Photo Manipulation is one of the most complex, highly detailed and creative art forms to come out of the digital age. mixing a bunch of photos together isn’t quite as easy as it might look, Blending different elements to form a single convincing image requires a very diverse skill set. Composition, color theory, the need for a solid concept and the technical skill

Here i’ve listed 27 Best Photoshop Photo Manipulation Tutorials by various great Writers, These tutorials have detailed instructions which will help you to create your perfect photo manipulation art, Please let me know what you think of them, or if you have any more suggestions by leaving a comment.

1.) How to Create a Flaming Photo Manipulation

2.) Create Your Own Planets

3.) Creative Photoshop Animal King Photo Manipulation Tutorial

4.) The Making of Mystic

5.) How to Create a Photo Manipulation of a Flooded City Scene

6.) How to Create a Chilling Photo Manipulation in Photoshop

7.) Create an Awesome Smoky Skull in Photoshop

8.) How to Create a Hellacious Flaming Skull in Photoshop

9.) Creating a Smoke Fading Effect

10.) Water effect photo montage

11.) Fantastic Tree

12.) Create an Explosive Cover with Precise Photo Manipulation Techniques

13.) How to Make a Dark, Post-Apocalyptic City Illustration

14.) The RoboHorse Turn Ordinary Animal to a Robot

15.) Create dynamic distortion effects

16.) How to Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation with Twisting Water

17.) Combine Photo Elements to Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation

18.) Making of a Mythical Encounter

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Want to improve your interface design skills? If so, then check out this group of Photoshop tutorials. There are loads of tuts here to get started with basic elements and work your way up to full interface designs, which integrate numerous custom elements. If you’re looking to get started with Photoshop UI design or build these skills, then jump into these tutorials right now!

1. Creating a Knob in Photoshop

2. How to Make a Menu Interface for a Fantasy Themed iPhone Game

3. Create a Promotional iPhone App Site in Photoshop

4. How to Create a Slick and Clean Button in Photoshop

5. Simple Button

6. How to Create a Detailed Audio Player in Photoshop

7. Create an Apple IPhone case from scratch

8. iPhone Style Icon Tutorial

9. Create the Glass Shelf Dock from Leopard OS in Photoshop

10. Build a Slick Rich User Interface in Photoshop

11. Loading Interface

12. Make a Web Interface with Car Images

13. Zoom Player Design Skin

14. Volkswagen Inspired Navigation

15. MP3 Player Interface Design

16. Blackberry Fruit phone

17. Interface Navigation Tutorial

18. Create a Mac Style Interface Button in Photoshop

19. Nokia 5300 Cell phone interface

20. Photoshop Tutorial: Audio Interface

Continue Learning…

In this tutorial, we’ll be continuing this series on creating an iPhone app promotional site by taking our previous Fireworks constructed wireframe and adding color, texture, images, and effects to polish off this design in Photoshop. We’ll use some interesting elements, like iPhone imagery and a stylish aurora vector background illustration. We’ll finish up with a professional site design ready to get coded! Let’s get to it!

Final Image Preview

Take a look at the website design we’ll be creating. Want access to the full PSD files and downloadable copies of every tutorial, including this one? Join Psd Plus for just $9/month. You can view the final image preview below or the full-size image here.

Step 1 – Document Setup

Grab the “wireframe_final.psd” we exported in our last tutorial in this series (Build a Promotional iPhone App Website Wireframe in Fireworks). Rename this file to “final.psd,” or your preferred name.

Notice below how the imported file opens fairly well in Photoshop. There is an issue with the text boxes being longer than the document though (second image below, notice how the box is long and continues past the bottom of the document). I don’t know a quick way to fix this. It’s a peculiarity I mentioned in the last tutorial. If anyone knows a good fix, definitely let me know. So, go through and copy the text of each element, then recreate a new text box and paste the text back in place, or just leave it as is.

Also, go ahead and delete the “Notes” folder as well, as we don’t need the notes here.

Step 2 – First Dominant Visual Element

I often like to work on the dominant (and more important) visual elements of the design first, and then build from there. So, let’s get started with the “promotion” area.

We’re going to add an aurora illustration to the background here. Ian Yates wrote an awesome Illustrator tutorial on Making an Aurora Borealis Vector Sky in Illustrator. There are a few benefits to using a vector graphic here. One is that it stylistically stands out with a unique look. Also, we can use it for other sized branding areas as well.

After completing the aurora borealis vector tutorial go ahead and import your unique result into Photoshop. You can see that the only change I made was flipping the design. You should of course create your own for your work. I pasted the illustration in as Pixels because I don’t need to make any changes to the vector source file after bringing it in, so no need to use a Smart Object.

Now drag the vector mask from our promotional background shape onto our aurora borealis design.

This will apply the vector mask as shown below, just make sure it lines up as you want it.

Step 3 – Adding an iPhone Image

There is spectacular freebie of an iPhone image with lots of iPhone GUI graphics. Go ahead and download the iPhone GUI PSD 3.0. Open the file and drag the iPhone image into your working document. Then scale it and line it up with the guides as shown in the second image below. Be sure to grab the image as shown. The only screen component grabbed other than the phone is a transparent angled screen glare.

Now we’ll add the aurora borealis illustration to the iPhone. This just makes the design look a little more interesting. In the final website a video file would look good here, which shows the app in action though. Bring in another copy of the aurora borealis illustration. You can bring in a smaller version of it this time, as we’re filling a smaller space. Paste it in as Pixels again.

Now with the illustration placed over the iPhone in the position you want it in, and the illustration selected, go to Layer > Vector Mask > Reveal All. Then grab the Rectangle Tool (U), make sure it’s set to Paths in the top-left corner, and draw your screen. If you don’t get it the exact size you need the first time, then hit Command + T and resize the rectangle vector mask as needed.

Be sure to keep your layers organized as we continue to build this design.

Step 4 – Working on Our Color Scheme

We just added two dominant elements on the page. Also, the aurora illustration we added is a great source to grab some color from to make this page’s color scheme. Go ahead and double-click on the default “Background” layer to unlock it, name it “background,” and place it in a new “background” folder.

Grab the Paint Bucket Tool (G), then change the Foreground Color to a dark bluish-gray (#536475), which I selected from the illustration. Now change the primary navigation background located in the “header” folder a dark blue (#212b3f), which was also sampled from the illustration. Give the “bottom” area background the same dark blue color for the background.

We’ll also change the color of some of our navigation buttons at this point as well. The image below shows where we’re at so far in this design. Change the primary navigation button background colors to a slightly lighter grayish-blue (#5e7285) than the page background, except for the current page button. We want to give the current page button the impression of being pressed in. So, make it the same color as the page (#536475). We’ll enhance this greatly a little later in the tutorial when we add styling.

In the “secondary_nav” area select the larger background behind the Aurora icon and change it’s color to a grayish-blue (#475665) that is slightly darker than the page background. Again, we’re going to make this look indented. Also, go ahead and use the same lighter grayish-blue (#5e7285) as the primary navigation buttons on the footer buttons.

