Faham Usman`z

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:59:00 +0000

Orignal

Edited By Me

Create Night Sky Photoshop Tutorial

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:43:00 +0000

Step 1

Create a new document in Photoshop and fill the canvas with black. Then add a new layer and fill this one with black too. Next click filter > noise > add noise and use these settings: Amount- 15%, Gaussian, Monochromatic. This will make the background stars.

Step 2

Now click Image > Adjust > Brightness and Contrast and use these settings

Step 3

Now duplicate the stars layer and click Image > Adjust > Brightness and Contrast and use these settings: Brightness- 85 and Contrast- 50. Now Edit > Transform > Scale this layer to about twice its size.

Now inverse the layer by clicking control-I and then bring up the contrast of these stars by clicking image>adjust>levels and use these settings: 230, 1.00, 250.

Step 4

Now inverse the layer again to set it back to the proper color (Control-I)

Next step is to set this layer blend mode to screen, click the eraser tool and pick a nice fuzzy brush. I use a bristle brush and made it nice and large. Then I started erasing random areas of each layer.

Step 5

Now flatten the image, click on the rubber stamp tool, set the blending option for the tool to Linear Dodge and start cloning different starry patches to create some clusters.

Here's the image so far

Step 6

Now click image > adjust > color balance, click highlights, and add some subtle blue.

Step 7

Next, add create a new layer, fill it with black and set the layer blending mode to Linear Dodge. Now use a feathered paintbrush and set the color to light blue, almost white and start painting over the clusters to give them some pop.

Step 8

Now add another new layer, fill it with black and set the layer blending mode to Linear Dodge. Now click Filter > Render > Lens Flare and use 105mm prime. This will make a star. Repeat this step a couple times and add more. Don't shy away from making a cluster of these as well. Also, be sure to use different sizes.

Step 9

Now combine all the lens flare layers by shift-clicking all the layer in that contain them in the layer palette and click control-E to combine them. Now click image > adjust > color balance, select highlights, and add some more blue.

Step 10

Now I selected the brush tool and used the chalk brush within the brush options and made a very large brush size set to opacity 20%. Now create a new layer and set the mode to Linear Dodge and start brushing in a color of your choice. I'm still using the cosmic bright blue.

That's it! There's many ways to do this so experiment and come up with what works best for you.

Create A Unique Web Template

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:05:00 +0000

Open the image inside Photoshop and then go to Edit > Define pattern. Choose a name for this pattern and click OK.
Create a new document with the following size: 960 width and 900 pixels height
Select Paint Bucket Tool, and in the option bar choose the pattern you just created

Click over your layout with Paint Bucket Tool. You will have something like this

Set the foreground color to #49290a and with Rounded Rectangle Tool create a shape, and place it in the middle of the layout

Add the following layer styles

You will have to add other shape over this brown shape. This time please use white color

Please use the same layer styles you have used a few seconds ago.

This is the result

On the bottom right side of the layout I will add some stock images with a flower pot and a sofa.

Under the layer with the sofa I will create a round shape with Ellipse Tool

I will go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur and I will use the following settings

In this way you will have a real shadow under the sofa

On the left side of the layout I will create some boxes with Rectangle Tool

All shapes have the following layer styles

I will add some text and the images

On the right side I will add some banners

I will create a dashed line between the posts.

To create the dashed line you need to use Horizontal Type Tool and use the following font and settings

My last step is to create a logo and some text buttons.

This is my final layout. I hope you like it. As you can see it was done very easy, and requires only some good stock images.

You can download the PSD layout and CSS/xhtml layout. The coding part for this layout was made with the same technique I have used for this tutorial: Design and code a layout without using slice tool (tutorial available only for VIP members)
Do you want to download all our VIP resources including this psd layout? Join our VIP membership.

Photoshop design toothpaste fragrances

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:59:00 +0000

Today I will show you how to create a Photoshop design toothpaste fragrances logo icon in Photoshop.

[1] Take a new file of 500 pixels, 500 pixels, of resolution 72 dpi in the RGB mode.

[2] Now create a new shape with the help of Pen Tool.

[3] Right click select make selection click ok. Then fill that layer with #46a0d2.

[4] Create the following selection with the help of Pen Tool,
go to Select>Modify>Feather Selection by 2px.

[5] Take the “Dodge Tool” highlight the following parts,
with the help of Dodge Tool. Do not “D” select.

[6] Press Ctrl+Shift+I with the Dodge Tool, highlight the following parts.
now “D” select.

[7] Go to Filter>Artistic>Plastic Warp apply the following settings.

[8] Your image something like this.

[9] Then go to Filter>Noise>Add Noise use these settings.

[10] Take the Brush Tool then press F5 apply these settings.

[11] Open a new layer create the Stroke with the help of Pen Tool right click
select Stroke Path now select Brush click ok.

[12] Now go to Filter>Blur>Gaussain Blur use these settings.

[13] Your image something like this.

[14] Create a few stroke with Pen Tool I have indicate a red arrow sign.

[15] Download the following image and open it Photoshop.

[16] Thanks for read this Photoshop Tutorial. I hope this is a good tutorial & you can use
these Photoshop Techniques & the Final Image should look like as shown below.

bending text in photoshop
boxes in photoshop
broken glass effect in photoshop

How to Create Skin for the Cube

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:53:00 +0000

How to Create Skin for the Cube

Hey, are you hungry for new interesting tutorials? I have one for you, which not so long, perhaps so useful. This tutorial how to how to create the skin for the cube by using image to get the correct sense of space.

So, in the beginning we need to find pictures, what we will use during the tutorial period. Go to Google Images and look up for a good picture of cube or you can feel free to download the cutom, that I made from here: Cube. Open up this picture, it will be the main canvas for experiments. Ok, then we need to find the picture to put it on the cube sides. Open up the second picture and after that create a new layer on the current canvas. Get out the Rectangular Marquee Tool to create square selection about 250×250 pixels and fill it with different color, for example black.

Add two square areas more to make three skins for all of cube sides. Now, select one of the black squares with Select > Load Selection, after that go to the background layer with dragon copy it using Ctrl+C.

Then go to the main canvas and paste copied part image into it using Ctrl+V.

Ok, time to put this part of image on the one of cube sides. Use Edit > Transform > Distort to transform this image as shown on the picture below.

Go back to the canvas with dragon; select another one black square to copy second part of image in the same way.

Ok, go back to our main canvas again and paste this part image into it. Use Edit > Transform > Distort to create second part of the skin for our cube:

Move to dragon canvas one last time and copy the last one part of the future skin.

Bring it to the main canvas and transform it to with Edit > Transform > Distort:

Ok, looks realistic as for me, but not finished yet. Merge three of these sides in one layer and change layer mode to Multiply.

Lastly, you might want to make some clear work between the cube segments. We can do this work using the Eraser Tool with hard round brush. You can see the result on my picture below.

I finished off with this tutorial. We made good cube skin and get the correct sense of space. Please feel free to experiment, get creative and use your own settings.

how-to-make-sparkles-in-photoshop

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 07:31:00 +0000

Sparkles. Everyone loves Sparkles, they’re all, urm, sparkly, but to novice Photoshop users they can be a bit of a pain to try and create. To be honest, they’re actually quite simple to make, so here’s a quick guide on how to make Sparkles in Photoshop.

First of all, create a blank document, size is up to you, but i’m doing 450×450 pixels for the purpose of this tutorial. Fill it with the Paint Bucket tool (Hit G on your keyboard) with a dark grey colour. Not completely black, but close to it, i’m going to use the hexadecimal value of #181818.

Now grab the Paint Brush tool (Hit B on your Keyboard), pick a small, soft brush. I chose a soft round brush for mine with a radius of 13px, as I find this generally suits what I need to do.

Now hit F5 on your keyboard to get the Brush Settings panel open. Use the following settings, or experiment, it’s up to you:

The Opacity and Flow Jitter settings in the bottom picture there are good ones to change if you feel like experimenting a little.

Now that we’ve got our brush settings down, we can start to, well, brush! Make sure your brush colour is white, and make a new layer. Brush in very short “lines”. If that didn’t make sense, hopefully this picture below explains it a little bit better:

Of course, simply clicking and dragging works too, it depends on what result you’re after I suppose. Anyway, keep doing that until you get what you’re happy with, of course, Sparkles can be used in just about anything, wallpapers, maybe you could even use them as stars in some space artwork, whatever you can think of really!

Here’s what I came up with. I decided to add a lightsource in the top left of the image by simply using a big fuzzy brush:

If you want to make your sparkles glow, then I find that applying the following glow helps (Right-click the layer, blending options):

Experimenting with the size of the glow is important here. It completely depends on the image, so use what you think looks best. Here’s what I got by applying a glow to the sparkles in the image:

Try experimenting with Adjustment Layers to change the colour of your sparkles. Click here for my tutorial on using Adjustment Layers in Photoshop. Here’s what I got. When I used the Adjustment Layer I decided to remove the glow on the light source in the top corner because it didn’t quite look right:

And so there you have it! That’s how you make sparkles in Photoshop. It wasn’t so hard now, was it?

High Contrast Black & White Ad

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:49:00 +0000

Source:PSHERO

Step 1

The first trick to this effect is to choose the right photo, one with a defined light source and lots of interest. The photo doesn’t have to start black and white, but you’ll need to convert your photo before we get started.

I’ve opened a new document and pasted the photo into it, creating a new layer above the default Background layer which is filled with white (also by default)

Step 2

In the layers palette lets switch over to the Channels tab.

(*note: For the sake of saving space some of these steps will display a cropped version of my image.)

Step 3

Now lets load the images Luminosity by holding down the Command (PC: Ctrl) key and clicking on the RGB thumbnail here in the Channels palette. The luminosity is the measurement of white that each pixel holds, so by loading the luminosity we’ve effectively loaded only the "lightness" of the image.

Now lets add a new Alpha Channel by clicking the Create New Channel button at the bottom of the Channels palette. This will also select the new channel which will be called Alpha 1 and hide the other channels by default.

Step 4

Press the D key to reset the foreground and background colors to black and white respectively. Now lets fill the selection with white (which is the background color) by pressing Command-Delete (PC: Ctrl-Backspace). What you should end up with is something that looks exactly like the original image. Don’t release your selection just yet, we’ve got more to do with it.

