New kind of Tutorial

[Ron]

"Welcome to the Photoshop tutorial section. Bill's expertise in PhotoShop can be seen in his incredibly in depth, but easy reading tutorials. These aren't your normal tutorials - you'll actually learn something here!"

This is the lead-in for a Tutorial site at Nebulus Designs called
"Photoshop in 21 days"

I've done a number of excellent tutorials that teach you how to achieve certain visual effects in Photoshop. A number of these effects use blurring or sharpening or color corrections as part of the process.
These techniques always work great in that specific tutorial but you never learn how these effects REALLY work and any subsequent use of these effects usually depends on trial and error and lots of frustration.
I tend to be somewhat of a perfectionist and I don't feel comfortable using trail and error. I always feel there must be some rules somewhere, and if I could only learn the rules then I'd do better. If you’d also like a little more background information on how Photoshop works check out this site.

http://nebulus.org/index.html?pg=tutorial_ps.asp

This set of tutorials was designed for Photoshop 4 & 5 but the information is applicable to all graphic programs. The subject matter is a little more advanced but it is well documented with good descriptive images and explanations. Some of the subjects cover using the Levels tool, the Blurring and Unsharpening tools, How Layers and Transparency work, How the Embossing filter works (and how to do better), Color theory and Blend Modes.

For example, in the tutorial on using the Levels tool, you learn how to tell if there is any colorcast in an image and how to accurately correct it.
“Using the Info tool on any neutral area (for example the whites of the eyes or a white border) should show all three colors numerically equal. (Full white is made up of Red = 255, Green = 255, Blue = 255)”.

Therefore if you used the Info picker on the whites of a subject’s eyes and the numbers equaled 248/248/248 great, but if the numbers equaled 248/248/236 then you have a colorcast problem and need to increase the blue content.

[DJ Dubovsky]

Ron
I liked the link and can't wait to dig in and check out the tutorials. Thanks for the information.
DJ

[Sanda]

looks very good, it's going to keep me busy for a few hours.

[Ed_L]

Me too. Thanks Ron!

Ed

[jeaniesa]

Wow! This looks great! Thanks, Ron. -Jeanie

[kathleen]

i see one i want to do right away - difference mode. great mystery to me.

thanks, Ron.

[Ron]

Theres lots to sink your teeth into at this site.

btw... The last time I tried to looked at lessons 13, 14 & 15 (about using the light filter) they seem to be dead links. I don't know why, but hopefully they'll be fixed soon.

In the mean time, if anyone would like the information, let me know and I'll email them as zip files. Make sure to mention "RetouchPro" in the header so your request doesn't get filtered out.

[Doug Nelson]

I assume you have the appropriate distribution permissions?

[john_opitz]

Nothing passes you by, Mr. Nelson.

[Ron]

You're right Doug. I never thought about that aspect and was just trying to be helpful. I guess I'll have to retract my previous offer. Anyone wanting the information will just have to wait for the site to be restored.

Ron.