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Adobe Photoshop Video Tutorials - Best Of

March 28th, 2008 in Tutorials | 153 Comments

by Dirk Metzmacher

The best thing about Photoshop video-tutorials is that they allow you to observe professionals just as if you were standing nearby and looking over their shoulders. You can see step-by-step how buttons, collages or even paintings are created. Instead of reading through books describing what needs to be selected, activated and clicked, you can simply imitate mouse clicks knowing exactly that you are actually doing the right thing.

The learning curve is easier to climb and the result is easier to compare. More than that: you can observe how it is done from the very beginning to the very end and (sometimes) you can get explained why it is done in exactly this way.

We’ve searched through dozens of video-sites, forums, articles, blogs, portfolios and communities. And we selected 80 excellent Adobe Photoshop video tutorials which you can use as a starting point to improve your skills or observe how professionals do their job. Among other things, below we present Photoshop video tutorials about speed painting, design of buttons and interfaces, beauty retouching, digital matte painting, photo manipulation, effects and much more.

Speed Painting

John Locke
The Lost character John Locke.
Sea Monster
This creature is very angry. Godzilla let her down.
Spider-Man
Superhero Spider-Man with his traditional red-and-blue costume. My spider-sense tells me, i should open Photoshop.
Werewolf
A wolflike and very hairy creature.
Adriana Lima
Best known for her modeling work with Victoria’s Secret.
Hellboy
Another comic character, this time a large red-skinned demon .
Gabi
Artists paint not only celebrities, but also photos of the beloved ones.
Jack Sparrow
Captain Jack Sparrow. A Pirate of the Caribbean.
Scarlett Johansson
Actress Scarlett Johansson. A good example of black and white power. If looks could kill.
Fergie
Stacy Ann Ferguson, better known as Fergie.
Indiana Jones
After 18 years back in cinemas. Indiana Jones.
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist. »La deposizione« in photoshop.
Beyonce
R&B-Star Beyoncé Knowles.
Dragon
The brother of the creature above.
Mona Lisa
What a smile. Leonardo Da Vinci masterpiece.
Bob Ross
Bob Ross was an painter and television host. Now, he was painted himself.
Waterfall
How to draw a waterfall environmental concept scene.
Albert Einstein
Everything is relative. Famous and brilliant theoretical physicist Albert Einstein.

Button and Interface

Create a Glass Sphere
A good basis for a shiny button.
Feed Icon
Create your own standard feed icon, the well known orange square.
Aqua Sphere
Aqua, Apples visual theme of Mac OS X. Still great.
Slice and Export a Website Layout
You can create web graphics in Photoshop. Here’s how to make a website out of it.
Gel Button
Another good basis for a button.

Beauty Retouching

Evolution
A young classics.
Face Change
This is Angelina Jolie face changed in Photoshop into a comic charakter.
Face Retouch
Watch the newest plastic surgery tipps.
Teeth whitening
Whiten teeth and correct slightly crooked.
Skin Smoothing
Smooth the texture, remove major wrinkles and bumps.
Beauty Saloon
Photoshop is the best product in the beauty industry.
Perfect lie
What is real and what is photoshopped. Don`t believe your eyes.
Tattoo removal
Have you ever regretted the tattoo of your youth. Use Photoshop!
Skin color retouching
Two ways for getting those skin colors to behave just the way you want them.
Digital Makeup
Enhance your appearance and simulate make-up.

Digital matte painting

Matte painting
98 layers create this landscape.
Natural History Museum
A future vision of the Natural History Museum.
Matte painting of a city
A fictional city with a reflection in the sea..
Matte Painting & Visual Effects
Matte Painting with animation.
Fog in the valley
Rough Matte Painting of clouds or fog in a valley.