Step 5 – Changing Our Text Color and Basic Styles

You can see how going dark with our page design makes it painfully obvious that it’s time to work on the text colors. We designed the text mostly with dark on light for the wireframe, but now we need to go to light on dark. Change most of your text to white. I’ll point out the few exceptions below. Also, clean up any text, reposition elements, and experiment with font weight as you go through this.

I’m setting some of the text in Myriad Pro, though in areas that will be coded and not images I often used Helvetica for this design, which is ubiquitous on computer systems. I also used Helvetica for some areas that I wanted to have a slightly different look than the Myriad Pro being used. I set the Aurora name in Futura Condensed Extra Bold where it was to be used for branding.

You can see the text in most of the “header,” “secondary_nav,” “promotion,” and “body” is white. A few exceptions are the logo area (which will is just a placeholder for now), the “Aurora App” text that is dark blue (#131828) to help it stand out, and the headings for the body that are the same dark blue.

We also need to work on the “bottom” section text as well. I set all the headings in Myriad Pro Bold at 20pt. The color is a bright baby blue (#85a1bc). I used that same blue for the text links. I set the rest of the text in white using a smaller Helvetica Bold.

The “footer” has just a couple color changes. The links were changed to an even brighter baby blue (#97b8d8), except for the active link which is white and underlined. The copyright text is 12pt Helvetica and darkish blue (#212b3f).

Step 6 – Bringing in the Logo Design

First, take a screenshot of our PSD file of the area we’ll be placing the logo into (with the logo placeholder text turned off). Fire up Illustrator. Place the screenshot on it’s own layer and lock it. I also turned off the artboard visibility (Shift + Command + H). Now create a layer for your logo and insert the text “iLoveMyApps,” which is serving as the company’s name for this tutorial. Set the text in Cooper Std Black Italic at 30pt, and give it a white fill, as shown below. Now with the text selected, go to Text > Create Outlines, then ungroup the text (Shift + Command + G). Also, delete the “o,” as we’ll be replacing that with a heart.

Now let’s work on the heart shape. First, turn on the grid (Command + “) and turn on Snap to Grid (Shift + Command + “), which will allow you to draw the shape easily. Go ahead and create a half heart shape with the Pen Tool. Now go to Object > Transform > Reflect and apply a Copy with the settings shown below. Now line up the inner edge of both half heart shapes, then in the Pathfinder palette click on Merge, which gives us a final heart shape.

Now scale the heart shape down and place it as shown. Also, work on spacing out each letter of the text until it looks right to you. I wanted the entire text to appear as one, but I spaced each word out just a bit to increase legibility. It still reads as one word though. Now copy and paste the final logo as a Smart Object into Photoshop.

Step 7 – Starting to Add Style To Our Design

We’ll continue to work our way down from top to bottom, but keep in mind that as you’re designing you may bounce around more to various areas of the design, and experiment with different looks and styles, which is great and feel free to do that.

Within the “header” section, select the background, then apply the layer styles shown below. This gives the top of the body area a small highlight and a subtle shadow is cast on the header area, which pushes it back a bit.

Now apply the styles shown below to our logo. For the gradient overlay the gradient goes from gray (#c0c4c9) to light gray (#e3e5e7).

Step 8 – Adding Style to Our Primary Navigation

First we’ll work on the non-active primary link background styles, which means all except for the “Apps” link. Apply the styles shown below and use colors that look right to you. Note: I got lot’s of inspiration from the Meta Lab site for this part of the design. I love the work done by this company, check out their folio while you’re there.

It’s always important to imagine where the light source is in your design. We’re applying some subtle lighting effects, which will give this design a modern feel, though we still need to keep the light source in mind.

Imagine that there is a light source coming from the top of the page shooting straight down, which is giving us the light direction for many of the styles we’ll be adding. Of course you can imagine more than one light source, and you can deviate from this somewhat, but keeping the light primary light source in mind will help to make the styles you apply make sense and work together visually.

Now apply the styles shown below to the “Apps” link background, which is our active link and will make it look like it is pressed down.

Now apply the following Bevel and Emboss style to the text within the primary navigation to make it stand out a bit. The effect on the text is subtle, but noticeable.

Step 9 – Applying Style to Our Secondary Navigation

First of all let’s add our iPhone app icons. For the main Aurora icon, use the same aurora illustration as used in the promotional area. Drag the vector mask that is applied as a gray square currently, onto a scaled down version of the aurora illustration, refer to Step 2 on how to do that. Now let’s add some style here. Add the following layer styles to the icon.

Apply the same styles to the outer icon background as we did to the “Apps” background button in Step 7. Control-click on the layer thumbnail of the “Apps” button background and select Copy Layer Styles. Then select the outer background, Control-click its layer thumbnail and choose Paste Layer Style, as shown below.

Step 10 – Applying Style to Our Secondary Navigation Continued

Now we’re going to add some style to our other application icons. These are just place holders to show the client where other icons would go. So I want to give them a similar look as the Aurora icon, but not make them stand out much. So, let’s start by filling them with a pattern. First we’ll make the pattern.

Open a 4px by 4px new document set up for the web. Grab the Pencil Tool, set the brush size to 1px and paint four rectangles as shown below. The darkest rectangle is #05020a and the lightest is #251440 this color. Hit Command + A to select All, then go to Edit > Define Pattern and name it “Purple Rain.” Yes I did where a shirt with this pattern on it in the eighties back in grade school.

Select the first placeholder icon. Notice how it is a shape layer currently. We need to rasterize that. So go to Layer > Rasterize > Fill Content, which keeps our vector mask in place, but rasterizes the fill. Notice the result is a rasterized layer with a vector mask applied to it – quick and simple. Go through and do this for each placeholder icon.

Grab the Paint Bucket Tool (G), and in the top-left corner choose Pattern from the drop down, make sure our “Purple Rain” pattern is selected, then click once on each placeholder icon to apply the pattern. Now Control-click on the Aurora icon thumbnail and copy the layer style, then paste it onto each placeholder application icon. Also, adjust the spacing of the application names to make room for the styles.

Let’s also adjust our default app store placeholder button over on the right of this section. A simple way to make this button blend in better to our design is to change the background color. Go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation and apply the settings shown below, or those of your choice.

Step 11 – Applying Style to Our Promotional Area

Let’s start with the background and buttons. First we’ll apply style to our large background area. Select the aurora illustration and apply the following layer styles. This gives us a highlight at the top and a stroke around the area.

Now apply the same styles to the top-right price area background, but also add the styles shown below. The colors used for the purple gradient overlay are sampled from the aurora graphic. The colors of the gradient go from purple (#68448f) to darker purple (#320580) and then back to a mid purple hue (#65428c).

