Soft Glow Effects

This will be a short and simple tutorial for photo edit. This is best for those who like photo with glow effect or a little fantasy effects. Well, check this out.

Step 1

Open the image, CTRL + J to duplicate the image and rename asglow.

Step 2

Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur > 3px. Press “D” to reset the color mode to default (black foreground and white background). Go to Filter > Distort > Diffuse Glow and set the Glow and Clear amount to 18. Graininess to 0. Set the layer opacity to 60%.

Step 3

CTRL + E to merge both layers. Go to Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. Set as below. Repeat 2-3 times to get the best effect by pressing CTRL + F.

Step 4

Create a new layer and rename as light. Grab the Polygonal Lasso Tool and make a selection as below. WithRadial Gradient set foreground color to white. Drag it from top to bottom as shown. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur > 60.

Step 5

Reduce the layer opacity to 50%. Well, it is done! Hope you enjoy this.

Here is another example:

Working with Colors - VIII

Let us learn the details about the basics of fill in Corel DRAW.

1. Open Corel DRAW. Draw rectangle. Keep it selected.

2. Click on any color from the color palette at right hand side. The object is filled with color. We have increased the thickness of the outline to see the difference in the colors prominently.

Guidelines & Outlines - VII

As we have seen that now Corel draw treats the guideline like a normal object that can be selected, deleted even can be rotated. While working in Corel draw sometimes its advisable to lock the guideline so that it will not move while working with the objects. You can select and lock or unlock the guidelines.

1. Open Corel DRAW.

2. Drag the few horizontal and vertical guidelines using pick tool.

3. Using Pick Tool, select any guideline.

4. Go to Arrange > Lock Object

Group & Ungroup - VI

Let us learn to ungroup the group.

1. Open Corel Draw.
2. Using Rectangle and Ellipse tool, draw rectangle and ellipse. Fill it with different colors.

3. Select both, the rectangle and ellipse using pick tool.
4. Go to Arrange > Group
5. If you select any object using pick tool, the group will get selected. Keep the group selected.

6. Let us Ungroup this Group.
7. Go to Arrange > Ungroup
8. Deselect by clicking the pick tool outside the objects.
9. Try to select any one object using pick tool.

10. You will observe that now you can select single object as they are ungrouped.

Check out Group lesson carefully before proceeding further. We need to create two groups and group them again into one. With Ungroup All command you ungroup everything that is grouped.

11. Group the previous rectangle and ellipse again.

12. Follow the same procedure and create another group. Just fill the objects with different colors.

13. Select both the groups using Pick tool.

14. Go to Arrange > Group

15. Now we have a group which is made up of two different groups.

16. Keep this group selected.

17. Go to Arrange > Ungroup

18. With this, the two groups are ungrouped. You still have two different groups that have two objects grouped within.

19. Go to Edit > Undo to group the both groups again.

20. We are back to the final group step. We again have the group that has two groups within.

21. Go to Arrange > Ungroup All

22. Deselect by clicking the pick tool outside the objects.

23. All four objects are separate. There is no group remained. Try to select any one object using pick tool. You will observe that now you can select each single object as they are ungrouped.

Zoom & Fit in Window - V

This command is useful to get the view of all the objects scattered on the page or outside the page at once.

1. Open Corel Draw.

2. Select Rectangle tool and draw 3 – 4 rectangles. Fill it with any colors and scatter them on the page and even away from the page.

3. Select Ellipse tool and draw the circle within the page area and fill it with any color.

Behind/In Front Of - IV

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Concept: The lesson is designed using CorelDRAW, the world fame vector program used by artists, illustrators and designers. CorelDRAW is a very user friendly software and you can learn fast for the basic level. Try to explore more commands using these lessons as guideline. CorelDRAW has best of the drawing and editing facilities with the astonishing range of effects. Please try to go further than these tips and tricks by drawing your own shapes and applying effects with different options. If you want to shift the selected object behind particular object, Corel draw provides the command called "Behind" in the order menu. Similarly, if you want to shift the selected object in front of particular object, Corel draw provides the command called "In Front Of" in the order menu. 1. Open Corel DRAW. 2. Draw rectangle using rectangle tool and fill it will red color. Draw another rectangle, which will overlap the part of the first rectangle and fill this rectangle with green color. 3. Draw third rectangle in such a way that will occupy some space of the both red and green rectangle. Fill this rectangle with blue color. 4. Draw fourth rectangle that will occupy some space of the last three rectangles and fill it with yellow color. Keep yellow rectangle selected. 5. Go to Arrange > Order > Behind 6. The cursor changes to thick black arrow. 7. Suppose you want to place the yellow rectangle behind green. You will click the arrow on the green rectangle. 8. The yellow rectangle is shifted behind the green rectangle. 9. You can draw few more shapes and try this command. 10. Now select the red rectangle, which is at the back of all the rectangles. 11. Go to Arrange > Order > In Front Of 12. The cursor changes to thick black arrow. 13. Suppose you want to place the red rectangle in front of Blue. You will click the arrow on blue rectangle. 14. The red rectangle is shifted in front of the blue rectangle. 15. You can draw few more shapes and try this command.

