How to Compress Commercial Photographs for use on Websites

Taking professional photographs isn’t just about pictures for printing. In the digital age many people want photos for use on the Internet on websites, and altering your pictures for use on the Internet can be tricky and requires the correct software.

When you have selected the photographs that you want from your commercial photographer, you should get them on a CD so that you can load them onto a computer for editing.

One of the best pieces of software for editing creative photography is Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop allows you to alter, touch up, repair or even completely recompose your photos as you wish.

Your first step should be to open Photoshop and load your first photograph. When you’re saving pictures for use on the Internet they should be in RGB mode, whereas photographs for print are CMYK. You can change the mode of your pictures by selecting ‘image’ and then ‘mode’.

You also need to make sure that your photo is the correct size for the Internet as most print quality photographs you’ll receive on CD from commercial photographers are print quality, and as such are too big for the Internet. You should select ‘image’ and then ‘size’ from the menu in Photoshop and change the resolution of your image to 72dpi, or pixels per inch. This means dots per inch. 72dpi is too low quality for print, but for the Internet it is perfect as browsers won’t show images at a higher resolution, so any print quality images uploaded to the Internet will be too big and the quality will be wasted anyway.

When you have selected 72dpi, check that the image width and height aren’t too big in pixels. Most screen resolutions are no bigger than 1024 pixels wide, so if your photo is bigger than that it will be too large. If you’re uploading a photograph to a website, then a size closer to 800x600 pixels will be suitable. This will ensure that your photo is still of a high quality, yet is small enough to upload quickly and be viewed by other people.

Next you can check that your photograph doesn’t need any ‘corrections’ to remove the imperfections, such as spots, red-eye or other blemishes that professional models always have attended to with their photos from commercial photographers. You can remove any blemishes by using the magnifying glass and zooming in on any imperfect area, before taking the ‘clone’ tool from your tools menu and selecting a sample of perfect skin. You can then seamlessly copy this perfect sample over the imperfect area.

This technique could also be used to repair old photographs that have been torn, by scanning them into your computer and ‘cloning’ the perfect parts over the tears.

Once you are happy with your picture you can export it for use on the Internet. Choose the ‘save for web’ option to save your photograph. Here you will be presented with options such as reducing the quality to reduce the file size. Use the slider bar until you are satisfied that your photo looks good but the file is nice and small. Select ‘JPG’ as the file format and save your picture.

You are now ready to upload your photograph to a website and have an example of creative photography at its finest.

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Quality Conversions of Photoshop Files

The software ‘Photoshop’ is used all over the world. It is used by web designers, professional photographers and even by amateurs. Photoshop is an editing program which also helps to create bitmaps. All Photoshop files are made up of high quality and hence, people have difficulty in converting the PSD files to HTML, XHTML, CSS, Word press. The conversions show an inferior quality of bitmaps and the respective photographs in concern. Hence, it becomes a matter of concern for the professionals to obtain quality and superior prints from the PSD to word press, PSD to CSS or any other conversions.

Some softwares provide superior quality prints while converting PSD files to HTML, XHTML, CSS and Word press. The same quality which is seen on the Photoshop files (PSD files) is available when PSD files are converted to CSS, HTML, XHTML and Word press. These quality conversions prove beneficial to the professions who can carry on their work without any problems. It helps them to save time and also get quality work converted from the PSD files to HTML, CSS and other file formats.

It plays a major role while working on web designs, bloggers who want to code their designs and many unlimited advantages which prove advantageous for the design and art professionals. Not many organizations provide these unique benefits to the professional industry.

The software companies make these conversions available to the customers at an economical price. The price is comparatively low, keeping in mind the added benefits which it provides. The clients do not bother about the cost since it proves successful for their business and also assures them of the quality of the conversions.

Since HTML, CSS and a few other software format files occupy less space, they are considered ideal for converting PSD files to CSS, HTML, XHTML or Word press, which helps to ease the work for the professionals so that they can upload their respective designs at a faster pace and save time. It also enables to attract business deals for the professionals.

The unique services provided by these firms are popular among the professional web and photography industry. However, one has to be careful in order to choose the right source, in other words, the right organization to approach to get all the conversions done successfully and also obtain high quality results from them while converting the PSD files to CSS, HTML, XHTML or Word press. Converting files may seem a small issue but gives out rich dividends for its potential clients as well as its dedicated customers.

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A Few Cool Photoshop Tips and Tricks

When it comes to entering the graphic design world, creating interesting pieces for a job or sharing artwork with family and friends, there are plenty of cool Photoshop tips and tricks to consider. Whether you are just experimenting with the tools or already know how to layout a magazine spread, there will always be a new shortcut or trick to make life much easier. Below, you will find a few tips to add to your repertoire or share with others:

Easy Photoshop Tips and Tricks

Have you ever wanted to easily create the image of Earth and dread using the circle tool? There is an easy way to design the world in six steps, which should take less than a minute to complete. First, you should select File/New from the menu bar and create a file size that measures about 200 pixels by 200 pixels. The RGB mode should be selected for this trick. Next, choose a light blue shade for the foreground color and a darker blue for the background color.

