The Photoshop Blog offers Photoshop news and Photoshop tips. http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/ Here is today's free brush set from Janita: Fluffy Feather Brushes. All the feathers in these were scanned from images I found in scrapbooking stores. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/02/free-brushes-fluffy.html Neon signs are bright; that is part of their charm and part of their usefulness. The brightness also makes it more difficult to shoot the sign than it would seem. You do have choices: You can expose for the whole scene, which will most likely overexpose the neon; you can expose for the sign, which can underexpose the rest of the scene; or you can combine different exposures into a single frame to get the exposure right for both the scene and the neon sign. The aperture that you use will also affect the way the light bleeds on a neon sign. This bleeding of the light is called halation and it relates to how the light can spread beyond the proper boundaries in a photographic image. As you change the aperture, the spread of the light changes; there are no right or wrong apertures, and knowing this means you can change the look of the light and the image by using different apertures. To get the neon sign to stand out against the background, just follow these steps to underexpose the image slightly. The first step is to find a sign that is relatively isolated so that the composition will allow the sign to stand by itself. Read full article... (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/02/book-neon.html Here are today's free brushes: Butterfly Brushes. Set name: Glitterflies (brushes in set: 20) All images were handmade. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/02/free-brushes-butterfly.html Here's another Photoshop CS6 preview video: Here's an early look at a popular Facebook fan request — the ability to do a background save on a large file that would NOT make Photoshop slow down, and a new, very powerful liquify tool that allows large brush sizes and is very snappy. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/02/photoshop-cs6-video-preview-2.html This week Deke shows you how to use a secret Asian-language text setting to create authentic-looking movie credits in Illustrator. The trick is exploiting the Warichu feature which is designed for stacking characters within a single line of type. In this technique, Deke reveals how the feature allows you to gracefully stack two words one on top of another, adjust the size, create a character style that saves those settings, and then apply your character-style down the line to all the people who helped make your imaginary movie possible. Any designer or budding movie promoter who’s obsessed with typesetting (and doesn’t that include most of you?) knows that the standard movie credits in a promotional poster stack the two-word job title before the linear presentation of each contributor’s name. So text that initially looks like this... ... ends up looking like this: If you were inspired by Deke’s Designing an Indiana Jones-style logo technique from December 2011, then this technique will allow you to create some credits at the bottom of your poster that will convince your audience that you know how to properly hype your latest entirely theoretical but professionally promoted cinematic endeavor. And if you’d like specific instruction on putting the two techniques together, check out the Two ways to place a pixel-based image movie from the Illustrator and Photoshop chapter (chapter 21) of Deke’s Illustrator CS5 One-on-One: Advanced course. You can get a free 7-day trial to the lynda.com Online Training Library. A credit card is required to ensure uninterrupted access to lynda.com, if you choose to remain a member after your free trial ends. There is no long-term commitment required, and you can cancel any time. After signing up for the free 7-day trial to the lynda.com Online Training Library you'll gain access to over 60,000 video tutorials instantly. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/02/illustrator-movie-poster-credits.html We'll be releasing a free set of Photoshop brushes every day for the next twelve days. These are exclusive sets from us that were designed by the talented Janita from Seishido. Janita's brushes are tinged with an air of whimsy, often featuring delicate feathers, gossamer wings and dreamy clouds. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/02/free-brushes-doodles.html You can save 50% off the standard price of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 in the Adobe North America Store. No coupon code is necessary. The discount will be applied when products are added to the shopping cart. Offer starts February 1, 2012 and ends March 5. The following Euro stores are also offering the same 50% off special: UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 is an intuitive digital darkroom and efficient assistant designed for serious amateur and professional photographers. Easily manage, edit, and showcase all your images. Lightroom integrates tightly with Adobe Photoshop software and supports more than 275 camera raw file formats, as well as JPEG, TIFF, and PSD images. