photoshop tutorials and more..

Creating a vintage photo effect in fireworks

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 12:24:00 +0000

This tutorial shows how to give your photo a vintage style, including a jagged border and a brownish tone: you’ll learn how to convert your modern-day digital photo into an old, dusty photograph from your grandma’s album!

I will use a picture of Rome (size: 280 x 210 pixels, resolution: 72 pixels / inch). If you want to practice on it, download it here. If you have a photo of your own, just check its pixel dimensions and its resolution before you start.

1. CREATING A NEW FILE

We’ll start off by creating the background for the photo and its jagged frame, in a new, separate Fireworks file. After that, we’ll import our photo into it.
So, launch Fireworks and select Create New > Fireworks Document (PNG).
In the New Document dialog box, under Canvas Size, enter 340 pixels for the width and 270 for the height. Since this file is going to serve as the background for our photo, it has to be bigger than the photo itself: if you’re using your own photo here, just make sure the canvas height and width are both about 60 pixels larger than the photo.
Set the resolution to 72 pixels / inch, to match the resolution of our photo.
Set the Canvas color to Custom, click the Canvas color box and pick a light grey color from the Swatches pop-up window or type the hexadecimal value of #999999 (it's always good if your canvas color matches the color of your web page background). Finally, click OK to create the document.

2. CREATING A RECTANGLE

Once inside the document, select the Rectangle tool. We’ll create a rectangle that will act as the border surrounding the photo.
Click and drag on the canvas to draw a rectangle of any size. Make sure it is selected, and then slide down to the Property inspector to change its appearance and position.

Click the Fill Color box next to the bucket icon and type #EFEBE8 in the text box at the top of the pop-up window. This gives the rectangle a pale sepia hue.
Click the Stroke Color box next to the pencil icon, and click the Transparent button at the top of the pop-up window to remove the outline.

Now we’ll set the size of the rectangle: again, it has to be slightly bigger than the photo – about 20 pixels larger in width and height, to obtain a 10 pixels thick border around the photo. For me, it will measure 300 x 230 pixels.
To resize the rectangle, type the new dimensions in the width box (W) and the height box (H) in the lower left corner of the Property inspector, pressing Enter after applying the values.
Finally, we’ll enter the X and Y coordinates to specify our rectangle’s position: to place it in the center of the canvas, type 20 for both the X position and the Y position. Again, press Enter upon applying these values.

3. IMPORTING THE PHOTO

We can import the photo now. Select File > Import (or click the Import button right above the Document window) to open the Import dialog box.

Navigate to the folder containing the actual photo, select it and click Open. Then click anywhere on the canvas to insert the photo. With the photo selected, enter the X and Y coordinates of 30, 30 to place it in the center of the rectangle.

4. RESHAPING THE RECTANGLE

Now we’re ready to reshape the rectangle’s edges, i.e. the border of our photo, to give it a jagged look.
Note that our rectangle is actually a grouped object, because the basic shape tools in Fireworks draw shapes as grouped objects. To be able to reshape it using the Freeform tool (which alters the shape of objects by editing their paths), we must first ungroup it, i.e. turn it into a vector object (a vector object is a graphic whose shape is defined by a path, a series of points plotted along its outline).

Select the rectangle (being careful not to select the photo), and select Modify > Ungroup. Our rectangle is turned into a path.

Zoom in for a closer view: select the Zoom tool, and click over the top left edge of the rectangle to magnify it. Then select the Freeform tool from the Tools panel.

In the Property inspector, enter a value of 10 in the Size text box, to specify the amount to be reshaped.

Now move the pointer over the top edge of the rectangle, and place it directly over the path (our rectangle’s outline): it changes to the pull pointer. Click, hold the mouse button down and drag the path down a little, toward the photo, then finally release the mouse button. You have just pulled a path segment down.

Repeat this process all along the rectangle's edges. This may take a while, but remember that you don’t have to be extremely careful or slow here: you don’t need to pull all the segments equally, or space these distortions evenly. It’s even better to keep it slightly irregular: it will result in a more realistic look.

6. APPLYING A SEPIA TONE

To apply a subtle brownish tone to the photo, select the photo, then select Commands > Creative > Convert to Sepia Tone. You’ll notice the preset Hue/Saturation filter added to the Filters list in the Property inspector.

7. ADDING NOISE

For a more realistic look, we’re going to add some noise to the photo: select the photo, click the Add Live Filters button in the Property inspector, and select Noise > Add Noise.

Enter the following settings in the Add Noise dialog box that appears: set the Amount value to 5, verify the Color check box is unchecked, and click OK.

Now go ahead and apply the same filter to the jagged rectangle behind the photo!

8. APPLYING A DROP SHADOW

To make it appear as the photo was exposed to a light source above it, we’ll apply a drop shadow filter to its jagged frame.
Select the jagged rectangle, click the Add Live Filters button in the Property inspector, and select Shadow and Glow > Drop Shadow. Then enter the following shadow settings in the pop-up window:

Set the distance to 8.
Select the Color box to open the color pop-up window and set the shadow color to black (#000000).
Set the Opacity to 50%.
Set the Softness to 5.
Set the Angle to 315.
Make sure the Knock Out option is deselected (this option would hide the object and display the shadow only).

To close the window, just click outside of it or press Enter.

9. ROTATING THE PHOTO

As the final touch, we’ll rotate the photo a little to add some movement to the composition.
Take the Pointer tool and drag it across the canvas diagonally to include every object on it inside the selection area (the jagged rectangle and the photo). Then select Modify > Group, to group them and enable us to rotate the whole as a single object.

Making sure the group is selected, take the Scale tool.

Now, place the cursor near any corner of the photo until the rotation pointer appears, then drag to rotate. Rotate it for about 10° counter-clockwise.

There you have it – it’s a picture of Rome from the 1950s!

10. SAVING THE FILE

You can save this file in any format you want. If you select File > Save, the document will be automatically saved as a PNG file (it is the default Fireworks file format). By using the Save As command, you can save it as a JPEG file, thus obtaining a much smaller file size.
It is certainly a good idea to keep a PNG copy of this file – since this format remains editable, you can always go back and make additional changes, or you can even use it as a template - just replace the current photo with another one!

Torture a Man and Stitch Him Up

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:16:00 +0000

Transform a man into a torture victim with a couple tricks and some basic tools.

Step 1: Put Him in Stitches

This man will soon have a life-changing experience.

The color in this picture is a little intense, so first thing we’re going to do is lower the saturation. CTRL+U and drag the Saturation slider down to -75.

Adjust the levels and intensify the image. CTRL+L and slide the sliders around until you get a nice effect.

Duplicate the layer (I like to keep duplicates of layers we’re going to alter in case we make a mistake – it’s good practice). Hide the bottom of the two layers.

Create a new layer over top of the man.

Use either the Pen Tool, or the Brush Tool and draw some lines/shapes where you want the stitches to go. This is just a guide to help us, so it doesn’t need to be perfect.

Download a couple packs of Stitches Brushes from deviantART.

After you install them, (you might have to save and exit, then reopen Photoshop for them to appear), go through and select a stitches brush.

Create another new layer, over top of the lines you made. What we’re going to do is create a new layer for each length of stitches, so if we need to we can edit them later on.

Change the color to black and stamp the stitches anywhere on your layer.

CTRL+T to transform, so you can skew and scale the stitches. Position them along one of the lines you made.

Then, stamp another set of stitches. Use a Marquee tool or a Lasso tool to select around your newest stitches. Then, CTRL+T to rotate, scale and skew if needed – match it up with the other stitches you already placed.

For each line of stitches, create a new layer, and then repeat these steps until everything is covered.

Be sure you switch up which stitches you’re using, you don’t want them to all look the same.

Step 2: How to Kill an Appendage

We’re going to kill this man’s pinky. To get a nice dead flesh look, select the Sponge tool to begin with. Soft Round brush, Mode: Desaturate, Flow: 50%. Scale the brush down so it fits neatly inside of the finger. Do a once-over with the brush.

