Photoshop Tutorials

Make a Sketchy Wallpaper for this Christmas

2012-12-23T15:24:00.001+07:00

This tutorial will show how we can create a sketchy wallpaper for Christmas this year! We shall cover watercoloring, pencil sketching and some simple lighting effects. It will be good if you are working with a pen and tablet.

Create a document of size 800×600 pixels. Make a new layer and create a gradient like what I did below. The colors used are, #02314F – #48C0ED – #001847 (from top to bottom).

Select the Brush tool and open up its Presets Brushes. Load the Wet Media Brushes and click on Append. Pick on the Watercolor Fat Tip.

Select the Gradient layer you made earlier and create a Layer Mask on it. Fill the mask with black and set the foreground color to white. Increase the Brush Size to 120px and Opacity to 60%. On the mask, paint several random horizontal strokes as shown below. Rename this layer as Sky.

Make a new layer above the Sky layer and name it as Snow Border. Using the same brush as the previous step, set the foreground color to white and Opacity to 100%. This time paint around the bottom area of the document. You can also touch up on the left and right borders.

Create a Levels Adjustments layer and set the values to 11, 0.5, 255.

Create a new layer above the Snow Border and name it as Slope. Reduce the Brush Size to 4px and Opacity to 100%. Sketch a slope like what I have done below. There is no hard rules on how to do the sketching, but will be much easier if you are using a pen tablet.

Create two slopes roughly the same size and place them side by side.

Create a new layer above the Slope and name it as Huts. Increase the Brush Size to 50px and Opacity to 50%. Briefly dot the areas on the slopes that you want the huts to be.

Then set the Brush Size to 4px and Opacity to 100%. Sketch a few huts like what I have done.

Create a new layer and name it as Snow. Using the same Brush settings, paint a few dots around to document.

Create a new layer and name it as Glitter. Draw a cross using the Pencil tool and fade the 4 corners with the Eraser.

Rotate the glitter to 45 degrees and duplicate several of it around the document.

Create a new layer and name it as Lens. Draw a large white circle and using the Eraser tool, fade the circle from its center point.

Duplicate several of this Lens layer and position them randomly over the document.

Create a new layer and name it as Santa Claus. Using the Brush tool with Size 4px and Opacity 100%, draw a brief outline of a Santa Claus.

Create a new layer below the outline and paint the white areas. Move your pen or mouse in circular motion so as to make the sketchy effect.

Repeat the same for the red areas.

Let us fill in the skin areas.

Follow by adding in the glasses.

Then we paint in some highlights and shadows.

Now select the Brush tool and pick on the preset Star 14 pixels brush. Open up the Brush Palette and key in the following settings.

Lastly, create a new layer and write your Christmas wishes to complete the design. Apply Outer Glow to the texts for a better result. That is all! Hope you enjoy the tutorial. Thanks for reading.

Writer : Tommy Kurniawan
Hello! My name is Tommy. I'm a blogger, I love graphics design and now i went to Architechture Technical Senior High School. | Facebook |
Source : 10steps.sg

Font Collections #1

2012-12-21T15:41:00.003+07:00

Some of these fonts can be used on your web projects, but check the terms. And if you're looking at a quick overview of web font formats, check out Jonathan Snook's post on font embedding.
So, without further ad
o, join us as we present you with 55 of the best free fonts, which you can download and try out today. Let us know how you get on!

01. Acorn

We love this handwriting-inspired font by William Suckling

A simple sans-serif hand drawn typeface, Acorn was designed by design student William Suckling. His design ethos, is to use only what is essential, no whistles or bells, just good, clean and fresh design, allowing ideas to take form without any fuss.
Acorn does just that; it's a simple, handwriting-inspired font that's perfect for any personal projects.
FORMAT: TTF

02. Benthem

This is a font that's perfect for headers or posters

Benthem is a custom font designed by Keith Hayden. It comes in both regular and bold types, making it great for headings and posters. Hailing from Kansas City, U.S.A. Keith has been working in design for a number of years and has quickly gained popularity on Behance.
FORMAT: OTF

03. Weston

Weston works on a pay-what-you-want basis

The main purpose is to provide designers with font, suitable for modification in logos and headlines. Combined wisely, Weston will spice up your design adding the “not-your-usual-font-choice” effect. Inspired by the evergreen Grover & Rockwell, Weston works on a pay-what-you-want basis, so we would always recommend that you donate towards the designer!
FORMAT: OTF

04. Locksmith

You can grab this gorgeous font for the mere price of a tweet!

This gorgeous font was created by California based designer Kenji Enos. Having worked on everything from print, web, motion graphics, animation, video editing and 3D modelling, it's clear that Kenji has some serious talents when it comes to typography. You can grab the regular format of Locksmith for the mere price of a Tweet or Facebook share!
FORMAT: TTF

05. RBNo2

You can grab the light and light alternative formats for free!

RBNo2 is inspired by late 19th century industrial fonts with german roots regarding straightness and geometry. Combined with other sans serifs, slab serifs and serif fonts it catches the eye when used in headlines and short copy texts.
Additonally to the regular styles the alternate versions will turn the font into a perfect partner for modern, technical and contemporary impressions as well as high quality, luxury and timeless environments. You can grab the light and light alternative formats for free!
FORMAT: TTF

06. Bariol

Bariol has already proved a massive hit with designers across the board

Designed by Spanish studio atipo, Bariol has already proved a massive hit with designers across the board. Crafted with versatily and readability in mind, the brand new, slightly rounded typeface is available in four weights.
The font is readable even at small scales and can be used as corporate typography, packaging design, infographics and even editorial design. You can download Bariol Regular & Italic for free by just paying with a Tweet or you can get the complete font family from as little as €3!
FORMAT: OTF

07. Dude

You can download the font for free or donate any price you wish

Dude is a reverse contrast cowboy font that's got true grit. It's not about weight, it's about style. Twelve different serif styles inspired by country music legends. Whiskey drinking, train hopping, fist fighting, hard loving, prison breaking, men and women, who poured their hearts out in song.
Designed by typographer and regular Lost Type contributor Dan Gneiding, Dude consists of uppercase, numerals and punctuation. You can download the font for free or donate any price you wish.
FORMAT: OTF

08. Miso

The Miso font was designed with architects in mind

Miso was designed for architect’s drawings by Mårten Nettelbladt. It’s a clean and narrow typeface that's suitable for small text but also for headlines and logos. The spacing of the font follows the logic of mono-stroke fonts as found in CAD software.
You can get the Miso font in chunky, bold, normal and light for absolutely free. If you want the chunky version you'll have to fork out a mere $10.
FORMAT: OTF, TTF

09. Blanch

The Blanch font was designed for the Fruita Blanca brand

Another font offering from those lovely folks at the Lost Type Co-op. Blanch is a display face, designed for the 'Fruita Blanch' brand, a family-run company.
A traditional font with a contemporary feel, The Blanch typeface family is comprised of six weights: three condensed weights and three caps weights. As always, you can download it for free but we would always encourage donating some pennies to the typographers!
FORMAT: OTF

10. Cubic Sans

Try to ignore the whole 'comic sans' inspired thing...

This may not be the most readable font we've ever come across but we think designers could have a lot of fun experimenting with this one. Just try to ignore the whole 'comic sans' inspired thing...
Created by Marc Vila, Cubic Sans is a new display font based on the original Comic Sans, created by modifing its strokes using a cube as a brush. It looks really geometric and gives the effect of a 3D typeface.
FORMAT: TTF

Writer : Tommy Timur. K
Hello! My name is Tommy. I'm a blogger, I love graphics design and now i went to Architechture Technical Senior High School. | Facebook |
Source : Creative Bloq

Burning Wishes – Abstract Photoshop Tutorial

2012-12-19T12:54:00.000+07:00

Stock used

Female model: http://angelcurioso.deviantart.com/art/dark-elegance-3-71561155
Crow: http://stockmichelle.deviantart.com/art/Black-Crow-in-flight-101574139
Optical Flare: http://www.psdbox.com/stock/high-quality-optical-flares
Particles: http://mediamilitia.com/particles-pack-25-free-images
3D Spheres: http://www.psdbox.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/spheres.png
Feathers: http://www.raduluchian.com

Brushes

Paint Brushes: http://www.bittbox.com/freebies/free-hi-res-watercolor-photoshop-brushes
Explosion brushes: http://twenstudio.com/freebies/explosion-brushes
More paint brushes: http://designm.ag/resources/watercolor-photoshop-brushes/

Step 1

I like to work with high resolution documents because it’s a lot better when you scale down the image for web presentation. So the canvas size I used for this one is 2800px width by 3500px height. Fill the background layer with color #ededed (we will tweak this in a moment)
Now open the woman stock and subtract the model from the background using the Pen Tool (P), the Quick Selection Tool, Magic Wand or whatever method you like. I always prefer the Pen Tool. You can cut the woman’s legs because we will mask the bottom part of her body anyways.

Step 2

Select the background layer which you filled with #ededed (unlock it if it’s locked) and go to Filter>Lens Correction and add some vignetting using the settings shown on image 2.

Step 3

Use the Pen Tool (P) with the “Shape” option active and create a shape as shown on image 3 and set the blend mode of the layer to Softlight and use 40% Opacity.

Step 4

Create a layer mask for the woman layer and use some of the splatter or grunge brushes provided or your own to mask the bottom edge of the woman’s body and parts on the back. Just try to create some random “destruction”.

Step 5

Make a new layer under the woman layer and paint some paint strokes as shown on image 5 using black color. Don’t use the same brush repeatedly, it will not look good. Change your brush several times and flip it if if you use it more than one time.

Step 6

Select the Line Tool (U) and draw a few lines at a 45º angle. You can do that by holding the Shift key while you draw the line. Use different weights (thickness) and lengths for each line so that you have some variation. The color used is black and they were drawn under the model layer.

Step 7

Create a few sharp angle triangles using the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L). Create the triangle selections and then simply fill them with black. Try to follow the same direction as the lines you drew on step 6 when distributing the triangles on the artwork. I placed some of the triangles above the woman’s layer as well to create some dimension.

Step 8

Open the crow stock image and subtract it from the background using any method you like but as you already know I prefer the Pen Tool (P). Once you’ve done that, paste it on your canvas as shown on image 8 (I scaled it down to 17% of its original size). Repeat the steps explained on Step 4 and Step 5. Use a layer mask to remove parts of the crow’s body and then paint a few splatters on a new layer below the crow.

Step 9

I created more particles using the explosion brush set and the image 23 from the Media Militia particles pack. I placed these particles above the woman’s layer.

Step 10

I used the 3D features of Photoshop to create 2 spheres with a checkerboard texture. Instead of showing you how I made that I prefer to give them to you. So download these shapes and place them on as shown in the image below. If you want you can create colored cubes or pyramids.

Step 11

Add some feathers from the provided sources and place them randomly on the scene. Apply some Gaussian Blur to a a couple of them so that you get an out of focus effect which gives the artwork more depth. Also make sure you completely desaturate the feathers.

Step 12

Add a new layer above the other layers and crate the first light effects using a big soft brush (I used a 1000px soft brush but remember that I’m working on a high resolution document).
Set the blend mode of this layer to Screen and paint a few colored lights like shown on image 12. Then duplicate the layer and change its blend mode to Color Dodge.

Step 13

You can add some more abstract details by using the Custom Shape Tool. I created two white triangles and set their blend mode to Soft Light.

Step 14

The last touches are given by more light effects which I made using a couple of images from my optical flare stock pack which I rotated at a 45º angle and set on Screen.

And that’s how you make a simple yet pretty nice abstract artwork with Photoshop using a few brushes and some light effects. Hope you enjoyed. Please share this tutorial if you liked it. Copying the entire tutorial outside PSD Box is not allowed. Please redirect to this page.

Final result

Author : Andrei Oprinca
Hello, my name is Andrei, I was born in 1988 and I'm a self taught graphic artist (I don't consider myself an artist though, I'll have to check for the definition of that). I write Photoshop tutorials about all the techniques I know and I also provide my brushes and also stock images and other resources. I hope you like my site.
Source : PSDbox

Create a Glowing Liquid Text with Water Splash Effect in Photoshop

2012-12-17T21:13:00.004+07:00

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stocks:
Ground texture
Water pattern image
Water splash brush

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1280px * 800px with black background. Load the Ground Texture stock image into Photoshop, and select a piece of the ground as shown below
:

Copy and paste the selection onto our document, use a soft eraser to remove the edges and some parts of the ground as shown below:

Add the following 3 adjustm
ent layers on top of the ground texture layer:
Black and White

Levels

Curves

Create a new layer on top and add some cloud effect over the ground with either a cloud brush or the cloud filter – this adds some dramatic effect into it:

Step 2

We will now add some text onto the document – I used the “Freestyle Script” font (should come with Photoshop):

Apply the following layer blending options to this text layer:
Bevel and Emboss

Color Overlay

Outer Glow

and you will have the following effect:

Step 3

We add some water pattern over the text – download the water pattern pack and choose one of the images, select a portion of it with any selection tool:

Copy and paste the selection over the text and set it as a clipping mask to the text layer:

We will go back to the water images and select a piece again, then copy and paste the selection and put it below the text layer, use the liquify filter’s forward warping tool to make it into a pattern as shown below:

This step can be a bit and you will probably need to have a few tries before getting it right. The effect below is the one you’re aiming to achieve:

Step 4

Load the water splash brush into Photoshop and paint some splash around the text, use a soft eraser to fade the edges of the splash for depth:

We will fine tune the colour effect a bit with the following image adjustment layer on top:
Selective Color
Cyans

Whites

Neutrals

Layer mask on the selective colour adjustment layer:

Curves

Layer mask on this curves adjustment layer:

Color Balance

and you will have the following final image: (click to enlarge)

That’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it and find it useful! Till next time, have a great day!

Writer : Tommy Kurniawan
Hello! My name is Tommy. I'm a blogger, I love graphics design and now i went to Architechture Technical Senior High School. | Facebook |
Source : PSDVault

80’s Style Design Using Photoshop

2012-12-16T13:10:00.002+07:00

Part 1: Creating The Main Text

Taking a canvas size of 1900 X 1200. Of course you could pick any size according to your preference, but make sure the resolution is decent enough.

Fill the background layer BLACK.

With the Text Tool type whatever you want the text to be. I chose “Leave, but don’t leave me”, from a Pink Floyd song. “But don’t leave me” is coming later. Right now we’ll work on “Leave”. The font I have used is Futura Heavy.

Right-click on the text layer, go to Blending Options to create Layer styles.
On the Layer style box, go to Gradient Overlay, tick it.
On the Gradient Overlay, we open the Gradient editor and make the New Custom Gradient as above. I have chosen shades of black, white and grey so that we can easily modify the colors later.

Then apply Stroke, and in the fill type, set it to Gradient, and choose the simple Black to White Gradient preset.

Next, make a new layer above the text layer, name it Gradient 1 (or anything you please). Fill it with a gradient. I used real bright colors, in honor of the 80’s.

The ‘Gradient 1′ layer is set to Soft Light mode, with an opacity of 72% (you can experiment with the modes, and opacity).

The above image shows you are current progress. We are beginning to have the 80’s looks to it.

Part 2: The Background

Next we are going to add a nice texture to the image. I have used a paper texture. You can find it here.
Select all (Ctrl/Cmd+A), copy the texture (Ctrl/Cmd+C) and paste it (Ctrl/Cmd+V) on your work. The Blend Mode is ‘Vivid Light’, and you can see we already have a great effect going.

Now it’s time to create a new brush to get a cloud effect; open up the Brush Engine, and use the following settings:

It’s a very useful brush, and can be used to make clouds in other work as well.
Now make a new layer “Clouds”, and paint with the brush you just created. Add a bit of Inner Shadow, to add more depth to the clouds.

Now change the order of layers, bring the ‘Clouds’ layer just above the Background. Also, the opacity of the ‘Clouds’ layer is Changed to 56%.

Now Ctrl/Cmd+Click the ‘Leave’ (Text) Layer, which selects the region of the text, and then go to the ‘Gradient 1′ layer and add a layer mask. This masks of the gradient from the rest of the image and leaves it on the Text.

Then we create a New Layer, Name it ‘Clouds 1′, Above the ‘Clouds’ layer. Make sure your foreground and background colors are Black & White, Go to Filter -> Render -> Clouds.

Keep the overlay mode as Vivid Light. Then in the Blending mode, add a Gradient Overlay, and use the following 2 colors for the gradient: #00fff0 and #e303bb.

Next we will add some stars to the background.
We now make a new layer above the ‘Cloud 1′ layer and fill it with Black. Then we go to Filter -> Noise -> Add Noise. Use Gaussian, Monochromatic, 10 % amount. There are various ways of making a star filled sky, this is the one I chose.

Next, choose Image -> Adjustment -> Levels and use the following values for Inputs: 65, 1.00, 99.

