Tools > Pen Tool: Learn it, love it! It's the most essential tool to learn for making cuts/selections

Great for clearing objects, text etc from larger surfaces like skies or grassįilter > Blur > Motion Blur / Radial Blur: Create illusion of movement (often best applied on a duplicate layer on top of the original one)įilter > Blur > Surface Blur: Blur the surface to get rid of noise (don't overdo it)įilter > Noise > Add Noise: Add noise for a grainy (texture) effectįilter > Noise > Reduce Noise: Reduce (color) noise (I prefer this over Surface Blur, also don't overdo it) Select > Refine Edge: Lets you edit the selection by smoothing/feathering the selection and shift the selection up to 50 pixels (good for selection that need to be smoothed or a gradual/blurry transition into transparency, like hair)Įdit > Fill (Content-Aware): Fill a selection and PS will guesstimate what should've been there and fill the selection with that. Layer > Matting > Defringe / Remove Black Matte / Remove White Matte: Remove fringes/matting/halos from the outside of a anti-aliased image Image > Adjustments > Gradient Map: Applies a gradient by using the lightness and darkness values in the image as a map for how the gradient colors are applied Image > Adjustments > Replace Color: Change hue on a color/color range Image > Adjustments > Selective Color: Change cyan/magenta/yellow/black levels on red/yellow/blue/magenta/white/neutral/black Image > Adjustments > Channel Mixer: As name implies Image > Adjustments > Color Balance: Add or subtract colors Image > Adjustments > Vibrance: Adjust vibrance & saturation Image > Adjustments > Levels: Often the better way to adjust brightness & contrast Other than that, practice is the best way to get better, don't know how to do something, look up those tutorial vids, google or ask one of our theme/wheel creators here on the forum. com one-on-one CS6 training/tutorial dvd's (Get it at /search/lynda%20com%20one%20on%20one%20cs6/0/99/0) Especially the chapter on the Pen-Tool is essential. For people trying to get better at Photoshop I really recommend the Lynda.

Hyperspin project