Creating Repeating Patterns From Custom Shapes In Photoshop
In this third tutorial in our series on repeating patterns, learn how to create fun and interesting patterns from Photoshop’s custom shapes!
Welcome to Photoshop Essentials, where everyone can learn Photoshop! We offer fun, exclusive, step-by-step tutorials for all skill levels, and all written with beginners in mind. From Photoshop Basics to Photo Editing and Retouching, Photo Effects, Text Effects and more!
Check out our latest Photoshop tutorials below. Or download our tutorials as PDFs and get exclusive bonus content!
In this third tutorial in our series on repeating patterns, learn how to create fun and interesting patterns from Photoshop’s custom shapes!
In a previous tutorial, we covered the basics of creating and using simple repeating patterns in Photoshop. In this tutorial, learn how to add colors and gradients with Solid Color and Gradient fill layers!
Learn the basics of creating and using simple repeating patterns in Photoshop!
Dragging and dropping photos between documents has always been an essential skill in Photoshop, but is it still possible with the new tabbed document windows in Photoshop CS4 and CS5? Of course it is! This tutorial shows you how!
Before we can use Photoshop to blend photos together in creative and interesting ways, we first need to know how to move photos from one document to another. In this tutorial, we look at three easy ways that work with any version of Photoshop!
Learn how to easily make your type flow along the shape and direction of a path. For Photoshop CS5 and earlier.
Learn how to select and download photos from your digital camera or memory card to your computer using Adobe Bridge CS5 and the Photo Downloader!
Photoshop’s Free Transform command is one of its most useful features, a one-stop shop for resizing, reshaping, rotating and moving things within a document. Learn the essential skills and shortcuts for getting the most out of this powerful feature, including how to switch to other helpful transform modes without leaving Free Transform!
Tired of drawing selections in the wrong size, shape or location you needed and trying again and again until you get it right? Learn how to fix the selection you’ve already made with Photoshop’s Transform Selection command, and create a fun picture-in-picture effect while you’re at it!
If you’re using Photoshop CS3 or higher, you’ll definitely want to learn all about the Quick Selection Tool and how it lets us select objects in an image simply by painting over them!
The Magic Wand, one of the oldest and most basic selection tools in Photoshop, selects pixels in an image based on tone and color. Learn how it works and how a tool so simple can make replacing the sky in a photo quick and easy!
Make sure you’re getting the most out of Adobe’s most powerful version of Photoshop to date with a quick look through Photoshop CS5’s essential Preferences settings!
Tired of switching between Photoshop and Bridge every time you need to open a new image? Now you don’t have to! Learn how the new Mini Bridge in Photoshop CS5 lets us easily locate, preview and open photos from Bridge without ever leaving Photoshop!
Adobe Bridge CS4 may be great at managing and organizing our ever-growing collection of photos, but first, we need some photos to manage. Learn how the Photo Downloader in Bridge CS4 makes it easy to get your photos from the camera to the computer!
Digital cameras give us the freedom to snap as many photos as we like, and Adobe Bridge CS4 gives us an easy way to locate, manage and organize them! In this tutorial, we take a quick tour of Bridge CS4’s many features and options.
Learn how to dynamically control the opacity of our brush’s color and the flow of the paint with the Other Dynamics options, the last (but not least) of six Brush Dynamics categories in Photoshop’s Brushes panel!
Learn how to dynamically control the hue, saturation and brightness of your brushes as you paint, and even how to paint with both the Foreground and Background colors at once, using the Color Dynamics options, the fifth of six Brush Dynamics categories in Photoshop’s Brushes panel!
Learn how to blend and mix two different Photoshop brushes together using the Dual Brush options, the fourth of six Brush Dynamics categories in Photoshop’s Brushes panel!
Learn how to use textures to change the shape of your Photoshop brush and how to paint with patterns using Photoshop’s Texture options, the third of six Brush Dynamics categories found in Photoshop’s Brushes panel!
Learn how to dynamically scatter multiple copies of your Photoshop brushes as you paint, creating a ‘spraying’ effect, using the options found in Scattering, the second of six Brush Dynamics categories in Photoshop’s Brushes panel!
In this Photoshop Brushes tutorial, learn how to dynamically control the size, angle and roundness of your brushes as you paint using Shape Dynamics, one of six Brush Dynamics categories in Photoshop’s Brushes panel!
In this series of tutorials, learn how to dynamically control various aspects of our brushes as we paint in Photoshop, including brush size, shape, color and more using the Brush Dynamics options in the Brushes panel!
Photoshop ships with lots of great brushes for us to use, but it’s way more fun and interesting to create our own! In this tutorial, learn how to create a new brush from scratch, and how to control the behavior of the brush with dynamic brush options!
The Magnetic Lasso Tool is one of the best selection tools in Photoshop, giving us much better results than what the standard Lasso Tool offers in less time and with less effort and frustration. In fact, with a little practice, you may find yourself hopelessly attracted to it!
