Exploring the power of Photoshop CS2

A new version of Photoshop and ImageReady means another upgrade and a decision of when to purchase or if you should even bother. Depending on your needs, you may find just a few gems in the new Photoshop CS2 or you may consider the dozens of enhancements life savers. I’ve found myself somewhere in the middle, amazed at how many truly useful innovations Adobe has crammed into this version while still maintaining the familiar interface we’ve all come to know.

Because this is a site for web professionals, I will be concentrating on tools that will be useful to the average web designer. First, some interesting decisions on the part of Adobe. While Photoshop and ImageReady continue on as separate entities, their capabilities now overlap more than ever. For instance, Photoshop has had the ability to slice and optimize images for the web using Save for Web, but now they even include the GIF animation palette right in Photoshop. What’s left in ImageReady? You can still slice, optimize and animate in ImageReady and it is the only place to create Image Maps and Rollovers. It also provides some features Photoshop doesn’t match for optimizing, slicing and tweaking the HTML and Javascript that is generated.

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Overview

Editors comments: This article contains great mini tutorials, here is an example;

Going, going, gone – Using the Vanishing Point Tools

The new Vanishing Point feature solves a problem you may have worked to avoid in the past. In fact, retouching photos with dramatic perspective used to be so tedious that many people would find another image rather than attempt it. Now it is almost ridiculous how easy it is to retouch images with any kind of perspective.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Using the Vanishing Point feature, I created a grid to make the angle of the boards on this wood deck. I then used the clone stamp to remove the rope at the top of the photo. (See finished result below)

Here’s the few steps needed to successfully remove an object on top of a wood deck, where the boards recede in perspective:

  1. Open an image that requires some retouching of elements that are in perspective (buildings, boxes, etc.)
  2. Go to Filter > Vanishing Point on the main menu.
  3. Adjust the four corners of the light blue starter grid so it mirrors the angle of your image.
  4. You can create several planes if needed to mimic the contours of the objects you are working on. In this case, one plane is all that’s needed.
  5. Once the grid(s) are setup, you can use the clone stamp to clone away areas. You get several options with the clone stamp inside the Vanishing Point interface, and after your initial sample (ALT-click) you will see a nice preview of the way your cloned area will look before you paint.
  6. Once you are happy with your results, click OK and the edits are applied to your original document. Often it just takes seconds to remove an object that would have taken many steps to remove convincingly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Vanishing Point feature makes it easier than ever to retouch photos in perspective and to create amazing new effects that were difficult and tedious using older methods.

Zac Van Note

Zac Van NoteZac earned his BFA in graphic design at New MexicoStateUniversity. In the years before college, he wrote, drew, and published comic books. In the years since college, he's worked as a graphic designer for three large B2B distributors creating catalogs, web sites, and multimedia presentations.

Since 1999, Zac has taught hundreds of classes at the University of New Mexico and Santa FeCommunity College, including Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Flash, HTML and much more. He has also contributed to several Dreamweaver books as an author and technical editor for New Riders/Peachpit and Thomson-Course Technologies. The site he created for his students, www.creativefuel.org, is a good reference for anyone interested in design and graphics.

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