1) Open any images you want to create the feather effect

2) Select the Elliptical Marquee Tool, and drag it over the area of the image where you want to create the feather effect (Fig 1)

Fig 1

3) Go to Select > Feather… in the top menu, a dialog box will pop-up. Enter value 10 and press ‘OK’ (Fig 2)

4) Go to Select > Inverse, and press the Delete key to delete the surrounding area (you may choose to press a few times), and your feather effect will be shown

Steps to Create:

1) Go to File > New… in the top menu, and create a new document of size 400px x 350px

2) By using the Type Tool, input the text – ‘DreamPlus’ as shown in Fig 1.

Fig 1

3) Duplicate the text layer by pressing Ctrl+J on your keyboard, and rename it as ‘reflection’. Rasterize the ‘reflection’ text layer by going to Layer > Rasterize > Type.

4) Go to Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical, and then use the Skew Transform Tool to re-shape the ‘reflection’ layer, as shown in Fig 2.

Fig 2

5) In the Layers Window, with the ‘Reflection’ text layer still selected, click on the mask layer icon located at the bottom of the window (Fig 3), this will create a mask over the text.

Fig 3

6) Select the Gradient Tool, and make sure you choose the Linear Gradient located in the option bar (Fig 4).

Fig 4

7) Press and hold the shift key, while you drag the gradient tool from the bottom to top on the mask layer, to achieve the reflection effect.

There are a lot of time when people save images for web, without knowing the physical file size. Thus, if the file size is too big, it will affect the download speed of the web pages. In Photoshop, there is a tool called ‘Save For Web’, it is used to optimize images for web viewing, by stripping down to their essentials. This will result in smaller file size. So, when you save a file as a GIF or JPG, you will lose the ability to edit text and have layers. You want to save your original photoshop file (.psd file), with your editable text and many layers in case you need to make a change to your graphics.

Steps to Create:

1) Open any images you want to optimize for web, and go to File > Save For Web… in the top menu.

2) You will see a pop-up dialog box as show in Fig 1, The left hand side of the panel, shows the original image, and the right hand side panel shows the preview of the image after optimization.

Fig 1

3) To select the type of file format you want to optimize to, select from the drop-down list as shown in Fig 2. The most commonly used formats for the web are either JPEG or GIF. After selecting the format, click ‘Save’ and browse to the directory you want to save the image to.

Fig 2

GIF files have an advantage over JPEG files in that they allow you to set sertain areas as transparent. This means you can create silhouette effects to place in any design of the Web page backgrounds. The transparent areas in a GOF file are completely invisible.

The three images above shows that, in the most left image is the original image, the following image shows how the background is set to tranparent ( gray and white checkered squares indicate the background is transparent). And finally the last image shows how the extracted image is place over a new orange background.

Steps to Create:

1) Open any image file you like in Photoshop

2) Select the Area to be transparent (The selection tools include Magic Wand tool and Marquee Tool) , then press the ‘delete’ button on the keyboard

3) Inverse your selection, by choosing Select > Inverse in the main menu

4) Select Edit > Cut in main menu

5) Go to File > New, and a pop-up dialog appears. Select the width and height of the image you want, as shown in the first red circle. Then Select Transparent as shown in the second red circle. Press OK to create the transparent image background, and Select Edit > Paste onto the background

6) In order to save your image as GIF, select File > Save For Web , and a pop-up dialog appears, follows the settings for GIF in the Fig 1 below, and click Save. You are done. And now, you can paste your transparent GIF in any kind of background you want.

Fig 1

The ‘Paste Into’ option in Photoshop allows you to simply place your image into a text easily. Its so easy that you won’t believe it. No cropping is involve here. Let Photoshop do all the job for you within a few seconds.

Steps to Create

1) Open up a picture of your choice

2) Create a new document. Make it 250 pixel x 125 pixel large for this example and make it transparent (Fig 1)

3) Make your foreground color black. Click on the Text tool [T] then click on the new transparent document. Make your font fairly large, and pick one of the thick ones.

Fig 1

4) Select the picture that you have open in step one by using the Rectangular marquee tool

5) Select the layer with the text, make it the active window. Then select the Magic Wand Selection tool . While you are holding down the Shift key, click on each letter. The dotted lines will appear around the text (Fig 2)

Fig 2

6) After all the letters have been selected, go under Edit and choose the ‘Paste Into’ option. Your selection will appear inside of the letters (Fig 3)

Fig 3

7) Make sure the image is saved as a GIF and that you have clicked on the transparent box. You will know if you have done this correctly by the background, it should be white and grey checkerboard, this signifies transparent. This will preserve the transparency so you can use it on any background without a white or colored box around it. However, you can still choose to save as other formats such as JPEG, its all up to your needs.

This Photoshop tool allows you to distort the look of the entire text layer, by twisting, bloating, or stretching it into a wide range of effects. There are 15 different warping effects for you to choose from.

1) Select the Horizontal type tool and start typing any word you want

2) After finish typing, in the Options bar for the Horizontal Text tool, click Warp Text button A Warp Text pop-up dialog would then appear.

3) Select the desired warp variation from Style menu in the Warp Text pop-up dialog box. You may also choose to adjust the Bend, Horizontal or Vertical sliders to determine the axis for the distortion.

4) Click OK to apply the warp effect.