I have renamed the layer to Stars, and the blending mode is set as Screen.
Next we’ll add bigger glowing stars. Make the following brush using the brush engine:

Paint with varying brush sizes. Use the bracket keys ([ and ])to change the size quickly. Then add a Layer mask, and paint with black, using the same brush. This gets rid of some extra stars.

Now with a brush of 0% hardness and size of around 300, paint along the edges and get rid of some more stars, also add some Gaussian Blur if required.

Part 3: The 80’s Twinkle

It’s very simple to create the twinkle used in so many 80’s posters.

Take a soft brush, and just click once with it on a new layer, to create a soft circle.
Duplicate the layer, and go to Filter -> Blur -> Motion Blur, Angle 0 degree, Distance around 46 pixels.
Keep duplicating and adding motion blur 3 more times.
Then merge all these layers (5 of them). Go to Free Transform, and stretch it, it widen the glowing object.
Finally, duplicate the merged layer, Rotate by 90 degrees.

We have the twinkle now. We merge both layers, and name the new layer ‘Twinkle’.
Now we can use the ‘Twinkle’ layer where needed.

Duplicate the ‘Twinkle’ layer over the Text layer (rotated, transformed etc.) and place them on the text. This makes it shiny and 80’s!

Part 4: The shapes

Create a new layer for the shapes.
Using the polygon lasso tool, and create a selection in the shape shown above. Select the Gradient tool, and use a Gradient of color White (foreground color) and transparent. We fill the selection with this gradient.

Next, Duplicate the shape and shift it a bit. (Press Alt/Option and drag the shape). Merge the layers, and duplicate them. Then we flip them horizontally and create and new shape.

Orient the shapes in different directions and places, as shown below:

Then apply a Gradient Overlay, using Blending options on the few layers, with Hard Light as the Gradient Overlay Blend mode.

So, this is how it looks so far (below). We are almost done now. You can leave it right here, or make a few more adjustments.

I add the new Text layer, “But Don’t Leave Me”, and apply a stroke via the Blending options.

If you think the colors are too bright, you can add a Hue/Saturation mask on the top of the layer stack, and lower the saturation to somewhere around -15.

The final image:

Hope you had a lot of fun going through this tutorial. A big thanks to the guys at GoMedia, for making this possible. Cheers!

Author : Rahul Jha
Source : gomediazine

Add Brilliant Light Effects To Your Work With Photoshop

2012-12-14T18:32:00.002+07:00

Tutorial Resources

Blanched Paper Textures from WeGraphics
Dancer from Shutterstock
light_effects_custombrushes (ZIP, 26.1 MB)

Step 1: Set up the background

Let’s start the tutorial by creating a new document (Ctrl/Cmd + N) in Photoshop. Since I like printing my work, I will typically choose a large standard document size (like A4) and set the Resolution at 300 pixels/inch
.

Once the new Photoshop document has been created, fill (Edit > Fill) the default Background layer with a dark blue (#052b4c).
I start my work from the background. If you do the same, I suggest that you don’t give too much importance to your starting colors because we can change them later on once we have completed our foreground work. The most important thing at the beginning is to achieve a concept—something interesting to represent. The beauty of Photoshop is that it allows you to change colors and other aspects of your work at any moment. The best moment to work with colors is when you have more elements to play with, near the end.
Let us start by creating a new layer (Crtl/Cmd + Shift + N). Next, set white (#ffffff) as your Foreground color and then select a large, soft brush tip with Hardness at 0% for our Brush Tool (B).
Simply click once at the center of the canvas to apply your brush stroke.

Step 2: Create a simple ellipse light effect

Since the scene is focused at the center of the canvas, we are going to create a light effect that will enhance all elements that will be placed there. Press Ctrl/Cmd + T to activate the Free Transform command and contract the light source so that it becomes an ellipse.
Then, remove the edges of the brush stroke using the Eraser Tool (E) (or use a layer mask, if you want).

Step 3: Create some clouds

We will now make some clouds. Make sure to have white (#ffffff) as foreground color and black (#000000) as your background color; you can press the D key to reset your foreground/background color to white/black and then press X to switch foreground and background colors.
Create a new layer and then go to Filter > Render > Clouds.

Activate the Free Transform command (Ctrl/Cmd+T) and enlarge the clouds layer by pulling on one of the corner transform controls.

Switch the layer’s blending mode to Screen to remove black parts of the clouds layer and also reduce the layer’s Opacity to around 30%.

To make the clouds more realistic, use the Eraser Tool (E) to remove some parts to make it look randomized. As always, use a large, soft brush with a Hardness set at 0%.
Just to recap our simple five-step clouds creation process:

Create a new layer and apply the clouds filter
Enlarge the layer
Switch the layer blending mode to screen
Reduce opacity
Remove unwanted parts

Repeat the same process to create other clouds. Try experimenting with different layer dimensions and opacity. This is what I ended up with:

Step 4: Select and prepare your subject

Choose a nice subject for your work. I chose this nice image of a dancer, but you can pick any image that you like or have lying around.
Since we will create light effects to play with, I suggest you pick a dynamic moving subject such as a person jumping, an animal running, or a rock star jamming.
Once you’ve chosen your subject, copy and paste (Ctrl/Cmd + V) it into the canvas.

At this point, we have to modify the dancer. In particular, the aim is to increase the image contrast and to give the subject a grungier look. We can achieve both these results with a texture.
Firsst, you must download the free sample of my Bleached Paper Texture set, open it in Photoshop, and paste it into our document. Also, you can check out the Design Instruct Freebie section for other interesting textures to use.
Resize the texture with Free Transform (Ctrl/Cmd + T) so that it’s of the same size as our canvas.

Step 5: Apply a clipping mask on the texture layer

We want to apply our texture only to the subject. For this purpose, we can create a clipping mask. To do so, press Alt/Option and then click between the subject’s layer and the texture layer in the Layers Panel. A little arrow should appear and the texture layer’s name will move a bit to the right inside the Layers Panel indicating that you have added a clipping mask.
The clipping mask means that all the things we do in the texture layer will affect only the area delimited by dancer’s silhouette.

Switch the texture layer’s blending mode to Overlay and reduce the Opacity to 70%.

Step 6: Change the texture’s color

You can see how the texture details nicely interact with the human body. If you zoom in (press Z to activate the Zoom Tool, and then click on the canvas), you will notice that the grunge texture looks like veins. I want to play around with this idea/concept.
Let’s change the texture’s color. Press Ctrl/Cmd + U to open the Hue/Saturation dialog window. Check the Colorize option and move the hue slider to the area between purple and red.

Now create a mask on top of the texture layer by pressing the Add Layer Mask button at the bottom of the Layers Panel.
Next, grab a soft, black brush for our Brush Tool (B) and remove textures from some parts of the body. The image below will show you suggested parts to paint on:

Step 7: Add a vivid light effect

It’s time to add a more brilliant and prominent light effect. Right-click on the subject’s layer in the Layers Panel and then choose Blending Options from the contextual menu.
Add an Outer Glow layer style. Increase the Size of the outer glow to around 200px and set Blend Mode to Color Dodge.

The light effect you see at the top is the result of the combination between the ellipse light effect we created at the beginning and the Outer Glow layer style.
If you want to change the orientation of this effect, simply move the elliptical lighting effect layer around.

Step 8: Create an abstract Photoshop brush

Here comes the fun part. There are plenty of ways to create light effects. In this tutorial, I’ll show you one of the simplest methods. We will make abstract fractals for our custom brushes and then we will use these brushes to add lights into our work.
In order to create nice abstract fractal effect, we will use the flame tool, which is a free online tool made by Peter Blaskovic. This tool is amazing!

Create you own flames and save them to your computer. Use default colors and once finished, just press Save. Save your flame as a JPG image.
Open one of the flames you just created in Photoshop. We are going to create a cool brush set with these.

Desaturate the image by going to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate (Shift + Ctrl/Cmd + U).
Then invert the image by going to Image > Adjustments > Invert (Ctrl/Cmd + I). We invert the images because while you create Photoshop brushes, you have to consider that the white parts will be transparent and the blacker parts will represent the brush stroke. The parts that are in grayscale will therefore be the only ones saved as brushes.
Here is the result:

To save the brush, go to Edit > Define Brush Preset.
We have thus created the first brush of the set! Go ahead and create other brushes following the same process.

Step 9: Apply the custom abstract Photoshop brush

Create a new layer group (Ctrl/Cmd + G) and title it "light effect". Set the group’s blending mode to Color Dodge. Create a new layer (Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + N) inside the "light effect" group, set your Foreground color to white (#ffffff), and then click on the canvas to apply our custom abstract brush stroke.
Here is your light effect! Really simple, don’t you agree? I promised it would only take 10 minutes!
If you want a stronger light effect, duplicate the layer (Ctrl/Cmd + J) and experiment with the layer’s blending mode.

You can now use all the brushes of the brush set you created. Try to combine them in harmony with the body of the subject.
Also try this: Create a new layer, apply an abstract brush stroke, then rotate it with the Free Transform command (Ctrl/Cmd + T). You can also flip the layer (Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal or Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical). This can add variety to your abstract light effects.
Remember to create each brush stroke on a different layer so that you can move them separately to achieve a satisfactory composition.
Here is the result after I played around with all the brushes of my own set.

Step 10: Add more light effects

Still inside our "light effect" layer group, create a new layer (Ctrl/Cmd + J). This time we will use soft brushes to enhance some parts of the body. For example, take a look at the left hand of the dancer—it’s covered by some light beams. We can start there. Add more light where you think it’s necessary.

Step 11: Make energy particles

We will now create energy particles to detail our light effects. Create another layer inside the same group. Select the 16px Soft Mechanical tip.

Next, we will modify the Brushes options. If it’s not opened, toggle the Brushes Panel (Window > Brushes).
Check the Spacing option and increase its value to 400%.

Then, check the Shape Dynamic and set its options to the following values:

Finally, check Scattering and use the following suggested settings:

All that remains now is to paint over the canvas to create our energy particles. I suggest adding the energy particles on their own layers to compartmentalize our work. To increase the brightness and prominence of the energy particles, you can add an Outer Glow layer style to them.

Step 12: Final adjustments

Our work is almost complete. As I wrote at beginning of the tutorial, Photoshop allows us to play with colors at any moment.
In another tutorial I wrote here on Design Instruct, I showed you the power of adjustment layers in Photoshop and how they can dramatically change our work. We will now follow a similar process to complete the work.

Hue/Saturation adjustment layer

Let’s start by desaturating our image a bit. This is something I often do because I’ll apply a Gradient Map later (with its blending mode set at Overlay) that will increase color contrast.
Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation and reduce Saturation to -40.
Note that you can also add adjustment layers by clicking on the Create new fill or layer adjustment button located at the bottom of the Layers Panel.

Curves adjustment layer

Increase the image’s contrast using a Curves adjustment layer. Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves. Create a curve as shown in the image below:

Gradient Map adjustment layer

Finally, add a Gradient Map adjustment layer. Set the color gradient so that it goes from purple (#6f156c) to yellow (#f9e600).

Afterwards, set the adjustment layer’s blending mode to Overlay and reduce its Opacity to 50%.
That’s it. We’re done!

Tutorial Summary

I showed you a variety of light effect techniques in this tutorial. We applied a simple light effect glow using a soft, white brush. Then we stepped it up a notch by adding an Outer Glow layer style on our subject. We created custom abstract light brushes as well as energy particles to enhance the look of our light effects. We applied a clipping mask to our subject for artistic purposes. To finish off our composition, we added some adjustment layers.
I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial and learned a few tricks for adding light effects on your own work.
Here is the final result:

Author : Sebastiano Guerriero
Sebastiano Guerriero is a 23-year-old Italian Graphic Designer who's spent the last two years studying graphics by himself. He's the author of WeGraphics, a blog that publishes graphic design tutorials, articles about Graphic Design, and graphic design freebies. You can follow him on Twitter (his username is @wegraphics).
Source : Design Instruct

Brush Collections #2

2012-12-05T22:18:00.000+07:00

1. Abstract brushes from Rubina – (6 brushes)

2. Veruct Brushes by Disporatik (8 brushes)

3. Starwalt Abstract light brushes by gigistar (6 brushes)

4. Abstract splash brushes by Rce-Ordinary (12 brushes)

5. Ecol Brushes by Rubina (6 brushes)

6. Silicon Brushes by Axeraider (5 brushes)

7. Abstract Brushes by Metal-CX (8 brushes)

8. Fractal Chaos by Javier ZhX (10 brushes)

9. Dawn Brushes by differentxdreamz (12 brushes)

10. Serenity Brushes by Axeraider (15 brushes)

Writer : Tommy Kurniawan
Hello! My name is Tommy. I'm a blogger, I love graphics design and now i went to Architechture Technical Senior High School. Join me on facebook!
Source : The Design Mag

Dramatic Text on Fire Effect

2012-12-04T20:21:00.000+07:00

Part 1— The Background

So create a new document in Photoshop at 1920px wide x 1200px high, and with the Gradient Tool (G), draw in a radial gradient of browns (#5c3d09 to #1f1409) so you get something like what is shown below.
Notice that the gradient is not centered vertically but sits toward the top. In this image we want the top of the text to be on fire, so the top part of the image sh
ould be a bit more lit up.

Step 2

As in the grass text tutorial, once again we’re going to have a textured background. But rather than starting from scratch, I just copied the background from the previous tutorial, merged all the layers and desaturated to get what you see below.
If you need to make this from scratch, first visit Bittbox to get the original paper textures and then follow the previous tutorial’s steps.

Step 3

Now we set the layer to Overlay and to blend the texture into the background and voila!

Step 4

Just to add a bit more texture though, let’s run the Texturizer filter. To do this, create a new layer and fill it with a brown/beige color—#66500f. Then go to Filter > Texture > Texturizer and use the Canvas texture with 80% Scaling and Relief set to 4.

Step 5

Once you have your texturized layer, set that to Overlay. This adds some extra fine detail to our texture which is good because we’re working on such a big canvas.

Step 6

Next we’re going to apply a layer to slightly desaturate the bottom half of the image. This is so that the top looks like it has a warmer glow where the flames are, while the bottom looks a little colder.
So create a new layer and fill it with the color #4b4f3b. Then add a layer mask with a gradient to mask out the top and fade down (so you get the effect shown).
Now set the layer to Color and 45% Opacity.

Part 2—Text + Glow = Awesomeness

OK, we now have a nice background! So let’s add some text. I’ve used the font Trajan because it’s a really dramatic looking font. Here I’ve placed the text in the color #cb9328, then set it to Linear Dodge (Add) with an Opacity of 8%.
What we’re going to be doing with our text is making it look like the top half of the text is coming out of the background and is red hot with flames flickering off. This means we’re going to run a lot of effects and apply layer masks to them so that only the top half shows while the bottom half reverts to faded out text like we have currently.

Step 8

So first create a new layer group to put all the text layers in—because there will be a lot of them.
Then duplicate the text layer and set the color of the duplicate text to #5e3f1c.

Step 9

Now set the newest text layer to Overlay and 70% Opacity. It should look kind of reddish (as shown below).

Step 10

Now duplicate the text again and set the latest duplicate to a yellowish color—#cb9328. Then set this to Linear Dodge (Add) and Opacity 30%.
Next we add a layer mask and draw a gradient so the latest text layer fades out as shown below, and beneath you can see the reddish colored combination of the bottom two text layers.

Step 11

Next we duplicate the text layer yet again, but put this layer right on the bottom. Set the color to black—#000000. Then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and it will ask you to rasterize the text, click yes to that, and then set the Radius to about 4px.
Then Ctrl-click any of the other text layers and go back to the black layer and hit delete so you are just left with a sort of shadow. Then duplicate this layer and merge it with the first so the effect is heavier. You should have something that looks like the screenshot below.

Step 12

Once again, add a layer mask so the shadow quickly fades out as shown. This makes it look like the text is coming out of the page.

Step 13

Now duplicate our black layer again and using the Smudge Tool (R) and a largish soft brush you want to just smudge the shadow around so it looks like burn marks.

Step 14

Here’s how our text is looking now. I actually created two sets of "burn" marks, and then four sets of the shadow layer each blurred a little more than the last and each faded back.

Step 15

Now it’s time to make the top part of our text glow. So first of all, duplicate the text layer again and place this layer at the very top and set it to a yellow color—#dc9a08.
Then run a Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur over it with Radius of 8px. Then grab a large soft eraser brush and just erase away parts at the bottom so it’s kind of uneven.

Step 16

Set our first glow layer to Soft Light. You might want to repeat the process, erasing even more so the top part is even glowier.

Step 17

Now duplicate the text layer yet again and place this at the very top. This one should be again the same yellow (#dc9a08).
Then go to Layer > Rasterize > Type and turn the text into a flat graphic. Then Ctrl-click the layer and go to Select > Modify > Contract and use a value of 1px. Then press Delete to delete everything except that 1px outline.

Step 18Now set the 1px layer to Overlay, and you should have something like the image below.