The Polygonal Lasso Tool, another of Photoshop’s geometry-based selection tools, allows us to easily select objects with straight, flat surfaces with just the click of a mouse!
Photoshop’s Lasso Tool is probably the easiest of the selection tools to use, allowing us to draw freehand selections around objects in a photo as if we were outlining them on paper with a pen or pencil. We’ll also learn how to fix up problem areas and dramatically improve your results!
The Rectangular Marquee Tool may be one of the easiest Photoshop selection tools to use, but it isn’t much help to us when we need to draw oval or circular selections. That’s where the Elliptical Marquee Tool comes in. In fact, the Elliptical Marquee Tool is really just the Rectangular Marquee Tool with extremely rounded corners!
Being able to select objects or areas in a photo is one of the most important Photoshop skills you need, but not all selections need to be complex or time consuming. The Rectangular Marquee Tool, one of Photoshop’s basic selection tools, is perfect for making selections based on simple geometric shapes.
There’s lots of ways to make selections in Photoshop, some simple, some advanced. But having lots of ways to do something doesn’t explain why we need to do it in the first place. In this tutorial, we’ll look at why we need to make selections in Photoshop at all, and why Photoshop doesn’t see things like we do.
Photoshop CS4 makes viewing and comparing multiple images easier than ever thanks to the new Arrange Documents feature and a bunch of new multi document layouts! Learn how to use them and even how to zoom and pan all of the images in a layout at once!
If you’ve been wishing for a better way to work with multiple images open at once in Photoshop, one that doesn’t involve endlessly dragging document windows around on the screen, check out the new Tabbed Document Windows feature in Photoshop CS4! Switching between multiple images has never been easier!
New to Photoshop or upgraded from an earlier version? Check out our quick tour of all the features in Photoshop CS4’s user interface, the most streamlined, efficient and user friendly interface so far! Learn what’s what, what’s new and where it all is, including a look at the brand new Application Bar and Application Frame!
Photoshop’s layer styles are a great way to create fun and interesting photo effects and text effects without a lot of effort, but remembering how you created an effect isn’t always easy, and recreating it can take time. Thankfully, Photoshop lets us save our layer style masterpieces and re-apply them instantly with just the click of a button!
In this seventh and final tutorial in our Photoshop Actions series, learn how to save actions as action sets and load them anytime you need them!
In this sixth tutorial in our Photoshop Actions series, learn how to record and play your very own custom actions in Photoshop!
Learn all about how to edit an action in this fifth tutorial in our Photoshop Actions series.
In this fourth tutorial in our series on Photoshop Actions, we learn how to advance through an action one step at a time to see exactly how it works!
In this third tutorial in our series on Photoshop Actions, learn all about the additional built-in action sets that ship with Photoshop!
In this tutorial on Photoshop Actions, we learn all about the default actions that are automatically loaded into the Actions panel.
Tired of doing the same things over and over again? Why not let Photoshop do them for you! Learn everything you need to know about Photoshop Actions, including what they are, how they work, how to edit and customize actions, and of course, how to record your very own actions from scratch!
If you love customizing things to suit your own style, or just want to work faster and more efficiently in Photoshop, learning how to create your own custom keyboard shortcuts is a great place to start!
Photoshop Elements has very limited support for layer masks, and officially, we can only use them with Adjustment Layers. But not only are Adjustment Layers incredibly useful, they’re also pretty easy going, and they have no problem at all sharing their layer masks with any other layer that needs them!
Learn the essential shortcuts for working quickly and efficiently with layers in Photoshop. For Photoshop CS5 and earlier.
In this second of a two-part tutorial on creating custom shapes in Photoshop, we learn how to collect and organize all the shapes we’ve created into easy-to-manage Custom Shape Sets! We also look at some best practices for how to avoid losing our shape sets if something goes wrong!
Creating our own custom shapes in Photoshop can be lots of fun. In this first of a two-part tutorial, we learn how to create a basic shape, how to add details to the shape, how to save it and use it as a custom shape, plus a whole lot more!
Still using the Lasso Tool to select everything that isn’t a rectangle, square or circle? It’s time to take your selections to a whole new level! Learn how to outline objects with paths using the Pen Tool, and then how to easily convert those paths into professional quality selections!
Learn how to sample colors from your photos in Photoshop and then save them as custom color swatches and swatch sets which you can call up and use whenever you need them!
Still permanently damaging your images with the Eraser Tool because you think layer masks are beyond your skill level? If you know the difference between black and white and can paint with a brush in Photoshop, you have all the skills you need!
If you’re upgrading to Photoshop CS3, making sure the newly renamed and reorganized Preferences are set up correctly is one of the first things you should do to make sure both you and Photoshop are working efficiently.
Need to add multiple strokes around your text? Normally Photoshop only lets us add a single Stroke effect to a layer, but in this tutorial, learn how to easily get around that problem using Smart Objects so you can add as many stroke outlines to your text as you need!