[AxwellMix]

//Need help formatting, the images are well to large so I am using spoilers as placement. Thanks! :Smile:\\

These are some Photoshop tips and tricks to help you not make beginner mistakes, these are mistakes I use to make years ago and are quite common for beginners.

Resolution and DPI
Canvas Size (Resolution)

Spoiler:

As a beginner you may not understand canvas size and because you don't know what numbers you want, you end using the default numbers, which may not match what you are wanting to do.
The first thing you want to do when entering Photoshop is to create a canvas, in which you can add images, text and everything else Photoshop has to offer on. When you do select to create a new canvas you are prompted with a box in which you can choose the size of your canvas as well a bunch of other options which as a beginner you may not be familiar with. The width and height are probably the most important as it’ll determine how big your canvas actually is, but the other options are equally important when it comes to the quality of the image being created.
It’s hard to determine what the size of your canvas will be, this will require research. Some forums, contests and requests usually list the resolution and DPI they wish to have but if they don’t then you will need to research.
The only canvas size that you can determine is when creating desktop backgrounds as this will all depend on your desktops/screens native resolution unless you are creating wallpapers for others. You can find your screen resolution on windows vista and 7 by right clicking your desktop and selecting the option screen resolution. I am unsure of how to find these on other Operation Systems but with a bit of searching you should easily find out. You can then set your canvases size in pixels to match your native screen resolution. If you are creating wallpapers for others or HD images, then you will need probably want the highest and most popular resolution so anyone can use it, this being 1920x1080p. This will be downsized and quality won’t be stretched or lost if used on a matching 16:9 aspect ratio.
Another preset is the clipboard preset in which an image you’ve copied, the size then will automatically be the size of the canvas; this is useful when you want to edit an image alone without having to resize it, etc.

DPI
DPI is an acronym for Dots per Inch. DPI is important when printing but less important when designing digital images. The default DPI for Photoshop is 72 pixels per inch, this is okay to have when creating and designing digital images but for printing photos and other pictures, then you can’t settle for 72 DPI. Most photos are printed at 300 DPI as an industry standard. As a beginner unless you are doing photography, then DPI should be ignored for now.

Colour Mode
This will require a lot of writing, will add soon! All I can say at the moment is to not default to CYMK, even for printing and with RGB do not default to 8 bit, 16 and 32 bit are a lot better!

Layers and Folders
The most frequent mistake as a Photoshop beginner is putting pastes or objects in the same layer. This is a bad habit when using Photoshop and if you ever look at work from graphic designers and other Photoshop professionals then you will see they have layers for everything. When pasting an object into Photoshop always remember to create a new layer before pasting it, this will guarantee it will be pasted onto a new layer rather than overlapping, which makes it difficult to when coming back to that object to change and edit it because it may be over lapped by another object.

The second most frequent mistake for beginners is not labelling layers and not creating folders. Unless you have OCD, then this is probably a hard habit to get into. Labelling layers make it easier to come back to as you will easily be able to locate the specific object or layer you wish to change. Folders are another good way to also make it easier to come back to and find certain layers.

Layer Masks
Layer masks are great as like layers, you can go back and edit them rather than making permanent adjustments. Layer masks are a simple but effective and important tool in Photoshop. A common mistake for beginners is to use the rubber tool to face out or delete parts of an image.

Spoiler:

To create a layer mask on an image, click the create vector mask icon located on the layers window and pointed out in the image above. You then will need to click on the vector mask before you accidently draw black all over your perfectly good image. Once in the vector mask, using a black brush will rub out the part of the image, and then using the white brush will make it come back. This allows you to come back to the image and then edit it. This is better than using a rubber tool in which in turns fully deletes the part of the image.

Another tool when using the layer mask is the ability to make images fade out in which you can use to fade images together, etc. To do this, when selecting a brush in the drop down menu show in the image show above, set the hardness to 0. The large the brushes you use, the more the image is faded, this is better than using a smaller brush as small discrepancies may occur.

Spoiler:

Do not limit yourself to Photoshop
Photoshop isn’t the best for everything; it’s quite in fact, the opposite. Try and reach out to other software such as adobe flash for animation, adobe illustrator for creating illustrations, logo’s etc. You can also import creations from other software into Photoshop for even further editing. Most adobe programs allow you to import all layers of a file created in another adobe program, you probably won’t be able to do so with other software though, unfortunately.

