Adobe, Adobe Photoshop, Creative Cloud, design

Convert to Smart Filter in Photoshop

It’s always a big plus (at least for me) if we can work non-destructively in Photoshop. What is it non-destructive editing? Non-destructive editing means that we can apply edits to our image and without permanently changing the pixels. You can always come back and make changes or remove the edits.

One of my favorite non-destructive features is the Smart Filter Layer. Converting a layer to a Smart Filter layer I can apply filters, non-destructively to my image. If I want to adjust my filter, delete or hide it, I can do it at any time (as long as all layers are not merged or flattened, and the document saved as a PSD file).

Note: Lens Blur, Flame Picture Frame, Trees, and Vanishing Point— don’t work with layers converted to Smart Filter layers.

To convert a layer to Smart Filter > Click on a layer you want to convert to a Smart Filter layer chose the menu Filter > Convert to Smart Filters (image 1)
or > Right-click on a layer > Convert to Smart Object 9 Image2)

Image 1
image 2

The layer you applied the Smart Filter or converted to a smart object looks like any other layer, but at the right lower corner of the thumbnail you can see a smart filter/smart object icon.

Now it’s time to apply a filter. I will apply the Camera Raw Filter. You can see in the image below that a Camera Raw icon was added to my layer under Smart Filters.

If you want to adjust a filter > double click on the filter’s name and you will be redirected back to the filter.

To edit a filter blending mode > double- click on Edit filter blending option

Now I can change the filter’s blending mode


Also, I can change a filter’s opacity value.

Note: you can apply multiple smart filters to the same layer. You can reorder, and duplicate smart filters.

To hide a single Smart Filter, click the eye icon next to the Smart Filter. To show the Smart Filter, click in the column again.

To hide all Smart Filters applied to a Smart Object layer, click the eye icon next to the Smart Filters line.

To show the Smart Filters, click in the column again.

Right-click on a smart filter and choose any option from the drop down menu (if needed)

P.S. Photoshop creates a Smart Filter with a filter mask already applied > White box in a smart filters raw

It’s very helpful if you wants to hide parts of the applied filter.
Double-click on a Smart Filter mask to display the Properties Panel.

To hide part of an applied Smart Filter > click on a Smart Filter’s mask icon > choose any brush and black color > paint over the area you want to hide. If you painted more than you wanted > change color of your brush to white and paint areas back.

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3D, Adobe Photoshop, Digital Art, My news of the week, Wacom

A Tablet review and new videos

Hello everyone,

Today I would like to share with you a few updates from me. 

Many artists, photographers, and designers are asking me for a recommendation on an affordable graphics tablet. The Wacom Intuos Pro is the tablet anyone would be happy to have. I’ve worked with the Wacom Intuos line for years, and they are the best tablets for graphic designers and photographers. Here is my full review. 

 Wacom Intuos Pro Orientation: from an Artist’s Perspective

Are you an Adobe Dimension user? If your answer is yes, this video is for you. In these videos I show how you can create a unique design in Adobe DImension for any occasion.

The next update is for my readers who just started their journey in Adobe Photoshop. For you, I recorded a new “How to get started with Adobe Photoshop” video. Enjoy 🙂

Lastly: Spring is here! I love Springtime. Everything is blooming, fresh colors, warmer weather, and a lot of new inspiration is everywhere. This spring flower is for you.

Adobe Mobile, Digital Art, Event, For you, My News, Uncategorized

International women’s day

Happy International Women’s Day, ladies! I wish all of you to be happy, strong, and love yourself. I love this day, and I was celebrating this day for as long as I can remember. Whether it was with greeting cards (made by myself or bought from the store), perfume, and flowers, a lot of flowers always were in the house on this day. My favorite flowers were yellow tulips. I still love them. Also, this day was associated with early spring.
Today I want to share this day with you. I have news I want to share.

In celebration of International Women’s Day, I painted Frida Kahlo. Frida represents everything that I adore and respect in women. She combined a fantastic talent and beautiful artistic soul with incredible strength. She was a brilliant painter. Frida painted what she felt. She never thought about how to “fit into society,” not in her art and not based on what society believes how a woman should look. “Feet, what do I want them for if I have wings to fly.” She was a feminist, so am I. 

I painted Frida many times. But I painted today’s portrait of Frida differently. I painted it in black and white (just like a picture of her that I saw). Look into her eyes, and you will see the beauty and the strength of her soul. 

