Photoshop 6 for Windows Bible- P21 potx

In the interest of slimming the size of your image, Photoshop provides the following methods for merging layers together: ✦ Merge Down Ctrl+E: Choose Layer ➪ Merge Down to merge a layer

If you encounter unrealistic edge pixels and the automatic matting commands don’t

solve your problem, you may be able to achieve better results by fixing the edges

manually First, switch to the layer that’s giving you fits and Ctrl-click its name in

the Layers palette This creates a tight selection around the contents of the layer

Then choose Select ➪ Modify ➪ Contract and enter the width of the fringe in the

Contract By option box Next, choose Select ➪ Feather (Ctrl+Shift+D) and enter

this same value in the Feather Radius option box Finally, press Ctrl+Shift+I to

inverse the selection and press Backspace to eliminate the edge pixels

Figure 12-14 shows the results of applying this technique to my television By

set-ting the Contract and Feather commands to 1 pixel, I managed to remove the edges

without harming the layer itself And the effect looks better than that produced by

the Defringe command (as you can compare for yourself with Figure 12-13)

Figure 12-14: Here I removed the

edges manually using the Contract,Feather, and Inverse commands Thislooks way better than anythingPhotoshop can do automatically

Blending layers

Photoshop lets you blend layers like no other program in the business In fact,

Photoshop does such a great job that it takes me an entire chapter — Chapter 13 —

to explain these options in detail I offer this section by way of introduction so that

you’re at least aware of the basics If you have bigger questions, Chapter 13 is

wait-ing to tell all

The Layers palette provides three basic ways to blend pixels between layers (see

Figure 12-15) None of these techniques changes as much as a pixel in any layer, so

you can always return and reblend the layers at a later date

Tip

✦ The Opacity value: Enter a value in the Opacity option box near the top of the

Layers palette to change the opacity of the active layer or floating selection

If you reduce the Opacity value to 50 percent, for example, Photoshop makesthe pixels on the active layer translucent, so the colors in the active layer mixevenly with the colors in the layers below

If any tool other than a paint or edit tool is active — including the selectionand navigation tools — you can press a number key to change the Opacityvalue Press 1 for 10 percent, 2 for 20 percent, up to 0 for 100 percent Or you can enter a specific Opacity value by pressing two number keys in a row For example, press 3 and then 7 for 37 percent

✦ The blend mode pop-up menu: Choose an option from the blend mode

pop-up menu — open in Figure 12-15 — to mix every pixel in the active layerwith the pixels below it, according to one of several mathematical equations.For example, when you choose Multiply, Photoshop really does multiply the brightness values of the pixels and then divides the result by 255, the maximum brightness value Blend modes use the same math as the brushmodes covered in Chapter 5 But you can accomplish a lot more with blend modes, which is why I spend so much time examining them in Chapter 13

As with Opacity, you can select a blend mode from the keyboard when a tion or navigation tool is active Press Shift+plus to advance incrementallydown the list; press Shift+minus to inch back up You can also press Shift+Altand a letter key to select a specific mode For example, Shift+Alt+M selects theMultiply mode Shift+Alt+N restores the mode to Normal

selec-Figure 12-15: The blend mode pop-up menu

and the Opacity option box enable you to mixlayers without making any permanent changes

to the pixels

Tip

Tip

✦ Layer Options: Choose Layer ➪ Blending Options or double-click a layer name

to display the Layer Style dialog box The General Blending area of this dialogbox provides access to a Blend Mode pop-up menu and an Opacity value, but

it also offers a world of unique functions As discussed in Chapter 13, you canhide one or more color channels, specify which colors are visible in the activelayer, and force other colors to show through from the layers behind it Select

an item from the left-hand list to apply a layer style, as discussed in Chapter 14

