Go Back To:      CS3 Tutorials   CS2 Tutorials   Tutorials Home Page

Index of Chris's Tutorials

Saving Images

File Formats

There are many different kinds of these and Photoshop let's you save an image in any one of twenty of them: JPEG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, PSD, BMP, Portable Bit Map, on and on and on.

For our purposes, we'll only be working with two of them: JPEGs and TIFFs.

The native file format in Photoshop is PSD, Photoshop Document, which is basically exactly like a TIFF.

The JPEG

The advantage of JPEGs (Joint Photographic Experts Group) is that they're small files compared to TIFFs (small in terms of amount of digital information, not dimensions), but there are two distinct disadvantages of this format.

Losing Information

Every time you open and close a JPEG, it loses a very small amount of information about your image. If you will be opening and saving a JPEG many times, you might want to save it under another format, like TIFF for example. JPEGs are, as a consequence, called "lossy" because they lose information.

Layers

Layers are one of the more powerful aspects of Photoshop and most of the tutorials on this site will require you to create them. Layers are like stacks of information — a layer that will sharpen your image (or blur it), another one to change the hue, yet another to make the edges glow...on and on.

One of the values of layers is that you can make an infinite number of changes to your image without permanently changing one pixel of the original (just in case you completely screw up and need to start all over again). Your original image should always reside on the bottom, or Background, layer.

The problem with JPEGs is that this format doesn't play well with layers. In fact, if you try to save an image with layers under the JPEG format, all kinds of warning signs start popping up.

The TIFF

This format (Tagged Image File Format) is what's known as "lossless". In other words, it doesn't matter how many times you open and save a TIFF, it will never lose any information. The down side is that TIFFs are larger files than JPEGs.

TIFFs play well with layers. Saving an image with layers is no problem here. This is very valuable because at some point in the future, you may want to re-open an image and change an effect you put on a particular layer. With TIFFs, it's a done deal. All your layers are saved.

Saving Your Images

Saving a JPEG

If you don't expect to be opening and saving your images very many times, and also don't care about layers and wanting to return to them at some point, choose this format — it will save a lot of room in creating smaller file sizes.

If you've created layers and then want to save as a JPEG, you will need to "flatten" your image first. Go to the Layers Palette, right-click on any layer, and choose Flatten Image from the drop-down menu. Alternatively, you could press Layer > Flatten Image from the Menu Bar.

After flattening your image, I highly recommend that you save your image under a different name (that way, you'll still have the original). Press Shift-Cmd-S (Win: Shift-Cntl-S) to do a Save As, or press File > Save As from the Menu Bar. Rename the image, choose JPEG as your format, then click OK.

Saving a TIFF

Same as above. I would still do a Save As and save the image under a different name, and just choose TIFF as your format and you're done.

Free Photoshop Brushes

Visit our brushes page and get links to an amazing selection of brushes for Adobe Photoshop, including a preview of and links to Javier at Deviant Art. He has an enormous variety of brushes like Abstract, Fractals, Grunge, and many more. Another great source for brushes is psbrushes.net — they're billed as the largest resource for Photoshop brushes. And lest we forget, don't miss getbrushes.com — they are another source of an amazing number of free brushes for Photoshop.

Photoshop CS3 Resource Center

Download and purchase Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended from Adobe Labs and start enjoying the upgrades and enhancements of the program. For news, reviews, and articles on all things CS3, visit our Photoshop CS3 Resource Center, and for the latest CS3 tutorials, go to our CS3 Tutorials page.

Fluid Mask 2.0 — Special Offer — US$189

Order Fluid Mask through us and get a special discount — you pay only US$189 and you get 6 months of free upgrades. This offer is exclusive to photoshop-pro.com and to take advantage of it, visit our Fluid Mask Discount Page. To find out more about this software, what it does and how it does it, visit our Fluid Mask page.

As a short preview of this extraction tool (taken from their site), you might know that Fluid Mask is a highly advanced software tool designed to make life easier for everyone who creates cut outs. Built as a plug-in to Adobe Photoshop, Fluid Mask is the new next-generation cut-out tool. Behind the product is breakthrough technology that mimics the way the eye, optic-nerve and brain perform visual processing. It offers an intuitive, accurate and fast approach to cut outs. A key feature is the new Edge Overlay showing object edges within an image. Suddenly masking become a whole lot easier - it's now possible to select, group and mask objects in images to make great cut outs.

