10 Great Photoshop Tips for Web Designers

One of the often overlooked aspects of web hosting is delivering compelling visual media for visitors to your site. While there are a number of options when it comes to the use of stock photography, you’ll want to put a personal touch on your site and present the visitor with content that they won’t be able to find anywhere else. To that end, you’ll need professional software to give your images a clean, natural look. Photoshop is the undisputed king of the photo editing market. The only issue with this software is that it can sometimes be tricky to figure out how to make certain edits. In this post, we’re going to take a look at 10 helpful Photoshop tutorials that can streamline the web hosting process for you.

1. Reduce camera shake

It’s a common problem: Your photographer has taken an excellent shot, but motion blur has rendered it unusable. Luckily, Photoshop can fix that. With your photo open, navigate to Filter, then Sharpen, then Shake Reduction. Photoshop will automatically find the area it deems most needing of shake reduction, but you can customize this in the advanced settings of the shake reduction dialog.

2. Content-aware moving

There will be times where you might need to reposition something in your image or maybe even duplicate a couple of buildings in a skyline. To do this, you’ll select the content-aware move tool in the toolbox and make your selection. Once you move this selection, Photoshop will actually fill in the void based on content around that area. Should you want to extend something like a building, you can select said building, change the drop-down menu to Extend from Move, and move your building upward.

3. Blurs that simulate focal length

Let’s say you want to use a photo that uses depth of focus and focal length to give it that professional feel. If you don’t have a camera that can achieve this effect, Photoshop can help you out. One of the easiest ways to do this is through the Field Blur. This works by placing pins over areas of your image that you want to focus on. Each pin can be set to certain blur settings. Once you’re done, everything in the background will be blurred to simulate depth of focus.

4. Use a fish-eye focus

If you’re doing something like developing album art, one cool way of editing an image is to give it a fish-eye look. To start, you’ll need to crop your image. Then, go to Filter, Distort, and Spherize. Then all you’ll need to do is increase the canvas size, select just the circle of what’s been given the fish-eye treatment, and delete the rest.

5. Colorize a black and white photo

There are times when your photographer will give you an excellent photo that would be perfect for your site if it weren’t for the fact that it’s in black and white. First, use the Color Balance tool and create a Color Balance adjustment layer for each color you want to make. Then you’ll adjust each slider to get the color you want. Lastly, you’ll invert the layer mask and paint the effect in with a white brush.

6. Fix blemishes

Sometimes you have a nearly perfect image to work with that’s tarnished by the slightest blemish. This is where Photoshop’s Spot Healing Brush comes in handy. This tool functions as a kind of content replacement tool. It’s ideal for things like removing pimples and small scars. After selecting the tool, you’ll want to experiment with brush size as well as the size of the selection you make to see what’s right for you.

7. Create an Instagram look

If you want to take advantage of the innovative look of Instagram photos, Photoshop has you covered. Start by cropping your image into a square. Then open up the Curves menu for the photo and adjust until you get a nice color adjustment. Make a new Curves adjustment using a soft black brush in the center of your photo. This will give you a vignette that will finish the look off nice.

8. Prototype your site

You might think Photoshop is only useful for image manipulation, but it can also help you to prototype your site before going live. For this, you’ll want to use GuideGuide. You’ll setup a simple grid where your content will go and then fill it in accordingly. This is a nifty way to move things around without having to deal with complicated code to do so.

9. Get rid of an unwanted background

Maybe you have an image that would look great on your site, but the background looks ugly. Or maybe you like the image but want it to incorporate the background you’re already using on your site. This is as simple as using the Quick Select tool and selecting what you want to keep. After you’ve done this, go into the Edit menu and invert your selection. From here, you’ll use the Eraser tool and simply remove the background that way.

10. Fix exposure levels

Even with the advanced photographic technology that we have at our disposal today, it’s still common for photos to come out either underexposed or overexposed. For this problem, you can go into Image and then Adjustments in Photoshop. Once there, you have a number of ways to fix this problem. The best way to deal with this is to adjust either the brightness or contrast.

Setting up a new site can be an arduous process, but photo design doesn’t have to add to your stress level. By employing these 10 super handy Photoshop tricks, you’ll be able to set up your site in a way that’s as professional as it is appealing to the eye. So use these tips and remember that the best way to get good creative work done is to experiment and figure out what works best for you. You’ll be sure to create an excellent website.