Simple Wireframe - III

Wireframe mode used to display the intermediate steps in the blend
though it will not display the colors in it.

1. Open Corel DRAW.

2. Draw two rectangles filled with different colors while you are in the normal Wireframe mode.

Corel Text Basics - II

Working with text in Corel DRAW is really interesting experience because you can edit the text in so many ways.

1. Open Corel DRAW. Select Text Tool (marked with green circle). The icon is A (Capital A).

2. Click the cursor on the page and type the text. It may be very small so stretch it by pulling its corner point using Pick Tool.

3. Move it anywhere using Pick Tool again.

4. Pull other points using pick Tool, to stretch the text horizontally and vertically.

5. Filling text with color is just a click away. Keep the text selected. Click on any color from the color palette at right hand side. The text is filled with the selected color.

6. If you click on the cross icon in the color palette, there will be no color in the text.

7. You can apply outline to the text in Corel DRAW. Different types of effects can be created using outline. Click the cursor on the page and type the text. Stretch it to bigger size by pulling corner point. Keep it selected. We have removed the color from the text.

8. Now right click on any color in the color palette.

9. This will apply the outline to the text of the same color you have right clicked.

10. If you Right click on the cross icon in the color palette, there will be no outline to the text.

11. Let us try to change outline thickness of the text. It creates astonishing effects. Keep the text selected.

12. Press Outline Tool. In the fly out menu click on 2 point outline (Thin). The outline is thicker than the default. Try different types of available thickness.

Pick Tool - I

Move

Pick Tool is one of the most important tools used in Corel DRAW for selection and for editing of the graphic.

1. Open Corel DRAW. Select Rectangle Tool from the toolbox (marked with red circle).

2. Draw rectangle. Once you draw it, it is selected by default.

3. Now select Pick Tool (marked with green circle).

Tips for Beginners

If most of you are like me, your photoshop files are a mess. We have layer upon layer with no specific name. Our files are filled with layers called “shape 42″ and “Vector Smart Object 3″. Sure we may know that “layer 47″ is the green fade that overlays our twitter bird but what about those of us that work in a corporate environment where multiple people may work on a single photoshop file? Or what about that photoshop file you worked on for a client 2 years ago and they want that weird little update, are you going to remember what those unnamed layers are? Organization is key!

Here are a couple of tips when trying to organize your photoshop file.

Revealed Photoshop Secrets

1) If you hold down ALT+CTRL+SHIFT (Mac: CMD+OPT+SHIFT) while starting Photoshop you can reset all the Photoshop settings back to factory default. Very usefull if you have problems with some tools or the interface.

2) One of my favorites. ALT+Click on the “eye” icon in the layer’s palette to hide all other layers.

3) Do you have trouble to find the cursor when you work with large canvases?
Simply press the spacebar and you’ll see the hand icon where the cursor is located.

4) When you are applying a “drop shadow” layer effect, try to leave open the dialog box.
You’ll be able to move the shadow with a simple drag and drop.

Photoshop Tool Secrets

1. Quickly Access Related Tools

1. Hold alt and click on a particular tool’s icon to toggle related tools.

2. The Move Tool

1. Hold CTRL to access the Move tool at anytime.

18 Useful Photoshop Shortcuts

Simple Photoshop Shortcut Commands

• H (Hand Tool) — When zoomed in to a portion of your photo, this command brings up the hand tool which allows for quick panning. Also, if the hand tool is active and you hold down the Ctrl key, you can zoom in without changing to the zoom tool. Likewise, if you hold down the Alt key, you can zoom out without changing tools.

Photoshop Secret Shortcuts

It is proven that by using software shortcuts can boost up productivity. Here are 30 secret Photoshop shortcuts that I've learned from years of experience. Well, what I mean by "secret" is that these shortcuts are not documented in the menus. Keep reading and you will find how these shortcuts can speed up your productivity. I bet you don't know all of them.

Note: this article is written in Mac Photoshop format. If you are using PC, Cmd = Ctrl and Opt = Alt.

Working with Palettes

In order to show a palette in your workspace, go to the “Window” menu, then choose the palette you want to display, in this case, the “Swatches” palette.

Now, go to the top right of the palette, where a small “menu arrow” is, and click that arrow to open the menu.