Step 5

Next lets fill the opposite pixels with black. To do this choose Select>Inverse from the main menu or use the keyboard Command-Shift-I (PC: Ctrl-Shift-I) to invert the selection. Press Option-Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace) to fill the selection with black. This will effectively darken the blacks in the image.

STOP! … I see you there, reaching for the Command-D to deselect! … Don’t do it! We’re not done with this selection yet. Gosh!

Step 6

Lets invert the selection one last time just like we did before by choosing Select>Inverse or by using the keyboard shortcut you learned in Step 5.

Ok, now we’re going to fill the selection with white once again, but this time lets press the keyboard shortcut three (3) times to really blow out the whites. Hold down the Command (PC: Ctrl) key once again and hit Delete (PC: Backspace) three times. And now Mr. Smarty Pants, go ahead and desect by pressing Command-D (PC: Ctrl-D)

Step 7

At this point everything’s going to look a little washed out and won’t have much contrast, but not to worry, we’re about to fix that.

While still in the Channels palette and with the Alpha 1 channel selected press Command-L (PC: Ctrl-L) to bring up the Levels dialog box. Grab the far left arrow beneath the Levels histogram (this is the one that represents the black point of the image), drag it towards the right until the contrast returns to the image. This is a "to taste" adjustment, but I found that a setting of 60 worked nicely to restore my blacks to where they ought to be.

Step 8

Now I’m going to press Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T) to invoke the Free Transform function and enlarge and reposition my guy where I want him to be for my ad. The trick here is to choose a size and orientation that allows us to black out one side and white out the other. Finding the spot where black and white will connect is what’s coming next.

Step 9

Now I’m going to grab the Brush tool by pressing the B key and then I’ll press X to switch my foreground and background colors, effectively making white the foreground color. With a variety of brush sizes I’m going to paint out all the remnants of black in the areas to the right of my figure as shown below.

I’ve found that using a round soft edged brush with an edge hardness of about 88% allows me to paint very close to my subject without lightening the edges of his form. Use the Bracket keys [ and ] to enlarge or shrink your brush as you work. You can also Zoom in and out by using the keyboard shortcut Command (PC: Ctrl) and the plus (+) and minus (-) keys. Holding down the Spacebar will give you the Hand tool and allow you to move around your zoomed image.

Step 10

Now that we’ve got the right side nice and white, lets press the X key to return black to it’s position as foreground color and using the same brushes and techniques blacken the left side of the figure. This is where a little imagination works wonders because you’ve got to find the spot where you’re going to break your figure out of the shadows and let his highlights start to come through.

Step 11

It’s about time to get out of the Channels palette and back to our working document so lets load the Luminosity of our Alpha 1 channel by holding down the Command (PC: Ctrl) key and clicking on the channels thumbnail in the Channels palette.

Now click on the RGB composite channel at the top of the Channels palette to turn the standard channels back on and switch back to the Layers tab at the top of the palette. This will return us to our working document and surprisingly you’ll discover that nothing we’ve done has effected our original image.

Step 12

Currently we have the luminosity loaded as a selection, but what we really want here is the opposite (the shadows) loaded, so lets use what we’ve learned and choose Select>Inverse from the main menu to flip the selection.

Create a new layer by pressing the Create a New Layer button at the bottom of the Layers palette and then fill the selection with black by pressing Option-Delete (PC: Alt-Backspace). At this point we’re done with the selection, so go ahead and press Command-D (PC: Ctrl-D) to deselect.

Step 13

At this juncture we’re finished with our original image, so lets go ahead and drag that layer to the trash. This leaves us with just the white background layer and the layer we just filled with black. The effect is now complete and you’re free to use either the white space to the right or the black space to the left to add copy or additional elements.

Mystic Ocean of Sunken Galleon and City

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 05:42:00 +0000

Final Effect:

Step 1

Create a new layer (Shift + Ctrl + N) and name it as 'Ocean'. Set foreground color as #1a324b and background color as #0c121e. Press G to select the Gradient tool. On the tool bar above tick 'Dither' (Dither helps smoothen the gradient by adding noise). Drag downwards to create a gradient.

Step 2

Create another new layer. Press D to reset the palette. Go to Filter > Render > Clouds.

Step 3

Next, go to filter gallery, select Artistic > Plastic Wrap > Highlight Strength: 7, Details: 4, Smoothness: 7. Do not press 'OK' for now but add in a new effect layer instead by clicking on the highlighted area. With the new layer effect selected, click on Sketch > Chrome > Details: 5, Smoothness: 5. Click 'OK' when done. Rename the layer as 'Surface1'. Before proceeding, duplicate 2 instances of 'Surface 1' as 'Light rays' and 'Ocean rays'. Hide these 2 layers for now.

Step 4

1) Transform 'Surface1' by scaling it upwards
2) Then drag select and drag its perspective points, as shown below.

Step 5

Select 'Surface 1' and click on the masking icon. Start masking off all the hard edges.
1) Identify hard edges.
2) Brush it using a soft black brush or feather a selection and fill it with black. Picture shows mask map.
3) Result.

Step 6

1) With 'Surface 1' selected, go to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/contrasts and set contrast: +35.
2) Set ‘Vivid light’ blend mode for ‘Surface 1’.

Step 7

(change background color to black as a visual aid)
Create another new layer and name it as 'Sun'. Select a soft round brush and by using this color (#c5e9f5) click once to draw a circle. Now select a smaller white color brush and draw a circle in the center of the bigger one.

Step 8

1) Transform the sun to a bigger one.
2) Then squish it a little.
3) Place it around the top right area.
4) Go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/saturation > Hue: -10, Saturation: -55, Lightness: 0. Set blend mode to 'Linear light'.

Step 9

Reveal 'Light rays' layer. Bring to front this layer (Ctrl + Shift + ]). Access blending option for 'Light rays' and drag the grey sliders as shown (Alt + click to split the sliders).

Step 10

1) Apply Filter > Blur > Motion blur: 500px, Angle: 90.
2) Then, transform the rays by scaling it downwards, lengthening it. Further drag its perspective as below.
3) Set 'Light rays' blend mode to 'Color dodge'.
4) Mask this layer as how you see fit. Most importantly, mask away the bottom part with a soft brush (depicted by red).

Step 11

1) Import Image ID: 3540975 © Moodboard 123RF.com and rename it as 'City'.
2) Mask away the sky. Set blend mode to 'Multiply' and reduce its brightness. Image > Adjustments > Brightness/contrast > Brightness: -60.
3) Create 2 new layers above 'City'. Use a soft black brush to brush the bottom for the first layer created, and soft white brush to brush the top part of the city for the other layer.
4) Set the layer with white in it to 'Soft light' blend mode. Clip both of the layers to 'City' (Alt + click).

Step 12

1) Import Image ID: 2779164 © Paul Maydikov 123RF.com and roughly mask to reveal only the ship. I did it by dragging the blue slider in the blending option (refer to 123RF November Tutorial #2: Extract Filter – Masking).When done, draw a selection around the base of the ship and erase that area.
2) Next, go to Image > Adjustments > Curves and drag according to the sample above.

Step 13

Crop the rocks from Image ID: 4823723 © svl861 123RF.com and drag to the workspace. Apply settings as shown in the picture. (Ctrl+U for Hue/Saturation adjustment, Ctrl+M for Curves)

Step 14

Crop the buildings from Image ID: 2694796 © drimi 123RF.com. Flip it and place it on top of the rock. Mask the bottom with a soft brush so that it looks seamless.

Apply settings as shown in the picture and merge the Rocks and Building layers together.

Step 15

Reveal 'Ocean rays' and bring to front. Duplicate this layer as 'Ocean rays 2'. Hide 'Ocean rays 2' for now.
1) Resize and add perspective to 'Ocean rays'.
2) Mask to reveal 'Ocean rays' so that it covers the entire city.
3) Access its blending option and drag the black sliders to remove some of the black.
4) Change the blend mode to 'Color dodge'.

Step 16

Using 'Ocean rays 2', do the same for the Building + Rocks on the right, but make sure the rays are resized a bit bigger and have it clipped to the building layer. You can alter the opacity of this layer if the rays are deemed to bright.

Step 17

Cropped an image of a diver from Image ID: 2475500 © Olga Khoroshunova 123RF.com and rename as 'Diver'. To match the overall colour tone, apply the adjustments above.

Step 18

Create a new layer. Ctrl + click on the thumbnail of 'Diver' layer and fill it with black. Apply motion blur around -70 degrees angle and transform it. Set blend mode to 'Soft light'. Mask off excessive areas.

Step 19

Apply 'Ocean rays' effect on the diver by using the same method as in Step 15.

Step 20

Import bubbles and mask it roughly. Drag blending sliders and change it's hue.

Step 21

These steps will enhance the overall look and feel.
1) Copy a small portion of 'Surface 1' and bring this layer to front.
2) Scale it to a large size, covering the whole canvas.
3) Set the blend mode to 'Multiply' and set opacity 20~25%.

Step 22

Increase the contrast just a little bit more. Result:

Final
I've introduced some extra elements to my final image, like enhancing the surface's texture, adding schools of fish, and a simple eerie glow effect behind the galleon to spice up the whole picture.

Storm Effect

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 05:07:00 +0000

See the image below? Transform this cloudy country side picture into a stormy and dramatic evening by adding simple lightning effects!

Start off by duplicating the default layer (CTRL+J) as Layer 1.

Reduce brightness of duplicate image by dragging center point of the Curves tool (CTRL+M).

Duplicate Layer 1 as Layer 1 copy. Go to Filter > Radial Blur > Zoom : 80. Set the blend mode for Layer 1 copy as 'Multiply'.

You should get something like this:

Now, create a new layer (Shift+Ctrl+N) and name it as “storm”. Go to Filter > Render > Clouds.

Next up, select Filter > Render > Difference Clouds. Apply the same filter (Ctrl+F) several times (preferably 5 times or above).

Bring out the Levels Window (Ctrl+L) and apply settings until you see lumps of clouds appearing (Input Levels: 30/0.75/175).

NOTE: Results/settings may vary as each clouds/difference clouds rendered may differ.

Once done, set storm’s blend mode to 'Color Dodge'.

Transform (CTRL+T) and scale the image. You can also adjust the perspective a little, based on the nature of your chosen image. Press Enter to apply the transformation.

Next, we should remove areas which are too bright. Follow these sub-steps:
1) Go to Windows > Channel (to bring out the channels window).
2) Hold CTRL and click on Red channel (to make a selection).
3) Go to Select > Inverse (or press Shift+CTRL+I) to invert the selection.
4) Go to Select > Feather (or press CTRL+ALT+D) and set radius : 10 pixels.

