The ABR format relates to a Photoshop brush file. Here is a quick step by step to load this type of file into Photoshop Elements 11.

Step 1

In Photoshop Elements, go to the Edit menu and locate the option ‘Preset Manager’.

Step 2

In the Preset Manager, set the ‘Preset Type’ list to show Brushes. This will reveal all of the brushes that are currently useable with your Brush tool.

Step 3

Click on the Add button in the Preset Manager. Locate the ABR file on your PC and double-click it to load it into the Preset Manager.

Step 4

The arrangement of brush thumbnails will now alter to include this loaded set of brush (the ABR file). Hit Done in the Preset Manager to save these changes.

Step 5

Open an image or blank canvas, and locate your Brush tool (press B). Right-click to view the available brush tips for this tool, which should include the previously loaded ABR file.

Find yourself a dark area to shoot in, this can be a dark room, or even the great outdoors, to capture light

To get the best results you’ll need a tripod to keep your camera steady and a shutter release cable, or self timer in order to minimize camera shake.

Set your camera to around ISO100 and close your aperture as much as possible to prevent over-exposure.

The exposure time should be set to around 20-30 seconds, or longer if needed. Position yourself in front of the camera use either a simple flashlight, glowstick or a fibre optic light pen to write.

Download this tutorial’s start image here

Step 1

Open up this start image of the waterfall. Because the movement is only going to be applied to the water and nothing else, drag the Background layer onto the Create a New Layer button in the Layers palette. There should now be two layers, one locked and one editable.

Step 2

We need to make a selection of just the water in this image. Choose the Magic Wand tool and head to the Options bar. Set the tool’s Tolerance value to 50. Tick the Anti-alias box but make sure Contiguous is deselected.

Step 3

Now the Magic Wand tool is set up, click once over the brightest part of the water. To select more of it, hold down Shift and then click on a slightly darker part. Try to avoid selecting the rocks and don’t worry if the fainter areas of water are left out of the selection, as we can bring these back later.

Step 4

Press Q to enter Quick Mask mode to reveal the selection as a temporary mask. Areas in red are outside the selection. You may have parts such as the sky and the rocks that are still inside the selection. To remove these, press D and then select the Brush tool. Paint over these areas to add to the Quick mask.

Step 5

Press Q once more to return to the normal image mode. The selected parts should now be ready to blur. On the duplicate copy of the Background layer, add a new layer mask. This applies the selection to a mask, shown by a black and white thumbnail on the layer.

Step 6

Click on the thumbnail of the image on this layer, as we don’t want to mask the selected object. Now go to Filter>Blur>Motion Blur to open up the controls for the movement effect. Set Angle to 81, Distance to 112px and hit OK. You should now see the water areas blur in a downward motion.

Step 7

Blurring will likely need to be added to other areas. You can do this by selecting the mask’s thumbnail on its layer, and then selecting the Eraser tool. With black as the Foreground colour, brush over parts of the water to increase their blurriness. Lower brush size for more accuracy.

Fotolia’s TEN Collection Season 2 invites web users to take a trip around the world of digital creation with the greatest international artists from countries where the image bank has a base.

The first 4 works of art in the season were downloaded a staggering 110 000 times and more on their release day!

UK’s Mike Harrison, the May artist, will be unveiling his original artwork, Just A Game. It will be available for free for 24 hours in PSD format, on Friday, May 10th on www.tenbyfotolia.com.

Mike Harrison unleashes animal energy for TEN

“It’s really great to be part of the TEN project. For me, out of all the possible artists in this country, to be able to represent the UK is a huge honour. I wanted to do something based on a powerful animal, one that would allow me generate good energy and complexity. Using a bull as my main theme I wanted to create a high energy illustration loosely based on bullfighting, but adding a playful aspect to it by using certain colours and elements.” explains Mike Harrison.

His subversive and colourful composition, mixing digital and traditional arts, clearly illustrates the “sense of energy” – “Put together using Fotolia Stock images and hand drawn elements, I worked without any established order. I was constantly re-arranging everything all the time throughout the process, working out which elements worked best and where, mixing materials and de-structuring layers to obtain a homogeneous and purely graphic composition” – as well as a unique and surprising result.

A self-taught jack-of-all-trades

Based in London, Mike Harrison is a 28-year-old freelance graphic designer and illustrator. This self-taught artist discovered in himself a passion for digital art while attending a university course in new technologies.

The influences of this untypical course can be seen in his eclectic works, mixing modernity and tradition. Whether it be drawing, illustration, typography as well as 3D, photography, animated design and webdesign: Mike Harrison loves trying out new techniques and supports, in order to improve his art skills.

Meet the artist

Two videos, subtitled in 12 languages, were shot in the artist’s work space. The first one, which features his personal world, can be viewed on the TEN Collection Facebook pages from May 6th. The second one, which reveals his creative techniques, will be available on D-Day, March 10th, on YouTube and www.tenbyfotolia.com.

