Photoshop Tutorials that educate how to design, illustrate, compose, and sketch magnificent creations. These creative techniques are ideal for both beginners and advanced Photoshop users.
Tutorial# 1: Apple Shelf Dock from Leopard OS in Photoshop
In the new MAC OS X Leopard operating system, the application bar has a new, sleek look. This tutorial will show you how to create the Glass Shelf Dock used for the operating system.
What We Will Be Creating
For those of you not aware of what the Leopard operating system looks like, you can see it here. The image below will give you an idea of what we will be creating.
Wallpaper
The background wallpaper we are going to be using is shown below. A larger version can be found here.
Setting the Guides
Now that we have all the materials we need to get started, and we have an idea of what the Glass Shelf Dock looks like, lets begin to create our own inside of Photoshop.
Begin by Creating a New Document (I used a 1280×800px document) and placing the wallpaper into the Background Layer.
Make sure your rulers are enabled. If they aren’t, navigate to View > Rulers(Ctrl+R). Also make sure your guides are enabled at View > Show > Guides(Ctrl+;). Now lets drag guides out from the vertical ruler to 140px and 1140px. Then drag a guide from the horizontal ruler to 760px.
Creating the Shelf
Grab your Rectangular Marquee Selection Tool(M) and select the 1000×60px area in between your guides. Then set your colors as such:
Foreground color #777777
Background color #555555
Create a new layer. Then grab your Linear Gradient Tool and select the “Foreground to Background” preset gradient. While holding shift, drag your cursor from the top of the selection to the bottom.
Create two more vertical guides at 170px and 1110px. Now lets go to Edit > Transform > Perspective and while holding shift, drag the top left corner to your 170px guide.
Perspective Tip
Holding shift will transform both sides of your object at the same time, so that they stay symmetrical.
Adding Effect to the Shelf
Change the opacity of your Shelf Layer to 90% or 80%. Ctrl+Click on the thumbnail for the Shelf Layer to make a selection of it. Create a new layer. Then, grab your Pencil Tool and create a 2px line with the color #cccccc across the bottom of the selection and set the opacity of the layer to 85%. Then, above that, create a 1px line on a new layer with the color #000000 and set the opacity to 25%.
Hiding the Guides
We don’t need the guides that we created anymore, so you can either drag them off the screen or hide them by going to View > Show > Guides
Once again, Ctrl+Click on the thumbnail for the Shelf Layer to make a selection of it. Then, create a Foreground to Transparent Gradient about 30px wide on the left and right side of the selection on a new layer. Change the opacity to 10%.
Creating the Glossy Effect
To add more effect to the shelf, lets add a curved gloss to it. Create a new layer and grab your Pen Tool(P). Make sure that your pen is set to paths.
Pen Tool
Before proceeding, you may want to read the tutorial Pen Tool Basics – Custom Shapes to better understand how to create the shape in the next step, since I will not be explaining how to use the pen tool step by step.
Create a path similar to the highlighted area below. Then, right click while you still have your pen tool selected and click make selection. Make sure feather radius is set to 0px.
Grab the Foreground to Transparent Gradient Tool and set your foreground color to #FFFFFF. Then, hold shift and drag the gradient from the bottom of the selection to the top of the selection. You should now have something like below.
Adding Icons
Bring in the first icon that you want to add and place it about halfway up the height of the shelf. Duplicate(Layer > Duplicate Layer…) it and flip it vertically(Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical). Drag it down until the top of the flipped version is touching the bottom of the normal version. Then, change the opacity to 25%.
Adding Shadow
Some people would stop here thinking that the effect is done. However, not only does the actual operating system have shadows for the icons, I would add them even if it didn’t. They help to create more depth and a greater effect.
To add the shadow, duplicate(Layer > Duplicate Layer…) your icon layer and drag the new layer under the original. Fill your layer with black Edit > Fill… Use: Black(Shift+F5). Then change the size of your icon using Edit > Free Transform(Ctrl+T). Drag the top middle box until the top of your icon matches the top of the shelf.
Once you have this accomplished, we need to blur the shadow. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set the radius to 1.5px. Then change the opacity to 25%.
Repeat this process with more icons
Creating the Fading Rectangles
To create the fading rectangles, follow the same steps we used to create the shelf. Make a white rectangle and transform it using perspective. Delete sections of the rectangle, making them get smaller as they get farther away. Then lower the opacity to 25%.
