Adobe Photoshop

(Things that should be obvious, and easy to do, but are not...)


General Tips
  • To deselect items, use keyboard "CTRL+D"

Drawing a Hollow Shape
  1. Select the Shape Tool (e.g, Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle,Ellipse, etc.) you want from the Toolbox (right side, vertical menu bar.)
  2. In the Options Palette at the top of the screen, select the "path" option (it's the one in the middle, with a little pen superimposed over the box).
  3. Click and drag to draw your shape.
  4. Make sure the Paths palette is showing (left side vertical box). The shape you just drew should be selected as the "Work Path".
  5. Right click menu on "Work Path" in Paths palette, click "Stroke Path..." You have the choice of outlining your path in whatever brush is active, with the single-pixel pencil, or other options.
  6. Once you have the result you like, you can delete the path to eliminate the annoying stripe down the middle of your shape.

How to Set the Background Color to Transparent

If pasting onto an existing background - delete background after pasting
From Menu; Select > Color Range - Select: Highlights - Click OK
- or -
From Menu; Select > Color Range - Select: Sampled Colors (for specific color background) - Click OK
If background layer, unlock by dragging lock icon in the layer panel to the trash can.
hit delete key.
All the white should now be transparent.

A bit more of an explaination for the above post: In order to see a transparent background, the bottom layer must be unlocked which is why it is important to drag the lock icon to the trash can. When saving the file use a format that supports transparency. PSD, TIFF, PNG are all good candidates, do not use jpg as it does not support transparency


How to Clean Up the Background from a Whiteboard Photo
  1. Open Image, Crop and straighten as necessary to get the final size/shape.
  2. Increase contrast, and reduce brightness to get strong text visibility (background will darken).
  3. Change background and foreground color to white (in color selector)
  4. Select tool from toolbar: Image > Adjustments > Replace Color.
  5. Select color to be removed with eyedropper tool, Use eyedropper tool with "+" or "-" to add or subtract color to replacement selection.
  6. Adjust "fuzziness" to optimize range selected.
  7. In "Replacement" section, adjust values until the desired image is obtained.
  8. Click OK to apply.
Magic Wand Background Replacement - Two Methods

Use the Magic Wand Tool (Window > Tools) to select area to be modified. Adjust the "Tolerance" as needed to increase or decrease selection (start with 32). This will outline the area with the "marching ants" (e.g. the text portion).

At this point, you can do two things:
  1. With the selection active, hit the Backspace key, and the selection will be replaced with the current Background color (e.g. white).
    With background still selected, to select the unmodified segment: use Select > Inverse to reverse the selection. The brightness, contrast, color, etc. can then be adjusted as needed.

    2. - Or -
  2. With the selection active, you can select tools from toolbar: Image > Adjustments > [Brightness, Contrast, Color, Hue, etc.].
    The selected are can then be adjusted independently of the rest of the image. Use "CTRL + D" to deselect the area.