[Photoshop] Masks & Layers - Who wears them and why.

One thing that people almost never seem to understand in Photoshop when they are first beginning is the idea of a layer mask. I will try to explain what they are and how they work in as simple of terms as I can to make the concept of them "click" in the beginner's mind.

I will apologize in advance for the really, REALLY simple example images; however, I don't have much time to make them up today and want to get to the meat of the examples!

I'm going to start this off by giving a rudimentary explanation of masks:
Imagine a piece of white paper... using a black marker, in your mind color that paper black.



Now, while still imagining the black piece of paper on the table imagine picking up another, fresh piece of white paper. Inside this white paper we are going to use scissors to cut a circle. We manage to cut a perfect circle in the white paper. It looks fantastic!



We then place the white paper on top of the black paper. Now the paper looks like a white piece of paper with a perfect black circle in the middle of it... Now, in Photoshop you could APPLY this layer mask (which would be like cutting the rest of the paper away from the black circle and throwing the white paper away).

Now, which of the pieces of paper is the mask? That's right! The white piece of paper. Why? Because it sits over the REAL picture (in this case the black colored paper) like you would sit a mask over your face to hide it.



Now imagine we took a yellow piece of paper and cut a star out of it... Not a normal star but one of those cool "POW!" "ZAP!" "BANG!" stars like from the old Batman show... So we cut this out and we place this on top of the white paper with the hole in it. Hmm, it looks like we cut it a bit too large. That's ok. It'll work out just the way we want. This is now your second layer (you already had a first layer with the black paper and the applied mask!). That's right. You've now worked with layers AND with masks... and you haven't even touched the keyboard and mouse.

Ok, so if you're into Photoshop already you'll likely be falling asleep at the wheel at all of this. It's very "high level" or "layman's terms" to what a mask and a layer both are; however, it's this really simple explanation that will give the beginning a MENTAL and VISUAL understanding of what exactly is represented in Photoshop with masks and layers.

Here is a quick animation on how it would look visually with an additional red, shaped layer:


Now that the simple explanation is done, I'll go a bit further into detail with how masks and layers work to get an end result. I apologize for not having images for this post; however, I will create a couple of images tonight and put them up to give a visual to what it is I am talking about.

If you've ever made a collage, then you've made a layered image. Photoshop works with layers much in the same manner. One layer on top of another on top of another on top of another... Where the difference is is that each layer has it's own transparency control. For example, there are two ways you can create a shape in Photohop: You can create a layer that is transparent and then create a shape onto THAT layer... Thus it is almost like putting another layer onto the collage. The alternate option is to create a solid color layer (say... like yellow) and apply a mask in the form of the shape you want to show. One is "permanent" (like cutting the star out of the paper, or creating a shape onto a transparent layer) and one is "non-permanent" (like the white paper with the hole cut in it over the black paper to make it look like a black circle). I don't use the term "temporary" for a reason... It doesn't HAVE to change, but it can. I COULD take the white paper out from the example above and turn it into a square hole and it would change the make up of the image. I COULD also do this with the other method but there would be efficiency loss in the amount of steps that would be necessary to do this.

Well, it looks like it's time to go. I'm sure you are all yelling at your computer screen saying "WHY DIDN'T YOU FINISH THE LESSON!?!" Well, the problem is, the lesson IS finished! It's really that simple. If you think of layers in Photoshop as layers of paper, it really DOES simplify the whole task and makes it really easy to understand how layers and layer masks work in Photoshop.

Questions are always answered as best as they can be and it's wonderful to see interaction with visitors so feel free to write me a note or send me a question. I promise, next lesson will be a heck of a lot more defined. :)

Take care,
B

[PC] How Do I Change the Windows Vista Power Button to Shut Down?