Step 19

Now to our 1px glow add a layer mask to fade it out down the bottom as we’ve been doing with the other layers.
Then duplicate the layer, and run a Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur set to 1px. Then duplicate this layer again and blur it by 2px. Then duplicate the layer again and blur it by 4px.

Then Ctrl-click any of the text layers, press Ctrl+Shift+I to inverse the selection and go through each of the glow layers and press Delete to remove any of the blur that has strayed out of the boundary of the text.
The idea is that we want the edges of the text to look red-hot with it fading in to an overall hot glow on the text.

Step 20

Next we duplicate all four of the glow layers and merge them together. This should result in a layer on top which is the original bright yellow.
Grab the Smudge Tool and run over the text, smudging it up to look like heat waves coming off the text, as shown.

Step 21

Now set this latest layer to Overlay and you should have something looking like this!

Step 22

Now we’ve pretty much finished our text. I went through and duplicated some of the glow layers to make it look even more fiery. Feel free to experiment with getting a real red-hot glow look by doing so.

Step 23

Next, in keeping with the last wallpaper, I’ve gone and added a quote underneath my main text. This provides a nice embellishment to the page. Try to use colors that fit in with the background and text layer so it doesn’t stand out too much, because we really want this to be a secondary element to the main text. I’ve used Swiss Light Condensed as my font and laid it out just like in the previous Grass Text tutorial.

Part 3—The Flames

Finally, with all our preparation done, it’s time to add the actual flames! For this, we need some images of fire set against a plain black background. A good photo is hard to find, and try as I did, I couldn’t find a really great free photo. So in the end I used this photo from Fotolia which you can purchase using the link below. There was also an OK photo from Flickr which I’ve also linked to and which I ended up using later for the "E". So you might want to grab that too.
AcheroN—Fotolia.com
Peasap—Flickr.com
Now the technique for copying the flames over is actually really simple. I actually only learned this technique recently when reading one of Nik Ainley‘s tutorials for DigitalArts magazine called Create Amazing Photomontages where he did it with water.
What you need to do is:

Open up the flame image in Photoshop
Go to the Channels tab and find the channel with the highest contrast, which for images of fire should be the Red Channel, and click on it
This will make your image appear black and white, and because we’re on the highest contrast layer, it will seem really bright white. Now Ctrl-click this channel and it will select all the pixels in that channel.
Click back to the RGB channel and copy the selected pixels
You can now paste the flames into your main canvas!

This is actually a really, really useful technique for copying something translucent like fire off a flat background. And as you’ll see by visiting Nik’s tutorial, it’s also great for copying water!

Step 25

OK, so here we’ve pasted the flames on to our main canvas. (For clarity I’ve also temporarily switched off the text layers). As you can see, we’ve got the fire without the black background and it’s partially transparent, which means it’ll look super on top of our text.

Step 26

Now the next thing to do is to cut up our one bit of fire into a few pieces. Just duplicate the layer and switch off one as a backup first. Then using the Pen Tool, cut up the fire so you work with the contours of the flame so it looks natural. Here you can see I’ve produced four pieces of flame from the one image. You can also try flipping bits around to make them seem more random.
Set the layers to Screen mode so that any remaining black parts are totally gone, and it’s even more transparent.

Step 27

Now because my text is just four letters, I need four separate pieces of fire. For the fourth one (on top of the E) I actually grabbed that Flickr photo and repeated the same process as earlier to create another flame. Also the fire on the letter I has been squashed a little as well to make it look more random.

Step 28

Applying the fire is really as easy as moving the flames over the text. You want to try to match the flames to the shape of the letter so it looks like they are dancing off the letters.

Step 29

OK here I’ve placed all four bits of flame over the top. It’s not bad, but you can see that the I and the R have the same flame and also all the flames aren’t very tall.

Step 30

So here I’ve gone through each flame and using the Transform Tool stretched them vertically. Also I used a bit of judicious erasing to make the flame on the I look a little more unique.

Step 31

Now to make them look even more lit up, duplicate each flame layer, run a Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur with a Radius of 3px and set the layer to 15% Opacity so it provides a bit of glow around the edges of the flames.

Step 32

So we’re pretty much there! This is how the composition looks.

Step 33

Finally we’ll add a last highlight. So create a new layer above all the others and draw in a white to black radial gradient as shown. Set this layer to Overlay and 40% Opacity.

Finished!

And there we have it, a text on fire effect! In the next tutorial in the series, we’ll be producing the Air image, however it’ll be in two weeks, not one—as I’m taking a few days off work!
If you’re interested in creating flames from scratch in Photoshop, you might also like to check out this classic tutorial that coincidentally uses the exact same typeface! It’s a Photoshop 6 tutorial, and I can still remember reading it like a half decade ago, but it’s still very relevant, even if the screenshots feature a super retro Mac interface.

Author : Collis
Hello! I started Psdtuts+ because years ago reading Photoshop tutorials was how I got into design. You can find me on Twitter or on my blog theNetsetter.
Source : Dramatic Text on Fire Effect in Photoshop

Create a Studio Sports Portrait

2012-12-02T12:31:00.001+07:00

Tutorial Assets

The following assets were used during the production of this tutorial.

Introduction

This is probably one of the hottest compositing trends today. A lot of photographers are now choosing to photograph athletes in a studio and then composite them into a background that’s more fitting to their sport, or simply more dramatic. Whether it’s for an advertisement (Nike and Under Armour do it all the time), or whether th
e athlete just wants a great photo of themselves, shooting this way offers a ton of opportunities. Plus, it makes things a lot easier if you don’t have access to some of the cool locations that you’d ideally like to shoot in.

Prepping the Background

As always, our background is almost just as important as the portrait itself. After all, we’re doing all this work so that we can put them into a really cool place, so it’s worth spending some time to set this up. We’ll have to combine a few elements to make this background. First, we’ll need a road that has the correct perspective to it. Since we’ll be including our subject’s feet, this part is really important. Then, we’ll need a city skyline for the background. Throw in some dramatic clouds (I love clouds, if you haven’t realized) and you’re good to go.

Step 1

Open the photo of the road. The first thing we’ll need to do is extend the canvas, since we’ll be adding some buildings and sky to it. You’ll see later that this is sort of a ballpark size for now. It gives us some room to work with, but you can always crop it later if you’d like, depending on the end result. Go to Image > Canvas Size, and in the dialog, make sure the Relative checkbox is turned off, then change the Width and Height unit pop-up menus to Pixels. Let’s keep the Width the same, but increase the Height to 4200. Also, go to the Anchor grid, at the bottom of the dialog, and click the bottom-middle square to keep the road anchored at the bottom of the image and only extend the canvas toward the top. Click OK when you’re done.

Step 2

Press W to get the Quick Selection tool. Then, brush over the sky and solid area at the top of the image to select it. Don’t worry about refining it with the Refine Edge dialog, because it’s in the background and we’ll never really see any detailed area back there.

Step 3

Open the clouds photo. Go to Edit > Select All to select the entire photo, and then to Edit > Copy to copy it. Switch back over to the background image (where we already have an active selection from the last step), and go to Edit > Paste Special > Paste Into to paste the clouds into the selection. This automatically creates a layer mask, so the clouds only appear in the top of the photo.

Step 4

Open the photo of the city skyline. Use the Quick Selection tool to select the buildings. Make sure you zoom in and use a smaller brush to get all the tiny edges that the Quick Selection tool probably won’t pick up on the first pass. Remember, you can Option-click (PC: Alt-click) to remove anything it selected that you didn’t want selected. Then, click the Refine Edge button up top in the Options Bar. Since there are lots of tiny little details around the edges of the buildings that we’ll want to select, turn on the Smart Radius checkbox, so that Photoshop will look outside of the selected edge for them. Then, set the Radius to 10 pixels, set the Output To setting to Layer Mask, and click OK.

Step 5

To copy the city photo, we have to use a different command because it has a layer mask with it. So, go to Select > All to select everything, then Edit > Copy Merged to copy the photo. This copies exactly what you see onscreen with the transparent sky. Go back to the background image and Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) on the layer mask of the clouds layer to put a selection around the sky once again. Then go to Edit > Paste Special > Paste Into to paste the city skyline into our background image. Use the Move tool (V) to move it into place. Because the Paste Into command automatically created a layer mask, you don’t have to worry about moving it over the road. It’ll automatically stay hidden from the bottom of the photo.
Tip: Reselecting the Same Area. If you want to reselect the same area you previously had selected, go to Select > Reselect and Photoshop will automatically bring up your last selection.

Step 6

Next, we’ll add some contrast and darken the city a little. Click on the Create New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose Curves. Click in the middle of the curve and drag it downward. Then, click on the Create a Clipping Mask icon at the bottom of the Adjustments panel (it’s the third icon from the left, and looks like an Oreo cookie with the top being pulled off). While you’re at it, let’s darken the road, too. Just press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key and drag the Curves adjustment layer you just created down above the road layer. Holding the Option key copies (not moves) the adjustment layer to wherever you drag it.

Step 7

There are some pretty bright clouds and light coming from behind the city, but we don’t see any of it, and we really want to take people’s attention off the city. Press G to select the Gradient tool from the Toolbox. Click on the down-facing arrow next to the gradient thumbnail in the Options Bar to open the Gradient Picker, and choose the second gradient from the top left, which is Foreground to Transparent (circled here). Immediately to the right of the Gradient Picker are the gradient type icons. Click on the Reflected icon (the second from the right), then set your Foreground color to white by pressing D, then X.

Step 8

Click on the Create a New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel to create a new blank layer. Then, position your cursor in the middle of the buildings and click-and-drag downward to the bottom to add the gradient on this layer. It creates a white gradient in the middle, and the gradient appears to fall off as it gets further away from the middle. This gives the appearance of adding a lot of light to the background. If it’s too bright, then reduce the Opacity of the layer to around 70%. It’s a bright light wash like this that lets us “sell” the composite more easily and keep the focus on the subject that we’ll eventually be adding. When you’re done, go to File > Save and save this as a PSD file.

The Portrait Setup and Extraction

If you’re shooting this type of photo with processing it in Photoshop in mind, one of the best things you can do is give yourself a lot of options. Get multiple poses and multiple angles, so you have more options in Photoshop later. Set up one pose and fire off two photos. Then, have the model move and fire two more off. Then, change your angle and get down lower. Don’t overshoot the same pose. Constantly move and constantly have the model move. That way, when you’re done, you have lots of photos to work with and lots of options for compositing, depending on the background you choose.

Step 9

Here’s a photo of the studio setup for this example. You can see the two strip lights with grids on the sides. Directly in front of him is a beauty dish with a diffuser on it. This gives us that nice edge light, which is not only great for adding some mood to the photo, but also helps us extract the photo from the background a lot faster.

Step 10

Just so you know, I’ll typically take at least 100 photos during a shoot like this. Sometimes I know exactly what I’m looking for, and I’ll start with a certain pose. Sometimes I don’t, so I’ll take a bunch of different poses from different angles. In this example, I kinda knew the general pose I wanted. It was a low camera angle with him either bouncing the ball or slamming it on the ground. However, I wasn’t sure what background I was using yet, so I made sure to take a few different angles of the same photo. Some were close up at a wide-angle focal length, and some were pulled back a bit for a more normal view. You can see a few of them here in my Lightroom window.

Step 11

Go ahead and open the photo we’ll be working with. As you can see here, I opted for the wider-angle close-up photo of the basketball player. The photo will open in the Camera Raw window. Right off the bat, I can tell it’s a little warm, but I’m not going to make any adjustments yet. We’ll want to make sure we give ourselves a way back and forth to Camera Raw, so press-and-hold the Shift key and click the Open Object button at the bottom right of the dialog to open the photo as a Smart Object. This way, when we see the photo in the final composite, we can always double-click on its thumbnail to come back to Camera Raw and make adjustments.

Step 12

Press W to get the Quick Selection tool, and start painting a selection on the basketball player. And, because I’ve said it so many times before, I won’t even mention here that you should zoom in and use a smaller brush to make sure you get all the details around him (oops, I said it, didn’t I?). Anyway, since he’s wearing such dark clothes that contrast with the background, the Quick Selection tool should make a good selection pretty easily here. Once you’ve got the general outline, zoom in to the feet and get them as close to perfect as possible, because that’s a key area to pull off the composite and make it look real. If you over-select an area, then press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key to subtract from the selection.

Step 13

When you’re ready, click the Refine Edge button up in the Options Bar and then press the W key to change the View setting to white. Since we have hair in this one, turn on the Smart Radius checkbox and set the Radius to 10 pixels to try to pick up the edges. Now, move your cursor over the photo and brush around his hair at the top of his head, as well as along his arms and legs to get all the details. Set the Output To setting to Layer Mask, and click OK when you’re done. You’ll have one layer in the Layers panel with a layer mask attached to it. Don’t forget, if any of the edges seemed to have dropped out, you can get the Brush tool (B), set the Mode in the Options Bar to Overlay, set your Foreground color to white, and paint over those edges on the layer mask to bring them back. Go to File > Save, save it as a PSD, and get ready to move on to the composite.

Creating the Composite

This composite was a lot of fun to create. Once the background is done and the athlete is selected, our main goal is to make him fit into the final image. Because you often need to actually put someone on to the background before you can figure out what to change, I used a Smart Object and Camera Raw to help out a lot. After that, the shadows on the ground played a huge part of pulling this one off. And perhaps the most fun part for me was the cracked concrete on the ground. It really helps to add to the intensity of the overall image.

Step 14

Open the background image we created earlier. If you didn’t follow along, don’t sweat it. The finished background is ready for you to download. If you did follow along, though, then go to Layer > Flatten Image to flatten all of your layers into one.

Step 15

Now, open the selected basketball player. Again, if you didn’t follow along, just download the image and you’ll already have the selection done for you. First, we need to move him, so press V to get the Move tool and drag him onto the background image.

Step 16

He’s a little too bright to fit into the background right now, so let’s fix that first. Double-click on his layer thumbnail to reopen the photo in Camera Raw. Reduce the Exposure to around -0.80, increase the Fill Light to 70 to bring out some details in the shadows, and reduce the Vibrance to -26 to take some of that color away from the photo. Don’t click OK yet. We still have one more change to make.

Step 17

His arms, legs, and shoes are still too bright compared to the rest of the photo. So press K to select the Adjustment Brush tool from the toolbar up top. First, set the Exposure to -0.10 and the Brightness to -5, then paint over his arms (including the ball) and his legs. Don’t worry about being precise, because we won’t see any of the spillover, since he’s already selected.

Then, click the New radio button at the top of the Adjustment Brush options, so we can create a new adjustment and darken his feet separately. Set the Exposure to -1.05 and the Brightness to -20. When you’re done, click OK to go back to Photoshop.

Step 18

Next, we’re going to use a trick we used in a few other tutorials to give a slightly desaturated and edgy look to the athlete. Right-click on the layer and choose New Smart Object via Copy to make a copy of the original Smart Object layer. Double-click on the new layer’s image thumbnail to reopen it in Camera Raw, go to the HSL/Grayscale panel (the fourth icon from the left, shown circled here), and turn on the Convert to Grayscale checkbox to remove all of the color.

Step 19

Go back to the Basic panel and reduce the Exposure setting to -0.45. Set the Fill Light slider to 100 to really open the shadowy areas, set the Blacks to 10 to darken the blacks a little more, then set Contrast to 0, and Clarity to 35. Finally, press K again to get the Adjustment Brush and then press the Clear All button at the bottom right to remove all of the selective adjustments we created earlier. Click OK when you’re done. To complete the edgy effect, change the layer’s blend mode to Hard Light.

Step 20

Let’s warm him up a little to add to the fiery mood that the photo is building. Click on the Create New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and select Photo Filter. Make sure the Filter pop-up menu is set to Warming Filter (85), then click the Color radio button and increase the Density to 55%. Next, add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and set the Saturation to -60 to decrease it just a little more. Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) on each adjustment layer in the Layers panel to select them both, and go to Layer > Create Clipping Mask to force each one to clip to the layer right below them.

Step 21

It’s time for some shadows. Click on the Create a New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and drag the new layer below both of the basketball player layers. Press B to select the Brush tool from the Toolbox and choose a small, soft-edged brush. Make sure your Foreground color is set to black, set the Opacity to 75% up in the Options Bar, and paint a dark, hard shadow that comes out from under both of his feet and the basketball. It doesn’t have to spread too far away from the feet, though. Remember, it’s just a shadow that his shoes are casting on the ground.

Step 22

Create another new layer on top of the last one. This time, press the Right Bracket key to make your brush larger and set the Opacity to 10%. Now, paint some more shadow areas on the ground in front of him. There’s a light source coming from behind him, so we want to make sure we’re casting some shadow on the ground in front. Since you’re painting with a 10% opacity brush, the more you paint, the darker it’ll get, and you’ll be able to build up the effect. Also, it’s a good idea to start double-clicking on the name of each layer and giving them more descriptive names at this point.
Tip: Save Your File Regularly. If you haven’t already, it’s probably a good idea to go to File > Save to save the image as a PSD file in case Photoshop or your computer accidentally crashes. In fact, I press the shortcut for Save (Command-S [PC: Ctrl-S]) all the time, just to make sure I’m always covered.