Apply the same layer styles to our main “Light Up Your iPhone” heading, as we did in Step 7. You can copy and paste the layer style from there. Apply the same Bevel and Emboss style to the price text and the sub heading, as we applied to the primary navigation text in Step 7. You may want to change the Opacity of the Highlight Mode or Shadow Mode for the shading though, experiment with what looks best to you. Also, select the horizontal rule, which is a 1px high shape, and change it’s color to black. Also, apply the settings shown below to it.

Step 12 – Applying Style to Our Main Call to Action Button

Now apply the following layer styles to our main call to action button. We’ve placed a drop shadow on this so that it stands out from the background more. It has a bright color, which will attract attention. It’s placement also attracts attention. The gradient overlay has similar colors to the one used for the price background, but it only has two colors applied instead, which go from purple (#68448f) to dark purple (#320580). We’ll add an arrow in just a moment to make it stand out more as well.

Now grab the Ellipse Tool (U), and use it to create a shape layer as shown below. The color doesn’t matter because the styles will overlay it anyway. Rearrange the button text to look balanced with the added element. We’ll be using this circle to place a download arrow inside shortly. Apply the following layer styles to the button (the colors in the gradient overlay go from #9cc67e to #3a4f66).

To round off our Photoshop Around the World series, we head to the Middle East and Africa – where the design skills are as hot as the weather! The artworks here represent a huge variety of styles and creative approaches. Enjoy the last leg of our trip around the world!

1. Anthony Dart

Representing: Johannesburg, South Africa

“Ontwerp is a multi-disciplinary Design & Animation studio based in Johannesburg South Africa, founded by Designer / Director Anthony Dart. Ontwerp’s philosophy places design at the forefront. Design is the emphasis. We perceive design as problem solving, we are obsessive with craft and detail, We believe in the formidable communication of imagesand type and their inherent narrative ability. Our interests extend toArt Direction, Motion Graphics, 2D & 3D Animation, Sound Design, Graphic Design for Print and Screen.”

• Website

2. One Horse Town

 

Representing: Cape Town, South Africa

The creative illustration work and great color schemes are what really caught my eye when checking out One Horse Towns portfolio of work. It is no doubt that this retro look and feel is one that brings them a lot of business. But, they are not limited to only that style. If you check out some of their illustration work, you will find a wide variety of work.

• Website

3. Brandt Botes

Representing: Cape Town, South Africa

Brandt Botes really is an artist without a style. While many of the samples below might lead you to think that he is limited to just a basic illustrator type style, you would be wrong. His portfolio is filled with a wide variety of styles and types of works. Everything from rough sketch style illustration to simply complex patterns can be seen in his portfolio.

• Website

4. Bison

Representing: Cape Town, South Africa

“Bison is the work of Linsey Levendall and Daniel Orme who form a creative studio based in Cape Town, South Africa. They service big to small businesses, musicians, the
arts and culture sector and ad agencies with a range of skills including illustration, graphic design, branding and art direction.

Bison holds the belief that experimentation is the key to discovery and thus find ways around the tried and tested approach producing a fresh and unexpected
result.

• Website

5. Ryan Atkinson

Representing: Johannesburg, South Africa

“Im a young south african designer who loves good design. I love typography, print design, photography, motion graphics and illustration. My icons include, Non-Format, Build (Micheal C. Place), Massimo Vignelli, Jospeh Muller-Brockman, Wim Crouwel, David Carson (Interestingly different I know, but I have my reasons). I am interested in furthering myself and my skills as often as possible, so give me a shout if you think a piece of work is not cool, and you have some ideas why ”

• Website

6. Islam Zayed

Representing: Cairo, Egypt

While Islam Zayed has some really nice typography work in his portfolio, I was more impressed with some of his graphic design work and photo manipulation stuff. There are also of course, his works that combine the two for a truly outstanding finished piece, some of which is very Desktopgrahy-esque.

• Website

7. Mohamad Moftah

Representing: Cairo, Egypt

“Mohamad Moftah is an Egyptian born painter, graphic designer and illustrator based in Cairo, Egypt. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Helwan University in the summer of 2008 with honors. Since then he has been working in advertising and design.

Mohamad has focused primarily on painting and design, working with diverse local and international clients like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s,  producing logos, corporate identities, brochures, TV ads, print ads and most other forms of print.”

• Website

8. International Nomads

 

Representing: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

“We like to describe ourselves as a Collective, an internationally present collective of professionals & creatives from around the globe, and this team of fine individuals is called International Nomads.

International Nomads specializes in Marketing & Digital Advertising. We provide a full suite of integrated marketing and advertising services, broken into 3 main areas of work; Consultation, Creative, and Production services”

• Website

9. JayDz

Representing: Dammam, Saudi Arabia

“My name’s Jay, a Graphic Designer from the Mid-East.. My Passion is My Art.. and My Inspiration’s My Fiance..
I design, I screw up, then I do good.. its how I do it lol … my Senses are my tutorial tools… I observe and learn new techniques by analyzing others’ graphics!
o to all great Designers and Illustrators out there…. Keep posting your great work! =D

Addin’ me/ Applaudin’ or Criticizin’ my Work… Sharin’ ‘em thoughts with me.. iS What Builds Me =)”

• Website

10. Younes Badi

Representing: Rabat, Morocco

“I am Younes Badi. I am a young graphic designer from Rabat in Morroco. Here is my graphic design portfolio from school. I am actually studying graphic design at a local design university. I hope you enjoy looking at some of my artwork and designs.”

• Website

11. Younes ze

Representing: Algiers, Algeria

Younes Ze is one of the younger artists on this list. According to the artist profile, they are only about 21. Whats cool about their profile, is that they have done a nice job at taking rather popular trends and turning them into a more unique style. This combination of mixing popular trends with a unique style is how new trends are born.

• Website

12. Clement de Bruin

Representing: Cape Town, South Africa

As I was checking out Clement de Bruins blog, I noticed that his most recent post was of a blank figure he painted. Anyone who has the skills to do those well gets props in my book. Toys aside, it is Clement de Bruins illustrative work that really stands out. From what i can see, it has really progressed over the years and Im sure it will only get better.

• Website

13. Disturbance

Representing: Durban, South Africa

“Disturbance is a graphic design studio based in Durban, South Africa and one of the continent’s leading design practices. disturbance’s work has been recognised both locally (Loeries awards) and internationally(D&AD, ADC, One Show, Comm Arts, Society of Illustrators).

Over the last decade disturbance has variously won awards for their clients, published a ‘zine, released a music CD, designed and operated a restaurant, a gallery and a design store and launched (and collapsed) the much hyped design brand, “Home Industries”.”

• Website

14. Karen Mc Dade

Representing: Johannesburg, South Africa

“I specialise in designing online and print media from conception to completion. I have a passion for photo-manipulation and will often stay up late at night experimenting with new techniques. I’m especially partial to the surreal and fantasy-esque style and my art has a general tenancy in this direction.

