Adobe Photoshop Tips, Tutorials & Techniques

If you’ve ever found yourself in the middle of a big project in Photoshop, you most likely know how important it is to have as many history states available to you as possible. I sure do. I go back and forth through these things all the time.

If you’re not familiar with the phrase “history state,” I’ll tell you what it is. A history state is a place in time, in Adobe Photoshop, before you did something new. Let’s say you open a file in Photoshop and then add an adjustment layer to that file via the Adjustments panel. The action of creating that adjustment layer is one history state. Now, let’s say you add some text to the image. There’s another history state, giving you two in total. Next, let’s say you move the text and change its color. There are two more history states.

The reason I say these things are so important is because they give you the ability to essentially travel back and forth in time, right inside Photoshop. If you feel like you need to go back for some reason, you can do that by simply clicking on the corresponding history state inside of the History panel. If you need to go back all the way to the beginning because you realized you were working on the original image and you wanted to work on a duplicate for safety, you can do that too. It’s all very simple.

To learn more about the history panel in Photoshop, click through this link below.

Need to Undo? Use the History Panel in Photoshop

In today’s post, I’m going to show you two quick tricks that will help you out if you ever find yourself in a jam, similar to the one I just outlined above (saving the original file). I’ll also demonstrate, in Adobe Photoshop, how you can edit your preferences to add more visible history states in the History panel. If you’re a power user, this second tip may be crucial to your editing efficiency.

Making Changes to a File

I already have a demo photograph opened up in Photoshop. It’s just waiting for me to make some changes to it. Let’s take a look at this image before I go any further.

Now, let’s take a look at the current states that are available in the History panel.

Basically, all we have so far is the name of the file and the very first action that occurred. Photoshop calls this action Open. That’s all I’ve done so far. I only opened the file.

At this point, to continue on with this demonstration, I’m going to make a few random changes to the file. The reason I’m going to do this is because I want to add some history states.

Okay, I made some changes. Let’s take a look at the image now.

Basically, I added a Curves adjustment layer and then modified that layer to show more of a medium contrast look on the photo. Then, I added some text, moved, rotated and then moved the text again. I set some character styles related to the text, moved it again and then aligned it with the Rectangular Marquee Tool. I’d say there’s now enough data in the History panel to work with. Check out both the History and the Layers panels.

If you look at just the History panel, you’ll quickly realize there are 15 states inside of it. This is an important number that I’ll use later on, so be sure to remember it.

Going Back to the Beginning

Something that happens all the time, let me repeat that, all the time, is when you’re working on a project while forgetting that you are, in fact, editing the original photo file that should be set off to the side somewhere and not touched. A common practice to get around this type of thing is to first make a duplicate of the file and then edit the duplicate, while keeping the original file safe somewhere. But, as I stated, accidentally working on the original happens all the time. In this section, I’ll give you a quick tip to get around this error and that will allow you to save the original from Photoshop again.

Let’s pretend the picture of the car I’m currently editing in Photoshop is the golden file. It’s the original high resolution file that, if lost, will cost a lot of money in photography services. I already began working on it and as it stands, I have 15 history states. While this isn’t too many, if I had many more, the issue would be even worse. The bottom line is that I neither want to close the file out without saving it because I’ll lose all my work nor save the file the way it is because all the work I already did will pollute the image. And I certainly don’t want to “Save As” the file over the original. That would be the worst. While there are many avenues to take at this moment to remedy the issue, the most straightforward one is to simply click the top-most state in the History panel. This isn’t actually a state at all. It’s more of the actual, untouched, file. Here, take a look.

If you look at the screenshot above, you’ll see that after clicking the top most state, which is the file name, all the other history states turned gray. Also, if you’ll notice the Layers panel, all the additional layers I created disappeared. It’s as if the file was never touched at all. It’s at this time when I can head over to the File > Save As menu item and save the file out any way I wish, to preserve the original JPEG. It’s that simple. I know, there are many methods for dealing with a situation like this, but I felt this one was appropriate because it uses the History panel and that’s what I’m discussing in this post.

Increasing & Decreasing the Number of Visible History States

In an earlier section of this post, I mentioned that you should remember that I currently had 15 change states recorded in the History panel. I also mentioned that I had hardly made any actual changes. My point with this was to emphasize how quickly history states can accumulate. Basically, the History panel records almost everything you do in Photoshop. Just by adding some text and some effects to that text, I added about ten states. Can you imagine how fast you could surpass 100 states? 200? Or more? I’ll tell you one thing, it doesn’t take long at all when you’re working on a large project and when you’re making many small changes.

If I head up to the Edit > Preferences > Performance menu item, I’ll see that the current default recorded History States is 50.

This setting is in the Preferences dialog box, in the Performance area. Since I just explained how 50 recorded states is rather low, it would be in most editor’s best interest to raise that number to something around 250. The most you can go is currently 1000, but if you set your installation to that, it may use too many resources and that might slow your computer down. A good compromise between not having enough and not slowing your computer down is anywhere between 250 and 400. Since I have a lot of RAM in my computer, I clicked the drop-down box for this setting and moved the slider to 400. That will offer me tons of recourse if I ever need to go back and clean up a lot of mistakes I made while editing a file. Again, if you need to learn the fundamentals surrounding the History panel and learn what it’s good for and how it can help you, I encourage you to read through my previous post on the subject.

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I hope these two quick tips help you out in the future. There are tons and tons of these types of helpful tidbits floating around and I hope to bring many of them to you via this very blog. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

When you begin working with multiple video clips inside of Adobe Photoshop, one of the very first things you’ll likely want to do is to arrange the clips in some sort of sequential order. This is obvious. After all, you edited each individual clip so it had a specific position in the overall movie. Why wouldn’t you want to position those clips so they make sense later on?

In today’s post, I’m going to show you just how easy it is to arrange clips in the Timeline panel and the Layers panel of Photoshop. This post should be brief, because there really ins’t all that much to cover. The material is important though, so be sure to read it all the way through.

