Photoshop Resources

There are a few ways to make money online with Photoshop, but it is only with tutorials that I have noticed that the money is almost guaranteed. In the following article, I will explain how I generate quite a lot of money every month by creating Photoshop tutorials. Of course I make it just because I love photoshop and want to share my knowledge, but it can be a potential passive income channel if you are a webmaster.

The greatest thing about this method is that the income is recurring and will slow down but won’t stop for many months after you put in the work and effort. People will keep linking to you, recommending your website to others and more and more databases will pull your tutorial back to the surface once they notice it. You can just relax, sit back and see the income flowing in. Here is a step-by-step overview of the process.

1. Buy a domain name.
Whatever it is, just be sure to work the term “tutorials” into the domain name and avoid the term “Photoshop” to make sure you won’t run into any copyright issues later and have your domain taken away from you. Many hosts give a free domain with each annual sign u: Dreamhost.com,  HostGator.com and others.. Just check the web for good deals, or any of the hosting comparison websites to make sure you won’t pay much, at least not at first.

2. Create a website to showcase your tutorials.
One of the easiest methods is to download WordPress and set it up with a nice template for showing the new tutorials you create.

3. Create a few tutorials for Photoshop. (doh..)
The tutorial does not have to be super fancy; however, the better and more sophisticated the tutorial, the more traffic you will get. Be sure to also include screen captures to help explain the tutorials for every step. You can see some examples of my tutorials, and traffic they generate, good tutorials receive over 10,000 hits in half a year, and this is just ONE tutorial submitted to ONE tutorials database site!

4. Add Adverts.

This is the most important step, be sure you didn’t skip it. Add your Adsense code inside the body of your tutorial or at the end.
If you are not an Adsense member, then sign up and become one, because this technique works best with Adsense. You can also try this with Affiliates (on PSwish.com I am promoting Lunar Pages — they give a lot of bonuses so it’s easy to make people sign up as well as Text Link Ads, you register free and sell ads, very easy to refer people since they don’t need to pay!), although I have noticed that overall, I have made more income from Adsense than from direct sales so far on this blog. Another alternative would be so sign up to a banner sales website that measures hits, such as BuySellAds.com, which I recently discovered to be very profitable, and having a massive flow of hits can bring you a few good sales.

5. Upload and submit your tutorial.
After creating your tutorial, upload it in WordPress to your website. Get the URL for the tutorial and then submit it to the tutorial submission websites. You can find a fantastic post by toptut.com with a few dozens of high traffic Photoshop Tutorials websites.

After you have done the above 5 steps, just wait for your tutorials to get accepted by the tutorial submission sites. Once they get accepted, your tutorial URL will be featured on their sites as a direct link. You will then begin to get clicks on the Adsense ads. Even with a click-through-rate of about 1% you will still see the revenue flowing in. You may even be shocked to see how much traffic these tutorial submission sites will generate for you!

Good luck!

M

1. Restoring Old Photographs. Have a look through that old family photo album – the really old one from up in Grandma’s attic. Inside there are probably a few photos from way back when that haven’t stood the test of time so well. They’ve got cracks and tears that really spoil their appearance. Scan them into Photoshop, and then set to work with the Clone Stamp, Healing Brush, and Patch tools. The Healing Brush in particular is a great tool for this purpose as it samples data from one part of the picture and blends it in with what’s already there.

2. Correcting Mistakes. We’ve all done it: Had an attack of “finger over the lens syndrome,” or got too close with the flash, so our subjects suffer from “red eye” and look like extras from a horror movie. Use the crop tool to salvage something usable from your obscured photo, and the enlarge wizard to blow it up to a reasonable size. For “red eye” and “pet eye,” use the eyedropper tool to sample color from around the iris, and a brush to paint away the red.  See also my “Pure Glamor” tutorial.

3. Adding Graphics to Videos. It’s a little known fact, but many domestic and professional nonlinear editing systems (especially the Mac based ones like Avid or Final Cut) enable you to import Photoshop .psd files directly into the timeline.

