So it is safe to agree now that you are an expert when it comes to the tools and features of Photoshop. But to be crowned a pro at Photoshop you need to know the tricks of the trade when it comes to modern graphics design. This tutorial will go over many of the effects and layer styles commonly used by designers today. We shall start of by introducing you to the “Layer Styles” feature in Photoshop. Basically you can overlay many neat styles on a layer such as gradients, shadows and glows to name a few. Start of by creating a new document 500 x 500 px. The button to open up the layer styles window is circled below. [img]http://i4.tinypic.com/6nqj5eb.jpg[/img] But before we got ahead and open up the layer styles window, we need something on our layer! For this example we shall use text but mind you can overlay layer styles on anything. Select the text tool and type out a name. For this tutorial we shall use the text: G3 Fusion. [img]http://i6.tinypic.com/7xx00ag.jpg[/img] Note the text doesn’t need to be highlighted when you are going to add a layer style (unlike changing font size ect.. where you must highlight the text first). Once you have typed out your desired text, choose that text layer and then click on the layer styles button. A drop down menu should open up. You can click on any of the entries since once the popup opens you can navigate between different styles. For now just choose Stroke. The Layer Styles Window should be as shown: [img]http://i6.tinypic.com/6p01890.jpg[/img] All the buttons on the left (circled in red) are the styles available. You simply click on the style you want to edit and the settings associated with that style will show up on the right. Also notice the checkboxes along the side, if you click on a style the checkbox will automatically get selected and the style will remain even if u navigates away from that style. So if you wish not to use a style after playing around with it, uncheck it! Currently we are on the Stroke style and the settings displayed are the ones associated with stroking image/text. So what is stroking you may ask? It is basically adding a solid outline around an image. Let’s test it, use the following settings (results shown under): [img]http://i17.tinypic.com/834ocqa.jpg[/img] Pretty neat stuff. You can play around with the settings on your own but basically only two things you need to be playing around with are the colour of the stroke and the size of it. Lets check out some of the other useful layer styles: Colour Overlay This is a pretty simple concept. It may seem redundant for text since you can change a text’s color using the secondary tool bar; but for layers containing shapes this as an easy way to change the color. The settings and effect are shown below: [img]http://i10.tinypic.com/714xlbp.jpg[/img] Gradient Overlay This once again it is a simple way to overlay a gradient on top of a layer. Double click on the color bar open up the colour chooser; then click on the small little “box arrows” to choose the end colors of the gradient. The settings and result is shown below. (Make sure to uncheck “Color Overlay” (in the layer window) if you have used it in the past else the colour overlay will OVERLAY the gradient overlay! [img]http://i8.tinypic.com/7wj21y0.jpg[/img] Drop Shadow This is a pretty neat little effect that gives your layer a 3d look. The settings and result is shown below: [img]http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=734tvte&s=1[/img] Outer Glow This feature speaks for itself and allows you to add a glow to your layer. Once again the settings and effect shown below: [img]http://i17.tinypic.com/8b6jbkj.jpg[/img] That’s pretty much it with regards to popular styles used but feel free to play around with all the other styles. A reminder once again, layer styles pile up, so if you no longer want a layer style don’t forget to uncheck them in the layer styles window. You can also hide layer styles in the layers window. After you add layer styles you should notice that the styles appear under you layer in the layers window as shown below. To hide a style you can simply click on the “eye” graphic across from it. You can also delete a style by dragging it into the trash bin. [img]http://i10.tinypic.com/8fmigcj.jpg[/img] Again, just to drive home the fact that layer styles are overlaid onto everything on the layer, rasterize the text you created earlier. Then grab the paint brush, set the foreground to a nice shade and pink and doodle away on the layer. You should get something like this: [img]http://i13.tinypic.com/7wrwp07.jpg[/img] What do you notice? It is not painting pink! Why? Because the layer styles are being overlaid over whatever you do on that layer. If you wish to see the pink underneath simply delete all the layer styles by dragging them into the trash bin. So that pretty much wraps up layer styles. We shall now discuss some other common effective design tactics associated with Photoshop. Brightness and Contrast To demonstrate the Brightness and Contrast feature, open up a image that is on your computer into Photoshop. I will use the following stock photo I had lying around:Grunge Background. To open up an image in Photoshop, go to File>Open and browse for the file. Once opened up it is IMPORTANT to remember that it is bad practice to work and make changes on the source file. So first select the marquee, drag out the area of the image you want (or the whole image) hit CTRL + C to copy, go to File > New to open up a new canvas (one great thing Photoshop does is that it automatically detects the size of your copied region so you don’t have to edit the size of the new canvas!) and hit CTRL + V. Note that the image is now on a new separate layer of its own, that’s the reason why we had to go through the steps above. There are other easier ways but we shall stick to this method to drive home the fact that it is bad practice to work on the original file and helps prevents overwrites. To see the effects of Brightness and contrast, make sure the layer is selected and then go to Image>Adjustment>Brightness and Contrast as shown: [img]http://i1.tinypic.com/6x118xe.jpg[/img] Playing around with the Brightness and Contrast will add great depth to your image but don’t use it to the point where it makes your image grainy and bad quality. Our result is shown below: [img]http://i5.tinypic.com/8fv2poj.jpg[/img] Layer Overlay Effects Layer effects are usually great for text and blending images together. On image canvas you had from the previous step, create a text layer set to the colour brown, color code: 6d3901. To play around with layer effects simply click on the drop down shown in the image below and choose an effect. You can go through all of them to see what fits you best. We used a ”Color Burn” and this is the neat effect we got. [img]http://i6.tinypic.com/6x0eubr.jpg[/img] Note, changing the colour of the text also affects your effect! Try playing around with different text colours and different effects. Opacity Playing around with the opacity of a layer is a great way to change the transparencies of a layer. The opacity slider is shown in the picture below. Once again it is a great way to fade images and add gloss to text. [img]http://i7.tinypic.com/8e792me.jpg[/img] Hue/Saturation Changing the hues and saturations enables you to change the color of an image. With the layer selected, go to Image > Adjustments > Hue / Saturation and you should get the following dialogue box: [img]http://i17.tinypic.com/73nit5g.jpg[img] Be sure to check off the “Colorize” checkbox and then play around with the top two sliders until you find the colour shade you prefer. So there you have it! Some of the tricks and design tactics associated with Photoshop. At this point you have pretty muched learned enough about Photoshop to make some nice looking graphics. You just need practice! Click below to read the last section of this tutorial which puts to use everything you learnt in the last 3 tutorials in the form of an example! Continue reading the next part of this tutorial: [url=http://www.friendsterforum.com/forum/graphics_arts_and_designs/beginners_guide_to_photoshop_pt4_putting_it_all_together-t42366.0.html]Part-4[/url]