I conduct the majority of my work via the internet as many of my clients reside internationally. I have designed for companies from the United Kingdom, to South Africa to the USA. Clients include the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, National Geographic, and Pegasus Spiele, among others.”

• Website

15. MissYucki

Representing: Johannesburg, South Africa

“MissYucki is an art and design project conceived by Kat Cameron and Alba Poretti. Inspired by the frenzy of down town Johannesburg, we have created a character named Missyucki and employing a range of mediums we create scenes and themes from her mythology as well as curiosities and novelties inspired by her way of life.”

• Website

16. Sam Moshaver

Representing: Tehran, Iran

There are no shortage of, for lack of a better term, gothic type artists out there. But few really have the creativity to take their work to a state of originality. Sam is not one of those few. He is one of the ones who can create dark images to stir emotions without being over saturated with dark cliches and stereotypes. On top f that, he can also use these design skills to create work that is a little more public friendly for ads, websites, etc.

• Website

17. Ahmed Othman

Representing: Egypt

“I’m Ahmed Othman from EGYPT, I was born in 1987 in Mansoura city. I got interested in drawing when I was young so I decided to learn about Art and that’s when I joined the faculty of Art education and this is helped me greatly to improve my talent in graphic design.”

• Website

Continue Learning…

The first time I tried a Wacom tablet is only comparable with the day I discovered Photoshop, bought my first laptop, tested an Apple computer or I met my girlfriend for the first time – geek joke, honey. But, why are Wacom tablets so special? In this post we’ll review the advantages of these tablets.

Choosing the Correct Tablet

1. In my opinion, it must be a Wacom tablet.
2. The most relevant technical specification is pressure sensitivity. The more, the better.
3. Smaller tablets are better, cheaper, easier to fit into your desktop, and they work just like the bigger ones. I would only choose the big model if you’re going to use it for CAD.
4. Think about the use you’ll give to your tablet. If you want if for painting, coloring and photo manipulation, it will be 100% useful. For drawing, only Cintiq models are really good, and for designing, you need no more than a mouse.
5. There are second hand markets or brand new old models. They are really worth checking.

Amateur Tablets (80-200USD)

If you’re not a professional designer or illustrator, but you’d like to go deeper into design without investing much money, the perfect choice is the Bamboo, available in 3 sizes with the same technical settings.

Professional Tablets (200-800USD)

If you’re a professional or want to be one, you have a tight budget but you want good quality, then I would go for Intuos models. Intuos 4 has 2048 pressure levels, and even Intuos 2 and 3 with 1024 pressure levels are perfect and easy to find on Ebay, brand new or second hand.

Tablets for Rockstar Designers (1000-2000USD)

If you’re already a set up professional and you want to increase your productivity, then you need the crown jewel, the Cintiq series. These are not tablets, but rather pressure sensitive monitors. You can draw directly on the screen.

My Experience

My first pen tablet was an Intuos 2 I bought 6 years ago, when I still was a Psychology student and I was starting to color in Photoshop. I had some doubt about purchasing it because I didn’t have any resources, but my girlfriend convinced me to buy it on a whim, without knowing that she was driving me to take the first step to professionalism. Its design was terrible, it looked like a cardboard box with a very cheap pen, but it worked really well. Even after 6 years of use it still works perfectly, just like the first day.

With my tablet I increased my productivity, and as a result, my quality. What used to take me endless sessions of work in the past, now I could do it in a few hours.

I bought my second tablet about 3 years ago. It was an Intuos 3. The main difference was the incorporation of the Express Keys, and I’ve never considered them useful enough to replace the keyboard. To be honest, I bought it because these tablets were really beautiful, specially if we compare them with previous versions, although functionality was still the same.

My last acquisition is a precious Wacom Cintiq 21UX. From the moment I bought it, I forgot about pencil and papers and now I make my sketches directly in Photoshop. I must say that I haven’t noticed a meaningful advance in coloring, but it’s much better when it comes to drawing, an unresolved matter for tablets.

Now, I use my Intuos 3 only when I travel, and I find it very difficult. Moral: Don’t try the Cintiq if you can’t afford it.

In the video below, you can watch my Cintiq at work.

Here is another example of me coloring with a tablet.

And here you can compare Cintiq and Intuos series, the task is drawing lines at once while joining the points:

My next acquisition will be an Intuos 4 A6. We’ll see if those extra pressure levels really make a difference.

Reasons To Choose a Wacom Tablet

1. No Batteries

Wacoms uses an electromagnetic resonance technology, no batteries are needed. Plus, there’s a notable saving in maintenance, and we can avoid many issues since the pen is lighter and more comfortable to use. No wires, of course.

2. Best Value for Money

There are cheaper options, but not better. If we compare the technical specifications, we’ll find that, at the same price, Wacom models offer similar or better performance. If you have a look to any comparison of pen tablets, you’ll always find Wacom in the first position.

3. Support

Wacom has a forum where the company employees or any other user will answer to your questions. Plus, their web is translated up to 15 languages, and there you can download drivers for any of their products.

4. Variety

Wacom offers a wide range of products at very affordable prices, from the Bamboo, which starts at less than 100USD, to the Cintiq series, that reach 2000USD in some high-end models (IVA not included).

5.- Acknowledgement

Wacom has been a regular winner in the Red Dot Awards for many years. The Red Dot Awards are similar to the "Oscars," only for industrial design.

Continue Learning…

We’ve got some awesome tuts from across the net for learning and improving your Gradient Mesh skills with. It’s a great tool to work with to achieve vector realism. It takes a little practice to get the feel for working with it, but it’s worth the effort.

We’ve released quite a few tutorials for learning and mastering the Gradient Mesh Tool. There are lots of dedicated tuts on this tool on Vectortuts+ and across the web listed here. Also check out some inspirational links at the end of this post as well. And now it’s time to get our vector realism on!

How to Create a Yellow Submarine Icon with Gradient Meshes – Vector Plus Tutorial

If you want to learn how to use gradient mesh, pattern brushes and other advanced Illustrator tools to create a shiny submarine, then we have an awesome tutorial for you. This is one of the best Plus tutorials we have on the site. If you’re a member, then it’s a must see.

Illustrate a Pair of Sweet Gradient Mesh Cherries

Learn how to create a pair of cherries solely with the Gradient Mesh tool. If you’re not familiar with the Gradient Mesh tool, then this is a great tutorial to learn how to start using it. You can create artwork with a semi-realistic to very realistic look with that tool. It can take effort to master, but it’s worth your time.

Gradient Mesh Bell Pepper Tutorial

This is an awesome Gradient Mesh tutorial with stunning realistic results. This downloadable PDF offers encouragement for the beginner and detailed advice that those looking to master the Gradient Mesh tool will find useful.

Create realistic illustrations using Illustrator’s Gradient Mesh

This tutorial teaches you how to create a Brussels Chicory illustration from a reference photo using the Gradient Mesh Tool. Veerle covers all the details of using this tool to create this shiny vegetable in all it’s vector glory.

