Quote Originally Posted by Serentripity View Post
CS4's 3D tools are intended for intense photo-manipulation/object-creation - I think. I know that you can "skin" them with photos or other images, but to be honest I haven't really had a use for them. This tutorial will probably be more helpful: http://www.photoshopcafe.com/cs4/3D.htm

The font in my signature is called "Bleeding Cowboys" and is available here: http://www.dafont.com/bleeding-cowboys.font

Rather than using the burn and dodge tools, create a new layer above the one you want to burn/dodge, select "Mode>Overlay", and select "Fill with Overlay Neutral (50% gray)" (make sure you click the "New Layer" icon or select "Layer>New" - cmd+shift+N doesn't bring up the dialog you need). Now on this new layer use your brush tool with varying shades of grey - 50% gray is neutral, closer to white makes it lighter, closer to black makes it darker... without the nasty greying effects of the burn/dodge tool!

You can make an animated GIF in Photoshop by going to "Window>Animation" and opening the animation tools workbar. I find it easiest to work in frame-by-frame mode, which you can enter by clicking the little filmstrip icon in the bottom right. Now, get your image where you want the first frame to be, and click the "New Frame" icon in the animation toolbar - get that frame where you want it to be, click "New Frame" etc. One of the most awesome things about making an animation in Photoshop is the "Tweens" option - try setting up where you want your animation to be in the first frame, and then in the last frame - now select both frames and click the icon with the four circles. Remember that the fewer frames you have, the smaller your image size/load time will be.*

If an image is slightly blurry you can sometimes fix it using the "Unsharp Mask" filter - but not very often. I find that any of the sharpen tools have a tendency to overdo it and make your image look grainy and, well, Photoshopped. I would duplicate the layer, apply the "Unsharp Mask" filter (as low as possible to achieve the desired effect) and then experiment with various blending modes and opacities to make it look "right". I realize this is kind of vague, but it all depends on the image - so I leave it up to you to figure out from there Good luck!

*I am kind of in a hurry right now, so that's kind of a crappy explanation! Sorry 'bout that - I will come back and give you a better one when I have time
Ok. I was just wondering. It seemed like a weird addition. Fun to play with though.

Mkay cool. One of my favorite bands used that font recently for some stuff and I thought it looked cool.

Ohhh cool! That makes sense.

I'll have to play around with making animations now. Sounds awesome.

Yeah sharpen masks do look weird at times. they create like rainbow pixels. o.0 I'll try with masks and stuff though.

Thats fine