Imagine a world where Adobe Photoshop and photo editing dont existwhere the photos in your print marketing collateral have the same visual impact as your drivers license photo. A world where you cant tell the difference between a professional direct mail campaign and your Aunt Judys tacky holiday greeting card.
Pretty scary, huh?
Fortunately, Photoshop exists (along with many free Photoshop alternatives), allowing print media designers to transform photographs into really cool works of art. To ensure that this terrible alternate reality never comes to fruition, were offering up our top 51 must-read free tutorials for amazing photo editing and manipulation with Photoshop.
Basic, Easy Photoshop Tutorials
These quick and easy Photoshop tutorials are best for beginners, but there are great tips for photo editing veterans as well. A number of different topics are covered, from basic resizing and retouching techniques to adding simple photo effects and optimizing colors and contrast.
1. Adjusting Image Resolution and Print Quality
2. Cropping Photos To Specific Frame Sizes In Photoshop
3. Cropping Photos Without Changing the Aspect Ratio
4. Difference Between Image Resizing and Resampling in Photoshop
5. How to Batch Resize in Photoshop
6. How To Straighten Crooked Photos
7. Quick Fix for Cluttered Backgrounds
8. How to Remove a Background in Photoshop
9. Five Easy Steps to Produce Intense Colors in Your Photographs
10. Converting a Color Photo into Black and White
11. Black and White is the Key to Better Color
12. Black and White with a Splash of Color
13. Hand Coloring a Black and White Photo
14. Understanding Local Contrast Enhancement
15. A Quick and Effective Way to Enhance Contrast in Photoshop
16. Working with Filters in Photoshop Elements
17. Gaussian Blur Overlays
18. Antiquing Digital Images
19. Creating a Sunset Effect
20. Dreamy Photo Effects
21. Basic Techniques to Make Your Photo Impressive
22. 4 Easy Photoshop Techniques to Make Your Pictures Pop
Intermediate Photoshop Tutorials
The following free photo editing tutorials are a little more advanced and require some basic familiarity with Photoshop, but are still relatively simple and super easy to understand. Many of these intermediate level techniques will help you create bold and cool photo effects, while others help explain some of the more powerful tools available in Photoshop.
23. Color Corrections by the Numbers
24. Adjusting Levels in Photoshop
25. Improve Your Landscape Photographs with Photoshop
26. How To Make Digital Photos Look Like Lomo Photography
27. Using Vignetting to Add Interest
Edit: No longer available.
28. Adding a Diffuse Glow to Your Images
29. How to Use the Lens Correction Filter
30. How to Stitch Photos in Photoshop
31. Realistic Spotlight Photo Effects
32. Using Brushes to Enhance Portraits
33. Bringing Out Shadow And Highlighting Detail
34. Using the Content-Aware Scale Tool
35. Non-Destructive Dodge and Burn
36. Matching Colors Of Objects Between Photos
Advanced Photoshop Tutorials
These high-level tutorials give you a look at some of the more complex tools available in Photoshop, while also providing step-by-step instructions on how to create amazing photo effects. These lessons require an advanced understanding of Adobe Photoshop and some may also require some good knowledge of photography.
37. Using Layers to Create HDR-Style Images
38. Advanced HDR Merging
39. Combine the Best Parts of Two Studio Portrait Photos into One Shot
40. Using Masks To Improve Landscape Images
41. Advanced Compositing Techniques
42. Creating a Tilt Shift Effect With the Lens Blur Tool
43. Advanced Photoshop Sharpening Techniques
44. Sharpening Using an Unsharp Mask
45. Using the Curves Tool
46. Advanced Color Correction with Levels
47. Advanced Shadow Techniques
48. Tracing Photos for Beautiful Line Art
49. Noise Reduction by Image Averaging
50. Advanced Skin Softening
51. Nesting Smart Objects for Multimask Effects
Conclusion
Who says you cant teach an old dog new tricks? The best designers (even seasoned ones) are always pushing themselves to learn more about their craft and to improve their work. Whether youre learning more about Photoshop techniques or just basic design philosophy, keeping your mind open to new lessons and experiences will help you grow as a graphic artist. Once youve learned the ropes from these tutorials, dont be afraid to innovate and experiment with your own creative photo effects to develop your own distinct style and taste.
Of course, weve only scratched the surface of the best free Photoshop tutorials. Do you know of more tutorials for amazing photo editing that belong on this list? Any cool Photoshop techniques you want to share with us? Wed love to see them, so please comment below!
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