Pros

Brush selection toolbar - Much simpler to use than Photoshop's scroll menu. Also the edit brush option is very easy to use. There are also some cool default brushes like the clover.

Layer option - There are a lot of layer options in the toolbar including an easy way to create a layer mask

Extra tools - Tools like the rotate tool, shear tool etc make it easier to manipulate whole layers.

Cons

Brush Options: Although the option to create your own brushes is there a lot of the defaults I use in Photoshop are missing. Most of the basics are there at least.

Text Input - A major pain in the butt, when trying to move your text, resize the box etc. The default text box is very finicky and if you select the wrong spot you often go back to the actual text edit. Did I mention that the text edit is in another mini-window that pops up? It can be very frustrating when you are simply trying to resize the box.

Lack of tabbed images - I find it more efficient when cutting out parts of an image and moving them to use tabbed images like in Photoshop. GIMP unfortunately doesn't offer that.

Overall I found GIMP 2.6 to be a fairly decent program for minor image creation. I haven't delved to much into photo editing yet so we shall see the final results.

I was stumbling over random pages online when I found a page that looked like a photo editor, but I was sure it was just going to be a picture, or not work. It was just too decked out. When I clicked on the “file” button, sure enough, I got a menu! Immediately, I opened a picture from my computer and began playing with it. This program was amazing; it did everything! When I went to the site it came from, I found a rather interesting name; Sumo Paint.

Ever since then, I've used this program for every picture that I drew and uploaded. I'm one of those digital artists who does their lineart and coloring online. SumoPaint is so effective, and works for my purposes. I felt the need to compare it to everyone's beloved PhotoShop.

PhotoShop: Pros

• Has a multitude of features
• Makes smooth pictures
• There are many patches and add-ons you can download and use
• Professionally made
• You can make your own brushes for use
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Tons of filters
• Keeps track of editing history
• Has a layer toolbar

PhotoShop: Cons

• Most versions costs from $200 for the old version, and $600 for the new version
• There are so many versions to choose from
• Can be hard to learn; overwhelming amount of features
• Large file

SumoPaint: Pros

• Has a similar toolbar as PhotoShop
• With a bit of learning, you can make quality pictures
• There are a handful of filters
• It comes with a number of pre-made brushes
• It's completely free
• It's online
• No scams involved
• Saves to your computer if you don't want to sign up
• Has a layer toolbar
• Doesn't take up space on your hard drive

SumoPaint: Cons

• It takes up a lot of bandwidth, therefor might crash your internet if left in use for long periods of time
• Will lag sometimes
• It doesn't always save to your account
• If you just have a layer invisible, it will still show up when you save the picture

As it's plainly obvious, they've both got their ups and downs. It might be hard for many who have the money to choose, and I fully agree that Sumo is no PhotoShop. My internet, multiple times, has crashed and left me with no scrap of my work left. Still, when using PhotoShop, it's still a possibility.

Whether you choose Sumo or PhotoShop is up to you. The choice is up to opinion, and what is right for each person. If you're looking for more advanced options with hundreds of tutorials out there, splurging on PhotoShop might be your choice. If you're more of a simpleton like me, and just need something for basic art, SumoPaint might be better for you. Maybe you just don't have the money yet, or you don't have the space on your computer? SumoPaint might be better for you.

Either way, happy picture-editing.

This is a tutorial that would guide you step by step to create the portfolio above; this tutorial is at an intermediate level and is not recommended for beginners. Comments are much appreciated.

Open Adobe Photoshop, create a new page of the size 1024x768 pixels, using the PaintBucket Tool (G) apply the colour #696969 to the background.

In a new layer draw a rounded rectangle using the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U) with a Radius of

10 px and the colour #3D9FCC. You should get something similar to this.

Next add your logo and tagline to the top-left corner of your screen for the purpose of this tutorial I have just added text, but this could also be an image

Adding tabs, using the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U) draw a small rectangle in a new layer, the colour doesn't matter at the moment

While your tab is selected go to Edit > Transform Path > Perspective (Illustration: 1) and squeeze the two corners closer to each other (Illustration: 2). This makes it look more like a realistic tab.

	Illustration: 2
Illustration: 1

Add colour to the tabs

To add colour simple double click the layer in the layers window (Illustration: 3), then select your colour. Use light colours because these colours would also be the colour of your pages.

The colours used for the tabs are #FEE9B1 (1st tab), #9EFBCA (2nd tab), #5DF0EE (3rd tab) and #FF8D8D (4th tab).

Illustration: 3

You should have something similar to this.

Adding footer

Add the text “©2008 - Privacy” to the bottom-left of your page, you should get this

Adding RSS feed

First add the text “RSS”, then using the Ellipse Tool (U) draw a circle on the right side of the RSS text. You would get something similar to this.