4. Creating Text Effects for Print and Web. There’s an almost unlimited amount of things you can do with text in Photoshop. Use the Type Mask Tools to create picture filled text, then upload the results to your web page – or print them out for a one of a kind T-shirt.

5. Turning a Photo Into a Work of Art. Everyone likes to have nice things to look at. Most of us like to have pictures on the wall, and something that looks different from what other people have on their walls is a definite plus. Unless you’re blessed with artistic talent, though, this can be very expensive – until now. Use one of Photoshop’s many Artistic or Brush Stroke filters to turn your photos into “new masters,” then print them out on quality art paper. You can see some of my fantasy art tutorials for further reference: “Sleeping Sun“, “Renaissance Canvas“, “Glowing Monsters eyes“, “Mysterious Moonlit“.

6. Designing Web Banners and Buttons. Photoshop comes with a predefined web banner sized canvas. Photoshop’s sister application, Image Ready, comes with several – and lots of tools for animating text and pictures. You can also create interactive buttons that enhance a web browsing experience.

7. Adding Text to Photographs. Impress your boss by putting the company name on the side of an airliner, building, or racing car. Use the Move Tool to skew the text to fit the contours of the picture, adjust the opacity a little, and hey presto! The text will look like it’s always been part of the photo.

8. Combining Pictures, Text, and Graphics to Make Covers for Books, Reports and CDs. Photoshop contains many of the image manipulation capabilities of high-end DTP applications that cost thousands. Use the “Layer via Cut” command to make your title text go behind part of the picture – just like on the cover of “Rolling Stone.”

9. Designing Web Pages. Did you know that Photoshop and Image Ready can turn your photograph or artwork into a web page? Use the slice tool to cut your work into easily downloadable pieces, then the rollover function to embed website URLs.

10. Combining Pictures to Make the Impossible Possible. Come on! You didn’t seriously think that Michael Moore and President George W. Bush really stood hand in hand on the White House lawn for the Fahrenheit 9/11 poster, did you? I don’t know for certain that they used Photoshop to fake that picture, but they certainly could have done. With Photoshop you can remove the background from one picture, take some elements from another, and combine them with the background from a third to create a picture that could never have been taken for real. Who says the camera can’t lie!

Author: Shaun Pearce

The Photoshop program is the leading product of the Adobe Systems Incorporated. Adobe specializes in digital imaging software. In its recent incarnations, the Photoshop application has been merged with other Adobe programs under the Creative Suite enterprise. The most recent version of the Adobe Photoshop is CS3, meaning that it is the third version of Photoshop since it was included in the Creative Suite umbrella of software.

Like most digital imaging applications, Photoshop has several plug-ins/add-ons or additional tools that can be used in creating and editing digital images. Aside from the standard cut, paste, select, draw and color fill tools; additional options and effects can be loaded as well. Once the add-ons and plug-ins are added, they can be used to enhance the creations that can be made using the programs.

Several software programmers and designers have also taken the time and effort to build on the existing Photoshop program to enhance its capabilities. These downloadable plug-ins and add-ons are often available for free from a number of online sources. What’s important is to make sure the program being downloaded as a Photoshop add-on is compatible with the Photoshop program version you already have installed as well as the safety and security of the file.

Most Photoshop add-ons focus on certain functionalities such as layer styles, actions, scripts, brushes, patterns, gradients, frames, textures and displacement maps. These are made to add to Photoshop’s existing library of tools.

One example of a widely available Photoshop download is Harry’s Filters which is a free downloadable add-in that was created by Harald Heim. The latest released version of the application is version 3.01. What the application does is it allows users to create effects for images by using its own menu box separately from Photoshop. The program has 69 filters available and ready for use once it is downloaded to accompany the Adobe Photoshop. The Harry’s Filters program can then be used to create several image effects, particularly some very realistic ones.

Another useful tool to add to Photoshop would be one that removes the red-eye effect in pictures. The red-eye effect happens when light is reflected by a subject’s eye as a photo is being taken. It is one of the most common things that happen when you are taking a picture of a person in the relative darkness.