Adding Clips to a Group

In this post, I’m going to first open one video file into Photoshop and then I’ll add three additional videos to the group that was initially created. I’ve already gone ahead and done this, but I’ll share the steps I took.

First, I used the File > Open menu item to navigate to one of the clips I wanted to use.

When I found the clips, I either double-clicked on one to open it or I could simply click on the Open button down in the lower right area of the window.

Either way, the clip will open into Photoshop and the Timeline panel will appear. Also, this one clip will be contained in a Group all its own in the Layers panel. You can think of a group as sort of like a folder in the Layers panel. It’s merely something that contains multiple video clips.

To open the remaining clips, I’ll click the “+” symbol at the end (right side) of the existing timeline track.

Once I click that symbol, I can again navigate to the files I’d like to open and follow the same instructions I used for the individual file. Once I’m done with all that, I’ll see that all the clips are now contained in the same group I had initially formed.

Below, you can see the clips lined up in the same track in the Timeline panel as well as the clips contained in the same group in the Layers panel.

Now, I’m sure you’ve seen clips staggered in various tracks in the timeline panel before. That’s a different scenario that I’ll be covering in later posts, so don’t be too concerned with that setup right now.

Changing the Sequence of the Clips

As you may have already guessed, the clips are positioned in the timeline as they’ll play through. The final movie will play left to right, so the leftmost clip will play first, then the second one and so on. Also, the bottom layer of the group in the Layers panel is equivalent to the left-most clip in the Timeline panel. So, clips in the Timeline panel play from left to right and layers in the Layers panel play from bottom to top.

To exemplify how these two areas are related, I can go ahead and click on any blue clip in the Timeline panel and it will become highlighted. The corresponding clip will be highlighted in the Layers panel as well. I could do this backwards too. It doesn’t matter. In the screenshot below. I went ahead and clicked the last clip in the track in the Timeline panel. It’s now highlighted. The same one in the Layers panel is also highlighted.

This relationship between these areas is important because it will give you two different options when it comes to reordering things.

Basically, to reposition any clip in either the Timeline or Layers panel, all you need to do is click and drag it to a new position. One that’s occupied by something else. So, if I wanted to make the currently last clip play first, I could click and drag the blue box that’s all the way to the right on the Timeline panel on top of the left-most clip and drop it there. That would bump the current first one to the second position and make the last one first.

Similarly, I could drag one of the layers in the Layers panel to another position and the same thing would happen. The sequence of the clips would be altered.

And really, that’s it. Reorganizing video clips so they play in a different sequence is a very simple task to execute.

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While this was a short post, I feel it covers an important task. When you know what you can click and drag around Photoshop, you can increase the speed of your workflow, which helps you become more efficient. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

If you have perfectly edited video clips, you can add them right into what’s called a Video Group inside of Adobe Photoshop. Basically, a video group is a collection of clips that line up in one space on the timeline. They butt up against each other; the end of the first clip to the beginning of the second and so on. Inside of Photoshop’s Timeline panel, there’s an option to add a Cross Fade in between these clips, which will give you a nice, smooth transition from one to the next.

Yesterday, I wrote a post where I discussed adding Fade transitions to multiple clips. If you’d like to read that post to get some background on transitions all together, please click through below.

How to Add a Fade Transition to a Video Clip in Adobe Photoshop

For today’s post, I plan on showing you two things. First, I’ll explain how to add one clip to another that’s already opened in the Timeline panel in Photoshop. The second clip I’ll add will be contained in the same group, therefore, its beginning will touch the end of the first. Second, I’ll demonstrate how to go about adding a cross fade transition between the two clips. This tutorial will be just as straightforward as the previous one, so there’s nothing advanced to concern yourself with here.

Creating a Video Group

I already opened up a sample clip and resized it to match the next one I’ll be adding. Due to the resizing, I was forced, by Photoshop, to convert the regular layer to a Smart Object. That’s not a problem, but it did turn the object on the timeline from blue to purple. I just wanted to let you know why there is purple down there in the screenshot below.

If you take a look over at the Layers panel, you’ll see that there is currently only one layer in it.

To add a clip and create a Video Group, I can click on the “+” symbol that sits at the right side of the timeline, in the same row as to where I’d like to add the clip.

When I click that, a window will appear, where I can navigate to the file I’m interested in. I’ll find the file, double-click on it and the clip will be added to the timeline. Doing this will also create a group in the Layers panel that will contain both clips.

Now let’s take a look at the timeline.

That’s perfect. So, like I mentioned above, if I had edited clips and wanted to line them all up like this, one after another, I could easily follow the same actions I just took above to accomplish the task.

Adding a Cross Fade Transition Between the Video Clips

Applying a cross fade transition in this post is just as easy as it was in the post I wrote yesterday. All I have to do is to click on the transition icon in the Timeline panel to open up the Transition panel. From there, I’ll select Cross Fade.

Once I select the proper transition from the panel, I can drag it down to the timeline and drop it right between the two clips. When I roll over this area with the transition, a black outline will appear, telling me where the transition will occur.

When I let go of my mouse button, the transition icon will be attached to the video clip.

Deleting a Transition

I forgot to mention this in yesterday’s post, but if you’d like to delete a transition from the timeline, all you need to do is to click on the transition icon itself and then press the Delete key on your keyboard. That will get rid of it.

Adjusting the Duration of the Transition

To learn how to adjust the duration of the transition, please review my previous post. I cover all the steps necessary, as well as discuss others not mentioned here.

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See? It’s that easy. I hope I clearly explained how to add a cross fade transition to a video timeline in Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

If I had to guess, I’d say that out of all the tasks those of us who want to complete in a video editor, adding a transition between clips would be the highest on the list. Think about it. Sure, you want to import the clip, edit it and then export it. But really, it’s the transitions that folks think of when they’re editing. I’ve worked on a lot of different video with a lot of different people and it’s always the same. They want to know all about the different transitions that are available. Even when I was back in college working in Microsoft Powerpoint. The transitions mattered.

