Adobe Photoshop Portable is an image editing application for the Windows and Macintosh operating systems. It is a version of the standard application which has been stripped of non-essential files to allow for the quickest possible peer-to-peer sharing and specifically with portable use in mind. It is not officially sanctioned by Adobe Systems, Inc., but rather user-engineered and generally shared free of cost via the Internet.

Photoshop

1. Photoshop, created by Adobe Systems, Inc., is arguably the most popular digital image editing application in the world. It is so popular and its capabilities so widely renowned that “Photoshop” has become a verb used to refer to digital image manipulation. Specifically, Photoshop is famous for its ability to allow users to take parts of one digital image, (for example, a person’s face), and paste them believably into another image (such as on another person’ body).

Portable

2. Adobe Photoshop Portable refers to a version of the program that has been stripped of its extraneous files. Applications generally contain many files are not necessary for the actual operation of the program. An example of these files would be help files. There are hundreds, sometimes thousands of text files in a given application’s help file system. Stripping these out makes an application smaller in physical size, which makes it easier to share via the Internet and easier to store on portable storage devices.

Practical Application

3. Since the advent of netbooks, small, portable computers with smaller (often solid-state) hard drives, there is a demand for software with a smaller footprint. The smaller an application’s install is, the more room a user can keep free for other files. This is one reason a “portable” application is often desirable.

Peer-to-peer sharing

4. Peer-to-peer (also P2P) sharing refers to users sharing files via the Internet. Users often transfer programs, music, videos, and other files to other users. To this end, a smaller application is more desirable as it will take less time to share. This is another reason “portable” applications are currently in demand. P2P sharing is made possible by specialized programs and indexing sites on the Internet.

Thumb drives

5. The true appeal of a “portable” application is that it is engineered such that one can store it on a portable storage device such as a thumb drive and use it on multiple computers. It is built so that no additional system files are necessary; a user can simply plug a thumb drive into a computer at home or at work and run the “portable” application from the thumb drive.

Legalities

6. As previously mentioned, Photoshop Portable is not officially sanctioned by Adobe Systems, Inc. Because it is user-engineered, and because it is distributed via P2P methods on the Internet, the legalities of owning or using such a program are dubious at best.

Other apps

7. While Photoshop Portable is not officially supported, there is a host of other software manufacturers that offer legitimate portable versions of their applications. Among them are Firefox web browser, Open Office, the open source alternative to Microsoft’s Office suite, and GIMP, the open source alternative to Adobe Photoshop.

Although Adobe Photoshop CS4 includes many of the features that previous versions include, the big addition made to this version of Photoshop is the addition of 3D movement, which allows users to animate 3D. If you understand how to use the 3D functions in Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended you are likely to produce more skilled products than someone using Photoshop CS3.

1. Upload a 3D image into Photoshop. Many 3D images can be downloaded from Google’s 3D warehouse (see Resources). To upload the image into Photoshop, go to “File” on the top left hand side of the page and select “Open.” Then navigate to the folder on your system where you have saved your 3D files.
2. Step 2

   Choose “Image” and then “Image Size” after the 3D image has opened. Uncheck the box next to “Constrain Properties.” Then check the box next to “Resample Image.” Enter the image width at 1024 and the image height at 800. Click “OK.”

3. Step 3

   Press the “K” button to select the 3D object tools to rotate the image. Type “-90″ into the X orientation box and then press “Enter” on your keyboard. This will rotate the image at the proper angle for optimal graphic displays.

4. Step 4

   Go to the “Windows” menu and click on “3D” and then “Animation” to open these respective palettes. Close all other open palettes except for “Layers” by clicking on the “X” on the top left corner of the palette.

5. Step 5

   Move the cursor to the “Layers” palette and click on the “Gradient Fill” panel. It is at the bottom of the “Layer” palette, and it looks like a half-black and half-white circle.

6. Step 6

   Press the space bar to see how the Photoshop CS4 extender program moves the 3D images. Use the Arrow tool to set course directions. You now have learned to use the main feature associated with the Photoshop CS4 Extended program.

We have all taken pictures and invariably you will at some point get red eye. Red eye is when the flash from the camera creates the color red in the person’s (who is being photographed)eye. Adobe Photoshop CS4 offers the best and easiest way I have seen to get rid of red eye. Here is how you get rid of red eye in your photos with Adobe Photoshop CS4.

1. Launch Adobe Photoshop CS4 and open the photo that has red eye. Don’t forget to unloack the layer by double clicking the image’s thumbnail in the layers panel then selecting ok on the window that appears.
2. Step 2

   
   

   From your tools panel locate the “red eye tool”. The icon looks like an eye with a plus sign just above and to the left. I have circled it in the picture associated with this step.

3. Step 3

   
   

   With the red eye tool selected, click on the eye or eyes that have the red eye. You can see a before and after example in the picture associated with this step.

What’s a cooler effect then lighting? In a few easy steps you can create your own lighting and use it in a variety of applications. Here is how you create lightning in Adobe Photoshop CS4.

1. Launch Adobe Photoshop CS4 and create a new file. I selected “web” in the preset box to give me enough room to work with. The size is irrelevant so you can make it whatever you want. I will say though, the larger the size, the cooler the lightning.
2. Step 2

   Unlock your background layer by double clicking on it, and when the layer window appears, give it a name and then click ok. For this tutorial I have named my layer “lightning effect”.

