Photoshop cafe Newsletter

Welcome to this edition of the newsletter. There are a lot of things going on (as usual).

First up, the contest is in full swing. We are seeing some really nice entries. Only a week left. Get your entries in now and be in to win $12,000 worth of prizes. It's free to enter, so give it a shot!

I have received a lot of enquiries about when the Flash videos will be ready on disk. I'm happy to say that they are ready now and shipping. We have also added a video on Final Cut Pro for those of you interested in learning video. Don't worry, we are still PhotoshopCAFE and our focus will remain on Photoshop. (Most Photoshop users also want to learn some other things ;))

I also have a new tutorial for you this month, I hope you enjoy it.

A lot of people were really happy about our Valantines day sale and a few people on the site heard about it. Only subscribers to this newsletter received the offer and the discount. Don't forget to look out for your exclusive discounts. This month is PSNL207 (all uppercase) Save 10% off any of our training videos

I hope you enjoy this newsletter, thanks for supporting PhotoshopCAFE and don’t forget to tell your friends to sign up for this newsletter if they want to stay on the cutting edge of Photoshop news and techniques!

Is it possible to get quality Royalty free stock photos for $3? Sure is, check out istockphoto - They also have Flash movies and Illustrator files.

Win over 12,000 worth of Prizes! PhotoshopCAFE design challenge is on.
Only 1 week left!

Design Challenge 7. Only a week to go!

It’s here! Our 7th Annual Design contest with a huge pool of prizes.
The Challenge is... PAST or FUTURE: Design a billboard! Create a billboard ad for Photoshop, in the past or future, could be caveman days, colonial, yesterday, tomorrow, 60s or future, you decide. Past and Future means that it can be yesterday or tomorrow, but leaves it open to to cool period pieces and crafty wording and usage of imagery. As you can imagine, extra kudos for creativity and wit.

Use any original artwork you desire. You may use any tools or platform you choose, but you must use Photoshop for at least 50% of the Image editing/design. Good luck, it’s free to enter and open to everyone around the world.

http://photoshopcafe.com/contests/contest-7.htm

For those of you who always wanted to create those cool little glints of light (Starbursts). Here is a step by step tutorial, that shows you exactly how to do it.

Links to download the free CS3 beta as well as tutorials and feature rundown of Photoshop CS3.
http://photoshopcafe.com/cs3/index.htm

Imagine a pile of photographs lying on top of each other—layers of photographs. As you move a photo to the top of the pile, it hides the other photos underneath it. Now imagine each photo in the stack mounted on a sheet of glass a bit larger than the photo. As you move the glass-mounted photos around, you’ll notice that even a photo that’s not on top may become visible through or around other photos above it, while other photos are still obscured. Think of each photo as being part of a separate layer, and each layer can be moved to hide or show other layers below and around it.

Now imagine that rather than photos mounted on sheets of glass, you are using images in a Photoshop document. In Photoshop, a layer is always transparent until you put something on it. Imagine we have imported three photos and placed them on three separate layers—“image data” in the form of pixels now appears on each layer. Each layer remains transparent where no image data appears, and other layers will show through.

The new Flash Videos are proving to be really popular. If you ever wanted to knock people’s socks off with Flash, this is the training for you. You will go way beyond the typical Flash stuff and jump right into the stunning projects that would take years to learn without this training, It took me 7 years to figure this stuff out and you will learn it in 9 hours, don’t worry there are 59 lessons, so you don’t have to do it all at once!

Currently we are making the training available as downloadable videos and Physical Disks.

http://photoshopcafe.com/video/products/09_flash.htm

You can save big by getting a bundle of videos. You can also take off an extra 10% with code PSNL207 See all our video budles here

I will be ramping up my speaking a bit this year, I’ll keep you posted with all the dates. Mark this one on your calendar: Pixel Conference AND vector conference in Chicago. I’ll be teaching 2 sessions on Photoshop at the Pixel Conference and 2 sessions on Flash at the Vector Conference.

Pixel Conference
The Photoshop Conference for Designers!
If you're a creative professional, you rely on pixels -- those building blocks of every Photoshop image. Isn't it time you learn how to harness the power of pixels? The Pixel Conference is about real world pixel-control: From industrial-strength tonal and color correction to preparing your images for both print and Web output.
read more about the conference

12,800 royalty free Designs inside in Vector format including a 320 page color catalog. All this for only $274

It's not that often that I mention a 3rd party product in our newsletters, but when I saw the ornament pack for myself I was very impressed with the quality. We have all seen the "clipart bumper packs" full of junk and a few useful images. This one is full of great images, they are very up to date and extremely hip. Not only that, but we have arranged for cafe members to get a special price as well as a free backgrounds pack with every order this month. Check these out for yourself

I have created a new page where you can view over an hour's worth of video tutorials for free. This is a sampling of the content from my 7 different titles produced over the years. There should be something for everyone here. Check out the free Photoshop videos

Changing the thumbnail size in layers Palette

You can adjust the size of the thumbnails in the Layers palette, making them larger so their contents are easier to see and making them smaller if you are working with a lot of layers so that they take up less space. Here’s how:

Right-click a layer thumbnail in the Layers palette.
From the drop-down menu, choose the palette size.
The Layers palette appears with different thumbnail previews

Check out my latest book. This one will teach Digital Photographers how to turn any photo into a masterpiece. Fix common problems with exposure, blur, noise, redeye etc. Take a common photo and enhance it, retouch, create borders, create actions to save time, make a web gallery, contact sheets and more. Learn the digital workflow of the pros in a beautiful full color book that's easy to understand and has tons of pictures to illustrate the text. Includes a CD Rom with all project files.

Deleting Unused Layers
You can easily delete all unused layers in one click in the Layers palette by opening the palette options menu and choosing Delete Hidden Layers. This will trim down the file size and free up your computer’s resources

For some interesting inspitation and a few random rants check out the blog

http://www.photoshopcafe.com/blog

Thanks for tuning into the CAFE Cup and remember: Create don't Steal! See you at the cafe

Deleting Unused Layers You can easily delete all unused layers in one click in the Layers palette by opening the palette options menu and choosing Delete Hidden Layers. This will trim down the file size and free up your computer’s resources

Deleting Unused Layers
You can easily delete all unused layers in one click in the Layers palette by opening the palette options menu and choosing Delete Hidden Layers. This will trim down the file size and free up your computer’s resources