Click on the masking tool to hide the brighter parts of the layer.

Select layer mask of 'storm' layer and further adjust the levels (CTRL+L) until you have something like this (Input Levels: 0/1.70/180):

NOTE: Again, results/settings may vary as each clouds/difference clouds rendered from previous steps may differ.

I’ve decided to remove some bright areas of the storm by brushing over the layer mask with a soft black brush.

Now that we have got the storm going, lets add a few bolts of lightning.

First, create a new layer (Shift+CTRL+N) and name it as ‘lightning’. Using the Rectangular Marquee tool (M), select a square box (holding down the Shift key while dragging will create a perfect square). Bring out the Gradient tool (G) when you are done.

Create a gradient by dragging through the center of the selection.

The gradient should look like this, preferably.

With the selection still active, go to Filter > Render > Difference Clouds (or just press CTRL+F as it is your last applied filter).

NOTE: Difference Clouds rendered differs as it is randomly generated.

Press CTRL+I to invert it.

And adjust the level (CTRL+L).

Apply the lightning's blend mode to ‘Screen’.

Next, use the eraser tool to remove any hard edges. Make sure the hardness is set to 0%.

Transform (CTRL+T) the bolt of lightning to which ever way you like.

I’ve tweaked mine a little bit more; adding glows, reducing brightness, and etc. This is my final image.

Before & After

How to Create a Severed Arm in Photoshop

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:58:00 +0000

Tutorial Details

Program - Photoshop CS3
Difficulty level - intermediate
Time to complete - 1 hour

Step 1

We will be using two different stock items for this project - first, the arm from cobweb-stock (use "Arm08.jpg" from the zip file) and a lump of meat from stock xchng. Please remember to follow these artists rules and credit them where appropriate.

We start by opening the arm picture in Photoshop and duplicating the "Background" Layer by clicking Command + J. We want to preserve the background layer for later on. Hold the Alt key + double-click the duplicate layer, then rename it "Arm."

Choose the Pen Tool (set to Shape Layer) to cut out the arm from its background. Its important to have a clean cut, so first zoom into the picture using the Magnifying Glass and carefully trace around the edge cutting across the top of the arm, as in the picture below. If you set the Fill in the Layer Palette to a 0% you will be able to see the arm, but still manipulate the path.

Step 2

Once you have completed your path and you are happy with it, click the Eye Icon in the Layer Palette next to the Shape Layer to hide it. Follow this by holding Command + Clicking the Shape Layer. This puts a Selection around the "Arm" Layer, now press Command + J on the keyboard to create a copy of the arm onto a new Layer, rename this Layer "Arm Prime" and hide it by clicking the Eye Icon.

Step 3

We are now going to remove the arm and shadow from the "Arm" Layer. Choose the Heal Tool from the Toolbox with mode set to normal in the options bar. Sample some of the sheet around the arm by Holding Alt + Clicking the sheet. Luckily the sheet is quite creased so making it look convincing will be easy.

Start painting over the arm and resample different parts of the sheet to keep the texture from repeating. Activate "Arm Prime" from time to time to make sure you don't go to far up the arm. Eventually the arm and shadow will be removed leaving you with a stump and a clean sheet as in the picture below.

Step 4

Reactivate the "Arm Prime" layer by pressing the Eye Icon next to it in the Layer Palette. Next we want to add a Layer Mask (Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All) to this Layer so we can mask out some of the arm. Choose a Hard Edged brush from the Brush Picker setting the size to 80 pixels, Opacity of 100% and Flow of 100%. Next set your Foreground color to black (#000000) and on the Layer Mask draw four cutting lines as in the picture below.

Step 5

Save your progress and open the meat texture file that we downloaded earlier. Once again cut it out from its background. You don't need to be as careful with this as we want to rough it up a bit soon anyway. Use your Pen Tool as before to trace around the edge - be careful not to select the shadow.

As in Step 2 copy this to a new Layer by pressing Command + J, and rename this layer "Meat." We now want to copy it to the working document, we do this by holding the Alt key and dragging the "Meat" layer to the "Create a New Layer" Icon within the Layer Palette . This will open a dialog asking you what document you want to copy it too. Choose "Arm08" (which is our working document) from the list, and Click OK. Finally, go back to the "Arm08" document.

Step 6

Move the "Meat" layer to the top of the Layer Stack. Use the Healing Brush to remove some of the larger white patches of fat on top of the meat with other sampled texture. If you don't have the Healing Brush then feel free to use the Clone Stamp. Position the Meat Layer so it totally covers the arm and hand, move the Meat Layer below the "Arm Prime" Layer.

Step 7

We are now going to draw the flesh back onto the arm stumps, we begin by adding a Hide All Layer Mask to the "Meat Layer" (Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All). Next we want to choose a Soft Edge Brush from the Brush Picker with a size of around 10-20 pixels, Opacity 100% and Flow 100%, the settings then need to be adjusted.

Press F5 or go to Window > Brushes to open the Brush dialog window. If you are using a pressure sensitive tablet then, your first stop is the Shape Dynamics, under Size Jitter locate the Command Drop Down List and select Pen Pressure.

We then want to change the Texture of the Brush to give it a nice rough look, choose Clouds from the provided list of textures, with Scale 100% also tick Texture Each Tip.

Step 8

We are now ready to paint the meat back on, Select the Meat Layer's Mask and with the Brush's Foreground Color set to White (#FFFFFF) gradually build up the arm as in the picture below. Repeat this for each section of arm.

Step 9

The shadow of the arm is used to ground the image and make it look less fake. We use the shadow from the original photo we preserved as the background layer. Locate the "Arm" Layer and Add as Reveal all Layer Mask (Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal all).

We will now mask out some of the "Arm" layer revealing the shadow below, try and follow the shape of the arm. Once again we will be using a Soft edge brush, or you can continue to use the textured brush we created in the last step if you wish. This will add a rough edge to your shadow especially around the stumps.

Step 10

The project is almost complete. The final steps are to draw some veins and strings of flesh onto the stumps and make some shadows. We shall reuse the "Meat" layer for this step.

First we need to copy this layer, either press Command + J or drag it to the new Layer Icon within the Layer Palette. The new layer will be called "Meat Copy." Drag this above the "Arm Prime" layer and delete its Layer Mask by right-clicking on the Mask and selecting Delete Layer Mask. Once again the whole slab of meat should be visible.

The meat needs to be a little darker for the strings - so we adjust it with Levels (Image > Adjustments > Levels) setting the Input Levels to 0, 0.64, and 255. We are then going to add another Hide All Layer Mask to this Layer (Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All>).

Choose the Brush Tool again, the textured brush should still be active. If not, then set it again as in Step 7, adjust the size so it is very small around 4 or 5 pixels. On the Layer Mask draw some strings of flesh joining the stumps together. Draw it from flesh to flesh - not skin to flesh.

Step 11

The strings of flesh will cast shadows down onto the cloth beneath, we can easily fake this by choosing the "Meat Copy" layer Mask and holding Command while Clicking it. This will put a selection around the strings.

Next we make a new Layer called "Shadow" and fill the selection with black (Edit > Fill > Black). Using the Move Tool adjust the shadow slightly so it is away from the strings. The black will be too dark so we reduce the Opacity to around 50%. You can also add a 2 pixel Gaussian Blur if you feel it is still too sharp. Finally, drag it below the "Meat" layer.

Step 12

Choose the Burn Tool from the Toolbox and set the Range to Midtones. Next set the Exposure to 20% and click the Airbrush option. Select the "Meat" layer and add some dark edges where the meat is exposed. Select "Arm Prime" and change the range to shadows, then burn the flesh where the arm has been severed.

Conclusion

The final and probably the easiest step is to create a Black And White Adjustment Layer at the top of the layer stack and change the Blending Mode to Soft Light. This makes the picture darker and more washed out. If you don't have the Black and White Adjustment Layer option, then create a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer and reduce the Saturation to -100.

Have fun cutting up your own meaty images. The final image is below.

Sleek Icon Design

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:57:00 +0000

Hello everybody, today were going to be creating a colorful image icon from scratch, the icon features a colorful design in a shiny metal like border the icon also used a bokeh effect. The PSD is available for free.

Setting Up The Canvas & Background

Create a new document 800×600 pixels, you can use a bigger canvas if you wish to but for the purpose of this tutorial we’ll be using those dimensions.

For the background ive just added a simple gradient with a sun burst effect, just something better than boring white.

Creating The Icon Surround

Select the rounded rectangle tool with a radius of 15px, change the type to “shape layers”.

Using shape layers will let you resize your icon without loss of quality. Draw out your icon surround in the center of the canvas, make the surround fairly big.

Add these layer styles to the surround.

You should have something like this.

Creating The Inside

Select the rectangle tool again with the type set to “shape layers”.

Draw out a rectangle inside the surround, leave about 20 - 26 pixels all the way around the surround.

Add these layer styles to the rectangle you just created.

You should have something like this.

Creating The Bokeh Effect

Create a new document 600 x 600 pixels with a transparent background. Select the elliptical marquee tool and create a circle as big as the canvas, fill the circle with black.

Once you’ve filled the circle change the fill opacity to 50%.

Now add a stroke using the settings below.

Once you’ve added the stroke go to “edit > define brush preset”, save your brush as “bokeh”. Head back over to your layout and select the brush tool, find and select your brush from the brush menu.

Open up the brush settings window by press F5 or by going to “window > brushes”, once opened add the following settings.

Adding The Bokeh Effect

Make sure you still have the bokeh brush selected, randomly brush over the inner rectangle, try keeping the circles inside the inner rectangle, if they happen to go over on the surrounding rectangle inverse the selection and hit the delete key. Once you’ve brushed a few circles blur them by 3 pixels using the guassian. (filter > blur > guassian blur).

Repeat the process again on a new layer this time set the layer opacity to 50% then add a outer-glow using the settings below.

You should have something like this.

Repeat the process again including the outer-glow only this time set the layer opacity to 75%, your final result should be something like this.

Creating The Inner Rectangle Shine

Select the pen tool and make a path like the image below.

Once you’ve made the path right click and go to “fill path”, fill the path/selection with the color white. Make sure you have your layer selected then ctrl + click on your inner rectangle, go to “select > inverse” and hit the delete key.

