The Resource List

[AJ]

Check the Stat Updates, Scenarios and Graphics part of EWR forum for those.

If any of you are into making sports graphics, www.sportslogos.net is a good site I've come across with (some) high quality logos.

[Notorious P.O.T]

www.sxc.hu

Great site for stock photos, but you have to sign up..

[Docpepper]

Photoshop brush preview app

A nice little app that let's you view and organize your photoshop brushes and then install them with 2 simple clicks. Been using it for a month now and I love it.

brushfind.com a nice collection of photoshop brush sites.

http://www.echoica.net/brushes.php

A nice selection of photoshop brushes

A set of 200 photoshop brushes(6mb)

[Guest Splodge_666]

www.psdspy.com - nice little PSD website here

[Tarheels.]

I just got photoshop and accidently closed two of the windows on the right. How do I open them up again

[Docpepper]

go to windows and click on the ones you want . the ones you'll really want open are layers , channels , paths and sometime actions and styles

[Tarheels.]

Thanks, and something that I'm hoping can be made easier by the folks here at EWB as opposed to the tutorials which I don't understand. How do you make things transparent and whats the best way to cut somebody from a picture to post onto another item. Like for my first photoshop I want to make a coheed splash so I've taken the Coheed logo and pasted it onto a black/white background. I want to take a picture of Claudio and put it somewhat faded into the background but I'm not exactly sure on how to do stuff like that and the tutorials aren't necessarily easy for me to understand.

[Docpepper]

if you want the easy way out you can download a psd of claudio

but to do it yourself you can use the magic wand if the background is one solid color . you could also use the lasso tool or the rubberband selection tool. or the eraser

personally I recommend using a layer mask or quick mask . the photoshop manual has info on those but you can find tons of info about masks online. They are essential in my work or cutting things out and etc.

[Tarheels.]

Thanks for the help but back onto that window closing thing. I'm talking about the things like history, color and stuff like that. I didn't quite get what you said by going to windows for it, because I'm just trying to get them back onto the page so they're easily accesible like they were before.

[alldaws1]

Thanks for the help but back onto that window closing thing. I'm talking about the things like history, color and stuff like that. I didn't quite get what you said by going to windows for it, because I'm just trying to get them back onto the page so they're easily accesible like they were before.

Click the 'Windows' tab along the top toolbar. There's a list of what you can have easy access to on the page. Just click on the one you want and it will appear.

[Tarheels.]

ah, thanks a lot. I've got the color/swatch stuff up right now along with the layers and the history. Is there anything that anyone else would reccomend to have up other than those that would make the process a lot easier. Also where do most of you get your psd's because yahoo is currently giving me shit sites with nothing decent on them. Same with fonts too.

[alldaws1]

PSD Protocol and Surreal Designz have a decent selection of cuts. My favourite free font site is dafont, again it has a good selection.

In Photoshop I have the Tools, Options, Navigator, Character and Layers windows showing. Tools is an obvious one to have open so you have easy access to the range of tools you'll need, the Options I don't really need but I like it up there to see what settings I have for the tool I'm using. The Navigator because I find myself needing to zoom in a lot, Character because I use a lot of text and there's a wider range of settings available than in the option bar. Layers is also obvious, for structuring the graphic.

Layers, Tools and Options I think are the essential ones. The others depend on what you find yourself needing the most.

[Tarheels.]

Thanks again AD, one question about the psd's though. If I want to make a banner type thing, what size should I have the psd's at so they don't take up the entire screen and how would I put multiple ones into a banner, because currently they have the default background and I'm not entirely sure how to get rid of the background and have only the psd show up so any help on either one of those?

[Docpepper]

when I use pre-cut psds I drag them over onto my canvas then I hit Ctrl +T and then while holding shift I scale it down to the size I like.

[alldaws1]

You can resize the image by going to Image on the top toolbar and then Resize. Or, alternatively you can hit Ctrl + T for a free transform where you manually resize the image/cut (hold shift while resizing to keep the proportion the same).

I'm not sure about your second question, so this may not make sense. You can delete the default background by right clicking on the background layer in the layers palette and selecting 'Rasterize Layer'. You can then select the background (Ctrl + A for the whole image) and press delete. Alternatively (and a much easier way) when you select to create a new image you can change the settings in the box that comes up to have there be no background layer when you begin.

[Tarheels.]

I'm not sure about your second question, so this may not make sense. You can delete the default background by right clicking on the background layer in the layers palette and selecting 'Rasterize Layer'. You can then select the background (Ctrl + A for the whole image) and press delete. Alternatively (and a much easier way) when you select to create a new image you can change the settings in the box that comes up to have there be no background layer when you begin.

Edited January 17, 2007 by Tarheels.

[alldaws1]

I'm not sure about your second question, so this may not make sense. You can delete the default background by right clicking on the background layer in the layers palette and selecting 'Rasterize Layer'. You can then select the background (Ctrl + A for the whole image) and press delete. Alternatively (and a much easier way) when you select to create a new image you can change the settings in the box that comes up to have there be no background layer when you begin.

I mean when I open up the psd's I've got the generic checkered background and I want to delete the background or at least make it transparent so that when I go to make it a banner the background of the psd won't conflict with the background of the actual banner.

and while I'm on that topic I know that Doc somewhat explained it already but with taking the psd to the banner, how would I take just the cut rather than the whole background. Sorry if I'm terribly annoying with these questions but I'm hoping to start on photoshop quickly so I can start making my own banners and stuff like that.

The chequered background isn't actually a background, it's just your workspace. If you save it with that background showing, it would just be white (for a normal image, it would be transparent if saving as a .gif or .png). Bottom line, there is no background there, you can go ahead and create a background on a layer underneath the cut and it will show up fine.

[Tarheels.]

So to take the resized image to a new image, how could I do that. What I did with the Coheed logo was Magic Wand it since it was all the same color, but no cuts are so what would I do for that.

[alldaws1]

Just hit Ctrl + A to select the whole image, Ctrl + X (or Edit > Cut) then Ctrl + V (Edit > Paste) on the new image.

[Docpepper]

it's easier to click on the move move tool . click and hold on the actual cut and drag over to your new canvas , but I use both methods all the times