Despite our best efforts to take great photos, we can't always control the light in our images. When you end up taking a picture with an uneven exposure, this little trick can fix the problem in just a few seconds.

Creating a grid is typically one of the very first things you do when starting a design comp. After all, it provides the basic structure on which the rest of your design will lie. In this article, we’ll provide two different methods for efficiently establishing a grid. These methods enable you to quickly and smartly form a grid so that you can spend more time designing.

If you have ever photographed a high contrast scene, you know that even the best exposure will typically have blown out highlights and flat shadows. The solution is High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photography processing:
› Take multiple photographs at varying exposure levels
› Merge the photos into an HDR image that reveals highlight and shadow details
› Adjust the settings to get the look you want: from natural-looking with Exposure Fusion to painterly or surreal with Tone Mapping

In this tutorial we will show you how to create a custom stitched text effect for an iPad Wallpaper.

Photoshop users often want to create unique and interesting text effects to take their work to the next level. Photoshop has plenty of potential here, and fortunately there are a lot of great tutorials out there that lead you step-by-step through the process of creating amazing text effects.

I recently did a  google search to see if anyone had “converted” instagram filters to photoshop actions. After not finding any results, I decided to see if I could do it myself. I didn’t get a 100% exact match, but it’s pretty close.

Im starting with “Nashville” then will add more soon. Let me know any feedback. I’ll update this post when I add more. 

Buttons are an extremely common design element that are used by almost every website. Web buttons are critical for usability and navigation, and they can also be used to help direct the action of the user as you encourage them to add a product to a shopping cart, take a tour, get more information, or contact you.

Creating new buttons while keeping the same style can be very simple by using Photoshop’s layer styles. In this post we’ll take a quick look at how you can create your own button layer styles to save yourself some time.

You may have had situations in the past where you found yourself creating multiple buttons for a mockup and adding the same layer styles over and over again. Or you may have wanted to create a new button that matches the style of an existing button, but you can’t remember the details of the layer effects that were used. Both of these situations could be made much easier if the button effects were saved as a layer style that could be re-used at any time.

Layer styles are a preset in Photoshop, like brushes, patterns, and custom shapes. Layer styles can be saved as an .asl file and then can be loaded at any time, or distributed with others working on the project.

Photoshop users can save a lot of time and create beautiful designs by using patterns. Photoshop’s presets (like brushes, styles, patterns, custom shapes, and gradients) are highly-powerful tools when used effectively.

Whether you are creating your own custom patterns or using pre-made patterns that you have downloaded for free or purchased, having an arsenal of patterns at your disposal will allow you to quickly create high-quality work.

Pre-designing cards before you upload to MOO is something we only recommend to design professionals, or those very comfortable with graphics applications. Some technical knowledge is required to use the templates, and to save your work in the best format for print.

Photoshop users can save time during the design process by  making use of layer styles. Whether you are saving your own custom style to be used multiple times throughout your design (such as with a button), or using pre-made styles created by other designers, taking advantage of this feature in Photoshop can greatly speed up your workflow.

In this post we’ll link out to a number of useful Photoshop layer styles that can be downloaded for free. Many of them have been created especially for text, others for buttons, and some are more general. Download the styles and apply them to your layers for instant results.

Photoshop is a wonderful tool that not only lets you create amazing graphics but also automate your work and improve your workflow. With Photoshop Actions, you can perform your repetitive tasks with a simple click that not only saves you time but helps improving your efficiency.
Photoshop actions allow you to record a sequence of commands and operations that you can set aside and can access afterward. They can also perform some extremely complex techniques with just a push of a button.
Here we have compiled a list of 80+ top-quality Photoshop actions to share with you, so you can expedite your design work. Before presenting our hand-picked collection of downloadable Photoshop Actions, however, we would like to offer a short explanation on how to install and create your own Photoshop Actions.

The design of an advertisement can have a huge impact on the level of success of the ad campaign. Being able to design attractive and effective advertisements will lead to better results for you and your clients.

In this post we’ll showcase 15 tutorials that will lead you through the process of designing an ad in Photoshop. Most of the tutorials are for designing poster/flyer type ads.

This is a collection of free PSD file resources. You can use them for any project, personal or commercial. Very limited restriction applied.

We frequently publish posts on this blog that feature  tutorials for learning how to do various things with Photoshop, but we have rarely focused on just the basics. This post is intended for designers or aspiring designers who either want to get started with Photoshop or have limited experience and are looking to improve.

While there are plenty of great learning resources available online, it’s often difficult for beginners to know where to get started because everything seems to be scattered. With this post you’ll find links to plenty of resources to teach you all the basics and fundamentals of Photoshop.