Then draw an arch using the Pen Tool (U), right click on the arch and select Stroke path. repeate this again but this time draw a bigger arch.

Your final result should this.

Create a new layer, in this layer use the Line Tool (U) to draw a line with a weight of 3px above the footer this line helps give your portfolio a professional finish.

Labels all the tabs, label them accordingly to the purpose of your website. Use the Horizontal Type Tool (T).

Creating home page and adding content

To create the home page, first change the order of layer arrangement and bring forward the Yellow tab and you would have this

Using the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U) draw a rectangle over the blue background, this would be your content area where the main information of the website would go. After creating this rectangle position it similar to the illustration below.

Create a new layer, in this layer use the Line Tool (U) to draw a line with a weight of 2px, draw a line starting from the centre of the straight down to the end (image 1). This splits the page into two sections which helps keep things clear.

Introduction of website.

Use the Text Tool (T) and add a “Welcome” note to the top-left side of your content area. You may choose to add underline to the text. Use a professional looking font and a dark coloured font.

Add a paragraph below in a smaller font, in this paragraph basically introduce your company; who you are and the service you provide, below is an example

Adding example images of your.

Add a new sub-heading “Recent designs”. Using the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U) draw a small rectangle below the “Recent designs” text. Colour of this box doesn't matter because you will upload images of your work and place them with in this box.

Double click on the layer and in the Layer style window apply a “Stroke” with the following settings

Duplicate it 9 times and order it similar to the illustration below

Upload examples of your work into each rectangle.

Add a Sub-heading that says “News”

In this section you would publish any information, for example if you are running an offer of half-price designs all that would go here.

Adding Headlines

Drawing a calendar

In a new layer, Use the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U) to draw a rectangle and colour #FFFEFF then draw another rectangle over the top half. Add date number to top half and the month to the bottom half. You should have something like this.

Duplicate the back layer (ctrl+J) and colour it black, move it left 1 pixel and down 1 pixels and repeat this process of duplication and movement until you have something similar to this

Adding title of news

Using the Text Tool (T) add the title of the news and a summery of the story beside the calendar.

Adding comment bubble.

Use the Custom Shape Tool (U) and draw the “Talk 1” bubble. Apply the #3D9FCC colour.

You should get this.

Double click on the layer and apply the following setting.

Add text and you should have something similar to this

Duplicate the layers and paste below for the second news story and you should have this

Have you ever wanted to create stunning HDR pictures like that one but don't have access to the proper equipment or software?

You may be interested to know that there is an easy way to create the same effect by only using a single image and Adobe Photoshop CS. There is an adjustment effect called 'Shadow/Highlight', which can create amazing effects just by simply moving some sliders.

In the next few minutes I'm going to show you how to take an image like the above and turn it into this...

Firstly lets take a look at the 'Shadow/Highlight' box.

HDR effects with Photoshop CS 2 & 3

When you start this adjustment you will notice that the image instantly looks better and with a bit of tweaking we can make it look like an HDR photograph. Before you start it's best if you auto-adjust the levels of your picture, this gives you a better foundation for your image and you'll get better results.

The box is divided into three sections: Shadows; Highlights and Adjustments. Moving the 'Amount' sliders will make the shadows and highlights lighter or darker depending on how far you slide them e.g. when you first begin the 'Shadow' slider is already set to 50 which brings out details in the shadows by making them lighter. If you were to move the 'Highlight' slider it would make the lightest areas slightly darker and bring out areas on detail in overexposed parts. Playing with the 'Radius' and 'Tonal Width' gives you different effects, it is very much a personal preference as to how you set these sliders. Lastly in 'Adjustments' you can alter how much saturation you want in the picture's colour range and also bring out more details in the mid range of tone by increasing their contrast. Below are my setting for creating the HDR version, yours may differ from mine.

HDR effects with Photoshop CS 2 & 3

The settings for different images will vary quite extensively so it's best to play around with sliders and see what you can come up with. Good luck!

Bill Harbison.

Most Web 2.0 logotypes have some common characteristics…the most usually known are on-font-gradients, shadows and highlights as well as a nice mirror effect at the bottom of them. So let's see what it really takes to create one from scratch!

Step 1

Simply create a new layer to add your Text on, in my example I created www.PicPolis.com

Step 2

Right-click on the test layer on your layers panel and open the Blending Options.
From here we'll use only the following:

1)Bevel & Emboss will give us a pseudo 3-D look to use along with the logo

2)Color Overlay with a nice white color to make our text look almost satin-like!

3)Finally we choose Stroke from the options ion the left and our effect is ready. You should take a closer look at the options and tweak them the way you desire to make a thick border one colour stroking border line or a more sophisticated gradient and thinner border around the letters!