Step 23

Now, it’s time for some really cool stuff. I photographed him in this pose specifically because I had the idea that I wanted to make it look like the ball was being slammed into the ground. In order to do that, we’ll need a photo of some damaged concrete. Go ahead and open the damaged concrete photo and use the Move tool to drag it into the composite. Make sure you position it directly above the Background layer, but below all of the other layers. Don’t close the concrete image yet, because we’ll need it again.

Step 24

Of course, it doesn’t fit yet, so we’ll have to transform it. Press Command-T (PC: Ctrl-T) to go into Free Transform mode. Press-and-hold the Command (PC: Ctrl) key, click on the top-left corner handle, and drag in toward the center. Then Command-click the top-right corner handle and do the same. Drag the top-middle handle down a little to make it seem like the cracks have the same perspective as the road. Also, you’ll want to position the cracks in the ground so that the hole appears as if it’s under the basketball. When you’re done, press Return (PC: Enter) to lock in the transformation.

Step 25

Change the blend mode of the concrete layer to Hard Light. This fades the actual concrete portion of the layer into the original road, and just leaves the cracks. Sometimes, the Multiply blend mode works, too, and sometimes it may be Soft Light or Overlay. Depending on the color, you’ll have to experiment with which one works best.

Step 26

Click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel to create a layer mask for this layer. Press B to get the Brush tool, make sure your Foreground color is set to black, and paint with a small, soft-edged brush set to a low Opacity to fade away the edges of the cracked concrete image, so it blends better with the road around it.

Step 27

Remember how I asked you not to close the concrete image yet? Well, go back to the original cracked concrete photo and go to Image > Image Rotation > Flip Canvas Horizontal. This way, the cracks will go out in another direction. Then, drag it into the composite and repeat Steps 11-13. Also, rename these layers, so you know which one is which.

Step 28

If we want the ball to look like it’s sunk into the ground, then we have to hide part of it. Create a new blank layer at the very top of the layer stack. Press S to get the Clone Stamp tool and make sure that the Sample pop-up menu is set to All Layers in the Options Bar up top. Option-click (PC: Alt-click) on an area of concrete with cracks on it to sample the texture. Then, start brushing upward with a small, hard-edged brush to cover the bottom of the basketball. You may have to Option-click a few more times as you’re painting to continue to pull in the right texture from the ground.

Step 29

Press O to get the Dodge tool. Up in the Options Bar, set the Range to Midtones and the Exposure to 20%, and use a small brush to paint along the very top edge of the concrete you just created to add a highlight. Then press Shift-O to get the Burn tool. Use the same settings and paint to darken the concrete, so it appears the ball is casting a slight shadow on the ground.

Step 30

Next, we’ll add some light from behind him. As you can see, the sky is pretty bright on the middle left of the photo, so we’ll work with that. Create another new blank layer at the top of the layer stack and go to Edit > Fill. Set the Use setting to Black and click OK to fill the layer with black. Then go to Filter > Render > Lens Flare. Set the Brightness to 140%, the Lens Type to 105mm Prime, then position the lens flare on the middle left, and click OK. Change the layer’s blend mode to Screen to hide the black and reduce the Opacity setting to around 50%-60% to make the effect more subtle.

Step 31

All right, we’re almost done. Just a couple of finishing touches left. Press Command-Option-Shift-E (PC: Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E) to merge everything together into one new layer on top. Let’s add an edgy effect using the Tonal Contrast filter in Nik Color Efex Pro at its default settings. If it gets too textured in the cloud or skin areas, just add a layer mask and paint them away with a low-opacity black brush, as I did here.

Step 32

There’s one more finishing touch for this photo, though. I really want a warmer feel to it and color is a great way to add mood. And for composites, it’s a wonderful way to tie all of the random parts of the image together. One way to do this in Photoshop is to click on the Create New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and select Gradient Map. Then, click on the gradient thumbnail in the Adjustments panel to open the Gradient Editor. To change the color of the gradient, just double-click on the little color stops (the tiny squares) under the gradient ramp in the middle of the dialog. When the Color Picker appears, choose an orange color (I used R: 176, G: 79, B: 6) for the left color stop, and a greenish-yellow (I used R: 186, G: 186, B: 53) for the right color stop. Click OK to close the Gradient Editor, then change the layer blend mode to Overlay and the Opacity to 80%. Now, it’s got a very fiery, warm color tone to it.
Tip: Using Nik Color Efex Pro Instead: If you have Nik Color Efex Pro Complete, you can also use a filter called Bi-Color filter. In fact, I used it for this image and, personally, I like it a little better, because it seems to still add some nice color, but it keeps the skin tones fairly removed from the effect. Again, though, either one will work. I always make sure I give you the free Photoshop way to do it, but I’m just being honest by saying one of my secrets for compositing is Nik Color Efex Pro for finishing things off.

Step 33

So, here’s the final image with Nik’s default Bi-Color filter run on it. Lastly, one of the secrets to compositing people’s feet on the ground is to darken the entire area to keep people’s attention away from it. We’ll use a gradient for this. Create a new blank layer above all of the other and then press D to set your Foreground color to black. Press G to select the Gradient tool, click on the down-facing arrow next to the gradient thumbnail in the Options Bar to open the Gradient Picker, and choose the second gradient from the left (Foreground to Transparent). Then, drag the gradient from the bottom right of the photo to about a third of the way up, as seen here. This gradually darkens the entire area and you can always reduce the Opacity if it gets too dark.

Conclusion

As you can see below, there’s room for some ad copy on the top, or maybe even the athlete’s name. Or, you can just as easily select the Crop tool and crop the image to remove some of that space up top.

With Gradient Map

With Bi-Color Filter

Author : Matt Kloskowski
Matt’s business card says, “Photoshop Guy” because best-selling author, Photoshop instructor (for conferences, seminars, workshops, online training, DVDs, etc.), photographer, co-host of PhotoshopUser TV, blogger and podcaster for Lightroom Killer Tips (the web’s #1 Lightroom resource), Editor-in-chief of Light It Magazine, Photoshop User magazine contributor, and Education and Curriculum Developer for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) doesn’t fit.

How to Create Cityscape Concept Art

2012-12-01T07:22:00.000+07:00

In this tutorial, I will teach you how to easily create a successful piece of cityscape concept art. We’ll be using a very basic 3D scene as a foundation for the piece, then taking it into Photoshop for some creative photo manipulation of reference photos, basic painting and adjustments. Let’s create this urban scene!

Editor’s note: This tutorial was originally published on Psdtuts in December 2009.

The Brief

The brief, in my case, was to create a historical street scene from anywhere in the world before 1914. It wasn’t to be a particular street, but the concept had to serve the purpose of seeming as though it could be a real street in the time and place I chose, to have a sense of architecture and light, and overall atmosphere.
Obviously you can do anything you want for your projects, but for the sake of the tutorial let’s roll with my choice, which was Glasgow (Scotland) in 1900.

Step 1

The first thing to do is to gather lots of visual reference. Just because you’re doing Glasgow in 1900 doesn’t mean you should only be searching for photos or paintings of Glasgow in 1900.
You should be looking at the work of traditional painting masters, contemporary painters and concept artists, photographers, sculptors, arch-vis studios, etc. This will get you thinking about color, composition, lighting, and so on. All of this can be found online, in books, television, newspapers & magazines, and generally just about anywhere. If something inspires you, retain it somehow! I could sit here boring you with lists of incredible work you should look at, but that would take up a whole article in itself…
I can’t emphasize enough how important reference material is, because without it, you’re working blindly. And more often than not, the work you make up in your head will be ten times weaker than work produced with well used reference. Just about any successful concept artist will tell you this.
Another great way to gather visual reference, is of course to capture it yourself! Below for example, are a couple of photographs from a batch I took in London.

Step 2

Beyond the general inspirational type of reference, it’s a good idea to gather the more practical and useful type of reference material. By this, I mean actually photos of Glasgow in 1900 we can use to help build our scene in the later stages.
In my case, I found an incredible resource through the AMICA Library, which is a free service for searching all sorts of arts from all sorts of periods, but you have to pay a premium to access the full resolution images.
Here, you’ll see that I came across images from a fantastic book by photographer Thomas Annan called "The Old Streets and Closes of Glasgow," from 1900. It is these images precisely that we’ll eventually cut up and manipulate in order to add texture to our scene. You can find the images here.

Step 3

Once you have all your reference images and are roughly sure what sort of image you’d like to create, it’s a good idea to do lots of thumbnail sketches. You can use a pencil or paint directly into Photoshop. These thumbnails were painted using some of Photoshop’s default brushes set to pen opacity, but I’ll go into brushes a little later on.
For this you should work quite small, and spend the smallest amount of time on each one. Speed is key! If I can remember correctly, these were drawn in between 30 seconds and two minutes. This way you really have to figure out the composition and main idea of the image rather than getting caught up in the details.
Don’t be scared to do this step. I’m not a great painter, but you can see in some of the thumbnails below that they are simple yet complex enough to convey the idea for a scene.

Step 4

Now we’ll actually start working on our final piece. Open up Maya (or the program of your choice), then create a polygon Plane. Make it quite large, so it can act as our floor.

Step 5

Next, create a cube on top of your plane, this will be the template for our other buildings.
Once it’s created, press the Insert key. This will turn your manipulator into a slightly different icon, and will allow you to move just the pivot point of your object. In a side view, move the pivot point to the bottom of your cube (you can change viewports by pressing the spacebar whilst hovering the mouse over a viewport to maximize it or zoom out to 4-panel view). This will mean when you scale it, that it won’t really scale below the floor, but instead it will grow outwards from the bottom.
Once that’s done, press the Insert key again to get out of pivot point edit mode.

Step 6

Once you have your basic cube setup, you’ll need to start placing duplicates around the scene to create the street.
To do this, select the cube and press Command + D to duplicate it, the W key to move it, and the R key to scale it. Do this enough times until you have something like the image below.
Don’t try and align things perfectly, the charm of these kinds of streets is the chaotic asymmetry and variation.

Step 7

Now that we have a basic street setup, we’ll create a simple daylight system. Open up the render settings and under the Render Using drop-down, choose Mental Ray. Then, under the Quality tab, choose the Quality Preset called "Preview: Final Gather."

Step 8

Still in the Render Settings window, go to the Indirect Lighting tab, and next to Physical Sun and Sky, press the Create button.

Step 9

The daylight system actually created a Directional light to act as the sun. This light may be hard to find by eye, so go to Window > Outliner. In there, you can see a list of all the elements in your scene. Scroll down until you see something called “sunDirection,” then use the move and scale tools to place it somewhere a little easier to see and manipulate.
Note that these types of lights don’t change according to their size or position, only the rotation will affect the appearance of light.
So, to manipulate the light, press the number 7 on your keyboard, which activates the light preview mode in your viewport, and rotate the sun light until you are happy with it. Don’t be scared to experiment with this and produce a few test renders. I wanted my sky to be coming almost against the camera, so I positioned it similar to what you can see below.

Step 10

We’re going to make our camera slightly more interesting by giving it a wide-angle view. In your viewport, click on View > Select Camera.
If your Attribute Editor isn’t already up, press Command + A. Then, under Camera Attributes, type 18 in the Focal Length parameter.

Step 11

When you’re happy with your angle, go to the Render Settings once again, and under the Common tab you can change the size of your render output. In my case, I was working with A4 size, so I put those dimensions in, but feel free to choose your own.
Then under the Render menu, press Render Current Frame. You should end up with something similar to the image below!

In the Render View, press File > Save Image. Save it as a nice, high-quality Targa file.
Then, create a new Photoshop document (again, A4 size in my case) and paste your rendered image in it.

Step 12

This is where it gets fun!
Start by opening up your reference photos, and thinking about which pieces of the photos can go where. You can then start by using the Polygonal Lasso tool to make selections around rectangular patches of your reference images that vaguely resemble the angle at which you want to paste them over your render. Once a selection is made, Command + C to copy and Command + V to paste on your document with the rendered image.
At this point, don’t worry too much about scaling up small reference images, it will hardly be noticeable in your final result. Once you have a patch of buildings pasted in to your scene, press Command + T to Free Transform, and use Command+click & drag on the corners of your sample images to manipulate their perspective roughly into place. Set the blending mode to Overlay, Multiply or whatever else works best. You can also play around with opacity.
Again, don’t feel the need to be very precise. It doesn’t matter all that much if some of the perspective appears to be wrong, it’s a very loose concept, and the images are only there to establish an idea of architecture and surface texture. These mistakes will be covered up in the later stages anyhow.
One thing you should be very cautious about is scale! Try and picture a human standing in the street (paste one in, if it helps!) and work out if there is anything too unrealistic compared to the person in scale.
This is a very organic process, I can’t tell you exactly where to paste each image, but I hope you get the idea of the process!

Step 13

The next step is where a graphics tablet really comes in handy. That’s because we’ll be doing some actual painting! The custom brushes I use 99% of the time are the "MyBroosh" and "Oil Pastel Large 3," which are included in the free brush pack kindly provided by artist Daarken on his website. You can find the brushes in his fantastic Tutorials section.

Step 14

Don’t be put off if you haven’t had any previous digital painting experience. We’re not painting a whole scene, but rather just adding bits of detail and tone to blend the photo elements together.
Make sure you work in new layers when doing things like painting, so that you can always delete all your brush strokes without damaging the material underneath.
As you can see below, you just need to add random tone and detail all over your scene, without being too precise. Just remember to consider the light source, so that you add highlights and shadows in the right places. On the second image below, you can see just the painting layer pasted over red, so that you can see the black and white strokes. I hope you can see just how messy you can be with this!

Step 15

A good, cheap way to add color information without painting it, is to use existing photographs or paintings. For example, I really liked the color and light in this photograph by Leo Rubinfien, so I just pasted it over my document, stretched it to fill my whole canvas vertically and set it to Overlay, at about 67% opacity. Then, I just erased the top part of the image so that it didn’t go into the sky.
Feel free to experiment! A lot of times these experiments will go wrong, but the mistakes are worth it just for the few times when they work.

Step 16

You should then start to establish the light and shadow areas a bit further, to tighten up the scene. Once again you can see just the new painted layer pasted over red. I set the opacity of this layer to around 84%.

Step 17

If you feel the need to, go ahead and keep adding more bits of texture and architecture to your scene. In this case, I’ve placed a few more windows and some chimneys around the scene, since it was looking a bit too box-like.
Then, start to add more tone by creating a Gradient Map adjustment layer, setting it to Soft Light and about 11-15% opacity. I used the gradient "Yellow, Violet, Orange, Blue." I also added a yellow/orange grunge texture found at designshard.com and set it to Soft Light, at about 22%.
These steps are by all means not absolute. Again, they aren’t exact values and resources that will work with every image, so by all means experiment until something works for you. I’m just hoping to share the method of creating this particular image, and that will hopefully give you ideas when creating your own.

Step 18

Create a new layer and start painting a few brush strokes in orange-ish and red tones, with the layer set to color, and about 40% opacity. Since the image was leaning mostly to cooler tones, I thought this could add some of color balance and variation.
Then, I add a new Curves adjustment layer, and create a slight S curve on it, to darken the shadows and brighten the highlights.

Step 19

To accentuate the shadow and sun-lit tones further, create a new layer and fill it with a gradient going from an orange to a blue tone, as you can see in the image below. Then, set this layer to Overlay at around 10% opacity.
You can then add another yellow/orange grunge texture, much like the one previously mentioned, and set it to Soft Light at around 34% opacity.
I also thought I should mention that even at this stage, I kept adding architecture reference photos in where I thought they were needed to add more detail.

Step 20

We’re nearly there! Just add any last minute subtle Gradient Maps or any other adjustment layers. Then, create a new layer and fill it with Mid-Gray, and go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise. Depending on your image size, adjust the percentage so that it’s just a very subtle effect, and tick the Monochromatic box. Set this layer to Overlay at around 60-70% opacity, or until it looks right to you.
Then, flatten your image and apply an Unsharp Mask filter to taste!

Conclusion

You can now do whatever you want to it, I just added a white border over a black background, and a bit of text, but the presentation is up to you.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. I hope this tutorial has been insightful and inspirational.
As you can see, you don’t have to be a great painter with years of experience to create successful pieces of concept art. Can’t wait to see what you guys come up with. Good luck in your future creations!

Author : Miguel Santana da Silva
"Miguel is a UK-based digital artist currently finishing off an Art and Design Foundation course before starting a degree in "Digital Animation: Visual Effects" at the University of Hertfordshire. He is of Portuguese nationality and currently 19 years old. He's been meddling with digital arts since he was 13, taking a special interest in CGI and animation. You can see his online portfolio by visiting miguelsantana.net.

