Photoshop Essentials.com - Tutorials and training for Adobe Photoshop.
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Latest Photoshop tutorials

Welcome to Photoshop Essentials, where everyone can learn Photoshop! We offer fun, exclusive, step-by-step tutorials for all skill levels, and all written with beginners in mind. From Photoshop Basics to Photo Editing and Retouching, Photo Effects, Text Effects and more!

Check out our latest Photoshop tutorials below. Or download our tutorials as PDFs and get exclusive bonus content!

Cast Light From A Window With Photoshop

Give an ordinary photo a more focused and dramatic look to it by creating a light source that appears to be shining through a window onto your main subject.

Telling Stories With Shadows In Photoshop

Learn how to truly make a picture worth a thousand words by adding a different shadow behind someone in a photo, as if the person will one day become the image in the shadow! A fun, easy and popular Photoshop effect that’s limited only by your imagination!

Collage Of Warped Photos With Photoshop

Learn how to create a fun photo collage in Photoshop by bending, twisting, curling, and reshaping photos using the Warp Tool! We’ll even see how to create more interesting drop shadows with the Warp Tool, as well as how to add subtle shadows and highlights to enhance the 3D look of our warping effect!

Adding Sunlight Through Trees With Photoshop

Learn how easy it is to create realistic beams of sunlight shining through the trees in a photo, then finish off the effect with patches of sunlight hitting the ground below.

Adding Reflections To Sunglasses With Photoshop

Creating reflections in sunglasses is a very popular Photoshop effect and opens up endless creative and artistic possibilities depending on who is wearing them and who or what you have them looking at. In this tutorial, we see how easy it is to do!

Creative Focus with Lens Blur In Photoshop

When it comes to adding blur effects to an image in Photoshop, most people yawn and think “Gaussian Blur filter”. But spend a little time with Photoshop’s much more powerful Lens Blur filter, along with its easy-to-create depth maps, and there’s no limit to how many creative and imaginative uses you’ll come up with for it!

Add Transparent Type To An Image With Photoshop

Learn a few different ways to add transparent type to an image in Photoshop, from the quickest and easiest way to more interesting ways using layer styles and blend modes. We’ll also look at the important and often confusing difference between a layer’s Opacity and Fill options.

Wedding Couple in Wine Glass – Photoshop Tutorial

Learn how easy it is to create this classic wedding photography effect in Photoshop, placing a wedding couple inside a wine glass. Not into wedding photography? You can use this same technique to place an image inside any glass object, like a bottle or an hour glass, or even place an image inside a bubble!

Interweaving Photo Strips With Photoshop

Learn how to use layers, layer masks and clipping masks in Photoshop to create the illusion that your photo is made up of vertical and horizontal strips that weave under and over each other.

Adding Rain To A Photo With Photoshop

How do you take photos of rainy days without getting your camera all wet? Easy! Add the rain later in Photoshop! This tutorial shows you how it’s done.

Photoshop Water Reflection Effect

In this photo effects tutorial, learn how easy it is to add a realistic looking water reflection to any image in Photoshop. No water required!

Digital Pixel Effect With Photoshop

Create a digital pixel effect in Photoshop by fading an image into pixels, an effect often used in ads that sell anything that has to do with digital. We’ll also look at a couple of variations on the effect, including how easy it is to create a completely different effect simply by changing blend modes!

Adding Fireworks To A Photo With Photoshop

Finish your photos off with a bang by adding real fireworks to them in Photoshop. If you can paint with a brush and change a layer blend mode, you have all the skills you need to fill your night skies with huge explosions and brilliant colors!

Fill A Photo With More Photos In Photoshop

Create a bit of an optical illusion in Photoshop by making a larger photo appear to be made from many smaller photos inside it. Great for family photos, wedding photos, or just as a fun thing to do with your friends.

Adding Focus To An Image With Color In Photoshop

Thanks to the power and flexibility of Photoshop’s adjustment layers, we can easily bring more focus and attention to the main subject of an image using color, an effect that’s very popular with sports and wedding photography.

Using A Photo To Mask Itself With Photoshop

Learn how to give a photo a soft glow effect by turning the image into a layer mask, essentially using the photo to mask itself, something Photoshop does not normally allow us to do.

Simple Pop Art Effect With Photoshop

Learn how to use Photoshop to turn a photo into a simple pop art effect from the 50s and 60s using nothing more than a basic selection tool, an easy image adjustment, and lots of solid colors.

Photo Realistic Drop Shadows in Photoshop

Make your standard Photoshop drop shadows go from fake to photo realistic by learning how to map them to the natural textures and depths in your image with displacement maps.

Infrared Photo Effect With Photoshop

Infrared photography captures light our eyes can’t see and uses it to create mysterious, otherworldly images. It’s a unique effect, and one that we can create ourselves in Photoshop.

Painted Edges Photo Border Effect

Learn how to add a painted edges photo border to your images with Photoshop and how to make it look like it was painted on canvas! When we’re done, we’ll use the file as a template to quickly add the same effect to other photos!