Adobe Photoshop Tips, Tutorials & Techniques

We all know by now that we should be converting layers that we add filters to in Adobe Photoshop to Smart Objects. I’ve said this a dozen times on this blog. Doing this has tremendous upside and only somewhat of a downside. The upside is that the layer we’re working on will be protected by the Smart Object envelope. Any changes that we make to it will be non-destructive. For a heavy Photoshop users, having this capability is invaluable. It’s huge. It’s make or break kind of stuff.

The downside of converting a layer to a Smart Object is that it adds to the file size. Whenever I hear that, I’m like, “Yeah, whatever. What’s it going to add? Like 5 MBs? That’s nothing! I have a 4 GB external drive!” It’s almost as if people say that the additional file size isn’t even something to consider. I’ll admit that I haven’t made a big deal about it on this blog. Should I have? Does the file size grow substantially? Is this something we should be taking a closer look at?

In today’s post, I’m going to run a simple experiment. I’m not going to take people’s words for it or read about it on the internet. I’m going to do the work myself to garner some actual results. What I’d like is to see exactly is how much the size of a file grows if a layer within that file is converted to a Smart Object. Simple enough.

To perform this experiment, I needed a photograph that was taken in RAW format. With this in mind, I grabbed my camera and ran outside to our bird feeder. It just snowed last night up here in Maine and the birds are going crazy for bird food. They always do this after it snows. I took a bunch of quick pictures and then came back inside and loaded them onto my computer. I’ll use the best shot, which isn’t great, but it’ll do. Here it is.

This is a Chickadee. It’s out state bird. We’re very proud of this bird in Maine. I just wish it was sunny for the photo, but I’ll have to live with the clouds.

The Numbers

Okay, ready for some information? Here goes. The size of the RAW file after I took it out of the camera is below.

RAW File (CR2): 28.3 MB

I did a small amount of editing in Camera Raw and then moved the file into Adobe Photoshop. From there, I simply “Saved Ad” a TIFF file. Let’s check out the size of that.

TIFF File (TIF): 68.6 MB

After that, I saved the original RAW file out as a Photoshop PSD file. Both TIFF and PSD files preserve layers within the file. I wanted to see the difference between the two sizes.

Photoshop File (PSD): 68.6

Isn’t that interesting? They’re both exactly the same. Because they’re the same size, I’ll work with just TIFF from here on out. Let’s move on.

The next thing I wanted to see was how large a file would become if I added a straight up filter to the layer and also if I added an adjustment layer to the file. Let’s take a look.

TIFF File with Filter: 206 MB
TIFF File with Adjustment Layer: 206 MB

Whoa. Okay, the minute you touch a file in Photoshop, the size of it jumps up quite a bit. That’s good to know.

Now let’s take a look at what happens to the file size if I just convert the image layer into a Smart Object. All I’m doing for this one is opening the RAW image into Photoshop and then converting the layer and saving it out. That’s it.

TIFF File with Smart Object: 275 MB

Okay, things are starting to get a bit heavy here. My 4 GB external drive isn’t looking so large anymore. How much bigger can these files get? Well, let’s have a look. For this final experiment, I’m going to add a filter to the Smart Object. For this one, I’m building off the last one. I already converted the layer and now I’ll go up to the Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen menu item and click.

TIFF File with Smart Object + Filter: 344 MB

That’s pretty large. It’s actually so large that if we were to work on many of our photos and save those working files, we’d need a heck of a lot of disk space to store all these things. The question now is, is it worth it to use Smart Objects? I suppose that depends on how serious you are. What type of photography or graphic design are you into? Are you making money off of it? Can you afford all those external drives? There are many questions, but I at least wanted to get you some raw data to review. Please, let me know your thoughts on this. Does what I showed you above surprise you?

I wanted to write a quick post to answer a question I received a few days ago regarding the management of layers in the Layers panel of Adobe Photoshop. Many folks who are new to this application have some difficulty understanding the basics of how layers work. I always tell them to think about Photoshop as a table and layers as pieces of paper on top of that table. You can move the pieces of paper around, just as you can with layers. You can reorder the paper, just as you can with layers. You can also stack the pieces of paper on top of one another, just as you can with layers. Layers are quite literally “layers.” They’re layered on top of one another in a certain sequence.