Under the Filters tab, select Render, and then choose Clouds. The scene that will greet you should look a lot like the sky. It is the clouds filter that utilizes the foreground and background colors needed to construct this image in your file. If you desire a different look, you can press Ctrl + F on Windows or Command + F for a Mac to reapply the filter. Each time this key combination is pressed, you will receive a somewhat different outcome.

Now, return to the Filter menu and select Render, and then choose Lighting Effects. Once you enter the Light Effects menu, you are able to alter the shape of the ellipse to a circle that becomes centered on your file. Changing the Narrow setting to 39 next follows choosing the Default Spotlight setting.

Sometimes a Photoshop project calls for texture. There are thousands of backgrounds to create that range from a grainy composition to a multi-faceted mess (depending on the look you are going for). To create a paper texture in Photoshop, you should start a new file that measures 60 x 60 pixels. The color should be in RGB. Next, select the following commands in this same order: Filter, Noise, Add Noise. Once completed, choose Gaussian, which is set to 80%.

The next step to create a paper texture is to select Filter, then Stylize, followed by Emboss. The angle should be set to -50, the Height to 2 pixels, and the Amount to 70%. The background will now resemble a gray embossed selection. To change the color, choose Image, then Adjust, followed by Hue-Saturation-Brightness. Once you select the Colorize checkbox, you should set the Hue to a different setting. To gain your personal preference, you can adjust the contrast.

To create the appearance that objects are glowing without using any filters, choose an object to work with that will be duplicated as a layer. First, select the color you'd like your glow to be. After choosing the lower duplicate, click on Edit from the menu, then Stroke. When the Stroke Options appear, the pixel width should be set between 1 and 16. It is important to remember that the larger number you choose, the thicker the glow will appear.

Before exiting, you should glance under Location to make sure that the Outside option is selected. The next step involves applying a Gaussian Blur to the layer, which can be found under the Blur option in Filters. This will soften the glow applied to the layer. Some individuals even repeat the process to create a double glow, which is some cases, can really make an image stand out.

What Can You Do With Advanced Photoshop Tips and Tricks?

Advanced Photoshop users are often familiar with all tools and have mastered most of the fundamental tutorials, tips, and tricks, such as creating a cloudy background. Some people are unaware of all of the cool tricks that Photoshop has to offer, especially when you've upgraded your version to CS. The power to create some of the most impressive works of digital art are only a few clicks away once you get a hang of advanced Photoshop shortcuts and tricks.

Some Photoshop tricks on the advanced level can help a more tedious project seem easier. The more you learn the tips and tricks of the trade, the better your overall creations will turn out. To get an idea of some of the advanced tricks associated with Photoshop, a few examples are mentioned below:

Photoshop allows advanced users to create digital comic coloring that looks just like the human hand penned it. The tricks and tips associated with this sort of higher-level design deals with the manipulation of various brush sets to achieve the look you desire. Photoshop also lets users create photomontages that can transform an original photograph into something much different.

There are also tips and tricks that can take your most unfavorite picture and alter it in any way you wish. Let's say you want to change a regular photograph into something dazzling. Advanced Photoshop tricks can beautify a face that displays a natural appearance. In regards to a photo, skin can be fixed, blemishes and wrinkles erased, teeth fixed and whitened, as well as changes made to the eyebrows, hair, and eyes.

When one is able to master advanced Photoshop techniques, the creative possibilities seem never-ending, including 3D glass balls, planet and star-studded skies, matte paintings, and airbrushed illustrations.

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The Concept Behind CSS By: Jose Valdez

What is The Concept Behind CSS?

The concept behind CSS (a.k.a. cascading style sheets or style sheets) is really simple. CSS allows you to create a single document of code, similar to an HTML file, that lets you specify the colors, fonts, backgrounds, etc. of a web page. The CSS file is then linked to from the web page(s) that you want to have the same styles that you specify.

CSS allows you to make changes to all of the web pages that link to the CSS file at once by changing a style in the style sheet, instead of having to manually change every style in every HTML file.

If CSS did this and only this, they would save you a lot of time to say the least, especially if you have a large or multiple web sites. This alone is worth learning CSS, however, style sheets allow you to do this and much more.

CSS also allows you to:

• position text and graphics precisely where you want to

• add rollover effects to links

• control the spacing between letters, lines, margins, web page borders

• specify the units such as centimeters, pixels, points and more

• hide content from certain web browsers in certain situations. An example of this is when you have some content that you want to appear only in your web pages, but not in print.