I will add more at a later date, tired as hell. Need Ideas for my next tutorial, I was thinking of doing a tutorial for maybe custom filters for photos as well as instagram filter effects if anyone would be interested in that.

[zomgwtfbbq]

"The second most frequent mistake for beginners is not labelling layers and not creating folders. Unless you have OCD, then this is probably a hard habit to get into."

I think the exact opposite, someone with OCD usually is a control freak. Personally I never label anything unless it's a psd with more than 10 layers, why would I label an image with 3 layers? It will only cost me more time and I can tell from the thumbnails what is what.

"Photoshop isn’t the best for everything; it’s quite in fact, the opposite. Try and reach out to other software such as adobe flash for animation, adobe illustrator for creating illustrations, logo’s etc."

This sentence doesn't make sense. PS is the best solution for editing images. Yes of course you can't send your nude pictures to your girlfriend, sniff network traffic or use it as a debugger, it's not what it's designed for. It's like telling you can't fly with your bike to the moon.

[zomgwtfbbq]

"The second most frequent mistake for beginners is not labelling layers and not creating folders. Unless you have OCD, then this is probably a hard habit to get into."

I think the exact opposite, someone with OCD usually is a control freak. Personally I never label anything unless it's a psd with more than 10 layers, why would I label an image with 3 layers? It will only cost me more time and I can tell from the thumbnails what is what.

"Photoshop isn’t the best for everything; it’s quite in fact, the opposite. Try and reach out to other software such as adobe flash for animation, adobe illustrator for creating illustrations, logo’s etc."

This sentence doesn't make sense. PS is the best solution for editing images. Yes of course you can't send your nude pictures to your girlfriend, sniff network traffic or use it as a debugger, it's not what it's designed for. It's like telling you can't fly with your bike to the moon.

[l4ur15]

Yes, I admit that Photoshop is best image editing software and it's definitely worth it. I have used it for some time but still I use GIMP. Only reason for that I use it over Photoshop that it's open source and does it's job good enough.
Although I disagree with some of things you said before - Nice post.:Smile:

[AxwellMix]

"The second most frequent mistake for beginners is not labelling layers and not creating folders. Unless you have OCD, then this is probably a hard habit to get into."

I think the exact opposite, someone with OCD usually is a control freak. Personally I never label anything unless it's a psd with more than 10 layers, why would I label an image with 3 layers? It will only cost me more time and I can tell from the thumbnails what is what.

"Photoshop isn’t the best for everything; it’s quite in fact, the opposite. Try and reach out to other software such as adobe flash for animation, adobe illustrator for creating illustrations, logo’s etc."

This sentence doesn't make sense. PS is the best solution for editing images. Yes of course you can't send your nude pictures to your girlfriend, sniff network traffic or use it as a debugger, it's not what it's designed for. It's like telling you can't fly with your bike to the moon.

Well firstly, It won't cost you time at all, labeling a layer and grouping them takes less than a second of your time. Yes, a second - such a waste of time making my file organised and secondly, if your file is only 3 layers then you obviously aren't doing something right.

The sentence also makes perfect sense. I see how you're interpreting it, and you're interpreting it completely wrong. A beginner may feel the need to use Photoshop for things that could be better created elsewhere such as using Photoshop for vectors rather than illustrator which has better all around tools for creating vectors.

No need to be nasty whilst making non constructive criticism over a subject you clearly know nothing about.
:Thumbs-Up:

[zomgwtfbbq]

"The second most frequent mistake for beginners is not labelling layers and not creating folders. Unless you have OCD, then this is probably a hard habit to get into."

I think the exact opposite, someone with OCD usually is a control freak. Personally I never label anything unless it's a psd with more than 10 layers, why would I label an image with 3 layers? It will only cost me more time and I can tell from the thumbnails what is what.

"Photoshop isn’t the best for everything; it’s quite in fact, the opposite. Try and reach out to other software such as adobe flash for animation, adobe illustrator for creating illustrations, logo’s etc."

This sentence doesn't make sense. PS is the best solution for editing images. Yes of course you can't send your nude pictures to your girlfriend, sniff network traffic or use it as a debugger, it's not what it's designed for. It's like telling you can't fly with your bike to the moon.

