Zardon

Read the guide here
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Imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning to find 30 or 40 emails in my inbox asking for another photoshop tutorial. I will admit to being pretty sick looking at hardware this week, so I found time tonight to write up a guide covering a tool that many of you won't be using when you fire up Photoshop. It is a shame too, as it is probably my favourite tool of them all.

What am I ranting about? click the link to find out.

pr0digal jenius

excellent review Z

the bzier is by far the tool I suck at the most

I'll practice up with this...thanks

Falstaff

I really really suck at this......
sigh...
what next....masking?
I knew I should have paid attention in class....
stupid beer company!!!

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Chaos

I can see how this will be handy but somewhat frustrating also for a beginner like myself. I know you dont like the lasso tool but the magnetic lasso with tolerance level adjusted to suite the need seems easier but probably not near as accurate

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Sandok

Nice tut Zardon... That's a tough tool to use (imho) and I don't have much experience with it but I'll have to try it on that fake boobie lady

Chaos

after toying with the path tool I can see how valuable it could be but it's gonna take some getting used to

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mantra

GREAT! AWESOME job
I would love to see a tutorial
how make a blend smooth without using the gradient tool , maybe with the paint brush

thanks for your job

Zardon

Can I ask why you would want to do that with the paint brush, is there something specific in mind you need? im a little confused, thanks.

zachig

Thanks a lot for the Photoshop guide, Zardon!!!

I found it VERY useful, as I'm just doing nowadays my "first steps" in PS...

cbeasley0

One of the hardest skills to master in Photoshop and Illustrator for beginners is the path tool. If you understand the basis of a tangent line, it might help a bit, but widely when I've taught people how to use it, or when I was taught how to use it, absolutely everyone had issues. It's really one of those things you just get better at with practice.

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lepel

I think I see what you mean.

There are as far as I know, two ways to do it: the good and bad way. The ad one basically involves using the eraser and thus 'destroys' your image; making changes to it afterwards will not be as easy as with the 'good way'. I'll explain the best I can:

The bad way
So you have the two images you want to blend on two separate layers. Select the eraser tool. Then choose the brushsize you need, and next to that you'll have to set hardness (a slider option close to the one for rush size) to a low percentage, e.g. 0% to whatever hardness percantage you need. Then start painting over the layer with the eraser. You can set the opacity of your layer to a lower percentage to see what part of the underlying layer you wish to uncover and avoid what parts you certainly don't want to see. Alternatively you can tap the hide layer-button to do the same. This method is a bit the newbie way of doing it, but it worked for me until I discovered the better method.

The good way
Again you have your two images. Select the one on the second layer in the layers palette (the layer that is in front of the other image). And then, you'll have to apply a mask. I'm sure there are mutiple ways of doing this in PS, but the quickest is just hitting the quick mask button in the lower left corner of your layers palette. The button looks like a cirle in a rectangle. Anyway you'll find it between the other buttons like create a new layer, delete layer etc. Once you've hit that button, you'll see that the selected layer gets a little white rectangle in your layers palette. Make sure to select it, but normally it should be selected automatically. Then you select your brush tool, and just like with the eraser you put hardness to a low number. Then pick the color black if it isn't, and start painting over your image. You'll have the same effect as with the eraser. But his time, you'll be able to counteract the changes you made, by selecting white as a color and paint over the parts of the image you want to be restored.

I'm not sure if there are many other ways to do what you want. If you guys have other (better) methods for it, or comments on my techniques, let me know.

Zardon

I feel a little guilty I have never followed my first few guides with other updates. Time is so pressing it is hard to fit them in. I get asked often for more, I will see if I can do anything over the coming month to help.