Archive for December 2011
Photoshop – The Best Photo Editing Software
Adobe Photoshop might actually be one of the best photo-editing software out there. It virtually covers all necessary features any digital artist would need to make great images. It also helps photographers improve the quality of their work taken by their cameras, so that they could either post them online or print out enhanced copies of your photographs, may they be wedding photography or children photography.
There is generally no hard and fast rule in learning how to use Photoshop, especially if you are one who is not accustomed to such kind of software. Although it is the best photo-editing software available, learning how to use this particular software is not only very dynamic but can be fun as well.
Explore. The #1 rule in trying to learn Adobe Photoshop is to engage freely in hands-on experience with the software. No amount of instructional books you read can ever amount to a few hours of playing with the software even if you don’t exactly know how. Try to play with any random image just to be familiar with what each of the basic features do and to what extent are such features capable of. The main reason why this is the #1 rule is that it is fun to do, especially if you’ve got lots of pictures at hand. Just don’t go around saving your work over the original images, you might not want to end up wrecking your image archives.
Search and learn. When you learn a bit about the basics, there are certain things that Photoshop is capable of that you might not know about yet, and the only way to discover what these things are is to find them on the internet or hear them from Photoshop experts. One of these would be “cloning” or “image layering”. These are things that can be done through Photoshop but usually require more than basic steps or usually require the combination of various basic features of the software. The best way to know how these things are done is to read about them or find them on the internet. There are lots of YouTube entries that demonstrate how some techniques are done in Photoshop, and they are all free for your consumption. You don’t have to pay for expert classes anymore because more often than not it’s the people who have more experience that matters.
Also, never forget that in order for you to be able to easily use Photoshop, you have to at least know the basic computer functions. Even the best photo-editing software cannot teach you how to use your computer better. Since Adobe software is Microsoft compatible, knowledge of the basic commands such as cut and paste or determining file sizes will definitely be applicable to your photo-editing activities.
Soon enough you will be producing much better output in your home photography business. Enjoy!
Resize an Image Using Photoshop
Photoshop is a wonderful tool for graphic design, web development and any other form of digital media creation. In this article, we discuss resizing an image using the program.
Photoshop has many uses and is a very powerful program with many different capabilities and functions. Photoshop can have a high learning curve and may be a little overwhelming at first because of all the different tools and options available to use, but I am sure you thought the same thing about learning to read. Now look at you, you are a pro.
As with any thing in life practice is the key to becoming better at things you don’t know or think are too difficult. Try not to become intimidated and don’t be afraid to try new things and experiment. Someone famous once said that learning from failure is the key to success.
While Photoshop may be a lot more program than you need to resize an image, it is an important function to learn because it is a common technique in digital media development. Why would you want to resize an image in the first place? There are numerous reasons, but the most common is to make photos fit on web pages or print material.
Ok, as for the actual steps involved in resizing an image here they are:
1. Open Adobe Photoshop and the photo you wish to resize.
2. Once you have your photo open navigate your mouse to the tool bar that runs along the top of the screen and click on “Image”.
3. Once you click on “Image” from the tool bar, a drop down menu will appear. Select “Image Size” from the drop down menu. A window should popup with the images properties.
4. Initially, for our intents and purposes we only want to pay attention to “Pixel Dimensions” in the popup window. You will see that you can control the width and height values of the image in the popup window. You should also see a drop down menu for selecting “pixels” or “percent”. Make sure pixels is the unit selected in both the width and height fields. Pixels are tiny dots of color that make up the photo. If you ever look at printed material under a magnifying glass you will notice that the image is made up of tiny dots of color. These tiny dots of color are analogous to what pixels are in a digital image.
5. Okay. Let’s pretend that the image you opened up at the start of this tutorial is very large, something like 2000 pixels wide by 1500 pixels in height and we want to resize the image to fit on a web page. Most web pages are somewhere around 800 pixels wide by some arbitrary height. The reason height is arbitrary is because it is determined by how much content appears on the page. Let’s say that we want the image to take up about half the width of the web page. To accomplish this we would change the pixel width value from 2000 to 400 pixels (which is half of 800 pixels, the width of the web page). Make sure that the “Constrain Proportions” option is checked so that the ratio between width and height is preserved and the image does not become distorted.
6. Click “OK” and save the newly resized version of your image. YOU’RE DONE!
You just resized your first photo using Photoshop and are now 100 times more advanced. Congratulations you are on your way to becoming a Photoshop master.
Do You Want an Easy WordPress Photo Gallery?
WordPress is a popular and easy to use blog format. It allows anyone to build a website without learning HTML or other programming. Many people want to add photo galleries to their website which can now be done easily by adding a WordPress plugin. While there are many galleries available this is about the very easy to use NextGen Gallery.
Why use the NextGen Gallery?
Many of the other photo gallery plugins require additional plugins to do what NextGen does. It has a Flash slide show option. The photographs appear with a shadow to cover the site and make the photos show better. It also has an AJAX thumbnail generator which means the images appear faster without taking up more of your server.
How do I use this WordPress Photo Gallery?
Installation is easy when you use the add new plugin feature on WordPress. Set up is also easy. Once you have NextGen installed you will have a new box appear on the dashboard called Gallery. Note the icon looks somewhat like a scrapbook with a couple of photographs in front of it. This is where you can create galleries and add images to your WordPress site and WordPress Photo gallery.
Can I create galleries and add photographs easily?
You will notice there are many sub-categories within the gallery box. Click Add Gallery/ Images to create galleries and add images. The first thing you will want to do is to add a new gallery. After that you have several options to add images.
How do I add images?
You can upload an entire Zip-File to get a whole set of images quickly. Import image file enables you to connect to an image file you already have on your server. Upload image enables you to upload directly from your computer once you find the file choose your gallery and click the upload images.
What else can I do with the images and galleries?
With the other functions you can manage your galleries, moving photographs from one gallery to another. You can click on the image to change the meta tags on each image individually. You can also add titles and descriptions which helps search engines find your photographs which helps bring traffic back to your website.
How do I add galleries or pictures to my posts?
Hopefully you have TinyMCE. This is a plugin that makes your WordPress text editor work easier and add more functions. If you have TinyMCE you will notice a button that adds this WordPress Photo Gallery easily. You can choose to add a whole gallery or just an image. Adding photographs and galleries will be easy and look great on your website.