Painted in Adobe Fresco on Apple iPad Pro using Apple pencil. 

Frida Kahlo

My other news for today, and I so proud and happy about it:
Every year I mentor two girls for one year. During the year, I will build their knowledge in digital imaging. This program is free. The only requirements are:
1: a willing to learn
2: be from immigrant or minority community
3: be from a low-income family
4: have internet access
I am doing this by myself, and I don’t have any support, so I can’t provide my students with the internet, iPad, or anything else. I hope one day I will be able to help with these requirements as well.
P.S. If any of my readers want to help with anything, please let me know.

Now drum roll, please! I want to introduce my first student for this year – Tiffany Ferguson! She is 9 years old and a very talented girl. She loves working with Adobe Fresco, Adobe Photoshop, and traditional painting. We had our first two classes, and to be honest I am impressed with her progress and willingness to learn! I will be posting our progress every month.

Image by Renee L. Ferguson

Thank you Renee L. Ferguson for the behind the scenes images she took during our classes.

Adobe, Adobe Lightroom CC, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Stock, Creative Cloud, Photography

Removing An unwanted reflection

Hello and welcome to my new Monday blog post.

In this blog post, I will show you how to combine multiple images together to create your final image.
Last week I was shooting in my studio for Adobe Stock submission. I had my simple setup for a high key session. In this blog post, I will not go deep into my setup, but if you want to learn more about my settings, please let me know using the contact form below.

When you are working with product photography, and especially with a glass or reflective object, it is important to make reflections more smooth or don’t have any reflection at all (unless it is intentional).
We have many different ways of shooting products, and every photographer has his/her own way. What I will show you today is the quickest and easiest way on a small budget.
I had two lights. One light is behind my product, and the other light right in front of it.

Main Light

Using this setting I got this result

My next step was to bring my main light (which is in front of my subject) up

This is the image I got. This image doesn’t have any reflection (including Softbox reflection).

I always shoot tethered to Adobe Lightroom Classic so now we jump from the studio to Lightroom Classic.
In Lightroom Classic, I will select the first image > right-click > Edit in > Edit in Adobe Photoshop 2021

I will do the same with the second image.

Now in Adobe Photoshop, I will place the first image on top of the second one. The image with reflection is positioned on top of the image without a reflection.

Next step: apply a layer mask to the top layer > using a soft brush with black color, paint off the reflection.

Just like this, I removed all unwanted reflections/highlights from the subject. The next step will be merging all layers and simple adjustments in a Camera Raw with a little cropping.

Finally, we are ready to submit the image to Adobe Stock (as an Editorial image since this is an obvious brand). I did it and my file was accepted!

Everyone, I hope now you will start shooting for Adobe Stock and shoot from anywhere, even from the smallest studio, kitchen, or from anywhere else.

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Photography, Uncategorized

Adding the same look to multiple images

Hello everyone. It’s Monday, so today is the day for my new blog post.
Today I want to share with you a tip that will help you in your photography workflow. You asked me, and I heard you!
Very often, we want to apply the same feeling, atmosphere to multiple images. Today I will show you one of my favorite tricks in Photoshop.
I have opened my image I would like to work with

Window > Adjustments

Click on “Create a New Color Lookup adjustment layer”

You can choose any LUT from drop down menu. My favorite is “Fall Colors. look”

After you click on it, Photoshop will add it as a separate layer with a layer mask applied already, which makes everything much easier.

I changed the blend mode for this layer to “Screen.”

My image is ready!

Now you can apply the same steps to any other image(s) you would like to have the same look. This is how easy you can apply the same atmosphere to as many images as you wish.

Introduction to digital painting on mobile with Adobe Fresco and Adobe Illustrator on iPad
Date: 02/17/2021
Time: 7 PM ET

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My news of the week, Uncategorized

Harriet Tubman

It’s Black History Month, and I would like to start this month with a portrait of the woman I admire the most. 

Harriet Tubman was born into slavery. From her childhood, she was beaten by the various slave owners. She suffered a traumatic head wound that affected her life. She had pain, dizziness all her life. Despite all of this, she escaped to Philadelphia and RETURNED to rescue her family! After that, Tubman returned many times more to rescue others. She was traveling at night and had her strategy. Tubman never lost a passenger. 

