Anyone who’s ever dabbled in website design has probably needed to use image editing software at one time or another. To many it might appear as if there are only one or two options out there. The primary option being an expensive program from Adobe called Photoshop that costs around $300, and a few others like PaintShop Pro and Pixelmator that range from $50 to $100. However, there are two other powerful options that are completely free.

Gimp

While the name might conjure up thoughts of a Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction,” Gimp stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program (GNU is free software licensing system). The best feature of Gimp is its price tag…free. This open source software is a powerful alternative to Adobe’s Photoshop featuring the ability to create graphic designs through layering images.

It has an extensive plug-in library that continually grows, offering new features for graphic image manipulation. Some developer or user might create a plug-in that makes a photo look like a velvet painting. You can then download these plug-ins and use them free of charge in your version of Gimp.

Gimp also supports the Adobe Photoshop format for paintbrushes. These are a powerful tool within the application that are generally themed and make it easy to add potent imagery to your work. Paintbrushes may be themed around gardens, Japanese letters, Goth imagery, cars or just about anything you can imagine. They’re a flexible, powerful way to take your logos or website images to the next level.

Find this program at http://www.gimp.org.

Inkscape

Another powerful, free program for creating images is Inkscape. Unlike Gimp, which is a raster-based image manipulation program, Inkscape is a vector drawing program. While Gimp is intended for editing photos in the jpg, png or gif format and best suited to handling photorealistic images, Inkscape’s vector drawing is great for icons, logos and more cartoonish images.

Vector drawing programs are based on building, coloring and manipulation shapes. Raster programs like Gimp are pixel-based and this means that when you scale an image to a larger or smaller size, you run the risk of losing image fidelity. Programs like Inkscape and their expensive cousins (Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw) are the perfect tool when you want to create logos that might be presented in many different dimensions.

Most clip art that is not photography based is created using some sort of vector drawing program. Inkscape uses the Scalable Vector Graphic file extension (.svg) which is open standard and means that your graphics file will easily transfer to other programs and be usable.

Find this program at inkscape.org.

Is Open Source for Everyone?

Of course! It’s free! That’s the whole point. There are downsides to using these applications. While you can find hundreds of books on using Adobe’s Photoshop, you’ll only find a handful on Gimp and Inkscape.

Some people love to buy books to learn, but I say that’s actually a disadvantage because again you’re out another $30-$50 bucks per book.

There are plenty of video tutorials on You Tube that can teach you how to use the programs and become very competent. So the investment you make will be time, not money.

If you’re in need of a program that will help you create images for your website that are compelling, but can’t afford a copy of Adobe’s Photoshop – you’d be wise to take a look at these two amazing open source graphics programs.

Photoshop tutorials is the introductory course on Photoshop . You’ll learn the ins and outs of getting the most from the course and a general overview of the Photoshop for the Web product. You’ll view and mimic the Photoshop tutorials for saving files, displaying them and using the cursors. You’ll learn about Adobe Photoshop transparencies, gamuts, units, rulers, grids and guides. You’ll learn to use plug ins and scratch Photoshop disks. You’ll be taught the basics of Photoshop memory and image caches.

You’ll learn the basics. You’ll become familiar with screen areas, layers and their styles, the management of Photoshop assets, actions, droplets, and the creation of new images. You’ll learn how to open and grab images, how to blend modes and how to use and understand the differences between vector and bitmap graphics.

The techniques and tools that make Photoshop such a great product are part of the next set of tutorials. Now is when you’ll learn navigation, beginning and intermediate painting, drawing, creating shapes, and beginning and advanced selections. You’ll learn about filling, cropping and clone modifications, as well as modifying through sampling, annotation and retouching.

Now is when you become proficient with Internet delivery and architecture and learn about the origins and behavior of the Internet and the World Wide Web. You learn the meaning and reasoning behind the structure of Internet pages, and how to manage and use graphic architecture and animation.