Some Benefits of CSS

• Your web pages load faster because there is less code to transfer

• There is less code to type

• It is easier to have a consistent look and feel to your entire web site

• Updating and maintaining websites is much easier and less time consuming

In the end, CSS can save you a lot of time and effort and is very easy to learn.

Author Bio
Jose Valdez is the webmaster of FreeCSSTutoria.com

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Photoshop Cutouts and Photo Artwork for Adobe Photoshop Beginners

Using Photoshop cutouts to make photo artwork is probably the most desired skill for Adobe Photoshop Beginners (and Adobe Photoshop Elements beginners). Beginners to the program or people who have never used Adobe Photoshop want to make photo artwork by combining multiple pictures together for graphic art, collages, or just for fun. Using Photoshop to cutout pictures is not only a desired skill, but required for most of this basic photo artwork.

If you are one of the Adobe Photoshop beginners, there is good news! Learning how to use Photoshop to cutout pictures is not very difficult to learn, and with a little practice it can be mastered to help you make amazing photo artwork. If you have tried your hand at photo cutouts, you may be wondering what the tips and tricks are to get rid of jagged corners and rough edges to your cutout images. Why do the images in all the professional photo artwork look so smooth?

For the Adobe Photoshop beginners (Photoshop Elements included), let us start with the basics - and there are certainly enough basic tips to get you going without any super advanced techniques. For Photoshop cutouts - such as a person - from an image, you will want to use the lasso tool. There is a basic lasso tool, a magnetic lasso tool, and a polygonal lasso tool. For precise photo artwork cutouts, we will disregard the basic lasso tool and focus just on the magnetic and polygonal lassos. I primarily use the polygonal lasso but the magnetic is great if your image has very defined borders (against the backdrop) and if you do not want to spend a lot of time for cutting out images. It will attract itself to what it can see as the edge of your preferred cutout image, based on contrasting colors and shapes.

So are you ready to make photo artwork with Photoshop cutout techniques? With your image selected, zoom in to a range of around 150-300% so you can clearly see the image to be cutout. Select the polygonal lasso tool and take your time to select points around the edges of your image. For example, on a person take extra time around the face, ears, fingers, etc. When you get all the way around the image, connect the last point with the first point until the cutout is selected. This is where many people are left with jagged edges in their artwork. Right-clicking will give you many different options and a "Layer via copy" will create a new Photoshop cutout layer with exactly what you cutout (often with a few rough corners.) Instead, an easy way to create a smooth photo cutout is by using the feathering technique.

Selecting the Feather option will bring up an option of how many pixels you want to feather - or blur - around your selection. How precise you want your photo cut out and the size of the image will determine how many pixels you want to choose, and experience will help you to know (remember you can undo any action quickly!). After you feather, you can then use the "Layer via copy" action. If you are Photoshop beginner, try this technique and use a feathering of about 2-10 pixels and look at the result. Chances are it will be a smooth cutout that can be part of your new collage, illustration, or photo artwork.

Feathering is an integral part of skills needed for Adobe Photoshop beginners and can be used for cutouts, blending images, and combining photos. This basic technique for mastering the essentials of Photoshop cutouts is very simple and can be added to by a variety of techniques that you can explore at your own leisure. Once you know the fundamentals behind photo cutouts and feathering, you will learn to have all sorts of fun creating photo artwork in Photoshop!

About the Author

Michael is the creator and owner of CustomPhotoCollage.com. A longtime Photoshop expert, Michael creates unique, personalized photo collages at http://www.CustomPhotoCollage.com.

Additional Tools To Enhance Your Photoshop

Other software programmers created plug-ins and additional tools so that Photoshop can do more and create more.

Adobe Photoshop is a program that is used for graphic design and editing. This means that users can create or alter digital images. It works by being able to create layers of images as well as putting the layers together. Users can also build on existing images by placing layers over them or adding elements directly to the image.

The Photoshop program is the leading product of the Adobe Systems Incorporated. Adobe specializes in digital imaging software. In its recent incarnations, the Photoshop application has been merged with other Adobe programs under the Creative Suite enterprise. The most recent version of the Adobe Photoshop is CS3, meaning that it is the third version of Photoshop since it was included in the Creative Suite umbrella of software.

Like most digital imaging applications, Photoshop has several plug-ins/add-ons or additional tools that can be used in creating and editing digital images. Aside from the standard cut, paste, select, draw and color fill tools; additional options and effects can be loaded as well. Once the add-ons and plug-ins are added, they can be used to enhance the creations that can be made using the programs.

Several software programmers and designers have also taken the time and effort to build on the existing Photoshop program to enhance its capabilities. These downloadable plug-ins and add-ons are often available for free from a number of online sources. What's important is to make sure the program being downloaded as a Photoshop add-on is compatible with the Photoshop program version you already have installed as well as the safety and security of the file.