During the Civil War, she worked for the Union Army. Tubman started as a cook and nurse, and later on as an armed scout and spy. Harriet Tubman became the first woman to lead an armed expedition during the war. She guided the raid at Combahee Ferry, which liberated more than 700 enslaved people. 

Tubman is the woman who was a fighter, the woman who did not keep her head down as she was told and forced to do. She was fighting for human rights, for equality, for freedom. It was dangerous and painful, BUT she did it! She said, “I would fight for my liberty so long as my strength lasted, and if the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me.”

Harriet Tubman is my hero. She stood for the right things, and she believed in them. In so many situations, it’s not easy to do. Even when it is not easy, even when we are not sure how we can do this, we MUST try. As Tubman said, “I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other.” It doesn’t matter how tired we are, and it doesn’t matter how many times people showed us the place they think we need to stay at; we MUST fight for human rights, for woman rights, for equality for everyone! Never say “I can’t”, because you are strong and you CAN. Harriet Tubman did show us that we can do it all!!! 

P.S. I hope that one day we will not celebrate Black History for only one month. I hope we will celebrate it every day. I know we can do it. Harriet Tubman said, “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”

I painted a portrait of Harriet Tubman in Adobe Illustrator on iPad

My Upcoming Events

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Digital Art, Mobile, Uncategorized, Upcoming Events

You are invited to my upcoming events

My upcoming events

How to get started with digital painting in Adobe Photoshop

DATE: 02/04/2021
TIME: 5:00 PM ET

Do you want to start painting in Photoshop, but you’re not sure where to start? If your answer is yes, this webinar is for you. You will learn how to start your painting in Photoshop and how to customize your brushes and workspace. If you are a photographer and want to create your next masterpiece based on a photograph, I will show you how to do it. By the end of the webinar, you will be able to download a library with different backgrounds that you can use in your painting in Photoshop.

Part 1:
Description:
In this session, you will learn how to customize your workspace and brushes for your custom needs. Customizing your tools and workspace helps you to be more creative and making your painting process more enjoyable.

Part 2:
Description:
We all have different painting experience, style, inspiration, and vision. In this session, I will show you a few different ways to start your painting.

Part 3:
Description:
Colors play a huge role in painting. I would say that colors are the most powerful and important tool in any art. Sometimes when we just start our painting journey, blending colors could be challenging. In this session of the class, I will show a few ways of blending colors. You can choose the one you like the most.

Part 4:
Description:
I believe that we were born with an artistic soul inside of us. Most of us all want to paint. Creation is the primary language of the universe. I hear it all the time “I want to paint so much, but I can’t.” “I never painted before so I think I can’t paint in Photoshop.”In this session, I will show you how you can create your own masterpiece even if you’ve never painted before.

Part 5:
Description:
I believe that the most important aspect in any painting is to be creative and enjoy what you do. In the 21st century, we can combine both: the artistic and technical sides of our painting in Photoshop. The best part is that if we do it in a smart way we can pay more attention to the artistic side because the technology will do the rest. In this part of our class, I will show you how to do it.

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Introduction to digital painting on mobile

DATE: 02/10/2021
TIME: 7:00 PM ET

We all want to have the freedom to create anywhere. Now with Adobe Illustrator on iPad and Adobe Fresco on iPad we can create art from anywhere at anytime. During this class you will learn how to get started in Adobe Fresco and Adobe Illustrator on iPad. By the end of our class I will provide you with a library of backgrounds that you can use in your next project. 

Adobe Fresco on iPad

Part 1:
Description:
In this part, you will learn how to create a new document from scratch or how to use ready-to-go templates and how you can customize them.

Part 2:
Description:
Brushes play one of the biggest roles in a painting workflow. In this part I will show you the different brushes available for use in Fresco and how you can customize them to make each brush more unique.

Part 3: 
Description:
Colors play a very important role in storytelling when creating art. In this part of our webinar, I will show you how you can use colors in Fresco, how to create new colors, how to use the same color across all Adobe applications.

Part 4: 
Description:
The most common question people ask me is “how can I blend colors in digital painting?” In this part of our webinar, I will show you a few techniques for blending colors in Fresco

Part 5: 
Description:
Live brushes in Fresco are incredibly awesome and fun to work with. I will show you how to use them, how to customize them and combine them together to create your next masterpiece.