In today’s post, I’m going to give you a really quick tutorial that will cover how to add a transition to a video in Adobe Photoshop. After you read through this post, you’ll wonder how you didn’t already know the steps. You’re going to love it.

Opening the Clips Into Photoshop

If you aren’t already sure how to open a video file into Adobe Photoshop, I encourage you to read through this post:

5 Ways to Open Video Files into Adobe Photoshop

For today’s post, I’m going to open both clips into their own files in Photoshop. Then, I’ll drag one of the clips over into the other tab and I’ll break them out of the video group they’re currently in. In the end, I’ll have two clips that are independent on the timeline. I’ll have no problem adding a fade transition now.

Accessing the Video Transition Panel

Okay, now that everything is set up correctly, I can make sure the clip I’ll be transitioning to (the bottom clip) is overlapping the one that’s being transitioned from (the top clip). Take a look at what I’m referring to here below.

To move a clip, all you need to do is to click on the blue somewhere. After that, just drag it back or forth and let go when you’re finished.

If there was no overlap, the fade I’m going to add would become transparent and then the video would abruptly jump to the second clip. Since both clips now overlap, the top clip can fade out and the bottom one will be there to be faded into.

To access the available transitions, I’ll go ahead and click the Transitions icon that sits towards the beginning of the timeline.

In the screenshot above, you can see how the transitions panel popped up.

Applying a Transition

Applying a transition to a clip is super simple. To do this, I’ll click on the transition I want to add, which, in this case, is the Fade transition. I’ll then drag it down to the clip that I’d like to add it to. Be careful with this step – you can’t just drag the transition down into the blue clip and let go. You have to drop it either at the beginning of the clip or at the end. In my case, I’ll be dropping it at the end, so when I drag the transition, I’ll bring it to the end and drop it after I see a black outline appear.

I had to stretch out the timeline a bit so you could clearly see the black outline. Since the transition was set to be only one second long, the black outline that displayed that length of time was very narrow.

Once I drop the transition on the clip, a small indicator will appear, telling me that I’ve completed the task.

Setting the Length of the Transition

There are a few different ways to change the length of time it takes for the transition to complete transitioning. The first method is to set the time before you drag and drop the transition on the clip. If you take a look at this next screenshot, you’ll see a small drop-down box inside of the transition panel. If I click that drop-down, you’ll see a slider that controls the length of the transition.

The next method for adjusting the length of the transition is to drag one side of the small indicator after it’s been dropped. This is just as simple as the first method, so it’s up to you. Just be aware that when you roll your mouse over the indicator, the pointer will change into something else, so you’ll know when to begin dragging.

Right-Click For More Options

If I right-click on the transition indicator, I’ll see a small panel appear. Inside this panel are the same controls as the initial panel included. The difference is that I can alter an already applied transition through this panel.

So, if I wanted to switch what type of transition I applied, I could do that right through this smaller panel and if I wanted to alter the length of time it takes for the transition to complete, I could do that as well.

Once the transition is applied and set, I can go about finishing up anything else I need to do.

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Applying a transition to a video clip in Adobe Photoshop is easy. I hope I thoroughly and clearly explained the process. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

This is going to be sort of a weird post. I usually write about straightforward topics, but today, I thought I’d give you something that you could “chew on” more than use right away. More of an idea or a concept, if you will.

I recently wrote a few articles that talked about using the Spot Healing Brush Tool and the Healing Brush Tool in Adobe Photoshop. If you’re interested, you can view both of those posts by clicking through the links below.

How To Non-Destructively Use the Spot Healing Brush Tool in Adobe Photoshop

Working With the Healing Brush Tool in Adobe Photoshop

Between these two resources, I talked about how to best take advantage of the basic functions of the tools in question as well as how to go about using them in a non-destructive manner. They were very informative posts, so I highly encourage you to take a quick glance at them, at the very least.

In today’s post, I’d like to move things one step further and offer two tips for how to use the Healing Brush Tool in Adobe Photoshop. The first tips is good for some situations while the second one probably has more opportunity for use under the right circumstances. Please continue reading below because, again, you may remember what I share today and the lesson may serve you well down the road.

The Demo Photo

The reason I chose this photo was two-fold. First, there’s a small window in it. I needed that to explain and discuss my first tip. Also, on the wall, stucco (or something similar) was used, which resulted in a textured pattern. I needed this pattern for the second tip. While I won’t be able to show you exactly what I’m referring to for the second tip with this photo, I’ll use an additional photo to get my point across. I’ll display this additional photo below as well.

This is the first one.

And this is the second one. This tip builds off the idea of using the Healing Brush Tool in a non-destructive manner and the extra layer you’ll nee to do so. It’s a very helpful idea.

Shrinking, Duplicating or Moving an Object

Okay, let’s get going. The first photo is already opened in its own tab inside of Photoshop. I’m going to activate the Healing Brush Tool over in the left vertical toolbar and size it so it fits my project. Then, I’ll create a new layer in the Layers panel so I can work on this photo non-destructively (see more about that here). After that, I’ll take a sample of the wall by holding the Alt key down on my keyboard and by clicking somewhere on the stucco. In the screenshot below, I’ll circle the sample area in red.

After I take the sample, I can begin coloring in the window from the bottom up. I’ll make sure my new layer is active in the Layers panel before I draw.

Take a look at this next screenshot. After drawing some of the area of the window, I clicked and dragged the new layer over to the side, so you could get a clear picture of what happened. You can see that I kept a hard edge on the brush I was using and you can also see the size of the brush as well.

As you can see, the Healing Brush Tool basically clones an area. And since I did this on its own layer, I can use that layer to move the cloned area around. My goal for this first project is to shrink the window. I’ll go ahead and move the cloned area over the bottom of the window, so it’s smaller than it was before.

See? Now the window isn’t as low to the ground as it was originally.

My point with sharing this concept is to convey that the Healing Brush Tool in Photoshop can be used for much more than simply hiding things. It can also be used to clone areas or to even move things around.

