How to Cheat in Photoshop

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Posted on 20/12/07 04:10:54 AM

xxGoingkrazYxx
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Rounding Edges

As i was attempting the lock and load example i wanted to use a different card. I search on the internet for the ace of spades and come to find out i could'nt find any with rounded edges and i wanted to make an action to do just that.

-First i took the card (assuming the card is isolated in its own layer) and loaded it up pressing ctrl and clicking on the icon in the layers palette

-started the recording for the action

-i went into the channels and made a new channel (while the marquee of the card was still there)

-by pressing alt + backspace i filled in the selected area with the white foreground color

-after deselecting i applied a Gaussian blur around 5 pixels (however round you desire) i set a stop point in the actions so i can choose a logical value every time

-then using levels (while still in the channels) i set the black triangle to 120, i left the gray alone, and i set the white triangle to 140. This tightens up the black and white

-after loading the newly made channel into a selection, i went back to layers where you can now see the rounded marquee around the card

-i then feathered the selection by 1-2 pixels (so the corners don't appear pixelated) again adding a stopping point in the actions so i can enter a new value everytime

-finally i inversed, deleted the selection and stopped the action

I don't know of many uses for this other than rounding cards but I'm sure there are other instances this could be used for!

~Brendan

Posted on 20/12/07 08:11:07 AM

Steve Caplin
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Re: Rounding Edges

This is a very good technique - and would be perfect for removing the background behind rounded corner dialogs on Macs when doing screen grabs. I use a similar technique, except mine consists of drawing a circular marquee in the corner, then inversing the selection, constraining the selection to just the top corner arc, and deleting. I then flip the selection horizontally for the other corner.

Different approaches, same result - good work on this one! It's really satisfying when an Action does just what you want.

Posted on 20/12/07 5:27:49 PM

xxGoingkrazYxx
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Posts: 6

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Re: Rounding Edges

Steve Caplin wrote:
This is a very good technique - and would be perfect for removing the background behind rounded corner dialogs on Macs when doing screen grabs. I use a similar technique, except mine consists of drawing a circular marquee in the corner, then inversing the selection, constraining the selection to just the top corner arc, and deleting. I then flip the selection horizontally for the other corner.

Different approaches, same result - good work on this one! It's really satisfying when an Action does just what you want.

Yeah thats what i did at first but i found it too time consuming

Posted on 20/12/07 6:38:04 PM

Steve Caplin
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Re: Rounding Edges

Well, if you don't want to be time consuming... how about just using the round rectangle Shapes tool to make a path and turn that into a selection?

Posted on 21/12/07 02:04:02 AM

xxGoingkrazYxx
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Posts: 6

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Re: Rounding Edges

Steve Caplin wrote:
Well, if you don't want to be time consuming... how about just using the round rectangle Shapes tool to make a path and turn that into a selection?

Well I figured the round rectangle tool would'nt give you full control over the roundness of the corners... where as you can control the amount of roundness by using gaussian blur.

Posted on 21/12/07 09:05:07 AM

Steve Caplin
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Re: Rounding Edges

You can set the roundness of the corners in the Options bar. The problem with your method is that when you use very large rounded corners (through a lot of Gaussian Blur) you need to tighten up the Levels triangles a lot more.

Posted on 21/12/07 2:34:22 PM

xxGoingkrazYxx
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Posts: 6

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Re: Rounding Edges

Steve Caplin wrote:
You can set the roundness of the corners in the Options bar. The problem with your method is that when you use very large rounded corners (through a lot of Gaussian Blur) you need to tighten up the Levels triangles a lot more.

Is there a way to load up the card and then convert to a rounded rectangle marquee?

Posted on 21/12/07 3:07:45 PM

Steve Caplin
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Re: Rounding Edges

Hmm. Interesting. You could convert the selection to a path, but that wouldn't work very well. I think your method is probably the best one!

Posted on 21/12/07 3:37:36 PM

xxGoingkrazYxx
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Posts: 6

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Re: Rounding Edges

Steve Caplin wrote:
Hmm. Interesting. You could convert the selection to a path, but that wouldn't work very well. I think your method is probably the best one!

Would it be possible to use that smoothing filter you used on that cs3 text tutorial... i forgot what it was called

Posted on 21/12/07 4:05:59 PM

Steve Caplin
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Re: Rounding Edges

Refine Edges? Yes, I think it would. It performs a similar task to your blur/Levels combination.

Posted on 21/12/07 4:09:53 PM

xxGoingkrazYxx
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Posts: 6

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Re: Rounding Edges

Steve Caplin wrote:
Refine Edges? Yes, I think it would. It performs a similar task to your blur/Levels combination.

Well then refine edges could be used for cs3 users and this tutorial could be used for cs2 and under :-D

Posted on 21/12/07 4:34:44 PM

Steve Caplin
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Posts: 6987

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Re: Rounding Edges

Indeed!

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