Sometimes a solid background just isn’t enough and you want a little variance in the background color or lighting. This tutorial will show you a pretty simple way to make that happen in Photoshop. In order to use this tutorial you need to be able to mask out any foreground material so that it will not be altered by the gradient. If you are looking for masking tutorials you can use any of the masking tutorials on this website. I also sometimes use Topaz Remask 5, which is a paid tool, but… Read More

Masking out the hair. It can strike fear and trepidation in even the most bold Photoshopper’s heart. If you’re in front of a solid background it’s easier, but what about when you’re not? What if you want to blur a populated background or make it darker so that your avatar stands out more? In this tutorial I will show you how to mask out hair (with fly-aways or wisps!) using channels with dodge and burn. As this is an intermediate-advanced level tutorial, you do need basic knowledge of Photoshop layers, tools and… Read More