If I wanted to relocate the window closer to the door, I could take a different sample from an area to the right of the window. I circled that area in the screenshot below.

Now, if I draw over the entire window and the area to the left of it, I can essentially move the window over to the left. Again, since I did this in a new layer, I can slide the area I drew around at my leisure. I placed it on the door again, so you can see what I did.

If I put the window back to where it was initially drawn, it’ll replace the window’s original location and will blend right into the wall because of the way the Healing Brush Tool works. It not only heals, but it blends with the target background as well. Let’s see the final result with this.

Finally, if I wanted to duplicate the window, I could take my sample from the window itself. My sample area is circled in red below.

Now, if I start drawing to the left of the window, a straight-up duplicate will appear. Again, I moved my drawing over on top of the door, so you can see what I did.

If I move it back to where I initially drew it, it would again blend in with the background texture.

You have to admit, that’s pretty cool. In Photoshop, you can use the Healing Brush Tool for a lot of tasks similar to this. This is why I wanted to make you aware of it. Because of its versatility. You can move people, get rid of trees, duplicate bridges – all sorts of stuff.

Making Minor Adjustments to Healed Areas

Oftentimes, an area that you heal (the target) won’t line exactly up with the area you pulled the healing area from (the source). In this final section, I want to show you a small tip that may help you out in this regard, especially if you’re working with patterns.

Let’s say there’s something I would like to cover up at the center of this next photo. I know there’s nothing there, so we’ll have to use our imaginations.

I’ll go ahead and take a sample from somewhere towards the side of the photo. Then, I’ll draw over the center area, to cover up the object. In this screenshot below, I shifted the drawn area around a bit so you can see what I did. I also encapsulated the drawing in red.

Now, as you can imagine, many patters don’t line up exactly as they are supposed to. There are minute differences in size and distance of areas among the pattern. Because of this, it’s helpful to transform the replicated area to help it line up.

In this example, I’m going to make sure the layer with the healing area is selected in the Layers panel and then I’ll press Ctrl+T to activate the Free Transform function of Photoshop (after moving the area back to where it originated). When I active the Free Transform function, a bounding box will appear.

Sometimes, you can get away with simply enlarging or shrinking the replicated area. Most of the times though, you’ll need to distort it. Since the healed area is on its own layer again, this is very simple.

To distort an active transform bounding box, all you need to do is to hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and click and drag a corner.

If you look closely at the screenshot above, you’ll see that the bounding box has been distorted. While the image I’m using doesn’t call for any correction, you can definitely see how tiny nudges in any direction might help line up, say, a chain link fence. Or a staircase or any repetitive pattern for that matter. I just wanted to throw this out there.

If you’d like to learn more about warping and distorting layers and objects in Adobe Photoshop, please take a look at these posts below.

Using the Transform & Free Transform Tools in Adobe Photoshop

Keyboard Shortcuts for Skew, Distort & Perspective Transform in Adobe Photoshop

How To Warp Objects & Text in Adobe Photoshop

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This is the close of another post. I hope I helped you out by giving you some ideas for how to use the Healing Brush Tool in a few non-conventional ways. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Just a few days ago, I wrote a post where I discussed the Spot Healing Brush Tool in Abode Photoshop. I love the Spot Healing Brush Tool and use it with almost every single photograph I edit. The thing is, the more I used this tool, the more I discover its shortcomings. And really, those shortcomings are primarily its unpredictability.

I have found that, at times, when I use the Spot Healing Brush Tool, I get the weirdest and most unexpected results. It’s like Photoshop didn’t take anything I wanted it to into account. I get strange blurs and different artifacts thrown into the area I’m attempting to repair. Because of this, I call this tool somewhat unpredictable. To remove a spot using using this tool, you’re putting almost all of your faith into an algorithm to get things right. Sometimes that algorithm does a terrible job. Don’t worry, I’ll show you an example of this below.

At times, I like to take back some of the control I lose with the Spot Healing Brush. The trade off with taking back control is a higher learning curve. The good part is, every tool available in Photoshop has a learning curve and none of those curves are very high at all, no matter how you use them.

In today’s post, I’d like to discuss the cousin to the tool I mentioned above. In this post, I’m going to cover the Healing Brush Tool. Just get rid of the “Spot” and there you have it. Both tools are similar in that they can remove objects you don’t want to see in a photo, but the latter allows the editor to choose a source area to replace the object with. Also, as you begin to take advantage of this new tool, you’ll discover that while you can choose the source, Photoshop actually blends the replacement area with the colors and textures of the surrounding area, giving you a much better blend. It’s a great tool to know how to use properly.

The Demo Photo

When writing posts like this, I have to look around for good photos to use as examples. Today, I found one that has tire tracks in a field that would be fun to try to remove. I felt that this photo was suitable because the tire tracks are in a textured area and they are on a horizon of sorts. Because of these attributes, the first tool I mentioned above won’t be able to do a good job while the second one will. Take a look at the picture.

If this photo looks familiar it’s because I have used it before on this site.

Messing Up With the Spot Healing Brush Tool

To learn about the Spot Healing Brush Tool, please read through the post I link to below. In this section, I’m merely going to give you an example of a poorly executed removal. This is what I was referring to above.

How To Non-Destructively Use the Spot Healing Brush Tool in Adobe Photoshop

Now, I’ll go ahead and use this tool to try to remove the tire tracks in one fell swoop. Let’s see the result of this effort.

If you look inside the red circle, you’ll see that there are some odd swirls and replacement patches that don’t look good at all. The reason for this is that, when pulling from other areas to use as a replacement, Photoshop didn’t know exactly where to pull from. The result is a conglomeration of different pixels.

Activating the Healing Brush Tool

Since the Healing Brush Tool can be set to pull from a specific area, it’s better suited for edits like the one I’d like to undertake in this photo. I’ll go ahead and activate the tool now. I’ll head over to the left toolbar and click and drag the tool I just used out to the right, so the remaining choices are exposed.

