PhotoshopUser 2020 01 January

THE A D O B E® P H O T O S H O P ® “ H O W -T 0 ” MAGAZINE › › J A N UA RY 2 02 0
Effects Convert an image into a pencil sketch using

filters, blend modes, adjustment layers, and
Photoshop 2020 introduced a new way
of using presets, including new panels Designing
Toolkit a few manual brushstrokes for added realism for Shapes, Gradients, and Patterns in Photoshop
Kirk Marsh | KelbyOne Member
PHOTOSHOP
ON THE iPAD
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[ P H O T O S H O P U S E R • J A N U A RY 202 0 • V O L 2 3 • NO 1 ]
CONTENTS
Images: Adobe Stock; Layout: Jessica Maldonado

[050] PHOTOSHOP ON THE iPAD
By Terry White
FEATURE
Adobe teased Photoshop on the iPad more than a year ago at Adobe MAX 2018, and then
they finally released it at Adobe MAX 2019 last November. Expectations were high, so it was
understandable that many people weren’t happy with version 1.0. So we asked Terry White,
Principal Worldwide Design & Photography Evangelist for Adobe and KelbyOne trainer, to
take us on a tour of Photoshop on the iPad to show us what it can do now, and give us a
glimpse of what the future might hold for upcoming versions.
Corey Barker
©Adobe Stock/EmotionPhoto
[024] [036]
HOW TO
DEPARTMENTS [007]
A NOTE FROM SCOTT
[024] DOWN & DIRTY TRICKS
[009] Text & Color Compositing Effects
CONTRIBUTORS
[036] DOWN & DIRTY TRICKS
[010] Mandalorian-Inspired Character Art
BENEFIT SPOTLIGHT
[066] BEGINNERS’ WORKSHOP
Adding a Reflection to Goggles
[012]
KELBYONE COMMUNITY
[072] EFFECTS TOOLKIT
A Simple Way to Create a Pencil Sketch Effect
[020]
HEARD ON THE TWEET
[088] DESIGNING IN PHOTOSHOP
The New Shapes Panel in Photoshop 2020
[022]
COLUMNS
NEW ONLINE TRAINING
[112]
FROM THE HELP DESK [062] SHORTCUT CITY
The Anatomy of a Photoshop Composite, Part 2
[078] THE PERFECT SELECTION

ONLINE CONTENT
The Object Selection Tool Is a Game Changer
Whenever you see this symbol at the
end of an article, it means there are either
downloadable practice files or additional
[082] PHOTOSHOP PROVING GROUND
content for KelbyOne members at Painting with Fresco
http://kelbyone.com/magazine.
Whenever you see this button [094] PHOTOSHOP Q&A
in an article, click it to go to the KelbyOne Get Answers to Your Photoshop Questions
site to watch courses that cover similar top-
ics contained in the article.
Whenever you see this button [096] PRODUCT & BOOK REVIEWS
in an article, click it to go to the KelbyOne Get the Scoop on the Latest Gear
Online Community to ask questions or
make comments about this issue.
Click this symbol in the nav bar at the top [110] PHOTOSHOP TIPS
of the online reader to access the Contents. Boost Your Productivity & Creativity
©Adobe Stock/Victoria Andreas
©Adobe Stock/mimagephotos
[072] [082]
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› › FROM THE EDITOR
> A Note from Scott

GETTING OFF TO A GREAT START IN PHOTOSHOP IN 2020
Welcome to 2020! (I know, it got
here faster than any of us thought.) If
you’re wondering which Photoshop
mountains you should scale this year,
I have a suggestion for something
that will likely have the most impact
on your Photoshop skills. It’s what I’d
tell a friend who asked the question,
“What should I focus on to get really
good at Photoshop?” I’d tell them,
”Get really good at selections.”
Okay, not just selections but
selections and masking (the two go
together, so it’s kind of the same
thing, or at the very least, the same
genre). So where would I tell them
to start? Hands-down, I’d tell them
to start with the Pen tool. When
I look back on my own career, learn-
ing the Pen tool was a real turning
point for me. It was when I felt I took
the jump from being a beginner to
an intermediate-level user, because
being able to make really precise selections is, well, what Those are the two biggies, and if you learn them now,
separates us from the animals. Corey Barker did a killer here in January, you can start using them all year, and
course for us a while back called Mastering the Pen Tool, I promise it will change the way you work in Photoshop
and even though he’s using an older version of Photoshop, from here on out. Also, while we’re talking about courses,
the Pen tool (classic that it is) really hasn’t changed, so it’s I did a course that has really resonated with our members.
super relevant and you’ll learn a ton from it. He covers It’s on all the new features Adobe has added to Photo-
everything from the basics to making complex selections. shop in the last 14 or so months (it’s much more than you
Such good stuff! might think), so if you want to get up to speed on all the
After the Pen tool, I’d go straight to the Select and new stuff fast, here’s the link to that course.
Mask function. While the Pen tool is king of the hill We’re on this journey with you, every step of the way,
for selecting things with hard edges, when it comes to and here’s wishing you a 2020 full of learning, fun, and
tricky selections, such as masking hair, go for Select and amazing new things!
Mask all the way. If you do a little prep work up front
(which, essentially, is photographing your subject on a All my best,
neutral background), you’ll be amazed at how easily
and accurately you can select hair. I did a course called
> K ELBY ON E . CO M
Compositing and Masking Hair Made Easy, and while

I cover different methods, a lot of the focus is on using
Select and Mask. Once you get that down (it’s easier Scott Kelby
than you might think), between the Pen tool and Select KelbyOne President & CEO
and Mask, you’ll be well on your way. Editor & Publisher, Photoshop User [ 7 ]
J A N U A R Y 2 02 0 • V O L 2 3 • N O 1
AN OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF
EDITORIAL:
Scott Kelby, Editor-in-Chief
Chris Main, Managing Editor
Kim Doty, Associate Editor
Barbara Thompson, Copy Editor
Cindy Snyder, Technical Editor
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS:
Steve Baczewski • Corey Barker • Peter Bauer • Bruce Bicknell
Dave Clayton • Dave Cross • Unmesh Dinda • Mark Heaps
Jessica Maldonado • Kirk Nelson • Colin Smith • Gilmar Smith
Lesa Snider • Scott Valentine • Erik Vlietinck • Terry White
GRAPHICS:
Jessica Maldonado, Art Director
Margie Rosenstein, Senior Graphic Designer
Angela Naymick, Senior Web/Graphic Designer
MARKETING:
Ashley Fosse • Rachel Scott • Kleber Stephenson • John Warwick
WEB:
Adam Frick • Curt Husting • Yojance Rabelo • Aaron Westgate
PUBLISHING:
Scott Kelby, Publisher
Kalebra Kelby, Executive V.P.
Jean A. Kendra, Business Manager
Cover Image: Kirk Marsh
ADVERTISING:
Kleber Stephenson, Vice President of Business
Development & Enterprise kleber@kelbyone.com
HOW TO CONTACT KELBYONE:

U.S. Mail: 118 Douglas Road East • Oldsmar, FL 34677-2922 Each issue we feature cover art
Voice: 813-433-5000 • Fax: 813-433-5015 by a KelbyOne member!
Customer Service: info@kelbyone.com This issue’s cover is by Kirk Marsh, a Florida-based environmental portrait photographer
Letters to the Editor: letters@photoshopuser.com and digital artist. He uses Photoshop to enhance cinematic transportive narratives.
Help Desk: https://members.kelbyone.com/account/helpdesk With a background in the performing arts and circus (he went to Ringling Bros. Clown
College and has toured his silent comedy show around the world to 53 countries),
his style is influenced by magical realism and the fictions of our own minds. A strong
COLOPHON: believer in creating personal work, he has completed a 365 Self-Portrait Project focusing
Photoshop User was produced using Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 on one-image storytelling. This project has guided his most recent journeys to create
and Adobe InDesign CC 2019. Korolev was used for headlines and more impactful imagery for his clients and tell their stories. Kirk recently opened Circus
subheads. Frutiger LT Std for text. Kirkus, a new theatrical style circus in a tent that starts touring January 29 of this year!
All contents ©COPYRIGHT 2019 KelbyOne, LLC. All rights reserved. Any use of the contents of this publication without the
written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited. Photoshop User is an independent journal, not affiliated in any way
with Adobe Systems, Inc. Adobe, the Adobe logo, Acrobat, Illustrator, InDesign, Lightroom, and Photoshop are registered
trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks mentioned
belong to their respective owners. Some of the views expressed by contributors may not be the representative views of the
publisher. ISSN 2470-7031 (online)
TERRYWHITE
is the Principal Worldwide Design & Photography Evangelist for Adobe, Inc. He
has been with Adobe for over 20 years, and was inducted into the Photoshop
Hall of Fame in 2016. Terry is the host of the award-winning Adobe Creative Cloud
TV and has one of the most popular YouTube channels. He’s also the author of
Secrets of Adobe Bridge and co-author of The iPhone Book and InDesign CS/CS2
Killer Tips. Terry is a key presenter at major industry shows around the world.
CONTRIBUTORS
STEVEBACZEWSKI JESSICAMALDONADO
is a freelance writer, professional photographer, graphic designer, is Art Director of Publishing at KelbyOne, and has been with
and consultant. He also teaches classes in traditional and digital the company for more than 14 years, designing and producing
fine arts photography. His company, Sore Tooth Productions, is books and magazines. You can follow her on Instagram or
based in Albany, California. Twitter @BookDesignJess, or at Facebook.com/PhotoshopJessica.
COREYBARKER KIRKNELSON
is an award-winning designer and illustrator. A featured instructor is a professional graphics artist in the Washington, D.C., area. He
at the Photoshop World Conference and an Adobe MAX Master has a B.A. from George Mason University and is an Adobe Certified
Instructor, he has produced numerous training titles for KelbyOne. Expert in Photoshop. Kirk’s career has touched on a broad range of
Look for his latest book Photoshop Tricks for Designers. subjects from logo design to animation. He can be reached here.
PETERBAUER COLINSMITH
is an Adobe Certified Expert who does computer graphics con- is an award-winning digital artist, photographer, and lecturer
sulting for a select group of corporate clients. His latest book is who has authored 19 books and has created a series of train-
Photoshop CC for Dummies. He was inducted into the Photoshop ing videos. Colin is also the founder of the online resource
Hall of Fame in 2010. PhotoshopCAFE.com and president of Software-Cinema.com.
BRUCEBICKNELL GILMARSMITH
is the founder of Digital Blue Productions. He has been an instructor on is a self-taught photographer and Photoshop addict, based in
Adobe training, as well as at Sessions.edu. His client list includes Time Orlando, Florida, specializing in creative portraiture and com-
Inc., NFSTC, Crossroads Foundation, People, and National Geographic. posites. You can follow her ventures at www.gilmarphotography
Currently, he’s the creative director for the duPont REGISTRY magazine. .com and all around social media as @gilmarsmith.
DAVECLAYTON LESASNIDER
is a UK-based graphic designer with over 30 years experience, author is the author of Adobe Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC for
of How Do I Do That In InDesign, cohost of the successful He Shoots, He Photographers: Classroom in a Book (2016), Photoshop CC: The
Draws podcast, and a Photoshop World and KelbyOne instructor. He’s Missing Manual, TheSkinnyBooks.com eBooks, more than 40
also an Adobe Influencer and Training Manager at Astute Graphics. video courses, and the “Creaticity” column for Macworld.
DAVECROSS SCOTTVALENTINE
has been teaching Adobe software for more than 30 years. He’s blends his education in physics with his love for art, bringing a
an Adobe Certified Instructor, in the Photoshop Hall of Fame, has unique voice to teaching through experimentation. His Hidden
written many articles and books, co-hosted Photoshop User TV, Power books (Adobe Press) are used in colleges across the US,
and has taught for KelbyOne, CreativeLive, and Photoshop Cafe. and he’s a longtime member of Adobe’s prerelease team.
UNMESHDINDA ERIKVLIETINCK
is a Photoshop educator with more than 1,000,000 subscribers and A J.D. by education, Erik has been a freelance technology editor
500 videos on his YouTube channel, PiXimperfect. He’s been an for more than 22 years. He has written for Macworld, Computer
instructor for ShutterFest and Photoshop World, published in Shut- Arts, and many others. He also contributes to UK-based Red Shark
ter Magazine and Photoshop User, and he’s a KelbyOne instructor. News and Red Shark Sound. Visit his website at Visuals Producer.
MARKHEAPS
is an Adobe Community Professional, instructor, author,
photographer, and Executive Creative Director. He’s been a fea-
tured speaker at Adobe MAX, SXSW, and many other events. His
clients include Apple, Google, Coca-Cola, Dell, and many others.
[ 9 ]
> Benefit Spotlight
ARE YOU GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR

KELBYONE PRO MEMBERSHIP?
As a Pro member, you’re receiving the ultimate experience You can also get help from others in our Community or
with KelbyOne. This is our complete plan that includes every- from our one-on-one Help Desk. You have access to all the
thing to immerse yourself in learning. We want to make sure new issues of Photoshop User magazine and Lightroom
you know about all of the added benefits you’re getting as a Magazine, along with more than 120 back issues. You have
Pro member so you can take advantage of them all! access to a Creative Toolkit packed with brushes, presets,
Pro members have access to our entire course library eBooks, and other fun freebies. And last, but certainly not
(700+ courses), including a new course every week, taught least, there are significant discounts available from our part-
by world-class instructors who you know and love. In addi- ners, such as Apple, B&H Photo, and Mpix.
> PHOTOSHOP USER > J A N U A RY 2 0 2 0
tion, you have hundreds of quick tips and tutorials, guided Do you know someone who should go Pro? Share the
learning tracks, and the opportunity to live-learn through added benefits of the Pro Membership with them to help
private members-only webcasts. accelerate their learning today! n
Discuss this Issue

[ 10 ]
CHRISMAIN, ASHLEYFOSSE & DAVECLAYTON
> KelbyOne Community
Inspiration, information, and member artwork to fuel your creativity
The 12 Days of Christmas Giveaways on the Top 10 Landscape Photography Courses
KelbyOne Creative Toolkit If you visit the KelbyOne Insider, or read the “KelbyOne
Are you a KelbyOne Pro member? If yes, are you Community” section here in the magazine, on a regu-
familiar with the Creative Toolkit on KelbyOne.com? lar basis, then you’re probably aware that we’ve started
If you’re not, then you’re missing out on an amazing a series on the top 10 KelbyOne courses based on spe-
benefit. The Creative Toolkit is where we thank you for cific topics with the most views. This time around, we’re
being a Pro member by giving you access to tools used focusing on the top 10 landscape photography courses.
and created by KelbyOne instructors to improve your These courses have produced some of the most majes-
work, boost your creativity, and speed up your work- tic and awe-inspiring photos we’ve ever seen, including
flow. You can find the Creative Toolkit under Perks on rivers, mountains, lakes, and ocean views of every kind.
the left side of your Dashboard. So if you’re into landscape photography and you haven’t
watched all these classes, you should make sure to catch
up on the ones you’ve missed. So without further ado,
here are the top 10 landscape photography courses
on KelbyOne.
Ramtin Kazemi
For the past few years during the Christmas holidays,
we’ve been doing our 12 Days of Christmas Giveaways
1. 10 Essential Tips Every Landscape Photographer
on the Creative Toolkit, where each day for the 12 days
Should Know
leading up to Christmas, we release a new goodie for Pro
members. And this year the gifts were better than ever! 2. Landscape Photography: Post-Processing in
You’ll find eBooks, tutorials, presets, LUTs, text overlays, Camera Raw
and more. These were provided by some of our incred-
3. Uncovering the Magic of Yellowstone and
ible instructors, including Scott Kelby, Mark Heaps, Victo-
Grand Tetons
ria Pavlov, Frank Doorhof, Ibarionex Perello, Viktor Fejes,
Dave Williams, Ramtin Kazemi, and Tracy Sweeney. In 4. Landscape Photography Preplanning Post-
fact, 5 of the 12 gifts this year are eBooks. That’s five free Processing
eBooks just for being a Pro member. We can’t thank our
5. Under the Milky Way with Dave Black: Lightpainting
instructors enough for providing all these gifts.

and Photographing Stars
Don’t worry if you missed it, because these tools will
be available to you all year round, so log in now to the 6. Nighttime Photography Techniques
Creative Toolkit to grab them. In fact, you’ll find all the
7. Advanced Landscape Post-Processing Techniques
tools we’ve ever released throughout the year, including
our previous 12 Days of Christmas Giveaways. And if you’re 8. Beginner Basics: Landscape Photography
not already a Pro member, don’t worry, you can upgrade
9. Landscape Photography: Mountains, Lakes,
your membership today and get instant access to all the
and Waterfalls
tools—it’s a benefit that everyone should be taking advan-
tage of. So thank you for being a Pro member, and we wish 10. Capturing the Natural Beauty of Yosemite
[ 1 2 ] everyone a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2020! National Park
ARTIST SPOTLIGHT >> CARMEN BOERGMANN
MEMBER SINCE 2019
ARTIST SPOTLIGHT >> CAROL ROSENTHAL
MEMBER SINCE 2017
ARTIST SPOTLIGHT >> ROBERT TAYLOR
MEMBER SINCE 2017
WHO’S WHO IN THE KELBYONE COMMUNITY >> JOHN RAE
MEMBER SINCE 2005
› › K E L BYO N E C O M M U N I TY
Who’s Who in the KelbyOne Community: John Rae

