Find out how to create your own Photoshop lightsaber with this easy step-by-step tutorial!
Last weekend my good friend (and self-confessed Sci-Fi fan) Jen went to the London Film Museum, and had this great photo taken of herself brandishing a lightsaber in front of a piece of original Star Wars set. However the image was lacking a little something, which reminded me of a great trick in Photoshop to add a lightsaber effect.
To really get to grips with Photoshop, Silicon Beach Training offer Photoshop Training and Advanced Photoshop Training , as well as InDesign Training in Brighton, Sussex. And for all those programming geeks reading this – did you know that we also now offer JavaScript Training, jQuery Training and Ajax Training too?!
So – here’s how to add a Photoshop lightsaber effect…
How to Create a Lightsaber Effect in Photoshop CS5
Here’s the original image – as you can see Jen’s got her lightsaber, but it’s just a white stick, which looks rubbish.
If you want to use this image for the Photoshop tutorial you can download it here – but much better to use your own. If you don’t have a toy light saber it doesn’t matter – just strike the pose with something that looks like a light saber handle, and Photoshop can do the rest!!
Ever since Apple decided to exclude Adobe Flash support on the iPhone (for three years) and on the iPad - the future of Adobe Flash has been debated.
Apple CEO Seve Jobs calls Adobe lazy
According to Apple CEO Steve Jobs when talking about Adobe during a Town Hall-style meeting with Apple employees in January 2010:
“They are lazy. They have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it. They don’t do anything with the approaches that Apple is taking, like Carbon. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy, he says. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash, he says. The world is moving to HTML5.”
Well maybe Mr Jobs should read all the buzz about Molehill. According to Adobe:
“Molehill” is the codename for a new set of GPU-accelerated 3D APIs that provide the power needed for delivering advanced 3D experiences using Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR. These new low-level APIs are designed for experienced 3D and 3D engine developers, delivering a flexible API with improved performance.
In English for the rest of us – It turns Adobe Flash into a true 3D platform. Many games developers believe that Molehill will become the de-facto standard for Internet gaming.
Training Funding will be finishing soon – APPLY NOW to avoid missing out…
Over the last few years, lots of Silicon Beach Training’s clients have taken advantage of Train to Gain’s “Leadership & Management” funding. This scheme allows business leaders and owners to gain access to up to £1,000 in funding towards training.
All Star Trek fans out there will know about ‘replicators’ – machines that can make any object you want. This is no longer the stuff of sci-fi – now you can buy one for your own home! Well – sort of… The Thing-O-Matic 3D Printercan make small plastic models of anything you can produce a 3D computer drawing of, and will accept files from most 3D design packages…
OK, so it can only make objects up to 7″ by 6″ in size, but at just $1,225 (around £790) and only 3o minutes to ‘print’ each object, just think of the possibilities! Can’t find your bottle opener? Can’t be bothered to go out and buy one? Just knock up or download a 3D model and PRINT one! Combine the thing-o-matic with the MakerBot 3D scanner, which scans 3D objects around itself and turns them into designs the MakerBots can replicate everything you already have.
The 3D printer, made by Makerbot Industries in the USA works by building up microscopic layers of plastic. More advanced machines have existed for a while in the manufacturing industry, but thie is the first time a 3D printer has been made available for home use.
And whilst it can only print plastic objects at the moment, a new model is already in the pipeline that can include metal components too, making the prospect of “printing” electrical devices like mobile phones (minus the microchips) a potential reality.
So what would you print with a 3D printer…? We’ve had a bit of a brainstorm in the office and come up with the following list – let us know what you’d print in the comments section below:
Good luck to all those that entered, now over to Leigh Caraccioli to decide the winners!
The Theme for our competition this time is ‘Black and White‘ so get out there and set your camera to Black and White (or filter them in Photoshop later!), you could even scan your old black and white photographs and enter those too.
