What You’ll Learn What You’ll Need You can use any photo you wish to make an animated GIF, but make sure it’s high quality and with the eyes well visible. You can download the photo I’ve used from Envato Elements. 1. How to Prepare an Image for Animating Step 1 GIF is not a well-optimized format, and its files can get very large very quickly. That’s why we need to crop our image to the most important part before creating animated GIFs. Open the image, take the Crop Tool (C), and select the part of the image you want to animate. Then hit Enter. Step 2 We want to animate the eyes, so we…

What You’ll Learn in This Illustrator Tutorial What You’ll Learn in This Illustrator Tutorial Step 2 Let’s say that you want to join two overlapping anchor points. Use the Direct Selection Tool (A) to select both of these points, press Control-J to join the points, and Illustrator will also remove one of those points. Step 3 When needed, there’s an easier method that you can use to bring together two anchor points from separate paths. Select the two anchor points and go to Object > Path > Average (Alt-Control-J). Just check Both and click OK. 3. How to Combine Multiple Paths in Illustrator Learning how to join paths in Illustrator isn’t complicated. Using the Control-J keyboard shortcut, you can quickly combine…

What You’ll Be Creating Romance books are infamous for their corny covers. Such a cover shouts in your face that the book is all about passion. What You Will Need You will need the following resources in order to complete this project: 1. Prepare the Workspace Step 1 First, download the assets. We’re going to need a photo of the couple, a background, some flower petals for decoration, and a distinctive font for the title. Step 2 Open Photoshop and create a New File. There are many formats for book covers, but B-format is among the most popular, so let’s try this one. Make the image 129 mm wide and 198 mm high. If you want…

What You’ll Be Creating Learn how to create a glitch effect in Photoshop in this tutorial.  Tutorial Assets 1. Prepare the Document Step 1 Use Control-N to create a new document and use the following settings: 1500 x 1000 px; 300 dpi. Step 2 Go to File > Place and put your image inside the document. Step 3 Resize your image to the borders of the document and click Enter. Step 4 Click T and create a new text layer in the top right corner. Step 5 Click U and select Polygon Tool, and create a triangle shape. Then place it as shown in the image below: Step 6 Select your layers by holding Shift and then Right Click > Merge Layers. Step 7 Now Right Click on the layer and then Convert to…

What You’ll Be Creating In this tutorial, you will learn how to create Photoshop color effects for pictures using a light leak overlay and how to add an atmospheric fade effect with gradient fills and gradient maps.  Tutorial Assets You will need the following resources in order to complete this tutorial: 1. How to Create a Color Photo Effect Using a Gradient Map Step 1 To create a color photo effect, we’ll use a gradient map adjustment layer. Press Control-O and select the image you want to use. Step 2 Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map. Step 3 Double-Click on the gradient map icon and create a gradient with the following…

What You’ll Be Creating In this tutorial, we will create a snowflake Photoshop brush and make overlays for the image using a snow brush Photoshop preset. Tutorial Assets The following assets were used in the production of this tutorial: 1. How to Create a Snowflake Using Shape Layers Step 1 Press Control-N to create a new document and use the following settings: 1000 x 1000 px; 300 dpi. Step 2 Click U and select the Rounded Rectangle Tool. Create a shape with the following settings: Width: 30 px; Height: 720 px. Step 3 After that, we need to create a duplicate of the shape using Right Click > Duplicate. Step 4 Hit Control-T and change the Height to 20%. Step 5 Rotate the shape by 45° while holding Shift.…

What You’ll Be Creating In this tutorial, we will create a vintage painting Photoshop action using smart filters, mask layers, vintage textures, and dynamic brushes. Tutorial Assets 1. How to Prepare the Document Step 1 Use Control-O and then select the image you want to use. Step 2 Press Alt-Control-I and resize the image to 2000 x 2000 px. Step 3 Create a new layer using the Shift-Control-N combination and name it “mask”. Step 4 Create a duplicate of your background using Right-Click > Duplicate. Step 5 Rename your new layer to “Image” and then Right-Click > Convert to Smart Object. Step 6 Now we need to install the brushes in Photoshop. Click B to activate Brush Tool and then go to Preset Manager. Step 7 After that, click Load and…

What You’ll Be Creating In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a vintage Photoshop effect using such Photoshop effects as smart filters, adjustment layers, and overlay textures. 1. How to Prepare the Document Step 1 Press Control-N to create a new document and use the following settings: 3000 x 2000 px; 300 dpi. Step 2 Go to File > Place and put your image inside the document. Step 3 Resize your image to the borders of the document and hit Enter. Step 4 After that, Right-Click on the layer and then Convert to Smart Object. 2. How to Create a Vintage Photo Effect Step 1 Select the smart object and then go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and use the following settings: Step 2 After that, go…

What You’ll Be Creating In many of my tutorials you may find a command: “Remove the part using a Layer Mask or simply the Eraser Tool”. As a beginner, you might react to it by selecting the Eraser Tool because you’re familiar with it, and a Layer Mask sounds like some professional technique. 1. Why the Eraser Tool Isn’t the Best Solution Let’s see a very simple situation in which you could use the Eraser Tool. You have sketched a snow leopard: The Eraser Tool You’ve got a feeling the tail is a bit too long, so you use the Eraser Tool (E) to remove the tip. Now it feels wrong, so you…

What You’ll Be Creating In this tutorial, we will create a set of Photoshop brushes from an old newspaper, and then we will create a vintage paper texture using this set. Tutorial Assets The following assets were used in the production of this tutorial: 1. How to Prepare the Document Step 1 Press Control-O and then select the scanned image. Step 2 After that, we need to create a new document. Hit Control-N to create a new document and use the following settings: 2. How to Create Photoshop Brushes From a Paper Texture Step 1 Click M and select the Elliptical Marquee Tool. Then select an area in the bottom left corner of the document while holding Shift. Step 2 Hit Control-C to…