Now you have your shine add a layer mask to the layer, reset your foreground and background colors then select the gradient tool with a linear gradient. Drag the linear gradient from the bottom of the shine upwards.

Creating The Shadow

Select the rectangular marquee tool and create a black rectangle towards the bottom of the surrounding rectangle.

Blur the rectangle by 6 pixels using the guassian blur (filter > blur > guassian blur).

Set the shadow layers opacity to 50% then cut off the left and right ends using your favorite cutting tool.

Creating The Second Icon

Select ALL layers apart from the background layer, merge all duplicated layers into one layer then place the layer behind the first icon. Press CTRL + T to free transform the duplicated layer, slightly rotate the 2nd icon behind the first icon.

The Finished Product

You should now have something like this.

creative studio layout

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:45:00 +0000

Thing you need for this tutorial:

Please click on the following links, right click on the image, and choose “Save image as”

1. Background image
2. Logo Image
3. Header image

Create a new document with the following size: 960 x900 pixels.
Open the background.jpg and header.jpg images in Photoshop and go to Edit > Define Pattern. You will create two patterns which you will use in this tutorial.
After you have the two patterns ready you can close the images, and you will need to select Paint Bucket Tool. Be sure you have the right pattern selected

Click one time inside the document. Your document will be filled with this nice wood texture.

Create a new layer (press on CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+N), and then with Rectangular Marquee Tool create a selection with the following size:

960 pixels is the width of the document, and the 178 pixel value is the height of the header.jpg image. This is my selection

Grab Paint Bucket Tool, and choose the other pattern you just created from the heade.jpg image. Press one time inside your selection, and then press on CTRL+D to deselect

Create a new layer (press CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+N) and with Brush Tool (select a smooth round brush) add some drawings

Change the blending mode for this layer to Soft Light. This is my result.

Open the logo.jpg image inside this document, and place it like in the following image

Duplicate these images one time (select the layer and then press on CTRL+J to duplicate). Move the duplicated image to the right side of the layout, and then press on CTRL+T. With Move Tool change the look of the shape by moving the anchor points

Here we will place some icons. These icons will be available tomorrow on Grafpedia

Please note: the blending mode for these layers are changed to multiply.
In the middle of the layout I will place some round shapes. I will use the Ellipse Tool to create them.

For all these round shapes I will add the following layer styles.

Click on the following image to see the full size layout

I will fill these shapes with some images from my latest VIP packages

I will select Rounded Rectangle Tool, and I will create a shape under these circles. I will use the following color: #fff3dc

I will right click on the layer and I will choose Rasterize layer

I will select Elliptical Marquee Tool, and I will create a small selection like in the following image

Press on Delete on your keyboard. Move the selection to the right several times and repeat the steps. This is what I am trying to achieve. A sort of spiral notebook paper

I will go to Edit > Transform > Warp and I will move the bottom right corner to the middle of the shape

Warp tool is available from version CS2 of Photoshop. For this shape please a drop shadow

This is the result

Select Line Tool, and draw some horizontal lines. When you select Line Tool be sure you have the line weight set to 1 pixel.

Select all line layers and then press on CTRL+E (this action will merge all the layers into a single one)
Change the blending mode to Luminosity, and the opacity value to 20 %.

Select Eraser Tool, and with a grunge brush delete some parts of the lines. You can find some good brushes loaded with Photoshop (Faux Finish brushes). This is my result so far

I will create some buttons on the top of the layout. The buttons was made using Rounded Rectangle Tool. Then I will cut the bottom part of the shape. This is very simple task, and I am
sure any novice Photoshop user can complete this step alone. In case you have trouble please let me know.

I will write now some text with Horizontal Type Tool. Please click on the following image to see the full size layout.

My last step is to create some arrows near the slide show. I will use Custom shape tool, and I will choose an Arrow from the default set of custom shapes. I will add a simple layer style
with a gradient and a 1 pixel stroke.

This is my final result. Please click on the following image to see the full size layout

How to Create a Unique Wordpress Theme

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:49:00 +0000

Create a new document (press CTRL+N) or go to File > New. Use the following values.

Change your foreground color to #232323 and with Paint Bucket Tool press one time over your canvas.
Next step is to add some noise for this background. You can add noise if you go to Filter > Noise > Add noise

On top of the website I will place a shape with Rectangle Tool. It doesn’t matter the color right now.

I will create a new document and with Pencil Tool (set the brush size to 1 pixel) I will make the following drawing. Please note this image is zoomed to 1600 %.

The normal size is:

Please note that you can create this triangle also with Pen Tool.
From this triangle I will create a pattern. To create a pattern first you need to go to Edit > define pattern. Choose a name for this pattern and click on OK. You can now close this small document. On our layout please create a selection at the bottom of the orange shape.

Create a new layer (press on CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+N), and be sure you have the new layer selected. With Paint Bucket Tool fill the selection. Please choose the pattern you just created a few steps ago.

Here is my result. If your selection is too big you will have the following result.

We will fix this problem in my next step. Be sure you have the layer with triangles selected, and then with Rectangular Marquee Tool make a selection like mine.

Hit the Delete key from your keyboard. In the same way you can create a selection on the top. Here is my result

With Move Tool I will place this layer near the orange shape

I will select both layers in my layer palette (the layer with triangles and the big orange shape) and then I will press on CTRL+E. This shortcut will merge both layers into a single one, and it will allow me to work further on the layout. For the new layer I will add the following layer styles

This is my result

On the bottom of the layout I will create a shape with Rectangle Tool

I will create another layer, and then with Rectangular Marquee Tool I will make a selection on top of this shape. I will add the same pattern but this time. I will use the same color I have used for the big shape.

With Eraser Tool I will delete the left side

I will duplicate this shape (select the layer and then press on CTRL+J) to duplicate a layer. The next step is to go to Edit > Transform > Rotate 180
With Move Tool place the layer on the bottom of the shape like in the following image.

Select all three layers on your layer palette, and then press on CTRL+E. The next step is to add a layer style

Hold down the CTRL key and with your mouse pointer click on the layer thumbnail.

You will see that a selection will become active around the shape. Select Rectangular Marquee Tool, and hold down the ALT key
When you hold down the ALT key you will activate subtract from selection feature. Make a selection around the left side of the selection. After you release the mouse button you will have the following selection.

With this selection active create a new layer (press on CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+N) and then with Paint Bucket Tool fill the selection with a random color. I have used #b2a891. Press on CTRL+D to deselect. This is my result.

Create another shape with Rectangle Tool

With Pen Tool I will create another shape

With the same tool I will create also some sort of shadow for this shape.

Between the header and the body of this layout I will create other shapes. Please click on image to see full size image

I will add some images in the white area. The images are from my last tutorials.

On the left side I will add a button

The same I will add on the right side. I will not explain one more time how this button was made. You have the steps above.
Now I will add some text and images on the layout. Please click on the image to see the full size layout.

With Line Tool I will add some details. I will create two lines both with a weight of 1 pixel. The top line will have a white color and the bottom line will have a dark color.

I will create a new layer above all layers, and with Brush Tool I will make a drawing

I will change the blending mode for this layer to Soft Light. This is my final result. Click on the image to see the full size layout

If you are a VIP member you can download this set of 27.000 Photoshop Gradients. It will allow you to change the color of this layout in seconds. Here are other color variations

Create A Slow Motion Bullet Shot Effect

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:54:00 +0000

Step 1

Ok here are the sources.

Step 2

Before beginning to work on our sources let's see this process which is going to be fundamental for our work.

The process is: how to make a 3D effect. Let's suppose that we have this layer with a circuitboard and we want to make it tridimensional to get rid of this "flat" effect.
Follow the istructions and keep them clear in your mind.

1 Duplicate the motherboard layer (Ctrl+J)
2 press the "up" key on the keyboard
3 Do this a few times (depends on the situaztion may be 2-3 mauy be 8-9 or more...)
4 merge all the layers preserving th one on top (view the image below)
5 blur the merged layers with a Gaussian blur ->amount=1
6 Burn a little th merged layers
7 Blur a little the edges of the layer on top
8 merge all the layers
Done! It's not 2D anymore

Step 3

Now let's begin to select some buttons: to make a clean rounded selection use the pen tool and design your path, then right click and "make selection" (feather to zero).
After that, copy your selection in a new layer (so Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V )then work with "liquify" (filter->liquify) to make them rounded and to extend the missing parts (1).
If you want to jump this part (1) well be clever and select directly a button which is still ready to be used! As I did in (2). Some cleaning is anyway necessary in both situations, so use carefully the eraser tool.

Step 4

Let's hide those buttons they can be useful later, but we still don't know it.
Now create the first two parts: select with the pen tool the buttons' surface (1) (I hope you get what I mean) and then copy and paste.
Do the same with the part of the box below (2).
Now to create the 3D effect on the first part is really easy (look at step 2 of this tutorial) but on part (2) is not so easy. Let's see it in next step

Step 5

Ok we have our selection just made (A) in the previous step, so let's draw the 3D part on a new layer below the (A).
Use a brush and if you want a pen tool can be useful (is up to you and your skills) I drawed these "wings" because it's supposed that the surface with buttons is linked to something...well I really don't know I never opened a remote control =)

Step 6

I decided to fill these lttle wings with a pattern.
Create a new layer below this shape, select with the magic wand tool (W) the two blanck parts, then go to edit-> fill (choose a 50% grey).
Go to blending options and set pattern overlay. Choose the pattern in the image and set his blending option to multiply.
Click ok, select the three layers and link them (or merge them if you're really really sure)

Step 7

Ok well done. Now take the circuitboard source and let's make it realistic...as it really fits in the remote control. To do it in perspective you can use the "vanishing point" (filter -> vanishing point) or do it manually with the Edit->Transform->free transform. I recommend you the last one because it's easier for this work and you have an istant feedback of what you're doing. For example here I show how you can distort it: just pressing the Ctrl + click and drag on one of the litle squares around the image you're able to distort and....free transform!!

Step 8

Ok after the previous little lesson about the free transfom let's work seriously on our circuitboard.
Duplicate it with Ctrl+J, make the two layers aligned each other, then make the desired perspective using the other layer with the buttons as a reference.

Step 9

Ok now our motherboard is in theright perspective but it doesn't have the right shape: to make it match with the "buttons' layer" move it on top then Ctrl+click on the layer's thumbnail (the layer with the buttons) then Ctrl+Shift+I to select inverse and finally click on the motherboard layer's and press Canc.
Give it a volume then.