If you want a little less color in a specific area, carefully going back in with the brush and absorb more of the color.

Now, select the Burn Tool, Soft Round brush, Range: Midtones and Exposure: 10%. Start at the finger tip and go over the finger several times.

Be sure to go along the stitches as well, and darken the area around the stitches, on both sides. You want it to look infected and rotting at the same time.

Use the Lasso Tool, with a 7px feather and draw a shape around the finger. We’re going to add some green/yellow color to the finger now. CTRL+U and up the Saturation a little, and slide the Hue slider around until you find a nice sick yellowy color.

Use the Eyedropper tool and pull some of the greenish colors from the finger and paint the fingernail, with a small Soft Round brush, 20% Opacity so you don’t coat it too quickly.

Step 3: Infect the Stitches

Since a lot of his skin is a little browner than it is pink, we’re going to add a little pink to it. To do this, select a bright red color. Using the Brush tool with a Soft Round brush and 10-20% Opacity, color up and down the stitches, on the man’s layer. You don’t want it too intense, we’ll do that later, we just want to add a little color to it.

Using the Burn Tool, go along the stitches on the man’s layer. We can to actually change the color of his flesh, and adding the red to it will help it more easily look infected.

Keep going along the stitches until you get a good dark color. Add some extra darkness in some areas.

While you’re at it, you can kill another finger if you want.

Step 4: Rough Him Up and Remove Some Skin

Find a large picture of raw meat. For this, I searched for “raw steak”. Cut out the meat and copy and paste it onto a new layer in our project.

Duplicate it a couple times and cover all of the space that the man’s body exists in. Move the pieces of meat under the man’s layer.

Now to make a skin-removal device, AKA the Eraser.

Select the Eraser with a Chalk brush. Go to the Brushes options and click on Scattering and Shape Dynamics. In Shape Dynamics, increase the Angle Jitter some so it produces more jagged edges. Change the Opacity to 9%.

To remove the skin without putting a huge awkward hole in his face, we’re going to start with a larger brush, and scale it down a little a couple times as we go over the same area. This will make the skin look more worn from the center of the area, and fade into solid skin.

Duplicate your current man’s layer, hide the original, and do your erasing to the new one.

Begin removing skin in one area to see how it works. Every time you click you’re going to remove 9% of the skin. So, as you continue to go over the same area several times, you’ll lose more skin and reveal the meat under the man’s layer. By exposing the meat, it’ll look like you have removed the top layer of skin.

Branch out and start removing the skin from other areas of his body: hands, ears, etc.

Keep going until you take all of the skin you want off of him.

As you go through, use the Burn tool occasionally to darken the shadows and such, to get a really rich looking picture.

Step 5: Roll Him in the Dirt

Do an image search for “texture” or “rust” or “dirt” and find a good large texture. Select the entire texture and copy it. Go to your man’s layer. Use the Magic Wand and select the white space. Invert the selection CTRL+SHIFT+I, then paste your texture into that space CTR:+SHIFT+V. This will automatically create a mask for it and only put the texture into the shape of the man. Now, if it is now, move this layer above all of the others.

Change the texture layer’s blending option to Soft Light, in the Layers window.

Step 6: Make Him Look Like He Belongs

Find another large texture. Do a search for “wall” or whatever you like to put in for his background.

Select that white space again with the Magic Wand tool. Hit delete to remove the white area. While you still have the area selected, you’ll probably notice there is a lot of meat visible. Select each one of their layers and hit the delete key to trim them up.

Now, on a new layer under all of the meat, paste your new background texture.

Adjust the Hue/Saturation CTRL+U. Decrease the Saturation and decrease the Lightness.

Step 7: Some Final Touches

This poor man we have destroyed still has nicely manicured fingernails, and this just won’t do.

Take a large piece of the texture you put over his skin to make him dirty.

Select each of the fingernails, using whatever method you want with whichever selection tool.

Once selected, drag the selections down to the texture.

Copy the texture with these fingernail shapes. Hide your texture. Paste your fingernails into a new layer.

Position over the fingernails.

Use the Eraser and trim them up so they fit on the fingernail surfaces well.

Change the blending option to Multiply on the fingernail layer, and lower the opacity quite a bit. Use the Eraser with a lower opacity and erase some of the fingernail texture so it doesn’t look like the nails are completely coated.

Now, we darken the fingertips.

Use the Lasso tool with a 3px feather and select around a fingertip. Be sure you’re on the man’s layer, or this won’t work.

Adjust the Hue/Saturation CTRL+U and lower the Lightness to about -20.

Do this to each fingertip.

And We’re Done!

Hope you find this useful!

By: Kirin Knapp

Charcoal Drawing with Photoshop

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:10:00 +0000

Here’s a tutorial on how you can apply charcoal drawing effect to your photos using photoshop;

Step 1. Open your image in photoshop (ctrl-o). I’ll be using this beautiful bride photo by papaleguas.

Step 2. Add new layer (Shift+ctrl+N), let’s name this layer ‘paper’ and fill this layer with the desired color of your charcoal paper. Mine is #c5b88f

Step 3. Copy the background layer, place it on top of the stack of layers, then apply ‘glowing edges effect’ (filter > stylize > Glowing Edges Filter). Experiment with the sliders in the dialoque box to your taste.

Step 4. Now invert this layer (image > adjustments > invert) and make it b&w (image > adjustments > desaturate) to create black and white drawing

Step 5. Set the blending mode of that drawing layer to multiply. Here’s what you should come up to..

Step 6. Copy your background layer, desaturate it (image > adjustments > desaturate) and place it on the top of your layer stack, and add some noise to this layer. (filter > noise > add noise > monochromatic & gaussian). Set the opacity to 75%

Step 7. Add a layer mask on that layer (layer > layer masks > hide all), select the charcoal large smear brush and paint with white on the mask to reveal the charcoal specks.

Step 8. Select the layer mask, and apply motion blur (filter > blur > motion blur). Still on the same layer mask, apply crosshatch brush strokes (filter > brush strokes > crosshatch)

Step 9. Select the paper layer, and fill it with pattern (new fill layer > pattern). You can choose any pattern you like. I just chose the charcoal flecks pattern. Then change the layer blending mode to multiply

Step 10. Copy your color layer, and place it on top of the stack of layers, change the layer blend mode to ‘color’ and from here you can add a curve adjustment layer to increase the contrast, play with the color balance and so on.. Here’s my final result;

Have fun!

Via linkive

How to Show your T-shirt Designs With Realism - Photoshop Tutorial

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 05 May 2009 06:59:00 +0000

This tutorial will show you a quick way to aply your designs into a realistic t-shirt using Photoshop.

1. Download the T-Shirt Model:

Download this file, extract using winrar or another similar software, and open the "Camisa.tif" file using Photoshop.

2. Changing the color:

Notice that it's possible to change the color of the t-shirt, by doing that you can modify it for your own purposes. Select the "Shirt" layer then open the "Hue/Saturation" options (CRTL+U). In this case, I want to have a lighter gray color, so just change the "Lightness" value to +30.

3. Importing the design:

Go to File>Place. Select the design file you want to aply, it's recommended that you use a good resolution image.

4. Positioning the design:

Resize and place the design where you desire to aply it, then hit ENTER.

5. Overlaping parts:

Notice that some part of the design can overlap the t-shirt area, we will solve this now.

6. Dele "Your Art" Layer:

Cilck on "Your Art" layer, then drag and drop it on the trashcan icon..

7. Aply the mask:

Click on the "Mask" Layer's mask, then drag and drop it onto your design's layer.

8. Disable the mask link:

Click on the litle chain icon to disable the link between the mask and its related layer

9. The mask is ready:

Now you can move and resize the design all around the t-shirt without concerning about overlaping areas.

10. Final Adjustments:

Lower the oppacity for the "Shadow" layer, set it to 90%. Now they look more smooth, giving the t-shirt a more realistic touch.

11. Final Result:

Now you can give your t-shirt designs a more professional touch, you can also present it to your clients in a more realistic way, giving them the possibility to visualize the real t-shirt when finalized.