I’ll click Healing Brush Tool and the moment I do that, I’ll notice the options bar up top change. There are a few options I want you to be aware of.

Mode: This drop-down menu offers a few different blending modes you can use while healing an area. Currently, the selection is limited and includes Normal, Replace, Multiply, Screen, Darken, Lighten, Color and Luminosity.

Source: With this tool, you can choose to repair an area by either taking a sample from another source in the photo, as I mentioned above, or you can fill the area to be repaired with a pattern. Choose one of these options to activate it. If you decide to go with the pattern, you have the ability to select that pattern from the Pattern panel.

Aligned: There are two methods for acquiring the sample to repair an area with. You can choose to take a sample and to continue using those specific sample coordinates for all repairs you make, whether or not you let go of the mouse button. You get this when the Aligned box is left unchecked. If you check the Aligned box, Photoshop will forget about that sampled area every time you let go of the mouse button. It will use a new area to repair specific coordinates.

Sample: When taking a sample, you can identify which layer you’d like to make your selection from. With the Healing Brush Tool, there are three choices. The first choice is the Current Layer. Then, there’s Current & Below and finally is All Layers. These three options are contained in a drop-down menu.

Diffusion: This setting controls what can be perceived as the edge of the repair area. For a more defined edge, lower this value and for a smoother edge, choose a higher value. You may want to keep this value low if you are healing areas with very defined patterns, such as a bush (twigs) or grass blades. If you’re in larger areas with less detail, such as a desert, you can raise the value.

Removing the Tire Tracks

Using this tool will take some practice, so I encourage you to do a lot of experimenting. After a few uses, you’ll be flying around like you’ve known how to do it forever.

To start off, I’ll size the healing brush so it is large enough to cover the tracks with one fell swoop. Then, to take my sample, I’ll hold down the Alt key on my keyboard. Then, after I see the mouse pointer change to something that looks like a bulls eye, I’ll click the left mouse button to take the actual sample. In the screenshot below, I’ll place a circle around the area I sampled from.

After I take the sample, the brush will be filled with a snapshot of that area. I’ll be able to move the brush around and click and drag to fill an area in. In my case today, I’ll click to the right of the tree, right under the horizon and drag to the right until the tire tracks are “healed.”

After I’m finished, I’ll let go of the mouse to see how things look.

I’d say that looks pretty good. Now, if I wanted to go one step further, I could perform this task in a non-destructive manner. To learn how to do that, I suggest you read through this previous post I just wrote a few days ago.

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I hope I thoroughly explained how to use the Healing Brush Tool in Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

There’s one word that Adobe has tried to minimize the profoundness of through the years. One word that used to be serious, but really isn’t nearly so anymore. That word is “whoops.” Back in the early part of this century, saying “whoops” meant a lot more than it does today. Back then, if you screwed something up, there was a good chance you’d have to re-do a heck of a lot of work. Because of all the non-destructive attributes of today’s Photoshop, screwing something up isn’t something to concern yourself with at all. Just go back a few steps and fix it. Believe me though, back in 2000, it was awful. Today is a breeze. The challenge now is to take advantage of what Photoshop has to offer. And that’s what I try to discuss in posts like these. Just how to do that.

In today’s post, I’d like to show you how to use one of Photoshop’s most popular tools, the Spot Healing Brush Tool. Besides the Crop Tool and the Move Tool, this is one of the very first areas of experimentation new editors visit inside of Photoshop. Every photographer who uses Photoshop surely knows about the Spot Healing Brush Tool. It’s rather effective at removing all sorts of things from a photograph, such as dust, small objects, clouds and strange artifacts. If you’re a photographer, you definitely want to familiarize yourself with this tool.

While the Spot Healing Brush Tool is very effective, it can also give you a world of hurt if you don’t execute it the proper way. It’s tempting to click on its icon in the toolbar to activate it, choose a brush size and hardness and have at it. If you follow this sequence of events, you can click to your heart’s content and make your photos look wonderful. The issues arise when you discover that you’ve made a mistake. Either you removed something you didn’t intend to remove or your removal smudged somewhat and doesn’t look good. Whatever the case, you’d like to re-do whatever it was that you did, but you can’t. The action may have occurred twenty steps ago and getting all the way back there means losing all the work you did after that step. Luckily, there’s a better method for taking advantage of this tool and that’s what I’ll explain to you below.

The Demo Photo

I wanted to use a picture that had lots of stuff to make disappear. I came to the conclusion that one with stars in it would work perfectly. In the photo I found, there are dozens of stars and their manipulation will be obvious once I get the ball rolling.

Setting Up the File

In this section, I’ll set up the file in question to best remove the stars in the photo. I’ll show you how to do this non-destructively, so if you ever wanted to show any of them at a later date, you could.

Since the photo is already opened up in Photoshop, I don’t need to do that. What I will do is use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+0 to enlarge the image so it fits perfectly inside of my workspace. Then, I’ll head over to the Layers panel and create a new layer that sits above the bottom image layer. I’ll do this by clicking on the New Layer icon at the bottom of this panel.

After the layer is created, I’ll see that I have a potential “shield” against any changes I make to the image. This empty layer is where the changes will be made, not the image itself.

The final step for the setup is to head over to the left vertical toolbar and to click on the Spot Healing Brush Tool.

Then, up in the options bar, I’ll choose the brush size and hardness that I’d like to use during this operation as well as press the Content-Aware button and make sure the Sample All Layers box is checked.

Without checking the Sample All Layers box, Photoshop won’t know that I intend to use the empty layer as a shield. When I select that layer and begin removing the stars with the tool, nothing will happen. By sampling all the available layers, the tool will travel right through the empty layer and remove the stars beneath it. The true benefit lies in the fact that the actual “removal” will happen on the empty layer, leaving the bottom image layer untouched.

Removing the Stars

At this point, I can begin removing the stars. Again, I’ll need to be sure the top, empty layer is selected before I begin clicking around. For this example, I’ll remove a good number of stars, just so you can see a change.

