Create a photoshop folder in your classwork folder on the student server.

Red Sea Tutorial

Here is a very fun tutorial for beginners. Follow the instructions closely and you will see a surprise at the end. To complete this tutorial, practice using the Alt+Tab key to toggle between Photoshop and the broswer.

Tutorial

1. (Ctrl + N) to open a new image that is 200 pixels by 200 pixels; 72 resolution; RGB mode; and a white background.

Save this file into your temp folder on the student server with file name lastnamefirstinitialredsea.psd.

2. Left click on the foreground color square on the tool bar.

3. Type in '000000' in the bottom field of the pop up window.

4. Next, select the paint bucket, and click in the white square; it should turn black.

5. Follow step 2 again; but this time type in 'FFFFFF' and click OK.

Save this file into your temp folder on the student server with file name lastnamefirstinitialredsea.psd.

6. Select the text tool, select a font; click somewhere near the center of the background type your text. We will use the phrase 'red sea' for illustrative purposes.

7. Click on select menu and choose Load Selection.

8. Next, click on select and choose Save Selection.

9. Type in 'red sea outline' in 'Name' field.

10. Next, open the select menu and choose Deselect.

11. From the layers menu choose 'Flatten Image'.

12. Open the 'Filter' menu and choose blur; select Gaussian. In the pop up window move the slider bar to the left until you get to 2.0. Click ok.

Save this file into your temp folder on the student server with file name lastnamefirstinitialredsea.psd.

13. Open the 'Filter' menu again and choose Stylize then select wind from the left.

14. Right click on the Background and Duplicate the layer; click OK.

15. Select the Edit menu; click on Transform, and select 'Rotate 90 CW'.

16. Select the Filter menu. Wind should be at the top. Click on it.

17. Repeat 15 and 16 until there is wind from every side and the word 'red sea' is right side up.

18. Select 'Filter', then Distort, and choose 'Ocean Ripple'. Experiment with the slider bars until you get the desired effect. Click OK.

Save this file into your temp folder on the student server with file name lastnamefirstinitialredsea.psd.

19. Choose Image, then Mode, then Grayscale. Select 'Flatten' in the pop up window.

20. From the Image menu, select Mode, then Indexed Color.

21. Image menu, then Mode, then Color Table. In the pop up window, select Black Body from the drop down menu. You will now see a 'Red Sea'!

Save this file for the web. Select the command from the file dropdown menu. Choose 4-up. In the setting options on the right side of the screen choose .jpg, check the file size, then choose .gif and check the file size. Make a decision based on quality of image and file size as to the type of file you want to save. You have other choices there as well. Experiment with them. When you have decided on the optimum image, save the file into your temp folder on the student server with file name lastnamefirstinitialredsea.jpg -OR- lastnamefirstinitialredsea.gif.

Congratulations! You've made the Red Sea!

When you have completed your project, please raise your hand and I will come by and grade your handiwork!  Congratulations.  Feel free to explore other Photoshop tutorials on-line, or improve your personal website.

Tutorial II

Liquify Your Image

One of the most powerful additions to Photoshop is the Liquify tool. In essence, it turns images into Silly Putty. You can turn a beautiful swan of a girl into an ugly mutant at the click of a button. But it can also be a very serious tool. Precise image manipulations, which are otherwise very difficult to accomplish, are made simple with the new 6.0 version.

1. Open a new composition; open an image (faces work best); A file that will work well for this project is:  MsBoone.jpg  (Access the Web Master Google group for this file). Open image menu and select Liquify; or Shft+Ctrl+X . Save this file as boone.jpg to your temp folder.

2. A 10-button tool bar will appear on the left.

  • Warp bends the image in the direction of the brushstroke.
  • Twirl tools rotate part of the image clockwise or counterclockwise.
  • Pucker shrinks the image in the area.
  • Bloat expands the image.
  • Shift Pixels makes the image on the right side of your brushstroke smaller and the ones on the right side bigger. You can Alt- to reverse the angle.
  • Reflection turns the image area that you brushstroke into mirror images of the area perpendicular to your brushstroke.
  • Freeze tool locks areas you do not wish to alter on the image. An excellent deterrent for reeking havoc on a sensitive are of an image.
  • Reconstruct tool gradually reverses your distortions.
3. If you select 'Show Mesh' in the lower right panel, the image will be divided into a mesh of squares. You can then see how the tools manipulate the squares thus changing the image.

4. You can click on the 'Revert' button to return your image to its original form

Conclusion

The Liquify Tool can come in very handy when you need to alter photographs that you cannot retake. You can turn a smirk into a smile, or a sad face into a happy one. All is accomplished with subtlety and simplicity.

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This page was last modified November 14, 2008 .
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