Easy does it with Layers

Layers in Photoshop are a challenge to me.

So I do not intend to write my own step-by-step procedure but instead will take the explanations verbatim from the Adobe Photoshop Tutorials and mix them with my own comments and examples.

Step 1. Select a picture or image.

Open this file. Note the Layers palette. The first layer is called Background.

The Layers palette displays all the layers in your document with the layer name and a thumbnail of the layer's image.

Step 2. In the Layers palette, double-click the background layer. By default, the layer is called "Layer 0". Click OK in the New Layer dialog.

Converting the background into a regular layer lets you use transparency in this layer. You can now view or hide the layer using the eye icon. Click the eye icon on a layer. Notice that the icon disappears and the layer is hidden. Click the empty icon box again. Both the eye icon and the layer's content reappear.

Step 3. Apply a Layer Mask

A layer mask lets you select and display just the part of the image you want to use, without altering the image. Here we'll mask out all of the image except a circular area of the flower. Click and hold the Rectangular Marquee tool, and then select the Elliptical Marquee tool from the pop-up menu. Hold down the Shift key to constrain the selection to a circle, and then drag an area on the image. In the Layers palette, click the Add Layer Mask icon.

Now only the area you selected is visible. You can change the visible area by moving the mask around the image. First click the link icon to unlink the mask from the layer. Select the Move tool, and then click inside the mask and drag to reposition it. Once you have your final position, click the link icon to relink the mask and the layer. Now you can move the layer and the mask will move with it.

Step 4. Add a stroke effect.

Click the Add a Layer Style button at the bottom of the Layers palette, and select Stroke from the menu. Choose stroke settings in the Layer Style dialog box, including color, size, and position of the stroke.

5. Create a new layer.

Click the Create a New Layer button to add a new layer to the image. The new layer is added on top of existing layers and becomes the selected layer. Click the Foreground color swatch and select a color with the Color Picker. Select the Paint Bucket tool (located in the toolbox with the Gradient tool) and click anywhere in the image to create the fill.

6. Reorder the layers.

Click the new layer and drag it beneath the lower layer. Changing the stacking order of your layers makes certain parts of the image appear in front of or behind other layers.

7. Add a text layer.

In the Layers palette, click the top layer. Select the Text tool, and then click on the image. The text cursor appears. In the options bar, change text size, font, style, or color to your liking.When you add text, Photoshop automatically places it on its own layer, where you can edit it separately from the rest of the image.

We wrote the text "Father and Son" using the Arial font.

To edit the text, select it with the Text tool, and then change any of the settings in the options bar. To move the text, select the Move tool and then drag the text.

8. Add an effect to the text.

Click the Add a Layer Style button and select Drop Shadow from the menu. You can change the color or angle of the shadow or make other adjustments in the Layer Style dialog box.

In the Layers palette, the layer effect shows under the layer name. You can turn display of the layer effect on or off by clicking the eye icon next to the effect.

If you're already satisfied with the design, you can then save your work as a jpeg file (or any image format).

Crop and Frame

This is an easy exercise. We will learn to crop (= cut a specific area of an image) and frame the cropped image.

Step 1. Select an image. We will choose the same Tahiti island image as in the Duotone exercise.



Step 2. Choose the area you want to frame. This is the area we have to crop. To crop the area, select the cropping tool in Photoshop. This is a dotted rectangular icon in the toolbox. It's called a rectangular marquee. Select the area by your mouse by clicking on the left button from one corner of the selected area to the diagonally opposite corner.

We selected the dotted area shown below:

Step 3. Select Image > Crop to completely cut ("crop") the area we need to frame. The unselected areas will be eliminated. The cropped area is shown below:

Step 4. Now that we have successfully cropped the image, we can now place the frame. Select Image > Canvas Size. You will be shown the Canvas Size window with several options.

In this example, we chose to measure the image and canvas in pixels (by selecting pixels in the area beside the Width selection box).

Then we clicked "Relative". This will ensure that any changes will be the same for the width and/or height.

We anchored the picture to the Center.

Then we specified a width and height of 4 pixels with the canvas extension color as White.

The result would be a thin white frame bordering the cropped image.

Step 5. We now experiment a bit and try to put two more frame colors. So we repeated step 4 twice:

a) Height and Width = 40 pixels; extension color is Green #2C8825 on the Color Picker. But you can choose your own shade of color ;-)

b) Height and Width = 60 pixels with extension color Black.

The result of this 2 iterations is shown below.

We now save the new cropped and framed image. The result:

Try experimenting on the Canvas Size options to see the various effects on your chosen image.

Monotone, Tritone, Quadtone

After learning something about Duotones, the other "tones" available in Photoshop become easy to understand.

Here is Monotone Blue using Pantone Blue:

Here is a Tritone example using Pantone Black C, Yellow C and 552C:

Adding a fourth tone, Pantone 110C, produces a Quadtone:

Duotone

So what is a Duotone?

A DUOTONE is a halftone image printed with two colors, one dark and the other lighter. The same photograph is halftoned twice, using the same screen at two different angles. Combining the two improves the detail and contrast in the final printed image. (source: http://www.printingyoucantrust.com/glossary.cfm)

A halftone is a continuous tone image photographed through a screen in order to create small dots of varying sizes that can be reproduced on a printing press. Digital halftones are produced by sampling a continuous tone image and assigning different numbers of dots, which simulate different sized dots, for the same effect (source as in above.)

To put it simply, you combine two monochrome colors (2 = Two = Duo, gets?) to an image to produce the color effect you desire that is different from the original, say, Black and Yellow or Black and Blue. However, one color need not necessarily be black. You can choose, Yellow and Blue or any of the color combinations available in Photoshop.


Step 1: Open the image you want to use in Photoshop. I selected this image of an island in Tahiti published in the web.



Step 2: Take out the colors and go B-W by selecting on the menu bar Image > Mode > Grayscale.

Click on Ok when you are asked to discard color information ;-)


Step 3: This is our first Duotone: Black and White! Since our image is now in Duotone we can then experiment with other colors. Go to menu Image > Mode > Duotone.

You now have Duotone options. You can set this feature to Mono-, Duo-, Tri- or Quadtone.

Step 4: For this exercise, select Duotone. The first color, by default, is Black. You can select another color if you want later on to see various toning effects. Now, you can go to the second slot and choose a second color by clicking the second empty square. You have a variety of colors to choose from. To see an online preview, tick the box next to the Preview label. Click OK when you are satisfied with your color combinations. I chose PANTONE Process Yellow C for the second slot as shown below:


Click OK.

Step 5. Go to Image > Mode > RGB to be able to save your newly-colored image as JPEG, GIF etc. Now save this image using File-Save As in the menu bar. After naming the file and pressing Save, you will be asked for the JPEG resolution. Choose, Low, Medium, High etc. depending on your needs.
I chose PANTONE Process Yellow C with Black and here's what I got:


Here are other Duotone samples of the same image:

PANTONE 484C and PANTONE Process Yellow C

PANTONE 105C and 304C:

Hello!

I am starting to learn how to use Photoshop because all my other kids already know them (... and I don't). So here's a collection of tutorial notes culled from various sources on the Web. I will try to give the links to these notes as much as possible ... but if I forget ... tough luck!

So here goes ...