John Rae has been a professional freelance fashion and product photographer and retoucher for more than
22 years. For the past 14 years, he has also been teaching photography and photography software, includ-
ing Photoshop and Lightroom, to adults ranging from the ages of 18–80. John was also a staff writer for
PhotographyBB Magazine from 2008–2010.
Why did you initially join KelbyOne, and how has it You’ve traveled to Photoshop World a few times
benefited you over time? from the UK. What is it that keeps you coming back?
I first came across Scott Kelby and the “Photoshop Guys” Photoshop World is a roller coaster of industry knowledge.
back in the days of Photoshop TV. I used to Torrent ille- There are so many highly respected instructors on hand to
gitimate copies of the shows and religiously catalog tech- demonstrate, teach, and answer your questions. Adobe
niques and tips. I still remember Episode 1 where Scott is on hand too, of course, to answer any specific soft-
demonstrated super sharpening on a flower image. I joined ware questions, and the enthusiasm of both the Adobe
NAPP way back in the 2000s and got hooked on the com- staff and the KelbyOne instructors is highly infectious. I’ve
munity aspect, along with great advice from industry pros, attended six or so Photoshop World events, both East and
which was essential as I developed my own photography West Coast, over the last decade, and always come away
and Photoshop skills. supercharged with ideas, techniques, and new teaching
strategies. It’s easily the single-most powerful experience
Looking at your work, you’ve shot several styles of in terms of self development.
photography. What style do you enjoy the most?
Product photography has become my bread-and- Can you tell us a little about your kit?
butter over the last few years, mainly Amazon-style shop- When I’m teaching, I need to be able to utilize a variety
window shots with some lifestyle images and fash- of kit. At work, I use Nikon, Canon, and Sony cameras,
ion lookbooks for good measure. I enjoy the variety and Bowens, Interfit, and Elinchrom studio gear. For my
of products and the various challenges they present: personal work, my own kit is all Pentax. I have four or five
macro-small to room-size large, reflective, transparent, Pentax bodies including two medium-format DSLRs. I’m
white-on-white—they all need problem solving, which using the new Interfit Honey Badger studio flash (includ-
I enjoy immensely. ing the Badger Unleashed battery-powered unit) exclu-
In addition to the product work, I enjoy working on sively for all my product, portrait, and fashion work. I’m
a number of personal portraiture projects revolving keen to try out the newly relaunched Bowens units, and
around “Identity.” This all kicked off while studying for I’d like to get my hands on a couple of those this year.
a master’s degree at the University of West London,
and so has a more academic flavor. I’d recommend Is there anyone who has inspired or influenced your
anyone to take on personal work to help develop your work over the years?
practice and take you away from the everyday, which I’m drawn to the hyper-illustrated looks made popular by
can quickly become stale. the likes of Jill Greenberg and Dave Hill, a little dated now
but still an influence. My go-to guys in the Kelby stable
are Joe McNally for editorial style shots, Chris Knight and
You also teach photography. How long have you
Lindsay Adler for fashion, and Steve Hansen for food.
been teaching and what do you enjoy about it?
I’ve been teaching photography, Photoshop, and Light-
room since 2005. Teaching means you have to keep up Finally, is there anything you’ve learned through your
to date with emerging technologies to stay at least one photography and teaching that you’d like to pass on to
step ahead. KelbyOne has been invaluable for this aspect anyone starting out today?
of self development. The biggest buzz, though, is seeing Forget the gear. Get something simple and affordable that
my students progress, and in some cases set up their own you’re comfortable with and use it to train your eye. Get used
successful photography businesses. to looking better, seeing more, and enjoying the spectacle! n [ 17 ]
WHO’S WHO ON THE KELBYONE INSTRUCTOR TEAM >> FRANK DOORHOF
INSTRUCTOR SINCE 2010
› › K E L BYO N E C O M M U N I TY
Who’s Who on the KelbyOne Instructor Team: Frank Doorhof
Where are you from, and what kind of work do you do?
Our studio is based in the Netherlands, but we travel around a
[10]
lot for teaching and shoots. My main focus is “people” in the
broadest sense. I love to capture character but also do something
unique, so we mostly shoot the more styled fashion and artists/
actors. But most of all, I love to teach. On average I teach twice a
RAPID-FIRE
QUESTIONS
week from our own studio, but I’m also very active on social media
and our YouTube channel. I also absolutely love street and travel
photography. FRANKDOORHOF
1. Favorite movie
Where do you look for inspiration? Army of Darkness
It’s hard to pinpoint one source. I get a lot of inspiration from mov-
ies and video clips, but also from comics and, of course, everything 2. What can’t you live without?
My wife Annewiek
around me. I’m a strong believer that inspiration is everywhere
as long as you open your eyes and look for it. Take, for example, 3. Favorite type of music
a simple microphone; you can just shoot it as a product but you Queen, without a shadow of a doubt.
can also incorporate it into a more deliberate shoot and set. If you After that, anything with “soul,” ranging
from metal to actual soul music.
think about it, one prop can give you a lot of options.
4. What do you do in your spare time?
Watch movies, read comics, and play guitar
What do you enjoy most about teaching?
Without a doubt, the impact I have on people. If I post an image 5. Where’s your favorite place to travel?
online and get a like, that’s nice, of course, but when I teach, I get That’s hard. I’m torn between Scandinavia
so much more. People who literally grow their art and profession (Norway/Denmark/Sweden) and the U.S.A.
just because they got some ideas or techniques from one of my

6. What are three things you always
workshops or tutorials is just so much more rewarding. take with you when you travel?
My wife, an iPad Pro, and a camera
Do you have any work rituals? 7. What’s your favorite new app?
Not really. I do have a motto. There are three choices in life: Give I hardly install anything new, but I use
up, give in, or give it everything you got, which I think is true with Lightroom a lot and on the iPad Pro, I edit
video with Rush and LumaFushion
my work. When I have a day off, I actually almost feel guilty. So
my work ritual is more about the whole lifestyle around it. A day 8. What’s the best advice you’ve
without taking images is just boring. ever received?
A tip from Jay Maisel: “Find the stage, and
the players will come,” meaning don’t just
Are there any hardware or software tools hunt for pictures; find a cool spot and wait
for them.
you just couldn’t live without?
Oh yeah. Recently, I’ve been working out a complete mobile work- 9. Who would you recommend some—
flow based on the iPad Pro, so Lightroom is without a doubt a one to follow on social media?
huge part of that. Also, when I have to find older images or places @ScottKelby and @ricksammon
I shot them, Lightroom Classic is one of my most-used tools. I

always tell people, “That’s where my images live.” Hardware-
10. What’s the one thing you wish
somebody would ask you?
wise, I can shoot with anything, both lighting and cameras, but I
Do you want to photograph Brian May?
love light sources that can be aimed, so I use a lot of grids. That would make my day/year/life. n
[ 19 ]
> Heard on the Tweet
A Quick Glance at Some Highlights from our Twitter Feed
[ 2 0 ]
› › HEARD ON THE TWEET
Follow KelbyOne and Scott Kelby on Twitter!
[ 2 1 ]
Here Are Your Latest Online Courses
From Taking to Making:

The Secrets to Great Photographs
Join Ibarionex Perello in downtown LA for an exploration of the principles used to make great photographs. While this class uses
street photography as the vehicle for seeing differently, the lessons learned can be applied to all types of photography. Follow
Ibarionex through the streets as he shares his perspectives on gear and camera settings, how your mind-set affects what you see,
and how to see the world graphically and use those graphic elements to build stronger photographic compositions.
Maximize Your Impact

with Plotaverse
Join Troy Christopher Plota, the creator of the Plotaverse platform, as he teaches you how to get the most out of the
Plotaverse suite of apps and utilize the motion art you create to promote your work on social media. Learn the ins and
outs of the Plotaverse sharing platform, how to animate a still photo using Plotagraph, how to apply special effects and
[22 ]
overlays to your motion art, how to create advanced motion effects, and how to morph multiple photos into an animation.
Every week, we publish at least one new training course.
Check out these brand-new courses below:
The Best Retouching

Secrets Uncovered
Join Viktor Fejes and learn all of the Photoshop tips and tricks he wished he knew when he started out as a retoucher. Starting
with the benefits of a tablet and proper monitor, Viktor dives into his favorite interface settings, how to get the most out of
pen pressure on your tablet, key brush settings for retouching, how to easily tone down highlights on skin, brilliant tips
for working with layer masks, alternative ways to cut out hair from a background, and so much more.
Travel Photography:
A Photographer’s Guide to Chicago
Join Scott Kelby and Larry Becker to learn where to go, what to see, and what to photograph in Chicago! In this class Scott
shares an in-depth look at 21 visually rich locations to photograph in and around Chicago. Throughout each lesson Larry
Becker asks the kinds of questions you are thinking to get Scott’s answers to the gear and camera settings he used, post
[ 2 3 ]
processing techniques, insider tips for each location, and all the information you’d want to know before you go.
COREYBARKER
TEXT & COLOR

COMPOSITING
EFFECTS
Happy New Year! I thought we’d kick off this year of creative
exercises with some really cool color compositing effects. We’re
going to explore a few aspects of Photoshop you may not have
used before and, by doing so, you might discover a new way to
design with color and blending effects. Plus, we’ll throw in a few
cool tips on formatting text as a design element.
[ 24 ]
› › DOWN & DIRTY TRICKS
Step One: Go under the File menu

and choose New to create a new
document for the design compos-
ite. Set the Width to 1,600 and the
Height to 2,000 pixels. Set the Res-
olution to 100 Pixels/Inch, leave the
Background Contents set to white,
and click OK or Create.
Step Two: Fill the Background layer

with a new color by clicking on the
Foreground color swatch near the
bottom of the Toolbar, selecting a
color as shown here, and clicking
OK to close the Color Picker. Press
Option-Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace) to
fill the background with that color.
Step Three: Now open the first

model shot I’ve provided for this
exercise (you can click here to
download the practice files, or
visit kelbyone.com/magazine). This
effect can give you a variety of
looks depending on the photos you
use, so after you finish the exercise,
be sure to experiment with your
own images and designs.
Step Four: Once the image is open,

press D to set the Foreground and
Background colors to their default
of black and white, respectively. Go
under the Image menu, to Adjust-
ments, and choose Gradient Map.
You’ll see the Gradient Map dialog
open with a preview of a black-and-
white gradient, which is based on

your Foreground and Background
colors. This will convert the image
to black-and-white with some good
contrast. Click OK. [ 2 5 ]
› › HOW TO
Step Five: Once the image is con-

verted, switch to the Move tool (V), and
drag it to the main design image with
the colored background. Position the
image as desired. I placed her face a
little off center for a better composition.
Step Six: Click on the Add a Layer

Style icon (ƒx) at the bottom of the
Layers panel and choose Blending
Options. In the Advanced Blending
section of the Layer Style dialog, you’ll
see checkboxes for each color channel
(R, G, and B). Turn off the Green and
Blue channels, and then set the Opac-
ity to 50%. Click OK. You can see that
just doing this results in a rather cool
color effect against the background,
but why stop there?
Step Seven: Let’s bring in another

image, but this time we’ll use a differ-
ent color technique. Open the second
model shot for this exercise. This is the
same model but in a different pose
with different lighting. Here we’ll use
a luminance-based selection to create
[ 2 6 ] the effect.
Step Eight: Open the Channels panel

(Window>Channels) and hold down
the Command (PC: Ctrl) key as you
click on the main RGB composite
channel thumbnail. This will load the
overall brightness of the image as an
active selection.
Step Nine: While the selection is

active, go back to the Layers panel and
create a new blank layer. Click on the
Foreground color swatch in the Toolbar
again, and set an orange color simi-
lar to what’s shown here. Click OK to
close the Color Picker. Press Option-
Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace) to fill the
selected area with the Foreground
color. If you turn off the Background
layer by clicking its Eye icon in the Lay-
ers panel, you’ll see the image appear
as an orange negative as shown here
[ 2 7 ]
› › HOW TO
Step 10: Next, use the Move tool to

drag this layer into the main design,
and position it where it best fits in
the composition in relation to the
first subject. Be sure to place this layer
below the first subject layer in the
Layers panel. The blend it creates is
affected by the position of the layer
in the Layers panel, and the result is
a very stylish composite. Finally, lower
the layer Opacity of the orange layer
to around 80%.
Step 11: Create a new blank layer at

the top of the layer stack. Then, press
Shift-Delete (PC: Shift-Backspace) to
open the Fill dialog. Set the Contents
drop-down menu to 50% Gray and
click OK.
Step 12: Go under the Filter Menu

and choose Filter Gallery. Expand the
Texture folder, and select Grain. Set
the Grain Type drop-down menu to
Vertical, and then set the Intensity
to 12 and the Contrast to around 34.
[ 2 8 ] Click OK when done.
Step 13: Back in the Layers panel, set

the layer blend mode to Vivid Light
and the layer Opacity to 40%. This
adds another layer of stylized contrast
to the composite.
Step 14: Now we’re going to add

some text elements. Not only do we
want the text to convey information,
but we also want to make it part of the
overall design with a few formatting
tricks. Let’s start with the main text.
Select the Type tool (T) and click
on the canvas to set a text layer. In the
Options Bar choose the font you want
to use (we’re using Avenir Next Heavy).
Press D then X to set the Foreground
color to white, and then type the word
“DUALITY” in all caps.
[ 2 9 ]
› › HOW TO
Step 15: To the left of the font drop-

down menu in the Options Bar, you’ll
see an icon you may never have used
before. It toggles the text between
a horizontal or vertical direction. The
default is horizontal so click on it to
set the word to vertical.
Open the Character panel (Window>
Character) and increase the Size to
around 120 pt, and then adjust the
Tracking to fit the text in the composi-
tion from top to bottom (we used 700).
Step 16: Now let’s add another text

element. With the Type tool still selected,
go to the lower area of the composition,
hold down the Shift key, and click-
and-drag out a text box. This will self-
populate with lorem ipsum text.
[ 3 0 ]
Step 17: The text should automatically

be highlighted, but if not, double-click
its layer thumbnail in the Layers panel
to highlight it. Set the Size to around
17 pt, the Leading to 80, and the Track-
ing to around 2200. Also, click on the
All Caps icon (it’s the third icon in the
row of Ts). Finally, open the Paragraph
panel (Window>Paragraph) and select
the Justify All button (it’s the last icon
in the row at the top).
Step 18: Instead of just lorem ipsum

text, let’s change it to actual text.
While you can change it to anything
you want, we’ll just use the definition
of the word “duality.” Just copy it and
paste it in place of the lorem ipsum text.
While it’s looking good so far, there are
still some annoying gaps in the text.
[ 31 ]
› › HOW TO
Step 19: Here’s a cool trick: Go under

the Edit menu and choose Find and
Replace Text. Under Find What, sim-
ply press the Spacebar and leave the
Change To field empty. Next, click
Change All. This eliminates the spaces,
resulting in even distribution of the let-
ters in a perfect grid. If your copy con-
tains any punctuation, delete those, as
well, so it’s just letters.
Step 20: Once the text is set, change

the layer blend mode of both text layers
to Difference, which changes the con-
trast and color of the text over the light
and dark areas. I also added a couple
more lines of text to balance the overall
design, setting them to the Difference
blend mode as well.
Step 21: Now for the final touch.

Select the topmost layer in the Layers
panel. Click on the Layers panel flyout
menu, hold down the Option (PC: Alt)
key, and choose Merge Visible. This
creates a merged copy of all the visible
layers above the selected layer.
[ 3 2 ]
Step 22: Go under the Filter menu,

and choose Filter Gallery again. Click
on Artistic at the top and choose Poster
Edges. Set both the Edge Thickness
and Edge Intensity to 1 and the Poster-
ization to 5. Click OK.
Step 23: Now while this looks cool, it’s

a bit much for what we want here. So
before you do anything else, go under
the Edit menu and choose Fade Filter
Gallery (the Fade command won’t be
available if you did anything else in
Photoshop after you applied the Poster
Edges). In the Fade dialog, set the
Opacity to 30% and the blend Mode
to Soft Light. Click OK (see next page).
[ 3 3 ]
Step 22
› › HOW TO
You can see with just a couple photos,

you can create a compelling color com-
posite in a matter of minutes. Be sure
to play around with different colors and
text arrangements to cater to whatever
designs you need. Have fun! n
[ 3 4 ] ALL IMAGES BY COREY BARKER

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KIRKNELSON
MANDALORIAN-
INSPIRED
CHARACTER ART
The Star Wars universe has long served as inspiration ground
for artists of all kinds. Now that the property is more than 40
years old, we can see how the material has changed and
adapted to a modern generation. What hasn’t changed is
that it still inspires young and old. One of the latest properties
is The Mandalorian streaming series. It’s undeniably Star Wars,
but has a grittiness to it that feels more like a western than
a sci-fi space drama. In this project, we delve into creating a
Mandalorian-inspired character poster.
[ 3 6 ]
Note: This project uses a few stock files from Adobe
©Adobe Stock/EmotionPhoto
Stock. If you don’t wish to purchase or license the full
resolution versions, the free watermarked versions will
work for practice to learn the techniques.
Step One: Open Photoshop and create a new file

with File>New, and set both the Height and Width
to 1500 px. Click on the Background Contents color
swatch, change it to a burnt rose (#593c3b), and click
OK to close the Color Picker. Click OK or Create in
the New dialog. Then, go to File>Place Embedded
and place the stock image of the model. Position the
model so she’s centered in the frame and her head is
just below the top edge, but her feet aren’t visible.
If you’d like to download the low-res watermarked
versions of the images to follow along, click this link for
the first image that we’re using, log in with your Adobe
ID, and click the Save to Library button. Double-click
the image in the Libraries panel (Window>Libraries) to
open it in Photoshop. To make it easier to work with
the image, increase the resolution of the practice file.
(We normally don’t recommend enlarging images, but
this is only for practice purposes.) Go to Image>Image
Size, turn on the Resample checkbox, select Preserve
Details 2.0 from the Resample drop-down menu, set
the Width to 3,200 pixels, and click OK. Use the Move
tool (V) to drag the image into the new file and posi-
tion it as described above. Right-click on the layer and
select Convert to Smart Object.
Step Two: Use the Quick Selection tool (nested below

the Object Selection tool [W] in the Toolbar) to cre-
ate a rough selection of the model. If it selects any
areas you don’t want, hold the Option (PC: Alt) key
to remove those areas. To improve the selection, click
the Select and Mask button in the Options Bar.
In the Select and Mask Workspace, change the
View to On Layers (Y), and select the Quick Selection
tool (W). Press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key to
clean up the tight corners that the regular Quick Selec-
tion tool left behind. Also, remove any small spaces
like the holes in the sword. In the Properties panel, set
the Radius to 2 px, enable the Smart Radius option,
and set the Shift Edge to –26%. Use the Refine Edge
Brush tool (R) to paint over the selection of her hair.
When you’re happy with how the selection looks, set
the Output To drop-down menu to Layer Mask, and
click OK. [ 3 7 ]
› › HOW TO
Step Three: Click on the Fore-

ground color swatch near the bottom
of the Toolbar, change it to a dusty
yellow (#f3d497), and click OK to
close the Color Picker. Switch to the
Ellipse tool (nested under the Rectan-
gle tool [U] in the Toolbar), and make
sure its Tool Mode is set to Shape in
the Options Bar. Hold the Shift key,
and draw a circle behind the model
to look like the sun; holding down the
Shift key will keep the
shape a perfect circle.
While you’re drawing
the circle, you can press-
and-hold the Spacebar
to reposition it. Drag
the Ellipse layer below
the subject layer in the
Layers panel.
Click on the ƒx icon
at the bottom of the
Layers panel to add an
Inner Glow layer style.
Set the color to #f9c47e, the Blend
Mode to Multiply, the Opacity to 40%,
and the Size cranked way up to 234
px. Then, click on the words “Outer
Glow” in the list of Styles on the left
side of the Layer Style dialog, and set
the color to #fad388, the Blend Mode
to Screen, Opacity to 26%, Spread to
0%, and the Size to 57 px. Click OK
to apply the layer styles.
Step Four: Create a new layer by

clicking the plus icon at the bottom
of the Layers panel. Double-click the
name of the new layer and rename it
“Clouds.” Make sure it’s between the
sun layer and the model layer. Keep

the same Foreground color that was
used for the sun but set the Back-
ground color to black. Then, hold
down the Option (PC: Alt) key and
go to Filter>Render>Clouds (holding
down the modifier key adds contrast
to the filter). In the Layers panel, set
the blending mode to Color Dodge
[ 3 8 ] and reduce the Opacity to 15%.
Step Five: Click the Add Layer