Just a quick and dirty update. I'll be adding a Mac tip later (within the next couple of days), so keep an eye out if you use Macs and would like to learn a fun tip! Now, onto the show:

The power button within the Start menu in Windows Vista puts it into sleep mode by default. This is great for people who leave their system plugged in all the time and basically use their laptop like a desktop. For the rest of us, this sucks. I have included below the directions to change this button to shut the system down (as expected for previous Windows' users). I usually do a bunch of images and screenshots, but today I'm doing just text. If you have questions, send them using the form or as a comment below. :) I'm always more than willing to help.

The directions I am including are assuming you know your way around Windows. If you do not (or are having a hard time following them), I'll be more than happy to post a more verbose version of this. :)

Start > Control Panel
From Category View ("Control Panel Home") > System And Maintenance
Power Options
Find the link that says "Change Power Settings" below the power option you have selected and click
Expand Power Buttons and Lid
Expand Start Menu Power Button
Change dropdown selection for both entries to Shutdown

That should do it for you. As I said, if you need more help feel free to comment or use the form!

Take care.

[Security] PCI Compliance... Securing your network or Securing your fate?

PCI compliance... What is there to say other than it sucks? Anyone who has ever wanted to accept credit cards through a merchant account has had to deal with this and feels my pain (if they are using a few specific PCI compliance venders, that is).

To qualm the PCI that ails you, here is the registry modifications that I have implemented in order to pass the newly "increased security" modifications to the PCI compliance requirements.

You can download a .txt version of the registry entries here.

Basically you have to disable all ciphers on the system but Triple DES, disable MD5 hash, PCT 1.0, and SSL2.0. The MD5 and all ciphers other than Triple DES 168/168 are the new things. The problem lies with the fact that even though last October the PCI compliance only required that you be using SSL3.0/TLS1.0, the new requirements apparently require you to not only be using SSL3.0/TLS1.0 but also have to disable the weaker ciphers supported by the protocols. By "weaker" I'm referring to anything sub-56bit. Here's the problem with that... There are also some 128bit ciphers that "trigger" this failure in PCI compliance.

So, hopefully the link above works (I've never used aDrive before, but it's free) and you'll be able to make use of it. If the link fails at some point, I guess I'll find another host for it. It's very useful.

Take care,
B

[Code] Embedding Youtube Videos Update

If you are receiving a white box with a little red "x" it's likely that the embed code you are trying to use is not fully being pasted into the blog. Below, you will find an example of the code you'd use:


[object width="425" height="344"][param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Mg3zesVdhSY&hl=en&fs=1"][/param][param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"][/param][param width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Mg3zesVdhSY&hl=en&fs=1" value="always" name="allowscriptaccess"]

Replacing the [ with <> in the above code should result in the following embedded video:


Now, inside the blog you'll see the white box with the red "x"... This is normal. It's because the html WYSIWYG editor does not render the embedded code (likley for the sake of preventing a ton of addtional bandwidth usage).

Have fun and take care!
B

[Code] Embedding Youtube Videos Into Your Webpages and Blogs

Question
"Am I allowed to post a youtube video to my blog? How do I do it? It seems like it should be really simple."

Answer
Absolutely! The process is quick and painless as Youtube has done all the work for you!

It's actually REALLY easy to post a Youtube video into your blog. If you have read my other blog (which I know the asker has), you might remember me embedding a Youtube video in order to show a video of "White Lines" from the 80s.

If you find a video that you want to include on Youtube, you will find the embedding code already provided for you (which can be customized with the little star-like icon to the right of the text field). What you will do is click into the box that contains the text next to where it says "Embed" and copy that text (either right click and choose copy or use the keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+C). This is the code to embed the video into your own page.

Once you have this code copied to your clipboard, you can create a new blog post and bring up the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get, pronounced "wiz-e-wig") editor. One of the tabs at the top right of the editor is "Compose" and the other is "Edit Html." Clicking on the "Edit Html" will show you the html markup for the blog post, where you can paste the code you have copied to your clipboard (either right click and select Paste or press Ctrl+V).

Once you see the block of code added to the html, you can then click back on the "Compose" tab and you'll see the video has been embedded into your blog. You can then edit your blog as desired and publish.

