Photoshop Tutorials

Interlacing the stellar techniques of Photoshop can be extremely exciting. This article will examine a simple exercise that will help you learn how to weave different techniques into you images. You are going to learn to create a set of Olympic rings. This may seem a little off the cuff, but by performing this particular exercise you will be exploring the realm of layer interlacing.

Weaving layer content will make layers appear as if they are both in front of and behind another layer. Think of the Olympic rings. They look like they are linked, but they also look like they are passing through one another. To create such an effect, you will want to begin with a new blank image. Next, you will want to add a new layer and select the Elliptical Marquee tool from the Toolbox. Compress the shift key and drag a circle from the upper left corner of the image. If you like, you can give each layer a name. Then you can move on to choose the color of the first rings. Go to the menu and select “Edit>Stroke”. Decide on a good width and choose inside, leaving the blending mode on Normal with 100% opacity.

After that is done, click the New Layer button to add another layer. While the selection tool is still up, compress shift and grad the active selection to the top center of your image. Choose black as your foreground color and select Edit-Stroke and add another layer. Continue with the shift-drag selection until you have all of the Olympic rings created. Once you have your Olympic rings created, it is time to connect them. If you are familiar with the Olympic rings, you know that the yellow rings are at the front of the bottom of the blue ring. However, the yellow ring is also behind the blue ring to the right. What if the yellow ring is above the blue ring on a layer? The yellow ring will look like it is in front of the blue ring. To adjust this, you can erase a portion of the yellow ring.

Erasing is easy enough. Begin with a selection. The yellow ring’s layer is the one you want to erase. Leave the yellow ring’s layer active and Control-click on the thumbnail to select the blue layer. Next you need to take wither a brush or the Eraser Block option and erase a tiny portion of the yellow ring that sits on the blue ring. Keep the yellow ring’s layer active and Control-click on the layer with the black ring. Another selection will show up and we will be able to erase the tiny portion of the yellow ring that is over the black ring. Control-click on the red ring layer while the green layer is still active. This allows you to make one last link.

Manipulating images in Photoshop is one of the main reasons why the software is so popular. If you have Photoshop CS2, you can weave multiple images into your creative projects. You will be able to place text on paths and shapes, manipulate image correction, use filters and import and edit digital photos. To manipulate images in Photoshop, you will need to scan your image and save it as a TIFF file. Rotate the image to the right orientation in Photoshop. Take out all non-image areas along the edges to crop it.

Now, go to the image levels and change the white, black and mid points. You will want to use neutral color mid tones and change the image curve as needed. To get the mid tones to your liking and remove shadow, use the color balance dialogue. Save your image and channel mix black and white. Fix any spots and scratches and change the lit depth images. Save your images as a PSD file and flatten it. You’ve just manipulated an image in Photoshop.

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