Mask icon (circle in a square) at the
bottom of the Layers panel, and
then grab the Brush tool (B). Use
a large round, soft-edged brush to
paint on the mask with black (press
D then X) and hide the clouds from
the bottom of the composition. The
intent is for the clouds to be most
visible the closer they are to the sun,
so lower the Opacity of the brush
in the Options Bar as you get closer
to the sun to very gently paint them
away from the outside edges of
the document.
Step Six: Create a new layer

beneath the Ellipse layer and name
it “Sun Glow.” Set the Foreground
color to #ffae86, and switch to the
Gradient tool (G). In the Options
Bar, select the Radial Gradient
shape, click on the gradient preview
thumbnail, select the Foreground to
Transparent preset, and click OK to
close the Gradient Editor. Click in the
middle of the sun shape and drag
the gradient out to the side of the
canvas to create a soft glow behind
the sun. Set the blending mode to
Color Dodge and reduce the Opacity
to 65%.
[ 3 9 ]
› › HOW TO
Step Seven: Create another new

layer named “Sun Grunge.” Com-
mand-click (PC: Ctrl-click) on the
Ellipse layer’s thumbnail to create
a selection in that shape. If you’re
using Photoshop 2020, open the Pat-
terns panel (Window>Patterns), and
choose Legacy Patterns and More
from the flyout menu. Then, go to
Edit>Fill and set the Contents drop-
down menu to Pattern. In the Custom
Pattern drop-down menu, expand
the Legacy Patterns and More group,
expand the Legacy Patterns group,
expand the Texture Fill group, and
select the Mountains pattern. Click OK
to fill the selection.
Cancel the selection with Com-
mand-D (PC: Ctrl-D), and then press
Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T) to get the Free
Transform handles. Hold the Option
(PC: Alt) key and drag out a corner
handle to scale the pattern up about
250% (the Option [PC: Alt] key will
keep it centered on the sun). Set the
layer’s blending mode to Screen and
reduce the Opacity to around 56%.
Step Eight: Go to Image>Adjust

ments>Hue/Saturation, and check
the Colorize box. Set the Hue to
51, Saturation to 39, and Light-
ness to –20, and click OK. Then
use Image>Adjustments>Levels to
dramatic ally increase the contrast
by pulling the leftmost handle below
the histogram toward the right, closer
to the other handles. Click OK. Go
to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and use
a Radius of 2 pixels, and click OK.
Finally, hold the Option (PC: Alt) key

and click on the Add Layer Mask icon
at the bottom of the Layers panel to
add a black-filled mask, which hides
the entire layer. Using the Brush tool
set to white and 50% Opacity in the
Options Bar, paint to add the grunge
effect to small areas near the sides of
the sun to look almost like solar flares
[ 40 ] erupting from it.
Step Nine: Set the Foreground color

to #e68f4a and use the Rectangle
tool (U) to create a ground rectangle
shape, establishing the horizon just a
bit above her knees. The shape layer
should be just above the Background
layer in the Layers panel. Then, use
the Ellipse tool to add a hill type
shape on the right side, it doesn’t
have to be perfect, just something to
help break up the flat horizon line.
Step 10: Place the Adobe Stock sci-fi

building in the image. I used the
licensed AI version of the image, so
it came in without a background. If
you want to use the low-res version
by clicking here, we’ll need to get
a little creative since it’s a vector file.
After you’ve downloaded the preview
image, drag it from the Libraries panel
and drop it into the working file. Use
the transform handles to resize and
position the buildings on the left side
of the frame as if they’re sitting on the
horizon line in the background. Press
Enter to commit the image.
Buildings: ©Adobe Stock/klyaksun
Right-click on the building layer

in the Layers panel and select Raster-
ize Layer. Grab the Magic Wand tool
(nested below the Object Selection
tool [W] in the Toolbar), and in the
Options Bar, set the Tolerance to 50,
and turn off the Contiguous check-
box. Click on the white background
around the buildings to select it.
Press Delete (Backspace) to remove
the white background, and press
Command-D (PC: Ctrl-D) to deselect.
Right-click on the layer again in the
Layers panel, and choose Convert to
Smart Object.
Add a Color Overlay layer style
using the ƒx icon at the bottom of

the Layers panel, and use the same
color as the ground shape (#e68f4a).
Set the Blend Mode to Normal, the
Opacity to 100%, and click OK. [ 4 1 ]
› › HOW TO
Step 11: With the buildings layer

active in the Layers panel, Shift-click
the rectangle layer to select all three
layers that make up the horizon. Go
to Layer>Smart Objects>Convert to
Smart Object to place the selected
layers into a single smart object. Add
a Filter>Gaussian Blur with a setting
of 2.5 pixels to blur the background
slightly. Add a layer mask, switch to
the Gradient tool, and set it to a Lin-
ear Gradient in the Options Bar. Press
D then X to set the Foreground color
to black, and drag from the bottom
of the image to the horizon line to
fade the ground elements from
the very bottom edge of the frame.
Reduce the layer Opacity to 36%.
Step 12: At this point, the entire

composition is starting to look a
bit muddy. To brighten things up a
bit, go to Layer>New Adjustment
Layer>Curves, click OK, and drag
this layer above the Clouds layer in
the Layers panel. In the Properties
panel (Window>Properties), add a
point to the curve at the grid inter-
section near the top right and one
near the bottom left. Drag the top
right point slightly up and to the left.
The resulting curve should be vaguely
S-shaped, which will brighten up the
highlights of the background with-
out affecting the dark areas.
[ 4 2 ]
Step 13: Place the grunge wall stock

image from Adobe Stock. You can
download it by clicking here. Make
sure the layer is above the Curves
layer added in the last step. Scale the
stock to fully cover the composition,
and then set the blending mode to
Soft Light and reduce the Opacity to
50%. Then run a Gaussian Blur of 2.5
pixels to soften the texture just a bit.
©Adobe Stock/michalchm89
Step 14: The model layer could

use a bit of adjustment as well.
Because it’s a smart object, adjust-
ments are made nondestructively. So
click on the model layer, and go to
Image>Adjustments>Curves, set it to
a similar S-curve as shown here, and
click OK. This adds great contrast,
but the yellow tones are too severe,
so go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/
Saturation, change the drop-down
menu from Master to Yellows, and
reduce the Saturation to –54.
[ 43 ]
› › HOW TO
Step 15: Go to Layer>New>Layer,

and in the New Layer dialog, name
the layer “Dodge/Burn.” Before
clicking OK, enable the option
box for Use Previous Layer to Cre-
ate Clipping Mask, set the Mode
to Overlay, and enable the option
to Fill with Overlay-Neutral Color
(50% Gray). Now when you click
OK, this will create a nondestruc-
tive dodge-and-burn layer clipped
directly to the model. Now use the
Burn tool (O) to darken the shadow
areas, and the Dodge tool (O) to
accentuate the highlights.
Step 16: Go to Layer>New>Layer

again, and name it “Glow.” Enable
the clipping mask option, and set
this layer to Linear Dodge with an
Opacity of 75%. Click OK. (This
layer should be above the Dodge/

Burn layer.) Then switch to the Brush
tool set to a large soft brush at 30%
Opacity. Hold down the Option (PC:
Alt) key and click to sample a yellow-
ish orange from the sun. Gently paint
in light spilling around the subject
from the sun. This should just be on
the edges where the sun is directly
[ 4 4 ] behind her.
Step 17: Add another layer and

name it “Dark Fade.” Set the Fore-
ground color to black, and use the
Gradient tool set to a Linear Gradi-
ent to drag from the bottom of the
image up to around her mid-thigh.
Set the blending mode to Multiply
and reduce the Opacity to 65%.
Step 18: Hold down the Option (PC: Alt) key, and go to Layer>Merge Visible to
create a merged layer at the top of the layer stack. Then grab the Blur tool in the
Toolbar and, using a soft round brush, gently blur the edges of the model. This
blurring of the edges not only creates a better composite, but also helps to give the
impression of the background heat wrapping around the figure. [ 45 ]
› › HOW TO
Step 19: Go to Filter>Camera Raw Filter, and in the

Basic tab, set the Highlights to 64 and Blacks to –13.
Increase the Texture to 45, Clarity to 33, and Vibrance
to 12. In the Effects tab, set the Grain Amount to 25,
Size to 50, and Roughness to 80. Drag the Amount
slider for the Post Crop Vignetting down to around
–13. This all adds a final grunge effect for the entire
piece. Click OK.
Step 20: Now it’s time to create the title text. The
show has its own font for the title, but we’ll use
a close approximation, Gotham Ultra. Using the
Type tool (T), place the text in white at a large size,
around 234 pts. Be sure to swap the As for Vs, so
the text actually reads “NVNDVLORIVN.” Trust us,

it will all make sense soon! After you press Enter
to commit the text, press Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T)
for Free Transform. In the Options Bar, turn off
the link icon between the Width and Height fields,
and then enter 50% in the Width field (the Height
field should still be at 100%). Press Enter to com-
press the text horizontally, and then press Enter
to commit the transformation. Place the text as
[ 46 ] shown here.
Step 21: In the Layers panel, Right-

click on the text layer and select
Convert to Shape. This changes
the text from editable text to vector
shapes. Switch to the Path Selection
tool (A), and click away from the
text so that none of the letters are
selected. Now, Shift-click each of the
V shapes to select all of them, and go
to Edit>Transform Path>Flip Vertical
to turn those V’s upside down.
Step 22: Select the O shape with

the Path Selection tool, and delete
it. Then, use the Rounded Rectangle
tool (nested under the Rectangle tool
[U] in the Toolbar) to add a rounded
box shape the same size and posi-
tion as the original O. In the Proper-
ties panel, set each corner radius to
13 pixels, the Fill to No Color, and
the Stroke to white with a Width
between 30–40 pixels. Make sure

the stroke position is set to inside
the shape (the first option in the first
drop-down menu below the Fill and
Stroke icons). [ 47 ]
› › HOW TO
Step 23: With the text shapes layer

active, use the Rectangle tool (U)
to draw a slim rectangle along the
right side of the R’s vertical leg. This
rectangle should extend up to the
hole in the letter (press-and-hold the
Spacebar to reposition the rectangle
as you’re drawing it). With this rect-
angle layer active, Shift-click the text
shape layer in the Layers panel so
both layers are selected. Press Com-
mand-E (PC: Ctrl-E) to merge the two
vector layers together. In the Proper-
ties panel, click the icon for Subtract
Front Shape (the second icon in the
group of square icons at the bottom).
This will use the rectangle to carve
out that stylistic gap in the R.
Step 24: To finish off the title, type

the word “THE” in Gotham Medium
at 41 pts. Then switch to the Line tool
(nested under the Rectangle tool [U]
in the Toolbar). In the Options Bar
set the Fill to white, the Stroke to
No Color, and the Weight to around
5 px. Holding the Shift key, draw
the two narrow lines above the text
that span the same width of the
larger title. Then be inspired to go
watch The Mandalorian on Disney+.
It’s really good!
Among the multiple filters and stock

images used here, there’s a core
skill of using the tools to their full-

est capacity. This project uses filters,
brushes, and even vectors to achieve
the final effect. Don’t feel limited to
a particular feature set just because
it “matches” the project. Be brave.
Explore. Experiment. Discover. This is
the Way! n
[ 4 8 ]
The day that many of us were waiting for has finally arrived! Adobe released
the long-awaited Photoshop for iPad. Ever since it was teased at Adobe MAX in
2018, people anxiously awaited the actual release. Photoshop is such a diverse
tool and everyone uses it in different ways, so expectations were all over the
map. Honestly, I was afraid that no matter which features were released in this
1.0 version, it wouldn’t be enough to satisfy the masses. Fortunately, Adobe
took the right approach even though it may not feel like it just yet.
©Adobe Stock
THIRTY YEARS OF PHOTOSHOP
Photoshop 1.0 was released on February 19, 1990. Since
that time, hundreds of features and dozens of workflows
have been added. The other thing to remember is that
computers and graphics cards have improved dramatically
over the years. Having 16 GB of RAM with 2 GB of video
memory these days would be considered a low-end system.
Even one-terabyte SSD hard drives cost only about $100.
Although the iPad was released nine years ago on April 3,
2010, it still doesn’t have all the power of a desktop/note-
book computer; however, it does have enough power to
start transitioning Photoshop to iPadOS.
One of the first steps in bringing “Real Photoshop” to
the iPad was full support for the PSD format, which was
no small feat. I’ve opened a 5-GB PSB (Photoshop Big) files
with dozens, if not hundreds of layers, and I had little-to-no
lag. The performance is impressive, considering the fact that
iPads have minimal RAM compared to the desktop comput-
ers on which we normally run Photoshop. The top-of-the-
line 2018 iPad Pro 1 TB has only 6 GB of RAM; all other
models have 4 GB of RAM or less.
It’s not just a simple port of the desktop version, how-
ever. Everything has to be rewritten from scratch to be
smaller and touch native. Now that the foundation is there,
Adobe can move forward bringing you the tools and fea-
tures that you need.
REIMAGINED FOR A TOUCH INTERFACE

At first glance, Photoshop on the iPad is both familiar and
different. Most Photoshop users would be able to name the
tools down the left side. On the right, there’s also a Layers
panel that, you’ll be happy to know, can be minimized to
take up less space.
Although Photoshop for the iPad supports an external
keyboard, there are times that you’ll want to use it without
one. For this reason, there’s a Touch Shortcut button, which
is a multifunction context-aware circle that replaces the need
for contextual menus (Right-click) and having to hold down
modifier keys. For example, if you use the Clone Stamp tool the screen; if you tap on a tool and that tool has options, a
on a Mac or PC, you have to hold down the Option (PC: Alt) vertical contextual Options Bar will pop up on the side.
key to sample an area of the image from which to clone.
Without a keyboard, there’s no Option (PC: Alt) key, so you WHERE’S THE ZOOM TOOL?
can use the Touch Shortcut instead. The Touch Shortcut can In a touch interface, many dedicated tools are replaced by
be moved around on the screen so it’s not in your way. gestures. There’s no Zoom tool because your fingers are
There’s no persistent File, Edit, Image, etc. drop-down the Zoom tools—if you want to Zoom in, just reverse pinch.
menu bar at the top of the screen; instead, options become There are also hidden gestures; for example, you can swipe
available in the context of whatever you’re doing. If you make left or right on the view percentage at the top of the screen
a selection, your selection options pop up at the bottom of to zoom in or out.
[ 51 ]
CREATE FROM SCRATCH
OR WORK WITH EXISTING
PHOTOSHOP FILES
Just like Photoshop on the desktop, Photo-
shop on the iPad can create blank documents,
or you can open existing Photoshop images
from your iPad. The latest version of Photo-
shop 2020 on the desktop supports Cloud
Documents. Now you have the option to save
files to your hard drive, as you always did, or
you can save layered Photoshop files to your
Cloud Documents. Any files you save to Cloud
Documents will be available to open in Photo-
shop on the iPad.
Photoshop on the iPad automatically saves
your projects to Cloud Documents; therefore
there’s no Save command. It saves automati-
cally and continuously as you work. Even if you
don’t have an Internet connection, you can
keep working, and it will sync the next time
you connect to the net. You can also export
images to your iPad’s Camera Roll or Files App
for sharing.
GETTING STARTED
I’ll walk you through a typical composite to
give you a feel for what it’s like to work with
©Adobe Stock/Leo Lintang

Photoshop on the iPad. In this example, I want
to composite several different images together
on the iPad.
STEP ONE: First, I’ll open an image. Images

can be opened from your Camera Roll, the
Files App, or you can snap a picture on the spot

with your iPad camera. As I stated above,
you can also open an image from your Cloud
Documents. In this example, I opened an
image from the Files App, which I linked to
my Creative Cloud files. The iPadOS Files App
is a great way to get files from several sources
such as iCloud Drive, Creative Cloud, Drop-
box, etc.
[ 5 2 ]
STEP TWO: Now that I have my background open, I want STEP THREE: Scaling down an image is intuitive: Just grab
to add my next image as a layer. On the desktop, there are a corner handle and drag it to scale the image. No need
several ways to do this, and most of them aren’t intuitive. to think about holding down the Shift key, because pro-
With Photoshop on the iPad, there’s an Import Image tool portional scale is the default. If you did want to distort or
in the Toolbar. rotate it, you have all of those options on the left side, as
When I tap the Import Image tool, I can select to import well as the rotation handle sticking down from the bot-
from the Camera Roll, Files App, Camera, or from my CC tom. Just tap Done at the upper right when you have the
Libraries. When I choose my next image, it automatically image in place.
comes in on a new layer in Free Transform mode.
Astronaut: ©Adobe Stock/stockphoto mania
[ 5 3 ]
THE GOOD NEWS AND
BAD NEWS OF CUTTING
OUT AN IMAGE
To do a successful composite, at some
point you’re going to have to remove
the background from an image that
you bring in, which means that you’ll
have to get a good selection of either
your image or its background. The usual
selection methods are there, but not all
selection methods have made their way
into the app yet. Fortunately, Adobe
added the Select Subject function in a
recent update to the app
STEP FOUR: Select Subject makes life

so much easier in Photoshop on the
iPad. When I double-tap the Lasso
tool, I get the option to Select Subject.
With one tap, it does an excellent job.
There’s one little spot it missed at the
top of the astronaut in this example,
but I can use the Quick Selection tool
to add in the piece that it missed.
STEP FIVE: To keep this composite

as nondestructive as possible, I’ll tap
the Mask icon at the bottom to mask
out the background instead of delet-
ing it. With the minimized view of the
Layers panel, you’ll see the mask in
the thumbnail. If you want to see the
pixels in the thumbnail, just swipe it to
the right.
[ 5 4 ]
STEP SIX: Now, I want to clone
out the existing moon because
I want to draw a new one. The
current moon is on the Back-
ground layer, so I’ll tap that layer
to make it active. The Clone tool
is located under the Spot Heal-
ing Brush. Just double-tap it to
expose the Clone tool.
STEP SEVEN: Before I use the