Next on the Photoshop tutorials agenda are the lessons about optimization and download times, compatibility for browsers and platforms, browser offsets, JavaScript, table backgrounds, absolute positionings, resolution of monitors, interpolations and shapes of images.

Web color is an important part of using Adobe Photoshop. You’ll need to know about the mode of colors, how to pick them and specify them, how to choose color that is safe for the Web, what monitor bit depth is all about, the way the browser can compensate for colors that are missing and how to save it for the Internet.

The use of type is also part of these Web Photoshop tutorials. You’ll learn the various types of type, and take beginning and intermediate lessons in setting graphics type.

An overview of image formatting will be part of the Photoshop tutorials, as well as several training CDS for Gif. Included in these are the table for color lookup, LZW compression, dithering, algorithms for reducing color, transparencies, matte and the avoidance of halos. JPEG is part of the tutorials, both the general overview and saving.

As part of the Web Photoshop tutorials you’ll learn to work with photos, create backgrounds and layer styles.

Master The Basics Of Adobe Photoshop With My Easy To Use Photoshop Video Tutorial. For More Information Visit: http://www.forphotoshop.com

David Peterson is a writer for http://www.forphotoshop.com which is an excellent place to find photoshop links, articles and Information. For more information go to: Photoshop Tutorials

Today we are going to study a quick and easy way to change the size of your images in Photoshop. There are several different ways to change the size of your pictures when using Adobe Photoshop. One possible way is to use the cropping tool. The downside of the cropping tool is that it will change the layout of your picture by cutting out some aspects of the image.

The best way to re size your image without changing the overall layout is to use the Image Size command. The Image Size dialog box can be found under the Image drop down in the menu bar.

Once you have opened this dialog box, you can change the dimensions of your photograph or artwork simply by changing one of the numbers in the upper dimensions box. If you know what size you need the final image to be, then this is extremely easy. For instance, if you are working on graphics for a web page and you know that it needs to be 600 pixels wide, then all you need to do is type 600 into the width box. Remember to keep the constrain proportions box ticked so that Photoshop will automatically change the height dimension accordingly.

Changing the size of your images in Adobe Photoshop doesn’t have to be difficult or confusing in the least. By simply using Adobe’s built in Image Re-size dialog box, you can save yourself a lot of time, get your image size to be exactly what you want, and not have to worry about any confusing proportion calculations.

Many people in the world make a lot of money just by providing a photo editing service. Photo editing service can be provided to anyone from big blockbuster movie producer to a home maker having her family photo album. One of the most widely photo editing software used is Adobe Photoshop. The main reason why this software is used by a novice as well as an expert, is because it has all that is required to edit any photos. Photoshop is user friendly, easy to navigate, and has a wide range of different plug-ins to use for image editing. You can make a big profit by photo editing. Here I am going to talk about how you can get paid to edit photos with Photoshop.

In order to earn decent money you really need to have a great control over Photoshop. Not only that, you also need to make yourself familiarize thoroughly with each commands and methods used in it. Best way to achieve this is to learn by yourself. There is an inbuilt help that gives you guidance for each and every commands used in this software. However if you want to learn it quick, there are various e-books written on how to use Photoshop like professionals. I would like to mention that Photoshop is a software used for graphical editing so an e-book would not help much in grasping the whole concept. There you have one solutions in the form of video tutorials. Those of you find it hard to learn through e-books can prefer video tutorials.

Now that you have skills that some of the professionals have in photo editing, you can begin your work. Just to note, learning something and creating new things are two different things. You do not wish to start your business just to fail in it. So start editing on your own photos. You can ask some of your friends and relatives for few of their photos and edit them. After editing show them what you have done and what other things your friends want in their photographs. This way you will build confidence in what you have learnt and what you can actually provide to your customers. Once you are confident on your work you can ask people to pay for photo editing.