Creating the Orb
Create an oval 10×4px using the Elliptical Marquee Tool. Then apply the following Layer Styles(Layer > Layer Styles).
The Final Result
We now have all of the objects and effects that we need to complete our design. Lets take a look at the final result.
Tutorial# 2: Quick, Easy, and Scalable Photoshop Backgrounds
This tutorial will show you how to design backgrounds with ease of future adjustments in mind. Applying these techniques in your designs will make color adjustments a breeze, sizing/scaling changes in your background incredibly easy, and give you unprecedented control over how your background looks with very little effort involved.
Backgrounds Made Simpler
Suppose you are working on a graphic for a client (or yourself), where the colors used may be changing on occasion, or perhaps you’d like to experiment with several different colors. One way of going about doing this would be creating several different documents, and for each document, manually adjust the colors, size, and positioning of different elements.
Being the curious folk we are, we wonder, “Shouldn’t their be an easier way to do this?”
As a matter of a fact, there is a much simpler way to work with documents using Shape Layers, Blending Options, and Adjustment Layers. In this tutorial, I’ll demonstrate how you can create very simple backgrounds in Photoshop that can be editing on the fly in a matter of just a few clicks.
What’s the difference?
For purposes of this tutorial, we’ll just be using a simple gradient background. Before you go and grab your Gradient Tool, let’s talk about resizing and scaling.
When you use the Gradient Tool, you are really just performing a one time calculation. The gradient blends between it’s different colors from one point to the next, and after its applied, the data does not change. This is ok in a lot of scenarios, but what happens if we resize our image?
As you can hopefully tell from the image above, the colors are simply being stretched out when we resize an ordinary gradient. Instead of the calculation for the gradient being redone, Photoshop will keep the current data and try to work with it alone.
This is why we want scalable backgrounds. If we resize a graphic, or if we want to reposition and change the scale of the background alone, we want the graphic to appear as smooth as possible. With scalable backgrounds, we can accomplish this.
Getting started
While it’s entirely possible to create a scalable background with any ordinary layer, you’re probably better off using Shape Layers (especially if you’re creating a multi-part background stored in a set of layers).
Let’s begin with a basic document; we’ll be using a plain document, with a layer of “Tutorial9″ text on it. To create your basic background, create a new rectangle shape layer, using the Rectangle Tool. Be sure that you have Shape Layers selected once your working with the Rectangle Tool.
Drag a box around your canvas. This will become your background later on, and can exceed the boundaries of your canvas.
The current background color of the shape hardly matters, as we’ll control it from elsewhere later on, but if you’d like to know how to change a shape layers color, you can easily alter it from the layers panel once you’ve created your shape.
Backgrounds with Blending Options
Right Click on your new shape layer, and select Blending Options.
Select Gradient Overlay. This is the area where we are going to set up our gradient background. There is nothing tricky about this part. Simply set up your gradient however you see fit.
Here is a glance of what I did:
You might be thinking, “All that work for this?”
Sure enough, we could have produced this exact effect with a simple click of the gradient tool, but take a look at what happens when you resize, or reposition the shape layer.
As illustrated in the example above, the layer will recalculate the gradient each time you resize, and will reposition nicely so that you don’t have to recreate backgrounds over and over.
Quickly Adjusting the Background Color
Using Adjustment Layers, we can modify our background on the fly in just a few simple clicks. In order to quickly edit Hue, Saturation, and Lightness, we need to create a new Hue/Saturation/Lightness Layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation/Lightness).
NOTE: Be sure to create this layer above the Shape Layer ONLY! This adjustment layer will effect all underlying layers.
Adjust the sliders presented to accommodate your preferences. Click Ok to save your adjustment. You can return to this adjustment layers settings at any time by double clicking the icon next to it in the Layers Panel.
Conclusion
It’s really simple to set up one of these backgrounds, and they can really improve your work flow if used properly. I’d suggest exploring some of the other adjustment layers, and seeing what helps you save the most time for your kind of work.
You can even use multiple adjustment layers to really control your graphics in an effective manner!
If you’d like to download the Photoshop Document we used for clarification, feel free to grab it here.
Tutorial# 3: Create a Surreal Environment Using a Photo
Lately, it has become popular to manipulate photos to create intense surreal environments. This tutorial will show you some of the ways to create such environments.
Surreal
A dream-like or bizarre feel or look when compared to reality.
Finished Example
Let’s take a look at a finished example of a surreal environment.
