When you scale layers in Photoshop that have layer styles applied to them, you’ll notice the layer styles do not scale with the layer. For example, let’s say a layer had a stroke of 15px. When the layer is scaled down using Free Transform, the stroke remains at 15px making it too thick for the smaller size.

In this tip, we’ll go over two methods for handling layer style scaling in Photoshop.

Scale Layer Styles in Photoshop

Scaling with Smart Objects

(Shown at 0:55 in video)

1. Right-click the layer with the layer styles applied to it.

2. Select Convert to Smart Object from the dropdown.

3. That’s it. Now when you scale the layer with Free Transform, the layer styles won’t be affected.

To modify layer styles of a Smart Object, simply double-click the Layer Thumbnail for the layer you want to change. This will open the document of the Smart Object in a new tab. Once here, make any changes and they will update on the original document when saved.

Using Scale Effects

(Shown at 1:44 in video)

1. Select the layer you want to scale the effects for in the Layers Panel.

2. Go to Layer > Layer Style > Scale Effects…

3. Adjust the percentage or drag the slider until you get the desired outcome. Make sure the Preview checkbox is checked. This will scale all values of the effects applied to that layer. Press OK when you’re happy with the results.

Tip: For a more precise scale of the layer styles, scale the layer down using the percentage values from Free Transform. Then, you can input that exact percentage in the Scale Effects dialog box.

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In this tip, learn how to sample colors outside of Photoshop with the Eyedropper tool.

Sample Colors Outside of Photoshop

1. Open the color picker to activate the Eyedropper tool or activate the Eyedropper tool from the Tools panel.

2. With the Eyedropper tool active, click inside Photoshop and drag outside the window to the color you want to sample. You will see the color update with the position of the Eyedropper.

3. Let go of the mouse button and your selected color will be chosen in Photoshop.

That’s it! Maybe this can help save you some time in the future.

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Here are the steps you can take to de-interlace an image in Photoshop:

Open the image in Photoshop.

Make sure the image layer is selected and go to Filter > Video > De-Interlace.

The default option usually provide great results but these can be adjusted as needed. Click OK.

There you have it! Use Gaussian Blur if necessary to help clean up rough areas.

Watch the video below if you’re interested in learning more about interlaced frame rates from our friends at Indy Mogul.

Interlaced and Progressive Frame Rates Explained!

What’s your favorite Photoshop filter? Comment below!

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Video

There are endless possibilities when it comes to colorizing a QR code. Take a look at some of the designs over at QRLicious for inspiration.

QR Code

We’ll begin by creating our QR code. I used goqr.me to generate mine. QR codes can contain anything from a little message to a link. I just linked it to the website for now. However, if you have a very long link be sure to use a link shortener such as bit.ly to simplify the code a bit.

Once complete, you may adjust the size of the code. Click on Options and change the Error Correction Code to “Q” or “H” depending on what works best with your final logo. The Error Correction Code adjust how much of the QR code can be covered with it remaining readable. Download the code to your computer.

Photoshop

Create a new document and adjust the size to fit your needs. I chose 1000 x 1000 px.

I added a radial gradient to the background, but you may leave it white or transparent depending on where you plan on placing the QR code.

Drag (or File > Place) the QR code file you’ve just downloaded into this new Photoshop document. Adjust the size and center it.

To center, simply select the QR code layer and hold Ctrl to select the background layer. With both the QR code and background layers selected, use the move tool to center everything vertically and horizontally.

We now need to Rasterize the QR code layer since it is currently a Smart Object. To do this, Right-click the QR code layer and choose Rasterize Layer. Now we can delete the white background.

Select > Color Range click the white background within the QR code.

Choose a Fuzziness of around 100. Click OK. Everything that’s white in the image will be selected. With the QR code layer selected, hit Delete. You’ll notice all of the white has been deleted. Now you can hit Ctrl + D or Cmd + D(Mac) to deselect the selection.

All that’s left to do is to stylize the QR code with Layer Styles. Double-click the QR code layer or right-click and choose Blending Options. Here you can add anything from a Bevel & Emboss to a Drop Shadow. Keep in mind that some of these changes may effect the readability of the code so keep testing it while designing.