To follow this competition head to Flickr, our Facebook page and also follow our RSS Feed. The winner will also be announced on this blog and also on Twitter so don’t forget to follow us @SBTtraining. We run regular photography competitions so keep in touch and let us know if you have any suggestions for the next theme.
BBQ Sausages Brighton Festival by Brighton Photographer Heather Buckley - click image to buy
1st Place Winner will receive an Alien Skin Photo Bundle software package. The Photo Bundle gives you all five of Alien Skin’s award-winning photography plug-ins: Blow Up, Bokeh, Exposure, Image Doctor, and Snap Art. Each of these products enhances work-flow, saves time and provides creative freedom. Combining these products together is even more effective.
2nd Place Runner-Up will receive a £50 Park Cameras Gift Voucher. You could put it towards a nice new shiny camera, lens, tripod or anything else that Park Cameras have to offer. Read below for more information on Park Cameras and what they have to offer.
The winning entries will be announced on our Blog, Twitter and Facebook as well as other social media platforms – an excellent way to generate online exposure and increase traffic to your website! So if you’re an aspiring amateur photographer and like the sound of these fantastic prizes, then get snapping!
A big thank you to all of those who entered our ‘Mood’ Photography Competition
Why don’t you enter our current photo competition though – click here for details.
We had almost 1000 photographs entered and the standard was very high. Jack Hollingsworth has done a fantastic job judging the winners and has come up with his 1st, 2nd and 3rd place photographs.
So, without further ado, drum roll please…
Our 1st Place winner is –
Congratulations to Buchachon Petthanya with ‘Faith’
“Amazing photograph. Amazing emotion. Photographer makes you feel like you are there, participating. Probing B/W treatment too. Awesome image. Love it. Great job!” Jack Hollingsworth.
Buchachon Petthanya has won a Pantone Huey Pro and a Mini ColorChecker, courtesy of X-rite Photo and 250 Greeting Cards with their choice of photo on, thanks to Facemediagroup.
An eBook (short for electronic book) is a publication made up of text and images in digital format; it can be read on computers, certain mobile phones and special eBook reading devices. They are normally in PDF format, mainly to be read on computer, but here is a tutorial on how to produce an eBook in EPUB format. EPUB is a format which allows smaller screened devices read eBooks; the text in the files can be easily manipulated into a free flowing format. When reading an eBook on a mobile device, for example, you can make the letters bigger or smaller and the whole text will adjust to fit the screen so you don’t have to scroll and zoom.
When you create an EPUB eBook you will notice that the formatting is different to how you made it in InDesign, you can check how it looks by downloading Adobe Digital Editions for free here. The reason it looks different is because all the content flows in EPUB format, making it much easier to read on a smaller screen. Be aware that some content will be removed, including; automatic page numbers, page breaks, table of contents and some images.
Making Images Ready for Exporting -
Images can be used in EPUB files, but they need a bit of work done on them to keep them formatted within the right part of the text, otherwise they get sent to the end of the document. To start with, only images that have been imported into InDesign will work, vector drawn images that have been created in InDesign need to be copied and pasted into Photoshop, saved and then inserted back into the document. EPUB supports .Gif, .jpg, .png formats and SVG which means EPUB file can also contain vector graphics, e.g. for logo’s or maps.
If you want your images to be positioned in a certain place within the text, you need to anchor the images. This is to make sure that when text is resized, the image flows with the text that it is anchored to.
An eBook (short for electronic book) is a publication made up of text and images in digital format; it can be read on computers, certain mobile phones and special eBook reading devices. They are normally in PDF format, mainly to be read on computer, but here is a tutorial on how to produce an eBook in EPUB format. EPUB is a format which allows smaller screened devices read eBooks; the text in the files can be easily manipulated into a free flowing format. When reading an eBook on a mobile device, for example, you can make the letters bigger or smaller and the whole text will adjust to fit the screen so you don’t have to scroll and zoom.