Glowing Text Effect

2012-11-29T08:01:00.000+07:00

In this tutorial, we will create this effect using very basic Photoshop tools and layering effects. This tutorial is simple enough for a beginner to understand, but I should warn you that in this tutorial there ends up being over 60 active text layers, which will require a heavy use of your computer’s memory. Let’s jump into this tutorial and layer some glowing text.

As always, the layered Photoshop file is available via our Psdtuts+ Plus membership.

Step 1

Make a new document that is 2000px by 1200px. Then make a new Gradient Adjustment Layer with a linear gradient that goes from a dark gray (#464646) at the bottom to black (#000000) at the top. This will be our background base.

Step 2

Make another linear Gradient Adjustment Layer above the previous one, and make it a rainbow of colors of your choice. There are some colorful presets that you can choose from in the gradient palette, or create your own. Set the layer’s Fill down to 25%. Then set the layer’s blending mode to Color.
Tip: When you set the blending mode to color it makes it so the layer only affects the color of everything below it, while leaving the lightness/darkness alone.

Step 3

Finally make another Gradient Adjustment Layer above the previous two. This one will be a radial gradient. Set this one up so that the only 2 colors in the gradient are black and then make the transparency go from 100% at one end and 0% at the other end.
If you see that black is covering the center of the image, check the Reverse box. Then make it so the black goes around the edges of the canvas. Set the layer opacity to 65%. I moved the transparency handles around a little to get the exact effect that I wanted.

Step 4

Now lets begin with the text treatment. Hit (T) for the type tool, and make a (single click) on the canvas. Then type your letter, in my case a P. Then grab the Move tool and (Hit CMD+T) and transform the letter, adjust it until it’s the size that you want it. Hit (T) again for the type tool, and if it’s not already, make the letter black by clicking the text color box in the property bar. Set the letter layer’s blending mode to Screen. The letter will disappear.

Step 5

(Double click) to the right of the letter layer’s name in the layer palette to bring up the layer styles palette. Put an Outer Glow and a Stroke on the layer with the exact settings that you see below. You will see a very faint image of the letter now.
Let’s use this first letter as a starting point for all the text in the image. Once we layer several different letters on top of each other, our effect will come to life.

Step 6

Duplicate the letter layer by dragging it down to the New Layer button at the bottom of the layer palette. Select the type tool (T) and then change the font on the new layer. If the new font doesn’t line up how you want to hit (CMD+T) to free transform the new letter. Make sure that you always line up the baseline of the letters. You can move the anchor point to the base line when you are transforming to keep it lined up correctly.
Now do this step 20 times, each time using a different font. I chose to use all different fonts that have serifs. You can use all fonts that are sans-serif if you like, but I wouldn’t mix the two.

Step 7

Select all the text layers that you have. Then hit (CMD+G) to group them. With the group selected in the layer palette, hit (V) for the move tool. Then (while holding ALT), click and drag on the letters on the canvas to duplicate them. Drag them to the right where you want the next letter to be. Now there should be 2 groups of text in the layer palette. Turn off all the letter layers in the new group (except the bottom one) by clicking in the little ‘eye’ icon next to each one.

Now select the text tool (T), and highlight the single letter. Then change it to the next letter that you want, in my case an S. Finally, turn the S layer off. Then turn on the next one and do the same. Repeat this until all the letters in your new group are changed. Turn all the layers back on.
Repeat this step for each new letter you need.

Step 8

Select the elliptical marquee tool and make a very thin ellipse at the base of your letters. Then Feather the selection about 20px. Enter quickmask mode (Q). Then go to Filter>Blur>Motion Blur. Make the angle 0 and the length 700px and hit OK. This gives us a nice fade out to the left and right sides. Then exit quickmask mode (Q).
Now make a curves adjustment layer above the gradients, but below the letter groups. Then apply a curve that looks like the one below. This just gives our letters something to sit on.

Step 9

Make a new document that is 300px by 300px. Double click on the background layer to make it an active layer. (Double click) to the right of the layer name to open the layer styles palette. Apply a color overlay to make the layer black. Then add an inner stroke that is white to make a border. You can see my settings below.
Go to Layer>Flatten Image to flatten the image. Hit CMD+A to select all and then go Edit>Define Pattern.

Step 10

Go back to your other document. Make a new blank layer just above your curves layer by hitting the New Layer button at the bottom of the layer palette. Not go to Edit>Fill and select Pattern for the Contents. Then select your black box that should be at the end of the list, and hit OK.
Now Hit (CMD+T) to transform the layer so that it fits in the foreground space. Then (right/control+click) anywhere in the transform box and select perspective. Drag the bottom right handle way out so you get a nice perspective on the pattern layer. Set the layer’s blending mode to screen and the opacity to 15%.

Step 11

There is one last step to add a finishing touch. Select the type layers and duplicate them by dragging them down to the New Layer button. With the new groups selected hit (CMD+T) then (right/control+click) in the transform box and select Flip Vertical. Move them down so they look like a reflection.
With all the reflection groups selected hit (CMD+G) to put them into another group. Set that group’s opacity to 25%. Add a mask to the group by clicking on the Add Layer Mask button at the bottom of the layer palette. With the mask selected hit (G) for the gradient tool and apply a linear gradient from black to white, so the reflection fades out as it goes down to the edge of the image.

Conclusion

This tutorial covered some simple steps and effects to achieve stylish results. The final image is below. If there are any questions, put them in the comments section. I will answer them as soon as I can. I hope you enjoy this tut!

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Step 7

Step 8

Step 9

Step 10

Step 11

Conclusion

Author : Kyle Pero
Kyle Pero has worked in the creative fields for many years now. With a background in photography and graphic design he naturally became a Photoshop whiz. Now he works in advertising doing photographic retouching, but also does freelance design and illustration work.

Eye Catching Energy Drink Ad

2012-11-27T17:29:00.000+07:00

Resources Used In This Tutorial

Final Image

Here is a preview of the image that we are going to be creating:

Step 1

Create a new document (800X800px and 300px/inch resolution).
Create a new document called ‘background’ and fill your entire canvas with black:

Wit
h this ‘background’ layer selected, go to filter>convert for smart filters. This will allow you to apply filters in a non-destructive way.
Now go to filter>noise>add noise. Apply the settings shown below:
Noise Filter Settings:
Amount: 20%
Distribution: Gaussian
Monochromatic: (check box)

Now go to filter>blur>motion blur. Apply the following settings:
Motion Blur Settings:
Angle: 90 degrees
Distance: 100 pixels
You may notice that this causes a strange effect at the top and bottom of your canvas. To fix this, simply transform your black area, making it taller, pushing the edges above the top/bottom of your canvas.

Step 2

Create a new layer called ‘highlight center’.
Use a large, soft white paintbrush to paint in a shape like the image below:

Reduce this layer’s opacity to 20%:

Now create a new layer called ‘highlight blue’.
Use a large, soft blue (02c3d9) paintbrush to paint a shape in like the image below:

Change this layer’s blend mode to ‘overlay’ and reduce it’s opacity to 40%:

Step 3

Paste in the ‘sparkler’ image from the resources section for this tutorial. Position it roughly in the center of your canvas:

Now change this layer’s blend mode to screen (this hides the black background), and reduce it’s opacity to 20%:

Apply a hue/saturation and then a color balance adjustment layer to this sparkler layer. Be sure to give each adjustment layer a clipping mask, so that your adjustments only effect the underlying sparkler layer.
Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer Settings:
Hue: 0
Saturation: -100
Lightness: 0
Color Balance Adjustment Layer Settings:
Highlights: -26 / 0 / +36
Midtones: -66 / 0 / +32
Shadows: -35 / 0 / +13

This is the result:

Step 4

Create a new layer called ‘heart rate’. You can use either your line tool, or your pen tool to create a heart rate graph shape. I used a 3px thickness line, color: 0bb3c4.

Apply a layer mask to this heart rate layer and then use a soft, 25% opacity black paintbrush to mask off certain areas of the line, making it more random, with varying opacities along the length of the line:

Apply an outer glow blending option to your heart rate layer.
Outer Glow Settings:
Blend Mode: Screen
Opacity: 50%
Noise: 0%
Color: c0f1fc

Here is the result:

Step 5

Duplicate your heart rate layer. Then go to edit>transform>distort.
Distort your heart rate shape to look like the image below:

Reduce this layer’s opacity to 20%. Then duplicate it and distort the duplicate to overlap the other two lines:

Step 6

Open up the bottle image from the resources section for this tutorial.
Extract it from it’s background and paste it into the center of your canvas:

Apply a hue/saturation adjustment layer to your bottle layer, being sure to apply a clipping mask:
Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer Settings:
Hue: -5
Saturation: 0
Lightness: 0

Step 7

Create a new layer called ‘bottle shadow’ beneath your bottle layer.
Use a soft black paintbrush to paint in shadows around the edges of your bottle.

Reduce this layer’s opacity to 20%:

Add a new layer called ‘reflective shadow’. Duplicate your bottle layer and move the duplicate beneath the original.
Go to edit>transform>flip vertical.
Move the flipped bottle shape beneath the original, to act as a shadow. Apply a black color overlay, making this shape solid black.
Then go to filter>blur>gaussian blur.
Gaussian Blur Filter Settings:
Radius: 5.0 pixels

Step 8

Create a new layer called ‘raylight’. This layer should still be beneath your bottle layer.
Download the FanExtra raylight brush set found in the resources section for this tutorial.
Apply several of the brushes using a white brush. Create beams of light shooting up from the base of the bottle:

Change this layer’s blend mode to ‘overlay’:

Duplicate your ‘raylight’ layer. Change this layer’s blend mode to ‘normal’ and reduce it’s opacity to 20%:

Step 9

Create a new top layer called ‘shadows’.
Use a large, soft, black paintbrush to paint over the bottom of your bottle and bottom of your canvas:

Step 10

Create a new layer called ‘bubbles’.
Download the FanExtra bubbles brush set from the resources for this tutorial and use a white brush to apply bubbles over the bottle.

Go to filter>sharpen>sharpen. This helps bring out the detail of the bubbles:

Step 11

Download another one of the sparkler images from the resources section for this tutorial. Paste and position the sparkler over the bottle cap.

Change this layer’s blend mode to ‘screen’ to hide the black background and reduce it’s opacity to 30%:

Step 12

Paste in the third sparkler image, positioning it over the center of your bottle:

Change this layer’s blend mode to ‘screen’ and reduce it’s opacity to 70%:

Apply a hue/saturation and color balance adjustment layer (giving each a clipping mask).
Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer Settings:
Hue: 0
Saturation: -100
Lightness: 0
Color Balance Adjustment Layer Settings:
Highlight: -46 / 0 / +35
Midtones: -60 / 0 / +53
Shadows: -26 / 0 / +12

Apply an outer glow blending option to your sparkler layer:
Outer Glow Settings:
Blend Mode: Screen
Opacity: 75%
Noise: 0%
Color: ffffff
Technique: Softer
Spread: 0%
Size: 21px

Step 13

Paste in your logo, positioning it over the center of your bottle:

Change it’s blend mode to ‘overlay’ and reduce it’s opacity to 60%:

Step 14

Download the image of the sprinter from the resources section for this tutorial.
Extract him from his background and position him in the bottom left of your canvas:

Duplicate your sprinter layer and move the duplicate beneath the original.
Go to filter>convert for smart filters.
Go to filter>blur>motion blur. Apply the following settings:
Motion Blur Settings:
Angle: 21 degrees
Distance: 250 pixels
You’ll notice that your blur goes out at both sides of your sprinter. Apply a mask and mask off the area of blur that goes in front of the sprinter, leaving only a blur behind him.

Apply a hue/saturation and levels adjustment layer to your top sprinter layer (using a clipping mask for each):
Hue/Saturatoin Adjustment Layer Settings:
Hue: 0
Saturation: -100
Lightness: 0
Levels Adjustment Layer Settings:
20 / 0.91 / 221

Apply a new layer called ‘shadow sprinter’.
Use a soft black paintbrush to paint shadows over the bottom of the canvas and sprinter:

Step 15

Paste in the ‘stream of water’ image:

Change this layer’s blend mode to ‘screen’ to hide the black background:

Duplicate this layer three times to make it more obvious. Then merge these three layers into a single layer:

Step 16

Go to edit>transform>warp and warp your water stream into an arc stemming from your bottle cap.
Repeat this step, applying another arc of water pointing the other way:

Add a couple more streams of warped water:

Step 17

Paste in the water splash image from the resources section for this tutorial, positioning it over your bottle cap:

Change this layer’s blend mode to ‘screen’ to hide the black background:

Add a couple more splashes to the sides of your bottle head:

Step 18

Create a new layer called ‘water droplets’.
Download the water droplets brush set from the resources section for this tutorial.
Apply them using a white paintbrush. You will need to click each brush multiple times to make it bold enough to be visible.

Step 19

Type out some text to the right of your bottle.
Text Settings:
Font Face: Alfa Slab One
Size: 14pt
Kerning: -50
Color: ffffff
Styling: Italics
Also, go to edit>transform>skew. Skew the text so it’s at a slight angle:

Apply an inner shadow and outer glow blending option to your text layer.
Inner Shadow Blending Option Settings:
Blend Mode: Multiply
Color: 000000
Opacity: 10%
Angle: 120
Distance: 3px
Choke: 0%
Size: 0px
Outer Glow Blending Option Settings:
Blend Mode: Screen
Opacity: 25%
Noise: 0%
Color: 35eeff
Spread: 0%
Size: 21px

Here is the result:

Step 20

Duplicate the text layer, moving the duplicate beneath the original.
For this text layer remove all layer styles and then change the text color to black. Move this text layer down 1px and right 1px. You’ll see that this creates a subtle drop shadow effect:

Duplicate this black text layer and move it 1px down and 1px to the right. Repeat this step many times, until you have a substantial drop shadow area:

Step 21

Create a new layer called ‘white highlight’.
Use a large, soft white paintbrush to paint over the bottle top and the middle of the bottle:

Reduce this layer’s blend mode to 15% and change it’s blend mode to ‘overlay’:

Create a new layer called ‘blue highlights’. Apply several soft blue brush marks over your canvas:

Change this layer’s blend mode to ‘overlay’ and reduce it’s opacity to 15%

Step 22

Create a new layer called ‘dodge/burn’.
Go to edit>fill and fill your canvas with 50% gray. Change your layer’s blend mode to ‘overlay’ to hide the gray fill.
Then use a soft, 10% opacity black paintbrush to burn your image. Use a 10% opacity, white paintbrush to dodge your image.
Accentuate key areas of shadow and highlight.
Below you can see your dodge/burn image at ‘normal’ blend mode and then ‘overlay’ blend mode:

Step 23

Apply a final gradient map adjustment layer. Do NOT apply a clipping mask to this layer as you want your adjustments to effect your entire canvas, not just the underlying layer.
Gradient Map Adjustment Layer Settings:
Gradient: Black to White
Opacity: 10%

And We’re Done!

You can view the final outcome below. I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial and would love to hear your feedback on the techniques and outcome.

Author : Tom
Tom is the founder of PSDFAN. He loves writing tutorials, learning more about design and interacting with the community. On a more interesting note he can also play guitar hero drunk with his teeth.

Brush Collections #1

2012-11-26T13:26:00.005+07:00

Quantum Brushes by Axeraider70

Burning Soul by AxeRaider70

Kinetic Brush Set by shiftyj

Euphoria Brushes by shiftyj

Abstract Brushes 05 by rubina119

Writer : Tommy
Hello! My name is Tommy. I'm a blogger, I love graphics design and now i went to Architechture Technical Senior High School.

Splashing Sneaker

2012-11-25T18:28:00.002+07:00

Tutorial Resources

Step 1

Create a new document 1289×1000 px and fill the background with #adadad color. Unzip “Metal Package 5″ and open file “metal5_1181″. Press Ctrl + A to select all then Ctrl + C to copy. Paste it into our newly created document (Ctrl + V) and desaturate (Ctrl
+ Shift + U). Lower the opacity of the texture layer to 24% and change the blend mode to Overlay.

Step 2

Duplicate the texture layer and change it’s blend mode to normal. Free transform this layer to create the floor and using the Eraser tool or the layer mask blend it seamlessly with the background. If the texture seems blurry sharpen it using the Unsharp Mask filter.

advertise here

Step 3

Make a new layer (Ctrl + Alt + Shift + N) and lower the opacity to 11%. With a soft black round brush paint the outer edges to make the floor stand out better. Make another new layer and with a soft white round brush at 700px size dab once in the middle. We will place our shoe over the light to make it the point of interest in our scene.

Step 4

Open file “Shoe” and using your favorite selection tool copy and paste the shoe into our document. Place it in the middle of the scene.

Step 5

Unzip the “Paint Tossing Pack” and open file 15. Using the Magic Wand tool click once on the background to select it an then inverse the selection (Ctrl + Shift + I) to select the splash. Copy and paste this into our document. Position this splash as shown below and use the Eraser tool or add a layer mask and blend it seamlessly with the shoe.

Step 6

Add a clipped Gradient Map adjustment layer and Curves adjustment layer to darken the splash.