Clone tool, I want to increase the
size of my brush. Tap the number
on the Options Bar and drag up
or down to increase or decrease
the brush size. Now it’s time to
use that Touch Shortcut button
to sample the part of the sky
from which I want to clone.
STEP EIGHT: I’ve removed the old

moon, so it’s time to paint in a
new one. For this, I’ll need a new
layer. Just tap the plus sign on the
right to add a new layer above
the Background.
I want to use the Elliptical
Marquee tool, located under the
other selection tools, to make a
perfect circle from the center out.
Pressing-and-holding the Touch
Shortcut will constrain the Mar-
quee tool to a perfect shape, but
to draw it out from the center
also, swipe to the outer edge of
the Touch Shortcut. While the

selection is active, you can move
it around with your finger or
Apple Pencil.
[ 5 5 ]
STEP NINE: Next, I’ll paint in a
textured moon with the Brush
tool. To toggle the Foreground
and Background colors, swipe
down on the swatches, or tap the
Foreground swatch to choose a
color. To choose a textured brush,
double-tap on the Brush tool.
I love the Mixed Splatter brush
for this type of work.
STEP 10: Once the new moon is

painted in, tap the Deselect but-
ton at the bottom of the image.
I’ll tap the Layer Properties icon
(the three sliders), and lower the
Opacity of this layer to around
55% to blend it in a bit more.
[ 5 6 ]
©Adobe Stock/NicoElNino
STEP 11: What I want now is to put the reflec-

tion of a starry image in the astronaut’s face
shield, so I’ll import that starry image just as
we did the astronaut. After I scale it down and
get it in position, I need to move the layer to
the top of the layer stack. To reorder layers,
press-and-hold on the layer thumbnail you
want to move for a couple of seconds and
then drag it. Once the layer is on top, I’ll hide
it temporarily by tapping the Eye icon on the
right side.
Now, I need a selection of the glass in the
astronaut’s helmet, so I’ll make the astronaut
layer active, then use the Quick Select tool to
select the glass in the helmet. When I have the
selection in place, I can choose the stars layer
and turn the layer’s visibility back on.
STEP 12: With the selection active, I’ll tap the

Mask button at the bottom of the image to
mask the stars image into the shape of the
glass of the helmet. In the Layers Properties,
I lowered the Opacity to 68% and changed
the Blend Mode to Hard Light.
STEP 13: As we’re working with the astronaut

again, it’s probably time to give him a bit of
a shadow so the composite looks more real.
I’ll create a new layer above the background,
but below the astronaut, for the shadow.
Using black as my Foreground color, I’ll paint a
shadow under his feet. I can lower the Opacity
of the shadow, if needed, because it’s on its
own layer.
STEP 14: Next, we need to adjust the color

of the astronaut and the moon to match
the blue of the background. I’ll duplicate the
Background layer and move the copy layer
to the top of the stack. Once it’s on top, it
will hide everything below. That’s not a prob-
lem because Photoshop on the iPad has layer
Blend Modes.
The Color Blend Mode will apply the color
of the top layer to the layers below. To reduce

the effect, just lower the Opacity of this top
layer. We could stop here, but why not add a
vehicle to our composite?
[ 5 7 ]
Cybertruck Painted by Victoria Pavlov
LET’S ADD A
TESLA CYBERTRUCK
STEP 15: I’ll tap the Background layer so that
when I add the new image, it’ll be placed above
the Background but below everything else.
Once again, I’ll tap the Import Image tool to
import the Cybertruck image, which is a PSD
painted by Victoria Pavlov, so it was already on
a transparent background.
STEP 16: I’ll scale the truck and move it

into place. Because it’s below the Color
Blend Mode layer, it will also get the blue
tone look, but it’s too light underneath the
truck. I’ll need to darken the ground, simi-
lar to adding the shadow for the astronaut.
I’ll create a new layer under the truck and
above the Background layer and then, using
a black brush, I’ll paint freely to darken the
ground under the truck.
STEP 17: At this point, everything is in place,

and now it’s time to fix anything that will
make the composite look better. For example,
I noticed earlier that there was still a little white
background left between the astronaut’s fin-
gers on his left hand. That’s a pretty easy fix
because it’s just a mask. Tap the astronaut
layer, and swipe the mini layer icon left to get
to the mask for that layer. I’ll use a small black
brush and paint away any excess white back-
ground that was missed by Select Subject.
Everything in the image is still in focus

so, to create a slight depth-of-field effect,
I’ll apply a Gaussian Blur to the truck layer.
To do this, tap the layer that you want to
blur to activate it, and then tap the Filters
and Adjustments icon. Tap on Gaussian
Blur to bring up the Gaussian Blur slider,
and drag the slider a bit to get the look that
you want.
[ 5 8 ]
ADD SOME TEXT
One of the reasons people use Photoshop is to add text to not only can you choose from thousands of Adobe Fonts,
an image. I think this is one of the key competitive advan- but you can also see the list of fonts that you use on your
tages of Photoshop on the iPad over any other image editor. desktop and add them to your iPad.
Sure, you can put text on an image in lots of different mobile
apps; but what about fonts?
In most mobile apps, the fonts that come with that app
are all you get. With Photoshop on the iPad, however, you
can use any Adobe Fonts that are part of your Creative Cloud
membership. This means that if you add text with Photoshop
on the desktop, those text layers will be there on the iPad
when you sync it with Cloud Documents.
That’s cool, but that’s not the only way: You also have
a Type tool in Photoshop on the iPad. You can do it all on
mobile. With the Type tool, you can tap to add sample text
and then change it to whatever you want it to say.
WHAT ABOUT ADOBE FONTS ON MOBILE?

Currently, there’s no way to add Adobe Fonts directly in Once you add fonts using the Creative Cloud app, those
Photoshop on the iPad. You can, however, add them using fonts will be available in Photoshop on the iPad. And it gets
the Creative Cloud app for iPadOS. This is awesome because better! Not only will those fonts be available in Photoshop
[ 5 9 ]
There’s both a gestures and
keyboard shortcuts list built right
in. Just tap the question mark
icon in the upper-right corner to
bring up the lists. The first time
that I used Photoshop on the
iPad, I started hitting keys on
my keyboard instinctively and
was very happy to see that
they worked.
TIME TO EXPORT
FOR SHARING
Once you’ve finished your com-
posite, Photoshop on the iPad
can export a PNG, JPEG, PSD,
or TIFF. This is great because it
means you can create files to
share with colleagues or on social
media directly from the iPad.
on the iPad, but they’ll also be available in all your iPad apps NO NEED TO SAVE
that can use fonts (provided that the app is programmed to The entire time that I worked on this image, I didn’t have
allow additional fonts). I fully expect to be able to do this to worry about saving because it’s saving all the time in
directly in Photoshop on the iPad, but for now, there’s a way the background. My iPad Pro was connected to Wi-Fi,
to have pretty much any font style you want for your images so that meant that it was also syncing my work to my
and designs. Cloud Documents.
USING AN IPAD KEYBOARD THE BOTTOM LINE

AND APPLE PENCIL This is just the start! Sure, I wish there were more in this
Photoshop for iPad works on several different iPad models, 1.0 version, but considering what’s there and how well
not just the iPad Pro. It will work on anything from an iPad it actually works, I’m confident that it will only get bet-
Air 2 and iPad mini 4 on up. iPad models that don’t use an ter from here. I remember when Lightroom first came out
Apple Pencil can still be used. It just means that you’ll have for the iPad, and all I could do was think about all the
to use another brand stylus, or your finger. If you have an things that it didn’t do. Little by little, the Lightroom team
iPad that’s compatible with the Apple Pencil or Apple Pencil turned Lightroom on the iPad into an app that I couldn’t
2, I highly recommend that you get one and use it. The big- imagine being without. I expect the same thing to happen
gest difference is that not only is the Apple Pencil extremely with Photoshop on the iPad. I can’t wait! n
precise, but it’s also pressure sensitive in Photoshop. Pres-
sure sensitivity is huge when you’re retouching or painting.

If you want to take it up a notch, in addition to the
Apple Pencil, you’ll also want to use a keyboard whenever
you can. A keyboard isn’t required—I did the entire com-
posite above without using a keyboard! But if you do have
an iPad-compatible keyboard, you can work even faster,
because many of the keyboard shortcuts you’re used to
on the desktop work on the iPad. That’s great, but which
keyboard shortcuts work? Is there a list? Absolutely!
[ 6 0 ]
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Author of the top-selling digital photography
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GILMARSMITH
Shortcut City
THE ANATOMY OF A
PHOTOSHOP COMPOSITE, PART 2
Last issue, we talked about selections, layer masks, and perspective when it comes to building
composites; this time, we’re going to dive a little deeper into different techniques, tricks, and shortcuts
to make your next Photoshop composite epic.
A big giveaway that images are Photoshop composites is Shortcut #3: Press Shift-F6 to bring up the Feather Selec-
when the elements lack depth and they look like a bunch tion dialog, set the Feather Radius to 500 pixels, and click
of images just stapled together. There’s a little trick that you OK. (You may need to use a lower value depending on the
can use to create depth when you’re adding elements to a resolution of your image.)
composite. For the following shortcuts, I’ll be using the same
pirate ship image I used in Part 1.
ADDING DEPTH
Shortcut #1: Press Shift-M until you have the Elliptical Mar-
quee tool in the Toolbar.
Shortcut #4: Create a Levels adjustment layer. A quick
way to apply adjustment layers is by using the Adjustments
Shortcut #2: With the Elliptical Marquee tool selected,
panel (Window>Adjustments). You simply have to click on
I’m going to draw an oval in the bottom of the background
the icon of the adjustment layer you want to add. Levels is
image, because that’s where I’ll place the pirate ship.
the second icon in the first row.
©Adobe Stock/oporkka
[ 6 2 ]
› › SHORTCUT CITY
Photoshop will use the feathered selection to cre- Shortcut #6: When I added the pirate into the image,
ate the layer mask for Levels. In the Properties panel I noticed the background had some noise to it, so I added
(Window>Properties), I’m going to drag the black Output a little bit of noise to the pirate and sword to match the
Levels slider toward the left to a setting of 20 to lighten background. To add noise, go to Filter>Noise>Add Noise.
the area that was selected. The highly feathered selection
Sword: ©Adobe Stock/homydesign

creates a smooth transition.
Now, when I make the pirate ship layer visible, the Shortcut #7: Every time objects are added to a composite,
Levels adjustment layer creates a separation between the you’ll need to tweak the layers to blend them seamlessly. In
background layer and the ship, and it’s also going to make this case, I noticed that the luminosity values in the pirate
it look as if there’s fog or mist in the background. and the ship weren’t blending well, so I added a Levels
adjustment layer and clipped it to the pirate layer to make a
few adjustments. To clip a layer to the layer below it, press
Command-Option-G (PC: Ctrl-Alt-G).
Shortcut #5: I’m going to use the same technique on the

ship before adding the pirate image to the composite. Then,
of course, a pirate has to have a sword! I initially took a

picture of my daughter holding a spatula and asked her to
pretend it was a sword so it will be easier for me when add-
ing it in Photoshop.
[ 6 3 ]
› › COLUMN
SHADOWS Don’t know how to create dodge-and-burn layers? It’s

Shadows are also a big giveaway in Photoshop composites. pretty easy! Add a Curves adjustment layer and change its
There are many techniques to add shadows to an image. name to “Dodge.” To rename a layer, double-click its name
The easiest, and one of my favorites, is to roughly paint the in the Layers panel. Now, drag the midtones up a tiny bit in
shadow with the Brush tool and then fine-tune it using the the Properties panel, and then clip the layer to the pirate layer.
Eraser tool set to a low Opacity in the Options Bar to feather
and shape the shadow.
Shortcut #8: The keyboard shortcut for the Eraser tool is

the E key. To control the Opacity, Flow, Size, and Hardness
of the Eraser tool, you can use the same shortcuts when
working with the Brush tool. (We’ve talked about these
shortcuts in a previous article.)
CHECK LAYERS
Shortcut #9: Whenever you’re building a composite, one
very useful technique to keep in mind is to add “check lay-
ers” on top of the layer stack and turn them on and off
throughout the compositing project. Colors can be over-
whelming, for example, so using a Black & White adjust-
ment check layer will help you spot value issues you’d prob- Shortcut #11: We don’t want the Curves adjustments vis-
ably miss otherwise. ible right now, so we need to fill the layer mask with black
To add a Black & White adjustment layer, click on the to hide the effect. To quickly fill the layer mask with black,
third icon in the second row in the Adjustments panel. To click on it in the Layers panel to make it active, and press
turn the layer off and on, click its Eye icon to the left of it Command-I (PC: Ctrl-I) to Invert it from white to black.
in the Layers panel.
In this example, I think the front of the ship is way too Shortcut #12: Now add another Curves adjustment layer,
bright. If you look at the ocean waves, the light seems to name it “Burn,” and clip it. This time, drag the midtones
be coming from the back. The boat also appears to have down a little in the Properties panel, and then Invert the
light coming from the back. Look at the way the cannons’ layer mask to hide the effect.
shadows fall on the ship.
DIRECTION OF LIGHT
Shortcut #10: To fix the light direction, we can create
dodge-and-burn layers and redirect the light as we please. Shortcut #13: Switch to the Brush tool (shortcut B). Select
In this case, I only want to modify the light direction on the a very soft brush and, in the Options Bar, set the Opacity to
boat, so I’m going to clip the dodge-and-burn layers to the 100% and the Flow between 1–5%. Press the letter D to
ship to work on it individually. set the Foreground color to white (normally, pressing D sets
[ 6 4 ]
› › SHORTCUT CITY
in the image, press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key to

temporarily switch to the Eyedropper tool. With a soft brush
at a very light Flow, I brushed in the lower part of the boat.
Shortcut #15: I changed the blending mode of the layer to

Hue and lowered its Opacity to 65%. To cycle through blend
modes in the Layers panel, press-and-hold the Shift key and
tap the Plus (+) key to move forward through the list, or the
Minus (–) key to move backward. To quickly change the
Opacity, press the number keys on your keyboard. Note:
Make sure you don’t have a Brush tool active; otherwise
it will change the Opacity of the Brush in the Options Bar.
the Foreground color to black, but when you have a layer
mask active, it sets it to white). I’m going to paint on the SATURATION
Burn layer to darken the front of the boat; and paint on Shortcut #16: Whenever you’re making hue and satura-
the Dodge layer to lighten the back of the ship. The goal is tion adjustments, I recommend targeting colors individually
to have a cohesive light direction on all the elements in the instead of applying global adjustments. That will allow you
composite. This technique is just one way to modify the light to do little tweaks in the lightness, saturation, and hue of
direction on an object. each color separately.
Shortcut #14: Light and colors usually reflect from one We’re not close to being done with this composite. Next
object to another. Keeping that in mind, I added a new blank issue, I’ll show you how to transform an image even more
layer and clipped it to the ship layer. Then, I sampled the with dodge and burn; how to add special effects such as
darkest color of the background ocean layer. When you’re fire, smoke, and splashes; how to use color gradients; and
using the Brush tool and want to quickly sample a color much more. n
ALL IMAGES ARE BY GILMAR SMITH EXCEPT WHERE NOTED [ 6 5 ]

LESASNIDER
> Beginners’ Workshop
ADDING A REFLECTION TO GOGGLES
Real life is rarely perfect; but thanks to Photoshop, your photos can be. So, if that stunning shot
of you (or your client) atop the ski mountain of your dreams lacks a mountainous reflection in your
goggles, you can add it in post. The technique is nondestructive, so you won’t harm the photo,
and covers foundational Photoshop skills. Let’s get started!
©Adobe Stock/mmphoto
Step One: In Photoshop, open an image of a skier with Step Two: The first thing we want to do is select the goggle
goggles. (If you’re starting in Lightroom, select the photo’s lens. With a good amount of contrast between lens color
thumbnail and choose Photo>Edit In>Edit In Adobe Photo- and goggle frames in this image, the Quick Selection tool will
shop CC 2020.) make short work of the selection. Grab the Quick Selection
If you’d like to download the low-res watermarked tool (nested below the Object Selection tool [W]) in the Tool-
version of this image to follow along, click this link, bar (circled here). Mouse over to the image, point your cursor
log in with your Adobe ID, and click the Save to Library at the area you want to select—don’t click yet—and use the
button. Double-click the image in the Libraries panel Bracket keys on your keyboard to adjust the size of the brush.
(Window>Libraries) to open it in Photoshop. You’ll see the size setting change in the Options Bar (circled):
To make it easier to work with the image, increase the larger the brush size, the larger the area Photoshop will
the resolution of the practice file. (We normally don’t rec- select. We used a brush size of 100 pixels on this 3,464x2,309
ommend enlarging images, but this is only for practice pixel image (try a size of 50 pixels for the Adobe Stock preview
purposes.) Go to the Image>Image Size menu, turn on image). Now click-and-drag across the lens to select it.
the Resample checkbox, select Preserve Details 2.0 from If it selects areas you don’t want, hold the Option (PC:
the Resample drop-down menu, set the Width to 2,000 Alt) key, and click-and-drag over those areas to remove
pixels, and click OK. them from the selection.
[ 6 6 ]
› › BEGINNERS’ WORKSHOP
©Adobe Stock/vichie81
Step Three: Next, open the reflection image as a
separate Photoshop document. (You can click here to
download the image we’re using from Adobe Stock,
and then enlarge it as we did with the skier.) If it’s
comprised of a single layer, choose Select>All or press
Command-A (PC: Ctrl-A). If it’s comprised of multiple
layers, create a stamped copy and select that instead.
Doing so combines all visible layers into a brand-new
layer, leaving the original layers intact. To do that,
activate the topmost layer and then press Shift-
Option-Command-E (PC: Shift-Alt-Ctrl-E). You can
also press-and-hold Option (PC: Alt) as you choose
Merge Visible from the Layers panel’s flyout menu.
Once the entire image is selected—you should see
what appears to be marching ants surrounding it—
choose Edit>Copy or press Command-C (PC: Ctrl-C).
Step Four: Back in the skier image, the goggles should

still be selected. Choose Edit>Paste Special>Paste Into.
This pastes the reflection image onto its own layer and
automatically adds a layer mask in the shape of your
selection you made earlier. Sweet!
Step Five: Press V to grab the Move tool (circled) and

with the thumbnail of the reflection active (also circled;
notice the white borders around the edges), drag to

reposition the reflection image within the lens. With
the reflection layer still active in the Layers panel,
double-click the layer name and enter “Reflection.”
[ 6 7 ]
› › HOW TO
Step Six: Choose Filter>Distort>

