Then go to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Levels, follow the image below for reference. After that go to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Photo Filter, use yellow, and Density of 85%. Make sure that you select Preserve Luminosity.

Conclusion

In this tutorial we created an abstract design, similar to the new Blackberry's wallpaper. It shouldn't have taken you more than 40 minutes to finish. Even though it might look simple, this tutorial has very useful techniques. You can use them to create some nice lighting effects and wavy designs. Besides that, you will be able to create a Vista style wallpaper using these techniques as well (as some readers requested), just change some colors and Layer Styles and you'll have it.

Adobe Photoshop Photo Effects Midtones Tutorial

2008-06-30T14:05:00.000-07:00

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Apply this photo effect to your photos to accentuate the midtones in your photo. This Photoshop effect makes the midtones glow and darken the highlights and shadows for a unique and soft photo effect.

Midtones Bloom Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1

Open a photo that you want to apply this Photoshop effect to.

Step 2

First, we'll need to duplicate the layer. Choose Layer > Duplicate or press Ctrl+J to duplicate the layer. You should now have two layers with the top layer being Layer 1.

Step 3

Choose Filter > Stylize > Solarize. The image looks pretty ugly right now but don't worry, it'll look a lot better later.

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Step 4

Change the blending mode to Overlay.

This is what the image looks like after changing the blending mode to Overlay. The skin color is a little gray.

Step 5

Go to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate. This will desturate the current layer and the colors, especially in the skin area, should look normal.

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Step 6

Choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and adjust the settings until some tonal contrast comes back.

Step 7

Now choose Image > Adjustments > Levels. We will now enhance and tweak the effect. First, move the white slider towards the left until it touches the tip of the histogram. Then, move the middle input slider towards the right to darken the image back to the proper exposure.

Final Results

Photoshop Beauty Tutorial

2008-06-30T13:18:00.000-07:00

This tutorial is intended for people that have the basic Photoshop skills such as color, layers, simple adjustments, masks and tools. This Tutorial will show how to conceal the defects of human skin without making it look too unnatural, by creating natural skin color tone and adding makeup via the simplest Photoshop tools.