3. Step 3

   
   

   Reset your color pallette so that black is back on top. To do that just press the letter “D”.

4. Step 4

   
   

   From the main menu at the top select “Filter”, then select “Render”, then select “Clouds” as shown in the picture associated with this step.

5. Step 5

   
   

   Your layer should now be a “cloudy” appearance in just black and white. We need to get rid of a lot of the white area, so in order to do that we add another filter called “Difference Clouds”. From the main menu at the top select “Filter”, then select “Render”, then select “Difference Clouds” as shown in the picture associated with this step.

6. Step 6

   
   

   Now we need to invert our layer. This will turn our dark lines into lighter lines and that is what we are shooting for to get close to the lightning effect. To invert your layer, press the “CTRL+I” keys on your keyboard at the same time, or you can click on “Image” on the main menu at the top, then click on “Adjustments” and then finally “Invert” as shown in the picture associated with this step.

7. Step 7

   
   

   As you can see it is starting to “kind of” look like lightning. We need to fine tune it. In order to do that we adjust the levels. To bring up the levels window press the “CTRL+L” keys on your keyboard at the sametime or click on “Image” then “adjustments” then level.

8. Step 8

   
   

   When the levels window appears, click on the gray middle slider and slide it towards the white slider. You should see your layer start to reduce to streams of lightning.

9. Step 9

   
   

   Now all we need to do is give our lightning some color. Bring up the “Hue/Saturation” adjusment window. To do that you click on “Image”, then click on “Adjustments” then click on “Hue/Saturation” or press the “CTRL+U” keys on your keyboard at the sametime.

10. Step 10

    
    

    On the “Hue/Saturation” window, check the “Colorize” checkbox located in the lower right side of the window. Then slide the “Hue” and “Saturation” levels until you get the desired effect you want. I set my “Hue” to 230 and my “Saturation” to 51.

Adobe Photoshop has become the standard in professional photo manipulation software because the company has made continual improvements to it, largely at the request of photographers and graphic designers. Version CS4 brings many new things together with the time-tested tools designed to take photographers out of the darkroom and into the innovative future.

1. Open a digital photo in CS4. Save a copy of the photo before you do anything else. You will want to work on the copy and preserve the original. Working with the copy, tone the photo to your liking. You can use presets. Go to Image, then Auto Tone, Auto Contrast or Auto Color for these presets. These have moved here from previous versions of Photoshop, which had them in the Adjustments pop-up menu. If you need more dynamic variation than the presets, go to Image, then Adjustments, then Levels. Beneath the Options button on the right are three eyedroppers for, from left, blacks, midtones and whites. Select the black eyedropper and find the darkest area of the image. For numbers, go to Window, then Info. The Information palette will show you light to dark ranges for red, green and blue or cyan, magenta, yellow and black (K). The higher the number of K, the more black is in that area of the image. Using the black eyedropper, find the blackest area of the image and click. Then click the white eyedropper and find the whitest area. This will be close to zero on the Info palette. When you find it, click it. This generally will give a balanced tone, but you can tweak it with the sliders. The left one is black, middle is midtones and right is white.
2. Step 2

   Use Shadow/Highlights or Curves to tweak the tone further. If the image has stark contrast and some of the detail is lost, Shadow/Highlights will punch up the shadows without touching the highlights, or vice versa. Curves allows you to set a brightness in the center, then tweak the lights and darks on the sides. Other controls under Adjustments such as Brightness/Contrast, Exposure and Variations also allow manipulation of the tone. Variations is not as subtle as some of the others, but it allows you to compare variations of the image with different colors added or subtracted to the image.

3. Step 3

   Resize the photo depending on how you plan to use it. For an image intended for a website, for example, you only need a resolution of 72 dots per inch. If you plan to print the image, it should be at a minimum of 200 dpi. The more dots per inch, the finer the quality of the final image, but the bigger the file. To resize an image to 8 1/2 inches by 11 inches, go to Image, then Image Size. In the pop-up menu, use the bottom portion. If it’s a horizontal or landscape image, set the width to 11 inches. The height will reset automatically. Then go to Resolution and set it at 300 dpi.

4. Step 4

   Print the image. Go to File, then Print. In the pop-up menu, you can select the printer and make adjustments. The default is for a vertical, or portrait, image, so if you need horizontal, click that button next to the Page Setup button. You will see how the image will look when printed. Click the Print button. A pop-up menu will appear where you can set specifics for the printer. No matter what kind of paper you are printing to, go to Quality & Media and select Glossy or Transparency. These settings will produce the best image on any paper. For a photo, choose a top-quality photo setting. For mixed words and images, select composite.

5. Step 5

   Experiment. There is a lot more to Photoshop than just toning photos. Go to Window, Actions for some presets. Try Fluorescent Chalk, Soft Posterize or Sepia (Layer) for example. You also can try things in the Filter Gallery (Filter, then Filter Gallery). You can make a photo look like a painting, or as if seen through Glass, or as a Chalk & Charcoal drawing. You can give the image a soft, otherworldly look with Diffuse Glow. One photo can produce a wide variety of images.