How to Create Your Own Brushes

This tutorial about how to create your own brushes and set up individual settings for it.

First of all, find some appropriate image to create the brush from it. I prefer to use this one. Actually, you can use different pictures for brushes if you want.
So, open the image and go to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate to make it black-and-white.

Then create a new brush with Edit > Define Brush Preset, enter the brush name, for example, Flower_1 and press Ok to save it, then it will show up in your brushes. Create a new document sized 1000×500 pixels with all the default settings, RGB, 72 dpi, white background etc (in the future for this tutorial we will create a couple of new documents with the same presets to demonstrate brush presets). Select the Brush Tool and find our created brush in brush palette:

So, your prints should look as mine:

It is simply method to create brush. Also we can make brush edges softer. For this go back to
Example.jpg and clear background with Eraser Tool. Now we have something like this:

Then go to Edit > Define Brush Preset again and save this brush as Flower_2. Create a new one document and make new brush prints:

Ok, now I would like to review more brush presets. Click the button ‘Toggle the Brushes palette’ on the Options Bar to open brush presets window or by choosing Window > Brushes. Here we can see a couple of presets. I would like to briefly review main of them.

Click the name of the action, such as Scattering, to reach the sliders to adjust it. After you’ve made the adjustments, use the check box to turn the effect on or off.

The result will be the next:

Don’t forget to add new brush to brush palette. Press the button selected on picture below then chose New Brush Preset.

Chose Texture action. Here you can set different parameters affecting the application of texture to brush prints. It is possible to use Photoshop textures or download your own.

Select a new one interesting action Dual Brush. In this action is possible to mix two different brushes.
Over the basis of a brush, installed in the main window palette and the second is configured in the window presets.

Select Color Dynamic action. If you use a graphics tablet and stylus, you can get the same sort of fade-out effect that you’d get in the real world by easing off the pressure on a brush or pencil. You have five options for each of these settings: Off, Fade, Pen Pressure, Pen Tilt, and Stylus Wheel. In this pane you can range color dynamic for the brush.

Also we can add some noise to the brush. You can see the difference on picture below:

Wet Edges creates a sort of watercolor effect when you paint.

Thank you all for reading this Photoshop tutorial, I hope you learned something!

Make Up Effect for the Face

In this Photoshop tutorial I will be walking you through the creating new make up for the face.

Open up the stock photo you’ve chosen to be working with for this tutorial. First of all we need to make face skin softer. For this effect duplicate layer with Ctrl+D and apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur with the next presets:

After that mess with the layer mode & opacity/fill. I tried Soft Light with opacity of 60%. Ok, now get out the Eraser Tool and make clear area out of face skin.

Merge two layers in one. See the difference:

After that I think we should add some lipstick on lips. So, select the Polygonal Lasso Tool and make selection as on picture below:

Press Ctrl+J to duplicate selected area and change the color with Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation using similar settings to these:

Now we have something like this:

To bring it real view find and get out the Eraser Tool and clear unnecessary parts of the layer out of lips. After that set opacity up to 70% for this layer.

Now I would like to change eyes color and add some eye shadows. Select the Elliptical Marquee Tool and make selection as below:

Press Ctrl+J to duplicate selected area on the new layer. Now Image > Adjustments > Levels with the next presets:

To get the next picture:

Ok, now select the Eraser Tool again and a soft round brush to make a little clean work as on picture below:

After that create a new layer, then select the Polygonal Lasso Tool and make selection similar to the picture below:

Fill the selection with color of #a2ab8d and press Ctrl+D to deselect chosen area:

Apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur with the next presets:

Change layer mode to Hue:

Looking pretty good! Isn’t it? And the last one thing, I would like to put on rouge. For this create a new layer, then get out the Brush Tool and a soft round brush and make not so big spots from the left and rights sides of the face using color of #ff94a8:

Now apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur with similar settings to these:

Your picture should look as mine:

Now clear rouge out of face borders using the Eraser Tool and set up layer mode to Color for the layer:

That is it! Now we have cool make up effect for the face.

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The Registry Cleaner Advantage

The Windows registry is one of the most important components of your Microsoft Windows XP PC. It is basically a central hierarchal repository that comprises all hardware, software, and user profile configuration data of your computer. Your operating system, applications, and even the hardware installed on your system cannot perform a single task without accessing the registry. In the process, thousands of entries are added to and removed from the registry everyday. Although many of these entries are removed when they are no longer required, many stay behind. These left over entries add up and cause an uncontrolled growth of the registry. They also clutter and fragment the registry which can cause frequent system errors and crashes. To avoid this problem, it is important for you to keep your registry free of unwanted information. The best way to do this is by using a registry cleaner.

