Classes I teach

Photoshop Pizzazz!

at Eclectic Academy

Think you need fancy and expensive third party filters to add dazzling special effects to your images? I have good news! Photoshop and Photoshop Elements ship with “native filters”, but many new users aren't sure what to do with them. All you need is Photoshop or Elements (any version) and you can create fancy photo edges, 3D spheres, photo cubes or even a book, or make an image look like it is painted on a brick wall. How about giving a painting a painterly look? With these filters you will find you don't need expensive third party filters to create fantastic effects. Join me to find out how to use them to give your graphics some pizzazz!

Note: This class was formerly called Photoshop Filters. If you have taken that class, you have already taken most of this one.

Prerequisites: Students should have any version of Photoshop or Photoshop Elements installed and be familiar with basic operating system commands, and the basics of the program they plan on using for the course. You need to be familiar with working with photos, opening new images, saving images, and layers. Classes in Photoshop and Elements are both available as well. This course was written with Photoshop and there are some differences between programs, but most of the class can also be done with Elements as well.

Enrollment:

Classes are $30 for a six week session. You can click here to enroll.

Syllabus

Lesson 1:

What filters do I have and how do I access them?
Some general filter tips and tricks
Filter Discussion: Artistic and Blur Filters
Poster Edges
Cutout
Blur Filters
Making a line drawing from a Photo
Using filters to make a simple painting
Combining Artistic Filters
The Lighting Filter
Using Noice and Clouds to make textures
How to make Granite and Wood
Convincing Smoke

Lesson 2:

Filter Discussion: Brush Strokes and Distort Filters
Sprayed Strokes
Spatter
Distort
Displace Filter: Painting a flag on a rock wall
Shear: A burnt and folded dollar bill
Motion Blur
Pen and Ink Effect

Lesson 3:

Filter Discussion: Noise and Pixelate Filters
Add Noise, Despeckle, Median
Cleaning up an image with Dust and Scratches
Using noise and Mezzotint filters to create Photoshop brushes
Image frames with crystallize and pixellate
Polar Coordinates and Lighting: a floating reflective bubble---as always, with no outside filters.

Lesson 4:

Filter Discussion: Render and Sharpen filters
Making a 3D book with the 3D transform filter
How to use unsharp mask
Diffusion
Creative borders
How to place images into type
Spherize filter

Lesson 5:

Filter Discussion: Sketch and Stylize
Combining filters for a unique look
Chalk and Charcoal
Embossing for a 3D efect

Lesson 6:

Filter Discussion: Texture and Other Filters
Liquefy: where there's smoke (in lesson 1) we now add fire!
Adding textures to images
Making line art from an image
Removing the background from an image with the magic of Blend if
Seamless backgrounds using the Offset filter