Step 10

Ok now let's create from zero a chip that will be inserted in our circuitboard. Create a shape layer: use a "rounded rectangle tool" and fill it with a random colour. then go to blnding options and apply these settings.

Step 11

Now place the chips on the circuitboard using the free transform.

Then take the original source of the remote control and:
1 select the red light with a pen tool.
2 clean the edges with the eraser tool
Finally duplicate the layer two times and scale them, changing the opacity to 90% and 80%.

Step 12

Always starting from the main source, select with the pen tool the inferior part of the box.

Step 13

Now let's work with this layer:
1 [(Ctrl+J) + right arrow key + down arrow key ] x 5 times = tridimensional effect
In the orange circle we've a very nice border, but in the yellow circle you can see that there's some more effort to do
2 Preserving the layer on top (in blue), merge the other layers, blur and burn them
3 erase carefully the part that you don’t want (look at the short orange arrow)
4 copy with the pen tool the grey border we've created in (1) and the entire other part of the box wich lies just below the border...then flip them orizontally (Ctrl+T and then rotate 180°)

Step 14

Align the grey border with the box with the warp tool

Step 15

For comfort I hide the part that is not of our interest now.
So:
1 Draw the border on a new layer with a black brush (extract the colour trough the picker tool so it will be the same)
2 Smudge with a soft brush with "hardness" set to 50
3 erase carefully the hard edge and make it more rounded

Step 16

1 Create a new layer under the box and paint with grey
2 erase the exedent parts on the grey layer and the box layer
3 Burn (midtones-exposure to 50) and dodge (highlights-exposure 30)
A) I also draw with a brown soft brush those lines just to give more the idea of a box
B) For this box I used a different technique: instead of painting with a grey brush, I obtained the part from liquifying very much the layer (after duplicating it of course)
The result is almost the same and is more a reference for our work I don't think these parts will be completely visible at the end.

Step 17

Let's create some electric wires:
- create a new layer
- first we set the brush: press B, choose a 10 px black brush with hardness 90%
- draw some curves and/or straight lines with pen tool
- right click with mouse -> stroke path -> brush (deselect the "simulate pressure" option)
- go to blending options and click "bevel e emboss" and "color overlay" (here you can choose a colour for your wire/s)
I created some black, yellow, red and cyan wires. Let's link now these wires to the red lights with the help of the eraser tool.

Step 18

Now let's take the other circuitboard image. Our task is to make the perspective of the source matching with the perspective of the remote control. The procedure is the same as for th other circuitboard.

Step 19

So just following the istructions in step 7 and 8 of this tutorial, we match the perspective.
And then as we did before:
1 superimpose the layer to the reference
2 Ctrl+click on the reference's thumbnail
3 Ctrl+Shift+I to select inverse, then click on the circuitboard layer and press Canc.
Done!!

Step 20

A) Of course also for this layer we must create some 3D
B) Take again the previous source...let's save a chip it can be useful later.
So:
-select with the pen tool
-rotate
-Ctrl+J and right arrow for 5/6 times
-Merge and burn the edges

Step 21

A little riepilogue. Now we must think about the bullet shot effect...specially the direction of the bullet and the direction of the smashing pieces.

Step 22

I think that this is the best: the bullet comes from the down-left corner of the image and smash in the middle our remote control making a lot of flying off tiny parts.
So let's do that!

Step 23

Herafter some steps can be up to you and your style.
Take the first surface with the buttons and split it in two parts: to do so duplicate the layer, apply a layer mask on both of them, and begin to erase some parts with a black brush.
Remove carefully the grey buttons.
Finally rotate a bit the layers and, when you're sure of your masking, right click on the layer mask's thumbnail and click "apply layer mask".

Step 24

Select with the lasso tool the area near the crash,right click -> feather and type 7 (it depends on your resolution).

Step 25

Then warp: warp carefully the area to distort more the edges. This method allows you to distort only the selected area and give you much more control.
Click ok. Look carefully, because even if you have done a clean work, exactly where there was the selection line there should be a weird 1pixel line that shows your (white) background
Remove it with a history brush, but also the blur tool with a 2-3 pixels brush can be enough.
If we don't use the feather during this process..the result is horrible.
This is my warp threatment. Move carefully the edges of the grip always taking care of what you're moving also at the base of your selection.

Step 26

1 Use also some liquify and find a waved effect on this plastic "shreds".
2 Create a 3D effect. The orange "bracket" indicates the area we should erase.
3 erase the parts we don't need (look at the two arrows starting from down)
Now we've a 3D effect also for our part wich is smashed (or better smashing) by the bullet.

Step 27

1 On the last edges, nearer to the impact, work with the smudge tool with hardness 70%.
More moving effect!!
2 Another very very cool threatment you can do on your layers is to work with smudge tool ON the layer mask!! Using a grunge brush for example you can create these crashed tiny edges.

Step 28

Your task is to work with this process on every one of the layers created since now (exept lights and wires).

I'm not going to show you again for every layer just because there's nothing new to see,the process is always the same. Follow the steps from 23 to 27 you've all the informations you need.
It's also up to you and your style how to crash the parts, but the process is quite easy.

I made a riepilogue again. Now that we broke the layers, let's put them in a correct logical order. So the box wich contains the technical parts as first and last layers, while the circuitboards, the lights, the wires...in the middle.

Step 29

1 Now apply a drop shadow to every layer with these settings
2 Apply also a red "color overlay" to the lights (always from the blending options)
3 Don't apply any shadow to the last layer

Step 30

We have a shadow that goes out from the main shape. It's the shadow of the lights; so click on the lights, go to Layer style -> create layer.
Now we have the lights and the shadow as two splitted layers. Erase the excess shadow with the eraser tool (or a layer mask is better if you're not still sure of the position of the red lights)

Step 31

Now DUPLICATE all the layers and merge them. This way we can create the crash effect faster and better. select with the lasso tool some parts as in the image below. Lasso tool -> Ctrl+C -> Ctrl+V

Step 32

We have this layer now. So.
1 duplicate and rotate (to obtain more pieces)
2 merge the two layers
3 Go to filter-> blur -> radial blur. Set to "zoom" , amount "37", quality "best".
Create some variants and combine them. Use some warp and/or liquify to manipulate your effect.
FInally merge them

Step 33

We can delete the "merged remote control" we don't need it anymore. Then
1 Place the layer we've created in the previous step in the middle of the remote control.
2 Now the tedious part of the work: create dozens of little parts flying off.
So the process is the same:
lasso tool -> Ctrl+C -> Ctrl+V -> make it 3D -> smudge tool.
from every component some tiny parts flying off.

Step 34

Place these tiny pieces into the "smashing point".
Then take the bullet, convert it into a smart object, then go to filter->blur->motion blur and apply.

Step 35

Is a smart object...so it's smart!
The filter applied is not destructive: it means that we've a layer mask available for the filter and we can change the setings of the filter when we want just double clicking on the filter thumbnail...cool!
So let's erase with a blach brush the filter where we don't want it.

Step 36

1 The bullet is ready, and looks like is moving
2 Now take one of the blue buttons and smash it.
So erase some parts and smudge the edges as you want: remember to give an "exploding" effect.
3 Create (be clever dupicate the ones you've previously done) some flying off tiny parts, which follow the bullet after the impact.
Smudge them in the correct direction not randomly

Step 37

You are at this point now.
(I desatured the image just to show you better but don't do it!!)
The flying pieces should follow the orange directions, so create some new or move, rotate, transform the ones you've previously created.

Step 38

Place correctly also the blue button just near the impact point. Remeber to add the shadow manually. Take a soft black brush, draw the shadow, set the layer to multiply and opacity to 65%.

Step 39

1 Let's suppose that the bullet hit a chip and smash into two pieces.
In step 20 we saved a chip from our source. Well broke it (as in steps 23-27) and smudge it in the correct direction.
2 Well add a shadow also here so: new layer->soft black brush->multiply mode and opacity to 65%

Step 40

Open a new document.
Drag the remote control with the bullet and all the tiny parts and merge them. Call this layer "remote control"
Then new layer-> foreground colour white, background colour a dark green.
Filter -> render -> clouds

Step 41

Apply blur, levels, Hue/saturation threatment as showed (in order!)
Dodge with a big soft brush the too dark areas (in the orange circles).
Set the range of the dodge to "shadows" and the exposure to 20

Step 42

Create a new layer and make a black to transparent gradient. Set the mode to multiply (so also black to white can be ok because the multiply hides the whites).

Step 43

New layer, fill it with black, go to filter -> render -> lens flare. Set the blending mode to overlay

Step 44

This the scheme with the opacity and mode settings

Step 45

our image is a little too dark now et's adjust it.
So: merge all the layers but NOT the clouds.
Go to image-> adjustments -> shadow/highlight and use these settings to reveal some informations...

Step 46

Flatten the image on a new document.

Play with the brightness-contrast until the image looks good. I suggest you to use the adjustment layer and not to go to Image .-> adjustments. To create a new layer click on the half black half white circle at the bottom of the palette menu.

Step 47

Here it is my result!!
Pretty cool =D
I hope you enjoyed this (puff pant very long) tutorial and sorry for my "italianish" english.
Thanks!

Punched Eye Smiley

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:01:00 +0000

Page 1
Start by creating a circle using the elliptical shape tool.

Double click the layer to open the layer style window. Apply layer style with the following settings shown.

Create a ellipse using the elliptical shape tool. Secondly, create a new layer. Apply black to white gradient. Change layer mode to screen for this layer.

Create eye brows using the pen tool.

Create a ellipse using elliptical shape tool. Press Ctrl+T. Right Click and select Warp. Adjust the nodes to get the shape as shown. Duplicate the layer. Press Ctrl+T. Right click and select Flip Horizontal and place on the other side. Fill it with a dark color.

Create some circles using the elliptical shape tool place them as shown.

Select and duplicate the dark eye layer. Scale down and fill it with a white color.

Duplicate the dark eye layer again. Enable "intersect path areas" at the top bar. Create a ellipse using elliptical shape tool. Move this layer above all the layers in layer order.

Ctrl+Click to get the selection. Contract the selection by 2 pixels. Create a new layer. Apply Black to the white gradient. Change layer mode to screen for this layer.

Create a set of lips using pen tool to finish things off!

