Photoshop User - USA (2020-02)

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>^ FEBRUARY 2020

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SMART FILTERS

Shortcut #5: When adding special effects,

you’ll have to analyze the image and make these

effects match the rest of the elements in the com-

posite. In this example, the splashes in the back-

ground aren’t as sharp as the splashes we just

added, so let’s do a quick, easy, nondestructive fix

by converting the splash layers into smart objects.

This will allow you to make modifications to the

filters you apply to the layers at any time.

Go to Filter>Convert for Smart Filters, and

click OK. Now every filter you add can be

easily modified by simply double-clicking on

it in the Layers panel. Here, we applied a

Gaussian blur (Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur) with

a Radius of 1.3 pixels.

BLEND MODES

Shortcut #6: For this image, I decided to add

a little bit of fog around the boat to create mood,

so I grabbed a fog brush from my library and

painted, building the effect gradually, the same

way we did previously with the splashes.

Whenever I add an effect to an image,

I experiment with different blend modes to

see the results. If you’d like to preview the

blend modes (near the top left of the Layers

panel), click on the blending mode drop-

down menu and hover over each choice as

you move your cursor down the menu. Or,

you can use the keyboard shortcuts, Shift-+

and Shift- –, to cycle down and up the blend-

ing mode menu, respectively.

Next, I added rain to the image, using the

same techniques that we used when creating

the boat splashes. I chose a couple of different

rain brushes from my library and started paint-

ing rain gradually on separate layers. When

I liked the way it looked, I merged the lay-

ers into one, converted this layer into a smart

object, and then added a Gaussian Blur with a

Radius of 2.5 pixels.