Although far short of the whole story, that should be enough to prepare you for

anything I throw at you throughout the remainder of this chapter

Fusing several layers

Although layers are wonderful and marvelous creatures, they have their price Layers

expand the size of an image in RAM and ultimately lead to slower performance And

as I noted in Chapter 3, only three formats — PDF, TIFF, and the native PSD format —

permit you to save layered compositions

In the interest of slimming the size of your image, Photoshop provides the following

methods for merging layers together:

✦ Merge Down (Ctrl+E): Choose Layer ➪ Merge Down to merge a layer with

the layer immediately below it When generating screen shots, I use this mand 50 or 60 times a day I paste the screen shot into the image window, editthe layer as desired, and then press Ctrl+E to set it down Then I can save thescreen shot to the smallest possible file on disk, essential when e-mailing the screens to my editor

com-If the active layer is part of a clipping group or is linked to other layers — twoconditions I discuss later in this chapter — the Merge Down command changes

to Merge Linked or Merge Group, respectively Again, these commands useCtrl+E as a shortcut Merge Down is forever changing to suit the situation

✦ Merge Visible (Ctrl+Shift+E): Choose the Merge Visible command to merge all

visible layers into a single layer If the layer is not visible — that is, if no ball icon appears in front of the layer name — Photoshop doesn’t eliminate it;

eye-the layer simply remains independent

To create a merged clone, press Alt when applying either Layer ➪ Merge Down

or Layer ➪ Merge Visible Pressing Alt and choosing Merge Down (or pressingCtrl+Alt+E) clones the contents of the active layer into the layer below it

Pressing Alt and choosing Merge Visible (or pressing Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E) copies the contents of all visible layers to the active layer

More useful, I think, is the ability to copy the merged contents of a selectedarea To do so, choose Edit ➪ Copy Merged or press Ctrl+Shift+C You can then paste the selection into a layer or make it part of a different image

Tip

Tip

Note

✦ Flatten Image: This command merges all visible layers and throws away the

invisible ones The result is a single, opaque background layer Photoshopdoes not give this command a keyboard shortcut because it’s so dangerous.More often than not, you’ll want to flatten an image incrementally using thetwo Merge commands

Note that Photoshop suggests that you flatten an image when converting from onecolor mode to another by choosing a command from the Image ➪ Mode submenu.You can choose not to flatten the image (by pressing D) but this may come at theexpense of some of the brighter colors in your image As discussed in Chapter 13,many of the blend modes perform differently in RGB than they do in CMYK

Dumping layers

You can also merely throw a layer away: Drag the layer name onto the trash canicon at the bottom of the Layers palette Or click the trash can icon to delete theactive layer

When you click the trash can icon, Photoshop displays a message asking whetheryou really want to toss the layer To give this message the slip in the future, Alt-clickthe trash can icon

Saving a flattened version of an image

As I mentioned, only three file formats — PDF, TIFF, and the native Photoshop format — save images with layers If you want to save a flattened version of your image — that is, with all layers fused into a single image — in some other file format, choose File ➪ Save As (Ctrl+Shift+S) and select the desired format fromthe Format pop-up menu If you select a format that doesn’t support layers — such

as JPEG, GIF, or EPS — the program dims the Layers check box

The Save As command does not affect the image in memory All layers remain intact.And if you select the As a Copy check box — which I recommend you do — Photoshopdoesn’t even change the name of the image in the title bar It merely creates a flattenedversion of the image on disk Nevertheless, be sure to save a layered version of thecomposition as well, just in case you want to edit it in the future

Selecting the Contents of Layers

A few sections back, I mentioned that every layer (except the background) includes

a transparency mask This mask tells Photoshop which pixels are opaque, which are

translucent, and which are transparent Like any mask, Photoshop lets you convertthe transparency mask for any layer — active or not — to a selection outline In fact,

Tip

Caution

you use the same keyboard techniques you use to convert paths to selections (as

explained in Chapter 8) and channels to selections (Chapter 9):

✦ Ctrl-click an item in the Layers palette to convert the transparency mask for

that layer to a selection outline

✦ To add the transparency mask to an existing selection outline, Ctrl+Shift-click

the layer name The little selection cursor includes a plus sign to show youthat you’re about to add