How to get a registry cleaner

You can easily download registry cleaners from the Internet. And depending on your budget and requirements, you can choose between freeware registry cleaners and shareware registry cleaners. Freeware utilities are available for free and provide you with basic features to help you scan and repair your registry. Shareware utilities are comprised of more advanced features that provide you with enhanced capabilities to clean your system and fix registry problems.

Benefits of Using a Registry Cleaner

Registry cleaners come equipped with number of options and features that enable you to perform various registry and system maintenance tasks.

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• Create registry backups. Due to its crucial role in the functioning of the Windows system, it is important for you to create a backup of the registry before you start making any changes. Almost all registry cleaners come equipped with backup and restore options that make it really simple for you to make registry backups. Many programs also allow you to create selective backups that enable you to make a backup of only that part of the registry that you are going to modify. In case anything goes wrong with the changes, you can simply use the restore option to undo your changes instead of restoring the entire registry.
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All Windows operating systems are dependent on the registry to perform various functions on your computer. Therefore, it is important for you to maintain a healthy registry. You can do this easily with the help of an efficient registry cleaner software. These utilities usually have a graphical user interface that makes it easy, even for novice users, to maintain a healthy and compact registry.

How To Remove Stubborn Programs

Unwanted software programs and faulty program installation files are a major cause of computer problems. At times, certain stubborn programs make their way onto your PC, and are difficult to get rid of because either they do not comprise a legitimate uninstall option or they are malicious in nature and no matter what procedure you perform to remove them, they stealthily install themselves again on the PC.

For instance, there is no official uninstaller available for DirectX 9, a technology that you need on your Windows XP PC to run the latest high-tech gaming applications. You may want to remove it, if there is some problem with the current installation and you want to remove and reinstall it to fix the error. Due to the absence of an official uninstaller, you may opt to use a third-party Windows uninstaller to uninstall DirectX 9. Or, you may open the registry editor, navigate to the registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\DirectX key and delete the DirectX key. After this, when you restart your PC, the original DirectX 8.1 that was shipped with your Windows XP will be restored on the system.

Using third-party installers also helps you in getting rid of many stubborn programs. These installers are developed in such a way that they scan your entire system for any file or registry entry related to the program you want to uninstall, and enable you to wipe it out completely when you uninstall.

Many software manufacturers, such as Adobe, Symantec, and McAfee have included uninstallers for their products on their websites. Therefore, to uninstall any of these products, it is recommended that you download their uninstallers and use them to ensure proper removal. For instance, if you want to remove the Adobe Flash Player plug-in, download Adobe uninstaller from the website and run it to ensure complete removal.

One of the most difficult programs to get rid of completely using Add or Remove Programs is spyware programs. These malicious programs add so many files and registry entries to your system that it is nearly impossible to get rid of them completely. To ensure complete removal of these programs, you either need to download and run special spyware removal tools or use a reliable and updated antispyware tool to detect and remove these programs from your system. For instance, to remove mirar toolbar, which is a common Internet Explorer spyware/adware toolbar, you either download a mirar removal tool or use your antispyware tool to run a full scan of your PC and remove all mirar files and registry entries from the system.

While removing difficult applications, it is important for you to ensure that all related registry entries are removed from the system. This is important, especially when you are trying to get rid of spyware and adware programs. These programs are known to add hidden and embedded entries in the registry. So, even if you remove the program by using Add or Remove Programs, spyware programs reinstall themselves with the help of these hidden and virtually non-removable registry entries. This makes it important for you to follow up all program uninstallation procedures including antivirus and antispyware scans, with a thorough registry scan, cleanup and repair. It is recommended that you use a reliable and advanced registry cleaner to perform this task and ensure yourself a clean error-free system.

Remove Spyware and Adware

Spyware programs, as the name suggests, are designed to stealthily install on your system, to spy and track your computer and web browsing activity. These tools collect this information and usually send it to advertising websites.

Adware programs, on the other hand, are designed to install on your system and display advertising content on your PC. Not all adware is malicious. Many freeware programs display adware, to generate revenue for their product. These adware are usually removed once you buy the professional version of the product. However, the adware that is displayed on your system without your consent is malicious and is categorized as a spyware.

How to Remove Spyware and Adware from My Computer

Most spyware and adware programs are designed in such a way that as soon as they gain entry to your system, they copy numerous files to different locations on your computer. They also add quite a few entries to the Windows registry, in order to carry out their malicious activities. Many of these spyware registry keys and files are hidden, which makes it practically impossible to remove spyware and adware manually from the system.