Spherize. In the dialog that opens,
set the Amount slider to around
35% (you can increase it if the lens is
super curvy). Leave the Mode menu
set to Normal and click OK.
Step Seven: Now let’s darken the

reflection to account for the dark tint
of the goggles. With the Reflection
layer active, choose Layer>Duplicate
Layer, and in the dialog that opens,
enter “Darken,” and click OK. In the Step Six Step Seven
Layers panel, click to activate the
Darken layer and change the blend
mode menu near the top of the Lay-
ers panel (circled) to Multiply.
Step Eight: Next, we’ll add a bit of

white to the goggles for a sun reflec-
tion. Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click)
the layer mask (circled) on the Darken
layer to load the goggle selection.
Step Nine: Click the Create a New

Layer icon at the bottom of the Lay-
ers panel (circled) to add a new layer.
Double-click the new layer’s name
and enter “Sun.”
[ 6 8 ]
› › BEGINNERS’ WORKSHOP
Step 10: Press G to grab the Gradient

tool (circled) and on your keyboard,
press D to set the color chips at the
bottom of the Toolbar (also circled)
to the default values of black and
white. Press X to flip-flop them so
white is on top. In the Options Bar,
click the down-pointing triangle
to the right of the gradient pre-
view (circled) to open the Gradient
Picker, and from the Basics category,
choose Foreground to Transparent
(also circled). Make sure the Linear
option is turned on (it should be
unless you changed it previously).
Step 11: Since the sun is hitting her

right side in the image (it’s really her
left side but let’s call it right because
Step 11
that’s how it looks to us), click-and-
drag from the top right of the goggle
area at an angle toward her nose.
The farther you drag, the larger the
resulting gradient. When you release
your mouse button, Photoshop adds
the gradient. Notice how it remains
within the selected area.
Tip: If you don’t like the gradi-
ent, choose Edit>Undo Gradient, or
press Command-Z (PC: Ctrl-Z), and
try again.
Step 12: In the Layers panel, lower

the Opacity setting for the Sun layer
until it looks right to you. We used
a setting of 95% here. Go ahead

and choose Select>Deselect or press
Command-D (PC: Ctrl-D) to get rid
of the selection.
[ 6 9 ]
› › HOW TO
Step 13: The final step is to add an

inner shadow to the Darken layer. To
do that, click on the Darken layer to
activate it and then click the ƒx icon
at the bottom of the Layers panel
(circled). Choose Inner Shadow and
in the (enormous) dialog that opens,
set the Opacity to around 25%,
Angle to 20°, Distance to 15 px,
Choke to 7%, and Size to around 16
px. Click OK.
Tip: To edit the Inner Shadow
later, double-click it in the Layers
panel to reopen the Layer Style dialog.
Step 14: Save your work by choosing

File>Save As and picking Photoshop
(PSD) as the Format. Here’s a before
and after version, complete with Lay-
ers panel.
Though the technique is a little time-

consuming, it produces a slick effect.
Plus, it’s a great way to practice fun-
damental Photoshop skills that you’ll
rely upon throughout your career.
Until next time, may the creative
force be with you all! n
Before
[ 70 ] After
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KE A PRO !
L I
UNMESHDINDA
> Effects Toolkit
A SIMPLE WAY TO CREATE

A PENCIL SKETCH EFFECT
Blend modes and adjustment layers are the building blocks of creating special effects in Photoshop.
In this article, we’ll use these features to convert an image to a pencil sketch. To make the effect
more realistic and convincing, we’ll also mix it up with a few manual brushstrokes. So without further
ado, let’s get started!
STEP ONE:
©Adobe Stock/mimagephotos
OPEN THE IMAGE
First, let’s open the image of the subject in
Photoshop. If you want to follow along with
the photo we’re using, you may download
the JPEG preview for free, or license the full-
resolution version from Adobe Stock by click-
ing here. After logging in with your Adobe ID
and clicking Save to Library to download the
JPEG preview version, you can double-click the
image in the Libraries panel (Window>Libraries)
to open it. To make it easier to work with the
image, increase the resolution of the practice
file. (We normally don’t recommend enlarging
images, but this is only for practice purposes.)
Go to Image>Image Size, turn on the Resample
checkbox, select Preserve Details 2.0 from the
Resample drop-down menu, set the Width
to 3,910 pixels, and click OK. Finally, go to
Image>Mode, and select RGB Color.
If you’re using one of your own images,
go to File>Open, locate your image, and then
click Open. Or, while Photoshop is open in
Application Frame, go to Finder (PC: Explor-
er), locate your image, and drag-and-drop it
into Photoshop.
> PHOTOSHOP USER > J A N U A RY 202 0
STEP TWO:
DUPLICATE THE LAYER & INVERT
With the Background layer active in the Layers
panel, press Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to dupli-
cate it. Double-click on the text of the duplicate
layer’s name and rename it “Inversion.” With
the Inversion layer active, press Command-I
(PC: Ctrl-I) to Invert the layer.
[ 72 ]
› › EFFECTS TOOLKIT
STEP THREE:
CHANGE THE BLEND MODE
Change the blending mode of the
Inversion layer to Color Dodge near the
top left of the Layers panel.
STEP FOUR:
APPLY GAUSSIAN BLUR
Before you apply any filter, it’s essen-
tial to convert the layer into a smart
object so you can modify the filter after
the fact. Therefore, with the Inversion
layer selected, go to Filter>Convert for
Smart Filters. Click OK, if an additional
dialog pops up.
Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur.
Take the Radius all the way to the left,
and then, gradually increase it till you
find your desired result. Set it to 100
pixels for this example (you can always
change this later). Click OK.
Note: This number will differ from
image to image: It can be as low as 15,
or as high as 150 pixels.
STEP FIVE:
CONVERT TO BLACK & WHITE
Because the image we started with
was already black and white, we don’t
need to do this step. If you were start-
ing out with a color image, however,
click on the Create New Adjustment
Layer icon (half-black, half-white circle)
at the bottom of the Layers panel and
choose Black & White. Then you can
play with the settings of the Black &

White Adjustment layer in the Proper-
ties panel (Window>Properties) to get
the image to your liking.
[ 73 ]
› › HOW TO
STEP SIX:
CREATE A STAMP VISIBLE LAYER
Create a new layer at the top of the layer stack,
and press Command-Option-Shift-E (PC: Ctrl-Alt-
Shift-E) to create a merged layer at the top. Name
this layer “Pencil Filter.”
STEP SEVEN: APPLY THE

COLORED PENCIL FILTER
Again, keep in mind that we need to convert
this layer to a smart object before applying any
filter to it. So, with the Pencil Filter layer active,
go to Filter>Convert for Smart Filters. Then, go to
Filter>Filter Gallery.
Inside the Artistic tab, choose Colored Pencil
and adjust the properties to your liking. The goal
of this filter is to take away unnecessary details
and introduce additional strokes. For this example,
I’ve set the Pencil Width to 24, Stroke Pressure to 1,
and Paper Brightness to 50. Click OK once satisfied.
[ 74 ]
› › EFFECTS TOOLKIT
STEP EIGHT: CHANGE THE

BLEND MODE TO SOFT LIGHT
Change the blending mode of the Pencil
Filter layer to Soft Light, and decrease
the Opacity of the layer to 75%.
STEP NINE:
APPLY CURVES
Now we need to use Curves to adjust
the highlights, shadows, and midtones
of the sketch effect. Click on the Cre-
ate New Adjustment Layer icon (half-
black, half-white circle) at the bottom
of the Layers panel and choose Curves.
Adjust the coordinates of the Curve in
the Properties panel as shown.
[ 7 5 ]
› › HOW TO
STEP 10: ADD MANUAL

BRUSHSTROKES (OPTIONAL)
To add a touch of realism to the effect, select
the Brush tool (B) and, in the Brush Preset
Picker in the Options Bar, choose the brush
KYLE Ultimate Pencil Hard, which is one of
the built-in brushes that comes with the later
versions of Photoshop. You’ll find it in the
Dry Media Brushes folder. You may also use
any other brush that resembles a pencil.
Then, create a layer beneath the Curves
adjustment layer, name it “Pencil Strokes,”
and start making outlines and strokes with
the Brush tool on that layer. This last step
might be a little challenging if you’re not
Before
used to working with a tablet, or if you’re
using a mouse. The key is to just add simple
zigzag strokes just as you would on a piece
of paper, along with basic outlines. The
image above shows my final Pencil Strokes
layer by itself.
If after you’ve finished creating the effect,

and something doesn’t feel right, keep in
mind that we’ve made this mostly nonde-
structive. You can go back and change any of
the adjustment layer values and smart filter
properties. A good practice is to take a break
and look at your work a while later; that way,
you can see it with fresh eyes and spot any
discrepancies that you may have missed. n
[ 76 ] After
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MARKHEAPS
> The Perfect Selection
THE OBJECT SELECTION TOOL
IS A GAME CHANGER
It’s as if a dream has come true in the world of selections in Photoshop. During the Adobe MAX event
this past November, Adobe released Photoshop 2020, and there were some great advancements
in the software, not only in performance, but also in feature upgrades. There’s a lot to play with and
learn in this new version. Check out Julieanne Kost’s review of all the new elements, as well as Scott
Valentine’s in-depth article from last issue on all the upgrades.
©Adobe Stock/Даша Швецова
So what’s the exciting update for selections? The Object in Photoshop 2019. It taps into Adobe’s machine learning
Selection tool! When you upgrade to Photoshop 2020 and system called Adobe Sensei. This is the foundation and back-
go into your Toolbar, you’ll see the Object Selection tool has ground engine of the new Object Selection tool. You can
been added to the selection toolset. expect a lot more future capabilities to tap into this artificial
intelligence, as well.
HOW DOES THIS ALL WORK?

It’s important to understand how this tool “thinks” when
it’s making a decision. Millions of images, referred to as data
What is the Object Selection tool? In a previous article sets, are fed into Sensei, which is part of a network of com-
[ 78 ] of this series, we introduced the Select Subject capability puters called an artificial neural network. When an image is
› › THE PERFECT SELECTION
shown to that network, all of those machines look at your Lasso mode helps you better target the person you want to
target image and compare it to all the other images it has select because you can draw an area around that person
previously reviewed and defined. This happens in a fraction while cutting through the person you don’t.
of a second. Then, using probabilistic algorithms, it decides Sample All Layers is handy when you’re making selec-
what to select by saying, “It’s probably this, which looks like tions within a file that’s a collage or composite. This way you
a group of pixels I’ve seen in other images.” don’t need to target a specific layer or merge a copy of the
That collective of pixels is probably the same as other working file to make the selection.
pixels the network has looked at before, and those pixels Auto-Enhance is an extra pass in the selection process
might be in the shape of a dog, cat, human, pizza, car, or to refine the edges of the object. Although this is really
whatever. It doesn’t really know the object, it just knows helpful with images that include hair, fur, texture, grit, etc.,
that those pixels are similar to lots of other pixels it has been it can also be a problem if you have light that’s passing
shown and labeled. Mix into that process a series of edge- through an edge of an object, such as a flare on the side of
detection components, such as when a person is partially a wine glass. Turning this on and off will give you different
obstructed by something else (a tree, car, etc.), and then we results. My default is to leave it on unless I’m working on
can start to see the power of this technology. lower-res graphics.
Lastly is Object Subtract. This option suggests to Sensei
WHY IT’S BETTER that the area you’re isolating may have negative space or
The problem the Object Selection tool solved is when there “holes” in the area to be selected. Think of the handle on
are multiple subjects in a scene, because Select Subject a coffee mug. Sensei will recognize the mug, but it might
doesn’t know which subject to prioritize to create the only give you the outer boundary of that object. With
selection. Previously, we had no way of isolating how Sen- Object Subtract, it may also be able to isolate the holes
sei looked at the pixels in an image other than maybe crop- within an object.
ping or using a part of an image in a dif-
ferent document. There’s also a truth to
having too many pixels to review, com-
©Adobe Stock/Stephanie Frey

plicating the comparison process.
OBJECT SELECTION CONTROLS

This tool has several options that give us
more control to influence the quality of
our selection. You’ll notice immediately
that it’s basically a fusion of other selec-
tion tools rolled into one. The Options Bar
has the usual Add, Subtract, and Intersect
options, but you can use the quick key
options with which you’re already famil-
iar, such as holding Shift to add to a selec-
tion or Option (PC: Alt) to subtract from
an active selection.
Next are the Mode options. Here we
have both a Rectangle and Lasso option,
which help you better isolate and target
the subject you want Sensei to evaluate.

The Rectangle marquee is probably going
to be all you need, but the Lasso mode is
useful if, for example, you have two peo-
ple standing in front of one another. The [ 79 ]
› › COLUMN
THE RESULTS
As editors in Photoshop, our goal is always to get the
best results in the least amount of time. Adobe is in-line
with this mission so that we can spend more time being
creative or refining/polishing our visual product. The
Object Selection tool gets us really far, really fast! In most
of my testing, it has gotten me more than 90% of what
I need in nearly every image. It’s a game changer for my
workflow. Let’s look at some examples.
Imagine you had to select these adorable pooches
shown. There are all kinds of complications here: over-
lapping details, fur, changes in hue and tone, and blown-
out background areas against light fur. This isn’t easy,
A challenging image
and if you’re one of those old-school purists who think
that using the Pen tool is the only way to work, you
aren’t going anywhere fast while you click around this
set of subjects. To the right are the results of using the
Object Selection tool with the Rectangular mode. The
blue rectangle shows the area where the marquee was
used to frame the subject I wanted, and the green is the
result that Sensei produced.
This represents three separate selections, each made
by a single click-and-drag frame; but take a look at the
selection that was produced for the dog on the far right
of the image. Here you can truly see the power of why
we want Object Selection to recognize the difference
in figures when they’re overlapping. Using the Auto-
Enhance feature in conjunction with Object Subtract, the
detail around the middle dog’s furry ear with the hole
between the ear and the body, really shows the power of
this new tool. It’s worth mentioning that this photo also
has a high amount of noise from shooting at a higher
ISO, which further adds to the complication of creating
the selection.
This is a great example of getting very close to a fin-
ished mask in a quick way. Don’t forget to experiment
with the Shift and Option (PC: Alt) keys to target spe-
cific areas you want Photoshop to evaluate and refine
the results. You’ll be surprised at how well it works. Now
you can take this image into Select and Mask and use
the Refine Edge brush to get a really beautiful selection

in minutes instead of hours.
Sensei is part of a cloud-computing process, and machine

learning means that this technology is only going to keep
getting better as long as you’re connected to the web.
How much better? One day I dream of saying out loud,
“Hey Photoshop, select the dog on the right,” just as you
might do with smartphones or smart speaker devices. Try
[ 8 0 ] this new tool; I think you’re going to like it. n
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SCOTTVALENTINE
> Photoshop Proving Ground
PAINTING WITH FRESCO

With all of the energy surrounding Photoshop’s release on the iPad, you may have missed another
worthy app that came out earlier this year: Fresco. Available on the iPad, Surface, and Wacom
MobileStudio Pro tablets, Fresco is Adobe’s foray into digital-painting capabilities using the Photoshop
look and feel for mobile devices. This issue, let’s look at Live Brushes in Fresco, and see them in action
for converting a photo to a painting, as well as painting a digital background. We’ll wrap up the article
with a look at moving files to and from Fresco.
©Adobe Stock/Victoria Andreas

First, let’s set some expectations: Fresco is not Photoshop And that’s exactly what I like about Fresco. It’s uncompli-
and isn’t meant for image editing. You won’t find adjust- cated, and it’s pretty fun, but best of all it’s really easy to get
ment layers, clone stamping, filters, or type tools. What you in and start playing. So let’s play.
will find are blending modes, very basic selection and mask-
ing, and of course brushes for painting. Let’s say it’s stripped THE BRUSHES
down and purpose-driven to get you painting and drawing The main tools in Fresco are brushes, of course: Pixel brushes,
on your tablet without lots of fuss or deep customization. Live brushes, and Vector brushes. Pixel brushes are very sim-
[ 8 2 ] You paint, you draw. That’s about it. ilar to what you’re already used to in Photoshop, though
› › PHOTOSHOP PROVING GROUND
Sketch and pixel brush menu
with a reduced collection of settings. These put pixels directly on the

canvas, exactly as you’d expect. Vector brushes are similar, but of course,
the resulting strokes can be scaled and rotated without creating artifacts.
When you paint with a Vector brush, a special vector layer is created—you
can’t add vectors to a pixel layer, nor pixels to a vector layer. You can, how-
ever, convert a vector layer to pixels by tapping the three-dots icon on the
right side of the screen and choosing that option.
That brings us to Live brushes. There are two groups for Live brushes:
Flow slider Oil and Watercolor. These are natural media simulations that are actually pretty
awesome. Oil brushes give an impasto-like effect, increasing in paint thickness
and smeariness as you press down with a pressure-enabled stylus. Pressing
lightly gives a canvas texture, but pressing hard makes the paint thick.
You can mix and blend colors together in a surprisingly organic way.
There are Flow and Paint Mix options in the brush settings near the bottom of
the left-side Toolbar. Flow for Live brushes isn’t like you’re used to in Photo
shop’s brush engine. In Fresco, Flow refers to how much simulated paint is
making it to the canvas with each stroke, while opacity is controlled at the
color level. Paint Mix is a measure of how much paint is picked up from the
Paint Mix slider canvas and blended or smeared. [ 8 3 ]
› › COLUMN
TURNING A PHOTO INTO A PAINTING

Our first project is making a painting out of a photo
(yeah, yeah, I know, but this version is great!).
Step One: Import a photo from either a Creative

Cloud library or from your tablet’s Photo Gallery.
Start off with the Chunky Oil brush, set the Opacity
to 0%, Flow to 65, and Paint Mix to 40. This only
lets you pick up the color already on the canvas
and push it around with the impasto texture.
Step Two: In Fresco, when you import a photo, it’s

not immediately ready for painting. The image layer
itself is protected until you turn it into a Pixel layer. Starting portrait
You can select this option either from the layer icon,
or the three-dot menu in the Toolbar on the right.
Before you do this, however, make a duplicate and
work on that so you have a “clean” copy.
Step Three: On the duplicate layer, start by mak-

ing short, controlled strokes with moderate pres-
sure to start blending. Longer strokes will drag the
original color into new regions, so you’ll have to
judge your own optimal blending based on your
photo. I tend to keep brushstrokes within areas of
similar color, and following natural texture direc-
tions. When two different color areas meet up,
I blend toward the boundary, and then smooth the Portrait intermediate steps
boundary itself with light scrubbing.