Step 3

Finally I simply copy the whole Logo and paste it, then mirror it (using the Free Transform Tool, keyboard shortcut is Ctrl+T) and dragging the middle holder down. Then I open the Blending options of the new layer and I choose an opacity of 35%.

And that's mostly it! Here's what our logo now looks like!

One of the most easy ways to erase a photo's background is using the Background eraser tool.So just open your photo in Photoshop (I'm using PS CS4 for this tutorial but the same method works in most of the photoshop distributions). So…let's begin!

Step 1

We open our photo in photoshop and then press “E” which is the shortcut for the “Background Eraser” tool. We must also keep in mind 2 other parameters of this tool we can tweak to get best results, which are the Tolerance and the Limits.

Step2

Here I have selected “Find Edges” in the Limits box and tweaked the tolerance to a rough 22%
and also chose to “Protect the foreground color” option to be ON.

Step3

The 2 steps we took give us a nice but rough edition of the photo with the background deleted… all we need to do now it to clean up the messy pixels!

As you can see I use another background layer with high contrast to the green original background of the photo (hence the red color). With the simple eraser tool I clean all the mess and my new photo is ready to accept the new background!

Step 4

After these few steps you only need a nice background image that you can make the foreground image blend nicely in!You could choose to further tweak settings as saturation or contrast of each layer, the color balance etc.

Hope you enjoyed! Next time we'll see another technique to remove the background of a photo!

So... that's all for now! till next time feel free to visit my other tutorials!

http://www.computersight.com/Software/Photoshop/Eye-Color-Change-with-Photoshop-Quick-and-Easy-Sweet-Effects.69205

http://www.computersight.com/Software/Photoshop/Photoshop-Quick-and-Easy-Sweet-Effects.67750

http://www.computersight.com/Software/Photoshop/How-to-Create-a-Cool-Web-20-Logo-Using-Photoshop-Quick--Easy-PS-Tutorial.386241

Open your creation

 

Now the work begin. To begin choose the color you want as the front color and choose the same color but a little darker as the back color. like that

Then select the Brush Tool (B). Choose a normal round brush the size of the eye ( here it is 50 )

Now you will have to make a new layer. Just go Layer then New

Put a brush on the forehead with the light color like that

 

Now select the Smudge Tool (R) ( It may not be on the toolbar. If so it is under the Blur Tool (R). Just Right click on it ). Use a size of less than 1/4 of the brush with a strenght of 75. Then use it to expand your brush a little. like that

 

It will be the first layer of hair. Make another layer and put it between the 1st and the 2nd. Repat the two last step but expand it a little more and use the dark color.

 

Make another layer and put it under the two hair layer. now we will fill black hole. you can use the same color but it should be better to use an even darker color. Put 2 brush on each side of de face and smudge it down.

 

Here we have the patern. But the hair are too big. Select the Smudge Tool (R) and size it at 10 ( Or less depending of the size of the picture ) and make multiple hair all over the current hair. It make your Pictur more detailed.

Now Let's make it more realist. Right-click on the top layer and click on blending option. Make the option below.

    - Drop Shadow: Opacity 25 %

    - Inner Glow: Color Black

    - Satin: ---

    - Color Overlay: Color of your choice

Now Right click on that layer and click on copy layer style

NB: for better render use dark color. If you use light color you will need to make more layer.

Thanks for reading and i hope you enjoyed!

"That will never catch on," I told my friends and teachers. "That's just a novelty, a toy. Who would really want to create art on a computer?"

Little did I know that a little over ten years later I would be sitting in a college training to become a graphic designer. I could kick myself for not learning the computer back in high school when I had the chance. Oh sure, I had played around on a computer at home when I was a kid. Our family even owned an Apple™ knock-off called Franklin. (they went out of business years ago.) I would spend hours copying code from a magazine just to get the think to print a calendar or something similar. But, alas, no Photoshop.™ So, when I sat in that first day of design school and waited for the professor to come in and teach me about the Apple Macintosh™ I was understandably a little nervous.

But, like anything else in life, I learned that if you don't dive in head first you don't learn a whole lot. I tried my best and studied hard. There was a time when I really hated Photoshop™ because I just didn't get it. It was too complicated and the instructor seemed to talk way too fast in a language of terms that were completely foreign to me at the time such as scanning, frequency, dots per inch and resolution. This was in the mid 90's so a lot of this was new to everyone. We were learning Photoshop 3.0.™ If you are familiar with the program's history you will know that it was very primitive at this stage.