Now comes the time to get paid to edit photos. But how? Mostly the initial customers would come from your friends and relatives. Later you can post your photo editing ad on Online Classified Websites with your phone number on it. You can also register on some of the T-shirt selling websites and submit your designs. They pay you if your designed T-shirt is sold. You can also contact your local digital photo laboratory and start working as free lancer. You can ask them to provide you with editing job and you can get nice monthly income with just a few hours of daily work. You can also join digital forums online. Many of these forum members are looking for buttons, icons and lot of other creative images for their websites, blogs etc. They give nice pay for the work you do for them. All what everyone requires is a neat and a creative work from you.

Since the advent of digital photography, getting a great picture is no longer a matter of luck. All you need is a decent camera, a good photo editing program and some hard work. While there are many photo editing programs available today, the most popular is still Photoshop. Almost anything you have ever wanted to do with a photo can be done here. However, you should start with the basics, such as the Photoshop clipping path technique.

You can think of a clipping path as a pair of scissors. It creates a line around an object in your picture and allows you to remove the object and place it within another picture. For example, you can take a picture of a dog sitting in your studio and superimpose it on the picture of a field. A Photoshop clipping path can be created in two ways. The easy way is with the magic wand tool. This can be found in your tools palette. Once you click on a part of your picture, Photoshop will sample the color of that pixel. It will then create a clipping path around any area with similar shades of that color. This is good for simple shapes, but can cause ghosting or jagged edges around more complex images.

The other Photoshop clipping path method is to do everything by hand. This method involves using the pen tool. The pen tool is actually several tools in one, but for a clipping path you will be using the "Add Anchor Point," "Convert Point Tool" and "Delete Anchor Point." Zoom into the picture and use these three functions carefully to trace the border. The spot you will be aiming for is the center of where the program has blended the edges of the object with the background. With time and practice, you will be able to create a perfect cut-out.

Traditional photos have always been considered fragile. While many still enjoy the challenges and accomplishments of traditional photography, they still back them up in the digital world. Why? Because the chemicals used on photographic paper are very sensitive to sunlight and air. Acid in hot, humid air can destabilize the color dyes in photographs and make them fade more quickly. Light has a similar effect and will break down the dyes in the paper, causing the pictures to fade. Humidity can also cause the paper to warp and grow brittle. While the chemicals used in black and white photographs are more stable, if left in these conditions for long enough, they will also succumb.

New to website designing or simply want to try a hand in photo editing? Photoshop is all that you need. The biggest benefit of this software, it allows you to play around with the images and give it a form you want. In fact, if you wish to edit images, design websites or create logos, there is nothing convenient than Photoshop. It is really an amazing tool that can help you take out hours of frustration into web designing and photo editing. In simple words, it is fun and really a must-have tool. Now, have a look as why it is a great tool in a designer's arsenal.

The biggest benefit of using Photoshop, the format of presentation can easily be altered for the same image. The main idea is to make it look absolutely different on various mediums. For instance, in case of graphic designs, it can be used to bring out changes in the actual photograph. Isn't it simply amazing? The most interesting thing, it can easily create layers of images and allow changes to be done on the photos. Due to these reasons, this tool is a must-have for many website designers to create logos or edit the pictures for higher quality.

Coming to the other benefits of this interesting tool, it is quite easy to use. All you need to do is simply visit the site and download the latest version of this tool and you are good to go. You can create many beautiful images with this tool and without having to know it all. Second, you can give any image the look you want. For instance, you can blur it, enhance it. Above all, you can unleash your creativity in whichever form you want. You can either turn an ordinary girl into the model or a normal person to a zombie, with this tool. Interestingly, the outcome image looks absolutely real.

Editing is also a lot faster with this super amazing tool. In this era where time is money, you don't need to waste a lot of time on other software. This is all you need. Since it is so fast, most people use it to create logos, websites as well as to edit images. This is one tool which edits images with great efficiency and really fast. Lastly, Photoshop is all about fun and creativity. You can carry out the most difficult editing with ease. The reward at the end is surely a great image. So, who says you need magic? You have Photoshop, right?