How’s that? Can you see that I removed some stars? I didn’t want to go crazy because I’d have to sit here all day to get rid of them all, but I think the change is apparent.

Bringing the Stars Back

Let’s pretend that someone walked over and told me that I was supposed to keep the center area of stars for some reason and that I had made a mistake by removing them. If I didn’t apply my changes to a new layer, I’d have to start the entire project over again. But, since I executed this project in a non-destructive manner, I’m safe and any correction is rather simple. Before I go any further, let me show you what the top layer now looks like, since I used the Spot Healing Brush Tool.

Do you see that? If I hide the top layer by clicking on the small eye icon to the left of it, all the stars will reappear. To bring back anything I removed is rather simple. All I need to do is use the Eraser Tool and erase a spot from the top layer that I’m interested in making reappear on the bottom layer.

I’ll activate the Eraser Tool in the left vertical toolbar and set the attributes in the options bar up above.

Then, I’ll make sure the top layer in the Layers panel is selected by clicking on it and I’ll erase whatever it is I want to show again.

And it’s that easy. Of course, it makes sense to hide the bottom image layer as you’re erasing because you’ll have a better view of what it is you’re doing, but once you’re finished, you can make that layer visible again to view your genius. Done!

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Wow, that was an easy one, but very helpful indeed. I hope I clearly explained how to remove spots and objects in Adobe Photoshop using the Spot Healing Brush Tool in a non-destructive manner. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

With traditional photography, there’s a technique called Toning that aims to change the color of black and white photos. I’m sure you’ve seen these types of images around. Basically, they are colorless photographs with a light hint of a color. Usually, from what I’ve seen, the hint of color is brown or gold. Many photographers like giving their shots an antique style. I find this style appealing, personally speaking.

In today’s post, I’m going to show you the steps necessary to apply a toning effect to photos using Adobe Photoshop. First, we’ll strip away any existing color and then we’ll apply a toning filter. We’ll adjust the opacity of that filter and then finally, we’ll use Camera Raw to go one step further and apply some additional filters to the image. When I’m finished with this post, you should know how to give any digital photo you have an antique or “toned” appearance.

The Demo Photograph

For this post, I thought I’d go the route of finding a nice photo of some antiques. Either that, or a photo that looks like the item(s) in it are antique. I believe I did just that and I think I found an image that will do well for this post. Check it out.

I bet you haven’t seen a telephone like this in real life. They’re becoming more and more difficult to find.

Adding a Black & White Adjustment Layer

As you can see, the photo of the phone doesn’t look antique beyond the fact that the phone itself is antique. Since I already have the photo launched into Photoshop, I’m going to remove the color that’s making the photo look more modern. The way I’ll do this is by adding a Black & White adjustment layer. I’ll head up to the Adjustments panel and click the Black & White icon.

After I do this, I’ll see the color in the photo be stripped out and the Properties panel for this adjustment appear. I’ll also see the new adjustment layer appear in the Layers panel.

If I would like to add or remove any contrast in the photo, I can use the Black & White adjustment sliders to do so. Or, I could choose one of the presets from the Preset drop-down box.

To learn more about how to make the perfect black and white photo, please read the post below.

Killer Tips to Create Perfect Black & White Photos in Adobe Photoshop

If you leave things the way they are, don’t sweat it because you can always go back and modify the look of the black and white image later on.

Adding a Gradient Map

In this section, I’ll explain how to acquire the colored overlay.

To add some color to the photo, I’ll head back up to the Adjustments panel and click on the Gradient Map icon. Once I do that, I’ll notice a new adjustment layer appear in the Layers panel as well as the Properties panel for this adjustment open up.

If you do this in your own version of Photoshop, you’ll likely notice that you don’t have all that many gradients to choose from. To add more gradients, please read through the post below.

How to Load Additional Gradients into Adobe Photoshop

In this case, I clicked through a few preset gradients and found something that appealed to me. After I did that, I minimized the Properties panel to get it out of the way. At this point, if I feel that the gradient is too strong, I could always adjust the opacity of the adjustment layer. I’d make sure the layer is selected in the Layers panel by clicking on it once and then I’d click and drag the Opacity slider directly above the layer.

Creating a Smart Object

Although the photo is looking pretty good, it doesn’t have the effects I’d like to see in it. To get those effects, I’m going to have to jump from Photoshop over to Camera Raw for a bit. But, in order to do that, I’ll first need to convert the original photo layer to a Smart Object.

What are Smart Objects in Adobe Photoshop?

To convert the layer, I’ll select it in the Layers panel by clicking on it and then I’ll right-click on the layer. When the menu appears, I’ll click on Convert to Smart Object. This will immediately make the conversion and I’ll see the distinctive icon appear in the lower right corner of the layer thumbnail.

Now that the layer is a Smart Object, I can move onto the next step.

Applying a Camera Raw Filter

As I mentioned above, I’ll need to jump into Camera Raw for a moment to apply a few filters that this application executes extraordinarily well. To access Camera Raw from Photoshop, I’ll head up to the Filter > Camera Raw Filter menu item and click.

After I do that, Camera Raw will open in its own window. The image I’ll see inside of Camera Raw is the original image I had in Photoshop. I won’t be able to see any modifications I made to it by way of adjustment layers.

Once in Camera Raw, I’ll click on the Effects tab and push the sliders around that are situated under the Grain heading. I’ll also reduce the value of the Amount slider under the Post-Crop Vignetting heading. I’m looking for some additional grain in the photo along with some darker corners.

When finished, I’ll click on the OK button down below to return to Photoshop with those effects applied to the photo. Again, if I need to make any adjustments in Camera Raw, since I edited a Smart Object, all I need to do is double-click on the Camera Raw Filter layer to return to Camera Raw and make those changes. All the changes I make in this post are non-destructive.

The Final Image

That’s it. That’s all I need to do to alter this image to give it a photographic toning and antiquing effect. Let’s take a look at the final product.

Now, let’s liven things up by taking a look at a before and after shot.

That looks awesome.

