A recent discussion on ASMP's email list touched on creating realistic shadows so I thought I'd post a quick tip here describing one of my favorite ways of creating realistic shadows when creating composited images in Photoshop.The most important things to remember about creating shadows are: 1) Proper shadows tend to be subjective - imagining what the perfect shadow looks like will drive you nuts.

A recent post to the APA Digital email list brought up an important topic I thought would be good to discuss here. When Adobe bundled their programs in the Creative Suite the idea was to make life easier for users. As all the programs now work together seamlessly the process of creating placing them in layouts and then printing those layouts should be easier than ever.And with a thought to making Color

Illustrators often will draw out perspective lines when beginning a complex illustration to help them keep everything looking just right.The old way involves defining the vanishing point and then drawing a series of lines all intersecting and passing through that vanishing point. While effective this could be somewhat of a time consuming process.Then while working with one of my students I recently

Of all the skills needed in doing High End Retouching, (or "Finishing" as they call it in the movie poster biz), masking is among the most basic and essential. When combining several images together a mask is used to determine what parts of the image are kept and which are not seen so the quality of your mask will have a big effect on the final image.Think of it this way if you were going to add this

Just the other day a client was having problems converting a PDF file to a JPEG. After seeing the results she was getting and helping her solve the problem I thought this could be a good topic for a blog post/tip. PDF files have many strengths, and can be amazingly flexible. Several years ago I discovered two of my favorite uses for these files while working on various projects that had certain challenges.

Back in September I wrote a post about naming layers and how that can help you keep things clear while you work, (see "Keepin' it Simple with Layers"). While working on a recent project with Richard Radstone there was one particular image that was a great example of just how helpful this can be. In this image the client wanted the sugar cane stalks to be topped with cotton candy making for sort of

Whew! It's been awhile since my last post, things have been busy the last couple of months as I worked on a long project with Richard Radstone (http://richardradstone.com/). As soon as we get the OK from the client I'll post some new technique ideas that came to me while working on that job.But this week I've been working on some PR images for a client and while these images are all pretty simple their

Jeff Witchell writes a series of quick tips for Adobe's Layers magazine. While these tips are aimed at users of Adobe Illustrator and InDesign occasionally there is something really useful for Photoshop users as well.The tip I've copied here comes from today's newsletter and reminded me of my days as a Production Manager when we had to make sure everything was as bullet proof as possible.Here's Jeff's

Here's a quick tip that make a big difference when working in Photoshop: Name Your Layers.Ok, this sounds really simple, but it also really can make a BIG difference as you work. Ever since Photoshop added Layers it's gotten harder and harder to keep track of what you're doing and even more so what you've done.What I'm talking about here is situations where you look at your layers palette and see lots

Dustin’ & Bustin’Every once in a while we come across an image that seems like it’s been through a dust storm. Lots and lots of little specks that all need to be eliminated, one by one by one by… well you get the idea.Here’s a section of an image that suffers from this very problem. Notice all the whitish specks that cover the face of this watch? While we can wonder how

Maybe this comes under the “Pet Peeve” heading, but as a retoucher I see a lot of Photoshop files with lots of layers that have names like “Layer 1” or “Layer 2” etc. While I know this is Photoshop’s default naming system what happens is pretty quickly you need some sort of guide to tell what layer is doing what, a sure-fire formula for confusion!So the suggestion I want to make here

Black and White imagery has had a long tradition in the world of photography. And in this digital age Photoshop goes a long way to honor that tradition giving us many different ways to convert our Color images to Black and White with more control and finesse than ever before.What I’d like to talk about here is how to make use of some of that control to easily get results that couldn’t be achieved