See? Quick, easy and painless. :)

Embed away and take care!
B

[Audio] Rate Got You Down?

Ever had to try and resample a piece of audio at a lower rate, but whenever you make the changes it makes your pitch and speed go WAAAAAY down? Well, never fear... Here may be the answer you were looking for.

Regardless of the audio file you are trying to open (i.e. wav, mp3, etc.) you should be able to open it in the totally free, useful sound editing tool:

Using Audacity, you can do a ton of sound editing and have none of the cost of expensive alternatives. So, yeah, this isn't a sales pitch for Audacity... So we'll get on with the show.

As an example, I'm going to resample an MP3 at 44100 Hz and resample it to 8000 Hz. Now, to most people we'd say "Why would you EVER want to lower the quality of the audio?" Well, the answer is that some hardware systems (like Cisco, Shoretel and the like) require a low-quality wav file in order to play prompts. Some of them can support 16000 Hz as well, but 8000 Hz is a pretty "bottom of the line" option that will give you ok quality while making it compatible with most systems (think hold music, ringtones, voicemail prompts, etc.). So, now the process:

Step 1 : Open File in Audacity
Upon opening up an MP3 file with Audacity, you'll find some information to the left of the audio track that looks similar to what you see to the left. This information gives you the specifics about how the file was recorded initially including that track's rate, whether it is stereo or mono, the ability to mute the channel (each part of the track is called a channel) or all of the other channels at once, and sliders to adjust both the channel's output volume in perportion to the original version and a fade slider to fade that channel to the left or right speaker channels (think surround sound... Being able to make a cricket chirp to the right of you as the character in the movie walks past a bush).

The fun thing about this information is that you can change it all up and mix and match, making the channel do your own bidding... Want to slow down the track to make a Chop'n'Screw? Easy as pie... Just click the arrow next to the file name and set the rate (Set Rate) to something lower. This will slow down the whole track, giving you that "slow jams" type feel. You can also select a part (or whole) of the track, then using the Effects>Change Speed option slow the track or portion of track down to get the effect. You can see the process of doing so over to the right.

Step 2 : Change the Project Rate

If you look to the lower left-hand corner of the track editing screen, you'll see an entry that says "Project Rate" with a number beside it. By default, it will likely be 44100 Hz as this seems to be the common MP3 rate; however, if you have changed your default rate in the preferences then this number may be different.

Changing the rate to 8000 Hz will degrade the quality of the audio SLIGHTLY; however, the resulting filesize will be pretty much a fraction of the original file size which seems to weigh heavily on whether or not these systems will actually be able to play the file (remember, compression method is important as well which we will go through, but the file size seems to have some effect on it as well).

Now that we've got that sorted out, we'll move along in the process and actually set the export compression method as well as change the stereo audio into mono.

Step 3 : Edit Export Preferences
Now, obviously we're going to be looking at things a little deeper in the future; however, for this project I'm going to assume that your system requires the u-law compression formatting as it is one of the most simple compression methods you can use (from what I have been able to determine based off of reading other people's information on the format). You can modify these settings by going to the Edit menu and choosing Preferences. Once the Preferences window is open, go to the File Format tab.

Once you get into the File Format tab (you can click on the image to the right if you need to see the image more clearly), you can modify the settings with which Audacity will save the file. This is where you will specify what compression will be used and which format to export (i.e. au, wav, etc.). In this example, we're going to select "Other." This is going to open up a File Format dialog box. Under Header, we're going to choose "WAV (Microsoft)" and "U-Law" under Encoding. Again, you can click the image to view the settings more clearly. Go ahead and click Ok on both of these windows to save the settings. This will take you back to the track editing window.

Step 4 : Split the Stereo

When you are ready to split the audio into two channels (stereo audio contains two channels, left and right, by default), you do this by clicking on the arrow beside the file name and choose "Split Stereo Track" which will do exactly that, split the stereo track into left and right channels (it will then look like over to the left there).