While this post is about layers, it’s mostly about something more specific than that. The question I received had to do with how to name layers as well as how to change the order of them in the panel. Since this is quick and easy to explain, I thought I’d do it here. I would never want to respond to a question like this to an individual if others can be helped as well.

In today’s post, I’ll open a few images in Adobe Photoshop. I’ll use those images as examples when it comes time to name their layers. I’ll also demonstrate how to change the order of the layers in the Layers panel as well. This is all easy stuff, so it shouldn’t take long at all.

Demo Photos

Okay, I’ve gone ahead and opened four different images into the same file in Photoshop. The way I did this was to select the files in Adobe Bridge and then go to the Tools > Photoshop > Load Files into Photoshop Layers menu item and click. That opens all the selected images into one file as layers. It’s a very handy feature to have around. It saved me some clicking and dragging.

Anyway, here’s the fancy “natural looking” arrangement I made. I hope the fact that the images are on top of one another is noticed.

Naming the Individual Layers

I guess the question is, why in the world would anyone want to name the individual layers in the Layers panel? I mean, most of the time, there are only one or two layers. Maybe three at most, so why not just keep them as the way Photoshop named them by default? To be honest, when I’m working with just a handful of layers, this is what I do. The answer is, you want to name them because you’re not always going to be working with just a handful. There may be a point where you work with dozens or hundreds. You’ll certainly want to not only name them, but group them as well, but that’s something for another day. Another good reason to name the individual layers is because you may be working on variations of the same image (or similar looking images). Perhaps they just have different brightness levels. Since this can get confusing fast, naming them to describe them makes a lot of sense.

Let’s take a look at the current Layers panel.

As you can see, each of the four photographs has its own layer. The thumbnails are showing which is which. You can also see that I added a bottom layer that I filled with white. That’s helping my demonstration out.

Since the current names of the photo layers are the image file names, I’d like to change them to be more descriptive. To rename a layer, I’ll simply double-click the current name with my mouse. The name area will become editable and I’ll type the new desired name and then when I’m finished with that, I’ll press the Enter key on my keyboard.

In the above screenshot, I completed the renaming, but I left the top one in the editable state, so you can see what that looked like.

Reordering the Layers

You may have noticed that I have sort of a collage of photos going on in my example. The order is random, so I may want to change that. In order to change the way the photos are stacked on top of one another in the workspace, I’ll need to change the layer order in the Layers panel. This is easy enough to do.

Currently, the “Curvy Bridge” photo layer is third from the top. I’d actually like that to be the top layer. To make it the top layer, I’ll click and drag the layer in the Layers panel to the top position. In the next screenshot, I have clicked and dragged the Curvy Bridge layer to the top position. As I dragged it, I noticed that light blue lines were appearing between the other layers. Those are the areas I can drop this one so it can reside in its new position. Once it’s where I want it to be, I can simply drop it and that’s it.

Another easy way to reorder layers is to use two keyboard shortcuts. To move a layer down in relation to the other layers, use Ctrl+[ and to raise it up, use Ctrl+]. I thought about it and I came to the conclusion that I didn’t like the bridge photo all the way on top, so I pressed Ctrl+[ to move it down one space. Now it’s perfect. If I wanted to move a layer all the way to the top or all the way to the bottom in one fell swoop, I would add the Shift key to the shortcuts.

I know that these were simple concepts, but they’re necessary and not everyone knows how to manage these parts of the Layers panel in Adobe Photoshop. I do hope I clearly explained everything though. If you have any questions regarding this post, please feel free to ask in the comments section down below or in the discussion forum. I’m always hanging out in both areas. Thanks for reading!

The answer is clipping. I’ll tell you that right up front. If you would like to apply an adjustment layer to just one layer in Adobe Photoshop, use the clipping feature. It’s that simple.

