How-Tos

Give Portrait Photos the Spa Treatment

Discover the secrets of beautiful young skin, bright white teeth, and a great complexion. Of course, it's all done with advanced layering techniques in Photoshop CS4.

Safely Export Pictures from QuarkXPress

This process is ideal when you want to give a Web developer pictures that you cropped, rotated, or altered in QuarkXPress. It's also useful for converting a picture from one file format or color space to another.

Combine Image Creatively in Photoshop

Learn how to collage images in Photoshop CS2, CS3, and CS4.

Photoshop Crop Tool Tutorial

Since the first daguerreotype, photographers have cropped their images to hone in on the details that matter most. The crop tool does that, as well as straighten and more.

Prep and Color Scanned Drawings in Photoshop

Matthew Richmond of The Chopping Block shares his expertise -- and a Photoshop Action -- in this free tutorial.

Composite Unique Landscapes in Photoshop

Learn how to create a surreal landscape scene by blending or merging multiple stock photos in Adobe Photoshop CS4.

Edit Colors Independently in Photoshop

Shift one range of colors without affecting other colors. You may not even need a selection or mask!

One Good Kern Deserves Another

Evening out the spaces between characters is a matter of finding the right rhythm, then going with the flow.

Draw Paths with Photoshop's Pen Tool

It might seem odd to find vector-drawing tools in a pixel-pushing program like Photoshop, but once you understand it, you'll turn to it often. Use the Pen tool to draw clean, controllable shapes and paths; to cut out something from a photograph's background; and to create shapes that upscale without distortion.

Combine Illustrator Patterns with Photoshop Masks for Instant Visual Appeal

With this technique, you can create eye-catching imagery without fancy plug-ins or big stock photo budgets.

Illustrator How-to: Distribute Art Around a Path

When you want to align objects to something other than a straight path -- for example, 12 stars in a circular pattern -- you have to go back to Illustrator's beginning.

To Boldly Go . . . Or Is It Italically?

In any family, you can always spot the role of certain members. Typeface families are no different.

Get to Know Photoshop's Pen Tool

Experts use Photoshop's Pen Tool to get the best selections for difficult masking job. Easy? No. Best? Usually!

View Source: Make Web Site Elements Partially Transparent

With CSS3, you can create all kinds of transparency effects, including overlapping, partially transparent text and buttons. And it even works in IE!

Create Gradient Watermarks with Photoshop

Subtle watermarks not only discourage thieves from snagging your online images, but they can also promote your name without intruding too much on your photographs.

Mix Acrobat and Flash for Better Interactivity

In this real-world example, you'll learn how to embed Flash and bring an interactive PDF to life.

Punc Rocks: The Typographer's Guide to Punctuation

When it comes to understanding what we read, periods, commas, and their dotty allies are proof that it's the little things that count. Here's how to use them correctly.

Shooting Photographs for the Web

Photos that look great as large prints can shrink into muddled, fuzzy messes when viewed on a computer monitor or, worse, a mobile phone. Here's how to compose, shoot, and process your images so they work well on the small screen.

Combine Images Quickly in Photoshop

In one easy-to-swallow video, you'll learn how to use Photoshop's simple yet powerful Paste Into Command to merge two images.

Acrobat How-to: Add Text to PDFs

There are a couple of ways to add text to a PDF, but with this method, you can style the text and the box it's in. A bonus tip explains how to ensure that the added text always prints.