Photoshop Advanced Tutorial: 2009

Thursday, December 24, 2009

You Will Stand Alone Photomanipulation

Another photomanipulation tutorial from PSD Essential, this time called You will stand alone. In the tutorial you’ll learn to create a dark and creepy effect by blending various images together and adjusting several settings.

adjusting several settings.

Finished Preview

Step 1 - Preparing background

In this step we will blend sky and desert together.
Open the picture with desert. We have to change size of the canvas too, so we can add some sky. Click on Image -> Canvas Size and set it like on the picture below

Now open the photo of sky and drag it into the desert picture.
Good.
We have to blend them together. Click on the “sky” layer and add vector mask

You can find it on the same palette as you have your layers. If you don´t see the Layers palette just click F7 on your keyboard.
Click on the vector mask like so;

. Press B on your keyboard (it chooses the brush tool). Choose a soft round brush and pick a solid Grey color. Now start painting on the areas of the sky you want to have hidden.
Don´t worry about changing the brush size and color, just do it as much as you need to.

TIP: If you choose black color it is similar like if you use eraser tool with 100% opacity. White color means 0% opacity. The advantage of using vector mask instead of the eraser tool is that you can reverse every step you don´t like. You just simply start painting with white brush over the areas which you want to have visible again.

After you finished this step your manipulation should look like this:

Step 2 - Adding footprints

Now It’s time to add footprints. Open the picture with them and drag them into the manipulation.
We have to blend them with the desert. So we will use the vector mask again.

As you can see it is far away from being well blended. We have to do them darker and change color.
First we’ll add an adjustment layer

You can find in on the right side of the Add vector mask button. Choose Brightness and Contrast and set the values in the same way as on the picture below:

We want it to effect only the layer with footprints, not the whole picture. Because of that right click on the adjustment layer and choose Create clipping mask.
Now we will change the colors of the footprints. Add adjustment layer Color Balance and set it as I did:

The last think we will change on footprints is saturation. Add adjustment layer Hue and Saturation and set it like on the picture bellow.

Step 3 - Adding a man

In this step we will add the silhouette of the man.
Open the photo with man. Zoom on 200% press L (= Lasso Tool) and very carefully select the man. Do it as well as possible. If you crop the image bad the whole manipulation will never look realistic. Now press V (= Move Tool) and drag the selected man into the manipulation.
Now we will do the silhouette. It is very simple step. We only change the curves. Add adjustment layer Curves and set them similar to the picture bellow:

After this step the manipulation should look like this:

Step 4 - Adding a cross

Cross is the last element we have to add. Open the photo, press L (= Lasso Tool) and select the cross. Be very careful again. we want our manipulation to look realistic. When you´re done drag the cross into the photo manipulation.
Because we want the tutorial to look realistic we will add some sand around the cross. Select some parts of the footprints, copy them and past above the layer with cross. Choose something like these parts:

Now add layer mask and blend them together in the same way how we blended the background. After that you have something like this:

Now we will change colors and brightness of the cross.
Add Adjustment Layer Color Balance and set it on these values:
Midtones: 0, 0, -47
Shadows: 0, 0, +26
Don´t forget to create a Clipping mask. If you do forget it will change the whole manipulation.
Add Adjustment Layer Curves and set it like on the picture bellow:

Create Clipping mask too!

TIP: If you don´t know how to create clipping mask read this small tip. Clipping mask is a very useful thing if you want to effect only a certain layer and not the whole manipulation.
Right click on the layer which you want to have like clipping mask. Now select the option Create Clipping Mask.
Be sure that the layer from which you want to do clipping mask is above the layer which you want to affect.

Great! We are almost done. One last and probably the best step left.

Step 5 - Final Touch

In this step we will set the final mood of the manipulation.
At first add Adjustment Layer Levels on the top of your layers and set it like this:

Add adjustment layer Photo Filter

Now add some grunge texture and set the blending option on Hue and opacity on 45%.
Add the texture once again and set the blending option on Overlay and opacity on 35%.

Very well. Now we change two last things.
Add adjustment layer Brightness and Contrast and increase contrast on the value +10. Press OK. And now add adjustment layer Hue/Saturation and lower the saturation on -30.
That’s all. Now you can add some small details if you wish. I added some flying bird on the background and also some grass on the cross.
Final Preview

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Photoshop Ghosting Tips, Tricks and Techniques for Technical Illustrations

Subject: Acura NSX / 350 dpi @ 20 inches

Software: Adobe Photoshop CS CS2

Drawing Tablet: Wacom

A "Ghosted", "Phantom View", "Transparent", or "See Through" technical illustration is one that renders the exterior skin of an object transparent in order to see the interior workings. This Photoshop tutorial will cover the basic techniques used to render a ghosted technical illustration using the airbrush technique.

A Ghosted illustration will be slightly more time consuming and expensive to create than a Cutaway Illustration. Ghosting an object requires completion of the entire outside AND inside of the subject before the fading or "ghosting" process takes place. The decision to ghost or cutaway a subject is a stylistic one. Although more internal information may be visible in a cutaway version, a ghosted illustration will favor the exterior of the subject which may contain important components, body features, logos, etc.

For the purposes of this Photoshop tutorial, we are going to use the "ghosting", "see through" or "phantom view" technique to create this illustration of an Acura NSX. All of the painted areas must be completely finished in individual layers before the ghosting takes place.

Ghosted Car Illustration

In this Photoshop tutorial we are approaching the entire illustration process in much the same way as was done in creating a traditional airbrush vehicle cutaway. In the non-digital world, you would start with an inked line drawing on illustration board. Using a transparent masking material such as Frisket Film, you would paint or airbrush one section at a time. "Frisket" is a term for a transparent self-adhesive plastic film used to mask areas in airbrush illustrations. The film was put on top of a line drawing and an X-Acto knife was used to cut a windowed area to airbrush through.