Have you ever worked on a file in Photoshop and thought about adjusting only one area of an image? For instance, let’s say you have a lovely couple standing together outside and you wanted to emphasize them and only them. You wanted the background to sort of disappear, or at least fade out a bit. How would you go about doing that? If you apply an adjustment layer to the entire photo and try to emphasize the couple like that, sure, you’ll get your emphasis, but it’ll be applied to everything, even the background. Conversely, if you attempted to de-emphasize the background, everything would be de-emphasized the same way as the previous example was. There has to be a way to separate things into their own layers and then apply adjustments to just those layers. I’m sure you already know that there is. It’s the reason I’m sitting here writing right now.

In today’s post, I’m going to work through a short project that will demonstrate exactly how to select an object in a photograph, apply a layer mask to that object and then how to clip it to only one layer. The result will be an image that contains separate elements inside of it. While this demonstration will be simple and brief, the ramifications of it will be far reaching. This is the method professionals use when they’re doing these types of things. Remember, layer masks, adjustment layers and clipping are used every single day by the best image editors in the world.

Today’s Demo Photo

I’ve probably used this photo before. I thought it was perfect for this post though, so I decided to use it again. My plan is to select the couple and then apply a layer mask to them, so they’re isolated from the background. I’ll continue on and apply the adjustment layers from there.

Selecting the Couple

I’m going to use the Quick Selection Tool to make today’s selection. Since there isn’t anything terribly challenging about this selection, I’ll leave it rough so I can move on at a decent pace.

Before I do anything though, I’m going to duplicate the photograph layer by clicking on it and dragging it down to the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. That will give me two identical layers. Then, I’ll use the Quick Selection Tool to make my selection.

I’ll size and then drag the tool around the inside edge of the couple. If I’m careful, I’ll end up with the dotted marching ants around the selection (the couple). If I mess up and draw outside the lines, I’ll just press and hold the Alt key on my keyboard to unselect that area. Here’s my selection.

Can you see the dotted lines? They’re around the outer edge of the couple.

Adding a Layer Mask

The next step will be to add a layer mask. Since I have a selection, adding a layer mask will make it so just that selection is visible with everything outside of it invisible. To add the layer mask, I’ll head down to the bottom of the Layers panel and click the Add Layer Mask button.

If you take a look at the layer mask thumbnail in the Layers panel above, you’ll see that the visible part is white and the hidden part is black.

Adding an Adjustment Layer

Earlier in this post, I mentioned that I wanted to somewhat brighten up the couple. To do this, I’ll apply the Brightness/Contrast adjustment from the Adjustments panel. Once it’s been applied, I’ll push the Brightness slider to the right for a value of 30 and the Contrast slider to the right for a value of 15. That will brighten everything in the image as well as add some contrast too.

While this is nice and all, it’s not exactly fitting with my plan for making the couple stand out from the background. As I just mentioned, everything is now bright with some contrast thrown in for good measure. How do I separate the effect of the adjustment layer so it only affects the top layer – the one with the mask applied to it?

Clipping an Adjustment Layer

Before I go any further, I’d like to have you take a look at the current Layers panel. Check this out.

What I’ve got is the adjustment layer on top, affecting both the masked layer of just the couple as well as the layer beneath that, which includes the background. My goal now is to make it so the adjustment layer only affects the middle layer. To do this, I’ll head up to the Layer > Create Clipping Mask menu item and click.

Now, if I go back and look at the layers in the Layers panel, I’ll notice that the top adjustment layer has been indented. That means it’s clipped to the layer directly beneath it and it’s not affecting the layers below any longer.

Let’s now take a look at the couple.

If you’ll notice, the couple is brighter, while the background has been untouched. This is perfect. To celebrate, I think I’ll add another adjustment layer. I’ll go ahead and add the Vibrance adjustment and clip it just as I did the previous one. I would like to add some additional color to the couple as well.

Darkening the Background

At this point, I think I’m ready to darken, or de-emphasize, the background. To do this, I’ll click on the bottom layer in the Layers panel and then I’ll apply the Brightness/Contrast adjustment again. This time, the adjustment layer will appear directly above the bottom layer, so it automatically won’t affect anything above it. I don’t need to clip it to anything.

