Most filters are applied to a single layer, or sometimes to a duplicate, but they cannot be re-edited without starting over… or can they?

Use the Convert for Smart Filters command in the Filter menu (CS3 and onwards), and now any effect applied will be added as a kind of editable layer style.

By double-clicking on the bottom part of the layer (containing the name of the filter) you can re-edit the filter.

Filters can be stacked up too for a multi-layered effect. Once your image is converted to a Smart Filter, new filters added are contained inside this Smart layer.

You also have a handy mask attached to the Smart Filter to remove parts of the effect from your image.

Issue 84 includes…

Achieve retro photo styles

Apply cool effects to images with our special feature.

Create sketch effects

Mix photos, filters and brushes to create stunning sketches.

Design a fantasy landscapes

Try your hand at concepting a fantasy scene made out of photos.

16-page Photoshop for Beginner’s section

Understand how Photoshop and Elements works.

Also inside…
- Boost colour with Dodge and Burn
- Create a classic comic book effect
- Add candlelight to a scene
- Go for a hyperreal HDR finish
- Add emphasis to eyes
- Use Lighting Effects
- Make a family collage
- Fix barrel distortion with Lens Correction
- Photoshop Q&A
- Quick fixes and tips

On the disc…
- 118 minutes of video
- 179 brush tips
- 20 stock photos from Fotolia
- Textures
- Vector shapes
- Fonts
- Tutorial start files

Subscribe today and save up to 30% or buy it online.

One way to quickly retouch skin is by painting with the Brush tool.

Set its Mode to Screen in the Options bar and lower Opacity to 20%. Apply the changes to a new layer and be sure to sample a colour from a light part of the model’s face.

By painting over the blemishes, shadows and wrinkles, smoothing skin is easy!

Photoshop’s clipping masks are a great way of placing objects inside other objects and can be used for all sorts of wild and wonderful things.

Our example here may not be particularly wild, but it is a wonderful way of creating eye-catching titles.

The theory is simple; you begin with some type on a document. You open up a photo, copy and paste this into the type document and then use a clipping mask to make the photo appear inside the type. The most obvious use for this technique is in titles (it works especially well in digital scrapbooks) or you could create an entire image made from text and image.

Step 1 – Make your type

Create a new document and select the Type tool from the Toolbar. Go up to the Font area and click to see the available fonts and pick one that is a bit chunky (you want to see the photo, after all!). Click on your document and type your word.

Step 2 – Photo time

Step 3 – Outline

To add more emphasis, double-click on the type layer to open the Layer Styles palette. Click the Stroke option at the bottom and then pick a colour and size. You can also return to the Background layer and use the Edit>Fill option to change the colour if you wish. We decided black would be more dramatic.

Sometimes a camera will capture images will an accidental vignette. Usually this is down to the quality of the lens, but can also appear naturally because of the lighting situation.

The Lens Correction filter under Filter>Distort contains a slider called Vignette. By pushing this to the right into the plus numbers, the edges of an image can be lightened up. This will counter any vignetting that’s not needed.

Unless you are blessed with artistic talent, chances are that the thought of making a digital drawing from scratch doesn’t appeal.

But Photoshop has a few tricks up its sleeve to make the task easier. When it comes to making a digital sketch, your new best friends will be the High Pass filter and the Threshold command. While these two are fairly innocuous on their own, when brought together they seek out the outline of a photo and then turn it into a sketch.

Here’s how it is done.

Find the edges

Open up your photo in Photoshop. If your image is lacking contrast, use Levels or Curves to do some boosting. Now go to the Filter menu, down to Other and pick High Pass.

Edit with the slider

Your image will turn a peculiar colour – do not panic! The High Pass filter is for you to seek out the edges of your image. Use the Radius slider to adjust this – the higher you go the thicker the lines will be. Go for something like 3.0.

Pencil effect

Click OK to exit the High Pass filter. Next stop is the Image menu and then Adjustments>Threshold. This will turn your image to black and white and once again, there is a slider to edit the effect. In our image, a setting of 58 worked well, and the higher the setting the more intense the effect. Click OK when you are happy.

The Lighting Effects filter is hidden inside the Render set of filters, and is actually a powerful feature of Photoshop.

The filter changes the dynamics of an image’s lighting, giving you control over the positioning, texture properties, intensity and more.

Step 1 – Duplicate Background layer

For this filter to work properly, duplicate the Background layer of the image by going to Layer>Duplicate Layer. This allows us to change the blending options for the lighting effect.

Step 2 – Load filter

To load the filter, go to the Render options in the Filter menu (Lighting Effects is the last option). The first thing to do in the Lighting Effects filter is to choose the style. There are many types of lighting effects under the Style list. Cycle through them all to get a feel for which looks best, using the preview section to see how it affects the image.

Step 3 – Set direction

For this image we went for the Crossing Down Style option. The next thing to do is set its Light Type. There are three here, but Spotlight worked best. Change the direction of the light by moving the points inside the preview section. You can spin and resize the light to best sit over your subject.

Step 4 – Intensity and Focus

Depending on the contrast of the image you’re working on, set the Intensity slider to change the brightness of the effect. Focus affects how much light is spread over the chosen area, but a maximum of 100 (Wide) looks best.

Step 5 – Material properties of light

The remaining adjustments in the Lighting Effects filter change how the light reacts with the surfaces of the subjects involved. These are most useful when rendering 2D or 3D objects that meant to look like a certain material. Hit OK apply the filter to the layer.

Step 6 – Complete the effect

To finalise the effect, the filter has blown out the highlights in the background. To bring any highlights back to normal, set the layer’s blend mode to Darken. This blend mode doesn’t boost contrast. To increase contrast, be sure to select the original background layer, and use the Brightness/Contrast adjustment.

To move a mask but not the contents of the layer, click on the small chain link symbol in between the mask and the layer’s thumbnail.

With the Move tool, the mask can be dragged and repositioned to improve composition post-application of mask.

Welcome to the new, improved Photoshop Creative website. It’s been a long time in development but we think the wait was worth it!

Redesigned from the ground up on an all-new gallery engine, Photoshop Creative 2.0 is bigger, faster and better than it’s ever been.

Just check out some of the improvements we’ve made…

Faster viewing and uploads The all-new image database has been completely redeveloped to make images and pages load and update faster.	Bigger image sizes We’ve raised the limit so that you can upload images that are a whopping 2592 x 2592 pixels in size – stunning in full-screen.
State-of-the-art image browser You’ve asked for it and you’ve got it! The Galleria browser lets you skim through images smoothly and features fantastic full screen and slideshow modes.	Full site search The new Photoshop Creative search engine searches through thousands of photos, articles and members at lightning speed.
Added social networking We now collect and display full meta data – including thumbnails for the world wide web and social networks like Facebook and Twitter. You can Like, Follow, Find and Tweet like never before!	More meta data Our image upload process now collects much more data about your images including software used, tags, genre etc.

There’s not enough space to tell you about all the new features – just try the site out for yourself. We hope you like it! But if you do spot a bug just click on the Bug Button to report it.