I cannot say enough good things about my best friend in the digital world: Photoshop. Suffice to say, I love it! As a Graphic Designer, I use it in 99% of all my projects, and now I enjoy using what I do to make Photoshop Tutorials for others.

You don’t need to be a professional or even and “artist” to create works of art. Nowadays, you don’t even have to know how to draw! I intend to create a series of tutorials to illustrate several ways to use this program for creating beautiful pictures and illustrations just by using photographs. In this particular tutorial, I will be showing you how to turn photos into watercolor paintings in a few easy steps.

The only materials needed to follow along with this tutorial are:

–Photoshop. I use Photoshop CS3, but you can use whichever version you have.

–A photo. Either a photo of your own or a stock photo. Some really good stock photos can be found for free at Stock Exchange.

That’s it! I find a graphic tablet a nice tool for all work I do in Photoshop and they are fairly cheap these days, but it is definitely not necessary.

This tutorial does assume that you have some basic knowledge of Photoshop. Having a basic “beginner knowledge” of the program will help a lot. Also, there is a link in my bio for you to see photos that walk you through everything.

1. Open Photoshop. Then go to File–>Open, select the picture you want to work with and then hit “Open”.

2. On the layers palette (on the right side), right click on the “Background Layer” and select duplicate. Do this twice.

3. Click on the first duplicate layer (this should be your middle layer), then go to Image–>Adjustments–>Desaturate . Then click on the second duplicate layer(your top layer) and do the same.

4. On the top layer, go to Image–>Adjustments–>Invert.

5. Still on the top Layer, set the blending mode (located within the layer palette, looks like this: ) to “Color Dodge”.

6. Still on the top Layer, got to Filter–>Other–>Minimum and set the radius to 1.

6. Now duplicate the bottom layer(the one that still has color) one more time and drag it to the top of your layers. Go to Filter–>Blur–>Gaussian and set the radius number in the box anywhere between 1 and 5. Usually the more detailed the picture, the lower you will want to set the radius. Then set the layer blending mode to “Multiply”.

7. Select the Paint Brush Tool, select the soft round or “fuzzy” brush shape at the top and set the size to fit whatever area you are working on. Set the opacity to 20%.

Go to Layer–>New Layer and name your final layer whatever you wish and hit “OK”.

Then select the color you wish to paint with and paint the area to improve or change colors.

Each picture you do will have different results. Have fun playing with different levels and colors! I hope you found this Photoshop tutorial easy to follow. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

Much has been said about the worth of Photoshop tutorials found on the web. By simply following a step-by-step instruction on how to achieve a certain effect, Photoshop is now becoming more accessible to almost anyone who knows how to use a computer.

Photoshop tutorials alone could not make you a successful graphic designer. Sure, you can probably know how to do basic photo manipulation but everything is in vain unless you have an idea on basic graphic design.

Graphic design is a process of incorporating the elements and principles of visual arts in order to achieve an aesthetically pleasing and functional effect. The functions vary per work. Aesthetics, as we all know, is subjective. It is safe to say then that there is no single formula for graphic design. The processes are not even consistent and would depend a lot on a designer’s attitude, personality and motives.

Authors of Photoshop tutorials oftentimes subscribe to a rather wrong notion. But it can’t be help and they can’t speak for everyone. It is the role of a Photoshop learner to get the necessary background on graphic design and not just rely on spoon-feeding.

For one, a novice Photoshop user should at least try to analyze his/her intended audience. This is done in order to determine the purpose of your message. You can create abstract visuals in painting but not in graphic design. Every work should function as expected. Part of achieving this is how you will relay the message. Simply put, you have to consider your medium. If it is a movie poster, where shall it be placed? If it is a web design, to whom will it cater?

Once you have determined all these, you can now envision how the design will look and feel like. You can organize your text and graphics based on that vision. Use the appropriate layout, typefaces, styles, formats, and spacing. You can manipulate each graphic element and the design altogether. It would depend a lot on your imagination. It is more dependable than Photoshop tutorials anyway.