Step 1 – Selecting a Photo
After browsing some free stock photos at stock.xchng, I finally decided on a picture of a road surrounded by daisies.
Step 2 – Think of Some Concepts
Now that I have my photo, I need to think of what I want to add to make it surreal. Since it is a curved road, I thought some vibrant tubes of light would create a nice effect. Also, since there were so many daisies, I wanted to make them appear to glow. I also wanted to add some more excitement into the empty sky.
Since I’m going to want some bright daisies and some glowing tubes of light, I’ll keep in mind that I may want to darken all the other parts of the photo.
Step 3 – Fixing the Background
I don’t like the tractor marks in the left field of daisies, so I’m going to use my Clone Stamp Tool to clear them away. I’ll do the same for the tracks in the upper field too.
Step 4 – Adding the First Beam
Create a path that winds up the road using the pen tool. Make sure that it extends below the actual document some, so that the end isn’t rounded. Select a 19px hard brush and set the Size Jitter Control to Fade, and give it a value around 400 or 500. Then, set the Minimum Diameter to 10%.
With your pen tool selected, right click and select Stroke Path. Select Brush from the drop down menu and make sure Simulate Pressure IS checked.
Fade Brush
You may have to experiment with different values on your Fade in order to get it to fit the size of the path.
Step 5 – Adding Layer Styles
Go into your layers Blending Options (Right Click Layer > Blending Options).
Apply the layer effects shown below, making any modifications as needed.
Outer Glow
This will create a glow off of the tube of light. I used #ff0000.
Inner Glow
This will create a lighter color starting from the center of the tube. I used #f75151.
Satin
This will help to structure the shape of the tube.
Color Overlay
This will replace the color of the tube with red. I used #ff0000.
Step 6 – Add a Unique Glow
Our red tube is looking a little boring and not very vibrant. SO LETS BRIGHTEN IT UP!
Duplicate your red tube (Right Click Layer > Duplicate Layer). Then, convert it into a Smart Object (Right Click Layer > Convert to Smart Object), so that we can easily apply and remove filters.
Now, lets apply the following filters:
Reticulation (Filter > Sketch > Reticulation)
Make sure you have black as your foreground color and white as your background color.
Chalk and Charcoal (Filter > Sketch > Chalk & Charcoal)
Make sure you have black as your foreground color and white as your background color.
Plastic Wrap (Filter > Artistic > Plastic Wrap)
Finally, set the layer to Color Dodge and set the Opacity to 44%.
Step 7 – Intensify the Glow
Create a new layer and make a selection of your red tube (Ctrl+Click Thumbnail). Set white as your foreground color and set a dark red color like #7c0707 as your background color.
Go to Filter > Render > Clouds. Then, go to Filter > Render > Difference Clouds. By pressing Ctrl+F, you can now keep applying the previous filter you applied. So press Ctrl+F a few more times to apply Difference Clouds until you end up with a result you like (be sure it is red and white). Now, set the layer to Linear Dodge and lower the opacity until you get an effect you are happy with.
Step 8 – Adding Sparkles
Grab a 3px brush and apply the following brush settings.
Then, on a new layer, brush some white sparkles all down the red tube. Then do the same thing with a nice red color. After, lower the opacity of the layer to 40-50%.
Step 9 – Adding More Colors
Repeat the process with some more colors, and use layer masks to make them twist above and below each other. If you place all the layers for the green tube, for instance, into a new group, then you can create a layer mask on the group, and it will apply it to all of the green tube layers!
Layer Masks
A layer mask limits the visible area of a layer, without erasing it. Any area on the layer mask that is white, is visible. Any area that is black, is not visible. Any gray areas will change the opacity depending on how light or dark they are.
Step 10 – Filling the Sky
In order to create the effect in the sky, we need to create our own brush.
Create a new document that is 50×50px. Create a new layer and delete the background layer, since we want the background to be transparent. Then, create a rectangle that is 10px wide by 40px high. Then, duplicate it and rotate it 90 degrees (Edit > Transform > Rotate 90 degrees). Once you’ve got your shape, go to Edit > Define Brush Preset.
You can close the new document now that you have your brush. Select your brush, and set your foreground color to #335776 and your background color to #6084a5. Then apply the following brush settings:
Brush Tip Shape
Shape Dynamics
Scattering
Color Dynamics
Other Dynamics
Add a layer mask to the layer after you brush in some plus signs. This way there is a transition from the full sky to the empty sky, and will be easier on the eyes.