Tip: If you blend too much, tap-and-hold with
your finger to load up the Color Picker. When the
Picker comes up, drag to find the color you want
to sample, and then dab once or twice. Sampling
a color resets the Opacity slider to 100%, so when
you’re done adding paint, move it back to 0%
for blending.
Step Four: In this example portrait, I ended up

creating three painted layers, masking the top two
in order to blend different results. The first layer

was my attempt at simply re-creating a traditional
oil paint look, and the second layer has some
details that I painted using the sampling method
above. I created the last layer by duplicating the
first painted layer, then smearing the living day-
lights out of it! I went to town thinking only of
creating some messy random textures with the oils.
Most of that was masked out from the face, leav-
[ 8 4 ] ing the effect for her hair and hat. Final portrait
“And that’s exactly what I like Step Five: Did I say masking? Yes, I did! You can add
a layer mask from the layer menu, paint on the mask
about Fresco. It’s uncomplicated, with pixel brushes, and change the density of your masks.
Masks can be added either pre-filled (Mask Layer Con-
and it’s pretty fun, but best of all tents) or blank (Create Empty Mask). A newly added
mask will default to a red overlay view, but I prefer the
it’s really easy to get in and more traditional On Layers version so I can see the results
immediately. I use this at the end of the portrait project
start playing. So let’s play.“ to regain some detail.
With your new mask in place, the layer stack shows
you a white- or red-filled square where your layer was.
Swipe right on the layer thumbnail to exit the mask
and get back to your layer contents. There’ll be a small
white dot to the right of the layer indicating there’s a
mask. Swipe left on the layer to get back to the mask.
With the mask open, you have option buttons at the
bottom of the screen for Hide and Reveal. Care to take
any guesses at what these controls do?
PAINTING A BACKGROUND
Now that we’ve seen a small sample of converting a
photo to a painting with oils, let’s move to something
a little less daunting and paint a background using both
oils and watercolor. While the project produces useful
results, it’s really a chance for those of us with little paint-
ing experience to get used to how the tools behave.
Step One: Gray brushstrokes Step One: For this one, we’ll start with a blank docu-
ment and one of the Oil brushes. Using the Chunky Oil
Paint preset, select flat black at 70% Opacity, leave the
default size, and set both Flow and Paint Mix to 50%.
Make a few short strokes and call it done.
Step Two: Open the Color Picker and choose white,

then add a few more strokes, being sure to overlap some
of the previous gray strokes. Work up and down, swap
black and white as you like, and slowly start to build up
to a mostly full canvas. If you like, add in a dab of blue
or other single color—keep it simple for now, though,
because we’re going to blend everything shortly.
As you work, keep these things in mind: when you
sample a color from the canvas, your Opacity will revert
to 100%; undo a stroke by tapping with two fingers,
redo by tapping with three; resist the urge to scribble

and, instead, use short strokes or dabs; toss in some
pure black and white to balance the overall value; and
don’t spend too much time or thought—just get the
Step Two: Canvas filled paint on there! [ 8 5 ]
› › COLUMN
Step Three: When you have the can-

vas mostly filled and balanced in terms
of brightness, grab a Watercolor brush.
Watercolor brushes actually bleed into
the colors and canvas, so they’re great
for blending colors and creating random
textures. For this background, choose the
Watercolor Flat Wash with the following
settings: 50% gray, 50% Opacity, sized to
about 400, 100% Flow, and 100% Water
Flow (more on that in a bit).
Duplicate your painted layer, and then
just dab a few random spots on the canvas.
Watch how the water flows and moves
the paint around. Try some short strokes
with varied pressure, keeping your move-
ments slow. Watercolor brushes are also
sensitive to velocity, so changing up the
speed of strokes changes the behavior and
results. Avoid working one area too much
and instead move around the canvas.
Tip: On the screen is a small modifier
called a Touch Shortcut. For Pixel brushes, Final background
it switches the brush blending mode to

Clear, so you can erase with the currently
selected brush. With Oil brushes, it creates
a dry brush for soft blending. Watercolor
brushes put clear water on the canvas,
also to let colors bleed together and seep
across the canvas. Hold the Touch Shortcut
to temporarily activate these features.
Step Four: Feel free to duplicate your

layer, or even start over. Your attention
should be on getting used to how the
brushes feel, so change up the settings
and just doodle. Soon enough, you’ll be
comfortable controlling the brushes for
whatever effect you like.
The big idea here is that the Water-

color and Oil brushes blend anything that’s
on the current layer, including things you
sketched or painted with the Pixel brushes.
Need a little highlight in your oil painting?
Grab a white Pencil brush and scratch a
few lines, then go back to your Oil brush
to blend it. Need a coffee-stain look?
Draw a circle with a Pastel brush and dab
[ 8 6 ] it with clear water. “Coffee” stain
MOVING YOUR FILES AROUND

It’s worth taking a moment to talk about moving files around Cloud Documents are structurally different from other
for use with Fresco. With an active Creative Cloud account, files, and you may have noticed the .psdc file extension if
your files are automatically synced across your devices you’ve used this feature in Photoshop. Within the CC app,
when you have an Internet connection. Opening Fresco Synced Files are separate from Cloud Documents. You
shows you a Home Screen similar to Photoshop with your can upload image assets to the Synced Files folder but not
recent files in the Home category, and synced files under the Cloud Documents folder. When you want to transfer
Cloud documents. between apps without being online, use the Share button
Ideally, you should be able to easily move files between (the little box with an upward arrow) and choose Export As.
Photoshop on the iPad or Desktop and Fresco. And to some Pick the PSD option, and then tap Export. This opens the
extent, that’s true. Adobe does want to make this easy for location dialog, where you can choose the Creative Cloud
you, but they’ve designed the workflow to use the CC ser- folder, and then a destination.
vice and that means you have to be online. What isn’t easy You can then open Photoshop on your tablet and choose
is moving files between applications while offline, say on an the Import option from the Home Screen, and navigate to
airplane or where Wi-Fi or mobile data isn’t available. your Creative Cloud folder for your device. When you save
Even when you have a the app by closing it and
connection, your files need to going back to the Home
zip up to the cloud and then Screen, it will automati-
back down—just to use them cally be placed for upload
on the same device. To get “Oddly enough, you can’t open to your CC account. After
around this, you have to save you’re certain the saved
your file directly to the device, image assets from a CC Library version has been copied up
which may end up creating to your account, you can
duplicates and eating up stor- in Fresco directly. There simply delete the synced file.
age. On an iPad, file manage-
ment isn’t exactly streamlined,
is no access to anything beyond Oddly enough, you
can’t open image assets
so another effect is orphaned brushes and color themes.” from a CC Library in Fresco
files being scattered around. directly. There simply is no
One more caveat is that access to anything beyond
you can’t directly delete files brushes and color themes.
from the Recent list; if they If this functionality shows
haven’t been synced to your up, then the incessant tap-
account, they don’t show up in the Cloud documents area, ping about through the above process won’t be necessary.
which is the only place that gives you a context menu (the
three dots next to a filename). In other words, organization While Adobe Fresco’s feature set is pretty small right now,
can be a real pain! there’s more than enough to keep you busy exploring the
My advice is to avoid saving files directly to your device possibilities. If you get lost or want more tutorials, tap the
unless you’re dedicated to meticulous storage management. question mark icon at the top of the app, where you’ll find
That being said, you can make your life a little simpler by a list of gestures, Touch Shortcuts for each tool, and app
downloading the Adobe Creative Cloud app, which gives settings, too. What I’ve shown you in this issue hopefully
you access to Synced Files. These are files that you maintain sparks your imagination, and if you search #adobefresco
in your account but aren’t specifically “Cloud Documents.” on Behance.net, you’ll find some amazing paintings and
Confused yet? illustrations that should keep you inspired. n
[ 8 7 ]
DAVECLAYTON
> Designing in Photoshop
THE NEW SHAPES PANEL IN PHOTOSHOP 2020

Photoshop 2020 was released at Adobe MAX last November, but now it’s actually the year 2020.
Scott Valentine covered all the new features last issue, but in this issue, I want to focus on a specific
updated feature: custom shapes (this will be a refresh to an article I wrote last year). Adobe had
previously added the ability to manage brushes in the Brushes panel using folders, and now they’ve
added that same functionality to the Swatches and Styles panels. Adobe also added new panels
for Shapes, Gradients, and Patterns. Even though I’m only covering the updated features in the new
Shapes panel, everything applies to the other panels, as well.
In previous versions of Photoshop, it was a free-for-all with but it was a bit of a pain and unintuitive. It made more sense
shapes; as you created and added more shapes to the Custom for these presets to have their own panels with organizational
Shape Picker, you could easily end up with a huge mess in a features like the updated Brushes panel, and that’s exactly
single panel. Plus, there are some preinstalled shapes that I’ve what Adobe did. (By the way, the Preset Manager doesn’t
never used and probably never will. In the past, you needed even include brushes, swatches, gradients, styles, patterns,
to use the Preset Manager to delete and rearrange presets, or custom shapes anymore in Photoshop 2020.)
[ 8 8 ]
› › DESIGNING IN PHOTOSHOP
THE SHAPES PANEL

Open the Shapes panel (Window>Shapes),
and you’ll see the default set and possibly
any custom shapes that you’ve previously
created. Here’s a look at the old Custom
Shape Picker vs. the new Shapes panel.
In Photoshop 2019, the custom shapes
were only accessible by first selecting the
Custom Shape tool (U) nested with all the
other shapes in the Toolbar, and then using
the Custom Shape Picker up in the Options
Bar. Now, in Photoshop 2020, shapes are
available as a standalone panel, as well as
the Custom Shape Picker. In both places,
you’ll now see folders and, wait for it:
brand-new default shapes!
We’ll focus on the Shapes panel, as it’s
the new thing! Depending on how your
Photoshop is set up, you may see slightly
different shapes and groups than what’s
shown in the panels here, but it’ll still make
sense as we take a tour of the new setup.
Custom Shape Picker from Photoshop 2019 First, you’ll notice that Photoshop already
has some premade folders, including: Leaf
Trees, Wild Animals, Boats, and Flowers. If
you’ve ever created and imported your own
shapes, you’ll also see a My Shapes folder.
Click on the flyout menu at the top
right of the Shapes panel, and you’ll see an
option for Legacy Shapes and More. When
you select that option, it automatically adds
that folder to the panel. Inside that folder,
you’ll find quite a few subfolders full of old
legacy shapes.
Shapes panel from Photoshop 2020

[ 8 9 ]
Updated Custom Shape Picker now has folders too!
› › HOW TO
CREATING GROUPS
When you first installed Photoshop 2020,
if you selected to import settings and pre-
sets from Photoshop 2019, you might see
a bunch of legacy shapes at the top of the
panel that aren’t in a folder, as shown in
the image here. I’ve yet to discover a way
to have these shapes automatically appear
in specific folders. (If you know how, then
please let us know in the KelbyOne Com-
munity forum). For now, we can do this
manually just to tidy things up.
The quickest way to do this is to click
on the first shape to select it, hold down
the Shift key, and then click on the last
shape in the group to select all the shapes.
Then, either Right-click on the selected
shapes, or click on the flyout menu at the
top right, and select New Shape Group.
Name your new folder and click OK,
which will create a new folder and auto-
matically store the selected shapes within.
This is great for grouping a bulk collec-
tion of shapes, but you can now choose
to go through those shapes and sort them
out by similar types. You can easily select
single or multiple shapes inside a folder
and create a new folder. For example,
after grouping all my legacy shapes (so
I’d know where all my legacy shapes are
stored and grouped), I want to make one
called “Speech Bubbles.” Following the
same steps to select, create, and name
a group, I created a subgroup within my
Legacy Shapes group.
You can, however, drag this subgroup
into the main list and have it as a parent
group. Just click-and-drag the folder, and
when you see a thin blue line, drop it just
as you’d do when docking panels.
[ 9 0 ]
But let’s say you want to have the

shapes in a specific order within the group.
Easy! Just click on the shape and drag
it into position (just like dragging layers
around in the Layers panel). No more hav-
ing to go into the Preset Manager, it’s all
there in the panel, and it’s very intuitive!
(Are you crying in joy yet?)
RENAMING & VIEWING

Now that we know how to group and
move shapes, what else can we do? How
about renaming them? One of the stan-
dard speech bubbles (Talk 5) that I grouped
earlier looks a bit “icy,” and would be cool
to use (excuse the pun) in a project. So I’d
like to rename it “Frozen Talk.” Just Right-
click on the shape, select Rename Shape,
and in the Shape Name dialog, type “Fro-
zen Talk.” Click OK. I hope you’re starting
to see how much easier this is.
Just like the Custom Shape Picker, you
can decide how you want to view the
shapes in the Shapes panel: by Text Only
(I’ve no idea why you’d want to do that,
but at least that’s where the renaming
process comes in handy); Small or Large
Thumbnails of each shape; or Small and
Large Lists, which are a combination of
both the thumbnail and name.
[ 91 ]
› › HOW TO
DELETING, IMPORTING,
& EXPORTING
It’s also quick and easy to delete shapes
and groups. Just Right-click and select
either Delete Shape(s) or Delete Group,
depending on what you clicked. Having
the ability to manage your shapes and
groups makes for good housekeeping.
It’s always a good idea to tidy up your
panels and get the items you need loaded
up for future use. The next time you open
Photoshop, these settings will be in place
ready to go.
Let’s take a look at importing and
exporting shapes. You may have purchased
or downloaded some shapes from a stock
site on the Internet, and want to bring
them into your Shapes panel. Just click on
the flyout menu, select Import Shapes, and
locate the folder where you downloaded
your files, which will be in the .csh format.
Select the shapes you wish to import from
the saved location, and click Open. This
automatically imports those shapes into
the panel at the bottom of the list. In this
example, I imported Ian Barnard’s fantastic
Grid Builder frame shapes that I purchased
from ianbarnard.co. (I highly recommend
these for helping with lettering in Photo-
shop.) Just as with other shapes, you can
move, rename, or delete imported shapes.
[ 9 2 ]
By the same token, if you’ve created a

set of specific shapes for a particular proj-
ect, you can save them in a safe place such
as Dropbox or your Creative Cloud stor-
age, and then share them. Just select the
shapes individually or, better yet, put them
into a group, and from the flyout menu,
select Export Selected Shapes. Navigate to
where you want to save them, name them,
and click Save.
SWATCHES & STYLES

As mentioned at the start of this article,
other new and old panels now have the
group/folder option. Both Swatches and
Styles have the same layout and organi-
zational abilities as the Shapes panel, and
you can move, delete, create new groups,
import, and reorganize as desired.
For more tips on custom shapes, check
out my “Get Your Shape Game Strong”
article here.
Finally, I’d like to wish a Happy New Year

to all Photoshop User magazine readers!
This is a publication for which I’m very
proud to write, so thank you for support-
ing it and allowing instructors like me to
bring you tutorials each issue. n
[ 9 3 ]
DAVECROSS
> Photoshop Q&A
Q: Sometimes I have elements on layers that are Q: I have a logo on a layer by itself and I want
so small that even with the layer thumbnails to change its color, but when I use the Fill
set to large in the Layers panel, I can’t tell command, the entire layer is filled with color
which layer is which. Any suggestions? rather than just the logo. How do I change
the color of just the logo?
A: If you use the flyout menu at the top of the Layers panel,
there’s a menu option called Panel Options. In the result- A: Unless you tell Photoshop otherwise, in effect the entire
ing dialog you’ll see two options under Thumbnail Con- layer is active, and that’s why it’s filled. You need to
tains and, by default, it’s set to Entire Document, which tell Photoshop to fill only the existing pixels and not
means that each layer thumbnail displays the entire size the transparent areas, which can be done in several
of the document. The other option is Layer Bounds, different ways:
which will change the display of all thumbnails to show 1. C
lick on the Lock Transparent Pixels icon in the
only what appears on each layer. Layers panel and then use the Fill command. Tip:
It’s very likely that you’ll want to alternate between Be sure to turn off this lock command after filling,
these two options. You can access these choices more or it can cause other functions not to work the way
quickly by Right-clicking in the “empty space” in the Lay- you might want.
ers panel, and from the pop-up menu, choosing between
2. Use Edit>Fill, and in the dialog, click the Preserve
Clip Thumbnails to Layer Bounds or Clip Thumbnails to
Transparency box. Color will then only be applied
Document Bounds.
to the existing pixels. This method gives the advan-
tage of “locking” only the transparent pixels while
the Fill command is used.
3. If you like using keyboard shortcuts, you can fill with
the existing Foreground or Background color while
preserving transparency. To fill with the Foreground
color (with preserve transparency), press Option-
Shift-Delete (PC: Alt-Shift-Backspace); to fill with the
Document bounds Background color (with preserve transparency) press
Command-Shift-Delete (PC: Ctrl-Shift-Backspace).
Q: I often want to add guides to the horizontal

