photoshop(again)

About a year ago I came into possession of Photoshop CS3. It has been so much fun and I recently discovered ACTIONS. Basically you can create different effects on Photoshop, save the whole step by step in a file and just press play to do them on any photo of your choosing. So instead of having to go through layer by layer, adding various filters and whatnot, you can just hit one button and it does it for you.

You can even record actions and share them with others.

So here is my first foray into the world of "action sharing" This action that I am sharing is a Vintage Photo Effect.

Here are the two originals from our Apple Picking Excursion to Granddads Apples in Hendersonville, NC.

Here are the same photos after this action:

There are lots of "vintage photo" tutorials out there, but I wasnt happy with any single one. So I took a few elements from some of the best and combined it to make this action.

You can Download the action here. (it is on a free file storage so you may be asked to wait 10 to 30 seconds before downloading.)

just download it to a file thats easy to find. Then go into Photoshop and open WINDOW>ACTIONS. A small box will pop up and in the top right corner is a tiny down arrow. Click on this and go to LOAD ATIONS. Just choose your file and voila.

TO USE:

Open a picture of your choosing. Go to WINDOW>ACTIONS and click on the little arrow next to Vintage Effect. Click on Vintage photo and press the play button at the bottom of the actions box.

At the end of your completed action you can go to IMAGE>ADJUSTMENTS>BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST and play with the sliders until you get it to just the right proportions.

I dont think that this will work on Photoshop Elements. You can try. If you dont have photoshop you can download a free 30 day trial here. (you willneed to create a free ccount with Adobe. It is their new CS4 version too!)

this makes a great action for retro style digital scrapbooks.

enjoy!

My newest photoshop trick

Ok so I am TOTALLY an idiot and never realized I could do this with Photoshop.

I should have known I could, but for some reason i didnt have my "aha" moment until today.

This is the Horsehead Nebula. I made it on CS3 with 2 tools and 20 seconds of time.

All I used was a rainbow gradient and a special brush that I downloaded for free HERE. (Then I loaded the brushes to my brush library.)

Super Easy.

So for those of you who are still playing with Photoshop, here is a quick and easy tutorial...(and for those of you already past this easy stage, WHY DIDNT YOU LET ME KNOW A YEAR AGO I COULD DO THIS??)

FOR THE PHOTOSHOP CHALLENGED:

start with a new document, size of your choosing, (this is a 6x6 with 72 resolution in RGB mode )

I picked a rainbow gradient and filled the background with the gradient.

Then I opened a new layer on top of it and filled it with black.I went to my brushes and pulled up the Horsehead nebula brush, made it the size I wanted and set mode to CLEAR. So then when I positioned it to where I wanted It, I clicked and voila, the brush burned through the black, down to the rainbow gradient underneath.

I NEVER KNEW I COULD DO THIS!!! I have totally been doing everything the hard way.

How long have I had photoshop and been playing around with it?? Forever. Why did it take me this long to figure out this trick?? No idea. It isnt in any of those tutorials. I guess it is one of those things that everyone should know, so they dont bother to tell you how to do it because they think you would already know how to do it.

I spent the weekend playing with my new brushes and patterns and finding out new and fun things I could do. It is amazing!!

Here are some places you can go to download brushes, patterns and gradients. most are in zip files so you will need to extract them before loading.

http://www.brusheezy.com/

http://myphotoshopbrushes.com/

http://www.brushking.eu/

those were just two other things I did. I had a super fun time playing.

So hopefully I was able to teach someone out there a new trick and save them the same frustration I had.

Really I am a smart woman, sometimes it takes me longer to figure out things that everyone else already knows.