I added a dark navy blue #031634 to light navy blue #033649 Linear Gradient. Again you can add any of the styles here as long as everything’s still readable by devices.

You can also experiment with the different Artistic filters to stylize the code a bit. And even add a design within the three squares of the code. Make sure it’s still readable!

That’s it! We’ve added some color to the QR code making it much more appealing.

Post your QR code creations in the comments section below!

The post Photoshop: Colorize QR Code appeared first on Robert's Productions | Post Production Tips.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to apply color to white eggs in Photoshop. Save big on coloring dye this Easter!

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Try It Out!

[button url=”http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/photoshopcs6.html” size=”large” variation=”red” align=”center”]Get Beta Free (Adobe.com)[/button]

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Ever think about alternate ways of selecting color in Photoshop? Could there be a tool that allows us to precisely select a certain color? Like a color wheel? You bet, it’s called, “Coolorus”. Coolorus allows you to choose colors from an easy to use color wheel. It offers different Color Schemes, Color Modes, has the ability to work with Background or Stroke colors, and claims to be faster than lightning and bug free unlike other color pickers. It’s the “Adobe extension everyone has been waiting for”. Available for Adobe Flash and Photoshop for both Mac and Windows as an extension. 

Features:

Color Modes:

Coolorus has both a full spectrum and simple color mode.

Color Schemes:

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[tab title=”Mono”][/tab]
[tab title=”Complementary”][/tab]
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[tab title=”Analogic”][/tab]
[tab title=”Accented Analogic”][/tab]
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Right now, you have the ability to try it out a couple days before v1.0 is released by the end of this week. Once v1.0 is released, there will be a very small charge for this extension, nothing more than $10 bucks. So if you’re looking for a better color wheel to use in Photoshop or Flash, give Coolorus a try! http://www.coolorus.com

Share your thoughts on this extension below!

The post Color Wheel for Photoshop appeared first on Robert's Productions | Post Production Tips.

Stare at the black X in the image below. After about 15 seconds of staring at the photo below, it’ll change to a black and white version. Don’t worry, this isn’t one of those scary photos where the monster jumps and screams at you, I promise. What do you see?

You should of seen the photo in color when it turned to black and white. Weird, huh?  Today, we’re going to take a look at creating this Negative Illusion effect in Photoshop! You’ll learn how to create a simple animation to create the .gif you see above.

We’ll start off by opening a photo in Photoshop. File > Open. Navigate to the photo you chose and open it up. 

Double click the background layer to turn it into a “real” layer. Name it what you’d like and click OK.

Next, with the layer selected, hit Ctrl-J or Cmd-J on a Mac to duplicate this layer.

We need to Invert this copied layer. To do that, go to Image > Adjustments > Invert or use the shortcut key Ctrl-I or Cmd-I on a Mac.

Lets go ahead and hide this layer by clicking the little eye() icon to the left of the layer and select your original un-inverted layer.

Next, Click the Create new fill or adjustment layer icon () and choose, “Black and White“. This should create a new Black and White adjustment layer above your original color layer making it black and white.

Now if you click the eye icon next to the inverted layer to reveal it, you’ll see the inverted image and when you click it again, you’ll see a black and white image.

You can add a little dot or X somewhere in the middle so the viewer has something to stare at. For an X, just go to the text tool and type an “X” and position it where you want it. Go to the ellipse tool in the shapes to draw out a circle for a circle.

Now, we’re ready to animate this! First, we need to open the animation window. This can be done by going to Window > Animation. Your animation window might be at the “Timeline” view and look like this.

We need to change this into “Frames” view by clicking the little icon to the bottom right of the animation window.

Your animation window should now look something like this.

With Frame 1 selected, click the Duplicate selected frame button ().

With Frame 2 selected, go ahead and turn off the Inverted layer.

The black and white image should now be showing.

Change the duration of Frame 1 to 15 seconds. You can do that by clicking the little time icon below frame 1 and choose “Other…” enter 15 seconds and Click OK. The duration can be whatever you want, anywhere from 10-20 seconds or even shorter if you’re making a quick change back and forth.