The first step in the Photoshop illustration process is to create the line art in Adobe Illustrator (below). This line art phase is done before any painting and color work takes place. Once you have completed the entire image in vector line art, you will export the layered file from Adobe Illustrator into Adobe Photoshop. You will now start the painting process. Make sure you retain the layers when exporting by choosing the .psd export format.

Note: For more information on line art and perspective drawing techniques, go to the: Lessons and Tutorials section of our "Technical Illustration Students" page.

Photoshop Layers Pallet

This is the final Photoshop and Illustrator layer pallet for each file format. The Illustrator layers pallet is on the left, and the converted Photoshop layers pallet is on the right. The Photoshop version has been simplified for this tutorial. There would normally be a separate line and tone layer for each element. You would always retain a line art layer for each and every element in order to make any necessary changes to their tonal values (see paragraph on "friskets" and "masks" above).

It order to use the following painting and erasing techniques successfully, you will need to use a good quality drawing tablet (Wacom Drawing Tablet or similar). Before we start the painting and ghosting process, it will help if the "Painting Cursor" is set to "Brush Size" in the "Display & Cursors" window of "Photoshop Preferences". This will give you a round cursor that is roughly the diameter of the pixel dimensions for the selected brush size. Having this visual aid will help you to imagine how large of an area you will be affecting with each stroke.

The next step will be to paint each individual layer. You will use the line art layers as a type of "frisket" to mask the areas to be painted. For some basic painting techniques, refer to the "Basic Photoshop Painting Techniques" tutorial in the Lessons and Tutorials section of our "Technical Illustration Students" page.

The samples below are the main individual paint layers prior to any ghosting and blending work. The Photoshop layer order is very important. Notice that the "Chassis" and "Car Background Tone" layers are underneath the "Yellow Body" layer in the layer pallet above. You will also notice that we are duplicating the sheet metal body color on the "Yellow Body" layer and the "Car Background" layer.

Photoshop Tutorial - Full Exterior Color

Once all of the individual layers are painted, you will begin the ghosting process. Although this phase of the illustration is reserved for the last 10 percent of the project, it is the most important aspect of the overall impression that the image will give to the viewer.

Select the "Body Frisket" line art layer in the Photoshop layers pallet. You will use this line art layer, in conjunction with the "Magic Wand" tool, to select an area to paint or erase. In the layers pallet you will change the opacity of this layer to 1%. This accomplishes two functions. 1. You will always know if you are working on the wrong layer because nothing will happen if you paint or erase on the 1% layer. 2. You will not be distracted by the dominance of the line art. Subtlety is the key to a quality ghosted illustration and you must be aware of the relationship between "exterior" and "interior" detail.

Photoshop Tutorial - Body Line Art Frisket

While still on the "Body Frisket" layer, you will use the Photoshop "Magic Wand" tool to select the areas to be worked on. At this stage, you will be selecting areas with large open fields such as the hood and body panels. This will leave small details and highlights intact.

Once you have selected all of the desired areas, it is a good idea to "Feather" the selection by at least 1 pixel. This will soften the edge of the selection. You can then turn off the "Marching Ants" by typing "Command H".

Photoshop Tutorial - Body Line Selecting

To create the ghosting effect, you will use the Photoshop "Eraser" tool exclusively. Click on the "Eraser" tool and set the "Mode" to "Brush" in the Photoshop Options tool bar. While still in the options toolbar, set the "Opacity" to a low percentage (25% or less). This will make any alterations very subtle. If you go too far, you can always undo your strokes or revert to a previously saved version.

In the "brushes" pallet select a brush size that covers a large area and use a brush with a soft edge. The soft edged brushes will give your stroke an "airbrushed" effect.

While leaving the selection areas active, you will click on the "yellow Body" layer (see "Layers" pallet below) to make it active. This is the only layer that will be altered during this phase of the ghosting process. It is a good practice to duplicate this layer before proceeding. You can turn it off and hide it below a solid white background layer.

Slowly erase away the exterior surface layer in the selected area while working in a back and forth sweeping motion. Try not to start your stroke in the middle of a selected area because the starting point will be apparent. Attempt to work from the outer edge of the selected area towards the interior of that area and try to use the outer edge of the brush. This will avoid "hot spots" and/or a blotchy look.

De-select the selected sections by typing "Command - D". Now you will " airbrush erase" the highlights that were left intact by the first selection. Set the opacity of the eraser to an even lower percentage and set the brush diameter to a more manageable size.

One of the last steps will be to go to the remaining upper layers (Upholstery, Seats, Defroster Lines, etc.) and erase the appropriate amount of detail from each. Additionally, you will need to fine tune smaller areas such as the door "b" pillar sample below.

You may want to go back in and add windows glass highlights on a separate "Screen" layer, or window glass tint on a "Magnify" layer. You can adjust the intensity of these tint layers by making subtle changes to their opacity in the "layers" pallet..

By using these Photoshop techniques to create a ghosted car illustration, you will be leaving the fine body line work, door and window seams, and other exterior detail intact. this will give the illusion that the exterior body is floting over the interior detail.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Fantastic Disintegration Effect inspired by Watchmen in Photoshop

Step 1

Create a new document in Photoshop. For the size I used 1920x1200 pixels. Then fill the background layer with a gradient, you can do that via Layer>Layer Style>Gradient Overlay. Use #5ba1c6 and #4a565b for the colors, 90º for the angle and Linear for the style.