Photoshop® CS4 All-in-One For Dummies®

Chapter 2. Applying Filters for Special Occasions

In This Chapter

• Using the Filter Gallery

• Applying artsy effects and brush strokes

• Adding distortion and noise — on purpose

• Breaking up an image

• Rendering different effects

• Sketching and texturizing images the easy way

• Putting other filters to work

Photoshop has dozens of filters that let you enhance your image in unusual ways. You can create Old Masters portraits from common snapshots, shatter your image into a thousand sparkling pieces, create clouds in a cloudless sky, create stained glass, or perform hundreds of other tricks.

The big challenge in using these filters is figuring out what each filter can do and how to apply it to the best effect. This chapter builds on Book VII, Chapter 1 by introducing you to more of those fabulous Photoshop plug-ins — and shows you some typical applications for them. Several Putting-It-Together projects have step-by-step instructions. For the first few examples, I provide you with the settings I used to achieve particular looks. However, filter effects vary greatly when applied to different images, so you have to play with the filter controls yourself when you use these techniques with your own images.

Tip

You can apply a filter to a layer, selection, or channel. And you can also fade a filter, change opacity settings, and use layer masks to soften the effects of filters. In fact, in some cases, you may