We’ve been getting excited about this for a while now, but the Creative Cloud is finally here. You can sign up for the service from today. There is a 30-day trial so you can see if you like the service before committing, as well as a intro offer, which is available at a reduced price for owners of CS3 or later.See the full details in the Press Release below or on the Adobe Creative Cloud website.

Press release

Adobe Creative Cloud Now Available

Two New Touch Apps for iOS and Adobe Muse Also Shipping

London, UK. — May 11, 2012 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the immediate availability of Adobe® Creative Cloud™, a radical new way of providing tools and services* for creatives. A subscription-based offering, Adobe Creative Cloud is a hub for making, sharing and delivering creative work and it is centred around a powerful release of Adobe Creative Suite® 6 software, packed with innovation across its industry-defining design, Web, video and digital imaging tools. The CS6 product line includes new releases of Photoshop®, InDesign®, Illustrator®, Dreamweaver®, Adobe Premiere® Pro, After Effects®, Flash® Professional and other products.

In addition, two new Touch Apps† – Adobe Proto and Adobe Collage – are now available for iOS devices, as are new features and additional language support in both Photoshop Touch and Adobe Ideas. Emerging from a successful beta program, that saw over 700,000 downloads, Adobe Muse software also became available today to Creative Cloud members and individual subscribers.  Muse is a stunning new tool that enables designers to create HTML5-based websites without writing code.

“Adobe Creative Cloud members receive full access to the entire portfolio of Creative Suite 6 tools, integration with our touch tools, file storage and sharing services and Web hosting – everything they need to go from idea to finished work, at a breakthrough monthly subscription price,“ said David Wadhwani, senior vice president, Digital Media Business, Adobe. “Creative Cloud will allow our product teams to unleash a constant stream of innovation, releasing new features, apps and services as they are developed.”

Adobe Creative Cloud Membership Delivers:

·         Access to download and install all CS6 applications, new HTML5 desktop products – Adobe Muse and Adobe Edge preview – and integration with Adobe Touch Apps

·         Easy storage and sharing of content across desktop, mobile devices and the cloud

·         Integrated website publishing and hosting

·         Ongoing innovation that provides members with the most up-to-date products and services

Pricing and Availability
Adobe Creative Cloud membership is available today to customers in 36 countries and in multiple languages. Pricing for Creative Cloud membership for individuals is £38.11 (ex VAT) per month based on annual membership and £57.17 (ex VAT) per month for month-to-month membership. A special introductory offer of £22.23 (ex VAT) per month for CS3, CS4, CS5 and CS5.5 individual customers is also available. Student and Teacher Edition of Adobe Creative Cloud is available for £18.26 (ex VAT) per month based on annual membership. To learn more, please visit www.adobe.com/uk/products/creativecloud.html.

Adobe Touch Apps are available separately for purchase from the iTunes App Store‡ or Google Play for £6.99 each. Special offers for Adobe Touch Apps are available for customers who sign up for annual membership of Adobe Creative Cloud. For more details, visit http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/touchapps.html.

Create a custom texture brush by opening a texture photo. Press Cmd/Ctrl+J to duplicate and Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+U to desaturate. Activate the Marquee Selection tool. Shift-click and drag an Elliptical Marquee selection to fit into the middle of the texture. Press Shift+F6 to open the Feather Selection option, setting Amount to 25 pixels. Press Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+I to invert the selection and hit Delete. Create a solid white layer beneath your texture, select your texture and press Opt/Alt+Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+E to merge visible layers into a new layer. Go to the Edit tab and select Define Brush Preset to add a new brush to the Brush palette.

Be honest with how you learn best. If you shine in a formal setting, invest in a course, but if the classroom bores you silly don’t. Once you’ve found what works for you, stick to it and learn in a way that suits you not in a way that you think you ought to.

2. Find a mentor

Having an experienced designer to discuss ideas and techniques with is worth its weight in a host of precious metals. Not only can a mentor give you great career advice, but having someone you admire take an interest in your work is likely to make you push yourself harder than you would going it alone.

3. Collaborate

Don’t shy away from working with others, especially designers that are out of your league. It may be nice to be top of the pile, but seeing the best in action can have a phenomenal effect on your skills, especially if you use your ears and eyes more than your mouth during the project.

4. Get uncomfortable

If you’re guilty of clutching to your security blanket of tools, it’s time to cut yourself off. Next time you open Photoshop stay away from what you know and try to get the same results you’re after from the dusty palette of tools you’ve long been neglecting. You might find something you really like.