Step 11 – The Darkening
This image looks pretty decent as it is, but its going to look even better when the background items are darkened. This way, the lights will have more attention and focus in the scene.
Create a new layer above your background. Fill it with black and set it to Overlay. By creating a layer mask and hiding the area of the layer over the daisies, we can make them appear to glow.
Get Creative
Even after you achieve a great effect, spend some time trying to improve it. It is rare to achieve the greatest outcome possible in one try. You may even want to start over from scratch, keeping in mind what you liked from before and what you want to change or include!
In this tutorial, we’re going to explore some non-destructive image editing. With these techniques, you can bring out the best in an image, or absolutely destroy the graphic, but still keep the original photo intact.
So to begin, find a photo that you’d like to make dirty. Something that might feel bland as is, and could use more of a grungy feel. Here is what I’ll be using:
Crank the Colors
Now, we want to increase the contrast and the intensify colors of the photo, but do it in a non-destructive way (by non-destructive, I simply mean we do not want to lose the data from the original image as we modify the appearance of our graphic). How do we do this? We use layers, of course.
First, Duplicate the Layer. Then, go to the layer’s blend modes and select Hard Light. This setting will multiply any color darker than 50% grey and screen any color lighter. In this case, since both the base layer and the blend layer are identical, the light colors become lighter and the dark colors become darker, with no quality lost.
As you can see, we’ve increased the image’s sharpness as well as its saturation.
High Pass for Sharpness
The High Pass filter gives a photo that refined, sharp look that is hard to obtain using only a camera. Once again, this is a non-destructive way of adding more life to your photos.
Make a new duplicate of the original layer. For now, you can make the first duplicate invisible. Set the new duplicate’s blend to Hard Light as well.
Now, Go to Filters > Other > High Pass.
The High Pass filter sets it’s source image to 50% grey, and as you increase the amount on the slider, it reveals more of the image, in higher contrast areas at first, such as edges or lines.
The amount you should use of the filters varies. Too little causes no effect. To much, and the image gets halo’s and uneven blotches of more intense color. The the amount you should use really just depends on the kind of results you desire.
Mix and Match
Right now, in your layers panel, you should have three layers: the original as the background, the high pass layer, and then the direct duplicate. Both additional layers, if you haven’t tried by now, can be turned visible and invisible. Depending on your personal preference, you can choose one of these methods or the other, or even repeat a method, and combine these layers for different results. I just stuck to one of each layer for this image.
Tint and Grain
Now that our photo is more defined and sharper, we can add the finishing touches to really grunge it up.
Create a new layer and set its blend mode to Overlayd. Pick two similar colors, one light and one dark to paint as a gradient. For this photo, I picked two browns, to give the image an earthen tone.
Fill the blank layer with the gradient. It can be vertical, horizontal, radial, whatever you find looks good. For this I chose a nice horizontal fade. If the color is a bit stronger than what you wanted, just lower the Fill amount to the point you’d like.
Now, the image is tinted, and looking fantastic. It’s time to mess it up a little. Go to Filter > Noise > Add noise. Make the noise monochromatic, and set it so somewhere around 30%.
The resulting grain looks good, but it’s a bit too unnatural. A Guassian Blur (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) at about 2 pixels smooths it all out, and viola!
We have a natural, sharp, dirty photo, and with very little effort!
Tutorial# 5: awesome image editing of Caty
New Kitty
Well, they say there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
But I personally find it easiest (and least messy) to do it with a zipper.
In this tutorial, I’m gonna show how I pull off the unzipping effect using quick, simple methods, to give my kitty here a fresh new start on life.
1. So let’s get right into this thing and open her up.
I started off by selecting the top half of the kitty’s face and pasting it onto a new layer.
Then, using the Distort tool, I offset the face in an angle as shown here.
Then did the same thing to the bottom half so that both halves form a fan, framing the original face.
Using the Eraser tool set at 100% opacity, I spent a little time cleaning the edges of the kitty and also extracted the eyes from the sockets of our newly pasted face halves.
2. At this point, I decided to change the color of the inner cat to help differentiate between the two
Let’s go with a cute new grey kitten. I copied the inner cat’s face onto a new layer. Then, using the Lasso tool I selected the areas I wanted to remain saturated (ie. the eyes, nose).