Tutorial by Dante Araújo

10 Secret Photoshop Interface Tips Video Tutorial

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 02 May 2009 19:28:00 +0000

This is a great and easy tutorial for photoshop beginner users. If you know the secret photoshop short cut, your work will be faster and easier than before. Tips and shortcuts to help make creating graphics in Photoshop easier and quicker.

source : www.alanwho.com

1000 Photoshop Tips and Tricks

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 06:18:00 +0000

Click this bar to view the full image.

This book contains 1000 cool photoshop effects and tutorials. Pictures are included along the way, along with descriptive explanations of each step.

Features:
- Motion Pictures
- Turning a Character Into a Puppet
- Out of Bounds
- Creating Rain
- Creating a Wormhole
- Creating Fur
- Motion Tweens and Guides [Flash]
- Making Graffiti
- Turning a Character Into a Zombie
- Perspective
- Gender Blending
- Face Swapping
- Tattoos
- Displacement Maps and Textures
And many, many more!

Download:
4share.ws

Photoshop series of video tutorials

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 06:45:00 +0000

Hey guys, These are the tutorials as an introduction to Photoshop. People who are completely new to the program should be able to watch these videos, and pretty quickly find themselves familiar with the work flow of doing things in Photoshop. Feel free to download any or all of these tutorials.

Tutorial 1: Learning some methods of selection, for the absolute beginner. (Kind-of boring, not necessary for all beginners, but a good place to start.

http://rapidshare.com/files/51323201/part1.mp4

Tutorial 2: Basic Compositing. Learn the basic blending modes and, and how to make rain!

Code:

http://rapidshare.com/files/51327238/part2.rar

Tutorial 4: Text Reflections. A quick, simple way to do reflections

Code:

http://rapidshare.com/files/51329365/part4.mp4

Tutorial 5: Selective Color Correction. Check out the image below.

Code:

http://rapidshare.com/files/51330008/part5.mp4

Tutoral 6: A cool, sometimes overlooked blending option.

Code:

http://rapidshare.com/files/51331741/part6.mp4

Tutorial 7: Bubbling Success smile.gif. Add bubbles to an image, in this case to make a beverage look all the more tempting.

Code:

edited version:-

http://rapidshare.com/files/51494174/redobubble.mp4

Code:

The original tutorial (doesn't show bubble painting process):
http://rapidshare.com/files/51333231/part7.mp4

Tutorial 8: custom shapes and Clipping masks

Code:

http://rapidshare.com/files/51334411/part8.mp4

Changing Eye Color

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:43:00 +0000

Welcome to this Photoshop™ video tutorial on changing eye color.

Photoshop Video Tutorial - Changing Eye Color from Yanik Chauvin on Vimeo.

Soften Skin with Surface Blur

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:13:00 +0000

Learn how to soften the skin of a portrait using the Surface Blur Filter in Adobe Photoshop.

Photoshop Video Tutorial - Soften Skin with Surface Blur from Yanik Chauvin on Vimeo.

Tutorial 10 Neon Text

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:05:00 +0000

Author by:digitaltropic.com

Requirements: Adobe Photoshop 5.5,cs2 or cs3
The Project: To create a neon text look similar to old neon signs.

While working on a few different effects, I came across something I thought would be very useful to those of us into graphics. Now I have seen several attempts at Neon text on line and in books, but this I believe is probably the most accurate of how Neon text should look.
Lets start off with by creating a new image which is 6 inches wide by 4 inches in height and 72 dpi resolution with a transparent background.
Image 10-1	What is neon if you can't see it at night? So the first thing to do is fill the background with black. Now we need to choose a skinny type to use for the neon. Make the text about 150 points and choose white as the color for the text.
The name of your text layer should have turned into the same name as the text itself. Lets change the name of this layer to Layer 2. Now right click on the layer and choose Duplicate Layer. It has now created a layer called Layer 2 copy. Hold down the Ctrl key and click on Layer 2 copy to set as the active layer. Now click Layer>Type>Render Layer. Click Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and use the setting of 2.3 and click ok. Now lets choose the color for the neon effect. Pick anything you would consider bright and neon looking. Click Foreground and choose your color and click ok. Image 10-2
Image 10-3	To use this color we are going to use the Stroke function. This is why we rendered Layer 2 copy. Make sure that this layer is the active one and click Edit>Stroke with the settings of 4 and center. You should now have an image similar to Image 10-3.
Image 10-4	Click Layer>Effects>Outer Glow and use the settings in Image 10-4. Use a color that closely resembles the color you used for the Stroke.
Image 10-5	Now we need to render Layer 2. Make Layer 2 the active layer by clicking it. Click Layer>Type>Render Text. Now drag this layer over top of the Layer 2 copy layer on the Layers Palette. Lets give it the real cool neon effect. Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and use 1.2 as the setting. Once you have done this merge this layer with the Layer 2 copy underneath by clicking beside the layer between the eye icon, you will now see a link. Click Layer>Merge Down. You should now have a completed image similar to Image 10-5.

How to Create a Movie Quality DVD Cover

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 00:46:00 +0000

In this tutorial we will be learning how to take a few different stock images and put them together with some text to make a movie poster/DVD cover design. If you followed the first part of this tutorial on destroying a plane then you can use that image as well.

For the purpose of this tutorial we'll be making a scaled down version but if you were planning to use this for a poster then you would want to increase the document size and resolution. Let's get started then!

How to Create a Movie Quality DVD Cover Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1

Create a new document with dimensions; 1000x1415px then go here and copy this image then paste it into your document and scale it to fit the full page.

Step 2

We're going to add a bit of disruption in the water so copy this image then paste it into your document then go Image>Adjustments>Desaturate then just scale an move the image until you have something that resembles the image shown below.

Step 3

Change the blend mode of this layer to overlay.

Step 4

Obviously we don't want the peoples heads showing at the front and we want the sky and water to blend in. First add a layer mask to the layer with the explosion on it by clicking the layer mask button at the bottom of the layers panel. Select the brush tool and choose a 125px soft round brush then set the brush opacity to 20% in the main toolbar. Make sure the foreground color is set as black and the layer mask is selected. Now just brush around the parts that you want to hide so brush over the edges of the image first to soften them then over the people and brush over the water a bit to get it to blend. Keep brushing until you get something similar to the image below, if you feel you've brushed to much then just change the foreground color to white then that should unhide the parts that you now brush over.

Step 5

Now if you've already gone through part one of the tutorial then copy the layers from that tutorial straight into this document; if you have both documents open then you can just select all the layers from the plane document (except the background) and drag them into this document. If you haven't completed the previous tutorial then you can just use the undestroyed version of the plane which you can find here. Either way just scale and position it until you get something that you like.

Step 6

Now change the blend mode of the plane layer to multiply, if you followed the previous tutorial you may have already done this.

Step 7

Change the foreground color to black then select the gradient tool then click the drop down arrow in the main toolbar and select the second gradient which should go from transparent to opaque black, if not then just make a custom gradient like this. Make sure the gradient type is set at linear then hold Shift and drag from the bottom of the document up to about the middle of the wing and you should get something like the image below.

Step 8

Change the blend mode of this layer to soft light.

Step 9

Duplicate this layer and change the opacity to 75% and the blend mode to multiply. We did it in this way so we can have the image fade to black at the bottom but still preserve the color saturation of the image; this is a good one to remember. We darkened the bottom of the image for two reasons; firstly to draw the focus away from the dock which stood out too much and secondly so we place our text here and it will stand out.

Step 10

We're going to go for a really cliche movie font, Trajan; used on more than half of all movie posters since 2000. Trajan is overused but we're going to use it here because we're not aiming for originality anyway. Select the type tool then click somewhere in the document then type 'the' and change the size to 40pt, the font to Trajan/Trajan Pro and the color to white. Now move the text to just below the guy like in the image below.

Step 11

Now select the type tool again and click in the document then type 'PlanE' (note the uppercase/lowercase characters) and change the size to 180pt, I also changed the size of the 'E' to 170pt as it looked to big. The last thing that you need to do is to change the tracking (horizontal character spacing) of some of the letters to even it out. DO this by going Window>Character and highlighting one letter at a time and changing the tracking until it looks balanced and 'symmetrical'. Now move it to where it looks good.

Step 12

Right click on the plane text layer and go to blending options and add a drop shadow and an inner bevel using the settings shown below.

Step 13

We want to add some soft vignetting now, which means darkening the edges of the image. You could do this with a gradient but here we're going to brush it on because we don't want it symmetrical and you have more control if you do it this way. So first create a new layer then grab a soft round brush with a size of about 150px and an opacity of about 10% then set the foreground color to black. Now just brush round the top corners (the bottom ones are dark enough) make sure you don't brush over the plane and keep doing this until your image resembles the one shown below.

Step 14

Most movie posters contain some credits and most of them use extremely compressed type. Basically here what you want to do is to type in your text and center justify it, it doesn't really matter what font you are using but set the color to something like #39362d. Now to compress it go Window>Character to bring up the character editor again then highlight the text and adjust the character width as shown in the image below.

Step 15

Now add some more text, I added the names of some actors at the top and a website at the bottom and just kept it pretty simple.

Step 16

I felt the image was a bit cold at this point so to fix this I added a curves adjustment layer by clicking the button at the bottom of the layers panel. Next just go through each channel and alter the curves slightly, the main thing I did was to lower the amount of blue in the image. Try to get your curves looking like the image shown below.

Step 17

I also felt the flames were not bright enough so I fixed this in two steps. First add a levels adjustment layer and drag the black slider in to about 35 and the white slider in to about 225; this will brighten our image a bit as well as raise the saturation.

Step 18

You'll notice that the flames look awesome now but the rest of the image is a bit off so we're now going to mask off the adjustment layer. This time hold Alt and click on the layer mask button in the layers panel and this will create a layer mask and fill it black so this adjustment layer is fully hidden now. Select the brush tool and choose a 30px soft round brush with an opacity of about 20% then set the foreground color to white. Now select the layer mask and just paint over the flames a few times and you will notice that when you paint over them they will become brighter as what we are doing is unhiding the adjustment layer in these parts.

Conclusion

To finish this tutorial off I thought I'd point you to a great PSD file of a DVD case, you can download it it here. What I did was saved my image as a jpeg then pasted the jpeg image into the DVD case document and this shows you roughly how the cover will look. This is optional but it's the kind of thing that would be useful if you were to present a DVD cover design to a client. You can see what mine looked like below

Author by:photoshoptutorials.ws

A Retro Wallpaper/Poster Step By Step Photoshop Tutorial

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 00:32:00 +0000

Step 1

Start a new document at a size of 1900x1200. Click here to download this textured background picture and place it in to the picture and put the Opacity to 40%.

Step 2

Create new layer and fill with yellow and set the layer to Soft Light and Opacity to 30%

Step 3

Create new layer and set the foreground colour to #9d640a and select brush i have selected this brush but if you dont have that brush just choose one which adds a little texture.

Now draw around a little and set the layer to Multiply and Opacity of 70%. You should have something like below.

Step 4

Ok create a new document and click on the marquee and select the rectangular and do as the image below is.

Step 5

Create new layer and set the background on your colour palet to what ever colour you like... i have set it to 7d8d72, now press Ctrl and backspace.

Step 6

Now duplicate layer and move it 10 notches to the right and then goto Layer/Layer Style/Colour overlay and set the colour to what colour you would like to have. Now do this again for another 4 times untill you get something like the picture below.

Step 7

Now select background layer and click on magic Eraser tool and delete white background.

Step 8

Now select the shape layer and goto Edit/Define Pattern and save it.

Step 9

Now go back to your original document and create a new layer and click on the paint bucket tool and at the top left of the page set it to pattern and fill the page. You will have to erase the over lapping pattern fill so that you get an image like this

Step 10

Now press Ctrl and T and resize it to the image below

Step 11

Create a new layer and follow step 9.

Step 12

Now press Ctrl T and then right click on it and click Perspective and get is like the image below. Keep it a little below the other pattern like i have.

Step 13

Zoom in so that the middle of the page is big. Now select the pen tool and do as shown below.

Step 14

Create new layer and call it middle1. Now with the pen tool still selected goto the pattern you have just created and right click and select make selection and feather 0. Set the background on the colour pallet as the colour you have chosen for that pattern and press Ctrl and backspace. You may have to arase alittle to make it perfect.

Step 15

Now create a new layer and call it middle2 and copy the rest of step 14, do this untill you have finished and have an image as below. Then merge all middle layers, top and bottome pattern layer.

Step 16

Click here i purchased this picture and got the pen tool and went round the people and cut them out. i then went to Filter/Artistic and selected Colourd Pencil and placed it onto my image like so.

Step 17

Now duplicate layer and press Ctrl T and goto Edit/Free Transform/Flip Horizontal and then rotate like shown.

Step 18

Now goto Layer/Layer Style/Colour Overlay and fill in black. Set the layer Opacity to 50% and goto Filter/Blur/Caussian Blur and Radius to 8.5

Step 19

Create new layer and pick a colour and brush of your choice to make foot steps like the picture below. Dont forget to make foot steps bigger as they get closer.

Final Step

Click Here and download this textured background and then place it above all layers. Set the Opacity to 50%. Ive then added text and then all is done.

Author by: ubltuts.co.uk

Inspirational Step By Step Photoshop Tutorial

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 00:22:00 +0000

Step 1

Create a 1900x1200 page and fill black. Get the marquee tool and create a section like below

Step 2

Add new layer and fill in the rectangle in grey, Go to Edit>Define Brush Preset and save.

Step 3

Select the brush and goto the new brush you have just defined, now press F5 and fill in what i have below.

Step 4

Now lets start the tutorial, draw a few rectangles on the page and then go to Layer>Layer Style>Drop Shadow. Use Color Burn for the Blend Mode, 80% Opacity, 120º Angle, 5px Distance, and 10px Size

Do this 2 more times and you should have something like this.

Step 5

Resize image by pressing Ctrl and T at the same time, do as shown below.

Step 6

Merge all 3 shape layers by highlighting all 3, right click and merge layers. Goto Filter>Blur>Motion Blur. Use 90º for the angle and 155 pixels for the distance.

Step 7

On the shapes layer click Ctrl and T and right click and click on warp. Get it as close to what i have below.

Step 8

Click Here and download image and place above all layers like below, you will have to resize image to fit. Now get the pen tool and trace round the image so that its just the hand with no background.

Step 9

Now it is starting to look ok but we need to a little more yet to get a nice wallpaper/Poster. Add a little more colour Click the shapes layer and go to Layer>New Fill Layer>Gradient. Change the angle to 90%, and scale to 80% and use what ever gradient you like ive used the rainbow and altered it slightly. After that just change the Blend Mode to Overlay.

Step 10

Click on shape layer and press Ctrl and T turn it round and right click and goto distort and distort it untill you get an image like below.

Step 11

Create a new layer, fill in black and goto Filter>Render>Lens Flare, use 100% for the brightness and the 50-300mm zoom for the Lens Type. Set it just below the centre of the screen. set the layer mode to screen and goto Image>Adjustments>Levels and set it to Levels to 60, 1, 255.

Step 12

Add a new layer and fill it black. Goto Filter>Texture>Grain, Intensity to 66 and the Contrast to 60, change the layer Blend Mode to Soft Light and 60%

Final Step

Click Here and download image. Place image over top of every layer and goto Image>Adjustments>Invert, now set the layer Mode to Overlay and the Opacity to 15%. Create new layer goto filter/render/clouds and colout in a little with the gradient tool and set the layer as soft light and 50%. Add company name and all is done.

Author by: ubltuts.co.uk

Cristiano Ronaldo Signature

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:39:00 +0000

In this tutorial you will be making a Christiano Ronaldo the soccer phenom in Adobe Photoshop. It will look like this:

First we need a background like this that we will use

and the render pic ( c.r ) image

Then we will go to add the background in this case and make a new layer below the background and fill it with a dark gray

make another new layer above the background and fill it too with some gray and now we need a old trafford erase with a 150 px soft brush leave the edge .

