Photoshop_User_-_February_2016

› ›

kelbyone

.com

051

››PHOTOSHOP TIPS

because this tool also looks at luminosity, not just color, to
make a selection. You can select more colors or increase
the Fuzziness when using Color Range, but this contami-
nates the edges of the selection. Here’s what I do: Make
the selection with Color Range, and then apply Quick Mask
(the Q key on your keyboard). Go to the Channels panel
(Window>Channels) and look for the Quick Mask chan-
nel. Click on it and open Levels (Command-L [PC: Ctrl-L]).
Drag the black and white triangles until the spots disappear,
and click OK to close the Levels dialog. When you’re done,
press Q again to get out of Quick Mask, and you now have
a cleaner selection.

Dragging Shadows
Drop Shadows are awesome and fun. You can easily apply
one by choosing the layer style at the bottom of the Layers
panel (the ƒx icon). Don’t waste your time using the Distance

and Angle controls, though. With the layer style open, you

can click-and-drag the shadow right in the document win-

dow to put it exactly where you want. Try it: It’s quite fun

dragging the interactive shadows on your image.

Reset Your Filter

When you’re in a dialog, it’s easy to get carried away with the

settings; in fact, sometimes you get so carried away that you

create a huge mess and can’t get out of it without exiting and

going back in again—system abort! There’s a better way. If

you hold down the Option (PC: Alt) key, the Cancel button

will turn into a Reset button. Click Reset for a mulligan and

try again.

Stealing Presets from Lightroom

Did you know that you can grab your presets from Light-

room and change them into Adobe Camera Raw presets

in Photoshop? Start by applying the preset to an image

in Lightroom and open it as a smart object in Photoshop

(Photo>Edit In>Open as Smart Object in Photoshop). Now,

in Photoshop, double-click the smart object thumbnail in the

Layers panel to launch Camera Raw. Go to the Presets tab,

click on the Create New Preset icon at the bottom, name

the preset, and click OK. That’s all you have to do. Done!

The cool thing is that it doesn’t matter which image you use

for the preset to hitch a ride, because you aren’t using the

image for any other purpose. ■

ALL IMAGES BY COLIN SMITH