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/02/lightroom-half-price-deal.html Here's a Photoshop tutorial from Photoshop Daily, by Simon Skellon. There are many ways to alter the contrast and mood of an image in Photoshop. Try this one using Apply Image. Apply Image can produce variations of contrast that other adjustments just aren’t able to offer. This particular method may not be the most commonly practised one, but shouldn’t be dismissed. Read more... (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/02/apply-image-photo-mood-change.html Have a look at the amazing photos of magnified grains of sand at the Uk Daily Mail site. "Viewed at a magnification of over 250 times real life, tiny grains of sand are shown to be delicate, colourful structures as unique as snowflakes. When seen well beyond the limits of human eyesight, the miniature particles are exposed as fragments of crystals, spiral fragments of shells and crumbs of volcanic rock." Read the full article. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/sand-crystals.html Here is an excerpt from Chapter 8 from Night and Low-Light Photography Photo Workshop, excerpted with permission from John Wiley and Sons, Inc. The book is available in stores and through online retailers nationwide. Here’s a link to a multi-retailer sales page. Author Alen Hess is a professional event and concert photographer whose subjects have included The Grateful Dead, Bruce Hornsby, John Legend, Robin Williams, and many more. The basics of photographing light trails are simple: Use a shutter speed long enough that the lights in question turn from points of light into trails as they move through the frame. There are three different types of captures in this section: the first is where the camera is stationary and the subject is moving, the second is where the camera moves along with the subject creating a background that seems to be made up of streaks of light, and the third is to use the zoom on a lens to create trails from a stationary light source. Read more... (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/book-light-trails.html Another nice set of free Photoshop brushes from Bittbox: The source for these was a microscopic piece of pollen. Up close the strands looked like barbed wire. After photographic it, I brought the images into Illustrator and Live Traced each one, so the edges are very defined. Each brush is 2500×1800, hope you enjoy. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/6-abstract-lines-photoshop-brushes.html Topaz Labs has released Topaz Star Effects, a Photoshop Plug-in that manipulates and enhances light sources to create radiant lighting and star effects. Using a leading-edge technology that automatically recognizes light sources, Topaz Star Effects provides a fast and effective way to creatively embellish points of light in an image. Topaz Star Effects retails for $29.99, and will be discounted to $19.99 until 2/15/12. Simply enter coupon code TopazStars. Topaz Star Effects is the most customizable and inclusive star filter out there right now. With adjustments like star type, glow, ring flare and color controls, the program allows for users to create effects from realistic sun flares and glowing water to more obvious, artistic additions," said Nichole Paschal, Senior Marketing Specialist for Topaz Labs. "Plus the ability to selectively add and remove these effects, in a single click, is easy to understand and an important aspect to Star Effects." "With an advanced detection algorithm powering Star Effects, we have developed a simple and intuitive way to recognize hundreds of light sources at once, along with the choice to selectively amplify sources. Star Effects has the most comprehensive tool set available, allowing for users to create both natural, accurate renditions or more dramatic, graphic effects," said Dr. He Yang, Senior Software Designer at Topaz Labs. The comprehensive and customizable tool set in Topaz Star Effects offers a simple and intuitive workflow that results in quick enhancements to your light sources. It is a plug-in that works with a variety of host programs including Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Aperture, iPhoto and Lightroom. Topaz Star Effects retails for $29.99, and will be discounted to $19.99 until 2/15/12. Simply enter coupon code TopazStars. You could spend hours in Photoshop selecting multiple light sources and fiddling around with multiple settings, layer styles and blending modes. Or you can enjoy a more simplistic and user-friendly process using Star Effects, which automatically detects light sources allows you to