However, don’t worry. You can easily get rid of these malicious programs and even prevent them from creeping on to your system by following the simple steps listed below.

Step 1: Download and Install a Reliable Anti-Spyware Utility.

It is not possible to perform a spyware scan using antivirus tools. Therefore, many antivirus manufacturers integrate an antispyware feature along with their antivirus and other system security tools. However, if this is not the case with your antivirus tool, then you will have to separately install an anti-spyware utility on your computer.

You can easily select and download a reliable and efficient anti-spyware utility from the Internet. You can confirm the reliability and efficiency of your spyware product by reading through the user reviews posted at various websites.

After downloading, you can install the tool on your computer by double-clicking its EXE file.

Step 2: Close all Applications and Run a Full System Scan

After your anti-spyware tool is installed, you need to run a full system scan on your PC. For the spyware scan to be effective, before starting the scan, exit all applications currently running on your computer. Also, disconnect your PC from the Internet and from the Local Area Network or LAN. This is important because the scan may ignore the currently running applications and your scan will be incomplete.

It is usually recommended that you run the anti-spyware scan—and the antivirus scan—in Safe Mode. In Safe Mode, only essential services and process are loaded, and you reduce the chances of a file being left unscanned.

Note: To start your PC in Safe Mode, restart your PC and press F8. Next, from the options listed on the screen, select Safe Mode.

Step 3: Run the Scan Again to Ensure Complete Cleanup.

If you are scanning for the first time, it is recommended that you run the scan at least twice to ensure complete cleanup. You must do this even if your system does not report any errors during the first scan.

Step 4: Scan the Registry for Spyware Registry Problems.

As mentioned earlier, spyware and adware programs add many registry keys. Therefore, to ensure a complete spyware cleanup, you must also get rid of spyware registry problems. Even though most anti-spyware programs are designed to check the registry for spyware entries, it is recommended that after the anti-spyware scan, that you also run a separate registry scan to ensure complete removal of all malicious entries. The best and simplest way to perform an effective registry scan is to use a registry cleaner tool.

Registry cleaner tools use advanced algorithms to perform a thorough scan of your PC, and remove even those spyware entries that are added deep within the registry as embedded or non-removable keys.

Spyware and adware programs are not only troublesome, but are also malicious in nature. To prevent these programs from installing on your PC, you must be careful about the emails, files, and websites you open. Additionally, you must perform regular anti-spyware and registry scans to ensure that your PC is free from any malicious programs.

Tricks To Improve PC Performance (Hardware)

1.) Tricks For Hardware Configuration

A well-configured PC by itself offers great performance. The key lies in the choice of the components and their arrangement.

• Choice of CPU
  My suggestion for a CPU would be one from AMD. I choose AMD for the following reasons
  1. Price-to-performance ratio: Athlon processors beat the best from the Intel's equally clocked processors. Besides, they are cheaper than Intel's. Because they support DDR-RAM, the overall system cost is lower.
  2. True FSB speed of 200 MHz: Though Intel advertises an FSB of 800 MHz, its true FSB is only 200 MHz, which is the same as the latest AMD Athlon XP processors. This is because not all subsystems of a PC can work at 800 MHz.
  3. DDR-RAM support: DDR-RAM allows two data fetches per clock cycle. The newer dual-channel DDR-RAM does four data fetches per clock cycle, which is the same number as RDRAM. RDRAM however has higher latencies. Besides, you cannot upgrade RDRAM easily. If you add another module of RDRAM to an existing one, you will only increase the total latency because RDRAM is serial in nature. Compared to this, because DDR-RAM is parallel in nature, you can easily add additional modules of DDR RAM as and when you have the money, and expect the throughput to multiply. Because RDRAM technology is proprietary and difficult to make, it is expensive. DDR-RAM on the other hand is cheaper because its specification is made by a nonprofit standards organization. Even Intel seems to moving towards DDRRAM, as many Pentium-4 chipsets now support DDR-RAM.
  4. HyperTransport: This technology was developed by AMD to upgrade the PCI bus of its limited capacity and all its other deficiencies. HyperTransport has been used in nVidia's nForce2 chipset. It beats all other PCI-based systems in terms of performance.

• Choice of motherboard
  There was a time when integrated motherboards meant lower performance and limited functionality. Not anymore. With the nForce and the forthcoming chipsets from ATI, this feeling will definitely undergo a change. The nForce currently supports not only AMD processors, DDR-RAM, and HyperTransport, but also carries a GeForce GPU and a Dolby^® 5.1 onboard sound processor. Other things to look for in a motherboard would be support for ATA 133, USB 2.0, AGP 8x, CNR, enough memory slots, space for larger heatsink/fan combination, etc.

• IDE drives setup: A motherboard usually has 2 IDE connectors each capable of connecting 2 devices in a master/slave combination for a total of 4 devices. If you have just a single hard disk and a single CD drive, set them as separately as masters in each IDE connector. If you have a CD drive and CD-RW drive, set the CD-RW as the master and the CD drive as its slave.

• ATX (cabinet): When buying the ATX, make sure it supports your CPU/motherboard/AGP combination. Intel Pentium IV processors and motherboards require a special kind of ATX that conforms to their standard (ATX 2.03). Do not buy an ATX with less than 300 W power supply. Also, make sure the cabinet has provisions for two extra fans (one in the front and one in the back). The power supply comes with a fan, which also tries to takes some hot air off the CPU through a grill placed just above the CPU. This grill needs to big enough and properly placed and spaced out to provide effective cooling. Another thing to look for in an ATX is a socket for the monitor. Some cabinets do not come with them. So, these have to be connected directly to the mains and cannot be switched off with the rest of the system when the PC is shutdown.
  With Windows Me/2000/XP, there is an option in Control Panel » Power Options called Hibernate. Hibernate is used to quickly shut down the PC and restart it with the same programs you had kept open when you shut down the system. This option is possible with ATX cabinets only. Hibernate does not function properly if you have devices that do not use Win32 ^® Driver Model (WDM) drivers.

• COM ports: If you are using a serial mouse, connect it to the COM1 port as the OS first checks this port for a mouse. You can connect your modem to the COM2.

• CNR port: This port (known as Audio Modem Riser or AMR in older motherboards) can be used to add a specially made low-cost peripheral replacement. The replacement is far cheaper than a separate sound card or modem.

• Fans: If your cabinet allows it, install additional fans for extra cooling.

• Dust: Remove dust regularly from the insides of your cabinet and prevent them from forming a coating over the motherboard and other parts.

• Driver updates: Check the websites of the various hardware vendors for updates and install them. Most important among them would be those of the motherboard chipset.

2. Tips ∓ Tricks For BIOS

• Standby BIOS: After you had just assembled or just bought your PC, make sure to take a copy of your BIOS in a floppy. Do not forget to copy the software program required to flash the BIOS with it. For instructions regarding this, refer to your motherboard manual or the manufacturer's website.

• Do not detect absent IDE drives: As mentioned earlier, you can connect 4 IDE devices to your MB. During bootup process, the BIOS will try to detect all of them. If you have just a hard disk and a CD drive, you can set the BIOS to detect just these devices and bypass checking the absent ones. This will save some precious microseconds when booting up.

• Supervisor password: To prevent your BIOS settings from being changed by anyone else, set a Supervisor password in the BIOS and do not set the user password.

• User password: If you want to prevent access to anyone else, then set the User password.

• Remote access: You can make a telephone call to your PC from outside or send a fax to it even when the machine is switched off. This is possible with ATX standard cabinets. In the power settings section of the BIOS, allow the PC to wake up on LAN or external modem act. Keep the power supply to the ATX and the modem on, while the system itself is powered off. When the modem receives a call, it will wake up the power supply and boot up the PC to handle the call.

• Boot sequence: After you have installed your OS, set your hard disk first in the boot-up sequence with the CD drive and the floppy following it in that order.

• Quick Power On Self Test: Keep this enabled and save on boot-up time.

• Boot Up Floppy Seek: Keep this disabled.

• BIOS updates: Check the motherboard's website or that of the BIOS manufacturer for BIOS updates and use the BIOS update program mentioned above to flash the BIOS. Many problems faced initially with hardware are likely to be solved after the updates.

4.) Tricks For Disk Partitions

• Primary Partitions, Extended Partitions and Logical Partitions
  A hard disk can have a maximum of only 4 partitions, which are called PRIMARY PARTITIONS. This limit was thought to be sufficient in the early days of the PC. To go over this limit, in place of a primary partition, a special kind of partition called EXTENDED PARTITION is used. Inside this EXTENDED PARTITION, any number of smaller partitions called LOGICAL PARTITIONS can be created.

• Multiple OS and partitions: Some people recommend just one primary partition and the rest inside an extended partition. But, some OS like the Linux require a primary partition for proper booting up. Others, such as Windows 2000 will be happy to get installed in a logical partition while Windows 95/98/Me installs in the first primary partition.

• My recommendation is two primary partitions (one for Win 9x/Me and one for Linux) with the rest inside an extended partition.

• Partitioning tool: Windows 9x/Me supplies a partition tool called FDISK. It does not recognize partitions created by Linux installations. So, use something like Ranish Partition Manager.

• Boot loader: If you have multiple operating systems, you might want to use a GUI-based boot loader such as Extended Operating System Loader (XOSL)

5.) Tricks For Disk Swap

• GUI-based operating systems use a swap file for the sake of virtual memory. In Linux, you create a separate partition for the swap. There are advantages in doing the same for Windows too.
  When you let Windows to manage the swap file, it remains in the C drive along with other files and becomes fragmented as Windows resizes the swap file over time. To avoid this, create a partition at the end of all your other partitions about 2.5 times the size of your installed RAM and format it.
  1. In Windows 9x/Me: Right-click on My Computer, click on Properties, choose the Performance tab, and click on Virtual Memory. Here, check the Let me specify my own virtual memory settings and chose the new partition. Set the Minimum and maximum size to something below the total size of the partition.
  2. In Windows 2000: Right-click on My Computer, click on Properties, click on the Advanced tab, click on Performance Options, and click on Change. Here, choose the drive where the swap resides and remove the settings in the Initial Size and Maximum Size boxes. Now, choose your swap partition and set the initial and maximum sizes to the new partition's full capacity minus 20 MB.
     If you run heavy duty applications such as Oracle, you may need a swap greater than 500 MB. For all others, a 300-MB partition should be more than enough.
• If you have two hard disks, then this swap partition could be placed on the second disk. This hard disk should be connected to a different IDE channel. Preferably, place the swap file on the first partition in the second disk and follow the method shown previously. When two disks start working instead of just one, there is a perceivable increase in performance. People doing DV recording should have their programs, swap, and media files in three separate disks for best results.

6.) Tricks For Cache Setting

Windows has the same cache setting for all machines. Most often, this is not optimal. As a result, the system exhausts all its free memory and appears very sluggish. You can get the true value of your system by optimising the cache to your system's needs.

• In Windows 9x/Me, you have to modify a system file. A software called Cacheman will do this for you. In Windows NT/2K, you should change the I/O page size. To do this, you can use Xteq Systems X-Setup. Choose the appropriate setting under System » Memory.
  The above-mentioned programs do not stay in memory all the time. They just simply modify a setting under which Windows works.

source

Animatrix Woman

1. New Document
Open up your favourite picture of the most attractive women you'll never meet. I picked a random beautiful woman.

2. Level Change
Press Ctrl+L to toggle level change. Move both the White arrow a little bit to the middle. This will Increase the image exposure. Use settings much like below:

Until You have like below:

3. Change the Color
Now, press CTRL+U to toggel colour change, and change the colour. I used the following settings to give me a green colour.

After you finish this, sharpen it up some, by doing filter>sharpen>sharpen and it should look like this:

4. Apply Filter
Now duplicate the layer, and on the top layer, add a filter>blur>gaussian blur with these settings:

After you have finished bluring your top layer set the layer blending mode to overlay and then click on the bottomw layer and press ctrl+shift+u (this should desaturate your layer)

5. Dark Strokes
Click on the bottom, (now greyscale) layer, and do a filter>brush stokes>dark strokes using these settings:

Your girl should look like this now:

6. Matrix Code
Already you have an animatrix type woman. From this point you can experiment with other brush strokes, and maybe sharpen some more. To me she already looks very abstract and much like the animation in the animatrix. But I want more, make to clear its matrix related so we'll add some matrix code.

Start by adding a line of text, make it green and small, and only put one letter on a line. so it looks like this:

It can be any font, use as many symbols as possible.

7. Duplicate Layer
Now make sure your text layer is on top of all other layers, then duplicate it by right-clicking and selected "duplicate layer.." After you have done this, click on the top layer, and add a filter>blur>gaussian blur using the same settings as before (should still be in there).

Finally we want to merge this layer with the original text layer, by right-clicking on the original text layer, and selecting rasterize and then clicking on the top layer and pressing ctrl+e.
After you do this you should get some blurred code text:

8. Merge the Layer
Now comes the interesting part, duplicate this layer move the text column to the right an inch, shrink it, and lower its opacity down, then press ctrl+e to merge.
Repeat this step until you have many lines of text, experimenting with opacities, and sizes, make sure you get a good number of lines. When you think your satisfied change your layer blending mode to colour burn and you should come out with something like this:

thats it! looks real good to me!
Enjoy! Tell your Friends!