Now we're going to close the "Right" track because we're going to create a mono audio clip. This will leave a single channel on the track, "Left," which will then need to be changed to mono mode. Currently it's still a stereo channel, so you'd only hear sound on the left side of your headphones, speaker system, etc. You can see what the track editing window will look like if you look at the image to the right.

We're going to go ahead and change the mode from stereo to mono on the remaining channel.

Step 5 : Export the File

The last step in the whole process is to save the file and let the Audicity software get to work on the compression method, outputting a file in the correct format from the original high quality audio file. You can obviously do this through the file menu and choosing the "Export as WAV" option.

So, I hope this has helped some people out. If you used these steps (or need more defined directions), if they helped you do this or something else similar or pointed you in the right direction please feel free to leave a comment and I'll respond as soon as I get it.

Than you for taking the time to read the message and make sure to share your newfound knowledge with as many people as you can. Remember, knowledge unshared is a legacy unlived.

Take care.

[Photoshop Tips] My Most Used Tools

One of my greatest passions in life is doing graphic work in Photoshop. It has been since Photoshop 3.5 and continues to be so all the way until today. One of the things I wanted to include in my support blog is to include simple tips and tricks for Photoshop that can help the new user to get by in the program. Get a copy of Photoshop Elements with your digital camera? Well, stick around and maybe some of the tips I include could be useful for you as well. Today I will be covering some of my favorite and most used tools while in Photoshop (I use Photoshop for EVERYTHING, by the way). Many of these tools will become your favorite tools as well once you get a chance to try them out. Because I don't have a ton of time today I'll just cover the two three tools that I use daily in my Photoshop work:

The Pen Tool To me, the pen tool is the Excalibur of Photoshop. I used to be a heavy lasso user, taking pride in doing exact lines all the way down to pixel-to-pixel cuts. After years of experience I have come to the conclusion that those exact pixel-to-pixel cuts while looking good do not look as fluid as the use of the pen tool. Using the pen tool may seem a bit daunting at first; however, with a little practice you will wonder how the hell you ever got around in Photoshop without it. Trust me. It's a time saver. A couple of tips for the pen tool: a) Holding Alt while dragging across path anchors will give a soft curve to the arch you are creating. Remember, to make an arch, you must have two points. :) b) If you want something more angular, you can hold Ctrl to remove any automated curvature added to the pen path. If you make a mistake, this is a good way to "reset" the anchor point to allow you to use the previous tip to make a nice, curvy line. c) You can not only pull on anchors with the Alt key held, but also on the lines themselves which will gently create a curve on the line.

The Paint Brush I prefer to use the paintbrush in "airbrush" mode. It allows the paintbrush (which by default acts like a standard paintbrush that is "loaded" with paint) to act more like an airbrush or spray paint. The airbrush in conjunction with various other tools (and layers) can make very nice gradients and mixtures of colors that are difficult (or impossible) to create otherwise. Another thing that this tool allows you to do is to create actual digital paintings (the paintbrush tool is very customizable and could in theory be in its own feature blog... Perhaps sometime). Learn the tool... Love the tool. To me, the paintbrush went from being a bane to being a blessing (think paintbrush + gaussian blur for nice faded gradients) as I evolved in my Photoshop usage.

The Healing Brush The third tool that I use the most, and definitely my favorite of the three to use, is the healing brush. Ever wonder how a Photoshop wiz takes out all of the imperfections in someone's skin? Non-industry people call that "airbrushing" the photo... I call it "healing the photo." :) It's a very handy tool and if you do any photo manipulation/repair it is a must to learn how to use this tool. To the right, you see an example of a very quick and dirty healing brush touch-up done to a photo of a subject with advanced acne. As you can see [right side], the appearance of acne has been diminished greatly as well as the smoothness of the skin being brought in. The scarring has been removed for the most part and a couple of touch-ups have been made to the bridge and ball of the nose. I hope you have enjoyed learning a bit about a few of my favorite Photoshop tools! Take care.