I sampled colors from the place the splash is supposed to be coming and used them as dark and white colors in the Gradient Map adjustment layer.

Step 7

Repeat the instructions from step 5 but this time use file “9″.

Step 8

Add a clipped Gradient Map adjustment layer and use the settings shown below. After that add a Curves adjustment layer to slightly darken the splash.

Step 9

Repeat the instructions from step 5 with file “14″.

Step 10

Add a clipped Gradient Map adjustment layer with the settings shown below and a clipped Curves adjustment layer to darken this splash.

Select the splash layer and the 2 adjustments layer you just added and press Ctrl + G to make a group. Duplicate this group (Layer > Duplicate Group) and press Ctrl + T to Free Transform it like shown below. Add a layer mask to this group

Step 11

Repeat the instructions from step 5 with file “7″.

Step 12

Add a clipped Gradient Map adjustment layer and a Curves adjustment layer to darken the splash.

Step 13

Make a new layer and move it below the “Sneakers” layer and change it’s blend mode to Multiply. With a round soft black brush pain some shadow. Try to image how the shadow would be below the sneaker. Lower the opacity of the layer if necessary.

Step 14

We want to keep it simple so we will add just a couple of adjustment layers to increase the contrast. First add Gradient Map adjustment layer with black and white as default colors and change it’s blend mode to Overlay. Lower the opacity of this layer to 74%.

Step 15

For some further contrast add Black &White adjustment layer rand change the blend mode to overlay. Lower the opacity to 50%.

Step 16

As a final step let’s add some text to make it look classier. I used Bebas Neue font.

Final Results

Author : Andrian Scheff
Thanks for following my tutorial and I hope you learned something useful from it. You can see some of my other art deviations here . Have fun Photoshopping!! - Adrian Scheff

Exotic Snake Charming Scene

2012-11-23T17:48:00.000+07:00

Resources Used In This Tutorial

Step 1

Start by creating a new document (1000X1000px).
Paste in the Taj Mahal image from the resources section for this tutorial.

We want to improve the colors and contrast of our backdrop im
age, so apply a levels and color balance adjustment layer. Be sure to apply a clipping mask to all adjustment layers in this tutorial, unless otherwise specified, as we only want our adjustments to effect the underlying layer.
Levels Adjustment Layer Settings:
12 / 0.94 / 255
Color Balance Adjustment Layer Settings:
Highlights: +1 / +2 / -5
Midtones: +4 / +8 / -16
Shadows: -11 / +2 / -1

Step 2

If you look at our backdrop photo, the distance is very sharp, but the bottom area of the photo gets slightly out of focus as it gets closer to us.
I’ve highlighted this area in red below:

To fix this, select your backdrop photo and both adjustment layers (hold shift to select more than one layer). Hit option+g to place these three layers within a layer group.
Duplicate this layer group.
Then, with your duplicate group folder selected, go to filter>convert for smart filters. This way you can non-destructively apply filters to an entire layer group, which contains multiple layers.
With your smart filters in place, go to filter>sharpen>unsharp mask. This will allow us to precisely sharpen our backdrop image.
Unsharp Mask Filter Settings:
Amount: 240%
Radius: 0.7 pixels
Threshold: 0 levels
You can see below that this has sharpened our entire image. However, we only really wanted to sharpen the bottom corners of our image, in order to focus them. The rest of our image is now too sharp:

To fix this, apply a layer mask to your duplicate backdrop smart object. Use a large, soft black paintbrush to mask off all of this sharpened layer apart from the bottom corners (which we want to sharpen).
I’ve shown where this mask is applied using a red area below:

And here is the result. Now the entire backdrop is nice and sharp, including the bottom corners, which were previously out of focus:

Step 3

Download the ‘snake’ image from the resources section for this tutorial.
Cut it out from it’s background (this should be easy as it has a plain white background). Paste the snake into the bottom right of your canvas, keeping it really large, as we want this to be a giant sized snake!

Apply a levels and color balance adjustment layer in order to blend the snake better with our backdrop:
Levels Adjustment Layer Settings:
20 / 1.00 / 230
Color Balance Adjustment Layer Settings:
Highlights: +13 / +1 / -29
Midtones: +25 / +5 / -23
Shadows: +8 / -5 / -12

You can see the result of this below:

We want to extend the snakes tail to the left corner of our canvas, so simply copy/paste part of the snake’s body and position this in the bottom corner. Use the same adjustment layers to blend this area.
Don’t worry if there’s a gap in the middle, we’ll be covering this up!

Step 4

Download the ‘rocks’ image from the resources section for this tutorial.
Paste the rocks roughly into the bottom-center of your canvas, after extracting them from their background:

Apply a color balance and levels adjustment layer to your rocks layer:
Color Balance Adjustment Layer Settings:
Highlights: -4 / +5 / -4
Midtones: +9 / +6 / -12
Shadows: +1 / +4 / -12
Levels Adjustment Layer Settings:
45 / 1.05 / 236

You can see the result of this below:

Step 5

Paste in your ‘moss’ image from the resources for this tutorial.

Duplicate this ‘moss’ layer, hiding the original. You can see keep this original layer though as we’ll be making many more duplicates.
Select your visible duplicate moss layer and resize it to fit over one of the lower rocks. Then go to edit>transform>warp. Warp your moss to fit more to the shape of the rock, thus making it less flat:

Apply a layer mask to your moss layer, and then use one of the roughly, grungy default brushes that come with photoshop (ensuring it’s set to: black) and mask off the edges of your moss area. You want to smoothly blend your moss into the rock surface.
To help blend it further, reduce the opacity of your moss layer to around 90%.

Now apply a color balance adjustment layer:
Color Balance Adjustment Layer Settings:
Highlights: +22 / -13 / -8
Midtones: +19 / +32 / -26
Shadows: -1 / +6 / -12

This is the effect:

Step 6

Repeat the technique of applying moss, applying it to the rest of your rock surfaces:

Step 7

Create a new layer called ‘bottom shadow’ and use a large, soft black paintbrush to paint in a shadow along the bottom of your canvas.

Reduce this layer’s opacity to 10%:

Step 8

Paste in your snake charmer image, positioning him so that he’ll be sat roughly on top of the rocks in your main composition:

We want to get rid of his background, so use your preferred extraction method. Personally, I love being non-destructive, so I used a layer mask to mask off his background.

Now apply a color balance adjustment layer to blend your man better with the rest of your piece:
Color Balance Adjustment Layer Settings:
Highlight: -13 / 0 / -8
Midtones: +4 / +13 / -15
Shadows: 0 / 0 / 0

And here’s the result:

Step 9

Create a new layer called ‘shadow under man’.
Use a soft black paintbrush at around 10% opacity to paint in shadow between the man and the rock. Make it look more natural, as if the man is sitting on the rock and casting a natural shadow:

Step 10

Download the ‘small snake’ image from the resources for this tutorial.
Extract it from it’s background and then paste/position it to appear to be coming out of the end of the man’s pipe:

Set this layer’s blend mode to screen:

Now apply a hue/saturation and levels adjustment layer:
Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer Settings:
Hue: 0
Saturation: -100
Lightness: +23
Levels Adjustment Layer Settings:
53 / 0.77 / 198

You can see the result of this below:

Step 11

Our snake is looking a little too solid to pass as smoke right now, so grab your smudge tool, set to around 25% opacity and smudge areas of your snake to blend outwards like smoke.
This should create a much softer looking effect:

To add a little additional smoke, download the ‘smoke’ image from the resources for this tutorial.
Position it over your snake image:

Change this layer’s blend mode to ‘screen’ to hide the black background for the smoke and just let the smoke show through:

Step 12

Download your ‘jewel’ image from the resources for this tutorial and extract it from it’s background.

Go to edit>transform and use the distort tool to resize the jewel to rest on the front of the man’s turban. Make it much thinner than the original to give the impression of it being part of the man’s profile.
Then apply a hue/saturation adjustment layer to this jewel layer:
Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer Settings:
Hue: +95
Saturation: 0
Lightness: +2

Step 13

Create a new layer called ‘lens flare’.
Fill your canvas with black and then change it’s layer blend mode to ‘screen’. This will hide the black fill, but allow you to apply a lens flare effect non-destructively.
Go to filter>convert for smart filters. Then go to filter>render>lens flare. Apply a 50-300mm Zoom lens fare at 100% Brightness, trying to position your main flare over the end of the man’s pipe:
The image below shows this lens flare layer at ‘normal’ blend mode:

This shows the ‘lens flare’ mode at ‘screen’ blend mode:

Step 14

Create a new layer called ‘dodge/burn’. To dodge/burn your image non-destructively go to edit>fill>50% gray. Change your layer’s blend mode to ‘overlay’ to hide your 50% gray fill, and then use a soft, low opacity (around 10%) black paintbrush to burn your image, and a soft, low opacity white paintbrush to dodge your image.
You want to try and create a more unified light source. In this image we can see that the main light source is coming from the right of your canvas. So try to add highlights to the right edges of your objects, and shadow the left edges.
The images below show your dodge/burn layer at ‘normal’ blend mode and then ‘overlay’ blend mode:

Step 15

To accentuate the highlights cast on your rocks by the sun, create a new layer called ‘rock highlight edge’.
Keep this new layer active, but in your layer’s palette option+click on your original rocks layer. This will create an active selection around the shape of your rocks.
This will allow you to paint just inside the edge of your rocks without leaking out onto the background.
Use a soft white paintbrush to paint in a highlight along the right edge of your rocks:

To make this highlight effect more subtle change this layer’s blend mode to ‘overlay’ and reduce it’s opacity to 30%.

Step 16

The left edge of our rocks is looking too light considering the lighting of the overall piece.
To fix this, create a new layer called ‘rock shadows’.
Use a soft black paintbrush (around 20% opacity) to paint shadows over this area of rock:

Step 17

Apply a final couple of adjustment layers, but this time DO NOT create clipping masks for them as you want your adjustments to effect your entire composition.
Gradient Overlay Adjustment Layer:
Gradient: Default purple to orange gradient
Blend Mode: Normal
Opacity: 10%
Levels Adjustment Layer Settings:
9 / 1.00 / 238

Here is the result of these adjustments:

Step 18

Finally, to finish we want to sharpen our image just a little to make it clearer.
Go to layers>flatten image. Select your entire flattened canvas and then hit ‘copy’.
In your history panel undo this flattening, as of course we want to retain our original layers.
Then paste your copied flat image in as a new top layer.
Go to filter>convert for smart filters. Then go to filter>sharpen>unsharp mask. Apply these settings:
Unsharp Mask Settings:
Amount: 35%
Radius: 0.5 pixels
Threshold: 0 levels

And We’re Done!

You can view the final outcome below. I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial and would love to hear your feedback on the techniques and outcome.

Wasted Time

2012-11-22T18:57:00.000+07:00

Stock used

Step 1

We’ll start with the stock image of the dramatic background so open it in Photoshop.

Step 2

Open te stock image of the standing man and extrac
t the man and the pier from the background using the Pen Tool (P) or the Magnetic Lasso tool. After that, copy the extracted image and paste it on a new layer above the background and resize if necessary. I named this layer “man“

Step 3 – Man styles

In order to make the man blend with the background I used layer styles and adjustment layers. Let’s see the layer styles first. I used a Gradient Overlay to change the lighting because I wanted more light on the top part of the image and more shadow on the bottom and some Inner Shadow to mimic some rim lights. See image below for more details.

Step 4 – Man adjustment layers

You can see that the man is still too colored compared to the background so I used a couple of adjustment layers as clipping masks to reduce the saturation and colorize the man so it blends with the background colors.
First I used a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer as clipping mask and reduced Saturation to -75%. Then I used a Gradient Map adjustment layer also as clipping mask. The colors used on the gradient are shown on the image below. The blend mode used on the Gradient Map adjustment is Multiply at 90%. Afte adding the gradient map on Multiply, the back of the man became too dark so I used a soft brush and painted with black and low opacity on the brush to remove some of the effect.

Step 5 – Girl adjustments

Now that we have the man blended with the background, let’s add the girl to the scene. So open the stock image of the girl and extract her from the background using the Pen Tool or any other method that you prefer. Add her to the scene and adjust the size if needed and place her as shown on Image 5.
You’ll need to use some adjustment layers for the girl layer as well in order to make her blend with the background better. I used Hue/Saturation clipped to the girl layer and lowered the Saturation to -40. Then I added Curves to darken her a bit and a Gradient Map on Multiply also as clipping mask for the girl layer in order to match the colors of the background better. Paint some shadows under the girl and on the tree as well for more realism

Step 6 – Falling leaves

Open the stock image of the leaf and place it on your canvas. I just duplicated it a few times, spinned it and distorted it with the Free Transform tool in order to add some variation. I also applied a few pixels of Gaussian Blur to some of them to create the sense of depth. The original leaf has too much color and contrast so use Hue/Saturation to desaturate and adjust Luminosity.

Step 7

Next I used the Dodge/Burn tool on a separate layer filled with 50% Gray on Overlay. Below you can see the areas that I dodged and burned.

Step 8 – General adjustments

I wanted to change the general colorization of the scene so I used a Gradient Map and a Selective Coloradjustment layers.
The blend mode for the Gradient Map was set to Color at 20% Opacity and the selective color on Normalat 50% Opacity. On the selective color layer I only changed the settings for the Neutrals and Blackschannels.

Final result

Human Disintegration

2012-11-21T22:41:00.001+07:00

Tutorial Assets

The following assets were used during the production of this tutorial.

Step 1

Let’s start by creating a new document in Adobe Photoshop. Choose the size of document you prefer, but try to keep it in a vertical shape, with a transparent background.

Step 2

Then, find a good stock image of a clou
dy sky that you can use as a background. You can also do like I did by interweaving several pictures of clouds to create the background you prefer. Make sure that the clouds are "dark" enough for a final atmosphere that will fit with the other elements you will be adding to your creation.

Step 3

The next step is very important since you will have to choose the character that will be the main focus of your whole piece. To do this, go to websites like SXC, Fotolia, iStock, etc.., and choose a model that projects a strong emotion. Be sure to pick a character that really inspires you, as it will be the main focus of your creation and it will play a major role in your final outcome. Once you’ve selected it, cut out the character carefully by using the pen tool (P) and place it in the middle, slightly shifted downwards.

Step 4

Then, using the eraser tool (E) with the “Splatters” shape – which can be found in the tutorial assets – slightly erase the character’s legs.

Step 5

Now, if you are like me and like to change your character’s colors, take the lasso tool (L) and surround the selected areas from your character that you would like to modify. Afterwards, create a layer of fill or adjustment by clicking on the black and white circle situated in the layers tab. In the said tab you will be able to select the method that suits you best. I personally recommend changing the colors with a Gradient Map layer and a Selective Color layer. A tip: avoid fluorescent colors and choose those that resemble your background’s colors.

Step 6

Always with the “Splatters” shape, take your brush tool (B) and, on another layer, create shapes that go above, but also behind the model, as seen in the picture bellow. It is important to use the same colors and shades that you’ve used on your character to create the desired effect of disintegration.

Step 7

There are numerous ways to give a darker aspect to your character and create the impression that he is possessed. Personally, I usually prefer to draw intense red veins on his arms, neck and face, as well as slightly darkening the eyes and mouth with a small black brush adjusted to “Soft Light”.

Step 8

Here, I decided to create a necklace that will later have a supernatural look, suggesting that the character is flying up due to the strength of the accessory. Everything is done with a small brush, by using a graphic tablet.

Step 9

Now this step will give the necklace a supernatural look. In order to achieve that, you will need to create "power waves" emitting from the necklace. On another layer, apply a white area on the necklace using a soft round brush, and then with a smaller soft round shape, erase the middle of that white area. When it’s done, “double click” on the layer to open the “Layer Style” box and enter the data as shown in the picture. Once you’ve done all that, duplicate the layer (Command/Ctrl + J) twice and make them bigger than the previous one. Remember, the more the wave is away from the necklace, the more it’s big and less opaque.

Step 10

To complete the work on the necklace, select the shapes titled “Light” available in the tutorial assets, select your brush (B), and on another layer create a white "light beam" effect coming out of the necklace.

Step 11

With the same brush shapes, create a white "light beam" effect coming out of the model’s torso, as shown in the image. This effect will give out the impression that your character is liberating some sort of supernatural strengths while disintegrating.

Step 12

Now that most of the work on the character is done, you will need to work a little bit more on the atmosphere. With the fill or adjustment layer, at the bottom of the layers tab, darken the colors and make them closer to those of your character. Again, there are several ways to do so, but I suggest the Gradient Map layer and the Selective Color layer.

Step 13

Afterwards, put some action in the scenery by adding meteors coming down from the top. You will find a pack of meteorites in the tutorial assets. Insert them one by one, making sure that their sizes vary and that their colors stick with the atmosphere.

Step 14

This next step will consist in using the blur tool on the meteorites to make them look either close or far. Those that will be situated at the same distance as your character will remain untouched. Basically, the more a meteorite is far from the model, the greater the blur.

