Category Archives: Creative Cloud

Digital Painting Made Easy with The Mixer Brush Tool in Adobe Photoshop

Victoria Pavlov Studio

My favorite and primary tool in my digital painting is the Mixer Brush Tool in Adobe Photoshop CC.

I have two styles in my digital painting:
Painting for Photographers (you don’t need to have any painting experience)
Painting from Scratch (you need to have painting experience or you need to be willing to learn how to paint 🙂  )

 

For the last few days I have received many questions about my favorite technique using the Mixer Brush Tool (digital painting for photographers)

My favorite technique:
Favorite Brush: Per Stroke Brightness Variance
Preset: Custom
Load Brush after Each Stoke ( clean brush after each stroke)

brush

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Painted with Adobe Photoshop CC & wacom

Victoria Pavlov Studio

 

 

Create Black and White image in 3 steps

Photoshop Tutorial

Today I will show you how to create black & white image in 3 steps using Adjustments Layers in Adobe Photoshop CC

Open your image you want to work with
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1: Adjustments > Black and White
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Using the black slider of each to the right/left you will  modify influence of the colors  in the resulting of black & white image.

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2: Highlight t your image layer ( Layer 1 )  > Adjustments > Selective Color
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Change number of the black slider of each color ( move the slider to the left or right)

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3: Adjustments > Color Lookup >2Strip.look from the 3DLUT File ( selected by default )

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ParticleShop Plugin for Adobe Photoshop

Geisha

ParticleShop is a brush plugin for Adobe Photoshop.

I was introduced to ParticleShop the brush plugin for Adobe Photoshop at Photoshop World 2015. I liked the demo and I decided to buy and try this plugin ( You can download the trial version to try first).

First of  all I want to point  out that if you are looking for a great painting plugin this in NOT your plugin. I can’t imagine using this plugin for my type of painting. My primary and one and only application for my all digital painting work is Adobe Photoshop CC and most of the time I am using the Mixer Brush Tool. Also I am using Adobe Sketch ( Adobe mobile drawing application) as well. So if you will ask me what is the best application for a digital painting I will answer: The ONE and ONLY Adobe Photoshop CC.

I am not using any third party plugins.   As an  Adobe Creative Cloud subscriber the main and primary reason for  me to use ParticleShop plugin is that this plugin is works with the newest version of Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 and the one one license you purchase will be installed for Adobe Photoshop CC  and Adobe Lightroom as well.

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The ParticleShop plugin is a great plugin for any type of artistic retouching. It’s amazing with hair and high fashion retouching, and if you like to apply any effects to your image you’ll probably like it. Because ParticleShop is the brush plugin for Adobe Photoshop you have access to all powerful Adobe Photoshop futures, including layers and if combine the plugin with other Photoshop features you will create a very powerful image. With the ParticleShop plugin you have control over your image, you can control the brush strokes:  light, color, and angle. You can apply multiple brush(es) effects in one image. Combine, change the  color,  and opacity of the brush. You can apply brush strokes effects and return to Photoshop and apply the layer mask, duplicate the layer and continue your workflow using Adobe Photoshop. If after that you want to  return to ParticleShop you can do it at any time.

I like the plugin and will use it for sure with my design and art workflow.
I have only two complaints about the Starter Pack Options:

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1: I wish I had at least two different types of each default brushes.
You can buy additional brush packs for $29.99 each but I am not sure I will spend $29.99 for each brush pack (each plugin has 11 brushes and  so it would be 11 packs) just after I spent $49.99 for the plugin. If I would have at least two different combinations  of each brush as a Starter Pack Options I would feel much better.
2: I had trouble making some of my brushes big enough for my image ( 6016 x 4016 ) even after I made  the Brush size by Maximum = 750 ( Starter Pack Options)
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Geisha

Before

Geisha

After

 

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How to share your Creative Cloud Folder

How to  share your Creative Cloud Folder

For me it is most important to have control over sharing my assets. I am a digital artist and my primary applications are Adobe Creative Cloud Apps. No surprise that I prefer to store and share my current files I am working with using Creative Cloud. I am very happy with all options to have control over my shared assets and permissions.

1: Click > View on Web

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2: Click on a folder you want to share

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3: Share >  Send Link

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1

3: Creative Cloud created your public link you can share with anyone you want to.

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4: Type the email address of the person you want to share your link with

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5: Click on Advanced Options

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All options are enabled by default but you can choose to disable   the options.

Allow Downloads > allows to download file
Allow Comments > allows to add comments
Allow to use of Extract  > allows to extract image info and assets (available only when sharing a Photoshop (.psd) file )

P.S. To make you folder private again simply click on Remove Public Link

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