I then inverted the selection (Ctrl + i) and with our kitty’s face now in selection, I dropped the saturation level of this layer by -80.
3. Next was to add some basic shadows on the cat’s face. I did this simply by taking a soft black brush (set to about 15% opacity) and painting over the edges and crevaces on a new layer.
I set this layer’s blend mode to “overlay” to give the inner kitty a little more pop.
Then, with the same brush (this time set much higher in opacity, 40-50%), I went on to darken the shadows around the edges.
4. Now, it’s finally time to add the zipper in. This step is probably the easiest part, in fact.
I imported a source pic of a zipper that generally fit the perspective I was looking for.
I extracted the zipper’s pull tab first and copied it onto a new layer. Using the Move tool, I rotated and resized it (note: holding shift to constraint the zipper’s proportions) and placed it so it would situate under our human’s finger.
I did the same thing for the actual teeth of the zipper, taking small segments at a time and placing it around the edge of our outer cat’s face.
Emphasis on the “small segments”. Especially when following along the more curvy paths and using limited zipper sources, though it may seem tedious, keeping your segments small and numerous will leave you with complete control over these trouble areas.
I did this until both sides were completely lined with zipper teeth.
And lastly, I copied the tip of the finger off our original source and pasted it over the zipper’s pull tab to situate the tab underneath.
And there you have it. Thanks to your friends at Aviary, a quick, easy, efficient way to skin a cat.
Tutorial# 6: awesome “How I Make Chocolate”
Like anything, there are plenty of different ways to go about creating chocolate.
But for those of you who are like me, and just don’t have the time to harvest cacao seeds in this day and age, I’m going to show how we can create everyone’s favorite food right here in Phoenix.
The techniques I use in this image can be applied to many different types of images that involve melting, or general liquifying and smudging.
The first step is to find a source image.
Doing a quick search for statues, I came across this wonderful image of the mythological, Artemis, who’ll be our lucky chocolate covered victim today.
Although, realistically, any image would work, I prefer sticking to images like these with very well defined ridges with stong contrasting lights and shadows.
They’ll make for a more interesting picture in the long run.
1. The first thing I do is desaturate the entire statue, and smooth out any glaring dirty or rough areas with either the blur tool or smudge.
2. The second step is really your call. Some would prefer to color the statue at this point. It really doesn’t make a huge difference.
But I really can’t wait to get to the fun part, the smudging. So I do that step here.
I look for any protruding areas first, such as the nose and chin, and lay down my thickest drips here, using the Liquify Tool set at 4/10 power.
Then, still with the liquify tool, using miniscule circular motions towards the base of the drip to create our blob-like ends.
We continue to do that throughout our entire image, creating drips in and around the ridges of the figure.
Note, be aware of the contours of your figure, and smudge your drips so that they flow accordingly.
And after we’re done that, you should be left with something like this.
I swear, it’s easy to get carried away in this stage once you get into the dripping groove, so make sure to step back every so often to make sure you’re not going overboard with the drips, or risk completely losing any sense of realism.
3. Since grey chocolate is not on anyone’s list of favorite confectionaries, let’s give her some color now.
Using the Brush tool set to a dark brown tone, I painted over the entire figure on a new layer, then set this layer to “Hard Light”
Remember, you don’t need to get the color perfectly on the first shot. You can always go ahead and adjust the hue and saturation levels once the figure is covered and you can see exactly how the Hard Light blend mode affects your image.
4. Now she’s starting to look a little tasty. But let’s make her more shiny.
I do this first by using a white Brush Tool and painting over key areas lightly. Following the general highlighted area of the original lighting, all we’re doing here is enhancing what’s already there.
I then set this layer to “Overlay”.
Then using a black brush, I did the exact opposite and painted in the shadowed areas to enhance the contrast of the image overall.
Then lowered the opacity as I saw fit.
5. At this point, our chocolate friend is just about finished. But a few finishing touches can help give it that extra pop.
I did this simply by taking a white brush again, but this time set to 100% opacity and painted in small overblown highlighted spots in the middle of key highlighted areas.
And voila, dessert is served.
A quick and easy way for you to to create chocolate, while your friends are still busy grinding away at their cacao nibs.
Tutorial# 7: awesome “The Making of a Robot Frog“
In this tutorial, I’m basically emphasizing the importance of spending that extra time in the planning stage of your images – finding the most suitable source images and even sketching out your basic compositions before the actual image creation stage.
After all, why create more work for yourself when you don’t need to?