When the Properties panel for this adjustment opens up, I’ll push both sliders to the left. For the Brightness, I’ll make the value -40 and for the Contrast, I’ll make the value -50. This will darken the entire scene behind the couple and it will also dull it out somewhat so all those branches don’t distract from the couple. Now let’s take a look at the final Layers panel, just to get a clear idea of what’s happened.

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

Pretty cool, right? It makes the photo look much more 3D.

I hope I clearly explained how to use clipping in Adobe Photoshop to have an adjustment layer affect only the layer directly beneath it for some very nice effects. If you have any questions regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section below or you can ask any question you wish in the discussion forum. Thanks for reading!

I’ve said this a thousand time before. There’s more than one way to get there from here in Adobe Photoshop. Some methods for accomplishing your goals are very straightforward while others are somewhat convoluted. As Adobe continues to build and refine their applications, they learn what the most common tasks are. They streamline them. They make tools to complete them quickly. A task that used to take ten steps to complete now takes only two. Sometimes though, it’s fun to use the old ways or ways that take us down the windy road. Sometimes, there are unintended consequences that we can learn from. If you want to become very proficient with Adobe Photoshop, you’ll need to learn the not so simple ways.

In today’s post, I’d like to show you the long way around to sharpening an image in Photoshop. The method I’d like to demonstrate will use a blending mode, a Smart Object, and inversion, a blur filter and then more blending modes. While it’s very simple to use the new Smart Sharpen filter, it’s also an eye opener to use this longer and more flexible method. As you’ll see during the process I’ll explain below, you can make an image look all sorts of different ways while attempting to sharpen it.

Today’s Demo Photo

Because this is a sharpening post, I thought I should work with a very detailed photo that will show off the process. Take a look at this one. I don’t think I could have chosen anything better. I’ve decided to display the before and after shot below. This is just a small preview of what’s to come.

Beginning the Process

For this sharpening task, I’m simply going to give you the instructions for how to go about it. If you would like to dig into the “whys” of how this works, you can do that at any time. If you’re interested, I encourage you to look into what each blending mode does. That should set you off running.

Okay, the first thing I’m going to do is to open the image in Adobe Photoshop. Once it’s opened up, I’ll select the layer in the Layers panel and duplicate it twice (select each layer and use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J), so there are three layers in all. Then, I’ll put the two top layers in a group (select them and use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+G). And finally, I’ll apply the Overlay blending mode to the group itself. Let’s see what that looks like. Here are the layers.

Here was the original image:

And here’s what the image looks like now. As you can see, it’s much more saturated. Don’t get too used to that.

It’s remarkable what blending modes can do though, isn’t it? People who create Actions use blending modes all the time.

Invert & Vivid Light

Next in the process is the inversion I was talking about and then another blending mode application. I’ll go ahead and click on the very top layer in the group to select it and then use the keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+I to invert it. Then, I’ll apply the Vivid Light blending mode to that layer as well. Doing this will bring the image back to its original look, so I’m not going to bother showing it to you here. I will, however, show you the Layers panel, just to give you a glimpse of what’s going on.

Smart Object & Surface Blur

We’re getting there. I know what you’re thinking right about now. You’re wondering how all of these steps fit together. Think of them as a math problem. You need to understand what each step does in order to see all of them actually do something. I’ve covered all of this in previous posts. If you really are curious about what’s going on, please use the search bar above to dig in a bit deeper. You may also just follow the instructions if you don’t want to do any of that. That’s what I would personally do.

Anyway, I’ll go ahead and right-click on the inverted layer now and then select the Convert to Smart Object option from the menu that appears. Once that’s done, I’ll head up to the Filter > Blur > Surface Blur menu item and click.

Then, once the Surface Blur dialog box appears, I’ll set the Radius value to 100 pixels and the Threshold value to 30 levels. This is what works for the photo I’m using.

I’ll click on the OK button and then watch as the image’s colors slightly change and as the image becomes sharper. If you’re following along with your own photograph, I think you’ll agree that the before and after shots feel sort of like putting on a pair of glasses. Things just become more clear.