But how exactly, you may ask? Now comes in the elements of graphic design. Let us begin with the basic.

Line. There are a variety of them and each has its own design function. Straight, curve, thick, thin, broken-what lines do, independently or when incorporated with other elements, is organize texts and graphics. It creates a visual path that will help your audience follow through the design. Lines give a sense of motion to the design. It directs the eyes of the spectator.

Shape. Psychologists have always been fascinated with shapes. Think: Rorschach inkblot test. You can make use of the same principle in your design. By knowing the audience, you will learn how to easily manipulate their thoughts on a visual stimulus of your own doing. Shape, more than any element, symbolizes ideas.

Mass. The most confusing part of Photoshop tutorials is when the author begins blabbering about the importance of mass. Those who don’t know a thing about graphic design will ask: “What in the world is visual weight?” Simply put, it is how graphic and text elements create contrast to grab a spectator’s interest.

Texture. Another confusing thing about Photoshop tutorials is texture. The same question is often left hanging. These are easily understood once you already know your “emboss” from your “drop shadow.” Visual texture also creates contrast and interest. It adds dimension and personality to the design. It provokes emotions and play on the spectator’s eyes. Whenever you hear someone saying that a certain artwork seems alive, that is most probably the handiwork of texture manipulation.

Color. This is probably the easiest element to control in graphic design but is still oftentimes overlooked. Handling color is as simple as getting a color wheel and picking which color combination works together. But the tricky part here is learning color association and symbolism. Just like shapes, psychologists learned that colors evoke a certain behavior towards a spectator.

Those are the five basic elements of graphic design. Begin to apply these on your next Photoshop projects and notice how your skills improve.

This tutorial for Adobe Photoshop is ideal for anybody looking at the real advantages of using this Adobe software in order to edit your digital photos and images. If you are looking for a variety of tutorials for Adobe Photoshop, you way get overwhelmed by the millions of pages offered by Google search results. If you want a more defined Google search results for any tutorial for Adobe Photoshop, then use “” – for example “Tutorial For Adobe Photoshop CS5/CS4/CS3/CS2” etc. This way you will find what you are looking for a lot easier.

Photoshop is an amazing piece of computer software that allows its users to manipulate and create images. The use of Photoshop is pervasive throughout the professional worlds of photography and graphic design. The first version of Photoshop hit the market in 1990 as a Macintosh product; it is now on its eleventh release and compatible with any system. Why should you use Photoshop?

Photoshop gives you an enormous advantage over designing with a paper and pen. You can easily fix your mistakes without any messy erasing. There are a variety of templates for the less artistically inclined to choose from. Also, a finished Photoshop product invariably looks more professional than a hand-drawn product.

Once you have decided to invest in image editing software, you may notice that Photoshop is a very costly product. Current versions of Photoshop CS4 run between $500 and $600. It is possible to find much cheaper image editing software and some computers even come with a factory-installed program. However, there are four broad reasons why you should use Photoshop over other cheaper or free image editing software. These four reasons are: versatility, a user-friendly interface, easy access to training, and a variety of functions.

Versatility: There is very little that Photoshop is not able to accomplish for you. It doesn’t matter if you’re an amateur photographer who wants to do some simple cropping to family snapshots. Conversely, top photographers and graphic design professionals use Photoshop for image creation and editing.

User-friendly interface: Photoshop was designed with the consumer in mind. No specialized programming skills are needed and its drawing canvas, where images are created, is WYSIWYG – what you see is what you get. Many elements of Photoshop are similar to other computer programs. For example, the menu bar has the same file, edit, view, and help options as Microsoft Word. The tools in the toolbox modify your pointer so that you will remember what tool you are using.

Easy access to training: Because Photoshop is an immensely popular software tool, there are a plethora of books, online tutorials, and college courses available to train the new user in the workings of Photoshop. You can not only find information suitable for a beginner, but also a detailed description of some of Photoshop’s most advanced tools.

