Photoshop's Dodge Tool is a variation of the paint brush and allows us to paint lightness into a region of the image and leave the unaffected areas untouched. That's great news if you have an artistic flare, or prefer to use the brush tools to modify the appearance of a photograph. Traditionally the Dodge Tool is used by many retouchers to lighten the skin tones in a portrait shot but there's many more reasons to use it. In this example, I'll take a poorly lit billboard and lighten the letters whilst leaving the rest of the image (and even parts of the sign) unmodified. New in Photoshop CS4, the dodge tool has been revampted and is now capable of protecting the tones of an image better than ever before. I'll explain the new Protect Tones option and show you why you're gonna want to leave it on!
The History Panel
The history panel has been around for a while but it's still an integral part of Photoshop. If you're like me, then you're prone to making the odd mistake every once in a while, thanksfully the history panel gives us the opportunity of stepping back in time and revisiting older versions, or 'states' as Photoshop calls them, of the open image. Whilst this all sounds grand, there's a few things to know: history states don't save with an image, there's not an endless amount of them, and they can be non-descript at times. For more info, watch the video!
The History Brush introduces the ability to paint back details that existed in an image when or after it was first opened. It gives the user the amazing ability to 'go back in time' and correct mistakes without reverting the entire image back to a former state. It's kinda like the history panel but in the form of a brush: maybe itself a reason why they call it the History Brush! In this example we'll paint back the sky around a billboard while leaving the changes we made inside the billboard untouched. It's a great feature of Photoshop that deserves to have it's 15 minutes of fame!
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Photoshop & the Lost Spell Checker
Spell checking is more commonly associated with word processing and desk top publishing programmes such as Microsoft Word and Adobe InDesign, but did you know it's possible inside Photoshop as well.
Identifying & Fixing a Colour Cast