Most Photoshop add-ons focus on certain functionalities such as layer styles, actions, scripts, brushes, patterns, gradients, frames, textures and displacement maps. These are made to add to Photoshop's existing library of tools.

One example of a widely available Photoshop download is Harry's Filters which is a free downloadable add-in that was created by Harald Heim. The latest released version of the application is version 3.01. What the application does is it allows users to create effects for images by using its own menu box separately from Photoshop. The program has 69 filters available and ready for use once it is downloaded to accompany the Adobe Photoshop. The Harry's Filters program can then be used to create several image effects, particularly some very realistic ones.

Another useful tool to add to Photoshop would be one that removes the red-eye effect in pictures. The red-eye effect happens when light is reflected by a subject's eye as a photo is being taken. It is one of the most common things that happen when you are taking a picture of a person in the relative darkness.

The program to remove the red-eye effect is called RedEye Pro developed by Andromeda Software. The plug-in removes the redness of the eyes while retaining the original eye color and the shiny and reflective surface of a typical eye. It does the adjustment without making it look as if the eye has been retouched. The RedEye Pro application also works on eyes that are not perfectly circular such as animal eyes. It is available for free download from selected sources.
For more information on Free Photoshop Downloads please visit our website.

The Common Myths of Photoshop By Kevin M. Sugrue Platinum Quality Author

Adobe Photoshop, the top choice for digital darkroom use, can be a complicated program to use. Many options and possibilities, some of them completely unexplained, make Photoshop as once mysterious, intriguing, and downright difficult to use. Photoshop enjoys a lot of buzz on the Internet, and there are plenty of myths associated with the program. Get to the bottom of these Photoshop Myths.

Photoshop tips, photoshop tutorials, and photoshops myths abound on the Internet, many of them not at all helpful. Some photoshop tutorials only make using Adobe photoshop more impossible. How do you separate the photoshop myths, tips, and tutorials to come up with a great picture of what photoshop really is? First, you have to start debunking the most common and popular photoshop myths.

One popular photoshop myth is that you cannot get a quality print from a jpeg image unless the final output image resolution is a multiple of printer resolution. This is untrue. Another popular and oft-touted myth is that a printer resolution of 300 ppi is superior to resolution of 240 ppi. While this myth is true, it's really a non-issue that photoshop tutorials throw in to confuse users. Some tutorials even claim that every image should receive 16-bit treatment - which is an unnecessary waste of time.

Of all the photoshop tips available on these tutorials, one holds more importance than others. When working with Adobe photoshop, it is essential to use layers and masks. You cannot use photoshop to its fullest without taking advantage of adjustment layers and masks that will give your photos that perfect, polished look. Not mentioned often in photoshop tutorials or in photoshop tips list is that you should only fix one problem at a time instead of trying to take care of several at once. By working on each problem in a step-by-step basis, you will get much better results from photoshop - and your pictures will be the proof of your effort.

While there are some photoshop tutorials that will only confuse you and make using photoshop seem like an impossible goal, there are many helpful tutorials and photoshop tips available online for those who want to learn more. Several books have been written that discuss the uses of photoshop much more in-depth for those that need longer explanation and more photoshop tips than the average digital photographer.

Adobe photoshop is actually a program that can be used by anyone who wants to make downloaded images or digital photos look more professional, or add borders and stylistic changes to their photos - not just those who understand complicated computer jargon and know how to wade through the mess of available photoshop tips and tutorials. Start out slow and do some experimenting and playing around with your images. The more you use Adobe photoshop, the more comfortable with photoshop you'll be. Soon, you'll be able to do anything to your photos - you might even write your own photoshop tutorial for the web. Playing around and experimenting with photoshop may go against the photoshop myths that say you should study first and take a photoshop tutorial before you begin using the program, but it's much more fun to learn on your own and usually more beneficial in the end. The more you learn on your own, the more information about photoshop you will retain. Going through a tutorial isn't the same photoshop you will retain. Going through a tutorial isn't the same as learning on your own, so it's always best to experiment with photoshop on your own no matter how many photoshop tutorials you read. In spite of the photoshop myths, you really will learn much better on your own what techniques and tricks to use when working with Adobe photoshop.

Whether you're working in color or black and white, don't be afraid to use different layers, tools, and masks to fix one problem or make one embellishment at a time. The good thing about photoshop is that your picture possibilities are almost endless, and there is almost no limit to what you can do. Whether you're an amateur or professional digital photographer, or just want to make some images look better for your web site, there is one photoshop myth that is true: anyone can benefit from using Adobe photoshop, and every picture could always stand a little improvement.

This article was written by Kevin M. Sugrue the creator of TutorialHell.com! For more go to http://www.tutorialhell.com/ebooks

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