✦ To subtract the transparency mask, Ctrl+Alt-click the layer name

✦ And to find the intersection of the transparency mask and the current

selection outline, Ctrl+Shift+Alt-click the layer name

If you’re uncertain that you’ll remember all these keyboard shortcuts, you can

use Select ➪ Load Selection instead After choosing the command, select the

Transparency item from the Channel pop-up menu (You can even load a

trans-parency mask from another open image if the image is exactly the same size as

the one you’re working on.) Then use the Operation radio buttons to merge the

mask with an existing selection

Selection outlines exist independently of layers, so you can use the transparency

mask from one layer to select part of another layer For example, to select the part

of the background layer that exactly matches the contents of another layer, press

Shift+Alt+[ to descend to the background layer and then Ctrl-click the name of the

layer you want to match

The most common reason to borrow a selection from one layer and apply it to

another is to create manual shadow and lighting effects After Ctrl-clicking on a layer,

you can use this selection to create a drop shadow that precisely matches the

con-tours of the layer itself No messing with the airbrush or the lasso tool — Photoshop

does the tough work for you

Now, you might think with Photoshop 6’s extensive range of layer styles, manual

drop shadows and the like would be a thing of the past After all, you have only to

choose Layer ➪ Layer Style ➪ Drop Shadow and, bang, the program adds a drop

shadow But the old, manual methods still have their advantages You don’t have

to visit a complicated dialog box to edit a manual drop shadow You can reposition

a manual shadow from the keyboard, and you can expand and contract a manual

shadow with more precision than you can an automatic one

On the other hand, this is not to say the old ways are always better A shadow

cre-ated with the Drop Shadow command takes up less room in memory, it moves and

rotates with a layer, and you can edit the softness of the shadow long after creating it

6

Photoshop 6

What we have is two equally powerful solutions, each with its own characteristicpros and cons Therefore, the wise electronic artist develops a working knowledge

of both This way, you’re ready and able to apply the technique that makes themost sense for the job at hand

The following sections explore the manual drop shadows, highlights, and lights For everything you ever wanted to know about the Layer Styles commands,read Chapter 14

spot-Drop shadows

In these first steps, I take the dolphin from Figure 12-16 and insert a drop shadowbehind it This might not be the exact subject you’ll apply drop shadows to — seacritters so rarely cast such shadows onto the water’s surface — but it accuratelydemonstrates how the effect works

Figure 12-16: A dolphin in dire need of a drop shadow.

STEPS: Creating a Drop Shadow

1 Select the subject that you want casting the shadow In my case, I selected

the dolphin by painting the mask shown in Figure 12-17 inside a separate maskchannel These days, I add a mask to nearly every image I create to distin-guish the foreground image from its background I converted the mask to aselection outline by Ctrl-clicking on the mask name in the Channels paletteand then pressing Ctrl+tilde (~) to switch back to the composite view

2 Send the image to a separate layer by pressing Ctrl+J Now that the

selec-tion is elevated, you can slip in the drop shadow beneath it

Cross-Reference

Figure 12-17: This mask separates the dolphin from its watery home.

3 Retrieve the selection outline for your new layer and apply it to the

back-ground layer To do this, Ctrl-click the new layer name (presumably Layer 1)

and then press Shift+Alt+[ to switch to the background layer (Because I saved

the mask to a separate channel, I could have instead Ctrl-clicked on the Mask

item in the Channels panel to retrieve the selection Or I could have pressed

Ctrl+Alt+4.)