and vertical centers of my documents. Is
there a way to do that automatically instead
of dragging out guides every time?
A: There’s an option called New Guide Layout (found under
the View menu) that can help with this. In this dialog,
make sure the Preview box is checked, change the Num-
ber of Columns and Rows to 2, and leave everything
Layer bounds else turned off. Once it looks the way you want, use the
[ 9 4 ]
› › PHOTOSHOP Q&A
ALL IMAGES BY DAVE CROSS
Preset drop-down menu to save a preset with these set- When you go to the Image menu and choose Canvas
tings. From then on in any new document, just go to the Size, the resulting dialog asks how much canvas you’d
New Guide Layout and load your preset. like to add, and where. The original photo won’t change
size, since you’re adding additional canvas around it (or
beside, above, or below it, depending on the square you
choose in the Anchor grid).
The Image Size command has a very different effect
since it will, in effect, scale the entire photo (and its
canvas) up or down. So the “simple” answer is if you
need more canvas on which to work, use the Canvas
Size command. If you need to scale the photo larger
or smaller, use Image Size. (Important Note: Increasing
the dimensions of a photo with Image Size will result in
some loss of quality, so use with caution.) n
Q: In a document with lots of layers, I want to

make a selection and copy the contents of
multiple layers at the same time. How do I do
that without merging or flattening?
A: After making a selection, and with the visibility of layers
only turned on for the layers you want to include, use
Edit>Copy Merged or press Command-Shift-C (PC: Ctrl-
Shift-C). This will copy everything as if you first merged
the layers, but without actually merging. When you
paste, it will be as if you’re pasting a merged copy of
all the visible layers within your selection. This is a great
way to preserve the separate layers while copying-and-
pasting what you need.
Q: I’m just starting out in Photoshop and I’m

confused as to when I should use the Canvas
Size command versus the Image Size com-
mand. Help?
A: If you think of the photo you’re working on as paint on
a canvas it might help you understand the role of Can-
vas Size. By default, the canvas is the same size as your
photo, so if it’s a 5x7" photo, the canvas is also 5x7".
If you wanted to add some additional paint outside
the original photo, you can’t, because there’s no
canvas on which to paint. So in order to add more paint
(and by paint we really mean more pixels, whether

it be paint, another photo, some text, etc.), you need
If you have a Photoshop question that you’d like Dave Cross
to add more canvas, and you do this with the Canvas
to answer in the pages of Photoshop User magazine, send it
Size command. to letters@photoshopuser.com.
[ 9 5 ]
> Reviews
GET THE SCOOP ON THE LATEST GEAR
Luminar 4
In contrast to Skylum’s advertising, which gave me the impres-
sion that you can create and adjust your images without doing
any creative input, Luminar 4’s AI-driven functionality is actu-
AI-Driven Image Editor ally very good. It turns out, the neural engine is especially
Review by Erik Vlietinck aimed at reducing the need for masking skills and the art of
layer blending.
Luminar 4 installs as a standalone app on your system, or as
Company:
Skylum Software
a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom Classic, Photoshop
Price: $89 Elements, and Apple Photos. The Library module has largely
Rating: kept the same features as in Luminar 3, but the editing module
has been improved in terms of more AI-assisted functionality.
Hot: AI-assisted features; user interface; library;
fine-tuning; manual masking still possible Except for redesigned modules, such as the Edit module,
Not: Edges of sharply delineated objects

Luminar 4 incorporates Skylum’s new AI Sky Replacement. This
in dramatic skies show a little chromatic is a module that uses machine-learning technology and is
aberration
claimed to be the first image editor to offer fully automated
sky-replacement.
[ 9 6 ]
› › REVIEWS
Of course, I had to try that on a difficult image: a bicycle bridge

spanning a busy road with lots of buildings in the background,
and the bridge itself has holes in it for the cyclists to enjoy the
ugly scenery. Much to my astonishment, the Sky Replacement
“Much to my astonishment, module worked without first creating a mask; it recognized the
the Sky Replacement module holes in the bridge, and made the sky “behave” accordingly.
worked without first creating General atmospheric conditions are included so that an image
becomes darker with a heavy, overcast sky, but only where it
a mask; it recognized the holes would be when it really was overcast.
in the bridge, and made the There’s also an AI Skin Enhancer that, in addition to smoothing
the skin, automatically removes skin imperfections such as acne,
sky ‘behave’ accordingly.” freckles, and moles. Nothing too exuberant here in contrast to
the AI Structure module, which boosts detail where needed
without damaging the rest of the photo. This too worked with-
out having to create a mask first. n
[ 9 7 ]
REVIEWS › ›
GoPro
A year ago, GoPro introduced HyperSmooth, a very good smooth-
ing algorithm designed to work as a digital six-axes gimbal. This
year, the HERO8 Black tries harder with HyperSmooth 2.0, Time-
HERO8 Black
Warp 2.0, digital lenses, presets, better night photography, and
more. The HERO8 has a new form factor that’s about 10% sleeker
than the HERO7.
The battery and SD card are now inserted at the side of the
device. The big door is removable to connect with the new “Mods,”
Higher Quality Videos and Photos, More
a new system of accessories that let you add lighting, audio input,
Modes, and Smaller Device
and a front-facing screen.
Review by Erik Vlietinck With a better lens as well, GoPro introduces digital lenses, a.k.a.
cropping modes. The results are good but, of course, no replace-
ment for a real zoom or exchangeable lens. There are four virtual
Company: GoPro zoom factors, with the camera automatically setting the optimum
cropping area. The HERO8 offers Wide (16–34mm), Linear (19–
Price: $399.99
39mm), SuperView (16mm), and a new Narrow (27mm) angle.
Rating: 4.5
HyperSmooth 2.0 with Boost and TimeWarp 2.0 result in the
HERO8 Black having three levels of stabilization: On, High, and
Hot: Smaller size; high “pro” video bitrates of Boost. I tried all of them and found that every type of smoothing
114Mbps max; time-lapse capabilities; Mod gives you more natural results than the HERO7. That’s no small feat,
accessory system
as the HERO7’s stabilization was already very, very good.

TimeWarp 2.0 automatically adjusts speed based on motion,
Not: Folding Fingers mount wiggles if not really
tightly fastened scene detection, and lighting. You can even slow down the effect
to real time, and then tap to speed it back up. It looks much better
than doing this in post.
In Photo mode, the HERO8 Black has been improved as well.
Once I turned down the max ISO setting to 400, JPEG photos
came out noise-free and with beautiful colors when I left the color
setting to GoPro. An equally good result came with the RAW set-
ting. One note in that respect: as I don’t have Adobe Lightroom,
[ 9 8 ] I converted the file with Adobe’s DNG Converter. n
› › REVIEWS
CalDigit
The 74-gram CalDigit Tuff nano has a capacity of 512 GB (avail-
able soon in a 1 TB version). The Tuff nano is slightly larger
than a matchbox, and it comes in a sturdy, plastic container
Tuff nano
box with a USB-C/passive Thunderbolt 3 cable and a USB-C to
USB-A cable.
Small though it is, the Tuff nano has some impressive specs.
The version that I tested holds 512 GB with a theoretical maxi-
mum throughput speed of 1055 MB/sec. It can be fully immersed
Matchbox-Size Mobile NVMe SSD
in water up to 1 meter for 30 min (IP67-certified) and can survive
Review by Erik Vlietinck being dropped from up to 3 meters.
For this high-speed Tuff nano, CalDigit developed a power-
management mechanism that monitors the traffic for both the
internal NVMe SSD as well as the storage controller. During system
Company: CalDigit idle time, the Tuff nano will stay in low power mode, prolonging
the lifespan of the internal SSD and its components as well as your
Price: $149.95
laptop or iPad Pro’s battery life.
Rating:
CalDigit’s speed claims were pretty close to my results. The
AJA test showed a throughput performance of 760 MB/sec and a
Hot: Tiny; robust; USB-C-equipped read speed of 1055 MB/sec. Maximum performance was obtained
tablet/smartphone compatible; using a passive Thunderbolt 3 cable. I noticed that, when the drive
Toshiba NVMe SSD inside
became warmer than my skin temperature, write performance
dropped to around 550 MB/sec, while the read speed remained
Not:
unchanged, which is on par with most of the other SSDs out there.
This is due to CalDigit’s fine-tuning of the drive’s throttling
mechanism. I’m a fan of CalDigit storage products and the Tuff
nano is no exception, although I think the throttling could have

been a bit more relaxed. Nevertheless, for offloading and evalu-
ating images on the job and as an intermediate storage device,
there’s nothing like it. I’m already imagining a RAID with five of
these little buggers in a box that’s no bigger than, and weighing
less than, a box of chocolates. n [ 9 9 ]
REVIEWS › ›
ConceptD
When ACER announced its ConceptD line, I was intrigued to see
what they’d come up with in the realm of laptops to compete
with the likes of the MacBook Pro, HP’s ZBook, and other high-
5 Pro
end laptops that are gunning for the creative pro’s business. It’s
a tough space to break into and ACER has a big hill to climb
against the competition that’s already entrenched in the design
world. I’ve had the opportunity to review other laptops, as well
Awesome Laptop for the Price as compare them to my MacBook Pro, and I have to say that the
Review by Bruce Bicknell ConceptD 5 Pro does come out of the gate swinging and land-
ing a few blows against its competitors. Let’s take a look. (Note:
I tested an early review unit. The final U.S. models, which should
be available by the time you read this, will have slightly different
Company: ACER Inc. specs, and those differences are noted below.)
As a creative, it’s critical that my laptop is an extension of my
Price: $1,999
desktop, as well as being capable of replacing it at times. When
Rating: I hit the road, it has to handle whatever I throw at it, without
fail. I need it to be fast, color accurate, and reliable without lag
Hot: Adobe RGB 100% accurate; or waiting for the CPU to catch up with me while I’m working.
4K display; plenty of horsepower;

portability; multiple port options That’s where the ConceptD 5 Pro didn’t disappoint. I decided for
it to be a true test, I’d run it through the paces of what I normally
Not: Battery life; styling is meh; do in my everyday punishment of my poor laptops. In this case,
no card reader
I was working on multiple client projects that could be challeng-
ing for any workstation.
The projects I was working on were a layout for a 108-page
print magazine, including all of the supporting graphics (heavy
on InDesign and Photoshop); a recently completed photoshoot
for a professional golfer client (lots of Lightroom and Photoshop);
[ 100 ]
› › REVIEWS
and a video project for a benefit concert/golf tournament features were a big help in knocking out the projects
(all Premiere Pro and After Effects). This was a perfect I needed to get done, and the colors were spot-on with
chance to put the ConceptD 5 Pro through a pretty rigor- the printer for the magazine. (Note: The final shipping
ous review or kill it in the process.☺ The good news is U.S. version will take a bit of a hit in performance com-
that not only did it survive but it also did quite well pared to my review unit based on the different NVIDIA
because of its stellar horsepower and display. graphics card, less RAM, and fewer drives, but I think it
The early review unit of the ConceptD 5 Pro that I tested will still perform rather well.)
came equipped with a 9th Gen Intel Core i7-9750H (12MB Now, it can’t all be a lovefest, as there were a few
Smart Cache) processor and 32 GB of dual-channel DDR4 things that weren’t quite up to the level I expected.
SDRAM (the U.S. model will have 16 GBs of RAM). It came Some are personal preferences but others are things
with a 1-TB HDD drive, plus two 512-GB SSD drives we creative folks need. A card reader and more than
(the U.S. model will have only have one 512-GB PCIe one Type-C port would be nice; two would be perfect
NVMe SSD). It also had an NVIDIA Quadro RTX 3000 for projects where the user needs to access multiple
with 6 GB of memory (the U.S. model will have the drives. Next, a larger trackpad wouldn’t be a bad thing.
NVIDIA Quadro T1000 with 4 GB of RAM). When traveling, I take an external trackpad and key-
On top of this, the laptop’s ports and connections will board for in-room use, but on an airplane I felt the
have you smiling as well. You’ll find two USB 3.1 ports, one trackpad could use just a bit more space to be com-
USB 2 port, and one USB Type-C port, as well as an HDMI fortable. The only other thing that concerned me was
port for hooking up the laptop to an external display. I was that the screen is very flexible, so when traveling by air,
able to connect to the components I brought with me I was constantly worried about the seatback in front
easily and efficiently. (No need for the extra adapter like of me coming down and taking out the screen. Not
my other laptop.) sure if it could withstand that kind of punishment but
Now for the icing on the cake: the display! This is thankfully I didn’t have to find out.
where this machine really shines. The 15.6" panel is not This is an awesome laptop for the price. Sure, there are
only a 4K IPS LCD (3,840x2,160 resolution) but it’s also a few things that could be better and that may come in
Pantone-validated for color accuracy and provides 100% future versions, but for the price, portability, and specs,
Adobe RGB color gamut coverage. Needless to say, these you owe it to yourself to take a good hard look at it. n
[ 101 ]
REVIEWS › ›
FUJIFILM
In 2017, Fujifilm came out with their first medium-format cam-
era, the GFX 50S, consequently skipping over and relinquishing
full-frame camera production to other manufacturers. Until then,
GFX100
Fujifilm was known for being an early adopter and developer of
mirrorless camera technology, mostly in the APS-C market. Their
X-T3 is arguably the finest APS-C camera on the market (you can
find my review of the X-T3 here).
Breakthrough Medium-Format Camera Implementing many of the successful features of the X-T3,
Reviewed by Steve Baczewski such as touchscreen technology and film simulations, Fujifilm’s
GFX100 is their third and most versatile medium-format camera,
and with it, Fujifilm has raised the bar for what photographers
should expect from medium-format camera performance. Top
Company: Fujifilm Corporation billing goes to the GFX100’s 102-megapixel CMOS BSI sensor
that delivers stunning detail and 14-stop dynamic range in 16-bit
Price: $9,999 (body only)
RAW files. But more important, for the first time, photographers
Rating: 4.5 can shoot medium format without being slowed down by the
methodical use of a tripod. They can handhold the GFX100 similar
Hot: Resolution; phase AF; IBIS; EVF to a full-frame Nikon or Canon DSLR but with the benefit of a sen-
sor that’s 1.7 times as big, producing files of 11,648x8,736 pixels.

Not: Shallow vertical grip; unused space
for buttons on the back Fujifilm accomplished this by including several firsts for medium
format, including 5-axis in-body image stabilization (IBIS) with
approximately 5.5 stops of compensation—a major engineering
feat for such a large sensor. Next, they used hybrid AF with fast
phase detection autofocus that covers the entire sensor.
The capability to handhold a medium-format camera is a luxury,
liberating the photographer for a more fluid experience, especially
for landscape and portrait photography. The use of a BSI sensor
[ 102 ]
› › REVIEWS
enabled Fujifilm to reduce the size and double the number vertical grip, which houses the camera’s two batter-
of pixels on the same-sized sensor as their 50-megapixel ies, is made of shallow smooth metal, and its usefulness
medium-format cameras without making noise an issue. becomes abruptly limited when using longer heavier
I found noise became a factor at ISOs greater than 6,400; lenses. Although the menus are well organized, there are
however, the noise was easily corrected in post. One more so many available customization buttons on the body that
first is the inclusion of full-frame, 4K video at 30fps and trips to the menu become unnecessary for most situations.
in 4:2:2 10-bit data using HDMI output. Battery life is approximately 900 shots, and there are two
Does all this work? You bet! I photographed land- SD memory card slots.
scapes, portraits, and architecture using Fujifilm’s Composing with either the 3.2" articulating LCD touch-
45mm and 100–200mm lenses and was particularly sensitive screen or the detachable EVF is a pleasure. The
impressed by the smooth handling that wasn’t any dif- EVF is bright and detailed with a 100% view of your
ferent than using a DSLR. I’ve used both Phase One and subject, and the large size helps to visualize your final
Pentax medium-format cameras and wouldn’t dream of image. It’s made up of 5.76 million dots, has a 0.86 mag-
using them without a tripod. Handholding a medium- nification and, while its dynamic range isn’t on par with
format camera is a luxury I hadn’t experienced until a DSLR, Fujifilm has an option called “Natural Live View”
now. I was impressed that under flat outdoor light, that lets you see into shadow areas in high-contrast
the GFX acquired focus quickly, and rarely hesitated or situations. There are two small screens for displaying
hunted. In continuous burst AF, it can shoot between shooting data or viewing a histogram located near the
3–5 frames per second. Using the GFX100’s face and shutter release and on the back below the articulating
eye detection, it held focus while photographing sub- LCD. I set the one on the back to display a histogram for
jects moving toward and away from me. Metering is maximizing exposure (ETTR).
excellent and, except for skewed images on panning The GFX100 produces 200-megabyte files that can
with the electronic shutter, I didn’t experience any quickly eat up hard drive space; however, this allows you
issues with the mechanical or electronic shutter. to do some hefty cropping without losing quality. This is
The rugged, black, weather-sealed magnesium body a camera aimed at photographers who make large prints.
has both horizontal and vertical grips. The horizontal The Fujifilm GFX100 changes what has been expected
grip is deep, textured, and comfortable; however, the from medium-format cameras in the past. n
[ 103 ]
REVIEWS › ›
©AdobeStock/vladimirfloyd
Default results from simply opening an image. No sliders have been adjusted yet; only the Standard preset
and AI-generated (automatic) Feature-Finder have been used. Pretty great!
PortraitPro 19
Every year I get excited when asked to review PortraitPro, so naturally
I’m enjoying my test run of PortraitPro 19 Studio Max. I’ll cover the
important updates in this review, but for a more complete overview
Studio Max
of the awesome capabilities of this software, refer to my reviews of
earlier versions (PortraitPro 18, PortraitPro 17, and PortraitPro 15)
and Sean McCormack’s comprehensive look at using version 18 as
a Lightroom plug-in in Issue 49 of Lightroom Magazine.
Cool Additions to Already Great Software; There are three versions of PortraitPro 19: Standard, Studio, and
Interactive Tutorials Jump-Start Newbies Studio Max (reviewed here). I jumped into the standalone applica-
Review by Jessica Maldonado
tion, and almost skipped the “Getting Started” and “Learn More”
sections on the homescreen, but I’m glad I didn’t. After each short
descriptive video is the opportunity to click through new interactive
Company: Anthropics tutorials for the main features. They’re short and sweet, and even
experienced users of PortraitPro can benefit from the few minutes
Price: Standard: $44.95; Studio: $69.95; it takes to review them, if only to see what a likely “sweet spot” for
Studio Max: $139.95
a particular slider might be.
Rating:
The superstar of PortraitPro has always been its advanced
AI-powered facial recognition, and Anthropics has managed to