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I hope I clearly explained how to apply a photographic toning effect to a photograph using Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Do you know how many times I had to change the title for this post because I couldn’t think of just the right words? A bunch. I mean, how do you try to explain that you plan on creating a Smart Object in Adobe Photoshop out of a bunch of graphics and then using those graphics as a label for a jar? Oh yeah, and that you’ll be taking advantage of the Warp feature of the Free Transform Tool in Photoshop to do so. Oh yeah again. And that your explanation needs to be under seventy characters for a blog post title.

Anyway, I guess I just explained what I intend to do for this post. To be more clear, I plan on walking through a small project in this post. I have a photo of a jar sitting on a tray in front of a wood pile. I also have a graphic I made that would be the perfect label for a hypothetical product. I’d like to turn the layers I created for the label into a Smart Object and then combine that Smart Object with the photo of the jar. After that, I’ll use the Free Transform feature of Photoshop to resize the label and then use the Warp feature of that same tool to add some curvature to the top of the label as well as the bottom. Finally, if the label needs any modifications, I’ll edit the Smart Object directly from the file I’m working in. After this post, you should have a good idea how to combine multiple layers as a Smart Object, how to merge that Smart Object with another file that’s open in Photoshop simultaneously, how to transform a Smart Object and how to warp it as well. Also, I’ll go over any touching up that might be necessary to make the label look natural. Hopefully, I can get this post finished without making my head spin too much.

The Working Files

As I mentioned above, I already made the label file. As this project moves on, I’ll show you those layers below. Here is the finished product.

Also, this is the jar I’ll be placing the product label on. Of course, the label will need to look good, so I’ll have to reshape it, which is the purpose of this post.

Of course, this isn’t a real product but it is the real process someone might follow to create a mockup of what a product may look like when finished.

The Label Layers

To create this label, I started off with a photograph of a nature scene. Then, I added a white background that would help out as I faded the photo, an oval to place the product text in, the text itself and a bottom and top bar to give the label some interest. Here are the layers.

After a bit of coloring and alignment, the label was finished.

Creating a Smart Object From Multiple Layers

This process is very simple. To create a Smart Object from many layers, all I need to do is to select all the layers in the Layers panel by clicking on the top layer, holding down the Shift key on my keyboard and then clicking on the bottom layer. This will highlight all of them.

After that, I’ll right-click on any one of the layers and after the menu appears, I’ll click on Convert to Smart Object.

Just for your information, the more layers you want to convert to a Smart Object or the larger the files that are included are, the longer the conversion will take. You need to be patient during the process. Don’t worry, a spinning indicator will be visible during the process.

Once the conversion is finished, only one layer will be available. That’s the Smart Object. If I wanted to, I could double-click on the text in the layer to rename it. That’s what I did.

Merging Files Into One Tab

The next step I need to take is to move the Smart Object label layer over into the tab where the photo of the bottle lives. To do this, I’ll click and drag the Smart Object layer up to the other file tab and wait for that tab’s contents to appear. Once that happens, I’ll drag the layer down into the center of the photograph and let go. This process will give me a Layers panel that has two layers in it.

In case you don’t know, you can always edit the contents of a Smart Object at any time. I won’t be doing that in this post, but if you’d like to know how to go about something like that, please feel free to take a look at this post below.

Converting Multiple Layers into a Smart Object in Adobe Photoshop

In this post, just scroll down to the “Edit Smart Object” section. All the information will be laid out there.

Transforming the Smart Object Layer

Okay, now that the photograph and the label are where they’re supposed to be, I can go ahead and resize the label to fit onto the jar. To do this, I’ll select the layer in the Layers panel and use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+T to activate the Free Transform tool. Once the transform bounding box appears over the label layer, I can hold down the Shift key, click on a corner of the label and drag that corner to the center of the label so it shrinks down. I can also click anywhere inside the transform box to reposition the label over the jar. This is the result.

If you look at the jar closely, you may notice that while the two top corners perfectly align with the glass, the two bottom corners need to be slightly dragged inward. I’ll get to that in a bit.

Warping the Label

Now that the label has been reduced in size, I can go ahead and warp (bend) the top and bottom edges of the label so they match the curves of the bottle. So, while the transform bounding box is still active, I can press the Warp button that’s up in the options bar. This will create a grid with handles over the label.

To learn more about how to warp things inside of Photoshop, please take a look at the post I link to below.

How To Warp Objects & Text in Adobe Photoshop

As it stands, I only need a very minimal warp upwards for the top edge and one just a tab bit more for the bottom. To accomplish the warp, I’ll click right on top of the top horizontal edge line, at the center, and drag upward. I’ll do the same for the bottom edge, but I’ll drag downward.

I also clicked and dragged the two bottom corners in so they touched the sides of the jar. I think everything is lined up the way it’s supposed to be now.

To confirm and set the changes, I’ll press the Enter key on my keyboard.

At this point, we have a jar that looks good. It has a label on it that looks fairly realistic. Have a look.

Adding an Adjustment Layer For Realism

While the label already looks really good, I’d like to take things one step further and darken up the edges of it. This will give the illusion of the label wrapping around the sides of the jar. To accomplish this illusion, I’m going to add a Curves adjustment layer and darken the label from there.

To add the adjustment layer, I’ll make sure the top “label” layer is selected in the Layers panel. Then, I’ll head up to the Adjustments panel and click the Curves icon.

Once the Properties panel for this adjustment appears, I can simply click directly on the center of the line and pull it down slightly.

Doing this will darken the entire image. Since I don’t want to darken everything and I want to limit any adjustment this layer causes, I’ll click on the Clipping Mask icon.

Don’t know what clipping masks are? Well, today’s your lucky day.

What are Clipping Masks in Adobe Photoshop?

Anyway, once I click that icon, the jar photograph will lighten back up as if there was no change at all.

Painting the Mask

The only thing I now have to take care of is editing the adjustment to the label I just made. If you remember back, a white mask reveals any change that’s made via the adjustment and any black areas on the mask will hide those adjustments. Since I want to only show the darkened areas on the side edges of the label, I’m going to paint a black stripe right down the center of the label. This will hide the darkness from the center and bring that area back to its original state.