Photo Manipulation

Match Color
Color correction with »Match color«, found under »Image ↔ Adjustment«. Combine two photos and make the colors match.
Sin City
Simulate the style of film noir-like Sin City in your photos. High contrasts, black and white and some spots of red, blue and yellow.
Produce Scary Photos
Produce scary photos with the overlay of textures on the skin and dark hair. It’s that simple.
Human To Statue
Convert your normal pictures of people into photos of statues. Again, textures used for a realistic effect.
Sci-Fi
A mysterious explosion of blue light or a spherical spaceship. They are among us.
Starry Eyes
Create eyes with some stars in it. Real stars of a photo, in the shape of the eye and fit with the blending mode »Overlay« or »Screen«. “A little bit of heaven in your own eyes.”
Changing Colors
Changing hair, eyes and cloth colors with Photoshop.
Toning & Burning
Correct the colors and change the surface. Make a photo old and broken.
Popout Picture
The Out of Bound-Effect. A really useful trick to create cool photos.
Glassball
A ball of glass, with refractions. A good 3D-Illusion in 2D-Software.
Mix two creatures
Two species melt into a new animal. Like this crog, a combination of a frog and a crocodile.
Lightning
Photoshop is definitely hot enough to fuse sand into glass, with this lightning tutorial.

You Suck at Photoshop

You Suck at Photoshop #1
Donnie Hoyle pulls a digital end-around on a restraining order and vandalizes a Vanagon.
You Suck at Photoshop #2
How to fix little mistakes.
You Suck at Photoshop #3
Donnie Hoyle makes a very big mistake go away.
You Suck at Photoshop #4
Path and Masks.
You Suck at Photoshop #5
Donnie’s self-discovery vacation heats up. By the megaton.
You Suck at Photoshop #6
Donnie’s four day hold-up at the airport makes for some heavy duty Photoshop diversion.
You Suck at Photoshop #7
Donnie Hoyle hots up a facebook photo for one lucky fan.
You Suck at Photoshop #8
Donnie opens his home to a new friend.
You Suck at Photoshop #9
Donnie Hoyle gets as close to a pair of tomatoes as he’ll ever get.

Graphics, Effects and more

Exploding Planet
Some filter combinations creates the illusion of an exploding planet.
Hyperspace Background
A good background for a space battle.
Fire effect
Let a letter burn.
Sony Ericsson logo
Gradients make the logo.
Realistic Sun in 5 Mins
An authentic-looking sun.
Ink
Draw the lines for clean results.
Blaze Your Name
Your name in flames.
Eye
Draw an eyeball with iris, pupil and some effects.
Lightsaber
Lightsabers – the principal weapons of the Jedi.
How to Color Comic Books
Graphic art colored with Photoshop.
Explosion
An impressive simulated explosion.

Collections

PixelPerfect
Bert Monroy takes a stylus and a digital pad and shows us the tips and tricks in 75 episodes.
Tutorialchamp
The Key To Mastering Photoshop. Only 10 but high quality Videos.
Planet Photoshop
78 Video-Tutorials. The manipulation of photos is the main theme.
Lombergar
Lombergar.com offers over 20 free online video tutorials.
PhotoshopUser TV
The Photoshop Guys Dave Cross, Matt Kloskowski, and Scott Kelby shows weekly amazing tricks.
The Radiant Vista
20 huge Quicktime-Videos.
Photoshop Killer Tips
Again a Photoshop Guy. Get your daily dose of the coolest Photoshop tips with Matt Kloskowski.
luv2help.com
He really loves to help us learning Photoshop.
Adobe Video Workshop
Start learning about any Adobe application like Photoshop, Lightroom and all the other creative suite products. Tons of videos.

Dirk Metzmacher is a professional Photoshop trainer, book author and designed with over 10 years of experience. He is also a creative mind behind Photoshop Weblog, a German blog about techniques, tutorials and resources related to Adobe Photoshop.

Published in Tutorials, March 28th, 2008
Tags: adobe, Graphics, Interface, painting, photos, photoshop, retouching, Tutorials, videos

1.

arnaud (March 28th, 2008, 6:58 am)

Thx a lot, really good list :)
2.