The Final Blending Mode

For the final step, I’m going to double-click on the Smart Filter Blending Options icon in the Layers panel and change the blending mode for the filter from Normal to Luminosity. I’m doing this to compensate for the slight color change that occurred during the previous steps. In the photo I’m using, the reds became slightly over saturated.

When I’m finished with that, I’ll click the OK button and the task is completed. Here is the final image.

While it may not be readily apparent that this image is indeed sharper looking, I can confirm it is. As I turn on and off the visibility of the grouped layers, the clarity becomes much more easily seen.

Going a Step Farther

If you really want to jazz things up, you could duplicate the background layer once more, like I just did. I then moved that layer to the top position in the group and applied the Vivid Light blending more to it.

When I do this, the sharpening effect stays intact, but the image appears much more robust. I could even cycle through the remaining blending modes to see which one I like best. Since Vivid Light looked good in this case, I kept it. Take a look.

For the before and after shot I displayed above, I didn’t even use a blending mode. That just goes to show how much of an effect hierarchical blend modes can have on images in groups. Now let’s take a look at the before and after shot. Well, actually this is after and before, from left to right.

Now, if I wanted to put this all together for easy accessibility and reuse, I could always create a Photoshop Action for that. I’ll be writing a lot more about Actions in the future. They are incredible little pieces of wonder. You’re going to love them.

For now though, just be aware that making these types of adjustments in Photoshop often requires many different steps and that these steps often build off of one another. Layer styles, blending modes and filters work together to create remarkable results. To dive into this area deeper, you’ll need to focus on how each of these parts create the whole.

I hope I clearly explained how to sharpen a photograph in Adobe Photoshop by taking advantage of blend modes and filters. If you have any questions regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section below. Also, as always, you may ask any questions you’d like, of me or others, in the discussion forum. Thanks for reading!

I’m sure you’ve seen the slice effect somewhere out there. It looks like something, either a picture or a graphic or some text, has been sliced right in half with a sword. Basically, there’s a gap through the center of the object and that’s what gives it the slice effect. It’s actually not so much a gap where some material from the object was removed, but a gap caused by part of the object moving away from the other. It’s pretty neat and I think learning how to go about creating this effect would help tremendously if you’re interested in graphic design. Somewhere along the lines, you’re bound to be asked to pull something like this off.

In today’s post, I’d like to demonstrate how to effectively slice text in half in Adobe Photoshop. For this project, I’ll be taking advantage of Smart Objects, the Rectangle Tool and vector masks. The first time around, this type of project should take about ten minutes to complete, once you’ve established the text font, color and overall look you’re going for. Once you know what you’re doing though, the process should take about 30 seconds to complete. There are a few new ideas in this post, so be sure to read through to the end.

The Big Slice

I thought I’d give you the resulting image up here, just to wet your whistle. This is what this graphic will look like when I’m finished with it.

Pretty neat, right?

Writing Out the Text

For this project, I created a document in Adobe Photoshop that measured 700 pixels wide and 468 pixels high. This is the size I generally use for this website because it fits well with the theme I’m using. I left the background white and I wrote out the words “Slice It!” with the Impact font sized to 176pts. Obviously, the color is some sort of pink. I then centered the text by selecting the text layer in the Layers panel and then selecting the entire document by activating the Rectangular Marquee Tool and using the keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+A. Once the area was selected, I changed to the Move Tool and used the alignment options in the options bar up top to center the text vertically as well as horizontally.

Here’s what I have so far.

Converting to a Smart Object

In order to make this text editable in the future, if need be, I’m going to convert the text layer to a Smart Object. To accomplish this, I’ll simply right-click on the layer in the Layers panel and choose Convert to Smart Object from the menu that appears.

Drawing a Path

Next, I’m going to use the Rectangle Tool to draw a path over half the image. I’ll go to the left vertical toolbar and click on the Rectangle Tool.

From there, I’ll look up at the options bar and make sure the Path option is chosen in the first drop-down.

And now, I’ll draw out the rectangle.