Gradient Mesh Tutorial of Thumbdrive

This is one of those tutorials found of DeviantArt, which is formatted as one big image. There are loads of detailed instructions on using the Gradient Mesh Tool to create a technical device.

How to Create an Energy Saving Bulb in Illustrator

In this tutorial you’ll learn how to create an energy saving bulb with the help of the Illustrator’s Mesh Tool. At the beginning it could be quiet hard to work with this tool, but if you get used to it, it’s fairly simple. Jump into this tutorial to get some advanced practice.

Mastering Mesh by Creating a Vector Fish

In this tutorial you’ll learn how to create numerous shapes using the Gradient Mesh Tool to color them uniquely. You’ll then merge these shapes into one whole fish illustration. This is a straight-forward and quality process to follow.

How to Create a Mesh Flower in Illustrator

Utilize Illustrator CS4 to create a flower with Illustrator’s mesh tools and opacity masks. With these tools you have a high-degree of control and can create realistic looking illustrations.

Gradient Mesh Portrait Tutorial

If you want to take your Gradient Mesh skills to the rockstar or ninja level, then this is the tutorial for you. Ever wanted to create plush photo-realistic vector illustrations? If so, this is the tutorial for you!

How to Create a Radial Mesh in Illustrator and Make a Vector CD

Ever wonder about creating Radial Mesh in Illustrator? Yes, now you can and it will reveal more possibilities to you in Illustrator. In the first part of this tutorial you’ll learn how to create a Radial Mesh in Illustrator (without using any 3rd party plugin), and in second part we’ll create a Vector CD using that radial mesh method. So let’s do it!

Illustrator Tutorial: Realistic Curtain

This is a relatively simple Gradient Mesh Tool tutorial with high quality results. Creating interesting backgrounds and fabrics are both good topics to practice and build your meshing skills with.

How to Create Vector Clouds with the Gradient Mesh Tool

Create impressionistic, infinitely-scalable vector clouds with the Gradient Mesh tool. It’s easy to start, but it takes a lot of time to master. There are several ways of approaching the Gradient Mesh – this one may be new to you.

Using Illustrator’s Mesh Tool as Nature Intended

Learn how to transform a flat vector leaf into a golden Gradient Mesh leaf. Follow practical and detailed steps to transform natural imagery and add a level of three dimensionality and color blending with the Gradient Mesh Tool.

Adobe Illustrator CS, CS4: Gradient Mesh Tool, Gradients & Blends

Kevin Hulsey is a master technical illustrator. He has a quick primer here to get you started with the Gradient Mesh Tool, as well as some high end inspiration to expand on what you think is possible with illustrator.

Tips for Working with the Gradient Mesh Tool In Illustrator

One of the most amazing and confounding tools in Adobe Illustrator is probably the Gradient Mesh tool. Working with this feature allows the user to divide almost any shape into a mesh. Each intersection of two lines (horizontal/vertical) can be colored with a solid color. This tutorial takes a different format than some of our other tuts, and will help you work with the Mesh tool better.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you some tips that will improve your Mesh work. We’ll also show you a proper workflow to get outstanding results with this tool. We’ll take a close look at creating a layer within the detailed file of a meshed boot. Also, you can download the source file of this tutorial for free: Vector Army Shoe Freebie.

Creating a Leaf with the Mesh Tool

“In this exercise, you’re going to create a leaf using the Mesh tool. I must first warn you that this exercise isn’t for the faint of heart. The Mesh tool is one of Illustrator’s most powerful tools-along with that power comes complexity.” While the Gradient Mesh Tool is powerful and difficult to master, this is a good introductory tutorial to get stared with.

Illustrator Tutorial: Master the Gradient Mesh Tool

This is a tutorial for the intermediate to advanced Gradient Mesh artists. The details covered in this tutorial will help transform your skills to the professional level. Learn how to create meshes along curves, control meshes to make gradient flow smoothly between color transitions, and more precise instruction. You’ll learn to create a super detailed dinosaur and loads of tips along the way!

Create a Yummy Ice Cream Icon with Mesh Objects and Blends

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a fun icon made up of mesh object and blends. This is a fairly easy tutorial, although you should be familiar with the mesh tool as we’ll be using it extensively. This is good practice for your meshing skills.

Magical Butterfly – Gradient Mesh Tutorial

This is written for beginners to understand, though it may be challenging for someone new to the Gradient Mesh tool to jump in here and make drapes. If you’ve worked with the Gradient Mesh tool a couple times to create basic shapes, then you’ll want to tackle this tutorial next.

Make an Aurora Borealis Design in Illustrator

To recreate the light patterns of the Aurora Borealis you’d probably turn to Photoshop’s filters and effects. Use Illustrator however, and you’ll not only achieve a stunning end result, but you’ll also benefit from the flexibility of working with vectors. This is an intermediate level tutorial rewarding you with an attractive desktop wallpaper for your efforts! With the skills learned form this tutorial you’ll be able to use the gradient mesh tool for backgrounds in addition to skies.

Make a Shiny Gum Ball Machine with Mesh Gradients

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a gum ball machine with mesh gradients. We’ll create the base, the glass casing, the money slot, and the opening where the bubble gum balls come out. This is an advanced tutorial and the pace is fairly quick. Intermediated Illustrator knowledge is required.

Vector Sun Glasses Video Tutorial Series

This video series is broken down into six segments. It’s relatively easy to digest, but this is a complex image of sunglasses and will take some practice to recreate something similar. It’s interesting to see how this artist goes about creating fast and loose with this tool.

New PLUS Tutorial – Create Some Delicious Mesh Tomatoes

We have another great Vector Plus tutorial exclusively available to members today. If you want to take your Illustrator Meshing skills to the next level, then we have a a comprehensive tutorial for you. It details how to use the Gradient Mesh tool to create juicy tomatoes! Every detail of creating this illustration is covered!

Continue Learning…

Retro Futurism is the term used to describe artwork depicting a view of the future, from the eyes of the past. The artwork itself also has the appearance of something old and vintage, basically blending both past and future into one style of artwork that blows your mind! Digital artists are creating their own modern interpretations of the retro futurism style, often taking inspiration from the game covers of retro consoles such as the Atari or Commodore. Check out this collection of some amazing examples of contemporary takes on the retro futuristic style, and continue on to a bunch of handy tutorials giving tips on how to create a stunning design of your own.

Hannibal Chew

Sakke Sioni

Pablo Alfieri

Joao Oliveira

James White

Nicolas Alexander

Alex Beltechi

Peter Nudo

Pinar Demirdag

Click for more designs…

Photoshop CS4 has a new Panel named Adjustments, based on the Adjustment Layers of previous versions. These adjustments can be used for non-destructive editing, can be masked to edit only a part of an image, it can be applied to several layers on a single document and even you can change the Adjustment Layer’s Blending Mode to create outstanding results. This time we’ll take a tour around this wonderful new feature.