Juan Manuel Lemus (March 28th, 2008, 7:04 am)

Very good PhotoShop collection. Thanks for the article.. !
3.

pim (March 28th, 2008, 7:19 am)

I love these tutorials. Nice work
4.

Haobam (March 28th, 2008, 7:23 am)

Perfect time considering, Photoshop Express Beta has just been released. Link [www.haobam.com]
5.

adam (March 28th, 2008, 7:42 am)

these are not the best tuts out there. a lot of these are from photoshop 7.0 check out Link [www.psdtuts.com] they are way wayyyyy better than this crap
6.

Braintrove.com (March 28th, 2008, 8:37 am)

Some great stuff
7.

Riveiracadman (March 28th, 2008, 8:43 am)

Nice Collection - dug it

White Sands Digital
8.

Cassiano (March 28th, 2008, 8:58 am)

From now on, Smashing Magazine, my favorite site!

Cassiano
from Brasil
9.

Adrian (March 28th, 2008, 11:47 am)

Bob Ross - RIP. I grew up with Bob on the TV. I remember him as a afro-man with serious talent. Great list SM!
10.

Alvin (March 28th, 2008, 12:25 pm)

Superb Collection
11.

Bassofia (March 28th, 2008, 4:51 pm)

impresionante colección, muchos ya los había visto, pero sin duda que me faltaban bastantes! jeje

agradecido!

salu2
12.

Torley (March 28th, 2008, 5:35 pm)

Dirk, in addition to this great compilation — with pictures! — I REALLY appreciate your intro and how you emphasize why video tutorials are useful. I make vidtuts/screencasts myself, mainly for Second Life but sometimes showing Photoshop: Link [youtube.com] and I simply could not agree more.
13.

Tor Løvskogen (March 29th, 2008, 2:54 am)

Im sorry, but: “Making the Web prettier”? Smashing Magazine is far from perfect when it comes to design and looks. I like You Suck at Photoshop :-)
14.

Sebastiaan Stok (March 29th, 2008, 3:07 am)

Link [nl.youtube.com] Realy good tutariials.
15.

Diego Ribeiro (March 29th, 2008, 4:44 am)

The program used to retouch the model in the Dove Evolution video is not adobe photoshop.
16.

YUI (March 29th, 2008, 5:20 am)

nice collection!
17.

Franny (March 29th, 2008, 6:57 am)

That’s a great list, those are truly some artists. I’m just learning and I like the site Link [www.techtutor.tv] . The have a good collection of Photoshop videos for beginner and advanced users. I’ve even requested a few tutorials and they have made videos for me.
18.

Ounsy (March 29th, 2008, 7:35 am)

nice Keep us posted!
19.

Jon (March 29th, 2008, 8:52 am)

This is really stupid. These are NOT “tutorials”, they are just people showing off their photoshop skills. Don’t advertise something as a tutorial when it answers absolutely no questions about how the artist is doing what they are doing.
Total waste of time here.
20.

Mikey (March 29th, 2008, 9:02 am)

Jon, you can read, right? Take a look at the list, it HAS video tutorials. Or maybe you just need to click on some of them?
21.

jonKINDAhasApoint (March 29th, 2008, 12:33 pm)

I can see Jon’s point. The title of the article is all about tutorials, but the first bunch of example videos aren’t tutorials at all. I could see how a person might read the headline and then get clicking the first few vids, might get pissed and not even bother looking any farther down the list. Maybe the speed painting and the other non tut vids should have ben placed lower on the list.

Most of the vids that ARE tutorials on this list pretty much blow anyway. The web layout slicing vid is a total joke. Do you really want send people to learn how to export table based crap html layouts?

That certainly does NOT make the web prettier.
22.

Laura (March 29th, 2008, 3:05 pm)

Not just that either… so many of those ‘tutorials’ are examples of how people misuse photoshop to make tacky rubbish; the net is already too full of people showing off their terrible fantasy art, and I’m not sure how often the ‘comic book effect’ is used really justifies the millions of tutorials telling you how to achieve it…

Not on Smashing Magazine’s usual good form!
23.

bruce (March 29th, 2008, 5:27 pm)

> Diego Ribeiro (March 29th, 2008, 4:44 am)
> The program used to retouch the model in the Dove Evolution video is not adobe photoshop.