5. Invest your time

Time certainly is money and while taking a few hours to tackle an online tutorial might seem inefficient, especially if the client work is piling up, remember that in the design game your skills are your worth. Investing in yourself is never a waste of time or money.

Fotolia’s TEN collection introduces its sixth digital artist Neopen in the series bringing together the best of digital art, graphic resources and education.  This project allows image enthusiasts to fine tune their knowledge and skills with the help of free access to the source files of the world’s top digital artist.

Once again you will get instant access to over 100 files and see how each individual graphic component plays a part in creating the final image. You will not only have access to the file in its entirety, you will also be able to view the ‘making of’ video of each featured artist.

Don’t miss the opportunity to discover Fotolia’s TEN COLLECTION and download your Neopen PSD for free for 24 hours* on the 10 May.

*After the 24 hrs period, the file is available fo £6

Bokeh is a term that refers to the look of blur in out-of-focus areas on a photo. It can be created in-camera, using photographic know-how and the right lenses, but it is easy to replicate in Photoshop. You’ll commonly see it as circles of light in the background of an image, which is the blur around points of light or highlights. This can add a mystical quality to photos and works particularly well in combination with a cross-processed, retro style of photography, which is now very popular.

There are plenty of free bokeh brushes and textures out there that will do the job, but it takes only minutes to create your own, which you can then apply to any photo. We will look at how you can create the bokeh brush, set it up for the best effect and finally recolour your photo to finish off the look.

We have included our custom bokeh brush on the disc, if you want to just see how it works, and the photo used here is also available.

01 Create the Bokeh brush

Open a new document that is 2,500 x 2,500px, with a transparent background. Select the Ellipse tool, hold Shift and draw a large circle. Rasterise the shape and fill with black. Under Layer Style>Blending Options, change Fill Opacity to 50% and add a default Drop Shadow and Stroke.

02 Define and use the tool

Go to Edit>Define Brush Preset and name your brush Bokeh. Open your photo, create a new blank layer and select your Bokeh brush at 50% Opacity. Go to Shape Dynamics and set Roundness Jitter to 0%. Play with Scattering to create a dispersed effect, then apply to your new layer.

03 Final touches

We’re going to finish off by colourising the image to give a more retro feel. Use a Curves adjustment layer to create a gentle ‘S’ curve for a better spread of tones, and the Color Balance adjustment layer, adding more green and cyan tones to give a cross-processed effect.

Advanced Photoshop magazine is available to purchase digitally for your iPad, PC or Android device, among others, so that you can access amazing tutorials, inspirational artwork, and in-depth interviews and features on the move.

All of the digital versions of the title can be found via Imagine Publishing’s brand-new web portal Greatdigitalmags.com. Here, you can choose to purchase Advanced Photoshop via the Zinio, Apple Newsstand, iTunes and Android platforms, all from this one handy website.

Buying Advanced Photoshop digitally offers huge savings over the standard print version, and 13-issue subscriptions are available so that you can have the latest issue delivered directly to your device as soon as it is released.

To get started and buy your first digital issue of Advanced Photoshop magazine, take a visit to www.greatdigitalmags.com.

All images require some sharpening out of camera in order to enhance edges and bring out detail in the contrasting areas. In this four-step tutorial, we will show you just how simple it is to sharpen up your shots using some of Photoshop’s most basic adjustment tools. Using the Unsharp Mask tool, you will learn how to correctly adjust the sliders in order to improve the appearance and sharpness in your shots. Enhancing the focus further, we will also show you how to sharpen more specific areas in the frame using the Sharpen tool. This is ideal when editing portrait shots, the Sharpen tool can be used to brighten up and bring out the subject’s eyes.

01 Layer Setup

Open the image you want to sharpen in Photoshop. Duplicate your original layer by going to Layer>New>Layer Via Copy. Re-name your new layer ‘sharpen layer’ and click OK. Now you are able to sharpen your image without affecting your original image file. Go to Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask to begin sharpening your image.

02 Begin to sharpen up

In the Unsharp Mask dialog box, click the preview button and zoom to 100% onto the subject’s eyes. Bring the Threshold slider up between 1 and 5 to smooth the skin and reduce noise. Now increase the Amount slider, which will affect how much of the image is sharpened by the Radius slider, set it at 90 to 120%.

03 Bring back detail

You can now slowly drag the Radius slider up to increase sharpness in the entire image, keep previewing the results on screen. You should avoid setting the Radius any higher than 5.0 pixels as your image can begin to appear noisy. If noise sets in too quickly, try increasing the Threshold slider slightly. Adjust the Radius and Threshold sliders until you are happy with the results, then click OK.