quickly select how many or how few of those light sources to enhance. Star Effects also includes a highly comprehensive toolset, offering the most flexibility and control for customizing your effects. Using the adjustment sliders, you can instantly change the appearance and characteristics of your selected light sources. Key user benefits include: Topaz Automatic light source detection - seeks out the light sources in your image. Added flexibility via the selective brush used to individually select or de-select light sources. Star type selection with options like traditional, starburst, cross star, hollywood star and more! Star Stack-a-bility via the Apply button which allows you to stack multiple effects. Added adjustment controls for color, temperature, secondary spikes, glow and ring flares - for a customizable workflow. And much more... (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/topaz-star-effects-plugins.html Here is an excerpt from Chapter 8 from Night and Low-Light Photography Photo Workshop, excerpted with permission from John Wiley and Sons, Inc. The book is available in stores and through online retailers nationwide. Here’s a link to a multi-retailer sales page. Author Alen Hess is a professional event and concert photographer whose subjects have included The Grateful Dead, Bruce Hornsby, John Legend, Robin Williams, and many more. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/book-shooting-street-scenes.html This video from Senior Product Manager Bryan O'Neil Hughes, reveals an early look at some of the things the Photoshop team is working on for Camera Raw and Photoshop CS6, including a much darker interface. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/sneak-cs6-camera-raw.html You've probably been there. You're working with a high-contrast photo or composition, with lots of lights and darks, and it’s your job to lay text over it. Readable text. So, do you choose dark text or light? Either one risks becoming unreadable when it hits an object behind it that doesn’t provide enough contrast. And please, whatever you do, don’t compromise with that medium gray text that’s completely unsatisfying no matter where it lands. This week’s free technique from Deke that shows you how to conveniently set up your type so that it automatically inverts everything behind it. By setting up your text this way, you no longer have to make the compromised choice to leave the text in some state of questionable readability, or the tedious choice to stop and manually reset text color as you move it around. By using a blend mode and a couple of well-placed adjustment layers to mathematically tell Photoshop what you want it to do when, you’ll create automatically reversing yet entirely editable text. And for members of the lynda.com Online Training Library, Deke has an exclusive movie this week, Creating auto-inverting line art, in which he shows you how to do the same inverse effect with line art (in this case a signature). The steps in this technique are similar to those discussed in Deke’s free tutorial, but require you to additionally separate and invert the lines that make up the image. You can get a free 7-day trial to the lynda.com Online Training Library. A credit card is required to ensure uninterrupted access to lynda.com, if you choose to remain a member after your free trial ends. There is no long-term commitment required, and you can cancel any time. The free trial allows access to over 60,000 video tutorials instantly. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/type-invert-behind.html From Bittbox: Today's grab bag of textures contains a couple old book covers and three other various textures. Each one will add a different dimension to your designs. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/assorted-free-textures.html A nice set of 5 free Photoshop brushes from Bittbox: This collection of five subtle hi-res fabric brushes will add some natural surfacing to your work. Each brush is 2500×2500. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/5-simple-fabric-brushes.html Shutterstock blog has a Photoshop tutorial that shows youhow to create a surreal "living" room with blue-sky walls, a turbulent sea floor, and an antique clock sun. It's a good way to also learn how to use textures. In step 3 you add textures to the walls to give them a grungy feel. And so I've included the latest from Bittbox as well: 5 free hi res wooden board textures. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/5-free-cracked-peeling-wood-textures.html Perfect Layers 2 is a fast, easy and affordable way to create layered files outside of Adobe Photoshop. Perfect Layers is an application that allows photographers to combine multiple images from Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Apple Aperture, or any application, into a single-layered file. As photographers do more of their work in Lightroom or Aperture, Perfect Layers has evolved to support these changing workflows. Perfect Layers 2 is available as standalone product for $69.95 and as part of the Perfect Photo Suite 6 for $299.95. When purchasing at the onOne website, use our discount code - PSSPPT06 - for an instant 10% discount on all products, including upgrades. Perfect Layers can be used to blend multiple exposures together or build composite images. New capabilities have been added to version 2, including a Retouch Brush to remove blemishes and dust spots, a file browser that quickly finds and provides access to the right files, and flexible preview options that show changes being made side by side with the original image. Perfect Layers was developed and designed along with industry thought leader Scott Kelby as an application that would deliver the power and benefits of layered images to users working primarily in Lightroom or Aperture. The simplicity of Perfect Layers and the tools provided allow photographers to be able to quickly do what they want to without having to wade through dozens of tools they will never use. To further streamline workflows, Perfect Layers can be used as a standalone application and has been integrated into the new Perfect Photo Suite 6. OnOne has been making excellent plugins for years and continues to lead the pack with their innovative and friendly user interfaces. Plugins are meant to reduce the work load, and Perfect Layers is going to be a huge time-saver for professional photographers who need the extra power of layers to edit quickly and efficiently, as they are often under severe deadlines. And Perfect Layers will also open up the door to more creative endeavors — including stunning visual effects and complex photo montages. Key benefits of Perfect Layers 2 include: Retouch Brush: Remove dust spots, blemishes and other distractions in your image quickly and easily with the new Retouch Brush. Quick touch-ups and edits to your image are made very simple with this new tool. File Browser: Quickly find the images you want with the visual File Browser, which provides a filmstrip or light table style view of a folder. Several browser tabs can be opened at once so that multiple elements for a project can be found and opened easily. Flexible Preview Options: See a real-time preview of the changes you are making to an image side by side with your original image before you apply the changes. There are five different ways to view the mask to make adjustments and judge quality. Masking Brush: Control how much of each layer is visible with the Masking Brush created originally for PhotoTools 2.6 and FocalPoint 2. Similar to using a layer mask, the Masking Brush can be used to reveal or hide selected areas of a layer. The layer masks created by the Masking Brush are non-destructive and can be re-edited with Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. If you use a Wacom pressure sensitive tablet, you can even control the brush size or opacity by how hard you press while painting the mask. Masking Bug: Create gradient masks for making vignettes and graduated filter effects with the Masking Bug from PhotoTools 2.6. As with the Masking Brush, the Masking Bug is nondestructive and can even be re-edited with Photoshop or Photoshop Elements later if desired. Blending Modes: Bring the power and creativity of blending modes to Lightroom and Aperture with Perfect Layers. Control brightness, contrast and color of your images and adjust opacity to control the strength of the effect as you blend layers to get amazing and highly stylized effects in your image. Color Fill Layer: Create new layers filled with a solid color. Perfect Layers includes presets that simulate common color correction and black and white conversion filters. The built-in masking tools can be used to selectively place and control the strength of these color fill effects. Additionally, the Color blend mode is especially useful with Color Fill Layers to give images a special effect. Perfect Layers Requirements Operating System — Mac OS X 10.5 or 10.6, Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7. Optional Host Application — Adobe Lightroom 2 or 3, Apple Aperture 2.1 or 3. Processor — 2 GHz or faster Intel Core 2 Duo or equivalent. Display — OpenGL 2.0 Capable video card with 256 MB of dedicated VRAM at 1280x800 and millions of colors or higher. Perfect Layers Online Video Tutorials You can fnd a collection of online video tutorials for Perfect Layers at the onOne site. Topics include: Getting Started, Supported Files, Perfect Layers and Lightroom, Perfect Layers and Aperture, Blending Duplicate Images, Exposure Blending, Swapping Heads, Changing Skies, Texture Blending, Blending to Control Color and Contrast, Using Color Fill Layers, Combining Multiple Lights, Focus Stacking, Creative Composites. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/perfect-layers-2-released.html This week Deke shares one of his most asked-for techniques, how to turn an ordinary portrait into a line drawing. It seems that when people encounter wonderful photo-realistic line drawings out in the wild, they immediately equate said photo-realism with Photoshop. And, if nature didn’t endow you with the ability to draw, then applying some careful Photoshop effects to a well-chosen photo is indeed the way to go. In this week’s free movie, you’ll see how to take a photographed portrait, apply the Photocopy filter and then adjust and finesse your drawing with the Levels command, Gaussian Blur, a little hand-work (you’re calling it a “drawing” after all), and finally some advanced layer effects. The result is a technique that can work on any well-defined portrait. For example, check out how this unsuspecting photo booth poser in the upper image can become the proto-Nagel woman you see in the lower image below (while doing some fairly wonderful things to my chalkboard in the process). For members of lynda.com, Deke has an exclusive movie in the Online Training Library this week called Adding a crosshatch shading pattern that really sells the illustration effect. By the time you go through Deke’s meticulous steps, you’ll take this dramatic photo on the left and turn it into the deadly (but awesome) line drawing on the right: You can get a free 7-day trial to the lynda.com Online Training Library. A credit card is required to ensure uninterrupted access to lynda.com, if you choose to remain a member after your free trial ends. There is no long-term commitment required, and you can cancel any time. The free trial allows access to over 60,000 video tutorials instantly. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/photo-to-drawing.html From lynda.com: Earlier this week, Adobe released a public beta version of Lightroom 4 for Windows and Mac. To help you get up to speed with what’s new, we’ve published Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta Preview with Chris Orwig. a free 2-hour tour of Lightroom 4′s new features, including its enhanced photo- and video-editing features, its ability to tag your photos to a map, and its Blurb book-layout module. And because free is a very good price, we’ve made the entire course free, meaning, you don’t have to be a lynda.com member in order to watch it. The Lightroom 4 beta software expires at the end of March, and when it does, we’ll retire this course. You can see all the free Lightroom 4 video training tutorials here. 1 - Working with Video (30m 20s) Video playback and trimming 06m 31s Editing the color and tone of a video file 06m 13s Organizing video files in a Lightroom database 05m 24s Capturing a still image from a video file 02m 49s Exporting or publishing a video to your hard drive 05m 23s Publishing videos to Flickr and Facebook 04m 00s 2 - Creating a Custom Book Layout (19m 11s) Overview of the new Book module 05m 55s Creating and customizing a layout 03m 13s Editing pages 06m 50s Exporting and ordering books 03m 13s 3 - Introducing the Map Module (14m 03s) Overview of the new Map module 03m 43s Tagging images with locations 04m 25s Creating saved locations 05m 55s 4 - Develop Module - Image Editing Improvements (39m 09s) Overview of the new Develop module basic controls 07m 28s Using the new Develop module basic controls 03m 40s Working with clarity 02m 30s Making RGB tone curve adjustments 05m 19s Overview of the adjustment brush improvements 05m 06s Using the Adjustment Brush and Graduated Filter 03m 32s Fixing chromatic abberation and white balance 02m 21s Soft Proof reinvented 09m 13s 5 - Other noteworthy improvements (14m 24s) E-mailing photos from within Photoshop Lightroom 05m 54s Improvements in Fast Load and Lossy DNG 07m 19s Using the Module Walkthrough help feature 01m 11s See more videos on our Lightroom 4 Tutorial and Free Download Page. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/free-lightroom-4-video-training.html Here's a simple and effective tutorial from Photoshop Daily that shows how to create a rich black and white conversion using the Channel Mixer adjustment. There are quite a few techniques you can call upon when it comes to converting an image to monochrome. One of our favourite methods includes using the Channel Mixer adjustment layer. This is especially useful if the Black and White adjustment isn’t part of your inventory. The Channel Mixer gives control over the individual RGB values, allowing for the finest tweaks to certain areas of the image for emphasis. Read full tutorial... (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/punchy-black-white-effect.html From Bittbox, a free set of 4 subtle rust brushes for Photoshop. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/free-brushes-subtle-rust.html I really like this free set of 10 Moon Brushes from PE at iDeasplayer.com: As always they are free for both personal and commercial use. I really hope yo'’ll like them. Enjoy! (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/free-moon-brushes.html Lens Effects simulates a variety of camera filter and lens effects that you can virtually apply to your image. These effects are used to correct or enhance characteristics of your image. Here are samples of some of the filters and lens effects that illustrate how they will change and enhance your images... (Order Lens Effects from Topaz Labs and use our coupon code PHOTOSHOPSUPPORT for an instant 15% discount.) (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/topaz-lens-effects-plugins-filters-gallery.html Adobe has released Lightroom 4 beta for Windows and Mac, and it is available as a free public download from Adobe Labs. Here is an overview of Lightroom 4 from Mark Galer. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/lightroom-4-beta-overview.html It’s all well and good to use Deke's impeccable masking techniques to meticulously isolate objects—like, say, this week's car—and set them down on new backgrounds. But the fact is, if you don't bring the shadow of your object along for the ride, your subject is never going to look like it really belongs there. That’s why in this week’s free movie Deke shows you how to capture the shadow under an object—like, say, this week’s car—and prepare it for use in any new background. The technique centers around the Calculations command (don’t worry, Photoshop does all the math) and some standard masking clean-up techniques. Check out the difference in these before (plopped down without a shadow) and after (with the shadow intact) images: Don’t leave your transported objects floating out in space, ground them in reality by including their shadows. You can get a free 7-day trial to the lynda.com Online Training Library. A credit card is required to ensure uninterrupted access to lynda.com, if you choose to remain a member after your free trial ends. There is no long-term commitment required, and you can cancel any time. After signing up for the free 7-day trial to the lynda.com Online Training Library you'll gain access to over 60,000 video tutorials instantly. Subscriptions to the lynda.com Online Training Library provide anytime access to tens of thousands of video tutorials covering Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, web design, digital imaging, 3D, digital video, animation, and many other topics. View free video clips. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/make-shadow-photoshop.html I've heard a lot of good things about Pixelmator and right now you can get it at 60% off. The list price is $59.99. The just announced sale price is $19.99. Pixelmator is an easy-to-use, fast and powerful image editing program that has everything you need to enhance, edit and transform your photos. Made for the Mac, Pixelmator takes advantage of built-in iPhoto support and one-click access to iSight. Use layer-based image editing, color management, filters and special effects to quickly achieve impressive imagery. 130+ Filters and Special Effects See results in real-time—choose from standard filters such as blur, sharpen and distort, as well as many unique filters like comic-style halftones, title, kaleidoscope and thermal camera. Layer-Based Image Editing Stack portions of your image on top of one another and quickly create layers from photos, selections and more. You can also blend layers, change layer opacity and add layer masks to hide portions of layers. Add images as layers via drag-and-drop. Color Correction Tools 16+ color correction tools help you make quick corrections to your images with Auto Enhance, Levels and Curves. Adjust hue, saturation, exposure, brightness, contrast and more. Add Text to Your Images Create editable text layers and use the type tool to create your own invitations and logos. Select, Paint and Retouch Tools One-click iSight® support takes your computer and adds it as a layer in Pixelmator. Access your iPhoto® Library, events, albums, Smart Albums and Pictures folder with the built-in Photo Browser. Supports Spotlight™, ColorSync®, Quick Look and many other Mac-only technologies, and takes advantage of Core Image and OpenGL®. Built-in Automator actions let your quickly enhance, resize and transform images with batch processing. Supports Popular File Formats Export to 100+ file formats including PSD, JPEG, TIFF, PNG, GIF, PICT, BMP and PDF. Also supports Adobe Photoshop files with layers. System Requirements Macintosh:Mac OS X 10.5 or higher, with full support of Snow Leopard; Power Mac G5, iMac G5, or Intel Processor; 512MB RAM or greater (1GB recommended); 1GB hard disk space; Core Image supported graphics card recommended; Some features require iLife (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/pixelmator-discount-special.html From Bittbox: These five hi-res wood textures come from looking down at a tree stump. The line detail in these is really interesting. Each