tool

As regulars to this weekly podcast know, Photoshop Top 40 is a reverse-order countdown of what I consider to be the best, most essential, can't-live-without-'em features in all of Photoshop. Some are sweet, some are sexy, some are sizzling cool. And then there's this one: the gradient tool.

I mean, every program offers a gradient tool, right? But Photoshop's is special. Not only can you paint a soft transition from black to white, or between any two or more colors for that matter. But you can also soften the transition from one image to another. The gradient tool fades, swipes, tapers, and more. It is, simply put, one of Photoshop's simplest and most powerful masking functions. Read more » 

If you know anything about Photoshop's brush tool, you know it paints smooth lines in the foreground color. You can control its behavior to the nth degree from the options bar and Brushes palette. And it responds to pressure-sensitive input.

Those attributes alone would earn it a place in the coveted Photoshop Top 40. The fact that it also excels as a masking tool merely cements the deal. Read more » 

If you're anything like me, you just finished celebrating Labor Day by not laboring in the least. Happily, the same cannot be said of Photoshop Top 40. Tuesday after Tuesday, this proud and relentless podcast marches on.

Fittingly, today marks Feature #32, The Pen Tool, one of the most powerful but labor-intensive tools in all of Photoshop. Newbies select images with the likes of the quick select and magic wand tools. Both are highly automated, but they rarely work. Experts use the pen tool. It takes some work to master, but it always works in return. In other words, learn to use the pen tool and you'll be prepared for any masking job. Read more »