04 Brighten the eyes

Now select the Sharpen tool from the Tools palette on the left-hand side of the screen. Zoom into your subject’s eyes and adjust the Brush Size to suit the pupil. Select a Soft edge with the strength at around 20%. You can now begin to gently brush over the eyes to selectively sharpen them up. This should also make them appear brighter on-screen. Finally, flatten your layers and save your new and improved sharp shot.

Retro styles are all the rage with creative Photoshop users, inspired by a host of print and online resources that are saturated with classic fonts, vintage colour themes and periodical visual effects. Many will remark that this appeal is a backlash against synthetic styles created through modern digital media – an opinion supported by a host of illustrative and mixed-media artworks.

However, there are some seriously popular trends that prove otherwise, with the replication of old-school looks being at the forefront of these styles. This effect can be seen in web design, logo design and even in big-budget cinematic examples such as TRON: Legacy.

This style centres on a visual effect that resembles Eighties video monitor displays and dated VHS recording quality. Authentic replication of the effect undoubtedly hinges on the application of Photoshop’s powerful tool sets. Selecting the right font is the first step, with blocky types looking best. Then it’s a quick run through with blending modes, interacting with coloured type layers. Filters also feature heavily in re-creating effects, especially Gaussian Blur, Noise and Horizontal Grain Type settings under Texture.

01 Create coloured type

Start by selecting a bold font – we’ve chosen Photoshop’s native Haettenschweiler – then duplicate your type layer three times. Set each subsequent duplicate to red (R: 255, G: 0, B: 0), green (R: 0, G: 255, B:0) and blue (R: 0, G: 0, B: 255). Now rasterise each layer.

02 Add layers and blends

Set all layer blending modes to Exclusion, moving them from behind your original type layer slightly. Raise your original type layer to the top of the stack, applying an Overlay blending mode. Apply 1px Radius Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur to all duplicate layers. Transform>Skew your type right.

03 Achieve the grainy screen

Merge all into a new layer, selecting the bottom half of this new layer with the Rectangle Marquee tool. Duplicate your selection into a new layer (Cmd/Ctrl+J), shift it to the left slightly, apply a 1px Stroke, with Position set to Inner, Blend Mode to Dissolve and Opacity to 20%.

In this image, the spillover of the white onto the couple’s shoulders can make things complicated for selections by other means. Calculations provide an easy way to create a solid starting-point for the mask. Begin by selecting the Red channel for the Source 1. And the Blue channel for Source 2. Tick the Invert box for the Blue channel and set the blending to Vivid Light. This will yield a high contrast selection with the outlines clearly visible. A quick visit to Levels and then some minor touch-ups with your tools and you’ve got an exceptional mask around these beachcombers.

In recent years, there has been a renewed appreciation for all things retro in the key fields of design. When referring to digital art, isometric styles in particular spring to mind, which is great for web projects.

Despite the continuing development and improvement of computer graphics, many have looked to regress pixel-based designs back to their very bitmap basics. This is especially true with web designers, who look to regenerate methods and visuals on an almost daily basis, being based in such a highly competitive and fluid industry.
Being a pixel-based software, and therefore highly capable of handling bitmap format files, Photoshop has become a firm instigator for such web-based styles. As always there are numerous ways to achieve results in this software, with most including the use of the Mosaic filter in conjunction with other creative tools, namely paint brushes, Gradient effects and the Render>Clouds filter.

We’ll show you how to achieve more attractive pixel-based effects. Of course, these effects don’t rely on the limited file sizes associated with traditional bitmap files. So the effects you’ll learn here can also be used to enrich your digital design and illustration projects.

01 Prepare your Background

Begin by opening your web backdrop file. Fill your backdrop to a solid black (Shift+F5). Select the Gradient tool, 50% Opacity, and set a warm Foreground colour (#ff7521). Apply to the top of your backdrop using a colour-to-transparent Linear gradient. This will work as your base tone.

02 Apply brush styles

Select a large brush set to 0% Hardness, and 50% Opacity and Fill. Apply varying tones over the gradient. Create a new layer and select the Grass brush. Apply this with varying brush sizes, using a colour picked from your backdrop, with Opacity and Fill both reset to 100%.

03 Use the Mosaic Filter

With your new painted layer active, select Filter>Pixelate>Mosaic, setting Cell Size to 25 square. Also apply Filter>Noise>Add Noise, setting an Amount of 1%. You can adjust the result using colour adjustments, ie Hue/Saturation (which we did to give us the pink effect featured here).