Calculations And Colorization

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 20:42:00 +0000

Step 1

Lets get started by taking a quick look at the photo we’ll be applying this effect to. I shot this close up of a California Succulent and although it makes for a compelling abstract by itself I thought it could make a much bolder statement. The shot is a vertical, so I apologize for the amount of scrolling you’ll have to do in this tutorial due to the image height.

Step 2

We’ll jump right in and have a little discussion about using Calculations to create a Black & White composite. Although many photographers shy away from using Calculations for it’s reputation of being complex and confusing, it’s actually a rather simple and straightforward method. The Calculations dialog basically allows us to combine any two Alpha Channels together using any of Photoshop’s standard blend modes.

The basic method is this:
Open the Channels palette by choosing Window>Channels from the main menu (by default it’s a tab in the Layers palette set). In the Channels palette of an ordinary image you have 4 color channels: RGB which is the combined color information for all 3 basic color channels, RED which contains only the information for red, Green witch contains all the information for the green tones in the image and obviously Blue which as you may have guessed contains the blue tonal ranges.

Step 3

By clicking on each channel individually in the Channels palette we can examine in more detail what information each channel holds. In my image I notice that the Red and Green channels are very similar and that the Blue channel contains quite a bit more contrast and detail. Although we can play with the channel combinations once we open the Calculations dialog, I find it’s very useful to know what’s going on before I get started.

When you’re done examining your channels, click back on the RGB composite channel and switch back to the Layers palette.

Step 4

Without further hesitation lets jump right in and open the Calculations dialog by choosing Image>Calculations from the main menu. As soon as the dialog opens, you will notice that your image instantly changes to a black and white version representing the default settings for the Calculations dialog. Although we haven’t (and won’t) done anything to alter the original image the stage is now displaying what the color and blending combination we’ve selected will look like.

I’m going to go ahead and use the Blue channel as my first working channel since I know it holds all the heavy contrast for this image. Although the Red and Green channels are very similar, I do know that I liked the detail in the Red channel a little more than the Green so I’ll go ahead and select Red as my second working channel. Finally I’ll choose the Overlay blend mode at the bottom. The Blend Mode is actually a really cool setting to play around with as it will yield drastically different final results. Make sure the Result is set to New Channel and click OK.

Step 5

You’ll notice that when you click OK your image doesn’t switch back to the color view, this is because we just created a new Alpha Channel and by default it is automatically selected. Click back over to the Channels Palette for a closer look.

As you can see in the image below a new channel has been created at the bottom of the Channels palette called Alpha 1.

Step 6

We’re going to copy this channel and paste it on a new layer in the Layers palette so (with the Alpha 1 channel still selected in the Channels palette) start by pressing Command-A (PC: Ctrl-A) to select the entire canvas then press Command-C (PC: Ctrl-C) to copy the contents of the channel. Now click back up to the RGB composite channel to turn all the standard channels back on. Switch over to the Layers palette and press Command-V (PC: Ctrl-V) to paste what we just copied onto the stage. This will automatically create a new layer and place the black and white version we created into it. See, Calculations aren’t so scary!

(*note: I suggest naming the layer based on the Calculations method you used to create it incase you need to know later.)

Step 7

Next we’ll add a layer below the Calculations layer and add a gradient for the layer to interact with. Here’s a neat little trick for you: If you hold down the Command (PC: Ctrl) key when clicking the new layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette the new layer will be added below the current layer. Call this layer Gradient.

Step 8

Lets set our foreground and background colors in preparation for our gradient. Set the foreground color to a nice light color, I’m going to be using a red/orange gradient so my light color will be #c34614 and the background color (the darker color) will be #561800. Press the G key to invoke the Gradient tool and choose Foreground to Background from the gradient picker in the Gradient options bar and make sure that Radial Gradient is selected.

Step 9

I’m going to now click and drag on the stage to add the radial gradient. Because the lighter color is set as the foreground color, the gradient will naturally go from light to dark so I’ll start at the area I want to highlight and drag away from it to the furthest edge of my image.

Step 10

Now lets get these two layers talking to each other by clicking on the Calculations layer and changing it’s Blend Mode to Overlay.

(*note: It may help you to actually perform this step before placing your gradient so you can experiment with different gradients until you figure out what works best for your photo.)

Step 11

After completing the process you may find that your image needs a little more punch (or maybe not, but mine did), you can achieve this easily by clicking on the Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and adding a Curves Adjustment Layer to the top of the file.

Step 12

Here’s what my final image looks like… Quite a contrast from the mellow photo we began with.

Step 13

This technique works great for creating multiple versions of the same image in different colors. I hope you’ve learned a little something and that maybe you’ve discovered that the Calculations method of black and white conversion can actually be easy and produce some extremely nice results.

If you’d like to learn more about Calculations and the versatility of Channels in Photoshop you might want to pick up a copy of Scott Kelby’s Channels Book.

Create scorching Photoshop effect

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 20:50:00 +0000

It’s summer blockbuster season, and this image recalls a still from a superhero movie or big-budget television series.

In this tutorial, Photoshop maestro Fabio Sasso demonstrates how to fake a human torch using little more than stock imagery, a little patience, and a lot of Photoshop know-how.

Sasso will talk you through honing your use of layers, tweaking the same image several times and layering up the central model. You’ll use layer styles and adjustment layers to build up effects and achieve a subtle, polished finish.

Sasso also has plenty of tips on how to seamlessly blend stock photography, using the Warp tool, simple Photoshop effects, and some layer masks. Throughout the tutorial, you’ll be subtly applying blending modes until you reach the impressive effect shown above.

All the images you’ll need can be bought at a low cost from Shutterstock, or you can easily substitute your own photos if you’d prefer.

Step 1
Open Photoshop and create a new document measuring 1,920- x-1,200 pixels. In the Background layer apply a Layer Style (Layer > Layer Style) and use a Gradient Overlay, setting the blending mode to Normal, the opacity to 100%, and the style to Radial. Increase the scale to 150%. Now for the colours use 040302 for the darker colour, and 1b140b for the lighter.

Step 2
Now let’s add a photo: buy the image from Shutterstock at tinyurl.com/l3netx, or use a similar photo of your own. Then use the Pen tool (P) to create a path to extract the man from the background. Convert the path to a selection by holding Cmd/Ctrl and clicking on the thumbnail of the path.

Step 3
Duplicate the image onto a new layer and use a big, soft brush to erase part of the arm, painting over the mask. Name this new layer ‘model arm’, and the initial layer ‘model’.

Step 4
Duplicate the ‘model arm’ layer and go to Filter > Others > High Pass. Set the radius to 10 pixels, and the blending mode to Hard Light.

Step 5
Now duplicate the ‘model’ layer, naming the new layer ‘model glow’. Go to Filter > Stylize > Glowing Edges. Set the edge width to 6, the edge brightness to 7, and the softness to 7.

Step 6
Still in the ‘model glow’ layer, delete the rest of the body, leaving only the arm. This will be the highlights of the fire. Also, change the blending mode to Screen.

Step 7
Add a new layer, naming it ‘model mask’, then select Filter > Render > Clouds, setting black and white as the foreground and background colours, respectively. Go to the Paths palette and load the path you created in step 2. With the selection loaded, go to Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal Selection.

Step 8
Delete the rest of the body in the ‘model mask’ layer, leaving only the hand, then go Layer > Layer Styles, and select Color Overlay. Pick an orange, change the blending mode to Linear Dodge, and set the opacity to 88%. Use an orange for the colour and change the Blend Mode to Linear Dodge (Add). Change the layer’s blending mode to Color Dodge.

Step 9
Add another layer on top of the others and name it ‘smoke’. Go to Filter > Render > Clouds. Again make sure you have black and white for the background and foreground colours. Change the blending mode to Color Dodge and with the Eraser tool (E) set to a big, soft brush, delete most of the areas of the layer, leaving only the part close to the arm that you’re going to set on fire.

Step 10
Select Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Color, then click on the layer to open the Layer Style dialog box. Select Gradient Overlay and change the blending mode to Overlay. For the colours, use orange and a very dark orange; set the style to Radial and keep the scale at 100%. Move the gradient so the lighter part is on top of the model’s hand.

Step 11
Select Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map, and change the blending mode to Soft Light.

Step 12
Now let’s add some flames. To do this, we’ll need another stock photo. You can buy the one used here at tinyurl.com/mpk9b3, or use a similar photo of your own. Start copying parts of the flame and pasting them over the model’s flaming arm. Set the blending mode to Screen, and then go Edit > Transform > Warp, and distort it to match the model’s arm.

Step 13
Now let’s add a fireball. Again we’ll use another stock photo – you can buy the one used here at tinyurl.com/mltl7m. Change the blending mode to Screen and select Image > Adjustments > Levels. Increase the white input a bit so that the colours match with the other flames. To finish the piece, you could make the eyes burn, or create some rays of light – for instructions on how to do this, see Sasso’s tutorial on creating movie posters in Digital Arts, October 2008 (or at tinyurl.com/n3mmtn).

Fabio Sasso

Creating an Abstract Watercolor Wallpaper

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 20:35:00 +0000

There are plenty of ways to create a Watercolor Effect in Photoshop. Some are very cheesy and you can easily tell that a simple filter has been used. In this tutorial, we will be using Layer Masking. It is one of the most fascinating and powerful Photoshop method, to use layer masks in your designs.

Preview of Final Image

Let us start off by creating a canvas of 1920X1200 pixels, in RGB mode. I found a picture of Jim Morrison (you can obviously use any of your favourite characters, or your own picture for that matter). I found the picture here. Copy and paste the image into our canvas. Use transform and scale it to fit our canvas by holding down the Shift-Key. This keeps the original aspect ratio of the image and it does not look stretched.

Even though the picture I am using here is a small resolution one, it will not matter much since I will be using some filters that will remove any sort of pixelation. Adjust Brightness/Contrast and then duplicate the layer.

Apply Watercolor filter from filter gallery to the duplicated layer. Name this duplicated layer as "Watercolor Filter".

Select the original layer and NOT the "Watercolor Filter". Go to Image > Adjustments > Threshold. Name this original layer as "Threshold Effect".

Set the Blending mode to Multiply, and merge both, "Watercolor Filter" and "Threshold Effect" layers. So, we now have a "Merged Layer".

Now open some images I took from the Media Militia Sampler Pack, download it here.