The program to remove the red-eye effect is called RedEye Pro developed by Andromeda Software. The plug-in removes the redness of the eyes while retaining the original eye color and the shiny and reflective surface of a typical eye. It does the adjustment without making it look as if the eye has been retouched. The RedEye Pro application also works on eyes that are not perfectly circular such as animal eyes. It is available for free download from selected sources.

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ou probably often heard about pixelated images and how ugly they look. Even this Awards Program will take a lot of points from your score if your graphics have a “jigsaw-like” edges. In order to understand how to avoid this rather unappealing look, we should first understand what causes the pixelation.

- The most commonly spread mistake is taking a graphic and enlarging it, assuming the quality will not get damaged. Depending on the software you use and the new size, the smooth edge will always get destroyed. In fact, from my experience I can say that the only way to resize and keep the smooth edge is only when you decrease the image’s size and only if you do it in PhotoShop. Other softwares, especially if you do not work in 16 RGB mode, tend to break the pixels’ structure.

- Another reason for low quality graphics could be: saving the image in .gif format, and not in .jpg. The .gif format supports 256 colours, while RGB saved as .jpg supports a wide palette of colors, with up to 16,000 hues. Therefore, if your image is rich colors, it is not recommended to save it in the .gif format.

- Third reason for causing rough images could be if you do not work with high quality photos, images or brushes in the first place. Taking a low resolution photo, especially if you are enlarging it to higher then 100% dimension, or low quality font / brush will

- But… what if you worked with 16 or 24 bit colour, save it in the .jpg format, opened it and it still has an gauche edges… This could be a result of two things. First, if you do not use some cut-edge technology software, or second — if you use PhotoPhop or Paint Shop Pro, perhaps your saving settings are on “low” quality (“5″ or less).

There could be more reasons for the distortion of the image, such as: saving the image on a “transparent” background, painting the background after the icon or image was placed on the layer, or even unsuccessful change of colours using the “magic wand” for painting a particular area.

To sum it all, I would suggest working on a colored background (if you know what color your site’s background is going to be) and not on a transperant layer. Also, don’t work with low quality images you got hold of, make either your own from the very beginning, or look for other higher quality material. The .gif format allows you to make the graphic 3 times smaller by means of weight and loading time, however, if it comes a the cost of visual quality, better decrease your graphic’s size and keep it a small, high quality .jpg image, rather then a big pixelated .gif.

So you’ve gotten your brand new digital camera, and you’re ready to get out and take some pictures. But what’s the next step? Well, getting some form of Adobe® Photoshop (preferably Elements 3, or CS2) is a great step in the right direction.

The Photoshop Tutorial will help you to understand what the program is capable of, and how you can utilize its tools to their full capacity. What may not be answered, though, is which format it uses and saves in, and what advantages and disadvantages there are to the different file formats.

Photoshop has the ability to open and save several different types of files, but more importantly, you should be aware of why these types of files exist and how to use them to your best advantage. It is vital to know about the different types of files while you learn Photoshop. There are three basic things that concern file format, which will determine how you should save your file: quality of image, layering, and web use.

Quality of the Image:
When you’re taking your photos, you’ll want to use the highest pixel setting possible that your camera provides. For instance, if you have a 5.1 megapixel camera, then you should use that setting to capture your images—the higher the pixilation, the greater the quality. The thing to remember, though, is that the higher the quality, the larger the file. You do have the ability to change the size of the file straight from the camera, and should consult your manual if this is something you’d like to do.
It’s best to take your photos in as a raw image, and then convert to something smaller later, because you’ll have the best ability to manipulate the image when it’s the largest it can be. Once you’ve taken the photo, and imported it onto your computer, it can import as a .jpeg or .jpg, or as a raw image. It’s best to save the raw image, because you’ll lose some of the quality with the .jpg.

Layering:
Once you have the photo in your computer, the photo will usually open using your default program, so you’ll need to open Photoshop and then open the image. You’ll then have the ability to do all of your resizing, layering, and manipulation in the program itself.
If you save the image directly in Photoshop, it will save it as a .psd, .pdd, or .eps file. These formats will keep the file large and preserve all the layers, so keep that in mind when saving. If you’re going to rework the image at a later date, it’s best to save in this mode. If not, then you have some other choices.