While this path doesn’t need to be perfectly aligned with the edges of the document, there are times when paths need to be precisely shaped. In cases like this, I recommend using guides because paths can snap to guides when they’re being drawn. That’s just a quick tip for anyone who’s interested.

At this point, I need to reshape the path somewhat. I think you’ll see why in a moment. To reshape the path, I’ll use the Direct Selection Tool.

The way I’ll do this is to click and drag over just the upper left anchor point. That will keep only that one active. Then, I’ll hold down the Shift key on my keyboard to lock the left edge in vertically (so it doesn’t wander) and I’ll click and drag that anchor point down a bit so the top horizontal line is sloping downward. Then, I’ll do the same thing to the other side, but this time, I’ll drag that corner upward. Here’s my result.

Again, these lines don’t need to be exact. I’m just trying to keep things neat as I move through this project.

Applying a Vector Mask

The trick here is to make half of this text disappear, so I’ll use a vector mask to accomplish that. To apply a vector mask, I’ll hold down the Ctrl key on my keyboard and click on the Add Layer Mask icon that’s located at the bottom of the Layers panel. This will make the top half of the word disappear and will add a mask to the layer on the Layers panel.

Duplicating the Layer

I hope you see where this is going now. All I have left to do is to duplicate the masked text layer and reverse the mask. To duplicate the layer, I’ll click once on it in the Layers panel to select it and then I’ll use the keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+J to make the duplicate. After that, I should have two of the same exact layers, which doesn’t really help me much. What I really need is two layers that are inversely masked. So, to invert the mask, I’ll choose one of the layers and then, while the Rectangle Tool is active, head up to the options bar and click on the Path Operations icon. After that, I’ll click on the Subtract Front Shape option.

This will seemingly undo what I did earlier to make the top part of the text disappear. The entire word will be showing once again, but in reality, it’s two halves of the word. Take a look at the Layers panel for a moment.

Do you see how the masks are inverse from one another? If I activate the Move Tool again and click to select one of the masked text layers and then nudge one of them, I’ll see the effect take shape. For this example, I’ll nudge straight up and down a few times.

And that’s it! I’d say that’s a really cool and very easy effect to pull off. Depending on what kind of effect you want, you can make all different types of shapes with the Rectangle Tool or other shape tools. I just changed up the path outline a bit and make this.

The sky’s the limit. And if I ever wanted to edit the actual text, I could double-click on the layer in the Layers panel, edit the text and then save that file out. That would update the text in the working file.

I hope I clearly explained how to use the text tools, Smart Objects and vector masks to create interesting effects in Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions regarding this post, please let me know down in the comment section below. You may also ask any question you wish in the discussion forum. Thanks for reading!

I’m sure you’ve seen what a Drop Shadow effect looks like when it comes to graphics. They’re everywhere. This effect was one of the very first ones I toyed with when I began using Adobe Photoshop and it’s still just as elegant today as it was back then. I’ll confess that I did have a very brief love affair with the Bevel & Emboss effect, but that was short lived. I abused that one and I had to give it up. When everything is embossed on a poster or postcard, it doesn’t look very good. Less is more in many cases. How embarrassing.

Anyway, the drop shadow effect is very cool. There’s a lot you can do with it and if applied correctly, it can completely transform whatever it is you’re working on to a multi-dimensional piece of art. Flat graphics have their place as do letters that seem as though they’re floating off the page.

In today’s post, I’d like to walk through a quick project that has to do with the creation and application of drop shadows in Adobe Photoshop. To do this, I’ll create some text on a solid background and then work inside of the Layer Style palette to adjust and apply the shadow. While this can be a very simple and straightforward process, I hope to dazzle you with a few additional tips and tricks. Read on below!

The Demo Text

I wrote out some generic text and tried to accompany it with some basic colors that I felt a shadow would appear clearly on. This is what I came up with.

Adding the First Drop Shadow

Since I have already shared a post that has to do with applying layer styles in general here, I won’t go too far in depth with what I share below.

