Photoshop: Tips and Tricks

I have spent a lot of time working with Photoshop this semester. editing and reediting my pictures to make them work for each of my designs. It takes a lot of time and effort, and many of the images never even get used in the final design, but the end result makes the endeavor worthwhile. Here are a few tips and tricks that I use to help with my images.

1. Watch tutorials. Remember that Google is your best friend. There are hundreds of tutorials for all sorts of tasks on Photoshop, so if you're not sure how to do something, look it up. YouTube is another great resource and there are several Photoshop tutorial sites here as well. 
2. Experiment with Photoshop tools. One of the best ways to learn the program is through trial and error. Playing around with the program will help you to familiarize yourself with the software and may even help you come up with new ideas for future projects.
3. When selecting an object in Photoshop, I try to do as much as I can with the magic wand and magnetic lasso tools, but if that doesn't work, I try outlining the image with the eraser tool and then going back to the magic wand tool to clean it up. It seems to make it go a bit faster, but I recently found a few tutorials, such as this one, that have even easier ways to accomplish this. Also, try using the refine edge button at the top of your toolbar to clean up the edges and make changes to the image.
4. Knowing shortcuts can also make life easier. Some of the most important ones include:

• F, F, F | Cycle through Screen Modes 
• Tab | Remove Tools and Palettes 
• Ctrl+H | Hide Extras (Grid, Guides, Slices, etc
• Ctrl+R | Hide Rulers 
• B | Brush Tool
• Right-Click and Select or F5 and Select | Open condensed or full Brush Palette
• or . or , or Shift+. or Shift+, | Cycle through brushes or jump to first or last brush
• [ or ]: | Shrink or enlarge brush radius
• Shift+[ or Shift+] | Decrease or increase brush hardness
• {Numeric Input} | Change brush opacity (e.g. ’5′ = 50%, ’55′ = 55%)

Breast Cancer Awareness Poster

This poster is a clever, yet simple way to create awareness about breast cancer. The design draws the eye to the image before it is even clear that the image is made up of text. 

The words in the ribbon are not the main focus of the design. The ribbon is. Even if the viewer never actually reads the words that make up the image, chances are they will still know that it was meant for breast cancer. However, because the design is so visually appealing, it encourages a closer look.

If the viewer does take that time to examine the phrases on the ribbon, they are treated to some humor. Breast cancer is a very serious subject and looking at this poster without reading anything, it is easy to assume that the message and the words in the ribbon are serious to go along with that. But, in fact, the designer took a much lighter and humorous approach by using slang and synonyms.

The design is limited to black and shades of pink, which helps to make the eye follow the ribbon down to the message at the bottom. This also allowed allowed the designer to change style of the type. Normally, using this many font styles and sizes would be distracting and difficult to read. However, it is not the case in this image because it is made up of text alone. The background is also a solid black, which prevents the design from becoming too busy.

Poster with a message

The Barack Obama "Hope" poster was designed by Shepard Fairey and used in the 2008 election campaign. While Fairey did not design the poster specifically for the campaign, it was widely distributed with the support of the committee, though independently. 

It is a fairly simple design, utilizing the colors of the Obama logo. Obama is centered in the frame, gazing pensively into the distance, which makes it a very powerful image. In various representations of the design, the word at the bottom is changed. While "hope" is the most popular, "change" and "progress" are also used. The use of the powerful single word in all caps makes a strong statement about what the image represents.

Although it was initially designed as a poster, the image was also distributed as paraphernalia during the campaign, which made it one of the most recognized symbols of  Obama's election.

Like any decent iconic symbol of culture, the image also has some controversy behind it. It was found that Fairey used a photograph taken by Mannie Garcia, a freelancer for The Associated Press. He tried to destroy documents and create others to cover up the crime, but eventually pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years probation, 300 hours of community service, and a $25,000 fine. 

Today, a stenciled version of the image hangs in the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery. Laura Barton, a writer for The Guardian, equates the image to that of Jim Fitzpatrick's Che Guevara poster and poses the idea that the poster may be found on the walls of future college students. Whether that is the case or not, it is undeniably an iconic symbol of today's culture.

Brochure

Out of all of the projects, I think this one may have taken the longest for me to complete. I tried to go many different directions with the design and considered changing the topic a few times, but once I started, I was determined to come up with something.

My first step was to incorporate the text. I chose my favorite sweet wines from five local wineries on the Niagara Wine Trail. I visited each of the winery websites to get the descriptions of the individual wines and included them underneath the name of the wine and the winery where it can be found.

The fonts and layout of the text in the center of the brochure came naturally and I had a picture of wine being poured into a glass, which is where I got the text color. I had initially put the image on a transparent background to use for the front page, but the background of the glass did not match and I decided the image was not the right fit for the design.