texture is 4500×3000 (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/free-textures-tree-stumps.html If you want to see what's new in the just released Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 beta for Windows and Mac, have a look at the Lightroom 4 Beta Video Page at Adobe TV. Here are the videos that have been posted so far: INTRODUCTION TO LIGHTROOM 4 BETA - 00:01:44 Julieanne Kost discusses what will be covered in the LR4 Beta videos. DEVELOP MODULE ADVANCEMENTS - 00:11:51 This episode covers some of Lightroom 4 Beta’s new features in the Develop Module and Basic Panel including major improvements to image processing. SOFT PROOFING AND DNG ENHANCEMENTS - 00:13:29 Learn some of the great ways the new Lightroom 4 beta allows you to soft proof your images. Also in this episode, Julieanne covers improvements to the way Lightroom handles the Digital Negative Format. WORKING WITH DSLR VIDEO - 00:08:40 Learn how the new Lightroom 4 Beta will work with and share video clips . MAPPING YOUR PHOTOS - 00:04:49 Discover how the new Lightroom 4 beta allows you to sort and manage your images based on where they pictures were originally taken the new map Module makes it possible. BOOK MODULE BASICS - 00:14:22 In this first of 3 videos, Julieanne Kost gives an overview of the new Book Module in the new Lightroom 4 Beta which allows you to layout and print book from Lightroom. MODIFYING BOOK LAYOUTS - 00:12:55 This episode shows you how you can customize your book layout in the new Lightroom 4 Beta. ADVANCED BOOK FEATURES - 00:10:13 This episode covers more features of the Book Module in the Lightroom 4 beta including different ways to work with captions and templates. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/lightroom-4-videos.html Adobe has announced Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 beta for Windows and Mac. Available as a free public download from Adobe Labs, Lightroom is the essential digital photography workflow solution helping amateur and professional photographers quickly import, manage, enhance and showcase their images. Lightroom 4 beta is a preview of new features and capabilities that will be offered in the final release of Lightroom 4, expected in early 2012. The beta features refined technology for superior shadow and highlight processing, expanded management capabilities including enhanced DSLR video support and the ability to create beautiful photo books from within Lightroom. Adobe encourages photographers to try the beta release and provide feedback to the product team. Lightroom 4 beta is a major software update adding a broad range of new capabilities based on feedback provided by the photography community. All new basic tonal adjustment controls extract the entire dynamic range from cameras for stunning shadow details and highlights. The software features additional local adjustment controls, including Noise Reduction, Moire and White Balance. New native video support gives photographers the capability to play, trim and extract frames from video clips shot on DSLRs, point-and-shoot cameras and smartphones. Many standard Lightroom image adjustment controls can also be applied to video clips and adjusted videos can be exported as a H.264 file or published directly to Facebook or Flickr. Lightroom 4 beta provides photographers the tools to create impressive photo books with rich text controls and a variety of easy-to-use templates, as well as a direct link for photo book creation from within the new Book module. Also, a new intuitive Map module displays images already assigned a location, provides location tagging controls and saved locations for effortless assignment of a photographer’s common locations. In the Develop module, the addition of soft proofing helps photographers tune images in a destination color space to ensure prints and Web content look their best. In addition, customers can now email images directly from Lightroom using an email account of their choice including Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 beta is available immediately as a free download on both Windows and Mac at labs.adobe.com/downloads. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/photoshop-lightroom-4.html You can read a good tutorial for selecting hair in Photoshop - Photoshop Compositing Secrets: Extracting Hair - from a new book, Photoshop Compositing Secrets. Here is the intro: If you've ever worked on compositing multiple graphical elements into one glorious image, you know how maddening it can be trying to make hair look as natural with a new background as it did in its original location. Matt Kloskowski, author of Photoshop Compositing Secrets, shares some great tricks he uses to get even the wispiest of baby-fine hair to cooperate in Photoshop (no matter how badly it behaves in real life). If you want to get into Photoshop compositing, one of the first features you'll have to conquer