For most of the 1990s, the design market was shared by three programs: page-layout software QuarkXPress, image editor Adobe Photoshop, and drawing application Macromedia FreeHand. (Some shops preferred Illustrator, but FreeHand tended to be the more popular choice of page designers.) This benefited users by inspiring fierce competition between the suitors, with each doing its dead-level best to remain on...

In a world that is saturated with color, there is something about the elegant simplicity of black-and-white imagery that gets right to the heart of things. The removal of color allows our eyes and minds to focus on subtleties of shadow and shape in a way that's different from our everyday visual experience. Creating a beautiful black-and-white image can be...

A few weeks ago, Scott Kelby, editor of Photoshop User magazine, invited me to submit a 5-minute technique for his weekly NAPP TV podcast (formerly Photoshop TV). It was a tough decision: Say "yes" and become a regular adjunct on an insanely popular video podcast or say "no" because . . . frankly, I never did come up with a...

With the release of its CS3 products, Adobe has once again ever so slightly shifted its official marketing and documentation language. The newest casualty? Palettes. Palettes no longer exist. The word "palettes" has been struck from the Adobe lexicon. Those things that were palettes are now "panels." I probably shouldn't care. But after 20 years of writing, I've come to...

Sorry I couldn't stop by last week, but I was busy fearlessly leading my crackerjack team in the final throes of getting the latest edition of my book, Adobe Photoshop CS3 One-on-One, off to the printer. (An excuse or a shameless plug, you decide. Either way, good news!) This week, I reward your patience by giving you a quick look...

Just wanted y'all to know: In addition to this here HTML version of dekeBytes, there's a new video version of dekeBytes as well. One's up now, and another goes up tomorrow. The movies are short, between 3 and 5 minutes, so the learning-to-time ratio is up there in the stratosphere. And my pals at lynda.com have added zooms, which let...

This new feature in Photoshop CS3 allows you to automatically align multiple images captured from a single vantage point, even if you shot them without a tripod. For instance, let's say we have these pictures of me and my wife, Elizabeth, from the balcony of our stateroom on the Photoshop Fling cruise, a week-long Geek Cruises event held every February....

Last week, I showed you how to use Smart Filters, a new feature in Photoshop CS3, to apply non-destructive filter effects to an image. Well, just as you can use layer masks with adjustment layers, you can apply masks to your smart filter effects. I'll show you what I mean as we apply a Radial Blur effect to last...

Last week, I talked about how long I'd been waiting the arrival of Smart Filters. In this installment of dekeBytes, I'll give you a sense for how this new feature in Photoshop CS3 works by applying some detail sharpening and high-key softening to an image. Along the way, you'll learn the basics, including how to apply a Smart Filter,...

In 2002, I wrote a preview of Adobe Photoshop 7 for a popular computer magazine. Although I praised the program for its file browser, expanded Brushes palette, and healing tools, I lamented its lack of ambition in the parametric department. After four back-to-back upgrades in which Photoshop blazed new trails in non-destructive image editing, Version 7 abruptly dropped the ball...