A quick tutorial for a change, featuring my favourite program the sublime Adobe Illustrator.

1. Create a simple elipse and then use the pen tool to sharpen one of the curves (hold down the alt key to temporarily bring up the convert anchor point tool).



2. Add a fill and stroke of your choice and then select the Rotate Tool (r) and alt-click at the base of the ellipse to redefine the rotation origin. Type in a rotation value of 36º and hit 'copy'. Now hit Command-D (Control for PCs) eight times to repeat the transformation and create the flower shape.



3. Use the Pathfinder pallette to join the flower petals together and then add a drop shadow that emanates from the centre of the flower decoration.



4. Select Object>Transform Each and reduce the size of the object to 90% and change the rotation value to 18º. Hit 'copy' and then Command-D until you have made an appropriate number of copies. Hey presto! Easy flowers.

Even though I'm a huge fan of Adobe Illustrator that doesn't mean that I'm not equally fond of its big pixel-based brother Photoshop. Photoshop, as everyone knows, is a huge package. When it comes to imagery there really is nothing that you cannot do with what still remains Adobe's flagship program. But where, for my money, it really excels is when it comes to editing images.

In this example I'm starting off with the type of photo that a lot of us have produced in a drunken stupor during our holidays. This was taken on a weekend break in Barcelona. I was using a handheld camera and was forced to make a decision: do I expose for the foreground or do I expose for the skies? In this case I chose to expose for the beautiful night sky, knowing that when I was back in front of my Mac, Photoshop would do the rest.

Here's the original. In pre-digital days I might have been tempted to throw this in the bin.



1. I'm going to begin by using the Magic Wand tool to select the foreground. As selections go this is a relatively simple one to make. Move the default tolerance in the Control Panel up a notch or two and then hold down the Shift key and keep clicking until you get as much as the foreground selected as you can.

At this point it's always wise to enter Quick Mask mode (hit the 'Q' key to do this) and choose yourself a medium sized Brush and, painting in white, begin painting out the bits of the selection that you missed. Vary the brush and its opacity as you do so. When I do this I will from time to time hit the 'Q' key to exit Quick Mask mode and see how my selection is coming along.



2. Now it's time to refine the selection. Hold down Command-spacebar and drag a marquee around a portion of the horizon to zoom into it. Now take the brush down in size (hitting the square brackets allow you to do this) and feather its edges a little (hitting shift-square brackets will allow you to do this) turn on Airbrush mode in the Control Panel and begin painting in the subtler parts of the horizon that your selection has so far missed. When You're happy hit 'Q' to exit Quick Mask mode.



3. Now that your selection is complete it's time to start using it. In the Layers palette create a Levels Adjustment layer (click on the little black and white circle) and a mask for your selection will automatically be created. Drag the grey point slider to the left to reveal the missing detail in the foreground.





4. Now that the foreground is more balanced it's time to address the oversaturation of colours that is often a by-product of what we've just done. In the Layers palette create a Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer and click ok without making any changes. Hold down the alt key and drag the mask from the Levels Adjustment layer over the mask in the Hue/Saturation layer. This will copy the mask from the former layer to the latter. Now double-click on the Hue/Saturation icon and choose reds from the pop-up menu. Take down the saturation and adjust the hue slightly.



5. Now it's time to add a little colour to the skies. Create another Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer and again click OK without changing any settings. Once again alt-drag the Levels Adjustments mask to the new layer then select Image> Adjustments> Invert (or Command-I) and once again double click on the Hue/Saturation icon to change the layers settings. This time choose Blues and/or Cyans from the pop-up menu and increase the Saturation a little.







6. If you feel like it you might even like to change the colour of the sky itself.