Most of the resources and tutorials listed in this post will focus on teaching one particular aspect of Photoshop, such as how to use a specific tool. Everything is broken down into sections so you can find exactly what you are looking for.

I've recently picked up a few new Photoshop shortcuts related to typography so I figured that I'd share them. If you spend a lot of time in the program, you probably have seen most of these, but hopefully there's a new one in here for you. I know I always like finding ways to be more efficient and everyone likes to learn a new trick, right?

Lighting effects can drastically change a design and give it an element that catches attention. Photoshop makes it possible to create impressive lighting effects in a variety of different ways, and in this post we’ll feature 30 tutorials that show how it can be done. If you’re looking to improve your Photoshop skills in this area you’re sure to find something of use here.

If you're interested in learning to make concept art—or simply taking your recreational painting into the digital sphere—concept artist Matt Kohr spent a week teaching us the basics. Here's the complete 101 course for your edification.

When it comes to designing in Photoshop, there is a myriad of ways one could use to achieve a certain result, especially when it comes to photo retouching. Designers use technique they are most confident as well as comfortable with, which is great because it’s always useful to peek into the workflow of our colleagues and learn new design approaches. We have had articles on cloning, compositing, masks and obscure Photoshop time-savers in the past. This article is different.

I’ll be covering some of the useful techniques and tricks which I’ve learned from my experience. You may know some of them, but hopefully not all of them. All images used in this article were purchased and are used according to their licenses. The second part of this post will be published in 2 weeks.

Photoshop is very powerful but sometimes simple tasks can get repetitive and tedious. Here's a look at how to automate just about anything in Photoshop using Photoshop actions.

Photoshop isn't just for photos. In this lesson, we're going to take a look at Photoshop's ability to create vector graphics with the pen tool.
Learning to draw with the Pen Tool is one of those lessons that isn't very long but takes a bit of practice and, like most things with Photoshop, is best demonstrated visually. Be sure to watch the video to really get a grasp on how this works and use the text below for reference. If you'd like to look at the final product, you can download my drawing of Christine. It's a Photoshop CS5 file, so you'll need version CS5 to be able to open it.

Photoshop lets you add horizontal and vertical text easily to your images. One of the most exciting ways to use type is to wrap it around a path. You can add the type to an open or closed path you’ve drawn with the Pen tool or to a shape such as the rectangle, ellipse or polygon and the Custom Shape tool offers literally hundreds of vector shapes to play with. When you attach text to a path, both the
text and the path remain editable, so you can reshape the path and resize or recolor the text as you want. Here’s how to do it.

The inset or letterpress look has been popular on the web for a while now. The logo on the Postbox site is just one example of the use of this style on the web. The effect is really easy to create and a handy one to have in your design toolbox.

While tools like the Magic Eraser can sometimes remove your backgrounds, the fact is you’re going to have to get your hands dirty with the eraser if you have images with complex backgrounds that need removing. While this can be time consuming, you can save yourself a lot of time with a little Photoshop wizardry.

Exposure may be the most common problem in photography. Whether your image is underexposed (too dark), overexposed (too bright), or just washed out in a hazy low-contrast fog, improper exposure can ruin an otherwise good shot.
Even though many basic photo-editing programs provide “Brightness” and “Contrast” controls for tweaking exposure, I prefer to use Photoshop’s Levels tool, because it provides more precise fine-tuning, and it gives you separate control over the shadows, highlights, and midtones in your photo.

We regularly publish collections of the best Photoshop tutorials for specific purposes in order to help our readers in their pursuit to be better designers, and specifically to help those who want to learn Photoshop. If you’re interested in learning more about Photoshop, check out some of the posts below and consider subscribing to our feed.

New Photoshop Tutorials for beginners to advanced users of Adobe Photoshop. All of our tutorials are free, and come with full illustrations, video demonstrations, and many of the lessons include PSDs.

In this beginning-level design tutorial, I’ll show you how to apply a beautiful and super-easy text treatment in Photoshop: the inset text effect. It’s also often called the letterpress effect because it looks similar to text created by a Letterpress printer.

Creating amazing text effects in Photoshop can help to take your work to the next level. Fortunately, there are a lot of great tutorials out there that show a wide variety of techniques for working with text in Photoshop. In this post we’ll feature 35 Photoshop text effect tutorials. You may also be interested in a post from a few years ago, 50 Essential Photoshop Text Effect Tutorials. We also have a post that is great for anyone just getting started with Photoshop, Learn Photoshop: All the Basics for Beginners.