Part 6:
Description:
How to start a painting and finish it using only one brush. How to use different brushes in one art piece. In this part of our webinar, I will show how to use different brushes, how to take advantage of different brushes in any painting.


Adobe Illustrator on iPad

Part 1: 
Description:
In this part of our webinar, you will learn how to create a new document from scratch or use ready-to-go templates. You will get familiar with the beauty of illustrator on iPad, UI, and art tools.

Part 2: 
Description:
I will show how to use the Pen Tool (you will never believe how easy and how much fun you can have to working with the Pen tool)

Part 3: 
Description:
Colors are important. In this part of our webinar, I will show how to use colors in illustrator on iPad and how to use different types of gradients

Part 4: 
Description:
Yes, we can blend colors in vector art and I will show you how.

Part 5: 
Description:
How to create art in a smart way. In this part of our webinar, I will show you how.

Buy Tickets

Accessories I love and use every day

  • HD8RV29 Pro Stand facilitates overhead stable live streaming from your phone on a counter, table, podium, desk, or other flat surface
  • TAB131 Tablet Clamp Mount attaches to the shaft/pole portion of the Pro Stand and can be used to log in to live video apps on a secondary device to see comments or to see the view of the phone that’s positioned overhead

If you are planning to purchase this stand, you can use my code “pavlov” to save 20%

   

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Adobe, Adobe Photoshop

Tips for Working with Photoshop

In today’s blog, I will share with you a few tips for working with Photoshop

Tip 1:
When working on my compositing or design projects having the ability to arrange my layers is very important. I would say that the ability to arrange my layers is the key to the right composition. 

To move Layers Up or Down: 
Select Layer(s) > hold Command(Mac) / Ctrl(Win) and use right and left bracket keys “ [ or ] “.  You cant move up or down the background layer before you will unlock it) 

Move up


Move down

Tip2:
The ability to select any layer without a single mouse click is one of the best Adobe Photoshop features.  

To select any Layer:
Press > Option + ] or [ (Mac) or Alt + ] or [ (Win)

Tip3:
To switch to default Foreground/Background (Black and White) colors in Photoshop simply press “D” on your keyboard (as long as you’re not in the Type Tool). Tip: Pressing “x” on the keyboard will toggle them back and forth.

If you like these tips and want to find more, you can find them in my “101 Photoshop Hidden Gems and Tips & Tricks: A collection of 101 hidden features and short tips that will help make you a Photoshop ninja ” book on Amazon

Upcoming Events
How to Get Started with Digital Painting in Adobe Photoshop

My News, Uncategorized

It’s a new Year -2021

Goodbye 2020 and welcome 2021. Happy New Year, everyone. I wish you a lot of happiness, stay healthy, stay creative.

This is my first blog post in 2021. During this year, I have planned to share with you a lot of new posts, tutorials, news. But I need your help. I want to ask you to share with me what you would like to see from me in 2021. What topic(s) you are most interested in.
For me, it’s important to have a two-way conversation with you.
If you have a few minutes to spare, please, help me to understand what you would like to see from me, answering a few questions from the form below. Thank you in advance!

What you would like to see from me?(required)

Join me for my live stream on Wednesday, January 6 at 11AM ET


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My News, Uncategorized

Thank you!

Hello everyone. Welcome to another Monday blog post day. Today I want to wish each of you Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!
2020 wasn’t the easiest year. This year was difficult for everyone. The entire world has been impacted by COVID-19. People lost their loved ones, people lost their jobs, families don’t know how they will put bread on the table.
In 2020 we saw a lot of injustice. People with other than white skin tones were treated unacceptably wrong.
With all these injustices, infections, cries, the hunger for many people we saw in 2020, we also saw something else. We saw that people with ALL skin tones, genders, religions were on the streets supporting Black Lives Matter. We saw so many people donating money, food to local food shelters. We saw our heroes in white uniform fitting for every single life of COVID patience. Our teachers, our heroes teaching our children via ZOOM. We saw how people come together in 2020 to support each other. This is what COVID could not take from us. This is what makes us human.

In this Holiday Season, I want to say thank YOU to my readers, my followers, my friends, and my family for being with me, for supporting me, for pushing me to dream, to be better, and simply to be who I am.

I want to wish you happiness and good health. I wish for you to be with the people you love and who love you. I wish for you to dream because if we can dream, we can create.

With love,
Victoria