Go to Hue/Saturation, then just lower the saturation about -60 or less.
like this:

Now we will added the render ( c.r image ) to the background. Look now, and read this:

1-duplicate the render 7 times

the st leave Normal

2- Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur 6.0 px

3- Right click and blending options, select outer glow and make the opacity 50% the color white and the size 49 then select an inner glow and leave the settings normal set the layer to 50% opacity

4- Ctrl Shift + U to desaturate. Filter > blur > smart blur Radius 30 threshold 50.0 set the layer overlay to 100%

5- Ctrl Shift + U to desaturate. Set it to Screen 30%

6- Ctrl Shift + U to desaturate. Set it to linear Dodge 20%

top - Ctrl Shift + U to desaturate. Filter > blur > Guassian Blur. 25px set the layer to soft light

We will got the results like that pic 5 . that will done. Now duplicate the first bottom layer of the render , twice, and put them above all and this ( motion blur ( filter > blur > motion blur ) set the layer overlay and move them to the left and right of C.Ronaldo

Make a new layer and filled in the selected area of the render with black and set it to soft light 61% opacity. Next I clicked the black and white icon on the layer list again and selected Hue/Saturation drop the Saturation to about -30

Next I will grab my gradient map tool, and select a Dark gray color, using a Radial Gradient drag down on your mouse below Ronaldo and make just the edges of the signature Grey. Set the layer to lighten 100% i then repeated this step on anew layer and set it to hard mix 43% opacity

Now I did some splatter brushing on new layers with a white color, on a new layer grab splatter brush and do a little bit of brushing around the outline of piece, set the layer to overlay and drop the opacity rather low, make another layer and grab a different splatter brush on one side of your render once.

What I did was a clipping mask on the brushing layer that is on Ronaldo create anew layer and apply image ( image > apply image ) on the layer list. Hold alt in between the applied image layer and the splatter brushed layer and click your mouse. Add this to the right or left .. as you like

The next layers will be splatter brushing around the background of the piece with colors from the render (red and white) on the red splatter brushed layer i set it ti multiply and low opacity. With the (white) brushed layer i set it to overlay and soft light on low opacity also

Then I soft brushed with a bigger brush around ronaldo`s shirt and set the layer overlay 20% with a dark color on a new layer I brushed on ronaldo’s face and arms and set the layer to color 42% opacity and now add some text, then we finished the professional signature for C. Ronaldo

Beautiful lighting FX effect in Photoshop

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 02:21:00 +0000

This tutorial will show you how to make a beautiful lighting effect on scatters by using Photoshop. Keep in mind that I only provide the basic guidelines to creating this type of effect. There are tons of possibilities if you spend time to play with the settings and keep your creativity wide open.

NOTICE: CLICK ON THE THUMBNAIL IMAGE TO ENLARGE FOR MORE DETAILS

Step 1 - Create the Head

Open a new document, changed the current layer to “Background” layer and fill â€œBlack.â€� Next, create a new layer, then you should select some brush you like, in this case I choose a kind of vector brush, which you could find in the attached file at the bottom of this tutorial.

Step 2 - Creating the Tail

Create another new layer (layer > new > layer), called it “Tail”.

Select the â€œBrushâ€� tool and open the Brushes Panel (Window > Brushes). Now we will play around with its setting to achieve the set best effect. The final purpose is to create a set of randomized dots.

In this scope of article, I choose settings as below:

- Brush Tip Shape: (Hardness: 100%, Roundness: 100%, Spacing: 1%)
- Shape Dynamics: (Size Jitter: 100%, Minimum Diameter: 20%)
- Scatter: (Both Axes, Scatter: 1000%)

Step 3 - Create the colorful effect

Create another new layer, above the background layer, name it “Color Base”. This is just a simple step, you choose a soft brush, then fill like the picture below with any color you like.

Step 4 - Make selection

Now, select the “Head” layer firstly, then go to the menu Select->Load Selection. Then choose New Selection and press Ok.

Next step, you repeat the above step, but choose “Add to Selection” in the “Load Selection” dialog box instead.

Now, you have loaded the selection. With the “Color Base” layer active, you click on the “Add layer mask” button at the bottom of the layer panel. Then you will have the result like the demonstration below.

Step 5 - Add glow effect

You select “Head” layer then go to Layer > Layer Style > Outer Glow. You could play around with those settings such as size, spread, opacity… however remember to set â€œBlend Modeâ€� to â€œOverlay,â€� and the color to â€œWhite.â€� Of course, everything could be changed even you go to the last steps. Next, you should do the exam progress on “Tail” layer.

To end of this step. Right click on the “Color Base” then choose “Apply Layer Mask”. Then, youwill go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. You should set the Radius between 4-6. In this case, I give it the value 5.

Step 6 - Make up the head

Create a new layer above the “Color Base” layer. Then, you choose the â€œGradientâ€� tool and use the â€œForeground to Transparentâ€� preset. Go into the â€œGradient Editorâ€� and click the foreground color slider and change its position to â€œ25%.â€� Exit the editor, pick a color that pleases you (can be changed later) and make a â€œRadial Gradientâ€� over the “Head” layer. You could move the layer to match up with the “Head” layer.

Now with that layer still active, go to Layer > Layer Style > Color Overlay. Change the color to â€œWhiteâ€� and blend mode to â€œOverlay.â€� Probably, there are hundreds of ways to customized this effect till this way, so I just remind you the point, keep your creative going, and spend time to try settings. For my case, I want to add some more colorful effect in this step, and I change some setting by press Ctrl + U to open Hue/Saturation dialog and give it the settings like below.

Step 7 - Add more scatters

Now, duplicate the “Head” layer and pick the smudge tool, then select a soft brush at around 50% strength. This step is not easy to do. must be patient to smudge the new copied layer along the picture, try to use another tool such as “Eraser” to have the best result.

Then, you duplicate the current layer. Right click on it, choose Blending Options, and set the “Blend mode” to “Dissolve”. You should notice the opacity during this step to adjust the appearances of the scatters around the main object. Again, the “Eraser” tool need to be used reasonably to get rid of scatters.

Step 9 - Adjust settings

Actually, it is hard to tell you exactly how I come to the final result as below. You should play around with opacity, fill settings, combine with eraser, smudge tools to finalize the art work.

This tutorial has been rewritten with more detailed instruction. The original one was written by Ryan on his blog.

PHOTO EDIT - CLEAN AND SMOOTH SKIN

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:43:00 +0000

Source:tutorialvault.net

Today, I am going to do a photo retouch tutorial to create clean and smooth skin. I think this is useful for girls who wish to have their own photo album. Again, I try to make my tutorial here simple and easy to learn but, sure, efficient. Ok, let’s start.

1. Choose a photo for this tutorial and I use this, you can simply search from Google image or you also can use mine, download here. Open the image in PS. Rename the image layer to image.

2. Grab the Patch Tool and make a selection around the unwanted area. Left click and drag to the area outside the selection. 3. You will get this. If you fail to get this result, try and error will always help. 4. After that, repeat the step 2 to clean up all unwanted area and object on the face. Finally, you will get this. 5. To make thing better, we will retouch the skin for the girl. CTRL + J to duplicate the layer and name it as image_copy. Select image_copy (upper layer), grab the Lasso Tool and make a selection as below. CTRL + SHIFT + I (invert) and go to Selection > Feather > 20px. Press Del. 6. Select image (bottom layer), go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur > 4px. 7. Select image_copy (upper layer), CTRL + J to duplicate. Change the blend mode to Soft Light and set the opacity to 60%. go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur > 2px. Yup, you’re done! Hope you enjoy this!

PHOTO EDIT - COLORING EFFECTS

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:27:00 +0000

source:tutorialvault.net

Today we will have a photo edit tutorial and sure, it is simple and easy to follow as usual. I think you may see this in many music album CD cover and some artist poster or wallpaper. Ok, let’s start then.