Hot: Professional-looking, easy portrait improve upon it yet again. Users can fine-tune the outlines by
retouching; tons of flexibility; smart filter
moving control points, though that’s rarely necessary. The Skin
capability; batch-retouching; incredible
AI facial recognition Smoothing was great in previous builds, but preserves more detail
now. It employs ClearSkin 5 technology, which appears akin to
Not: the somewhat laborious process of frequency separation, except
in this case, it’s instantaneous and easily adjusted. It “intelligently
maps the contours and features of the face and retouches skin
accordingly.” Pretty Sweet.
[ 104 ]
› › REVIEWS
Master PortraitPro 19 with easy-to-follow interactive tutorials. The smart tutorial system
lets you track your progress using practical examples.
The versatile Face Sculpt section features a new Lens Cor-

rection slider to adjust for distortions in a more pleasing and
accurate way than in earlier versions. This section has long
included sliders to adjust eyes, eyebrows, and mouth shapes
for refining your subjects’ expressions, but toggling down the
new Expressions slider reveals sliders labeled Smile, Frown,
Surprise, Interest, and Thoughtful, helping users more easily
create these appearances. Use judiciously or you risk creating
“The superstar of PortraitPro a “Joker” face.
Masking works well all around—thanks again to machine
has always been its advanced learning—for skin areas, background removal, and particularly
the hair mask, which is so crucial to the improved hair-coloring
AI-powered facial recognition, options. Changing hair color dramatically still looks “fakey-fakey”
but, as with all retouching, restraint can produce good results.
and Anthropics has managed to I still wish the hair-tidying feature dealt with flyaway hairs rather
improve upon it yet again.” than just smoothing (but, hey, maybe next version).
Virtually every feature in PortraitPro 19 has noticeable improve-
ment to function, speed, or both. The upgrade price, however,
is very close to the full purchase price. So, if you own version
18, definitely take advantage of the free trial to be certain the
updates are worth the cost for you.
PortraitPro 19 Studio Max continues to be an affordable time-
and cost-saving tool for busy photographers and designers look-

ing to provide their clients with image editing ranging from subtle
to extreme. Can’t wait for version 20! n
[ 105 ]
REVIEWS › ›
DriveDx If you want to check the health of your disk drive, you turn
to S.M.A.R.T., a self-monitoring system built into all disks and
SSDs that’s supposed to enable Disk Utility on a Mac and warns
you when a drive is near dead. That’s exactly the problem, how-
Must-Have Utility to Prevent Data Loss ever, with Disk Utility; it doesn’t let you check all the S.M.A.R.T.
Review by Erik Vlietinck parameters so you can prepare yourself for an imminent break-
down of a disk. And, with Fusion drives built into iMacs, that can
be a problem.
A Fusion drive has a small SSD in addition to the hard disk.
Company: Binary Fruit When the SSD fails, so does your Fusion drive in its entirety, and
recovering data may become a huge problem. Enter Binary Fruit’s
Price: $24.99 (Personal License); DriveDx, a small app that lets you actually view all the parameters
$49.99 (Family License)
and the progressive deterioration of your hard disks and SSDs.
Rating: If DriveDx only gave you the complete picture, including firm-
ware data, health indicators, and a graphically and numerically
Hot: Comprehensive; easy-to-understand; presented failure percentage for a dazzling array of parameters
reports accurately
for your internal disk, it would already be worth its cost; but it
also covers external drives. To be able to see how much life is left
Not:
in external drives, you’ll need to install a system extension. That
driver doesn’t seem to consume system memory or system time,
according to the Activity Monitor, but it does allow you to check

external drivers as if they were built in. There’s no parameter left
untouched, either. In my case, DriveDx answered the mysterious
unmounting problem I had with an SSD: It reported that it was on
its way to SSD nirvana. The app and its extension seem to work
well on a Catalina system as well.
DriveDx is true life insurance for your data and information,
because with it, you can prepare yourself for the inevitable; with-
out it, you’re just flying blind. n
[ 106 ]
R E V I EWS › ›
Lighting for Photographers,

2nd Edition
The subtitle of this book is “An Introductory Guide to Professional
Joe Lavine & Brad Bartholomew
Photography.” In the book’s introduction, the authors gently
Review by Peter Bauer
denigrate books about lighting that are “formulaic,” and include
“diagrams with lighting placement.” I counted more than 20 such
Publisher: Focal Press

diagrams in this book, and numerous examples of text describ-
ing light placement that are basically lighting diagrams in words.
Pages: 238
I found this book to be about as formulaic as other books on
Price: $48.83 (Kindle); $59.95 (paperback) lighting that I’ve reviewed for Photoshop User. This book promises
Rating: “downloadable instructor resources featuring discussion ques-

tions and quizzes.” Accessing these resources, however, requires
submitting the name of the university at which you’re teaching,

the name of the course, and even the number of students.
The requests are reviewed by the publisher’s sales department
before access to the materials is permitted. Granted, you don’t
need those materials to use the book, but I wonder (not having
seen them) if they wouldn’t be helpful. n
[ 108 ]
› › R E V I EWS
On Color
Although this book discusses color as part of our social and
David Scott Kastan with Stephen Farthing
psychological existence, it’s extremely fun (and easy) to read.
Review by Peter Bauer
It’s also incredibly thought-provoking and, in places, perhaps
controversial. In Chapter Three, yellow, brown, black, and white
Publisher: Yale University Press

are discussed as skin colors and how the term “people of color”
evolved. Chapter Four looks at how “in a political sense, green
Pages: 272
has unquestionably become a primary color.” Dr. Kastan, Ph.D.,
Price: $14.15 (Kindle); $20 (paperback); is a professor in the English department at Yale University. Stephen
$28 (hardcover)
Farthing is a British painter, with a master’s degree from London’s
Rating:
Royal College of Art, and is a member of the Royal Academy of
Arts. (And, for the “cool factor,” he’s also painted a mural for the
Cleveland Browns and is the author of 1001 Art Masterpieces You
Must See Before You Die.) This book very possibly will change how
you view and use color in your own artwork. n
[ 109 ]
COLINSMITH
> Photoshop Tips
BOOST YOUR PRODUCTIVITY & CREATIVITY
Happy New Year! A new year means it’s time to learn new skills, and I have some great tips for you this
issue to get you started. By the way, be sure to visit the archives on KelbyOne where you can access
back issues of Photoshop User magazine and check out all my other tips. A great resolution for this
year would be to learn one new Photoshop tip each day (or at least one a week), and then see how
much faster you’re working in Photoshop a year from now.
GETTING TO ZERO
The Blur Gallery (Filter>Blur Gallery)
is the best place to apply creative
blurs to your images. You can use
Field Blur for a realistic depth-
of-field effect, or add a Path Blur
for motion, Spin Blur, Iris Blur, or
even a Tilt-Shift effect. Many of
the tools work with multiple points
to control where the blurs hap-
pen. You’ll often find yourself set-
ting one of these points to zero to
really control your blurs. Here’s a
way to instantly set a point to zero:
Hold down Command (PC: Ctrl)
and click inside the blur ring at
the center of the blur in the docu-
ment. If it’s a Path Blur, click on one of the end points. SECRET HANDSHAKE TO
This is so much faster than turning the ring each time. Oh, CAMERA RAW IMAGE ADJUSTMENTS
and don’t forget that you can also use all the Blur Gallery When you’re making adjustments in the Basic sliders in
effects as smart filters, so you can go back and change Camera Raw, there’s a hidden shortcut that shows different
settings whenever you like. things to help with various adjustments. Holding down the
Option (PC: Alt) key while dragging the Exposure, High-
A BETTER PERSPECTIVE ON THINGS lights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks, or Dehaze sliders will
Vanishing Point (Filter>Vanishing Point) is a great way show clipping (the areas of the photo that are losing detail),
to clone and paint in perspective. Many people don’t real- such as blown-out highlights, or plugged-up shadows.
ize that you can work on a blank layer in Vanishing Point. Also, holding down Option (PC: Alt) when you’re adjusting
You can also copy things such as a logo and rasterized Sharpening or Noise Reduction in the Detail panel will give
text on a layer and then paste it into Vanishing Point. On you a grayscale view so you can focus on the detail and not
top of that, when you click OK to apply Vanishing Point be distracted by color.
and then go back into Vanishing Point, the grid isn’t lost;
it’s saved. I know that was already three tips, but all of FIX THE STRETCH
that was to lead up to the “real” tip: Don’t do all the When you’re adjusting the lens distortion for a wide-angle
vanishing-point work at one go. Work on a single layer at or fisheye lens in the Lens Correction filter in Photoshop
a time; this way you can use blending modes, adjust Opac- (Filter>Lens Correction), the result can sometimes look
ity, and use masks on the different layers in Photoshop. stretched. If this is the case, go to Camera Raw (Filter>Camera
[ 1 10 ]
› › PHOTOSHOP TIPS
ALL IMAGES BY COLIN SMITH
Raw Filter), click on the Transform tool (Shift-T) at the top After you Option-click (Alt-click) to load the stamp with the
left (the one that looks like a perspective grid), and then use sample area, you’ll see the clone area as an overlay as you
the Aspect slider to fix the stretching. You could also use the move your cursor over the canvas. If you open the Clone
Lens Corrections panel in Camera Raw if you like. Source panel (Window>Clone Source), you’ll see a number
of options, including a drop-down menu at the bottom of
QUICK SPLIT the panel with a few blending modes. Choose Difference
If you’re using Photoshop 2020, you might have noticed that mode to help you get perfect alignment, because the over-
Warp (Edit>Free Transform>Warp) now has options to split lay will go totally black when it’s pixel-perfect in position.
the mesh vertically or horizontally. If you Right-click inside
the Warp bounding box, you’ll see several options for split- EASY ACCESS TO YOUR GRADIENTS
ting the Warp. These same options are also in the Options In Photoshop 2020, you may have noticed the addition of
Bar at the top. But you don’t need any of that; simply hold panels for Gradients, Patterns, and Shapes. In these panels,
down the Option (PC: Alt) key and you’ll see those split grid items are broken up into various folders. While these are
lines appear at the point of your cursor. If you move your really useful, sometimes it’s annoying, for example, to have
cursor close to an existing grid line, the option will change to open the Basics folder in the Gradients panel every time
from crosswise to either horizontal or vertical, depending on you want to access the commonly used Foreground to Back-
the direction of the line to which you’re closest. Just click to ground; Black, White; and Foreground to Transparent presets.
add the grid lines. Save time by making these gradients easier to access. Select
all the gradients in the Basics panel by Shift-clicking them,
STACK THEM UP and then drag them to the top of the Gradients panel, above
Have you ever photographed a product up close and the group. Now they’re automatically visible whenever you
noticed that you can’t get the entire object in focus? Try open the panel or select gradients through menus. Bonus tip:
putting your camera on a tripod and taking several shots, Hold down Command (PC: Ctrl) when you click a group
changing the focus each time. Then it’s easy to blend those disclosure arrow to open all the groups at once so you can
images together in Photoshop into a single sharp image. see all the presets in a panel. n
This is called focus stacking. You can do focus stacking
with Auto-Blend Layers. Put all the images on separate
layers in the same document, select all those layers in the
Layers panel, and then choose Edit>Auto-Blend Layers—
but, there’s a catch. Each time you changed focus while
taking the photos, the size of the image changed slightly.
This can be fixed by first selecting all the layers and choosing
Edit>Auto-Align Layers.
PERFECT CLONING
The Clone Stamp tool (S) is great for retouching. I like to call
it the “Brute Force” tool, because when Content-Aware Fill
and the Healing Brush fail, it’s time to bring out the Clone
Stamp. It’s manual work, but it can patch or duplicate any-
thing. When you’re cloning something, there are times
when you may need to go back and redo an area because

of other work bleeding into it, so you’ll need to match the
alignment of the sample area perfectly with the cloned area.
[ 1 11 ]
PETERBAUER
> From the Help Desk
ANSWERS TO PHOTOSHOP AND GEAR-RELATED QUESTIONS
I heard that with the new macOS, I can use my iPad as a second screen and paint right on it.
Is this true and, if so, do I no longer need my Wacom tablet?—Pauline
Indeed, if you have the proper hardware and operating Your iPad needs to be no older than these models: iPad
systems, you can use an iPad as a second screen. Just like Pro, iPad 6th generation, iPad mini 5th generation, or iPad
connecting an external monitor, an iPad can mirror (show Air 3rd generation.
the same thing on both screens) or can extend your Desk- You can connect the iPad to the computer via USB (but
top (providing additional workspace). Want to show a not Thunderbolt-to-Thunderbolt), or connect wirelessly.
client some photos, but don’t want them looking over For wireless connection, your Mac and your iPad need to
your shoulder? Connect the iPad, mirror the screens, be on the same Wi-Fi network, both need to have Blue-
and let them see on the iPad what you’re seeing on your tooth and Handoff enabled, and both devices need to
monitor. Need extra space for a more efficient workflow? be signed into iCloud with the same Apple ID, using two-
Extend the Desktop and perhaps move Photoshop’s pan- factor authentication for security. The wireless range is
els to the iPad while you work on your image on your main about 30'— if there are no obstructions (say, for example,
monitor. Or, with an Apple Pencil move the image to the a giant steel wall) between them.
iPad and paint right on the image as you work! So, does using Sidecar with an iPad replace a Wacom
Don’t confuse the new Sidecar technology with the tablet? Maybe. If you already own a tablet and you’re
Target Display mode for some iMacs (using the iMac as a used to using it—and are using it to its fullest, including
second monitor with another Mac) or with “Photoshop on the ExpressKeys, the Touch Ring, and Multi-Touch—you
the iPad.” When you use Sidecar, the Desktop is extended may want to stick with it. A better comparison, however,
for all programs and the iPad functions as additional moni- is with Wacom’s Cintiq line. When using a Cintiq, you
tor space for all programs, not just Photoshop. paint directly on the screen, just as you do with an iPad
To use your iPad as a second monitor, you’ll need a Mac connected using Sidecar. One advantage of the Cintiq
running macOS Catalina and an iPad running iPadOS 13. over the iPad is color fidelity. The Cintiq Pro models from
Okay, well, it’s not quite that simple. Not all Macs that Wacom are advertised as offering “realistic color accuracy
can run Catalina offer Sidecar. Your computer needs to up to 99% Adobe RGB.” (The iPad uses a device-specific
be no older than these models: MacBook or MacBook Pro color space, which produces rather good color fidelity.)
from 2016, MacBook Air from 2018, iMac from 2017 or The Bamboo Slate and Folio models from Wacom offer
the iMac Retina 5K 27" (2015), iMac Pro, Mac Mini (2018), you the opportunity to draw on paper, which the iPad
or Mac Pro (2019). Open the Mac’s System Preferences. If does not. And, of course, if you’re using a Windows com-
you see Sidecar, you’re good to go. If you don’t, your Mac puter, you don’t have the hardware or software required
doesn’t meet the minimum requirements. to use an iPad as an additional screen. n
[ 1 12 ]
Watch What’s Trending on the
KelbyOne Channel!
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“Photo Tip Friday” Quick Tips | Online Class Trailers | Full Episodes of The Grid
Learning Light
Designed by Scott Kelby
Learn lighting in the

palm of your hand.
• Made for educators and students
• Designed to teach photography lighting
• Offers a variety of lighting techniques
• Lightweight handheld design
• LED is cool to the touch
• Optional mount for a tripod or stand
• Standard AA batteries included
EDU Price: $89.90
Quickly switch Center column rotates Includes KelbyOne

between daylight to change lighting video training
and tungsten light options for students and
educators
Experiment with various light techniques and effects
Direct Light Diffused Light Fresnel Gobo
See how different light patterns look on your subject Designed by Scott Kelby
The Learning Light is the first educational
lighting device that allows you to experiment
with various lighting techniques without the
need for complex or expensive equipment.
Scott is a photographer, designer, and award-

winning author of more than 80 books, including
The Flash Book, Light It, Shoot It, Retouch It, and
The Digital Photography Book Series. He’s Editor
of Photoshop User magazine, and CEO of the
KelbyOne Online Educational Community.
Split Rembrandt Butterfly Loop
See it in action and order yours at fjwestcott.com/learning-light-by-scott-kelby

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THE A D O B E® P H O T O S H O P ® “ H O W -T 0 ” MAGAZINE › › J A N UA RY 2 02 0

Effects Convert an image into a pencil sketch using

Kirk Marsh | KelbyOne Member

CLICK THE CODES AND SAVE $10

VIEW ALL DATES

Discover the B10 at profoto.com

Images: Adobe Stock; Layout: Jessica Maldonado

[078] THE PERFECT SELECTION

Log on to KelbyOne’s website:

420 Ninth Ave, NYC

> A Note from Scott

Compositing and Masking Hair Made Easy, and while

HOW TO CONTACT KELBYONE:

ARE YOU GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR

Discuss this Issue

instructors enough for providing all these gifts.

Who’s Who in the KelbyOne Community: John Rae

Who’s Who on the KelbyOne Instructor Team: Frank Doorhof

just because they got some ideas or techniques from one of my

I shot them, Lightroom Classic is one of my most-used tools. I

Follow KelbyOne and Scott Kelby on Twitter!

From Taking to Making:

Maximize Your Impact

The Best Retouching

TEXT & COLOR

Step One: Go under the File menu

Step Two: Fill the Background layer

Step Three: Now open the first

Step Four: Once the image is open,

white gradient, which is based on

Step Five: Once the image is con-

Step Six: Click on the Add a Layer

Step Seven: Let’s bring in another

Step Eight: Open the Channels panel

Step Nine: While the selection is

Step 10: Next, use the Move tool to

Step 11: Create a new blank layer at

Step 12: Go under the Filter Menu

Step 13: Back in the Layers panel, set

Step 14: Now we’re going to add

Step 15: To the left of the font drop-

Step 16: Now let’s add another text

Step 17: The text should automatically

Step 18: Instead of just lorem ipsum

Step 19: Here’s a cool trick: Go under

Step 20: Once the text is set, change

Step 21: Now for the final touch.

Step 22: Go under the Filter menu,

Step 23: Now while this looks cool, it’s

You can see with just a couple photos,

[ 3 4 ] ALL IMAGES BY COREY BARKER

ATTACH TO ANY BACKPACK

Note: This project uses a few stock files from Adobe

Step One: Open Photoshop and create a new file

Step Two: Use the Quick Selection tool (nested below

Step Three: Click on the Fore-

Step Four: Create a new layer by

sun layer and the model layer. Keep

Step Five: Click the Add Layer

Step Six: Create a new layer

Step Seven: Create another new

Step Eight: Go to Image>Adjust­

Finally, hold the Option (PC: Alt) key

Step Eight: Go to Image>Adjust