Get to the "Merged Layer". Select and copy the image into the layer. Add a Layer Mask to "Layer 1". Alt + click on the layer mask, and you will see the canvas is in white. Paste the image here, and Ctrl + I to invert the colors. This way, the layer mask hides the Blacks, and reveals the Whites. Click back onto the layer and we can see our image.

Use some paper textures from Bashcorpo, you’ll find it here. Set it to Linear Burn mode.

Clone some areas in the "Layer 1" using the Clone Tool. This makes the image look more complete.

Finaly, add some more watercolor splashes from the Media Militia Sample and add a fancy text, oriented like what I have in this image below. Now you have an abstract watercolor design. You can use your creativity and innovate more on this effect. Hope you had fun in this tutorial!

Age Progression - Photoshop Tutorials

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 20:14:00 +0000

Men and women age a little bit differently but since I've only aged female celebrities thus far, I'll just focus on women for this tutorial. I’ll be using the image of Katie Holmes that I did for a past W1K contest, as an example.

Step 1: Choosing an Appropriate Photo

When deciding to age-progress a celebrity’s face, I try to select a picture that is touched-up as little as possible.

I find that candid shots, or any shots that have not been taken in a studio, work best because the resulting harsh lighting reveals more of the skin’s details i.e. slight bags under the eyes and faint wrinkles. The appearance of such details makes it all that much easier to visualize how your subject will age. Visualizing what the end result will look like brings you one step closer to aging her face realistically.

In Katie’s case, we can see very faint horizontal lines on her forehead, fairly obvious lines under her eyes and lines bracketing her mouth.

Step 2: Collecting Reference Material

Reference material is key in my method of aging. Keeping Katie’s face in mind, I scoured the Web, looking for faces of old women who either resemble Katie and/or share the same facial expression. Here, Katie is smiling with her face positioned at a 3/4 angle so I tried to gather as many pictures of old women who are smiling in the same manner or close to that. I then opened up the picture of Katie in Photoshop and pasted the found images around her face on a separate layer, spread out to provide easy visual access.

Another kind of reference I like to use but is usually hard to find, is pictures of the subject’s parents. I managed to find a couple of reference pictures of Katie’s mother online and they really helped me to decide whether or not to give Katie a double chin. Since her mom has quite a bit of mass under her chin, I decided I would apply that to Katie too.

Step 3: Thinning Brows

Now the fun begins! The first thing I like to do is to thin out the subject’s eyebrows and eyelashes. The older people get, the thinner their hair gets - either because hair falls out and/or because it dries out as it greys.

So to achieve this, I like to use the Clone Stamp tool at 100% with a relatively small brush size depending on the size and resolution of the image. I sampled the surrounding skin to thin and reduce the number of hairs.

Step 4: Mold the Face

Next, I like to add the basic sags to the skin. I do this in the Liquify mode. I tried to create sagging effects to the cheeks, jowls and the cliff just above the eyes by using the Push tool. For the eyes, I tried to be subtle; otherwise she may end up looking somewhat ghoulish.

From what I’ve learned about the aging process, I know that while bones cease to grow, and in fact shrink, cartilage does continue to grow. As a result, the end of a nose may appear larger as a person grows older. So while I was still in the Liquify mode, I used the Push tool to extend the length of the nose slightly. Then I used the Bloat tool to also enlarge it slightly, being careful not lose the essential quality or character of the nose. Go too far and it may not look like Katie anymore.

Step 5: The Aforementioned Double Chin

Based on her mother’s pictures, I then added a fairly massive double chin. I initially used the Airbrush tool with some fairly broad strokes, sampling the colors that were already in the area of her neck. I then worked in the details with a finer brush size. Also, keep in mind that I was also using the other reference photos of older women to guide me.

Step 6: Wrinkle Up the Eyes

For me, the most important parts to get right are the eyes. They can make or break the project. Done wrong and the picture may no longer be identifiable as one of Katie Holmes anymore. I sought out the fine lines around the eyes and I tried to imagine how they would progress into wrinkles. I then extended them in length and width accordingly. Referencing the pictures of old women helped a lot with this step.

I used a combination of the Stamp tool and Brush tool. I wish I could explain my technique at this point in a more clinical manner but mostly I relied on my artistic instincts. I emphasized the wrinkles around the eyes by widening and deepening the lines slightly and increasing the contrast by darkening the recesses and lightening the edges. Also, I extended wrinkles to the cheekbone areas. I then applied the same technique to the wrinkles around the mouth and to the forehead.

Step 6: Reducing the Lips

In this step, I work on the lips. As people grow older, the outline of the lips tends to recede. Using the Stamp tool, I sampled the skin surrounding the lips and thinned them out.

While I was at it, I also added a few vertical wrinkles above the lips to give her a bit of a "prune" effect. We just want a hint of that, so don’t carve out deep lines; deep lines would only be necessary if she was puckering her lips.

Step 7: Planning Out More Wrinkles

Here, on a separate layer, I faintly outlined or sketched, with a relatively thin brush size, areas that I may or may not add more lines and wrinkles to. It’s easy to get carried away with the addition of wrinkles. So, I stopped, took a step back and assessed where to take to image. For me, it's essential and a great test to see what best works.

Step 8: Touching Up the Wrinkles

Based on the previous step, I added wrinkles where I thought they were needed most.

Overall, I found that the wrinkles and lines seemed a little flat in comparison to the rest of Katie’s features. They needed more definition so that they could pop out more. So, I highlighted the raised edges of the individual lines with the Brush tool and with a lighter skin tone.

Step 9: Hairy Lips

Facial hair becomes an issue with most women as they age. For some strange reason they lose it in the brow area and grow it back around the mouth area. I didn’t want Katie to be the exception so with a very fine brush size and the Brush tool, I added hairs to her upper lip.

I tried to make it as subtle as possible. Hairs too thick or dark would draw the viewer’s attention straight to her mustache and I didn’t want that. I also added more wrinkles to the area below the corners of her mouth.

Step 10: Refining the Neck

I decided that the neck was too smooth for a woman of 75 years of age. So I added finer wrinkles to that area. Also, I added more mass and weight to her jowls with the airbrush by increasing the value of the tones in those areas thus creating more contrast between surface planes.

Step 11: Adding Age Spots

A key component to effective aging of a face is the addition of age spots.

So at this point, I sampled one of the darker skin tones on her face, and on a separate layer that was set to Multiply and 30% opacity, I brushed them in and tried to create irregular shapes (there IS no perfect age spot). You can add as many as you like; the amount varies from person to person. I decided to be conservative with Katie.

Step 12: More Refinements

I took a little break from it and came back to it later to possibly get a better perspective on it. When I looked at it, at this point, I decided that certain areas needed refining and added detail. This is the beauty of working with a high-resolution file; I can zoom in real close and deal with a wrinkle up-close and personal.

Unless their teeth were subjected to regular whitening, most people’s teeth yellow with age. Gums also recede, showing less gum and more bone. And so with that in mind, I sampled a yellowish-brown color and on a new layer that was set to Multiply and 30% opacity and painted that color to the teeth with the Brush tool. Her gums didn’t show to begin with, so receding the gums here wasn’t necessary.

Step 13: Preparing the Hair

The finishing touch here is greying the hair. I began by creating a mask defining the area of the hair. I used the brush for this and tried my best to define as many loose strands of hair that I could.

With this mask as a selection, I then created a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and reduced the saturation to –63.

I then created a new adjustment layer based on the same mask and adjusted the Brightness/Contrast to brightness +9 and contrast –36. As a result, I found that the darker areas were too pale and caused a loss of depth and so to adjust that, I then selected the mask and scratched out the darker areas with a 5px brush size at 50% opacity so that they could show through from the original image.

Step 14: Hair Raising

The next step was to raise the hairline and thin out the hair. Hair loss is common with both sexes.

I sampled the area at the top of the forehead and extended the skin area above the original hairline.

Step 15: Greying the Hair

A lot of details of the hair were lost in the previous step so with a thin brush size at 80 percent opacity I drew in fine grey hairs, sparsely laid out.

Patiently, slowly, stroke by stroke I added more and more hairs until I was happy with the amount of grey I had added.

Step 16: Finishing Touches

Finally, I took a step back, refined a few wrinkles here and there ET VOILA!

I hope this tutorial was insightful. It may not be the most technically detailed tutorial but it gives you a good idea of the process I go through to get the job done. Hopefully, it will help you create your own trophy-winning images for future Fountain of Age contests!

flashflores

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:47:00 +0000

This tutorial will teach you how to create creative and stylish fire lines in 10 easy steps!

01

For this tutorial your going to need a good stock photo lined up. Something with action…and preferably dark (this effect works much better in a dark setting)

02

Open the stock photo, then go to the paths tab and click create new path.
Press “P” on the keyboard to select the pen tool, Get a basic idea of where the fire is going. Keep in mind dimension and action. Swirls do wonders!

03

A. Click to start your path
B. Click your next point, hold and drag to create a bezier spline path, which is necessary to create flowing lines
C. Continue doing this, following the idea of where you want the fire to go.
Dont worry about getting it right the first time as you can change the spline at any time…another little tip - if you press and hold ctrl while using the pen tool you can temporarily access the direct selection tool which will allow you to edit the spline (a big time saver)

04

And eventually…you get something like what i have below. Remember that your only going to use the parts of your path that are in front of the object your path follows…in this case the models arm, and leg. So don’t waste time trying to make the hidden parts look pretty.

05

A. Now you want to select a soft round brush (i used a 5 pixel brush here) and pick an orange color.
B. Make a new layer and name it Fire.
C. Go back to the paths tab and select stroke path with brush.

06

You should immediately see the stroked path.
On mine you’ll see splatters and flairs that weren’t part of the original path. Those give the fire line the illusion that it is moving, and were accomplished by simply grabbing the clone stamp tool - using a spatter brush and cloning/stamping areas of the path at random.

07

Mask/erase the parts of the path that are behind the legs/arms or whatever it is your paths follows.

08

Right click on the Fire layer and select blending options, and use these options/values.

Feel free to play with the settings (that’s how i discovered this technique)

You might end up with something better!

09

Duplicate the Fire layer, and set the layer mode to OVERLAY
Click the eye next to inner shadow and inner glow on the duplicate layer to deactivate them.

10

Now double click on outer glow on the duplicate and change the values to this.

Conclusion

Spend a little time, and you can make something like what i have below…

For a different effect, duplicate the FIRE layer again, and filter>distort>wave.