This is the photo that I found in Google image.

If you wish to use mine, just download here.

1. Open the image in PS.

2. Go to the bottom of the layers palette and click on the Hue/Saturation option. Set the setting as below:

3. After that, you may get this:

4. Create a new layer and set it to Soft Light Blend mode. Choose a 48px hard brush and paint the new layer as shown below. You can choose the colors you like.

5. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur > 90 pixels.

6. Yup, you’re done! It’s easy and now you can edit your photo yourself easily. Thanks!

Tips:

The lower the saturation will decrease the color more.
So, the lower the saturation will increase the visibility of the painted color.

A Beginners Guide to Photoshop

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:44:00 +0000

source: tutorialfx.com

This is a pretty awesome tutorial on everything you need to know about Photoshop. From the basics to the explination of almost everything in Photoshop.

The Workspace

Tools Palette:
Self explanatory - the palette that contains the tools that can be used to directly edit the image.

Tool Options:
A selection of options that relate to the currently selected tool and alter its effects.

Drop down menus:
Standard drop down menus as seen in most Windows and Macintosh applications. Offers access to most of Photoshop's features. Commands for the drop down menus in these tutorials are written in bold.

Info Palette:
Shows information about the current image, or shows a thumbnail via which you can navigate the image. Information provided includes crop/selection area, file size, image dimensions, etc.

Colours/Styles Palette:
Allows you to select a colour via RGB sliders or preset web-safe colours ('Swatches'). Also lets you apply layer styles - preset combinations of layer styles (effects) that can achieve effective results if you're in a hurry. Use the expansion arrow (just undereath the close button) to load more styles that are included with Photoshop.

History Palette:
Gives a list of actions that can be undone - lists around one hundred. You can save snapshots to return to at key points in your image creation, or return to the saved file/a recent step. Also contains actions and tool presets for the currently selected tool.

Layers Palette:
The layers palette has many features, too many to list here. They are described later in the tutorial.

Layers

Palette Objects

Layer Opacity:
The opacity of the current layer, 0-100%.

Blending Mode:
The manner in which this layer interacts with layers below it. See below.

Active/Linked Layers:
A small paint brush icon appears in this space to indicate the active layer, and chain icons signify other layers that are linked with the active layer.

Layer visibility:
An eye in this area signifies that the layer is visible, and an empty box means it is hidden from view and exempt from formatting.

Layers:
Two example layers showing an example background layer and new (transparent) layer (Layer 1).

New Fill/Adjustment Layer:
Creates a layer that can add a gradient to or adjust the hue, etc. of the layer below.

New Layer:
Creates a new layer [ctrl/cmd + shift + N].

Delete Layer:
Deletes the currently selected layer.

New Layer Set:
Creates a folder for layers to be put into for easy organisation of layers.

New Layer Mask:
Creates a sub-layer with which you can use all normal tools. Adding black to a layer mask, for example, means that that part of the layer is invisible.

Layer Effects (Styles):
Applies various effects to the current layer - can also be reached via Layer || Layer Style.

Blending Modes

Normal/Dissolve:
All layers appear as normal - dissolve doesn't blend the colours that are layered, but instead applies the colour to pixels at random in accordance.

Darken > Linear Burn:
Subtly different methods of darkening the layers beneath the selected layer.

Lighten > Linear Dodge:
Subtly different methods of lightening the layers beneath the selected layer.

Overlay:
Crudely put, reduces the opacity of the layer.

Soft Light > Pin Light:
Methods of lightening layers below the current one at varying strengths.

Difference/Exclusion:
Quite complicated - this is as it appears in the PS help files: "Looks at the color information in each channel and subtracts either the blend color from the base color or the base color from the blend color, depending on which has the greater brightness value. Blending with white inverts the base color values; blending with black produces no change." Exclusion is pretty much the same but at lower contrast.

Hue > Luminosity:
Effects the respective value of the layer below.

Tools

Marquee Tool
The marquee tool selects areas within a layer. It is capable of selecting an elliptical, square, single column, and single rows.

Move Tool
The move tool can move around all objects within a layer. To move entire image, Flatten the layers by selecting Layer > Flatten Image.

Lasso Tool
The lasso tool can select areas within in a layer that canâ€™t be reached with the marquee tool.

Magic Wand
The magic wand is an automatic selection tool. It selects everything in the layer.

Cropping tool
This tool changes the size of the image. To use, Select the area you want to crop and then press enter.

Slice Tool
Makes Guidelines.

Heal Brush Tool and Patch Tool
The patch tool is another form of the heal brush. It is in the options for the heal brush. The Heal Brush deletes the high contrast of a picture and is used when retouching a photo. To use, hold down alt while clicking on the source (an area that looks like what you want the damaged part to look like) and drag the mouse around the damaged picture to repair it.
The patch tool fixes damaged parts of a picture by blending the damaged part with a better one. Just use the patch tool to select part of the image, then drag the selection to another part of the image. This will combine the selections.

Pencil tool and brush tool
Draws or paints a line. Same as the pencil or brush tool in paint. Change the color of the paint brush by clicking on the color picker .

Clone Stamp Tool and Pattern Stamp tool
The clone stamp tool duplicates part of the image. Hold down alt while clicking to choose the part of the image which you want to duplicate. Drag the mouse over the damaged area.
The pattern stamp tool can create and save a pattern you want to use over and over again. To make a pattern, use the marquee tool or the lasso tool to select part of the image. Go to Filter > Pattern Maker and click generate. Click on the floppy disk underneath the Tile History called Save Preset Pattern. This will save the pattern. Do not push OK unless you want to fill the entire image with that pattern. Press cancel and select your pattern from Pattern on the top center of Photoshop. Drag the mouse over the area with the pattern stamp tool to edit the picture.

History Brush Tool and Art History Brush
The history Brush tool can go back and undo certain changes in a picture. To delete everything you did since the opening of the picture simply drag the history brush over the area to be repaired. The history brush works best when transforming snap shots. Using the snap shot will only change certain parts of the picture and can go back in editing to change major errors. To make a Snap Shot, save the picture then click on the small camera on the bottom of the history window. The snap shot will be saved once it is named. If you click on a previous snap shot, you can edit a previous version of your picture. Click on the last snap shot then use the history brush tool to undo the editing to make the unedited section look like the previous snap shot.
The Art history Brush tool can artistically undo an image and warp the original picture. Click on the top snap shot and chose what kind of brush to use on the top of the window under Style. Click on the area you want to edit with the art history brush.

Eraser tool
This can erase part of the photo in a certain layer. To erase everything in a certain area to make it white, flatten the image or go through every layer to delete that part.

Paint Bucket
Makes an area one color. To edit all layers at one time, click on All layers at the top of the window.

The Blur tool, Sharpen Tool, and Smudge Tool
To use, drag over part of photo you want to edit. The hardest part of this tool is selecting the right strength, brush size and mode. This tool is capable of blurring part of the image, undoing the blur with the sharpen tool, and slightly liquefying with the smudge tool.

The Dodge tool, Burn tool, and Sponge tool
To use any of these tools, just drag it over the image. The dodge tool can lighten an image, the burn tool darkens it, and the sponge tool soaks color out of the image.

Text tool
Puts text in a picture. Click on the picture with the type tool and select a box the size of the area you want to add text. Type in the box then adjust the size of the text box.

Pen Tool
The pen tool can make lines and be used with shape tools to create different shapes. To create lines, use the pen tool to create anchors (the little boxes on a line) and change the shape of the line by moving around the anchors.

Custom Shape Tools
Creates shapes in the image. The custom shapes tools can create all shapes in the shape section located at the top center of the Photoshop window.

Annotation tool
This can create notes and sound effects in an image. The only difference between the note tool and the text tool is that the note comes up in a little white box and when the note is too long for the given space, there will be a scroll bar. This is usually used in PDF formats and Acrobat Documents.
The audio Annotation tool can add audio notation to the picture. To use, click on the audio notation tool and press start. Record your voice with the microphone then press stop. You can import the audio by File > Import > Annotations. Make sure the file you import is a PDF file or a FDF file.