Okay, to apply the first drop shadow to the text in this project, I’ll double-click on the text layer in the Layers panel. This will open up the Layer Styles palette, where I’ll click on the check box to the left of the Drop Shadow option in the left column. Then, I’ll click on the words Drop Shadow themselves, which will reveal the options for this effect. Take a look.

This first shadow I’m making can be considered somewhat of a base layer. It’s not going to be one of those distinct shadows that we see out there so frequently. To create the base shadow, I’ll make these settings:

Blend Mode: Multiply
Color: Same as background
Angle: 130 degrees (turn off global light)
Distance: 40px
Spread: 20%
Size: 50px

Here are the settings so you can see them.

And this is the output of that.

I’d say that’s pretty good. It really separates the text from the background and it looks like a shadow. I actually just looked at things again and decided to increase the Opacity to 75% from 50% and I also added some Noise at 20%. These weren’t huge changes and they’re actually barely noticeable, but I though they looked good.

Adding a Second Shadow

To make things interesting, I’m going to add on another shadow. I think you’ll appreciate this effect. To add another shadow with the same exact settings as the one I just added, I’ll simply click the small + symbol that sits to the right of the Drop Shadow title in the left column.

Again, this new shadow effect was created with the same settings as the previous one I was just working on. I don’t necessarily want all those settings to be the same, but I will keep some. The settings for this shadow that I’ll change are:

Opacity: 85%
Angle: 140 degrees
Distance: 20px
Spread: 50%
Size: 20%
Noise: 0%

When I’m finished with this one, I’ll click the OK button to apply it. Let’s take a look at it.

Adding a Gradient Overlay

While I think this shadow couple is looking really nice and that it truly wakes this text up, I think I can go a bit further to add more flair to the text. I’d like to also add a Gradient Overlay. To do this, I’ll click on the check box to the left of the Gradient Overlay title in the left column of the Layer Style palette. Then, I’ll click on the title itself to show the settings area. Once that’s done, I’ll change these settings:

Blend Mode: Multiply
Opacity: 25%
Gradient: Black to White
Angle: 40%

For the other settings, I’ll leave them as their defaults. Here is the settings area for this effect.

This is what the text looks like now. The gradient overlay is subtle, but very nice.

Adding an Inner Shadow

By now, you should be getting the hang of how to apply effects to text or an object. What I do is cruise around the Layer Style palette and play with things as experimentation. If I like something, I keep it. If I don’t, I leave it alone. In this case, an inner shadow adds to the depth of the text, so I decided to keep it. To add the Inner Shadow, I clicked on its check box and then on the text, just like I did with the others. Then, I changed a few of the default settings. Here they are:

Blend Mode: Multiply
Color: Black
Opacity: 35%
Angle: 130 degrees (turn off global light)
Distance: 5px
Choke: 0%
Size: 10px

Here’s a visual of the settings I used for this one.

And finally, here is the resulting text.

I actually like the text with just the two shadows applied to it the best because the text remains bright, but I wanted to show you some of the possibilities, especially as the text size changes. You can change the effects so they’re tighter or more spread out. For instance, if I double-clicked on the Inner Shadow effect in the Layers panel and and changed the Size attribute to a zero value, the soft shadow would turn hard. I could do the same thing with the second drop shadow I created to harden that one up as well.

As you can see, the creative possibilities are there. If I removed the gradient overlay, but kept the hard shadows, this is what I’d end up with. Oh, I could go on all day.

This one is my favorite. Okay, I have to stop there or I’ll never stop.

I hope I clearly explained how to apply different effects, such as Drop Shadow, Gradient Overlay and Inner Shadow, to text in Adobe Photoshop. If you have any questions regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section down below or in the discussion forum. Thanks for reading!

This is very cool. Do you remember back in the day, before adjustment layers in Adobe Photoshop were around, when we had to visit the Image menu item and then use the items in the Adjustments section? If you’ve used Photoshop for a decent length of time, you surely remember this. If not, let me show you the area I’m referring to. It’s still there.

Inside this Adjustments area are some really great tools. I loved using them because, well, that’s what we did. We’ve got Brightness, Contrast, Levels, Curves and just about everything else. I haven’t used these features in years because of the adjustment layers that replaced them.