The Dove evolution retouch was a “simulated photoshop”, the software doesnt exists at all. The video was created with autodesk flame (for motion graphics and visual effects)
24.

warlu (March 29th, 2008, 6:41 pm)

superb collections… reaallly awesome
25.

Anthony (March 30th, 2008, 2:34 pm)

super ce bon panel de vidéo sur adobe photoshop
26.

Shane (March 30th, 2008, 11:09 pm)

I’ve been away for a while, so just catching up with the site. What a great list of tutorials!

Thanks a lot.
27.

Leo F. Swiontek (March 31st, 2008, 2:40 am)

Great work SM! thanks for this article.
28.

Diego Ribeiro (March 31st, 2008, 5:08 am)

Thanks Bruce. Always wondered what software was that.
29.

VTFootballGrad (March 31st, 2008, 11:26 am)

I envy anyone that can paint that well, but in reality I don’t think its that easy to paint as well as that even if its in photoshop.
30.

Angelo (March 31st, 2008, 3:20 pm)

Are you kidding me? Tutorial “Produce Scary Photos” - best of? It is real bad its one of the worst I´ve ever seen… But I like the List…
31.

The Last letter (April 1st, 2008, 8:12 am)

Glad to see the “You Suck at Photoshop” series made it to the list. :)

On a side note, cheer up, people. No need to get your panties in a bunch. Speed painting is as good as a tutorial as many others. If you already know a bit of the program but needs to see how something is actually produced, that kind of stuff is invaluable (and many times a lot less annoying than tutorials that assume you’re a retard).
32.

Himanshu Kapoor (April 2nd, 2008, 9:01 pm)

I have seen some of them before. Thanks for the rest.
33.

Ejaz Asi (April 6th, 2008, 7:49 pm)

How come the best and elitist of them all tutorials “Photoshop Top Secrets” not included in the list?
34.

Pam (April 11th, 2008, 5:06 pm)

I have cs2 and need help in layers……could you please help me?
35.

lush_boy (April 18th, 2008, 2:35 pm)

i can do most of this tutorials..but i find out new tricks and stuff..they are awesome
36.

batboy (May 19th, 2008, 10:59 am)

awesome!!!!!THANKS
37.

happy (June 5th, 2008, 6:54 am)

these tutorials are very helpful.. i liked them all…
38.

lulu (June 11th, 2008, 7:01 am)

Link [www.glazek.net]
39.

BeltzElur (June 21st, 2008, 12:44 pm)

Ah jeez people. If you hate this place so much, go and start a webpage or forum or SOMETHING dedicated to complaining about it. But if you hate it so much, why are you wasting your time leaving comments on it? You’re just spending more time here!
It cracks me up when people waste their time telling everyone that they think something’s crap when they can just go ahead and leave the site if they don’t like it XD

Nice tutorials :)
40.

pavankore (July 11th, 2008, 8:38 am)

this site is very helpful for tips n tricks so plz make 2 keep latest tics fr us 2 improve our skills sir …….
Thanking u…
avankore
41.

Shobhit (July 15th, 2008, 8:27 pm)

Awesome Collection a must for PS Lovers……………………. :))))
42.

BigVern (July 31st, 2008, 12:12 am)

What a great set of links to PS tutorials.

Another good one is Davro Digital at Link [www.davrodigital.co.uk]
43.

BigVern (July 31st, 2008, 12:24 am)

and of course the tutorials by Russell Brown are amazing if you can put up with his over the top presentation style Link [www.russellbrown.com]
44.

Yobler.com (August 5th, 2008, 12:13 am)

Nice tutorials, perhaps you could post them on Yobler as well
45.

TutLover (September 19th, 2008, 10:35 pm)

Check out the tutorials on Link [www.photoshopCAFE.com] I can’t believe this was left off the list!