Ever needed to draw the perfect arrow in Photoshop or Elements? There is a great hidden feature to the line tool that makes it easy!

The Photoshop CS6 beta is now available. It includes a ton of big and small improvements over previous versions. Here are the ones that matter to me, as an interface designer.

Welcome on Brush King : Free Photoshop Brushes

On iOS and almost every other operating system, user interfaces tend to use gradients to give a sense of contour to interface elements. The trouble is, gradients alone can look artificial due to their unrealistically perfect visual smoothness. In the real world, almost nothing is completely flat and smooth - and that’s a good thing, because we rely on friction for grip.

We can add a touch of realism to our interface designs by combining gradients with subtle textures. My own favourite type of texture is noise, which gives an understated but effective sense of tactility. I used noise for texture extensively in my UI design for the Favorites 2 iPhone app.

This brief article explains one possible way to combine gradients with subtle noise in Photoshop (as with any effect, there are many other approaches to achieving the same thing; this is just how I usually do it). I used Photoshop CS5, and this tutorial should be suitable for Photoshop beginners. It’s aimed primarily at app developers, rather than experienced designers.

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Skin needs to be retouched. Even beautiful skin with great makeup. The problem with most of the Photoshop techniques I’ve experimented with over the years (burning & dodging individual pores, Surface Blur filter, Dust and Scratches filter, etc.) is they take too long, aren’t very convincing, or - worst of all - make the subject look like a victim of plastic surgery gone bad.

In this article I’m going to show you a combination of techniques I regularly use that results in beautiful, smooth skin that still looks totally real. Best of all, it won’t take all day to accomplish. From start to finish, an experienced Photoshop user should be able to do this in about 15 minutes.

Our workflow follows three basic stages.

1. Manually retouch big flaws and wrinkles via a separate retouching layer

2. Merge the retouching edits into the image layer

3. Use the Red channel of the merged layer to smooth the skin

Before we get started I want you to beware of and avoid what I call Photographer’s Tunnel Vision - that compulsive desire to do the fun stuff first. Making things perfect comes at the end, not the beginning, of the retouching process. Keep your eye on the big picture (no pun intended).

The first tools we'll be reaching for are the Clone Stamp Tool and Spot Healing Brush. With these we can retouch major blemishes, flyaway hairs, and any other texture/color irregularities.

In this roundup we have a huge and useful collection of grunge photoshop brushes. If you like these brushes you might also want to check out our previous posts below.

1: Which Comes First, the Background or the Subject?
I get asked this one all the time. Unfortunately, it’s not a definite answer one way or the other. For me, I’d say that 75% of the time the subject usually comes first. Give me someone interesting to photograph, and I’ll find a fitting background for them. Most of the time, I don’t even know what that background is before I photograph the person. The other 25% of the time, I’ll have a background specifically in mind before the photo shoot. I’ll photograph the person in a way that I know will work for the background. Some times, I’ll even try a quick composite in Photoshop while they’re still in the studio.

En fin samling tips kring digital bildbehandling och fotografering. Mycket matnyttigt att läsa.

En mycket bra samling "tutorials" kring digital fotografering och bildbehandling. T.ex. hur man använder nivåer och kurvor i Photoshop, men även grundläggande om färglära, vitbalans och mycket annat.

En enkel guide till hur man gör boxar i Photoshop.

Djur och händelser jag hittills missat totalt i naturen.

Ett tips om en pensel till Photoshop som ger "instant worn look", dvs slitet utseende på kanterna.