Eyedropper tool
Samples a color from the picture, color swatches, or the color picker. To use, click on the color on the image you want to take and right click.

Hand Tool
Moves around image within an object. Is used with the zoom tool when you want to adjust the section of picture you want to look at.

Zoom tool
Zooms in on part of the picture for closer editing.

Crystalised World

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:39:00 +0000

source: crystalxp.net

First find a world map you wish to use for the globe

Then Open a new Design canvas (256x256 pix) in Photoshop. and place your picture (map) as a layer.

Select Eleptical Marque tool and drow a Circle while pressing Shift key

Then, press Ctrl+Shift+I to invert selection & select the map layer,
Hit delete.

Extra:* If you need go to Filter liquify and use 'Bloat tool' to make the selected part of the map looks like a part of
a sphere

Press Ctrl+Shift+I again to return to normal selection don't deselect it.
Press Ctrl+Shift+N to create a new layer and place it above the map layer, then select the overlay mode for the layer.
Select Black to transparent gradient and drow it from the bottom to top of the selection.

Contract the selection by 2 or 3 pixels (Select>Modify>Contract)

Create another new layer, and drow a white to transparent gradient from bottom to top.
then press 'M' to return to marque tool and move the selection upwards.(like in picture)

Hit delete. & Set an opacity around 30%-40%

Then in a new layer above all, drow another marque selection like this,

Then drow a white to ransparent gradient from top to the bottom of the selection

Set opasity of the layer to 75%

Ctrl+Shift+N to Create another new layer and Ctrl click on map thumbnail to select the border,
Expand the selection by 3 pixels.
Fill the area with White (#FFFFFF)

Contract the selection by 4 pixels and hit delete.
apply a gaussian blur 4 pixels (maybe vary)

Ctrl click again on the map layer, Then press iCtrl+Shift+I to invert selection and hit delete. (you can do the same thing by applying an 'Inner glow' effect to the map layer

So now you've finished with the crystalised Globe

You can add different reflection styles and different maps to customize your collection of world globes.

Here is a sample

Create an advanced shadow

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:24:00 +0000

On this tutorial, I will show you how to create a shadow that follows perspective and lighting.

1- Open up Photoshop and Open the image with the object want o apply the shadow to.

2- Extract the object from its background (If you do not know how to do extract something, search on google and you will find tutorials how to do so) Here is what you get:

3- Duplicate the layer with your extracted object (Ctrl+J) and rename it "Shadow"

4- With the "Shadow" Layer selected, press Ctrl+T to transform it. To transform the layer properly Hold the Ctrl key down and Click annd Drag the handles to distort it. Try to Follow the lighting of the object and the perspective. Here is my result. DO NOT Confirm yet.

the circles mark where the transformation needs adjustments. Try to match the feet. Move the extracted object layer on top of the "Shadow" Layer.

5- With the "Shadow" Layer selected, go to Image >> Adjustments >> Hue/Saturation. Set the lightness to -100, so that the layer is completely black. Set the opacity to 55%

6- With the same layer selected go to Filter >> Blur >> Gaussian Blur, and set the radius to 15px.

That's It, you now have a real life shadow with your character.

Hope you enjoyed it.

Correcting and Improving Photos with Photoshop

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:15:00 +0000

Probably the most basic and essential skill need to improve the quality of your photo is to know how to manipulate the powerful Brightness Contrast features provided in Photoshop. I shall go through various basic and advanced techniques to make your photos come alive.

In this example, we will take this dull and insipid photo of Jessica Alba, and try to make it just as beautiful as her. (Trying to be smart, don't tease me)

Here’s the original image:------------------------------------------------------------And here’s our end result:

Load the image in Photoshop. Be sure to keep a backup of the original so that you can compare it with your edited picture.

If your image is a JPEG or GIF image, it will currently not have layers – and the entire image will be read by Photoshop as one layer or a Background. You will first need to extract layers from this background. To do this, in the Layers window, right click on the locked layer that says Background and select Layer From Background…

In the Window that opens, enter Base as the name and press Enter.

Now that we have the image extracted, we can begin with our corrections.

The first thing you must do is reduce the “dullness” of the photo. To do that, you need to fiddle around with the Brightness and Contrast settings till you get it right. I will demonstrate three ways of doing this.

1. By using Photoshop’s Auto Correction Features (EASY)

In most cases, Photoshop’s automated features are enough to fix your photos. This is probably the easiest and quickest way to fix your images. The downside? You really don’t get any control over what adjustments are made to the photo. Photoshop fixes what it believes needs to be fixed – and sometimes this just ain’t enough.

Simply go to Image>>Adjustments>>Auto Contrast. That’s it, this’ll fix around 80% of your photos to perfection, or at least improve them significantly.
Sometimes, it’s better to select Auto Levels instead of Auto Contrast, but we’ll discuss that later.

2. By Manually Adjusting Brightness and Contrast (INTERMEDIATE)

A more powerful method of achieving this is by using the functions provided in the Image menu.

· In the Image menu, select Adjustments, and then click on Brightness/Contrast…

· The following window should open:

Make sure that the Preview option is checked.

· Move the sliders until you get a result you like. In our example, the image is LIGHTER and DULLER. Consequently, you must reduce its Brightness and increase its Contrast to get a better picture. Mess around till you like what you see. When satisfied, press Enter or click OK.
*In this image only, I set the Brightness at -20 and the Contrast at +40.

· Pretty good result, don’t you think? But still not good enough.

· Now let’s say you think there isn’t adequate lighting. To correct this, again from the Image menu, select Adjustments and then click on Exposure.

· Again, make sure that Preview is selected. The Offset and Gamma features work, at this level, just like the Brightness/Contrast features discussed above. Ignore these two, and increase or decrease the Exposure to bring out or hide the lighter spots in the image and thus improve overall lighting.
*In this image only, I set the Exposure at +0.75

· Your photo must be looking pretty darn impressive by now, huh? That’s the extent of this part of the tutorial. To further improve the photo, read the next step of the tutorial.

3. By Using Layers, Masks and Other Features (ADVANCED)

Everything discussed above can pretty much be done by any simple photo editing piece of crap that came with your camera. So what’s the advantage of having Photoshop CS2 or higher? We’ll now discuss how to use layers, masks, and some more advanced features allowed by Photoshop.

First and foremost, analyze your photograph. What’s wrong with it? What can be improved? All the features described below are optional, and their usage depends on the photo you’re working with.

· In our example, the pic-cha is clearly faded. It’s too dull and there’s no difference between white and grey, or between yellow and brown. It’s all blended together, there’s no difference in the level lighting. There’s no difference in the foreground and the background. There’s no lighting difference between Jessica and her arm, or between Jessica and the wall. The keyword here is difference. If everything in a photo has the same lightness, it look rather dull and faded… like the pictures your grandpa shows you when he’s rambling on about his days in the youth corps.

· So, our aim here should be to INCREASE the difference. To separate out the background from the foreground. To BRING OUT Jessica from the rest of the image.

· If you haven’t guessed it yet, we need to improve the difference. And in Photoshop, DIFFERENCE in lighting is achieved through adjusting the Contrast or Brightness. This may seem like an idiot’s rambling, but I want to stress the fact that whenever you’re photo is too dull or faded, it’s probably the CONTRAST that you want to adjust.

· Now let’s get to work.

· First, we’ll again use the features described above, but in a different and more efficient way using Layers.

· From the original image, select the Base layer.

· See the tiny circle below in the image? That’s the button for applying the very same effects you see in the Image>>Adjustments menu, but using layers. It’s called the Add Adjustment Layer button.