Alien Skin — 10% to 20% Discounts

Our special partners agreement with Alien Skin allows us to offer their software at some very nice discounts. Go to this Special Discounts Page to take advantage of excellent savings on a most excellent software. This offer excludes Eye Candy Bundle, which is already discounted at US$199.

Our exclusive offer includes Eye Candy: Textures | Eye Candy: Nature | Eye Candy Impact | Exposure | and their latest — Blow Up

SiteGrinder: designing websites with Photoshop

You don't need to know any code (e.g. HTML, CSS) or learn a new development application to make a great-looking website. With SiteGrinder, you use your Photoshop design skills and the site is automatically created for you.

In Photoshop, you do all the designing while adding relevant names to your layers. You then open SiteGrinder from the Automate menu in Photoshop, and build your site. SiteGrinder incorporates full functionality in the ability to create buttons, rollovers, multiple pages, email forms, menus, and more. What's nice about this product is that you can stick to all the creative stuff and let SiteGrinder grind out all the tedious code.

Free Photoshop Plugins

This one of our most popular pages. Go to our free plugins page to find links to the latest Photoshop plugins, information, and resources. You'll also find links to commercial plugins like Alien Skin, Extensis, Auto FX software, Xaos Tools, Photozoom, Photomatix, and many more.

Free Photoshop Actions

Check out our free Photoshop actions page to find links to the latest and greatest actions from sources like Adobe Studio Exchange, the Adobe Evangelists, Action Central, Action FX, and PicsToBits Actions.

You'll also find news about actions and an introduction to actions with links to excellent tutorials.

Recover Your Photos

Catastrophic disc failures are just waiting to happen. If you're not prepared, you may lose an entire life's work, but not now. Visit our Recover Your Photos page and discover a wealth of resources and links to immediately recover digital photo files from a catastrophic hard drive failure or a corrupted media card. For total hard drive crashes, check out DriveSavers. They specialize in providing expert recovery from HD failure. Also, get information on and links to PhotoRescue which is an extremely popular solution for recovering photos.

Can't Get Enough Fonts

Let's face it — you can never have enough fonts. Searching for good fonts is a past time of ours and we believe we've found some excellent ones.

Visit our free fonts page for an extensive list of links to font resources. We also have some links here to commercial font sites if you want to buy some.

Free Stock Photos

Contrary to popular belief, there are many places on the internet which offer free stock photos. If you are in the middle of a project where you need some, visit the page below for all the links.

If you're looking for stock images for free, visit our free stock photos page.

---

Header photo credit

This is a picture of the hull of a sailing vessel in dry dock taken by Christopher Swift of Swift Images.

The Search

Photomatix

Create amazing high dynamic range images using Photomatix Pro software. View some examples of the kind of images which Photomatix can produce.

SiteGrinder

Create websites from Photoshop with Site Grinder software. You do the creative part, it does the coding.

Videos

For those who learn best by visual means, we have an excellent selection of video tutorials from Christopher Swift.

Alien Skin

Add some zest to your Photoshop work with plugins by world renowned Alien Skin, featuring Snap Art, Eye Candy, and Exposure.

Fluid Mask

Extract images from their backgrounds with uncanny precision using Fluid Mask. Take a tour of Fluid Mask and find out how amazing it is.

Special discount price when ordering Fluid Mask through us!

Photozoom

Enlarge your images to enormous proportions with virtually no loss in sharpness or detail with Ben Vista software — Photozoom Pro 2.

Books

Photoshop LAB ColorThis is simply the best book on the LAB color space you'll ever buy.

---

Adobe Photoshop CS3 Classroom in a Book From the Adobe Creative Team itself! Takes you from beginner to advanced.

---

The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book — an excellent resource for learning all you need to know about Lightroom.

CS3 Resources

• Photoshop CS3
• CS3 Tutorials

Auto FX

Stunning effects with Auto FX software for Photoshop:

• Mystical Lighting
• Mystical Tint
• Dream Suite One

Resources

• Photoshop Tutorials
• Photoshop Books
• Lightroom Tutorials
• Lightroom Books
• Video Tutorials
• Free Actions
• Data Recovery
• Free Plugins
• Free Brushes
• Free Fonts
• Stock Photos

Wacom

From graphic design to photo touch ups, Wacom pen tablets make life easier: Wacom Pen Tablets

Site Hosting

This site is hosted by pair.com.

 

Copyright © 2007 photoshop-pro.com — all rights reserved. Copyright material published with permission of owners. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This Web site was designed and developed by swift-images.com. Photoshop-pro.com is hosted by pair.com.