Eventually I excelled and started to enjoy creating art in Photoshop.™ One of the things that I learned quickly and really seemed to help was keyboard shortcuts. My instructor couldn't say it enough. He would say that if we didn't learn our keyboard shortcuts we would not be able to meet our deadlines and if we didn't meet deadlines we would be out of a job. Boy was he right! So, that's why I am going to stress to you that you go about learning your keyboard shortcuts. I will outline some simple ones for you and tell you some ways to learn on your own.

Most people that use the computer regularly are familiar with the basics shortcuts for a computer. But, just in case I will go over a few. Generally the first letter of a word is matched with the command key (apple) or the control key (PC). Such as command or control - P is usually print on most computers. Similarly, command or control - O is usually open. As a designer you will definitely want to familiarize yourself with the copy, cut and paste shortcuts. They should be about the same for any application. They are command or control - C for copy, command or control - V for paste and command or control - X for cut.

The industry standard design programs that I use are Adobe Photoshop™, Adobe Illustrator™ and Adobe InDesign.™ When you buy these applications they usually come with a cheat sheet with several shortcuts. I urge you to use these as much as possible if you want to be an efficient designer. You will be amazed at the time it will shave off your day and allow you to finish your jobs faster (or goof off sooner as the case may be!).

Another important factor regarding keyboard shortcuts is the placement of your hand. You should keep your fingers placed near the command or control keys so that you can place your thumb on the modifier key (the first key to be placed) and then the corresponding letter. Such as command or control - P for print. After a while of working this way you will not even notice you're doing it. You can also make use of a two-button mouse. The right button generally takes the place of the modifier and when pressed will bring up a menu of commands.

If you have been meaning to learn your keyboard shortcuts and haven't because you feel it is too time-consuming or demanding I have some suggestions. Try learning just one shortcut a day. Work all day with this one shortcut only and try to only use the shortcut for executing this particular command. Or you could try two or three a day if you are brave. Then, the next day, or in a few days, whatever you feel comfortable with - try some more. Eventually you will learn several of them and they will become second nature to you.

If for some reason your software did not come with a cheat sheet of keyboard shortcuts there are several websites that list them that you could print out or you could simply just look in the menus of the program. For example, in Photoshop™ - the keyboard shortcuts are always listed to the right of the command in the menus. Take note of these and start using them. You will see a marked improvement in your speed and you will free up more time for other things. For more information you should also visit Adobe software's website at http://www.adobe.com.

We will be using this image to create a variety of black and white photos, to bring out the best of a colour photo in black and white. The simplest way is not always the best.

Desaturation

This uses the simplest tool in PS, to make a black and white image.

Image > Adjustments > Desaturation

From here the contrast and brightness can be changed in a variety of ways. I personally use curves, but all four methods will be shown below. All can be found in image > adjustments. One must note there are other ways but these are the most common and effective.

You can make not only the images a higher contrast as above, but a lower contrast to give a more dreamy effect.

Colour balance

Image > adjustments > colour balance

This allows you to desaturate an image and give it a tint as I've done below. You drag all the options to the far left, and the image will go greyscale, after this you can use shadows/highlights to add a tint.

Hue saturation

This allows the same flexibility as colour balance, but is simpler to use. You drag the saturation counter to the far left. To colourise the image, click the colourise option on the far bottom right.

Gradient map

This allows you to do all sorts of things intop of turning your photo into a black and white. To use this option you use the present gradients, and select the option with the black and white swatch, in the adjustments menu.

You can also go to mode > greyscale, but if you wish to add colour you must then change the mode back.

There is now a link to using channels in Photoshop, for anyone who wishes to check out another method.

The next step is to find a vehicle with rims you want to put on your base picture. This image is called the donor image. Make sure the donor car is about at the same angle as your base picture. I chose this Mercedes SL65 AMG.

Next is to use the selection tool and make a selection around the whole front wheel of the donor image. Copy the selection and paste it to a new layer on the base picture. Rotate the wheel if you have to and transform the wheel to be about the same size as the front wheel on the base car.

Next you might notice that parts of the new wheel overlap the wheel well on the base picture. The best way to fix this is to turn the wheel layer off and select around the wheel well edge (pictures included to clarify). Then you turn the wheel layer back on and while on that layer delete all the extra parts.

Now the front wheel should be done or at least almost looking done... If there are any rough spots where the tires stick out, delete or smooth them out.

Now its time for the back wheel. First make sure you select the back wheel on the donor image. The rest of the steps are exactly the same as the front wheel. Here is what my final product looked like.

TIPS!!!

1. Never use the same donor rim for both the front and back wheels of a base picture because a lot of the time angles will be messed up and brakes will be backwards.
2. Always use high quality pictures for both the base and donor images. Atleast 1024 x 768 but preferably bigger.
3. Always work in layer. Never paste anything onto a layer that already has something on it. That way if you make a mistake, it will be easier to fix.