Once again, let’s check my bag of fine Photoshop-related articles found on the web. For sure, most of them did not need to receive a full article here, but you will admit with me that they are worth reading.

• Paste Images on Tilted Surfaces in Photoshop
• Understanding the basics of Sharpening in Photoshop
• Create Seamless Textures with Photoshop CS4
• Agrandissez votre studio dans Photoshop
• Détourage #1 : utilisation des couches dans un cas simple

GIMP is an excellent image edition software which could (should?) attract all those who do not want to pay the full price of Photoshop, while they work with Apple, Windows or Linux. the differences are real, but the most obvious one is certainly the interface (and Adobe clearly did a nice work on it). So, why not try to prep up your GIMP to make it look like a near-clone of Photoshop?

photo credit: See-ming Lee ��明 SML

Blair Mathis decided to reduce the distance between them by the installation of several plugins on GIMP. And the result is astonishingly interesting. All the more because the process is fully documented step-by-step, which makes it little more than a longer software installation.

1. PSPI
2. Layers
3. Separate+ from Yellowmagic
4. Liquid Rescale from Wikidot (for an image rescale without deformation as in CS4)
5. Additional brushes from Blendfu
6. GIMP Animation Package
7. Enable GEGL

But if this is not enough, there are also a few hacked versions of GIMP that have been already prepared for the Photoshop lovers. The most renowned are:

• GimpShop whose interface is specially good
• GimPhoto is slightly less convincing but is based on a more recent (and more powerful) GIMP version

Once again, here is how you can (nearly) download Photoshop for free, while being well on the right side of law.

In composition, it is often considered that putting objects of interest on the key attention points helps build more powerful images. Daniel Cohen-Or and Lior Wolf at Tel-Aviv University, Israel, with colleagues at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, created a software program that automatically re-organizes photos to make them more powerful, more pleasing.

Is this to announce one of the following:

1. The picture police?
2. A new powerful feature in Photoshop CS5 and other picture edit tools?

Even before Photoshop was available, some photographers tried to improve their photos. Sometimes, it was to clean little blemishes, but it could go to quite significant upgrades: removing somebody form a group portrait (like with chairman Mao, below), putting a better body under the head of VIP, etc.

This guy is no longer welcome here!

Source: NY Times.

Photoshop is not the only photo editing tool on the market, but it is definitely a leader. Despite this, or because it has to be the best tool for so many people, it takes a very long time to start Photoshop on your computer.

On Windows, Photoshop SpeedUp is a freeware that can solve part of this issue. It gives all the tools to reduce load times for the big Adobe Photoshop tool.

Photoshop SpeedUP

photo credit: John Flinchbaugh

For all of us who would hesitate to use GIMP because of the stock of brushes they collected and use with Photoshop, I like to remind that GIMP supports the Photoshop brushes (in ABR brush file format) from version 2.4. This is limiting the risks and issues to the strict minimum.

GIMP has a default of 48 brushes; It is also possible to create and download new ones. Even better, the compatibility of GIMP with Photoshop brushes allows to install ABR format brushes which is very common on the Web. These brushes are then usable with all tools: pencil, rubber, aerograph, clone, perspective/3D clone and correction.

To be noticed too:

• AbrViewer is a small Windows program that does not need to be install and allows to export .ABR file to .PNG format (for easier viewing).
• Gimp Batch Brush Converter Script can be used to convert a Photoshop brush into a GIMP brush for those of you who may still have transfer or compatibility issues.

You know this album cover from The Police. Digital Photography School, inspired by the album cover, teaches you how to do the same effect with your own photos.

The Police - Synchronicity

→

How would you create this?

Source: Photoshop Inspiration: Police CD Label.

Of course, this comparison is simplifying a few things, but it helps to have a synthetic comparison for online editors targetting the photo amateur. The list of online photo editors contains Adobe tools (Photoshop.com), but it alos covers most of what are the best online photo editors of today.

Source: CNet.

Adobe just published a patch/upgrade to Photoshop CS4. Those who are equipped with this software program will probably be interested in visiting http://www.adobe.com/downloads/updates/ to get the upgrade in order to correct a few performance and feature bugs.

Moreover, the users of MacBook Air and recent MacBook Pro systems can use mutli-touch to rotate documents frame.But, sometimes, it turns out (!) being a nightmare if this is too sensitive. So, Adobe decided to offer a free plug-in to optionnally disable the rotation/zoom commands through muti-touch gestures.