· Click on this button, and select Brightness/Contrast. Again mess around, like above, until you get a better image. Don’t try to make it perfect yet though, what’re the other functions for? Just fiddle around till you get an improved image.
*In this image only, I set Brightness as -35 and Contrast at +55

· Now, as you may have observed, the effects were applied just as earlier – BUT through a layer this time. This option has many advantages. First, the effect is applied through the layer. So if at any point, you feel like you don’t want the effect any more, simply hide/delete the layer without affecting any other part of the image. Second, it allows for more selective use of the effect, as I am about to demonstrate. And if, at any time, you want to change the properties of that effect, (in this case the brightness/contrast you applied), just double click on the layer thumbnail and the properties window will jump right up.

· If you’re applying the same settings as I am, you may have observed that the image is too dark and that there’s a little too much contrast. That’s so that we can now see the layer mask in action.

· The white empty page that you see next to the image thumbnail is the Layer mask. When working with the Layer mask, ensure that it is selected. If not, the actual image or layer will be affected.

· The Layer mask allows us to define what portions of the layer we want to be visible. In other words, it lets us hide and show the current layer and its effects wherever we want. Wherever the mask is empty, the layer and its effects are visible. Wherever it isn’t, the layer and its effects are not seen.

· Mess around with this till you get a better understanding of it. Take the paintbrush and just make weird circles and lines and shapes all over with the Layer mask still selected. You’ll see that wherever you painted, the Brightness/Contrast effect was hidden from view. Black areas in the mask are hidden, empty areas are shown, and grey areas are partly hidden, depending on its lightness/intensity. This will allow us to specify which areas we want brighter, and which areas we don’t.

· Now, you could do this manually, or you could use Photoshop’s different filters and effects to do it for you.

· In our example, we want the Brightness/Contrast effect to be applied MORE to the duller spots, and LESS to the more vivid parts. A simple way to do this is:

o With the Layer mask still selected, click on Image>>Apply Image.

o In the Window, select Base as the Layer and RGB as the Channel. Make sure the Opacity is set to 100% (or whatever percent you see fit) and click OK or press Enter.

o This paints/copies the Base layer on the mask. As a result, darker parts are excluded and lighter parts are included. This trick works for 99% of images, though sometimes it comes out weird and kind of has the opposite effect. If that’s the case, with the Layer mask still selected, click on Image>>Adjustments>>Invert. That should fix it.

o Maybe you think the effect needs to be stronger. In that case, just duplicate the Layer till you get the desired result.

· And this is our result using these steps:

· Another useful feature using Layers again, is by using the Blending Options.

· Load the original image.

· Right-click on the Base layer, and select Duplicate Layer. A new layer, which is the exact copy of this layer, should emerge.

· Right-click on the new Layer, and select Blending Options. A new window should pop up. Ensure that Preview is again checked.

· Under the General Settings, select a Blend Mode that improves the quality of the picture. You'll have to fiddle around to see which one first best for your photograph. Some commonly used Blend Modes are:

o Multiply: Darkens and fills light spots. Great for photos with too much light or glare.
o Color Burn: Really increase the Contrast. Useful for extremely dull photographs.
o Linear Burn: Decrease Brightness in lighter spots. Again useful for dull photographs.
o Color Dodge: Lightens already light spots. Good for making already light areas lighter. Used for special effects like glows, etc.
o Screen: Lightens the overall image. Useful in improving darker images.
o Overlay: Combines the Screen and Multiply features. A very impressive effect that works with most images.
o Linear Light: Automatically senses light and dark spots. Throws light on dark areas, darkens light areas. Quick and powerful for overall Brightness/Contrast correction.

· When you find a mode that fits (depending on the original image), you may change the Opacity (just below the Blend Modes) to adjust the intensity of the effect.

· When done, click OK or press Enter.
*In this image only, I used Linear Light with an Opacity of 60%.

· Et Voilà! You’re done!

· Here’s our result:

· Usually, it’s better to use more than just any one effect till you get the desired outcome. With a little more fiddling, combining the effects described in this tutorial, you can transform a simple click of the cam into a work of art.

· Dreamy, eh?

source: crystalxp.net

Correcting and Improving Photos with Photoshop

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:15:00 +0000

3D Text

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:07:00 +0000

Example(s):
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The Tutorial:

Step 1: Creating the document and preparing text
Create a new document (File > New) and use any size you want. I'm using 320px x 150px. Next, select a font and type your text. Add any effects you want to the text, such as gradients or colours.
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To stretch and transform the text, we need to rasterize it first. To do this, right click the text layer on the layers list, and select Rasterize.
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Step 2: Transforming the text
After you have rasterized your text, your ready to transform it. With the text layer selected, press CTRL+T, and press right click in the text then choose perspective or distort to position your text as if it were in 3d perspective, and press Enter to apply the change. You'll want to achieve an effect as shown below. (This will be the top of the 3D text)
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Making the text 3D
After you have transformed the text, right click it on the layers list, and press Duplicate Layer. (Alternatively, you could press CTRL+J with the text layer selected.) Now create a new set (see below image), and place your duplicated layer into it. Add a bevel and emboss to the duplicated layer (use the default settings). This will help in achieving the 3D effect.

With the duplicated layer selected, hold shift and press the down arrow 2 times. This will move your text layer down by 20 pixels. Now, hold the alt key and ctrl key and press the up arrow 19 times. This duplicates each layer, and nudges it up by 1 pixel each time.
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This is the end of the 3D effect. If you want to add more effects to it, such as reflections and shadows, continue reading.

Step 3: Adding extra effects
Note: These effects aren't needed, but they provide nice details to the final product.

Now that we have the basic 3D effect, we can add more effects to give it a reflection, and an environment. Select the original text layer and add a faint drop shadow to it. Select the layer set, and press CTRL+E (this will merge all the layers inside.) Duplicate the new layer (CTRL+J) which use to be the layer set, and lower its opacity to about 20%. Position it below the 3D text, so it looks like a reflection. There are many tutorials about reflections in our database if you need any more help. On my background layer, I also added a faint gradient instead of just a white backdrop.

Final Result
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i hope you like it:)

source: crystalxp.net

Design blood stain and scratch mix text effect

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 10:41:00 +0000

author by Chris Pearson

Here is an easy photoshop tutorial on how to make a Scratch and blood tained pattern Text Effect using photoshop techniques.

[1] Take a new file of 400 pixels by 300 pixels
Pick resolution 72 dpi in the RGB mode.

[2] Take the Text Tool and write your text.

[3] Now create a new file 400×400 pixels.

[4] Now double click on the layer press ok.

[5] Then the background color for this color codeing #A8504F.

[6] Now go to Filter>Noise>Add Noise use these values.

[7] Go to Filter>Blur>Motion Blur use the following settings.

[8] Your image should be look like this.

[9] Then go to Edit>Define Pattern.

[10] You can define the pattern name as you like I used style-1.

[11] Now go to Blending Option use these following settings.

[12] Your image should be look like this.

[13] Now take the Brush Tool use these settings.

[14] Then create a new layer.

[15] And play with Brush Tool as shown image below.

[16] Now change Blending Mode Layer 1 Overlay.

[17] Your final image should be look like this.

Webmaster community website banner

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 10:36:00 +0000

author by Chris Pearson

Here we will tell you how to make a Webmaster-community-website-banner in photoshop.

[1] Take a new file of 600 pixels,200 pixels, of resolution 72 dpi in the RGB mode.

[2] Set the Foreground Color see in the next image.

[3] Now fill the Background.

[4] Now take the Rectangular Marquee Tool create a shape and fill with Black color.

[5] Then go to Blending Option use the following settings.

[6] Your image should be look like this.

[7] Take the Shape and select this one.

[8] Set the Foreground Color see in the next image.

[9] Create a shape and fill the color.

[10] Take the Rectangular Marquee Tool create a shape and hit delete button on your keyboard.

[11] Now go to Blending Option and select Drop Shadow use these settings.

[12] Your will be look like this.

[13] Take the Text Tool create your text choose any color would your like.

[14] Then go to Blending Option and select Outer Glow use these settings.

[15] Your will be look like this.

[16] Take the Shape Tool and select this one.

[17] Now set the Foreground Color as shown image below.

[18] Create a new layer create a shape make the selection and fill the color.

[19] Make the copy of Previous shape layer.

[20] Create some text your final image is ready.