Adjustments Panel

Photoshop CS4 introduces a new Panel to make our lives easier. Adjustments is a quick and accurate way to edit any picture or image by simply clicking on one of the Adjustment options shown on it.

You will be able to edit the colors, saturation, levels, channels, mix colors, add gradients and whatnot from a single interface. You’ll be able to easily change the adjustment settings, hide/show a specific adjustment layer, quickly add clipping masks in order to apply an Adjustment to a single layer or several layers depending on your needs, and much more. This tutorial is a reference guide for any user level, and helps you to better understand this fantastic tool.

First of all, lets see what we are talking about. Open Photoshop and check the Workspace selector at the top-right of the window. You’ll see several options, where you can add your very own. A quick way to show the Adjustment tools is by selecting the option Essentials. Another way is just going to Window > Adjustments, either way is fine. You’ll see the Adjustment panel then, in the panels area, at the right side of the workspace.

Clipping Masks – Apply an Adjustment to Only One or to Many Layers

The Adjustment Panel shows two main areas, the first one with three rows of several filter layers, and a second one with several presets for the Adjustment Layers. At the bottom-right there’s a button that is used to enable/disable a clipping mask in order to apply the Adjustment only to one layer, or apply it to several layers below when the clipping mask is disabled.

Adjustments Panel Overview

Once you select any of the Adjustments, you’ll see the Settings options on the panel, you can enlarge the panel if that works better for you. Besides you can easily toggle the visibility of the Adjustment, reset the default settings or even discard the Adjustment Layer.

To add another Adjustment layer click on the arrow at the bottom left of the panel, that will take you to the list, if you want to go back to the current Adjustment Click on the arrow pointing backwards. Well, that’s enough with the panel itself, let’s try the power of the Adjustment Layers.

1. Brightness and Contrast

The first in line is the Brightness and Contrast adjustment. This is one of the simplest adjustments and yet very powerful. You can add it by clicking on the Brightness and Contrast icon on the Adjustments Panel.

You can simply edit the tonal range of an image in a very smart way. See the examples below, just move the sliders to adjust your desired settings. If you check the Use Legacy box, Photoshop will only increase/decrease each pixel’s brightness value, that’s why it isn’t recommended.

2. Levels

Who doesn’t know about Levels? One of the most used Adjustments in Photoshop. You will be able to easily adjust the color and tonal range by dragging three sliders: one for the dark tones, another for the midtones (gamma) and the last for the highlights.

To add a Levels Adjustment just click on the Levels icon in the Adjustments Panel and edit the settings as you wish. You can always go back to the Default values as shown in image 2.1 below. Or even customize your desired settings by dragging the sliders, 2.2 shows a dark enhancement dragging the dark slider to the right and 2.3 shows how to highlight the image by dragging the white slider to the left. 2.4 and 2.5 show how to increase/decrease the levels of Black and White.

At 2.6 you can see several presets of the Levels adjustment, you can choose any of them and modify it later, 2.7 shows an example of Increase Contrast. Finally you can edit the levels of each channel (Red, Blue, Green) separately, 2.8 shows a dark enhancement of the Red Channel. Besides, you can always click on the Auto button for an automatic correction.

Eyedropper on Adjustment Layers – How to Use It

In both Levels and Curves adjustments there are three little eyedroppers. They are pretty useful to neutralize some colors in the histogram, by electing any of them and clicking anywhere on your image you’ll be setting a black, gray or white point respectively to auto adjust the colors.

In the images below you can see how the black point is set by clicking on a dark gray area of the image (a), since the clicked zone isn’t 100% black the image turns a little bit darker. Then by setting the gray point I’m clicking somewhere over a window (b) that will neutralize the window color for midtones, as the window is a little bit blue, Photoshop will neutralize the blue tone on the entire image making it more red/yellow/orange. Finally, by setting the white point somewhere over a highlighted wall (c), the image turns a little bit brighter. Is a good practice to start with the neutral gray eyedropper.

3. Curves

Curves adjustments is a must-know filter for any Photoshop user. It basically lets you adjust points throughout the tonal range of an image (from shadows to highlights) you can adjust as many point as you want (with Levels you can only adjust three).

To add a Curves adjustment, just click on the icon on the adjustment panel. The first thing you’ll see is a line, because the tonal range is represented as a straight diagonal baseline, as shown in the image 3.1 below. The horizontal axis represents the input levels and the vertical the output levels.

Then you’ll need to add some points to the curve and play with them (3.2). As shows the image 3.3 below you can select only one of the color Channels by choosing it form the select list above the curves graphic. When you’re editing a single channel the points above the baseline increase the intensity of the color, and the points below the baseline make the color a little bit gray, or less intense.

Besides you can easily use the eyedroppers to set the black, gray and white points respectively (images 3.4 to 3.6) this process will modify the baseline for each color. Anyway you can always click the Auto button to make your job easier but less accurate.

4. Exposure

The fourth filter on the list is Exposure, add it by clicking over the icon on the Adjustments Panel. This is a pretty simple filter actually, basically it allows you to adjust the exposure levels by adjusting three sliders, Exposure, Offset and Gamma (4.1).

Exposure will adjust the highlights of the image without effecting the dark shadows. Offset will adjust the midtones and Gamma will adjust the dark tones without modify the highlights. This filter is pretty useful when you’re editing or even creating HDR pictures.

5. Vibrance

The Vibrance Adjustment is an easy way to edit the color saturation. Add it by clicking on the Vibrance icon on the Adjustment Panel. This adjustment increases the saturation of less-saturated colors more than the colors that are already saturated. This filter is really useful when you’re editing skin colors.

6. Hue / Saturation

Another must-know Adjustment, Hue/Saturation lets you adjust the hue, saturation, and lightness of a specific range of colors in an image or simultaneously adjust all the colors on it. Add it by clicking on the Hue/Saturation icon on the Adjustments Panel.

To adjust all the colors at the same time select Master on the color list and then move any of the three sliders. The Hue slider changes the color itself (6.2). The Saturation slider modifies the amount of the color, less saturated color means a more gray image (6.3, 6.4). The Lightness slider adjusts the amount of black/white of the image (6.5, 6.6).

The image 6.8 below shows the colors list, which means that you can edit only one color channel and adjust the hue/saturation/lightness values only for that channel (6.8). Finally there’s a check box named Colorize, check it if you want to colorize a grayscale image. For full color images I recommend the Photo Filter Adjustment, that we’ll see shortly.

Hue/Saturation Eyedroppers

You’ll notice there are three eyedroppers below the sliders in the Hue/Saturation panel. To make them work you must select a color channel first, the Yellow channel in the following example. Use the first eyedropper (a) to select a base color range, e.g. somewhere over the sand, then play with the sliders. Following select the next eyedropper to Add a color range to the editable range (b).

Finally, you’ll notice in the following example that the girl’s skin tone became almost red because of the adjustments. In order to fix it select the last eyedropper to delete or remove a color from the editable range of the face skin tone on the example. The final result is at the bottom of the image below (d). Useful isn’t it?