The .tif or .tiff was frequently used with early scanners, and will preserve the majority of the quality, but it saves large files and are best used if submitting them to a publisher or a printer.

The .bmp, or a bitmap, is a Windows® file that creates good photos, but still creates a large file.

The .pdf is an Adobe Acrobat® file, and locks images and texts so that they can’t be further manipulated. If you want to create files like these, you’ll probably need to buy the full version of Adobe Acrobat.

Web Use:
feel the noise movie download
The best file formats for Web use would, of course, need to be small file sizes. Many times, though, the compression takes out some of the range of color and the vibrancy of the photo.
Joint Photographic Experts Group – .jpg or .jpeg is probably the most popular Web form, because it compresses the file to a small size, but still allows for the display of millions of colors. Photoshop give you the ability to choose how compressed you want the image to be, and you’ll want to play around with Adobe Image Ready until you’ve found a small file size that doesn’t seem to lose any of the color and subtleties in the photo.
Portable Network Graphics or .png is a recently developed format that’s becoming popular for Web use. It compresses the files differently than .jpg does, but it leaves better quality photos. It has the capability to maintain millions of colors and transparencies, but still keep the file size relatively small. If you’re on a PC, though, bear in mind that Internet Explorer doesn’t support it.
Graphics Interchange format or.gif is the other popular Web form, but it’s not great for photos. It’s better for graphics and illustrations because it loads quickly and has the capacity for animation and transparent color.

This should be a helpful guideline to get you started in the digital photography and manipulation world. Allow yourself the time to explore all the possibilities of current programs and settings on your camera. Learning computer basics in the various photo editing programs can be a lot of hard work. If you want to be able to master everything immediately, you’ll only end up being frustrated.

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o you oftentimes feel confused what to use for your web images– GIFs or JPEGs? And more importantly why? Great. You deserve kudos as confusion leads to comprehension. Here is what you have been looking for all the way! Essentially, they are formats in which web images are created in. Any file with a .jpeg or .gif extension is recognized, by a browser, as an image file. A good web site is partly one that will load quickly into a browser. Agreed? Well, for this to happen, your web page has to be small in file size. The GIF and JPEG file formats compresses images so that it is web worthy.

This is vital for you that you don’t mess around when it comes to decide what to use when. Here’s what you need to know (a subtle reminder and congrats for tech guys who know it)

GIF ( Graphics Interchange Format)

JPEG ( Joint Photographic Experts Group)

• JPEG uses a lossy compression schem. This means that you will, in fact, lose some data during compression. The more you compress, the more quality you lose. You will, therefore, have to strike a right balance between image file size and quality.
• JPEG compression rate can well be controlled . The higher the compression rate, the lower the size of the image. And as you have guessed, eh? The lower the quality.
• JPEG is optimally used for photographic images . The more colors and subtle gradients an image has, the better.
• Browsers take a longer time to display JPEGs.

Demarcating features of JPEG and GIF

One of the worst mistakes (hopefully you won’t make any longer) a web designer can make is to opt the wrong format for a particular type of image. As a thumb rule, for images with few flat colors, choose GIF. Images with lots of colors and gradients, you may go for JPEG.

Simple enough. Here is your turn to appreciate a couple of somewhat tricky tech understanding with regard to JPEG and JIFF’s. Pertaining to JPEG, if the horizontal rows of pixels undergo change frequently without patterns, then a JPEG may allow for a smaller file even if it is having few colors only. For designers if they can save a few kilobytes on each image, it can drastically improve the loading time of image-loaded pages intended for users with slow connections.

Further, though you can have animated GIFs, this is rarely a good idea in terms of design.

There are a few things you can do with GIFs that you can’t do with JPGs. The best way to get the smartest web images and graphics is up to you: technology is at your disposal only to be selectively used for spectacular results. So get going to harness tech understanding! People who work with a Web Design and Development always know these little tricks, now you do also.