4 To create a softened drop shadow — indicative of a diffused light source —

choose Select ➪ Feather (Ctrl+Alt+D) The Radius value you enter depends

on the resolution of your image I recommend dividing the resolution of your

image by 20 When working on a 200-ppi image, for example, enter a Radius

value of 10 My image is a mere 140 ppi, so I entered 7 Then press Enter to

soften the selection

5 Press Ctrl+J to send the feathered selection to a new layer.

6 Fill the feathered area with black If necessary, press D to make the

fore-ground color black Then press Shift+Alt+Backspace to fill only the area inside

the transparency mask A slight halo of dark pixels forms around the edges of

the image

7 Press Ctrl with the arrow keys to nudge the shadow to the desired location In

Figure 12-18, I nudged the shadow 12 pixels to the right (Press Ctrl+Shift+arrow

key to nudge the shadow in 10-pixel increments.)

8 Lower the Opacity setting If the shadow is too dark — black lacks a little

sub-tlety — change the Opacity value in the Layers palette to change the opacity

of the shadow Or press M to make sure a selection tool is active and then

press a number key to change the opacity I typically press 7 (for 70 percent),

but I’m probably in a rut

Figure 12-18: I nudged this drop shadow 12 pixels due

right from the dolphin head, which is situated on the layer above it

If you don’t like a black drop shadow, you can make a colored one with only slightlymore effort Instead of filling the shadow with black in Step 6, select a different fore-ground color and press Shift+Alt+Backspace For the best result, select a color that

is the complementary opposite of your background color Next, choose Multiply from the blend mode pop-up menu in the Layers palette (or press Shift+Alt+M) This burns the colors in the shadow into those in the lower layers to create a darkened mix Finally, press a number key to specify the opacity

Halos

Creating a halo is similar to creating a drop shadow The only differences are thatyou must expand the selection outline and fill the halo with white (or some otherlight color) instead of black The following steps tell all

STEPS: Creating a Downright Angelic Halo

1 Follow Steps 1 through 3 of the preceding instructions You end up with a

version of the selected image on an independent layer and a matching tion outline applied to the background image (See, I told you this was like creating a drop shadow.)

selec-2 Expand the selection outline Unlike a drop shadow, which is offset slightly

from an image, a halo fringes the perimeter of an image pretty evenly Youneed to expand the selection outline beyond the edges of the image so youcan see the halo clearly To do this, choose Select ➪ Modify ➪ Expand An

“Expand By” option box greets you Generally speaking, you want the sion to match the size of your feathering so that the softening occurs outward

expan-Tip

Therefore, I entered 7 (The maximum permissible value is 16; if you want to

expand more than 16 pixels, you must apply the command twice.)

3 Choose Select ➪ Feather and enter the same value you entered in the Expand

By option box Again, you decide this value by dividing the resolution of your

image by 20 (or thereabouts)

4 Send the selection to a new layer Press Ctrl+J.

5 Fill the halo with white Assuming the background color is white, press

Ctrl+Shift+Backspace

That’s it Figure 12-19 shows an enlightened looking dolphin set against a halo

effect I also drew a conventional halo above its head, added some sparklies, and

even changed my finned friend’s eye using the eyeball brush shape included in the

Assorted Brushes document I mean, if this aquatic mammal isn’t bound for glory,

I don’t know who is

Figure 12-19: Few dolphins reach this level of spiritual

awareness, even if you do set them apart from their

backgrounds using the halo effect

Incidentally, you needn’t create a white halo any more than you must create a black

drop shadow In Step 5, set the background color to something other than white

Then select the Screen option from the blend mode pop-up menu in the Layers palette

(Shift+Alt+S), thus mixing the colors and lightening them at the same time If you don’t

like the effect, select a different background color and press Ctrl+Shift+Backspace

again With the halo on a separate layer, you can do just about anything to it without

running the risk of harming the underlying original

Tip

Now, finally, for the spotlight effect I use spotlights about a billion times in thisbook to highlight some special option I want you to look at in a palette or dialogbox I’ve received so many questions (from fellow authors mostly) on how to per-form this effect, I’ve decided to write the information in this book and be done with it So here goes

