Photoshop tips and tricks

[Sleazy P Martini]

I thought I'd start a thread where we can discuss photoshop techniques and tricks. Have any good advice? Post it here.

[Pu the Owl]

Being honest, I don't have many techniques: I spend many hours trying and messing around with Photoshop software, and sometimes I see this strategy works pretty well :laugh:

[Spirit]

ok
tip #1
use a lot of filters and different styles on each, yet use similar colors so they bland together well
more tips coming as soon as everyone gets off their lazy butts and asks!
j/k lol I'll post more l8r

[Sleazy P Martini]

Well Fortune, that Grid tutorial you gave was awesome. Messing around is good too. What I do sometimes is take a wallpaper I've already made, apply different filters and stuff, and it turns into a great new background

[Sleazy P Martini]

BTW, what plugins do you use? I use mostly Xenofex and Eyecandy.

[Spirit]

KPT....5
KPT....6
need to get 7 >.< can't find it :(

[Pu the Owl]

Downloading lots of brushes or creating your own brush sets is very useful.

[Sleazy P Martini]

Originally posted by Fortune
creating your own brush sets.
How do you do that?

[Pu the Owl]

Anything can be a brush. If you scan a pic, a material, your own writing, an object, well, you can use it as a brush. All you have to do to create a brush is open the image you want to use to make your brush and go to Edit ----> define brush. The process is similar to the one you use to make patterns.

[Spirit]

yea, making your own brushes is very usefull
I reccomend trying to mess with the standard filters in PS, then define brushes from there
also another good way is to zoom in on the image to make the zoom around 1400%+
that way you can make very detailed things =P
However I never used define pattern, and I'd appreciate you telling me about it fortune =P

[kupoartist]

I usually just throw a lot of commands at the damned thing and hope it comes out with somthing :laugh: ... actually I'm intrested in this thread, because I only recently moved from Paintshop Pro... need to learn some cool stuff ^_^

[Sleazy P Martini]

Anyone for some plugin swapping? I got a CD from one of my teachers with tons of plugins for photoshop which I can send through ICQ. (because some of the files are too big for email)

this will also give me a reason to sort though them and find the good ones. One of them is Axiom (sp?) and it's a beautiful flare effect. I've used it on these:
IG88 (http://thq.wotf.net/wallpaper/ig88paper.jpg)
Adi (http://thq.wotf.net/wallpaper/Adipaper.jpg)

[Spirit]

I'd be more than glad to share my plug ins, but I'm afraid I have over a gig worth of them heheh =P
besides hte best ones are actually separate programs (and very in-depth) to be able to send in a matter of hours, especially since I got 56k ;/

[Sleazy P Martini]

I have a DSL connection so I can send/receive anything. I have one folder that's 76 MB, with over 1200 filters. I've only begun to experiment with them, Here's a weird texture I made with the oil slick filter with plastic wrap added.
texture (http://thq.wotf.net/oil.jpg)

[Spirit]

filters are good but I feel like I'm using someone else's work when using them =P
That is why i switched to using brushes a lot more than filters, due to the fact that they're more original and your creativity does not depend on using a crapload of filters, but on blending brushes together evenly with the right color =P

[Sleazy P Martini]

It's what you do with the filters The oil slick just adds some color. If you have a white sheet all it does is turn it brown. Here's the end result of that oil slick one. I just try different combinations and layers until I get an effect that I like. ackbar2 (http://thq.wotf.net/wallpaper/ackbarpaper2.jpg)

[Pu the Owl]

In case you're interested, you can find here (http://veredgf.fredfarm.com/vbrush/main) lots of links to sites where you can download brushes.

[Sleazy P Martini]

Very cool. Thanks!

[Spirit]

thanks fortune!
Much appreciated
goes to find any brushes he missed while downloading 50mb worth of brushes a month ago