Read our exclusive interview with Mike Harrison in our milestone issue 100, available now from all good stores.

Adobe, at the annual MAX Conference in Los Angeles, revealed a new face for its Creative Suite, ushering in a Creative-Cloud takeover throughout the entire set of applications.

No longer will Photoshop be available in boxed format, or will it be labelled ‘CS7′ for its next release. In fact, it’s just simply now Photoshop CC, and any future updates to the software, big or small, will be available as and when through Creative Cloud membership.

Photoshop CC, availability of which has been penciled in for June, features a range of new technologies, and what looks to be mainly within the deblurring and sharpening arenas. So great for photographers and image editors alike.

Here’s a pick of the new features in Photoshop CC (source: official press release):

• A fleet of new tools introduce the most advanced deblurring and sharpening technologies to date. The new Camera Shake Reduction tool analyses and corrects for blur from camera movement to produce a better image. The all-new Smart Sharpen tool uses adaptive sharpening algorithms to minimise noise and halo effects while producing high-quality results. With intelligent upsampling users can increase the size of an image – large enough for a billboard – without pixelating the image.
• Adobe Camera Raw 8 brings three new photo-editing capabilities to Photoshop CC. The Advanced Healing brush allows photographers to “heal” or “patch” images with a brush stroke instead of a circular area. The new Radial Gradient offers powerful controls to draw attention to the focus of an image without applying a standard vignette, and the Upright tool automatically straightens horizons and applies perspective corrections without distorting the image. Camera Raw edits can also be made to any layer or file within Photoshop CC.
• For designers, improvements to rounded rectangles add the ability to adjust corner radii at any time. Users can also now select multiple paths, shapes and vectors at once, providing a faster, easier workflow for working with multiple objects.

Look out for handy Creative Cloud tips and tricks in future issues of Photoshop Creative, as well as more information about these major changes to come!

Feel free to share your opinions or thoughts about this major change with us using the space below.

To celebrate 100 issues of Photoshop Creative we’ve brought together 100 of our best-ever creative tips in a massive 14-page special Feature.

We’re also giving away £2,400 worth of prizes, including a one-year subscription to Adobe’s Creative Cloud, a luxury 24-inch Dell monitor, a digital camera, graphics tablet, G-Technology’s 1TB hard drive, and a software bundle amounting to nearly £400!

Three one-year subscriptions to Photoshop Creative are also up for grabs, as well as a pack of 5 creative bookazines!

Here’s a look at some of the exciting content from the issue, available now from Imagine Shop and GreatDigitalMags for all digital editions.

Our big 100 best-ever tips Feature kicks off the issue, covering topics including layers, digital painting, tools and workflow…

Learn to use Photoshop and create a digital masterpiece, with this issue’s grand collection of tutorials…

Enter our special competition and you could win this huge offering of prizes…

100 free stock photos on the disc! We interview Mike Harrison from Fotolia’s TEN Collection, and dip into some great artwork…

FREE GIFT! with the print edition:
To celebrate a milestone issue we’re giving away an amazing amount of Photoshop creative goods like 100 stock photos, 100 premium brushes, 100 vectors and 100 textures. Also on the free disc are 25 video tutorials! Learn our essential editing secrets and discover how to turn a lacklustre portrait into a beautiful image with our ultimate guide to retouching.

To add a bumpy texture surface to an illustration or sketch, and a real-media feel, head to the Filter Gallery in the Filter menu.

Select the Artistic category and choose the Rough Pastels filter.

Rough Pastels contains a variety of textures, including canvas and brick.

Keep Stroke Length and Detail sliders to around 4-6 and boost up Scaling under Texture.

Learn more about this style of art in its tutorial in issue 100 – on sale now from Imagine Shop and GreatDigitalMags.

You can scan in papers but it’s easy to create your own backgrounds by using texture photos and blend modes.

Filters such as Add Noise or Fibers also work well. To keep things coherent, create one background and then use Variations or Hue/Saturation adjustments to create different-coloured ones.

This artwork is from our 100 best-ever creative tips Feature in issue 100 – on sale now from Imagine Shop and GreatDigitalMags. Pick up your copy today!

Before/After

Open up the Hue/Saturation adjustment and click on the hand button. Hold Cmd (Mac)/Ctrl (Wins), then click and drag on any object.

Dragging to the left or right will change the Hue setting, and allows you to mix up and experiment with different colour combinations to see what works best. 

Find out how this creative image was made in its tutorial in issue 100 – on sale now from Imagine Shop and GreatDigitalMags.

The Load value for the Mixer Brush governs how fully the brush is loaded with paint.

At very low settings the brush quickly runs out of paint, and at higher settings the tool creates longer strokes. Vary the values of this for realistic results.