7. Color Balance

The seventh on the list is the Color Balance adjustment. Add this filter by clicking on its icon in the Adjustment Panel. This adjustment changes the overall mixture of colors in an image for generalized color correction. It basically adds something like a tint over the Shadows, Midtones and Highlights of the image.

By default the filter shows the Midtone colors’ mix in 0 (See image 7.1 below) you can move the sliders to paint the midtones. I painted the midtones a little bit yellow (7.2). Do the same with the Shadows and Highlights, as shown in the images 7.3 and 7.4 of the example. I’ve painted the shadows red and the highlights a little bit blue.

8. Black & White

Maybe one of my favorites, the Black & White adjustment allows you to create quick and beautiful grayscale images. Add this filter by clicking on the B/W icon on the Adjustments Panel. This filter allows you to maintain full control over how individual colors are converted.

Select the Default mode to create an automatic black and white image, or chose one of the many presets. Click on the auto Button to automate the adjustment. Besides you can mark the Tint checkbox and colorize the grayscale image.

9. Photo Filter

This Adjustment is just like if you put a color filter in front of the camera lens. Add it by clicking on the Photo filter icon in the Adjustment Panel. The are are several presets based on standards (see 9.1 below), increase/decrease the filter’s density to adjust the color intensity. Image 9.2 shows a warming filter by using an orange tone, and 9.3 shows a cooling filter by using a blue tone. You can easily customize a color filter by selecting the color radio button and selecting a color from Photoshop’s color picker.

10. Channel Mixer

This Adjustment makes it easy to create high quality tinted or grayscale images. Add it by clicking the Channel Mixer icon in the Adjustments Panel. On the Adjustment Panel, select an Output channel as shown in the image 10.1 below. You’ll see the slider associated to the selected channel is 100%, then you can modify the color values by using the sliders (see 10.2).

You can work with other channels as well, for example on the image 10.3 the Blue channel is selected. There’s a color enhancement over the image’s blue areas (like the sky), as shows images 10.4 and 10.6 below. You can click over the Monochrome checkbox to edit the channels in grayscale mode. This is very useful to create advanced grayscale images, or apply a custom tint to an output channel or choose any of the several grayscale presets (10.5).

Click here for full Tutorial…

Cute isn’t limited to one style or genre – there’s no limit to the characters one can create. There have been quite a few Adobe Illustrator tutorials released on Vectortuts+ and across the web that will help you advance your skills in creating cute, vector character designs. We’ve assembled them here for you to reference and practice.

These tutorials cover a range of techniques, tips, workflows, and are targeted at beginners all the way to professionals looking for refined results. If you’ve ever wanted to take your Illustrator character design skills to the next level, then bookmark this article in Delicious, Favorite it in Twitter, or give it some Cow Bell, because it’s one you’ll want to come back to.

Character Illustration

This tutorial walks us through a freelance project for a creative agency. This is a character design for Fanta soda to use in their Halloween promotion. The resulting character has a hint of evil, but overall is quite cute. A professional and complete workflow is detailed.

Create a Twitter Style Bird Mascot

Using some basic shapes, effects, and gradients Rype shows you how to create a Twitter mascot for your blog or website. Twitter is a popular free web service for social networking and micro-blogging. You can follow Vectips (Ryan Putnam), Sean Hodge (me), or Collis Ta’eed (Envato CEO) on Twitter as well!

How to Turn a Sketch into a Fat Cat Vector Illustration

This tutorial aims to guide you from sketchbook to screen; a “Fat Cat” doodled with biro translated into a neat vector caricature. Intermediate knowledge of Adobe Illustrator is advised. Let’s take a look at how to create a cheeky cat illustration – from initial concept through to vector goodness.

Creating Vector Characters in Illustrator

This tutorial is loaded with character design tips. It walks through the essential steps, from before you even pick up a pen and paper to working your design up as a vector image. It shows you, among other things, how to add detail to your vector characters and how to keep them just simple enough.

Digital Manga Illustration

Manga is Japanese form of art creation. Part of it’s style is cute characters and a popular source of inspiration to many creatives. This tutorial walks through the process of creating a Manga group of characters from sketch, and into Illustrator and Photoshop.

Creating Convincing Characters

Illustrator Alexis West shows how to create characters with personality, distinctive looks, and integrate them into a scene that helps bring out the characters emotions. This tut starts with a pencil and ends up in Illustrator with loads of tips along the way. A complete workflow is covered.

How to Draw a Cartoon Duck , Character illustration

This is a simple tutorial, that starts and ends in Illustrator. You’ll learn how to use simple shapes to create a cute bath duck. Then you’ll color it, add some fun bubbles, and shade it.

Tutorial: Twitterlove Bird, from sketch to vector in Photoshop and Illustrator

This tutorial details how to create a cute cartoon style Twitter bird. The linework is created first with pencil, cleaned up and adjustments made in Photoshop, then Illustrator used to create the final character.

Illustrator Tutorial – Create a Gang of Vector Ninjas

This is a tutorial from Chris Spooner that is an awesome starting point for creating cute characters that are super-fun in Illustrator. In the tutorial you’ll construct a group of vector ninja characters using just the basic shapes and a variety of simple tools.

How to Create a Cute Bunny Vector Character

This Illustrator tutorial covers how to create a cute bunny character. This tutorial uses simple shapes and gradients that are easy to apply to other character illustrations. The great thing about his tutorial is you don’t have to be an amazing artist to create it!

How to Create a Cute, 3D, Vector Robot – Vector Plus Tutorial

This tutorial shows how to use simple shapes in Illustrator to create a cute, rounded robot. It reviews how to apply various shading techniques to give your vector illustration a 3D style. The tutorial reviews working from sketch to the final illustration, and covers all the techniques used to make this character.

Create a Character Mascot with Adobe Illustrator CS4

This intermediate Illustrator tutorial shows you how to create a vector character mascot from a sketch in Adobe Illustrator CS4. Happy Mascots are becoming increasingly popular in web design. You can create these cute characters to help brand your next web project.

Create a Happy Tree Illustration with Bubblefriends – Vector Plus Tutorial

If you want to learn how to craft unique character illustrations in Illustrator, then we have an awesome tutorial for you. In this tutorial, Bubblefriends takes us through the process of using a sketch, Illustrator’s tools, and some artistic ingenuity to make this cute, super-happy illustration.

How to Create a Vector Illustration and Prepare it for Micro-Stock Sale

This tutorial shows how to create a professional vector illustration of a cute boy at the crossroads. It details a professional workflow for creating illustrations in Illustrator and prepping the artwork for stock sites. Oksancia also includes a bunch of time-saving tools and tips. This is a thorough, information-packed tutorial.

How to Illustrate a Cute Emo Kid

Among other styles, Designious creates fun cartoon style characters. In this tutorial, they take you through the process of drawing these type of cuties. The concept is based on the Emo trend and the tutorial covers all the steps from sketch to full color vector. Illustrator CS3, pen, paper, scanner, and Wacom tablet will be needed to complete the tutorial.