Well firstly, It won't cost you time at all, labeling a layer and grouping them takes less than a second of your time. Yes, a second - such a waste of time making my file organised and secondly, if your file is only 3 layers then you obviously aren't doing something right.

The sentence also makes perfect sense. I see how you're interpreting it, and you're interpreting it completely wrong. A beginner may feel the need to use Photoshop for things that could be better created elsewhere such as using Photoshop for vectors rather than illustrator which has better all around tools for creating vectors.

No need to be nasty whilst making non constructive criticism over a subject you clearly know nothing about.
:Thumbs-Up:

Labelling doesn't take less than a second of your time especially if you have multiple layers. So there's no way a psd can be only three layers? Seriously? Do you think all psd files contain loads of fancy layers, lol?

Again: "Photoshop isn’t the best for everything; it’s quite in fact, the opposite." - and then you come up with examples such as Flash? Flash is a whole different technology, that's why I brought up my examples.

"No need to be nasty whilst making non constructive criticism over a subject you clearly know nothing about."
You're right, that's probably why I have so much work designing websites, sell stuff at graphic river and won several prizes at the photoshop friday contests from .net magazine. The latter was already 5 or 6 years ago, I bet you didn't even heard of Ps back then. Oh and don't forget that I use Ps for my 3D stuff as well, creating textures, complex diffuse, specular and bump skin maps.

Look, I didn't mean to bash you, and I'll give you that there's some good info in your tutorial. I'm just saying you good have put more effort in your tutorial, it's like you don't even want to make it. For example you end with: I will add more at a later date, tired as hell. Seriously? People just want to read and learn, they don't care if you're tired that's what social media is for. I can't understand why you only put a half baked tutorial online, just proceed the next day and spell the title right...after all it takes less than a second...:Thumbs-Up:

[zomgwtfbbq]

"The second most frequent mistake for beginners is not labelling layers and not creating folders. Unless you have OCD, then this is probably a hard habit to get into."

I think the exact opposite, someone with OCD usually is a control freak. Personally I never label anything unless it's a psd with more than 10 layers, why would I label an image with 3 layers? It will only cost me more time and I can tell from the thumbnails what is what.

"Photoshop isn’t the best for everything; it’s quite in fact, the opposite. Try and reach out to other software such as adobe flash for animation, adobe illustrator for creating illustrations, logo’s etc."

This sentence doesn't make sense. PS is the best solution for editing images. Yes of course you can't send your nude pictures to your girlfriend, sniff network traffic or use it as a debugger, it's not what it's designed for. It's like telling you can't fly with your bike to the moon.

Well firstly, It won't cost you time at all, labeling a layer and grouping them takes less than a second of your time. Yes, a second - such a waste of time making my file organised and secondly, if your file is only 3 layers then you obviously aren't doing something right.

The sentence also makes perfect sense. I see how you're interpreting it, and you're interpreting it completely wrong. A beginner may feel the need to use Photoshop for things that could be better created elsewhere such as using Photoshop for vectors rather than illustrator which has better all around tools for creating vectors.

No need to be nasty whilst making non constructive criticism over a subject you clearly know nothing about.
:Thumbs-Up:

Labelling doesn't take less than a second of your time especially if you have multiple layers. So there's no way a psd can be only three layers? Seriously? Do you think all psd files contain loads of fancy layers, lol?

Again: "Photoshop isn’t the best for everything; it’s quite in fact, the opposite." - and then you come up with examples such as Flash? Flash is a whole different technology, that's why I brought up my examples.

"No need to be nasty whilst making non constructive criticism over a subject you clearly know nothing about."
You're right, that's probably why I have so much work designing websites, sell stuff at graphic river and won several prizes at the photoshop friday contests from .net magazine. The latter was already 5 or 6 years ago, I bet you didn't even heard of Ps back then. Oh and don't forget that I use Ps for my 3D stuff as well, creating textures, complex diffuse, specular and bump skin maps.

Look, I didn't mean to bash you, and I'll give you that there's some good info in your tutorial. I'm just saying you good have put more effort in your tutorial, it's like you don't even want to make it. For example you end with: I will add more at a later date, tired as hell. Seriously? People just want to read and learn, they don't care if you're tired that's what social media is for. I can't understand why you only put a half baked tutorial online, just proceed the next day and spell the title right...after all it takes less than a second...:Thumbs-Up: