In this screencast I’ll demonstrate how to pixelate or obfuscate text in Photoshop.

I usually use Skitch for such things, but one day it wasn’t working, and all I had to hand was Photoshop – so I hunted around and found that it works just as well. It’s just knowing what to click. Once I figured that out, I thought why not share it with the world.

Here are some written instructions, just in case you’re not a video person.

Using the rectangular marquee tool (M), draw a selection around the area you’d like to pixelate. 

Now head over to Filter – Pixelate – Mosaic to bring up a little dialogue box.

Here you can select the Cell Size, meaning how pixelated you’d like the selection to appear. Photoshop even gives you a preview option – how nice is that?

When you’re happy, click OK and Photoshop will burn your pixelation into the selected layer. Press CMD+D to deselect the marquee, or head over to Select – De-select. Next, share your anonymous masterpiece with the world.

Happy pixelating!

Photoshop has an interesting set of filters that let us turn ordinary images into fascinating Bokeh Effects. Those can be useful as a nice alternative for gradient backgrounds due to the elements of randomness they can bring, or for foreground effects akin to those created with plastic cameras. 

The above uses a Bokeh Effect as additional foreground pattern. Let’s see how it’s done. Continue reading How to create a Bokeh Effect in Photoshop →

Sometimes we want to reproduce an image using a brush stroke. It’s a handy way to replicate a 2D object along a path for example. Using the standard brush for this though, we’ll find that we can only reproduce a single colour image. But what if we want to reproduce all colours in our image?

Enter the Mixer Brush Tool. Here’s how to sample an image and draw with it in Photoshop. Continue reading How to draw with an image in Photoshop →

Quick and easy:

In the Layers Palette, right-click somewhere underneath all layers (in the empty space), then pick a size (small, medium, large). Or choose not to display thumbnails at all.

It’s easy to create an effect of draped cloth in Photoshop, like in the image above. We can do this with the Gradient Tool. It’s the icon with an actual gradient on it, sometimes hiding behind the Paint Bucket or 3D Material Drop tool (if you don’t see it, left-click and hold for about one second for the multiple icons to appear, or press the keyboard shortcut G repeatedly).

Once selected, choose Difference as the mixing mode at the top left of the screen, and make sure that the colours are set to back and white (other colours can give “very creative” effects shall we say).

Now start moving your cursor in short strokes from left to right, then right to left. Every time you change direction, the image is inverted. Add a diagonal stroke in every so often. You’ll create magnificent drape effects in no time!