The rest of the text came from the Niagara Wine Trail site. I included the contact information for each of the wineries I used in selecting the wines and the description of the general wine trail.

My next step was to Bing images of wine. I found the corks and the grapevine almost immediately and cropped them to fit on the center flap and back page. However, I struggled for a long time on what to do with the background. I had a vague idea of what color I wanted the brochure to be and what the design could look like, but every photo I found did not have the proper resolution to be used as the background.

I then began to search for any kind of tutorial I could find for making a terracotta texture or parchment paper. Finally, after days of searching, I stumbled across an old paper texture tutorial and created the background I used for the finished product. The transparent background image of the wine and grapes was easy to find from there, but I struggled with the front cover. It is still a bit plain for my liking but overall, I am happy with the result.

Color Inspiration

The link to the color palettes inspired by master painters has provided a great deal of inspiration in my designs. One of the things I seem to struggle with most at the beginning of a design is color. I feel that color is one of the most important parts of a project for me, so taking the first step toward a particular palette can be a challenge. Perhaps it has to do with the season, but I tend to like my designs to feel warm and I try to use deep reds or vibrant oranges to accomplish this.

I find that it is much easier to create a color scheme if I have a photograph to work with because I can use the eyedropper tool to select colors directly from the image. However, when I am just beginning a design, that is not always the case, so the website provides an excellent resource for getting started My personal favorite palettes are William Adolphe Bougereau's Nymphs and Satyr, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa John William Waterhouse's Lady of Shallot.

There are also a couple of other sites I use to help come up with a color palette. Color scheme designer is an excellent resource for finding colors for pairing and offers options such as mono, complement, triad, tetrad, analogic and accented analogic to test out various color schemes. There is also an option to test dark and light websites for a particular color scheme, which provides an opportunity to see how the colors work together.

Unfortunately, when I have decided which colors to use on one of these sites, I generally don't know how to put them into Photoshop or InDesign without taking a snapshot and using the eyedropper tool. Instead, I use ColorHexa to find the CMYK or RGB code for the colors. This site also provides color scheme combinations, but they aren't as easily customizable as the color scheme designer.

Huntington's Disease Awareness Poster

I feel that this project is probably the most professional looking of the pieces I have done. I tried to keep the design minimal because I really wanted to emphasize the message.

Huntington's Disease, a genetic, neurodegenerative disease, is in my family, so it is an issue that is very close to my heart. I wanted to keep the tone serious, but hopeful and I feel I have accomplished that it the final piece.

This project started with just the blue color of the Huntington's Disease awareness ribbon. I wanted to incorporate the organizations that are highly involved in the development of a cure and the color was a way to symbolize them. However, having the dark blue background made it difficult to put anything on top and it reminded me of the old loading screen on a computer when it was shut down wrong. Instead, I put another box over the top in white, leaving the blue as a border.

I knew right away that I wanted to include the fact that every child of a parent with HD has a 50/50 chance of inheriting the gene. To really illustrate that point, I included the hand flipping a coin, because the odds of heads or tails are the same as the odds for the having the HD gene. To further emphasize the point, I also made the coin and the 50/50 gold, while the hand and the text are both black and white.

Once I had the bottom half of the poster completed, I had a hard time figuring out what to do with all of the leftover blank space. I tried to incorporate the logo in the center, but it was far too busy and took away from the message. Eventually I settled on the logos in the top corners and wrote the message in the center, emphasizing the two organizations once again through the use of the blue text.

Using Internet Resources

I don't know what I would do without Google. From downloading books for my classes, to converting a recipe, to finding lyrics to a song, I rely on Google for the answers to all of my questions. It has become especially invaluable in design. Whenever I have an idea for a project, but don't know how to execute it, such as in the flip book when I wanted to make a parchment paper background, I Google it and look for ideas and tutorials that could help to get me started.

The tutorials that I find on YouTube are often extremely helpful and teach how to use tools that I would not otherwise have known were available. Sometimes when I have free time, I watch the tutorials just to get an idea of some of the possibilities for other projects and it allows me to practice my skills with the software. I never would have thought to brighten eyes or whiten teeth in a photograph, but now that I have seen the tutorial, I am able to use those tools to greatly enhance my pictures.

I also rely on the search engine to help develop ideas when I am stuck. When we had to make the magazine layouts, I started by googling "magazine layouts" and found some examples of spreads that I really liked. I was able to build off of those ideas to develop my own project.

Finding images online is a vital part of design as well. I am not thrilled with Google images anymore because they removed the size constraints, so I often go to Bing where I can place size requirements on a search, as well as a filter color for images, which makes it easier to sift through all of the content.

These resources are integral parts of the design process and offer more possibilities than most of us even realize.