Create a Super Happy Octopus Character

In Illustrator it’s really easy to create fun characters with some simple shapes and the Pathfinder Panel. In the following tutorial, Rype explains how to create a Happy Octopus Character. You can use these techniques and elements to create whatever character you want!

See more designs…

Since its very beginning, Photoshop is the best tool for photo editing and this time I’ll take you through a few of short tutorials with some very basic yet practical techniques about using Photoshop with your pictures. Won’t take you more than 10 minutes each! Want to try?

Create a quick Panoramic Picture with Photoshop

Take a look at the image we’ll be creating. Want access to the full PSD files and downloadable copies of every tutorial, including this one? Join Psd Plus for just $9/month. You can view the final image preview below.

Step 1 – Before Getting Started

Creating a panoramic picture is about taking several pictures and merging them in Photoshop. You can use the automatic Photoshop merging tool, or do it by hand using the Clone Stamp Tool. As any automate process isn’t 100% accurate, we’ll combine both techniques here.

Obviously, the first step is take the shots, but when you’re taking a panoramic photo, it isn’t as simple as just pressing the shooter. For this picture I’ve got the help of my friend Alvaro Gumucio aka Gumo who took the shots with his Nikon d700 especially for Psdtuts+. He said: “I traveled around 3 hours to find a suitable place, with both tripod and camera in hand. I climbed a small hill and set the tripod in the right place to start shooting.”

For this kind of pictures you need a clean view, without obstacles like trees, wires, or any other natural object.

Step 2 – Set Up and Align the Camera

You’ll need a stand alone tripod to put the camera in. If you don’t have a tripod, use any static object like a box, table, etc. with a horizontal surface to rotate your camera. Try to level your tripod as best as you can, aligning it with the horizon, otherwise the outcome may result with a little angle distortion (as we’ll see shortly). Once you’ve got everything set up, start taking the pictures.

Step 3 – Take the Shots

There’re several things to care about taking panoramic pictures, you can see further information over the web, click here to read a very complete article about the subject.

Anyway you can start taking the shots. Rotate the camera a few degrees between shots. In this tutorial the photographer took 7 pictures rotating the camera around 20 degrees between each shot from right to left; that means a 140 degrees panorama. Trust your photographic instincts to measure the angles or use some math and trigonometry to obtain an accurate final width. You can take as many shots as you want, even rotate 360 degrees. It’s always a good practice to name the pictures with some descriptive name like: “panoramic-1″ or something.

Step 4 – The Files

Now you must have a bunch of pictures, if you scramble the photos you hardly can re-order them again, that’s why you give each picture a sequential name. You can download the pictures here or a larger version in the Plus section. Those pictures are licensed using a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution – No Commercial License (View).

Step 5 – Automate Photomerge

Now the automate part of the process. Open Photoshop, and go to File > Automate > Photomerge. A new window will appear with two columns. The first one about the merging Layout, you can chose several optical modes to adjust the layout of the final result, often the best election is Auto but you can try with the others options as well.

The second column is where you’ll put the files in, you can select a group of files or a folder with your source pictures. Just Click on Browse and add all the pictures you want to merge, in this case, add all the pictures of the previous step, from 1 to 7. Once you’ve added the files ensure the Blend Images Together option is selected and then Click OK.

Step 6 – Check the Merging Result

After clicking OK in the Photomerge window, Photoshop will automatically adjust the pictures to fit a panoramic view. When the process ends you’ll have something like the image below.

Aside from the Layers palette, there will be a folder with the modified pictures inside. You’ll see the resultant panorama isn’t a straight horizontal image, that’s because we’ve failed to perfectly align the camera with the horizon (see Step 2), but it’s not the end of the world, we’ll fix this issue in the next step.

Step 7 – Fix the Angle

There are several ways to fix the angle variation, the easiest is using the Crop Tool, my favorite way is using the Lens Correction filter, but we’ll talk more about it in the next short tutorial. Meanwhile: select the Crop Tool and mark a wider portion of the picture, then Rotate the Crop just a little bit taking care to cover all the image. Finally, hit Return to commit the Crop and save your file anywhere on your computer.

Step 8 – Clone Over the Imperfections

One of the most important steps of this process is about fixing the little areas without any image on it. You can easily find them because Photomerge uses a transparent background by default, so just zoom to the borders and look for those ugly transparent areas.

Create a new layer above all the pictures and name it "Fixes" and select it. Then select the Clone Stamp Tool (S) and ensure the Sample All Layers option is selected. Once you’ve found a transparent area, grab the Clone Tool, Alt-click anywhere near it and start painting over. Remember, paint only on the "Fixes" layer.

Repeat this process as many times as needed. If you’re working with large images, you must be very careful with this step because there are many small transparent areas near the border.

Final Touches

Finally merge the folder into a new layer named "Panorama."

By now you’ve got a nice panoramic picture ready to print. If you ever printed gigantography, a really big print format like Panaflex™ or on high definition Plotter, this picture is really practical for creating huge letters, posters, banners, and more. As a final touch I’ve added some text on the right side of the panorama and set its blending mode to Soft Light.

Conclusion

And that’s it, simple right? try your own!.

Part Two – Fix the Perspective with the Lens Correction Filter

Take a look at the image we’ll be creating. Want access to the full PSD files and downloadable copies of every tutorial, including this one? Join Psd Plus for just $9/month. You can view the final result below or view a larger version here.

Step 1 – Open your picture

For this tutorial you’ll need to download this picture or any other, try to work on a picture with some kind of perspective distortion. Once you’ve opened the file, double-click on the "Background" layer to make it editable and name the layer with a creative name like "Building."

Step 2 – Open the Lens Correction Filter Window

Now, go to Filter > Distort > Lens Correction. In the Lens Correction window you’ll see a grid over the picture and several options at the right side. We’ll work with the right side values to modify the picture perspective and more.

Step 3 – Adjust the Perspective, Without Repeating Edge Pixels

Now, on this filter you can easily adjust the perspective by changing its horizontal or vertical values, the filter will automatically adjust the picture. Probably you’ll need to fill the distortion edge using one of the options shown at the bottom.

This time, we’ll Transform the Vertical Perspective form 0 to -50. This is variable and depends on the picture you’re editing. Set the Edge value to Transparency this time, that means no pixels will be added to the edge of the picture. I’m adjusting the correct distortion by eye, using the columns on the picture as a visual reference.

Step 4 – Crop

Now use the Crop Tool to select only the main picture area. You must use the Clone Stamp Tool to fix the transparent areas.

Step 5 – Adjust the Perspective of Repeating Edge Pixels

A quick way to avoid cloning is setting the Edge value to Edge Extension. Since it’s a little bit linear, the edge extension can often optimize the perspective adjustment process.

Click here to see full Tutorial…