Step 15

Now, take the Smudge tool with strength of 5 to 10% and apply it on each of the meteorites, using little movements from bottom to top, to give them a speed effect.

Step 16

To create a source of light coming from above of your character’s body, take a white brush tool (B) with the same “Light” shape used in Step 10 and 11. It is important that the rays coming from above are more intense than those coming from your character’s torso. You can also draw various small shapes that follow the same rays’ movements to make it look more magical.

Step 17

Once you’ve completed the previous step, return to your character to improve it. With the presence of the new light source from above of your character’s body, you must increase the light reflected on its torso and face area by using a soft round white brush adjusted to “Overlay” mode.

Step 18

Now, draw some light effects passing around your model’s body so he can be integrated better within the scenery and be surrounded by more power.

Step 19

You can always add more “Splatters” if you find that the model does not disintegrate the way you want it to.

Step 20

To finalize everything, you can return to the colors, contrast and even intensify the bright areas with the same techniques you’ve used before. Basically, this step consists in putting your last personal touch to your piece! When you feel that your piece is finished, use a sharpness filter, to ensure a better overall quality, by duplicating your final image and by going to Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen.

Final Image

Author : Karim Fakhoury

About The Writer
Hello! My name is Tommy. I'm a blogger, I love graphics design and now i went to Architechture Technical Senior High School. | Facebook |

Retro Style Geometric Poster

2012-11-21T05:26:00.000+07:00

The design we’ll be creating features a series of flowing striped lines interweaving and looping around the page to form an intriguing composition. We’ll use a plain black and white palette to keep the design in check with the original Mexico Olympics branding and use textures and brushes to distress our clean vector design to give it that aged appearance.

View the large scale retro geometric lines design

Start work in Illustrator by drawing a long thin rectangle on the artboard. Alter the width using the fields in the top bar to 1mm, then hit the Enter key to open up the Move options. Enter 1mm in the Horizontal field then click the Copy button.

Press CMD+D to repeat the transformation to generate a series of lines, then select each alternate line and change the fill to white, leaving a striped effect.

Select all the lines that make up the pattern and click the ‘New’ icon at the bottom the of the Brushes palette. Check the ‘New Art Brush’ option.

You can now use this new brush by applying it to any path. Draw a line and a circle then add the brush as the stroke fill to create two striped patterns.

Make duplicates of the circle then delete out a number of points to form half and quarter circle shapes. To create a 3/4 shape, add a new anchor point halfway between two original points then delete it using the Direct Selection Tool.

Save all these elements to one side as they’ll be used as building blocks to form the whole composition. Hold ALT while dragging across a shape to create a duplicate, then begin aligning various shapes to each other. Toggle on Smart Guides to make the alignment process a breeze. A green notification will display when the two paths are aligned as an Intersection.

Hold Shift while rotating shapes such as the half circle to fit to the opposite end of the path. You can also shorten the straight lines to create smaller paths.

Arrange the stacking order using the menu options or the shortcuts to give the elements a weaved appearance where they wrap over and under each other.

Randomly cycle through the various elements to continue the flow of your path. Using two 3/4 shapes near each other will create cool flowing bends.

As the path weaves around the document the design really starts to take shape. Remember to keep the overall layout in check with the orientation of the final poster design.

The series of twists and curves lead the eye all the way around the design in a kind of hypnotising fashion. Remember to alter the stacking order to add that extra dimension where objects flow under and over each other.

The two open ends can be disguised by accurately hiding them underneath another object to make the line continuous.

The vector portion of the design is complete, now let’s create a grungy style canvas as a base for the artwork. Paste in a vintage paper texture and remove the saturation.

Paste in the vector elements from Adobe Illustrator and scale and align them to the centre of the page to fill the canvas.

Use a soft white brush to add a few highlights in key places around the design. Turn down the opacity to around 30% to tone down the impact of the highlights so they’re not quite as prominent, but still subtly alter the tones of the design.

CMD+Click on the thumbnail of the vector lines layer to load the selection. Press CMD+Shift+I to inverse the selection then delete out the excess from the highlights layer.

Add a layer mask to the vector lines layer then use a series of subtle grunge brushes to really rough up the design with distressed cracks and textures to give that aged and weathered retro appearance.

The final design works really well in its monotone format and relates well to the original Mexico Olympics style. The interweaving lines really do draw in the eye and allow you to follow the paths all the way around the design.

Source : Spoon Graphics

About The Writer
Hello! My name is Tommy. I'm a blogger, I love graphics design and now i went to Architechture Technical Senior High School. | Facebook |

Divine Angel Montage

2012-11-20T14:05:00.000+07:00

Materials Needed:

Step 1: Create a new document

First of all open a new document in Photoshop (Dimensions: 1019×1219 px).

Step 2: Apply Vegetation

Now import the first image “Vegetation1″ that we’ll use to create the background. Resize it and than place it to the top of the page.

Step 3: Reduce Saturation

Go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturatio
n and reduce the yellow saturation and grow up a little bit the yellow lightness.

Step 4: Complete the background

Fill the background with black color and erase slowly the bottom part of the image you added so that it will blend in with the black.

Step 5: Add the main character

Import the second image “Female” resize it and fit it in the centre of the image like below. Change the name of the layer to angel.

Step 6: Selecting the model

Using the Pen Tool (P) you need to trace the female model and erase the background behind her.

Step 7: Correcting the colors

Go again to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation and reduce the yellow saturation. Than select the Burn Tool (O) and try to make the females dress a bit darker, till you reach a result like the picture below.

Step 8: Add more detail to the background

Copy and paste the next image we used for the ground Vegetation2 and place it below the angel layer.

Step 9

Erase the trees from the top of the image, make sure you use a soft brush for this and that you will only have the ground visible and than change the Hue/Saturation and the Color Balance from Image > Adjustments.

Step 10: Create the angel

Import the image, which contains the wings. Select the contour with the Pen Tool (P) and get rid of the black part of the image. Than use the Burn Tool (O) on the pointed area.

Step 11: Add some color to the wings

Go to Image > Adjustments > Color Balance and use the settings below. Than you can change the contrast from Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast.

Step 12: Building the star

Create a circle with the Ellipse Tool (U) (Shape Layers). Than go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, set the radius around 4%.

Step 13

Now you should smudge the circle from outside to inside, which will allow the finger be seen. To make it glow, right-click on the layer with the white sphere and go to blending options and use the options from the Outer Glow like below.

Step 14

The light should go over the face. So you must brush and smudge a white color over the face and the hair then set the layer to Overlay.

Step 15: Creating the star rays

Draw some lines like below and then select with the Elliptical Marquee Tool (M) a circle.

Step 16

Go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur set to around 15.

Step 17: Add mist

Create a new layer and fill it with black. Then go to Filter > Render > Clouds. For the colors use these codes: #bfb499 and #000000.

Step 18

Set the mist layer to Screen and Opacity 75%.

Step 19

Now create a new layer and move it below the clouds layer and add some shadow. Brush with black and then smudge a little bit to cover the legs and the dress.

Step 20

In this step you must create some more mist at the female’s feet. Make a selection with the Elliptical Marquee Tool (M) and go to Filter > Render > Clouds. Use the same colors like before.

Step 21: Light behind angel

To create the light behind the angel create a new layer below the angel layer and brush it with #dbbe79. Set the layer to screen in the end.

Step 22: Rays of light

Create a new layer then create some straight lines using the Line Tool (U) set to 2px and color #dbbe79.

Step 23

Wile still on the rays layer go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and than Filter > Blur > Motion Blur effect till you get the same result like below.

Step 24: Add final light

This is the final step. Select all the layers (Ctrl + A) and copy merged (Shift + Ctrl + C) and paste (Ctrl + P). Then go to Filter > Render > Lens Flare. Using the Erase Tool (E) set to Opacity 70%, you need to slowly erase the lower part of the flare.

Final Result

Author : Constantin Potorac

About The Writer
Hello! My name is Tommy. I'm a blogger, I love graphics design and now i went to Architechture Technical Senior High School. | Facebook |

Action Packed Movie Poster

2012-11-19T14:29:00.000+07:00

In this tutorial we will explain how to create a character-centered movie poster using photo manipulation techniques. We will also explain how add text to give our poster a cinematic feel. Let’s get started!

Tutorial Assets

The following assets were used during the production of this tutorial.

Model (courtesy of Marcus Ranum)
Street (courtesy of Bizior Photography)
Light
Kid
City
City 2
Streetlights
Bolt
Clouds
Crack texture
Texture 1
Texture 2
Scratch
Font: Alegre
Font: Steeltongs
Font: Ethon

Step 1

First we will create the document. It’s importa
nt for it to have a decent size for printing, so we will be using an International Paper custom A3 size and then we will switch the Color Mode to CMYK (so we are sure that the printing will be ok, although nowadays most printers can emulate the color range of RGB files). Select a Resolution of 300 pixels per inch. These setting assure us to have a file ready for printing in any printer and almost any size until 100 x 70 cm.

Step 2

Now, take the model stock pic and drag it to the canvas. Hold the Shift key (this will maintain the aspect ratio while resizing) and leave the image size just as follows. Name this layer "model".

Use the Quick Selection Tool (W) to mask the model. Click, hold and move the cursor over the model parts and release from time to time to avoid selecting background areas. I recommend a brush size no bigger than 20 pixels and the Auto-Enhance box activated.

Your model should have a selection like the following shown in the screenshot below once you are done. Obviously there are certain areas that cannot be selected using this method but we are going to fix that right away. If your selection goes further than the model and selects the background, switch the brush to Subtract from selection from the top menu area and deselect the not desired parts.

Now click the Add New Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette. Now Invert the Mask to make the woman appear by pressing Command/Ctrl + I or going to Image > Adjustments > Invert.

Step 3

We are going to refine certain parts of the mask to have a perfect cutout pic. If you have done the selection in the right way, the only parts you are going to need to refine are the left hand, the space inside the holders of the submachine gun and the shoelaces. We are leaving the hair refinement for later.
Use the Magic Wand Tool (W), with a Tolerance amount of about 50 pixels (Antialias and Contiguous boxes checked as well) and click in the grey background areas between the fingers of the left hand. Hold Shift to select more than one area. When you are done, use the Brush Tool (B), 100% Opacity, Flow and Hardness, pick the black color and paint it in the Mask to make it disappear.

Do the same in the space of the submachine gun holders.

Repeat the process in between the shoelaces. Remember to hold Shift to select more than one area.

Step 4

Drag the Street stock image to our file, and resize it leaving the streetlights in the upper corners of the canvas. Then, put this layer under the "model" one and name it "street".

Select "model" layer, and press Command/Ctrl + T (or go to Edit > Free Transform) to resize it. Hold Shift key to keep the aspect ratio and make it a bit smaller, like in the screenshot below:

Go to Edit > Transform > Perspective and drag from any of the bottom corners to expand the "street" layer:

Right – click and select Free Transform. Rotate a bit the layer to the left to give a more dynamic look to our composition:

In this kind of composition it would be useful to follow some tips by the rule of thirds. If you are using rulers (View > Rulers or Command/Ctrl + R) drag using the Move Tool (V) from them and divide the image both vertically and horizontally in three areas of the same size. Rotate the "model" layer (Edit > Free Transform or Command/Ctrl + T) to make the boot fit in the bottom – right third point.

Step 5

Let’s blend a bit the "street" layer. Add a New Layer Mask by clicking on the respective icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette, pick the Brush Tool (B), 0% Hardness, 100% Opacity and Flow, black color, and paint in the mask over the top image borders. When you are done, expand the brush size and decrease both Opacity and Flow to 50% and paint over again to make the transition look smoother.

Now click on the layer icon to go out of the mask, and select the Clone Stamp Tool (S), 170 pixels Size, 0% Hardness, 100% Opacity / Flow. Press and hold the Alt key to select the reference point you want to clone from by clicking on it, release, and paint carefully over the blank areas to the right. To avoid making it look like a pattern, decrease brush size and select other further areas to clone over the repeated parts:

Step 6

Now that we have the base of our image, let’s mask the hair at last. Go to the mask in "model", and use a white brush ro reveal the background area surrounding the hair:

Use the Magic Wand Tool (W), 20 pixels Tolerance, and click over the grey background to make a rough selection. Then invert it (Command/Ctrl + Shift + I or Select > Inverse).

Go to Select > Refine Edge. In View select On Layer. Activate the Smart Radius checkbox, increase a bit the Contrast and decrease the Shift Edge so the new selection we are creating gets more into the hair than out. Check the brush icon. With this tool, we are going to paint over the hair. Do some strokes and see how the selection gets refined. When you are done, press Enter.

The new selection should look like this. Invert the selection again (Command/Ctrl + Shift + I) and go to the layer mask and erase it with a black brush.

Invert the "Background" layer (Command/Ctrl + I or Image > Adjustments > Invert).

Use the Smudge Tool (R), 50% Strength, very small Size, to paint a bit over these areas of the hair:

And use the Brush Tool (B), low Opacity/Flow, small size, to erase a bit in the mask certain areas not masked at all:

And you are done with the hair:

Step 7

Let’s add more elements to our scene. Grab to the canvas the Streetlights stock image and place/resize it as follows, name it "streetlights", then switch the Blending Mode to Screen:

Go to Edit > Transform > Distort and grab the upper right corner even more to the top, so this layer ends up having the same perspective as the street.

Use the Dodge Tool (O) in Midtones Range mode, 25% Strength, to lighten up a bit the background of this layer and make the buildings and trees appear… but just a little.

Add a New Layer Mask, pick a black brush and delete left and bottom areas of the layer to blend it with the street and get rid of the rigid borders:

Step 8

Add the City stock image and name it "city".

Set the Blending Mode to Screen, go to Edit > Transform > Distort and as we did with the streetlights image, grab from the upper right corner to adjust this layer to the image’s perspective.

Go to Image > Adjustments > Levels (Command/Ctrl + L) and raise the shadows of the layer.

Add a New Layer Mask and delete with a black brush the left area to blend the layer with everything else:

Go to the layer itself and direct yourself to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and use an amount of 1,4 pixels to adjust this layer’s sharpness:

Return to the Layer Mask of "street" layer and delete the upper red stream to make everything look homogeneous:

Step 9

Add the Lights stock image, name it just "lights", set the Blending Mode to Screen and go to Edit > Free Transform (Command/Ctrl + T) and rotate the image to the right, so the white lights follow the street lines:

Go to Image > Adjustments > Levels (Command/Ctrl + L) and raise the darkest areas of the layer so it gets blended:

Add a New Layer Mask and delete the top and left areas with the Brush Tool (B) and the black color picked: we are not interested in those lights anymore:

Decrease brush Opacity to 50% or so and decrease the opacity of the area shown below in the Layer Mask by over painting it, making these lines to be less annoying:

Step 10

Add the City 2 stock image and as usual, set it to Screen Blending Mode, resize it with Free Transform (Command/Ctrl + T) and place it above the road at the left. Go to Transform > Distort and adjust the layer to the image perspective by dragging the top right corner of the transform box a bit to the bottom. When you are done name this layer "city2".

Add a New Layer Mask and paint black the top area with a big, 0% Hardness brush, around 50% Opacity clicking multiple times until both images are blended:

Step 11

Add the Bolt stock image, resize it to fit the canvas and name the layer "thunder". Set the Blending Mode to Screen.

Add a New Layer Mask, pick a big black brush and delete the area of the layer that is over the street, leaving only the part that is over the sky area:

Go to Image > Adjustments > Levels (Command/Ctrl + L) and raise the deep blacks to blend this layer with our image:

Step 12

Drag to the canvas the Sky stock image, and name this layer "sky". Place this layer under "lights" one.

Add a New Layer Mask and erase the cloud areas that are on the street using the Brush Tool (B):

Set the Blending Mode to Overlay:

Now, go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/saturation (Command/Ctrl + U) and change the color of this layer by dragging to the right the Hue bar or using a value of +114:

Step 13

Now we will create the model’s shadow. Duplicate "model" layer (Command/Ctrl + J or Layer > Duplicate Layer), rename it as "model shadow", drag its mask and send it to the garbage can icon (and when asked, select Apply). Command/Ctrl – click on the layer icon to select it, and use the Paint Bucket Tool (G), with black color selected, to fill it:

Go to Edit > Free Transform (Command/Ctrl + T) and dragging from the top center point, go downwards to turn the layer upside down:

Right – click and select Perspective. Drag by the center bottom point of the transform box and displace it to the left, knowing that the source of light is coming from the right area of the image:

Right – click again and pick Distort. To make the shadow look like the one below, drag upwards the top left corner and send to the left the bottom left one.