Well, I’m about to show you something really neat. I know there’s a huge population out there that has yet to get used to using adjustment layers. They have the latest software, but they simply like what they’ve been using forever, whether it be because of the easy to use menu area or because of the floating palettes. What I share below might help out tremendously because up until recently, any correcting or other adjustment made through these menu items was permanent, meaning destructive. If you edit a photo using these tools, the photo is forever altered. I’ve said this many times; this isn’t a good thing. Of course, there are workaround such as creating back up layers and the such, but that’s not practical all the time. That’s why Adobe came out with non-destructive adjustment layers for these types of edits.

In today’s post, I’m going to demonstrate how to go about using the old style Adjustments menu in a non-destructive fashion. It’s so simple, it’s going to really wow you. These adjustments will be treated like Smart Filters, so everything you do will be re-editable, which is what we want.

Today’s Demo Image

I don’t know if I used this photo yet or not, but I thought it was pretty good for this topic. Since the image isn’t overly saturated in any way, it’ll be obvious when I apply an adjustment. Take a look.

Converting Layer to Smart Object

Yes, I’m sure you knew I was going to say this. Of course the first step, after opening the photo into Photoshop, is to convert the background layer into a Smart Object. This is actually the secret sauce of this post. To make these adjustments non-destructive, all that needs to happen is this conversion. I’m sure you know how to do this by now too. Simply right-click on the layer and choose Convert to Smart Object from the menu that appears.

Applying the Adjustment

I’ll keep this simple and apply the first available adjustment. That would be the Brightness/Contrast one. So, I’ll head up to the Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast menu item and click.

When I click that, I’ll notice something happen. The Brightness/Contrast dialog box will appear and I’ll be able to make my edits. When I’m finished, I’ll click the OK button. In this case, I added some contrast to make the image stand out more and to give it some definition.

Now, just to be clear, when I add the contrast through this dialog, Photoshop is doing the same exact thing it would do if I were doing this through an adjustment layer. I’m seeing the same effect.

After I click on the OK button, I’ll notice that I’ve got a new filter under my layer in the Layers panel.

And just as with any other Smart Filter, I can double-click on the adjustment part of it and the dialog box will appear again, where I can change things up. If I want to add or remove brightness or contrast, I can.

So, what’s different between this method and the adjustment layer method we’ve gotten so used to? Well, for one, I don’t have individual layer masks. I do have an overall mask that can be applied, but that’s going to affect any and all of these types of adjustments I add. With the adjustment layer approach, I can edit those masks independently, which gives me a lot of flexibility.

I do get this though; if I double-click the Smart Object thumbnail, the original image will open in a new tab. So, if I wanted to, I could change that somehow and then save the file out, return to the original project and the change will show there. That’s pretty handy. Also, if I ever want to remove this adjustment, all I need to do is drag it down to the trash can located at the bottom of the Layers panel.

Auto Tone, Auto Contrast & Auto Color

You may have noticed a few additional adjustments that can be made inside of the Image menu area. These are the Auto Tone, Auto Contrast and Auto Color adjustments. I guess Adobe hasn’t gotten around to these yet because if I go ahead and click on one of these options, the adjustment will be applied and it won’t touch the original file because of the Smart Object wrapper, but it also won’t create a Smart Filter element. It will simply be applied and that’s it. If I do that and then double-click the Smart Object thumbnail, I’ll see the original, untouched, image.

Also, if I apply one of these “autos,” it will become oddly unapplied the more I add and play with other adjustments. So I would need to continuously reapply whatever it was I did initially.

I hope you get the idea here. It may take some experimentation to get used to, but I think it’s worth it. And since this is pretty new, there’s a good chance that Adobe will keep it around for a while.

I hope I clearly explained how to create a Smart Object and then how to apply an adjustment from the menu items as opposed to from the Adjustments panel. This is the old way to do things that a lot of people still enjoy and now that it’s protected, it’s even better. If you have any questions regarding this post, please let me know in the comment section below or in the discussion forum. Thanks for reading!