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Well, I had intended to wait a bit before posting this, but I find myself with way too much free time. Therefore, I will talk about layer styles for a bit. Maybe get into filters if I have time.

Layer Styles

Layer Styles are very nice and poweful tools. You can access the layer styles menu through the button on the Layers Palette or through Layer>Layer Style. There are several different aspects to layer styles, so I'll start at the top of the list.

Blending Options

This is a more advanced version of the blend modes that I covered in my last post. In addition to the many and multifarious variations of blend modes, you can choose to exclude channels and change the options for interacting with a layer mask. This will allow you to make the layer do just about anything you want to with regards to blending with the layers below it. Play around with this one until you get the look you like.

Drop Shadow

A very useful little tool, this provides the illusion that the layer is separated from the layers below it by adding a bit of shadow. The blend mode and color are pretty self explanatory - how the shadow interacts with the surface that it falls on, and what color it is. Opacity controls the strength of the shadow. The light angle controls the direction of the light source that is casting the shadow. I would suggest using one direction of light for all of your effects and layers, just to keep the effect consistent. Distance is the simulated distance betwixt the layer and the one below it. Spread controls the sharpness of the shadow - higher values=sharper. Size is the... size. Of the shadow. Hmmm... Contour is the pattern that the shadow follows. By default it's a smooth fade out, but you can make it come in and out, or follow an exponential-type curve fade, getting cool liney effects. Play with that one, you'll get the idea pretty quickly.

Inner Shadow

The same as drop shadow, but this time on the inside of the image. Gives the impression that your layer is a hole or gap in the image. Try that one on text. All of the sliders work the same way they did in the drop shadow panel.

Outer Glow

This is a fun one. Gives a nice glowing effect all around the image. As before, the blend mode controls the interaction with the bottom layers, and the opacity slider controls the strength of the glow. You can choose either a color or a gradient for the glow, to give the glow some variation as it goes away from the object. The "Technique" widget is just a thing that controls the style of glow you get. Spread and size are similar to the shadow controls of the same name. The contour works the same way as well. Play with this on a black or dark background. You can get some really nice effects on text this way.

Inner Glow

As you may have guessed, this works the same way that outer glow does, but on the inside. All controls are the same, with the exception of the Center/Edge thing. That just controls where the glow emanates from, either the outer edges or the center. Also good for text.

Bevel and Emboss

This is by far my favorite one of the Layer Style tools. It gives the edges of the layer a raised look or a 3D appearance. First, take a look at the Styles available. It's set by default to inner bevel, which is a nice multi-purpose style. It gives a good, rounded look to things. Outer Bevel gives things a 3D look by modifying the area around the image instead of the actual image. This has its purposes, but I've always found it to be less useful. Emboss conveys the impression that the image has been punched outward from the rest of the picture, a pretty versatile style. Pillow Emboss is just flat-out cool. It gives the impression that the image has been inset into the picture below it, like this text:

Incidentally, the edge of the blade is also made with B&E, and the rust is pillow embossed onto it. This is a really good way to create a sense of integration between layers, so they don't look as if they are tossed over each other. The light source is as it always is, but I'm going to pay special attention to the contour portion this time. The contour is the shape of the bevel, as if you were looking at the edge from the side. Most of the time, it'll work pretty well with the flat contour, but play with the shapes! See if you can figure out how I made the blade up there... Going back up for a second, I'd like to point out the Depth, Direction, and Size options. Depth is the amount that the bevel goes in a "vertical" direction, or how deep your edge is. Size is the amount that the edge intrudes on your image, or goes away from it. Think of it as "horizontal" size. Direction simply reverses the direction of the bevel, so that it is inlaid rather than standing out. There are two sub-options there on the left menu, Contour and Texture. Contour is the specific contour for the gloss, not the physical curve of the object. Texture applies a bump map to the surface of the object, changing the specular patterns. This can look very cool, or very cheesy. Play with these options! There's nothing cooler than 3D in your images. This takes a while to get used to, however, so practice lots.

Satin

Satin has a lot of uses, especially in plastic or other reflective surfaces. It puts little reflective thingies all over your image, giving the impression of curvature and specularity. The sliders are pretty simple here. Distance controls the position of the reflections, and size controls the sharpness.

Overlays and Stroke

The others in the list are easy to use. Color Overlay overlays color, Gradient overlay overlays a gradient, and Pattern Overlay... Well, you can guess. Stroke simply outlines the image.

Well, that's all of the layer styles. I cannot stress enough how beneficial messing around with the things above can be. Practice gets you familiar with the program. Now on to...



Filters!

For now, I'll just run through the most useful ones, but I'll end up covering more later.

The most versatile one in the box is Gaussian Blur (Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur). This is your multipurpose blur function, and ends up being necessary just about everywhere. A tip for this one is to blur it once, just a bit less than you want it. Then, blur at half that value, then at half that value... This resluts in a much smoother blur.

Another one that I love is Clouds (Filter>Render>Clouds). Clouds is there to give you random fractal backgrounds. This is how you start off a lot of things involving abstract backgrounds. Combine this one with Difference Clouds to get more interesting shapes. Difference clouds is like a combo of clouds and inversion. Play with it...

A really nice, yet unknown filter is the Anisostropic diffuse filter. Go to Filter>Stylize>Diffuse, and select Anisostropic. This will smooth out lines without blurring the edges too much. It will mess with detail in the image, but if you're working with a fairly basic picture with little detail, this is highly useful.

The photographer's friend is the Unsharp Mask filter (Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask). This makes edges stand out and detail become more prominent. Just mess with the amount and radius sliders, those will give you your desired effect 99% of the time.

Well, that's it for now. I mean it this time. No updates until tomorrow. See you later, and mess around!

Hey, that's the first time I've been called useful in a while... Anyway, the next thing I'd like to cover is another aspect of Photoshop that is often overlooked: Channels. Channels are accessable from the layers palette, the tab on the top that says "channels" will lead you to them. What channels can be used for, or at least their major use, is to create selections. To illustrate my point, I'm going to give you a small tutorial to make a stone background.

First, we'll set our colors up. Pick two stone-type colors and set them to foreground & background. Use the Clouds filter. Apply the noise filter (Filters>Noise>Add Noise) with amount at 6, gaussian distribution, and monochromatic checked. Then Gaussian Blur at 1 or 2 pixels. Now go to the channels palette and create a new channel - it's the same button as on the Layers Palette. Now set your colors to the default (D), and repeat the last steps, Clouds through the Blurring, in the new channel. Return to your normal layer. Now we go to the lighting effects filter (Filters>Render>Lighting Effects) and look at the bottom. Where it says Texture Channel, click and you should see your new channel in the menu. Select it, and turn the slider to Mountainous. Fiddle with the settings to get a nice look, and press OK. This is what I got:


Do you see how the channel interacted? The channel became a heightmap for the coloring, and created the stone effect.

Another use for channels is selection creation. You can apply effects over a certain area with this. Go back to your channel and put a white to black gradient over the entire thing. Then, go to Select>Load Selection and select your channel in the "Channel" menu. Click ok, then apply the chrome filter, or any other filter in the Sketch or Stylize menu. See how the channel affects the distribution of the filter? Try drawing on the channel or mixing up your gradient to achieve different results. Some uses for this:
-Applying selective blurring for a Depth of Field effect.
-Selective deletion and transparency
-Effect transitioning
-Text effects (like typing text in the channel...)

Another tip - Try putting chrome in the channel and blur it a bit, it creates a cool effect.

That's all about channels, more to come on all things Photoshop...
Questions and comments welcome.