Welcome to Susan╒s Tips for Kai╒s Power Tools and Adobe Photoshop.
These three files contain four chapters of tips for using Kai╒s Power Tools in Photoshop. This is a subsample from a larger body of Tips and Tricks for Kai╒s Power Tools. Look for the entire set -- over 50 chapters -- in our upcoming KPT 2.1 CD-ROM version.
The one central idea behind all these documents is:
╥Squeeze the most out of KPT.╙
Kai╒s Power Tools serves the graphic imaging artist in two ways:
With the raw power of KPT and the presets that ship with KPT, the deadline-driven can go through a quick and easy ╥choose a preset, click the button, presto cool effect╙ process.
But that╒s not all. Kai╒s Power Tools is full of features that allow you to work, tweak and to hone the effect. You may go through several different steps to arrive at that cool result. The particular meanderings of that path aren╒t obvious when looking at the result. The creation is no ╥apply a preset and it╒s done╙ image. Rather it╒s the hiking on the interesting and sometimes windy paths, the deeper ways of Kai╒s Power Tools, that I have concentrated on in these tip files.
They are, for the most part, step-by-step guided journeys which take you through different realms of Kai╒s Power Tools.
In the larger set, there are chapters that tell you more deep stuff about
Kai╒s Power Tools in general.
There╒s a whole section on apply modes.
There are chapters that delve deeper into each of the User Interface filter modules.
There are chapters that concern themselves with KPT and printing.
There are chapters with practical tips:
What you can do to text.
How you can use KPT and Photoshop to add sunbeams to an image.
How you can use KPT Gradients on Paths to create halos.
...and even more
In this smaller set of tips, I╒ll lead you through ways to use Kai╒s Power Tools and Chops (channel operations, covered in depth in the Kai╒s Power Tips section of this CD-ROM). Look for that in the ╥KPTs and Chops╙ and ╥Text Tricks,╙ second chapter.
The first part of ╥Text Tricks╙ is an overall introduction of working with KPT for text. It╒s a good place to go if you╒re just starting out with KPT.
The Seamless Welder Tips takes you through 50 different ways to use the Seamless Welder.
In each chapter, I lead you through a process to explore these certain aspects of KPT.
There are a bunch of images included; they're little sign posts along the way.
Also included here is a preset file. (It actually includes all the presets for the 50+ chapters, so when you load it up, you╒ll see lots of other cool presets besides the ones called for specifically in these few chapters.) Copy it to your folder entitled ╥KPT Support Files 2.0╙ (or 2.1).
If, while you╒re following along in one area, you find some little inspiration along the side, please explore it! Sometimes those are the most fruitful parts of the learning process╤not what someone somewhere put down in some tip file, but the leap in a new direction that YOU╒RE inspired to take as a result of working through the material.
There╒s an underlying philosophy to working with Kai's Power Tools.
╥Everything is related to everything else.╙
The Kai╒s Power Tools filters are building blocks. Learn to use them in conjunction with one another. The second part of that high-brow philosophical statement is:
╥Those relations are best found by playing.╙
Ladies and Gentlemen, please, play with this stuff! Explore! To quote Carl Jung, ╥The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.╙ (Psychological Types, 1921)
Love what you do.
Play with it.
Be free.
Have fun.
Remember to blink.
So╔ welcome, please make yourself comfortable, and put yourself in an explorer╒s mindset. Have at it with reckless abandon, by all means, travel down those little side journeys that strike you and discover your own KPT treasure troves.