STEPS: Shining a Spotlight on Something Inside an Image

1 Draw an oval selection inside your image The best tool for this purpose is

the elliptical marquee tool The selection represents the area where the light will shine If you don’t like where the oval is located, but you basicallylike its size and shape, drag the outline to a more satisfactory location

spot-2 Choose Select ➪ Feather and enter whatever Radius value you please Again,

you may want to follow the divide-the-resolution-by-20 rule (Although there’s

no such thing as a wrong Radius value.) To create Figure 12-20, I doubled myRadius value to 14 pixels to create a soft effect

3 Press Ctrl+Shift+I Most likely, you really want to darken the area outside the

spotlight, not lighten the spotlight itself So choose Select ➪ Inverse (Ctrl+Shift+I)

to swap what’s selected and what’s not

4 Send the selection to a new layer That’s Ctrl+J, of course.

5 Fill the transparency mask with black With the foreground color set to

black, press Shift+Alt+Backspace

6 Lower the Opacity setting by pressing a number key To get the effect in

Figure 12-20, I pressed 6 for 60 percent

Actually, the image in Figure 12-20 isn’t all that convincing Although the precedingsteps are fine for spotlighting flat images such as screen shots, they tend to robphotographs of some of their depth After all, in real life, the spotlight wouldn’t hitthe water in the same way it hits the dolphin

There is a way around this You can combine the oval selection outline with themask used to select the foreground image, thereby eliminating the background from the equation entirely First establish the selection and feather it (Steps 1 and2) Assuming your image has a mask saved in a separate channel, Ctrl+Shift+Alt-click the mask name in the Channels palette This retains just the intersection of the mask and the spotlight selection Then perform the preceding Steps 3 through

6 — that is, inverse the selection (Ctrl+Shift+I), send it to a layer (Ctrl+J), fill thetransparency mask with black (Shift+Alt+Backspace), and change the opacity For

my part, I first rotated the oval selection using Select ➪ Transform Selection I foundthe intersection of the mask and rotated oval to achieve the more natural spotlightshown in Figure 12-21

Tip

Figure 12-20: Create an elliptical selection, feather it,

inverse it, layer it, fill it with black, and lower the opacity

to create a spotlight effect like this one

Figure 12-21: You can mix the feathered selection with

the contents of a mask channel to limit the spotlighting

effect to the foreground character only

Sometimes, the darkness of the area around the spotlight appears sufficiently darkthat it starts bringing the spotlighted area down with it To brighten the spotlight,inverse the selection (Ctrl+Shift+I) so the spotlight is selected again Then apply theLevels command (Ctrl+L) to brighten the spotlighted area The Levels command isexplained at length in Chapter 17.

Moving, Linking, and Aligning Layers

You can move an entire layer or the selected portion of a layer by dragging in the image window with the move tool If you have a selection going, drag inside the marching-ants outline to move only the selection; drag outside the selection

to move the entire layer

As I mentioned in Chapter 8, you can temporarily access the move tool when someother tool is active by pressing Ctrl To nudge a layer, press Ctrl with an arrow key.Press Ctrl+Shift to nudge in 10-pixel increments

If part of the layer disappears beyond the edge of the window, no problem As long

as you don’t move your cursor outside the image window, Photoshop saves even thehidden pixels in the layer, enabling you to drag the rest of the layer into view later.Note that this works only when moving all of a layer If you move a selection beyondthe edge of the image window using the move tool, Photoshop clips the selection atthe window’s edge the moment you deselect it Also be aware: If you move your cur-sor outside the image window, Photoshop thinks you are trying to drag-and-droppixels from one image to another and responds accordingly

If you Ctrl-drag the background image — either when no portion of the image isselected or by dragging outside the selection outline — Photoshop automaticallyconverts the background to a new layer (called Layer 0) The area revealed by themove becomes a hole, as indicated by the checkerboard transparency Photoshopsaves the hidden portions of the background image in case you ever decide tomove the background back into its original position