1. So the first step was to prepare my source materials.
First off, I started with a frog. Any animal will do, but I prefer to stick with animals with an easily identifiable figure.
Once we go on to cover our figure in metal, we want the underlying figure to still read clearly regardless of the material he’s contructed from.
Then I went and gathered various chrome, engine, and robotic parts. While doing this, I kept on the lookout of pieces that had a relatively similar tone in reflection to them.
Of course, you can always apply the necessary changes to nonuniform source images, but it’s always easier to spend the time now in the initial source hunt stage instead of trying to fix them all later. It just makes sense.
2. Okay, so now time to start drawing out a blueprint for our mode of attack on this image.
Still in the planning stage, I spent a little time sketching out the basic outline of our image, laying out where I want my segments to lay.
Knowing where and what shapes I’ll need makes the whole process a lot easier, trust me.
3. So now armed with our ground plan and source images, it’s all a matter of following our outline.
Using the Lasso tool, I roughly selected these areas and pasted it over my sketched segments.
Then it was all a matter of skewing the pieces to fit our blueprint as best I could.
And I did this until the figure was covered.
As an aside, I like to start with the pieces furthest from the camera, then work my way forward as much as I can.
For the frog’s mouth, I needed a wider piece of chrome.
I decided to use an image of a faucet for this part, since it’s a nice longer piece and fit the shape of the mouth relatively well.
So again, I just extracted the pipe, and used the Distort tool to form it around the mouth area.
4. There, now we have the frog covered to my liking.
But I noticed a few remnants of the original background remained on the edges.
No problem, easy fix.
Using the Clone Stamp Tool, I sampled a clean area of the background and just painted over our unsightly areas.
5. Now that I’m satisfied with the look of the basic figure, it’s time to add a few shadows to this guy.
I did this by creating new layers sandwiched in between each of our chrome segment layers.
Then, on these layers, using a soft black brush, I painted in shadows underneath our chrome segments following the contours of the pieces directly below.
This should add a little more depth to the figure and also isolate each of the segments a little better.
And finally, to further accentuate the shadows, I added a few slight highlights to the edges of our pieces.
I did this with a small white brush just painting over our edges and existing highlighted areas.
After all, why create a robot if you won’t even have time to enjoy him?
Tutorial# 8: awesome “Smokin’ Woman“
In this tutorial, I’m going to show how to create one smokin’ woman using a couple source pics, and just a few of the features associated with Phoenix.
So follow along and I’ll try to share a few secrets into some of the magic, without the smoke and mirrors.
Well, maybe a little smoke.
With the general idea already in my mind, I needed to find a suitable background image.
The image I found turned out perfect because of the line of direction of the main figure’s vision. He’s looking directly where we’re going to place our smoke, creating unity among our elements. How convenient!
1. The first step was to remove most of the smoke from the original image, as we’ll be bringing in our own later on.
I did this simply by taking the Clone stamp tool, shift-clicking a clean area of the background to sample, and painting over the smoke covered areas with our selected sample.
It doesn’t need to be perfect at this point, as most of it will be covered by the end anyways.
2. Next, I brought in a high contrast image of a model. Not only do the natural stark shadows and highlights of this image look good, but hey, the contrast will do half the work for us in the long run.
Using a combination of the Move and Distortion tools, I resized and situated the model right where we want her.
Then set the layer’s blend mode to “Screen”.
3. Now that we have our basic composition in place, it’s time to get to the real action.
Using the liquify tool, I smudged the edges of the figure and pulled out trails to draw a smokey effect.
I did that until I was left with a wispy looking figure.
And remember, the more work you do in this stage, the less time it’ll take to cover your overlooked areas later on.
It’s almost good to go just as is, if I do say so myself.
But since we saved time by finding excellent source pics to begin with, let’s spend our free time fine tuning this thing up.
4. Our lady could always be more smokin’. And what’s more smokin’ than, well, smoke?
Using the Lasso tool, I copied and pasted a segment from an image of actual smoke onto a new layer.
I set this layer to “Screen”, just as we did with the woman. Using the Move tool, I resized the piece to situate around our lady friend.
I repeated that step numerous times until our lady was covered entirely hiding my earlier (now hideous in comparison) attempts to freehand the smoke entirely.
5. Now we’re getting somewhere! But I still wanted to expose a few of the highlights of the smoke a bit more. Just to give it that extra pop.