Variety of functions: Photoshop is able to perform an almost endless variety of image edit and creation functions.

Photo manipulation – take a downloaded or scanned photo and reduce red-eye and other imperfections, crop the photo, or change the sharpness or contrast of the image

Painting and drawing – use the drawing canvas and toolbox to create new images

Graphic design – take scanned artwork or artwork created in Photoshop itself and add layers, gradients, and much more to create graphic art that sells.

Typography and page layout – Photoshop allows you to manipulate both text and image on the same drawing canvas but in different layers. This allows you to create presentations and other projects that require a juxtaposition of text and image.

The advent of Adobe Photoshop unleashed the ability to create and manipulate images in an almost infinite number of different ways. In this manner, Photoshop can be said to have changed the world's perspective on reality. So much so, that people may no longer automatically "believe what they see", since it's now possible to alter images in ways that are almost impossible to detect.

If you are not familiar with Photoshop, it is a program designed to allow people to create and edit all types of images on their computers. Its original, and still for many its principal function, is to enable you to perform touch-ups on pictures before printing or posting online. Naturally, each subsequent version of Photoshop included more sophisticated tools which allow you to correct minor errors or produce advanced effects from the original photograph. The Photoshop of today also allows the creation of sound files and animation for sharing online.

In the past, images had to be saved in very particular file formats in order to be manipulated in Photoshop. However, because of the explosion of digital cameras and camera phones today, Photoshop can actually import the photographs directly from the source. This means that the time between taking the picture and sharing it is reduced.

Previously, when individuals took 'bad' pictures there was nothing they could do to correct the errors. This meant that that if the image was blurred due to camera shake, or if there was red-eye caused by the flash, you had to either live with these imperfections or delete the image all together. Now of course, there are countless numbers of basic photographic software programs that can quickly and automatically correct these kinds of imperfections. This means that most digital pictures taken nowadays can be 'rescued' even if there are multiple technical issues with the original shot.

Of course, Photoshop has now evolved well beyond these kinds of image 'quick fixes'. As an 'Image Manipulation' tool, you can take any image and implement all kinds of create and artistic 'non destructive' effects. This allows you to try out all sorts of variations of effects and if you are not pleased with the result, simply revert 'back in time' using Photoshop's 'History' tool. Using this tool, you can gradually 'step back' through each effect you added until you arrive at the point you'd like to re-try the sequence using a different effect. This allows you to experiment using a vast number of different tools until you achieve the result that you were looking for.

One of the most powerful features of the software is the ability to work in multiple 'layers'. This allows you to manipulate different elements of the picture in creative ways and move semi-transparent 'layers' over each other to achieve the desired effect. The final resulting single image may in fact be composed of several dozen, perhaps even hundreds of layers – many with special effect filters.

You can tell that an immense impact is being caused by Photoshop by the fact that the company name is now used as a verb. It's common nowadays to hear of someone 'photoshopping' an image (even although they may actually be using another image software program all together.) This is always a sure sign that a product is having a significant impact on the culture of the day.

Photoshop has also led to a whole new level of art and digital creativity. For example, graphic tablets were developed specifically for users of Photoshop. Artists of today have gone beyond using paints and a canvas. Today's artists make use of tablet sensors and Photoshop to produce their masterpieces. The technology of this digital software, allows people to take the art of drawing, add computer techniques, and come up with a whole new genre of art. The availability and popularity of photo manipulation software has spawned a vast and creative library of highly modified pictures, many bearing little resemblance to the original image. Using electronic versions of brushes, image layers and filters, it's possible to produce images unattainable through conventional artistic media. In addition, digital artists can create digital paintings, photomontage, collage or lithographs.

Adobe Photoshop might just be a simple software tool for some people. However, powerful tools, when used by enough people can change history. In this age where most media is defined by computers, Photoshop is another tool which, in the right hands, can change the world, or at the very least, change people's perception of that world.