How to Create an Adobe Photoshop Gradient

Setting up a Photoshop gradient works a little differently from its cousin, Illustrator. The concept is the same, but the tool involved, and how we create and fine-tune a gradient, changes. The first thing to do is select the Gradient tool in the Tools panel/Toolbox. …

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How to Use Dodge and Burn in Photoshop

Of all the tools in the last few versions of Photoshop, the Dodge and Burn tools seem to be less busy, possibly since digital photography reduces the need for them. But once in a while, especially in restoring scanned-in prints, one might still try them …

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Using Layer Masks in Photoshop – Basics

When we put together a composite image in Photoshop, built from pieces of other images, using layer masks is a very helpful trick. Masking allows us to experiment with the appearance of the composite by letting us show or hide very specific bits of the …

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How to Use Color Libraries in Photoshop

For some reason, a few people I’ve talked to seem a little uneasy about the Color Libraries. Either they don’t know what these are, or they don’t know how to use them. But they’re easy to bring into play, they’re very useful, and sometimes even …

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How to Use Duotone Mode in Photoshop

One of the least-known color modes in Photoshop, or certainly lesser-known today, is Duotone. This may be partly because it requires converting a file to grayscale first, which means that for color images the very name is unavailable on the menu. But it has a …

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Dealing with Dust Using History in Photoshop

There’s another trick for dealing with dust in Photoshop (to sort of continue from the last blog post), which takes a little setup but is even more subtle. It involves the History Brush tool, and the History panel. The advantage is that the corrections are …

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