I did this by using a white brush to paint a rough outline around the figure on a new layer, then set this layer to “Overlay”.
6. Then, as a final touch, I filled the entire image in a light blue on a new layer, then set this layer to “Overlay”, and set the opacity to 25%.
Of course, this step is not 100% necessary, but it adds a little extra mood and brings the whole image together harmoniously.
And there you have it. With the magic of Phoenix, you’ve created the smokin’ woman of your dreams.
Tutorial# 9: “Reptilian Overlords!“
meowza posted 11 months ago
Wanting to add the scaley reptilian texture to our figure, I found a nice picture of a snake that had well defined texture.
I selected a segment of this source and pasted it onto a new layer. Using the Distort, again I was able to rotate and skew it to fit our female.
After I was happy with it’s general placement, I destaurated the layer and applied the “Overlay” blend mode.
And, like magic, the segment texturizes our female’s face for us.
I continued the same process throughout her face, pasting and Overlaying scaley segments. And using the Eraser Tool, I just simple softened the edges to blend.
As an added effect, I decided to color the female’s eyes black simply by taking a 100% alpha brush and painting them in, leaving a few shiny spots for effect.
But let’s go back to having fun with Overlay!
In order to give her skin a green complexion, I created a new layer and coloured her exposed skin areas in a green tone.
Then, by setting this blend mode to Overlay and dropping the Alpha by about 50%, we get a nice greenish hue all the Reptilian Women in Alpha Draconis are aiming for these days.
And there you have it.
I, for one, welcome our Reptilian Overlords.
Tutorial# 10: “Basic Shadows“
For my example, I’ll attempt to place the apple into the following street pic.
First, I’ll extract my apple and place it where I want.
You can extract the apple using a number of different methods. I used the method described here .
So first thing I do is fill in the shape of the element we want shadowed in black.
I did this by selecting the outside of the Apple with the magic wand, then pressing Ctrl+i to invert my selection so only my apple was selected.
I used the Fill tool to create my base.
To place the shadow where I want, I used the Distort Tool.
Following the car’s shadow as a guide, I made sure my apple’s shadow follows the same light direction.
I then dropped the Alpha of this layer to about 45%, to match the car.
But we can see the car’s shadow has a strong blue tint to it. So we want to emulate that for ours.
I did this by first selecting my color.
Using the Eye Dropper Tool, I selected some of the blue from the car’s shadow.
I selected the apple shadow with the magic wand, and on a new layer I filled the area in with the blue color.
Setting this layer’s blend mode to Overlay, the apple’s shadow took on the same hue of the car’s shadow.
meowza posted 11 months ago
Making sure the base of the shadow closest to the apple remains darker and lightens slightly as it reaches the furthest point.
I did this by applying a Gradient fill on a new layer and setting this layer to Overlay.
Because we’ve already determined the light is coming from the top left of the apple, we need to hide the back of the apple in shadow as well.
So I selected the apple once again and with a black brush set to only 4% alpha, I lightly painted in the back of the apple a little shaded area.
And on the left and top sides where the light would be hitting the apple, we painted in these areas in white and applied the Overlay blend mode to make these sections pop as if they’re being hit with the sunlight.
And finally, I did the same on the bottom, painting in a slight reflection of the concrete onto the reflective apple surface.
And that was that. An apple that fits a little nicer into his environment now.
If you have your own techniques or secrets for drawing shadows, share them!
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Using these sources, we’re gonna attempt to reptilianize (it’s a real word now) the woman on the left.
I don’t mean to stereotype, but I always assumed aliens would be bald.
So let’s get rid of her hair first.
I did this by using my source of the bald man and copied and pasted it onto a new layer.
Using the Move tool, I then resized it to fit the proportions of the woman.
Because of the high contrast in the bald man image, I opened up the Brightness/Contrast Menu under the “Image” tab, and simply lowered the contrast until it fit in with the rest of the image.
Then using the Eraser tool set to it’s lowest Hardness setting, I softened the edges to blend in better.
In order to remove the remaining visible edges of hair, I took the Clone Stamp tool and sampled a clean area of the background and painted in the areas I wanted covered.
I wanted to add a little more definition to her face.
Using our bald man source again, I used the Lasso tool to select the area under his eye where we see a lot of nice definition. I pasted this onto a new layer and using the Distort Tool, I situated the segment to fit our female figure’s face.
And did the same with a few other facial areas until I was happy with her general look.