Play with the opacity levels, and play with the blending modes - particularly OVERLAY.

Good luck!

Alien Invasion! A Photoshop Tutorial..

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:58:00 +0000

Hello folks!
Time again to talk about aliens! No, not the illegal kind. The green kind! What better way to kickoff the summer spirit than with explosions, death rays, and a little stormy weather - thanks to our friend, Photoshop.

Speaking of stormy weather - recently, in my hometown of Manchester, NH (Southside REPRESENT) , we experienced some major floodwaters. It was nuts - Hectic farm animals everywhere...I must have seen at least 45 cows engaged in what appeared to be a strange game of Twister in a nearby Swamp field. Anyway, being the moron that I am, I defied all weathermen state-wide (damn yooz!) and took a journey down to a nearby troubled river and snapped some crAzy pics.

Oh. Here's one now:

So, I was looking at this photo of horrendous flooding and I though, Hey - let's make it even more horrendous!! SWEET!

OK, here we go! Now is a great time to grab a few beers and set your Victoria's Secret catalog aside. Don't forget the page you were on as it may or may not come into play later. Most likely not. OK...download that low-quality image above and lets get to work!!

To start off, I selected the top half of the sky and copy/pasted it onto a new layer. After that, I adjusted the Shadows/Highlights to darken up the mood a bit. After that, I used my buddy "google" (Seriously - TRY these guys. They're gonna be huge.) and did an image search for stormy clouds. I actually have a bunch of my own in a personal arsenal, but for the means of this tutorial, we'll use all fully accessible items. I then pasted the stormy clouds over the top of my scene, adjusted the values to a more purple tone and blended in the bottom half.

End result went something like this:

Next up, add more clouds! I went a little darker on the lower set of clouds. When all was set in place, I made a new layer (COLOR layer mode) and painted red everywhere I wanted it.

A-Whabbap!

And here comes the fun part! Using everyday items, we're going to create our spaceship in the clouds! Mine was actually made from the front of a corvette (top) and the bottom part was made from a canon camera lens! We'll call that the beam-emitter. Because damn, all aliens have huge beams.

After the ship placement, I added some moody borders to the photo using multiply/overlay layers and brushed in a bit more red.

-(Meep.)

Spaceship is in, now lets add a little light underneath the edge of it. Next, add a little dark shadowing around it with your linear burn layer mode. Use red. Also, I adjusted the shadow/highlights on the ship to give it a darker tone, and burned some of the ships edges for depth.

Something like:

Next up - A little mood lighting! I used a photo of the Capitol Building and completely darkened out any of the negative shading values (see below). I then overlayed the lights onto the ships base (using linear dodge), and added a little extra to the top where the top meets the clouds.

Shooting for:

Hey now! Let's add some BEAMS. take your brush tool and hold SHIFT to make a straight vertical line. Use a very light pink. Now, set the layer mode to linear dodge. You can see the outcome below. Lastly, copy the darkened clouds from the horizon line and add them around the entry point of the spaceship and the sky. This will give some MOOD.

Yeah, mood:

Same technique, but this time use a darker red and overlay it on the other, thinner beam.

Larger beam, please:

OK, it's time to get this thing rolling. We need a darker, more stormy atmosphere. This spaceship needs to be mean, so lets darken the sky, add some contrast to the clouds and darken the water by adding purple softlight and red overlay to the water base.

Ahhhh, getting there:

Darker! apply a multiply layer of the clouds over itself to give that sky some strength over the ship. burn underneath the ship as well so the cloud consistency carries through the horizon. Also, start applying more light rays from underneath the ship using the overlay layer mode. I used yellow to keep it fairly subtle.

Ahhhh:

OK you may have noticed in the last photo I started adding an "electric" look to the BEAM OF DEATH™. This can be done through tiny lines treaks (done in orange or yellow) overlaying the thicker light coming from the base of the ship. I added some more lightning to the sides of the ship as well....

-(Pobles.)

A little more lightning, and some rings outside the ship. this was done using the brush tool and applying the layer mode as "linear dodge" over the other clouds.

Womp!

Add a little more light/shadow toning in the clouds. Next, again using linear dodge and a darker orange, overlay a large brush to the bottom of the beam to add some glow to the tree region. I added another thinner and stronger layer at the tree/beam meeting point to create an explosion effect.

FYAH!!!

Now let's bring in another cloud photo. Adjust the Variations on the clouds to bring in the red tone we want. Next, adjust the levels to emphasize the shadows (bring in the left triangle towards the center). Set the layer mode to Hard light.

Like this:

Almost done! Add a bit more ligtning to the sky and add more shadow burning to the water a edges of the photo. Shoot for this:

Like this:

All done! Nice work, Chief. Post your spaceship photos below or email them to me!

Like this:

Ok that's it! Until next time....

Create a Cool Movie Poster in Photoshop

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:51:00 +0000

Step 1

Create a new document at 1600 x 1200 pixels with a resolution of 72dpi. Start off by opening all of your images separately and lets extract our guy from the background, use the pen tool. You can find these images here: http://fl8us.deviantart.com/art/Deserted-City-4100373 and http://b-e-c-k-y-stock.deviantart.com/art/Scared-People-2-46126819. Thanks to fl8us and beckystock for these great photos.

Step 2

Place the street image on our blank canvas and set the guy image on top of it. Lets give the right perspective to our guy go to Edit/Transform/Perspective. See the image below.

Step 3

Lets create an adjustment layer of Hue/Saturation and check the colorize option, above all the layers. Keep playing with the colors until you get something you like.

Step 4

Ok go to our buildings layer and add some warp to it go to Edit/Transform/Warp. Play around until you get something like this. Its really important that you leave the street the most straight as possible.

Step 5

Turn off the guy layer and create a new layer on top of it. Use the Lasso Tool (L) to select all the part back there and fill it with white. See the image below

Step 6

Now lets add some blur to our light. Go to Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur and set it to 28%. Change the Blend Mode to Soft Light and duplicate the layer and give the same blur.

Step 7

Now turn on the guy layer and create a new layer below call it "Shadow". Grab a small soft brush and low its opacity to 60% and start covering under his feets. See the image below.

Step 8

Then create a new layer below of the "Shadow" layer and hit Cmd+left click over the guy layer to load the selection and fill it with black, using the Paint Bucket Tool. and go to Edit/Free Transform and rotate the image.

Step 9

And go to Edit/Free Transform and rotate the image. Like the image below.

Step 10

Then add a blur to our shadow Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur and set it to 5%. Low the opacity to 70% and duplicate the layer, then by using a large soft brush with 50% opacity erase some areas until you get something like this. This step its really important if you wanna get a more realistic look.

Step 11

Now lets add some light to our guy that matches with our background. Grab the Dodge tool, select Highlights and set the exposure to 5% and highlight some areas.

Step 12

Now create a new layer on top of the guy layer and call it "Light guy" and hit Cmd+Left Click on the Guy layer to load the selection. Then just go back to the Light guy layer and using a large soft white brush start covering all the back area, until you get something like this.

Step 13

Ok, now lets duplicate the guy layer and put it above all the layers and change the blending mode to Color with 60% opacity. And with a large soft eraser erase all of it and leave the skin tone. Just like this.

Step 14

Now lets add the final touches and merge all the layers. Then lets add some sharpen go to Filter/Sharpen/Unsharp Mask with this values.

Conclusion

Thats it! Then you can add some nice noise to your work and get nice film look. Hope you learn something from it :-)

PhotoShop brushes

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:05:00 +0000

[link] Antique Lace Brushes
[link] Pop Art Brushes
[link] Blood Brushes III
[link] Hair Brushes III
[link] Lighting Effects Brushes
[link] Guns and Bullets Brushes
[link] Border Brushes
[link] Spots and Stripes Brushes
[link] Random Grunge
[link] Valentine Brushes
[link] Starlight Brushes
[link] Fractal Swirls Brushes
[link] Alchemy Brushes
[link] Puzzle Brushes
[link] Retro Shape Brushes
[link] Wallpaper Brushes
[link] China Pattern Brushes
[link] Mehandi Designs Brushes
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Invisible Man with Photoshop CS3 (Video Tutorial)

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 06:39:00 +0000

Navigation

noreply@blogger.com (FA|-|AM USM/\N) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 06:13:00 +0000

Create this beautiful navigation module with Photoshop. This Photoshop layout tutorial will show how simple shapes and gradients can create elegant designs.

Preview of Final Results

Modernistic Navigation Module Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1

Firstly create a new document (File > New) 540 by 440 pixels. Fill the background with the colour #1b1b1b by going Edit > Fill.

Step 2

Secondly we are going to be creating the background of the navigation box. Create a new layer, you can do this by going Layer > New > Layer or using the short cut Ctrl + Shift + Alt + N. Select the rounded rectangle tool and set the radius to 5 pixels. Make a selection of 250 by 300 pixels.

We are now goingt to be filling this selection with a red gradient. Select the gradient tool and set it to radial. Fill the selection with a gradient from the top center (#bc0303) to the bottom center (#3f0000).

Step 3

Thirdly, we are going to be adding an outer glow to our navigation background by going Layer > Layer Styles > Outer Glow and enter the settings below.

Now it should be looking like this.

Step 4

Select the text tool and add in some text for the title of the navigation box. The font I have used is Verdana, Regular, 22pt, Strong, #ffffff.

Step 5

Create a new layer and using the rounded rectangle tool again make a selection of 230 by 250 pixels at the bottom of the navigation background (with 10 pixel spacing on the sides and bottom).

Fill this selection with a dark grey colour (#111111).

Step 6

We are now going to be adding a shine effect to the new layer. So on a new layer (keeping the selection that you had before) go Select > Modify > Contract by 10 pixels.

Fill the selection with a radial gradient from the top left (#ffffff) to the bottom right (transparent) using the gradient tool.

Lower the opacity of the layer to 5%.

Step 7

Now for the text links, using the text tool add in some text to act as links. The font that I have used for this is Verdana, Regular, 12pt, None, #5a5a5a (#ffffff for the hover effect). Set the line height to 30 pt.

Step 8

Next up is adding in dividers to go between each text link. Make selections of 210 by 1 pixel using the rectangular marquee tool between each line and fill with the colour #1e1e1e.

Step 9

The last step is to add in a background colour behind the active link (in my case I've made the Photoshop Tutorials link active) so create a new layer behind the text layer and make a selection of 210 by 30 pixels and fill with #171717.