If you regularly work on huge images or your machine is old and kind of slow,Photoshop lets you speed the display of whole layers on the move Press Ctrl+Kand then Ctrl+3 to display the Display & Cursors panel of the Preferences dialogbox Then select the Pixel Doubling check box From now on, Photoshop will showyou a low-resolution proxy of a selection or a layer as you drag (or Ctrl-drag) itacross the screen

Linking layers

Photoshop lets you move multiple layers at a time To do so, you have to establish a

link between the layers you want to move and the active layer Begin by selecting the

first layer in the Layers palette you want to link Then click in the second column to

Tip

Caution

Cross-Reference

the left of the other layer you want to link A chain-link icon appears in front of each

linked layer, as in Figure 12-22 This icon shows that the linked layers move in unison

when you Ctrl-drag the active layer To break the link, click a link icon, which hides

the icon

Dragging inside a selection outline moves the selection independently of any linked

layers Dragging outside the selection moves all linked layers at once

Figure 12-22: Click in the second column

in the Layers palette to display or hide linkicons Here I’ve linked all layers except the background, so I can Ctrl-drag them

in unison

To link many layers at a time, drag up and down the link column To unlink the

active layer from all others, Alt-click the paintbrush icon in the link column

You can also link layers with the context-sensitive pop-up menu As you may recall

from the “Switching between layers” section earlier in this chapter, you can bring

up a pop-up menu listing the layers in an image by Ctrl+right-clicking on an image

element with any tool Add Shift while selecting a layer from the pop-up menu to

link or unlink the layer rather than switch to it

Tip

Link icons

Link column

Note

But that’s not all If you’re plum crazy for shortcuts, you can change the link statewithout visiting the pop-up menu by — drum roll please — Ctrl+Shift+Alt+right-clicking

on an element in the image window Okay, I love shortcuts, but even I have to admit

that this one is gratuitous!

When you drag-and-drop linked layers into another document, all linked layersmove together and the layers retain their original order — provided that you Ctrl-drag the layers from one image window into another If you want to move just onelayer without its linked buddies, drag the layer name from the Layers palette anddrop it into another open image window

If you hold down Shift when dropping, Photoshop centers the layers in the ment If the document is exactly the same size as the one from which you draggedthe layers, Shift-dropping lands the image elements in the same position they held

docu-in the origdocu-inal document And fdocu-inally, if somethdocu-ing is selected docu-in the document, theShift-dropped layers are centered inside that selection

Uniting layers into sets

Linking isn’t the only way to keep layers together In Photoshop 6, you can toss

multi-ple layers into a folders called a set To create a new set, click the little folder button

along the bottom of the Layers palette Or better yet, Alt-click the button to displaythe dialog box shown in Figure 12-23 Here you can name the set, assign a color, andset the blend mode and opacity

Figure 12-23: Choose the New Layer Set command or

Alt-click the folder button at the bottom of the Layers palette to create and name a new set

Notice in Figure 12-23 that a unique Mode option — Pass Through — appears whenworking with sets This tells Photoshop to observe the blend modes assigned to the individual layers inside the set By contrast, if you apply a different blend modesuch as Multiply to the set, Photoshop overrides the blend modes of the layersinside the set and applies Multiply to them all

6

Photoshop 6

Tip

Tip

The set appears as a folder icon in the Layers palette scrolling list To add a layer to

the set, drag the layer name in the scrolling list and drop it on the folder icon Layers

that are part of a set appear indented, as in Figure 12-24 The triangle to the left of the

folder icon permits you to expand and collapse the layers inside the set, a

tremen-dous help when working inside images with a dozen or more layers Figure 12-25

shows the layers associated with a typical page design I put together for my Web

site When all sets are expanded, the layers don’t even begin to fit on screen But

with sets collapsed, you can assess the construction of the image at a glance

Figure 12-24: Click in the second column in the

Layers palette to display or hide link icons Here I’ve

linked all layers except the background, so I can

Ctrl-drag them in unison

Expand/collapse

Layers inside setLayer set