Change the duration of Frame 2 to 5 seconds by following the same method above. 5 seconds should already be listed in the menu. You can click the play button to preview your animation.

Now we need to save this as an animated .GIF file. To do this, Go up to File > Save for Web & Devices.

Here, choose GIF as your save type with 256 colors you can add Diffusion at 100% depending on what looks best. Be sure to change the Looping Options to “Forever“. Click Save and save it to your desired location.

Click the image above to enlarge it if needed.

There you have it! If you happen to create some negative illusions, feel free to share ’em on our Facebook Page! As long as you’re not color blind, this should work.

Have you ever seen these types of Illusions? Do you know of any other cool optical illusions? Share your thoughts in the comments.

The post Photoshop: Negative Illusion appeared first on Robert's Productions | Post Production Tips.

We all know, there’s no easy way of creating guides in Photoshop. Every time you need to set up guides, you need to go to View, New Guide and enter the position. You could make it a little easier on yourself by setting up a shortcut key for guides, but you’d still need to open it over and over again for each new guide. What if there was an easier way? Well, there is! GuideGuide is a free Photoshop extension that’ll make it much easier to create guides. In the GuideGuide window, you’re able to set up pixel accurate columns, rows, midpoints, and baselines based on your document or selection size. You’re able to input the position of the top/bottom/left/right margins. Set a number of columns or rows you need. Set up column/row width and even set a gutter for both the columns and rows in your document or selection.

Happy with your guides? You can save them as a set to be used later.

Need to clear all guides in a document. Easy, there’s a clear button that’ll remove ’em all! As usual, you could always hide them by hitting Ctrl-H or Cmd-H if on a Mac.

You can find a documents midpoints with a click of a button.

View screenshots of GuideGuide in action by going through the tabs below. GuideGuide can even set up guides within a selection!

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[tab title=”No Guides”][/tab]
[tab title=”GuideGuide”][/tab]

[tab title=”GuideGuide in Selection”][/tab]
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GuideGuide is a very simple Photoshop extension that’ll work in CS4 and CS5 versions. OSX Lion users running CS5 will need to install a patch for Adobe Extension Manager first. Best of all, it’s free! To view a full list of features, be sure to visit Cameron McEfee’s GuideGuide website.

Get GuideGuide

[button url=”http://www.guideguide.me/” size=”large” variation=”blue” align=”center”]Get GuideGuide[/button]

Have you had trouble adding guides in the past? Do you already use GuideGuide, what do you think about it? Share your thoughts below.

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Video

Written Tutorial

I’m going to start off by creating a new document. File > New with a name of “Mosaic Pattern” and a size of 1280 x 720 pixels. With everything else at default, click OK.

We now have our new blank document to work with. We need to set the colors we’d like to use for the Mosaic Pattern. I set my foreground color to a lighter blue, #0078ff and left the background color at white.

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With that done, I’m going to double-click the Background layer to turn it into a real layer because right now it’s locked. We can name it, “Pattern“, click OK.

Go on up to Filter > Render > Clouds. We’re left with some fairly realistic clouds if you used blue.

Not for long, now go up to Filter > Pixelate > Mosaic and set the mosaic to any cell size depending on how big you’d like the squares to be. I’ve set mine to 80 square. Click OK.

Now for the final effect. Go to Filter > Sketch > Reticulation. Here, I brought the Density and Foreground Levels down to 0. The Background Level is set to 3. You can adjust the Foreground and Background level as needed for the colors you chose until you get the effect you’re looking for. Click OK.

You should now be looking at a neat little mosaic pattern that can be used for backgrounds or even in text.

Another thing you can do to spruce it up a bit is to add some sharpness. Go to Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. Here you can adjust the settings to your liking. I’ve set mine to 100% as the Amount, Radius: 1.0 pixels and Threshold: 0.

That’s it! You’ve just created a neat looking mosaic pattern effect. This’ll work great as a background and you can even play around with the perspective and lighting to get something like this.

If you create one of these neat looking mosaic patterns, share it with us in the comments below or on our Facebook Page.

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