is selections. If you've ever tried selecting people (especially people with wispy hair) from one background and placing them onto another background, you know that it can be a huge pain in the neck. But by using the Refine Edge feature and a few other tricks in Photoshop CS5, you'll start your composites out right—with a good selection. After that, making them fit into another background becomes a lot easier. Read the full tutorial - Photoshop Compositing Secrets: Extracting Hair. You might also want to try this amazing tutorial on extracting hair from Photoshop pro Mark Galer: One of the most challenging montage or masking jobs in the profession of post-production editing is the hair lift. When the model has long flowing hair and the subject needs to change location many post-production artists call in sick. Get it wrong and, just like a bad wig, it shows. Extract filters, Magic Erasers and Tragic Extractors don’t even get us close. Read the full tutorial on extracting hair from Photoshop pro Mark Galer. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/extract-hair-selection-tutorial.html From Bittbox, 7 soft grunge brushes: These brushes will make a valuable addition to your library and will come in handy for adding that extra surfacing and personality that your design’s require. Each brush is 2500×2000. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/7-free-soft-grunge-brushes.html Here's a good tutorial from Photoshop Daily: There are many ways to hoick up the colour in your images but one of the easiest methods is using the Sponge tool. Found in the toolbar, co-habiting with the Dodge and Burn tools, it enables you to increase or decrease the saturation of an image. The benefit of using the Sponge tool is that you literally brush the edit on. This gives you great control and is brilliant for images with lots of little areas that need some saturation help here and there, but which don’t warrant a full-on Hue/Saturation command. Read more... (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/how-to-increase-saturation.html From Bittbox, 5 free concrete wall textures: These are mostly smooth, with some nice nooks and crannies. If you’re looking to add some subtle surfacing to your work, these would do the trick nicely. Each texture is 4500×3000. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/5-free-concrete-wall-textures.html From the GuideGuide site: Dealing with grids in Photoshop is a pain, with GuideGuide, it doesn't have to be. Pixel accurate columns, rows, midpoints, and baselines can be created based on your document or marquee with the click of a button. Frequently used guide sets can be saved for repeat use. Grids can use multiple types of measurements. Best of all it's free. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/guide-grids-free-app.html In this week’s free video, Deke uses Photoshop to remove people from a wedding photo. Now that may sound harsh, but sometimes you just want to pretend that the camera captured just the happy couple, and not the whole crowd. (OK, some of you may want to remove people from your life altogether, but that’s beyond the power of Photoshop.) (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/remove-people-photos.html From Bittbox, 7 free scratchy grunge brushes: These brushes come from an interesting source, microscopic photos of some hand-scratched 35mm film. Then I grunged them up a bit in Photoshop. Each one is 2500×1800. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/12/01/7-free-scratchy-grunge-brushes.html Our friends at Topaz Labs are offering readers of PhotoshopSupport.com a 4-day special — you can get 30% off towards the Topaz Plugins Bundle, making it $209.99, which will save you $90. All you have to do is use our special coupon code — YearEndSavings. Follow this link to the Topaz site and then enter the code YearEndSavings during checkout. This is a good deal to take advantage of. The Topaz Photoshop plug-in bundle features a set of advanced and powerful tools, each offering a solution to some of the most common (and often challenging) post processing tasks. The intuitive, easy-to-use tools featured in each program make achieving advanced photo-manipulation techniques effortless. The bundle lineup offers tools and features for creating pseudo HDR effects, adjusting color, exposure and detail, reducing noise and JPEG artifacts, masking and extraction, increasing smoothing and sharpening, creating artistic masterpieces and enhancing natural detail and tone. You can also use Topaz in Photoshop Elements, Lightroom, Aperture, iPhoto, PaintShop Pro, Serif PhotoPlus and Irfanview. NOTE: This offer will end January 1, 2012. Also, this offer cannot be applied to previous purchases or extended past the deadline. (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com) http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-blog/11/12/topaz-plugins-bundle-deal.html