You can see the black paint in the adjustment layer mask in the screenshot above. I circled it in red. I also pulled the Curves line down a bit more to darken the edges even more.

Now, let’s take a look at the final image.

Wow, I’d say that looks great.

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My intention for this post was to show you how you can put a freshly learned skill into practice. In my last post, I described how to apply a warp to something. In this post, I used the previous lesson to actually warp something for a real-life project. I sincerely hope this helped you.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

I’ll be writing a lot of posts in the future that discuss how to bend, twist, warp and distort all sorts of things inside of Adobe Photoshop. The sky is the limit when it comes to this topic and Photoshop has tons of tools to make your life progress as smoothly as possible in this regard. In this post though, I’m going to limit myself to one area. That area is the warping of both raster images and vector graphics.

If you aren’t aware of what raster images and vector graphics are, I’ll give you a quick rundown. Basically, rasters are simply a grid of colored pixels. Together, those pixels create the image that you and I see. Each pixel itself is assigned a color and shade. If a raster graphic is bent or twisted too much or to too extreme a degree, it can appear distorted and fuzzy.

Vector graphics don’t use individual pixels that are limited to being assigned a specific color and shade like those above. The pixels vectors use are assigned colors according to a mathematical formula. The primary noticeable difference between raster and vector images for the average person is the fact that vectors don’t lose quality, while the rasters do. You can stretch a vector graphic to oblivion and it will still appear crisp and clear.

In today’s post, I’m going to quickly show you how you can use Photoshop’s warp capabilities to warp a raster image. Then, I’ll show you how you can type some text, transform that text into a vector shape and finally, warp that shape. I’ll also show you the difference between converting the text into a raster graphic and a vector shape.

Warping a Raster Image

Oftentimes, you’ll want to distort a graphic that’s contained within another image. Say you have a few different layers and you want to reshape one layer. If the layer you would like to distort has a white background, you can use a blend mode to avoid all the time it would take to clip that white background out. I’ll show you what I mean below.

I already opened up the image I’ll be using for this section into Photoshop. In this file, I have a white background and the image itself. The image is of some coffee beans that are shaped like a heart. The coffee bean image has a white background.

As I just mentioned above, I’m going to use a blend mode to hide the white background from the image. If you aren’t familiar with blend modes, please feel free to read through these posts.

What are Blending Modes in Adobe Photoshop?

Learning the Difference Between Blending Modes in Adobe Photoshop

Quick Keyboard Shortcut Guide For Blending Modes in Adobe Photoshop

Here’s what the Layers panel looks like.

And here’s what the coffee bean image looks like.

To hide the white areas of an image with a blend mode, all you need to do is set the Blend Mode drop-down to Multiply. Doing this will hide the white elements of the image and keep everything else.

Okay, now that the stage is set, I can begin warping, which is really easy to do.

To warp an image, I’ll head up to the Edit > Transform > Warp menu item and click.

After I do that, a grid with anchor points and control handles will appear over the image at hand. Take a look.

To warp the image, I could click and drag the handles around.

And I could click right into the grid itself and drag wherever I want.

I could also click and drag any of the available anchor points. Regardless of what I choose to click and drag, when I’m finished, I could click Enter on my keyboard to apply any changes I made.

Warp Presets

Instead of warping the image freehand, I could always choose one of the many presets available via the Warp drop-down menu. This drop-down is located in the options bar and has many options, such as Flag, Arc and Fisheye, just to name a few.

After clicking one of the presets, the options bar will adjust to that option and offer variables that you can change. These variables consist of position, degree of warp and rotation, if applicable.

Again, after making any changes, simply press Enter on your keyboard or click on the check mark at the right side of the options bar. This will apply your changes.

Warping Text

Inside of Photoshop, there is a warp tool that’s dedicated specifically to text. I’ll be going over that tool in subsequent posts because it’s fairly limited. Today, I’d like to use the same tool as I did above to change the shape of some sample text.

I’ve gone ahead and clicked on the Horizontal Type Tool and typed the word WARP.

To modify the size and color of this word, I changed some of the settings inside the Character panel.

While I won’t be talking about these tools in this post today, I did want to show you how I created, sized and colored the demo word.

Okay, the time has come to warp the text. If I head back to the Edit > Transform > Warp menu item and click, I’ll notice that nothing happens. Basically, I’ll just get the options bar that will offer those presets I mentioned before.

What I’m after is the overlay grid that will allow me to stretch and bend the word to my delight.

In order to get that grid, I have to change the text layer to either a raster one or a vector one. To perform either of these functions, I’ll need to go up to the Type > Convert To Shape menu item or the Type > Rasterize Type Layer menu item.

Just beware, once I rasterize or convert the text to a shape, I won’t be able to edit the text anymore. Because of this, I’ll make sure it says what I really want it to say.

Once I do either of these things, I can go back to the Edit > Transform > Warp menu item and click. Doing that will give me the grid I want.

After that, I can begin pulling it around.

Once I’m finished altering the shape of the text, I can press Enter on my keyboard to commit the change.

Now, I want to show you something. I warped both the raster and the shape versions of this text. I want to show you the quality difference between the two. First, I’ll show you the raster version.

And next, I’ll show you the vector (shape) version.

If you look at the upper right corner of the text in both examples, you’ll see that the raster version is much more fuzzy than the vector version. The reason for this is because of what I stated above. It’s the pixel based image versus the mathematical formula based one. There are occasions you might want one over the other and I’ll cover all that in later posts as well. For now, just know that you can warp either one right inside of Photoshop.

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Well that wasn’t too difficult. The problem with writing posts about Photoshop is that it’s so easy to go off on a tangent and never get to the point of the post. I find that I have to constantly rein myself in to stay focused. I hope I don’t show my distraction in my writing.

I also hope that I effectively demonstrated how to warp both raster images and vector graphics in Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!