Add a New Layer Mask, and use the Gradient Tool (G), with black color picked, to create a radial gradient from the bottom left corner to the center of the image and fade out the shadow as it gets further from our character and the light focus:

Now use the Brush Tool (B), with white color selected, to restore and darken the shadow coming straight from the left boot:

Go to Filter > Blur > Lens Blur and use the following settings to distort a bit the shadow:

Create a New Layer (Command/Ctrl + Shift + N, Layer > New > Layer or by clicking on the Add New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette) and name it "model shadow 2". Use the Pen Tool (P) to create a path from the right area of the boot until it meets the shadow to keep it real. To do this, if you are unfamiliar with the Pen Tool, click and hold and move your mouse to give the path the desired shape, and keep on doing that until you reach the first pointer you did. Click on it again to close it, Right – click, select Make Selection. If you are using a tablet you might be more interested in just using the Lasso Tool (L) to create a freehand selection:

With the Paint Bucket Tool (G) fill it with black color.

Use the Eraser Tool (E), 0% Hardness, to subtly erase the left area of the new shadow:

Press Command/Ctrl + F to apply the last filter we used, Lens Blur, or just go to Filter > Blur > Lens Blur and use the same setting as in the prior step:

Now, use the Smudge Tool (R), 50% Strength, over this layer, to blend it with the other shadow. At the end it should look like this:

Step 14

Drag the kid image to the canvas, right – click and select Flip Horizontal to adequate the lighting of the child to the one in our photo manipulation. Place the layer above "model" one and name it "child":

Now we are going to use the Pen Tool to cut out the child from the image. Create a path by clicking and holding and moving the anchor point to get adapted to the shape of the body. When you reach the hair, do not even try to select it, just make the shape because we will me masking it better with the Refine Edge tool as we did with the model’s hair. When you are done with the path, right-click and select Make Selection. Invert by pressing Command/Ctrl + Shift + I and click on the Add New Layer Mask icon on the Layers Palette.

Use the Magic Wand Tool (W) with a Tolerance of 35 pixels, to click and make a selection of the now masked green areas on the original layer:

Go to Select > Refine Edge and use the standard setting, but mark the Smart Radius checkbok. Mark the brush icon as well and paint over the edges of the hair in the selection.

Click Ok, and use a black brush in the mask to extract the hair and finish the cutting out work of this layer:

Step 15

Place the child just as follows:

Command/Ctrl – click on "model" layer mask to make a selection of its content. Use the Brush Tool (B), black color selected, 100% Opacity and Flow, to delete in the mask of the "kid" layer the hand of the model over it.

Step 16

Create a new layer (Command/Ctrl +Shift + N) under "child" and name it "child shadow". Use the Pen Tool (P) to create the shape of a casted shadow to the left, according to our lighting. As you close the path, right-click and select Make Selection.

Use werther the Gradient Tool (G) in Foreground to Transparent mode, or the Brush Tool (B), with a big size (0% Hardness) to paint the shadow, with the black color selected in any of the cases. It should get more transparent as it gets further from the child.

Use the Blur Tool (R) over the layer (you might need to brush over many times) or apply a Lens Blur Filter as we did in Step 13 with the same settings.

Step 17

Adjust the overall lighting of this layer by going to Image > Adjustments > Levels (Command/Ctrl + L) and muting a bit the highlights:

Refine the colors by going to Image > Adjustments > Color Balance (Command/Ctrl + B) and use these settings:

Step 18

Before painting the lights and shadows in our characters, we are going to work in the overall color of this image. First of all, return to the "street" layer and use Color Balance (Command/Ctrl + B) with these settings:

Create a New Layer (Command/Ctrl + Shift + N) above the "sky" one and name it "blue gradient". Select the color #3d65a9 in the Color Picker. Use the Gradient Tool (G), with a Foreground to Transparent mode selected and create a gradient from the top right corner to the bottom left one:

Set the Blending Mode to Soft Light:

Create a New Layer (Command/Ctrl + Shift + N) above the rest, name it "green" and fill it with the color #009d7d using the Paint Bucket Tool (G). Set the Blending Mode to Soft Light.

Click on the Create a new fill or adjustments layer icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette and select Color Balance to create an adjustments layer that will apply on all layers and that we will be able to modify later if needed. Don’t forget to place it above all layers. Use these settings:

We are going to add overall lighting to our piece. Create a New Layer under "green" (Command/Ctrl + Shift + N), name it "lighting". Since we cannot use the filter Lighting Effects in CMYK color mode, we will do it manually. Fill the layer with black color using the Paint Bucket Tool (G) and then switch to the Gradient Tool, pick the white color and create a Radial Gradient (Foreground to Transparent) over the lighting area we have in the image. Then change the Blending Mode to Vivid Light, 35% Opacity.

Pick again the color #3d65a9 and create a Radial, Foreground to Transparent gradient using the Gradient Tool (G) from bottom left corner until more or less the center of the image. Put it in Color Burn, 50% Opacity. Name this layer "dark gradient".

Create a New Layer (Command/Ctrl + Shit + N) above them all and name it "gradient". We are going to create a multi colored gradient to give some atmosphere to our piece. First, fill the layer with the color #985b19 using the Paint Bucket Tool (G). Change to Gradient Tool and to color #f5b50a. Create a Radial Gradient, Foreground to Transparent, over the area shown below in the second screenshot. Change the color to #f0d125 and create the same gradient in the same area, but a bit smaller. Do a bigger gradient with the color #6a3603 from the bottom left corner to the center, and to finish, select the color #cea73d and create a gradient from top right corner to the center.

Put the Blending Mode of this Layer to Vivid Light, add a new layer mask and use the Radial Gradient, with black color selected, to avoid burning certain colors of the image, over the area depicted in the screenshot below:

Duplicate this layer (Command/Ctrl + J or Layer > Duplicate Layer), delete de Layer Mask and add a new one. Switch Blending Mode to Divide, 35% Opacity. Fill the mask with black color and start painting with a big white brush over the area where the lighting is coming from until the layer shows at full opacity over that part:

Step 19

Time to paint lights and shadows. It is recommended for you to have a pen tablet for this, although you can do it with a mouse without any big problems. First of all, adjust the saturation of "child" layer by going to Hue/Saturation panel (Command/Ctrl + U) and lowering the Saturation a bit.

Use the Burn Tool, first in Midtones Range mode, with 8% – 10% Exposure, to paint over the natural shadows the layer has on the left of every element, then switch to Shadows Range.

Press Command/Ctrl + L to go to Levels. Raise a bit the deep shadows and decrease the highlights.

Use the Clone Stamp Tool (S) with the settings shown below. You have to be very careful with this step, because you might end up messing this layer. You have to use a small brush to clone darker areas of the layer to the brighter ones, because trying to darkening them using the Burn Tool or with Levels all the time may end up creating strange colors due to the color mode we are using, so we he have to use the ones that we already have. Clone the left part of the hoodie in to the right one, making sure that in the end they do not look the same (that’s why we are using low Opacity and Flow). Do the same with the stripes at the end of the jacket and with the ones in the hoodie.

Raise the Exposure of the Burning Tool (O), in Shadows Range, and darken the left part of the child.

Take the Dodge Tool (O), Shadows Range, 15% Exposure, with a tiny soft brush, and paint over the contour of the face of the kid, so it doesn’t get like blended with the hand.

Create a New Layer (Command/Ctrl + Shift + N) and name it "child shadows", placing it just above "child" layer. Command/Ctrl – click "child" layer mask to select its content, and pick the Brush Tool (B), 0% Hardness, and paint the shadows using these settings. You should paint just above where you already did with the Burn Tool, in the same areas. When you are done lower the layer Opacity to 68%.

Step 20

Now, we are going to do more or less the same with the "model" layer. First, let’s adjust color using Color Balance (Command/Ctrl + B):

Use the Dodge Tool (O) in Midtones Range, 10% Strength, and paint the borders of the arms and the back to create some contrast:

Do the same over the bright areas of the bottom part of the hair to make them pop out:

Switch the Range to Highlights. Now paint over the bright areas of the model’s outfit that are facing to the light source. Don’t just brush over the edges of the layer, go a bit further.

Now use the Burn Tool to raise the shadows. Use it first in Midtones Range, with an Exposure of 10%. Paint over the dark areas of the model’s face, like the shadows of the left area, the eyes and lips. Change the Range to Highlights and paint the septum and at last, paint over the hair to give more volumen to the flat bright top areas.

At the end your model should look like this:

Step 21

Last characters’ refinements! Let’s finish the child before we leave our characters alone. Use the Dodge Tool (O), Shadows Range, with very little Exposure, over the area on the right of the child. Then change to Midtones Range and increase the Exposure to 10%. Paint over as well the edges of the left arm at the left to create contrast. You can clearly notice the difference between the first and second screenshot. Then use the Burn Tool in Shadows Range, about 30% Exposure, and with a tiny brush paint over the darkest areas of the layer, but be careful to do not end up burning the colors. Paint over her head, and a bit on left arms and leg.

Now we are going to improve model’s shadow, because with the new lighting it stands out so much. Go to the layer mask of "model shadow", select a 0% Hardness, 50% Opacity, 10% Flow brush, black color picked, and paint over the right foot shadow to make it more subtle, like in the image below:

Step 22

Add the Crack texture to the canvas, name it "cracks" and place it above the "street" layer. Set the Blending Mode to Overlay and go to Edit > Transform > Distort. What we have to do now is to transform this layer so it gets the same perspective as the ground. Get the top corners as close as they get so they are placed right behind the model, and drag the bottom left corner more to the left, and the bottom right one, more to the right.

Change the Blending Mode to Hard Light and press Command/Ctrl + Shift + U to Desaturate the layer.

Add a New Layer Mask and use a soft brush to delete the texture between the cracks. Also, lower the opacity by brushing the top area of the layer, so it loses some contrast.

Press Command/Ctrl + L to go to Levels and raise the deep shadows of the layer:

Use the Blur Tool (R) with 80% Strength and a big brush Size, to blur this layer as it goes upwards, to make it look more accurate:

Step 23

Put in the canvas the Texture 1 stock photo, set the Blending Mode to Hard Light and the Opacity to 45%. Name it "road texture" and place it above the "cracks" layer.

Go to Edit > Transform > Distort and do the same as we did with the "crack" layer in the previous step to adapt this layer to the perspective. Just expand the bottom corners and contract the top ones to be behind the model.

Use the Eraser Tool (E), 0% Hardness, to delete de top area of this layer.

Step 24

Grab the second Texture stock image and put it on the canvas. It should automatically get a name as "colourfulgrunge3", so leave it as it is. Place it above all layers.

Switch the Blending Mode to Pin Light, 20% Opacity.

Step 25

Add the Scratch texture and leave its original layer name "11". Press Command/Ctrl + I to invert its colors.

Set the Blending Mode to Overlay, 40% Opacity.

Add a New Layer Mask and then Command/Ctrl – click the mask in "model" layer to select its content, and use a black brush in the mask of "11" to delete the texture over the right area of the model, so the texture doesn’t get disturbing.

Step 26

Create a New Layer (Command/Ctrl + Shift + N) above "colourfulgrunge3", fill it with the color #538d8e using the Paint Bucket Tool (G) and name it "saturation".

And, obviously, set the Blending Mode of this layer to Saturation. This layer will make the colors in the background to stand out a bit more.

Step 27

Stamp Visible Layers by pressing Command/Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E. This way you will create a separate layer containing all the work we have been doing. Call this layer "BW" and press Command/Ctrl + Shift + U to Desaturate the image.

What we want to do with this layer is to homgenize the lighting of the image and avoid wrong exposures or bad light compensation. Go to Image > Adjustments > Shadows/Highlights. Check the "Show More Options" checkbox and use the following settings:

When you are done set the Blending Mode to Soft Light. See the result by yourself:

Duplicate the layer (Command/Ctrl + J), name it "BW blur" and go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, and use an amount of 69 pixels or so.

Go to Hue/Saturation (Command/Ctrl + U), activate the Colorize checkbox and change the Hue to 245. See how suddenly, the lighting in the image comes to life.

Step 28

Our image is almost done, but before start playing with typography, let’s enhance the colors using a Selective Color Adjustment Layer. Click on the black and white icon in the bottom of the Layers Palette and choose Selective Color. Use the following values:

And here you can see the before/after change:

Step 29

With our image done, what is left is to include the typography. What we are going to include is, at the top, the name of our fictitious actors and actresses, a tagline, the film’s logline in the middle, and at the bottom, scored magazine reviews, the title and the credits. These are the most commonly uses with text in film posters, but feel free to do your research: you will find lots of different ideas to include.
First, be sure you have installed the fonts that are noted in this tutorial’s assets. When you are done, let’s start with the title (Note that all text will be just invented and the rest will be done using dummy text):
I am going to call this “Last Witness”, as if our model were protecting the child from something, but use any title you want. Select the Horizontal Type Tool (T) and open the Character Window (Window > Character). Once you are on it, select the font Ethon (here it will be named just ETH) and write your title.

Double-click on the layer’s icon to display the Layer Style window. We are going to apply certain effects to our title. Select Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow, Inner Glow, Bevel and Emboss, and Contour, and use the following settings:

Create a New Layer (Command/Ctrl + Shift + N) under our title, and pick the color #c1101e. Use the Brush Tool (0% Hardness) to paint a big line under the typography, and set its Blending Mode to Soft Light. This way the title stands out a bit more.

Step 30

Now we will write the credits. Change your font to SteelTongs. This font is very special, because it was designed specially for writing film credits. It writes fontbats such as "Directed By" or "Sound Designer" in normal mode and by pressing Alt and a numerical code (such as Alt + 0198). You will find the list of available codes in the readme text file of the font. On the other hand, in caps lock the font writes normal letters. So, basically, what you have to do is to write a fontbat and then enter your text (you can find some dummy text if you need it, here).
This time, click and hold your pointer to create a box where the text will be created, with a width similar to the title’s one, and with a height that shouldn’t reach the bottom of the poster, because we will include more things under this text block, so leave some room for them.

When you are done, create a new text block under the credits one that should be a bit smaller than the third of the credits width. Use some of the fontbats that portray certain logos, to give a more "real" look and feel to the poster. On my example, I am using the codes 0149, 0151, 0192 and 0195 (remember, with the Alt key pressed).

Step 31

Select a red color (I’m using #d6081d) and write "In Theaters May 15" or something of the like denoting the release of the film with the font Alégre Sans.

Double-click this layer to display the Layer Styles and select Drop Shadow using these settings:

Now write what the site url of our movie will be, again with Alégre Sans, and when you are done, set the layer Opacity to 65%.

Step 32

Go upwards and select SteelTongs font again, and write the name of your actors, leaving the appropriate spaces between names.

Go to Layer Styles by double-clicking the layer, and use Drop Shadow to make the text stand out a bit more:

Above our actors, we are going to write a tagline to let our audience know that they should go to watch this film because the director did this and that, so with the same font settings as before, write something of the like of "From the director of This Film and This other film." Use a light yellow tone, like #efe8b3.

Add a Drop Shadow going to the Layer Styles window:

Our logline will go somewhere on the central/right area of the image, where the light is coming from. Here we will write the sentence that will give a sense to our title and that will attract our audience to watch the film. Use Steeltongs font with the color #716e56. Emphasize some words of the tagline by putting them in bold or italics.

Step 33

Select the Custom Shape Tool (U). Under the menu options, you will find specific options for this tool. Find the Shape one, click on the arrow, in the emerging panel, click again on the right arrow, and select in the menu All to load all the custom shapes of the software. Select the star.

Holding the Shift key, to keep the aspect ratio, create a small star, press P key, right-click and select Fill Path (make sure that your Foregorund color is white). When you are done, select the Move Tool (V), press Alt + Shift to create a new star, while you move it horizontally to the left. Do this with as many stars as you would like your film to have. I’ll be using five. Merge all the star layers (Command/Ctrl – click them all, right-click and select Merge Layers, or just select the top one and press Command/Ctrl + E until they are all merged). Name this layer "stars".

Double-click to Display Layer Styles, select Drop Shadow.

Press and hold Alt + Shift to duplicate this layer twice and to keep all of them at the same horizontal position.

Write between quotes some sort of critic, and under that write the source in italics. And as you have guessed, use Steeltongs font with the exact same settings as the last time, and add a Drop Shadow (default values).

Step 34

Stamp All Visible Layers (Command/Ctrl + Shit + Alt + E) and go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and use an amount of 70 pixels or so.

Set the Blending Mode to Soft Light, 50% Opacity. We do this to homogenize all elements in our composition, both image and text, in the same atmosphere.

Step 35

And well, this is the last step. Stamp All Visible Layers again (Command/Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E), put it in Overlay Blending Mode, and go to Filter > Other > High Pass. Use an amount of no more than 5 pixels and see how the contrast and sharpness of our poster raises gracefully. We are done with this. Congratulations!

Final Image

Author : Mario Sanchez Nevado

About The Writer
Hello! My name is Tommy. I'm a blogger, I love graphics design and now i went to Architechture Technical Senior High School. | Facebook |

Army Squirrel

2012-11-18T17:54:00.000+07:00

Stock used
Squirrel: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/938803
Soldier helmet: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/670295
Weapon: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/946160
Background: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1229342
Ammo: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/948158

Step 1

Open the background image in Photoshop
. You don’t even have to unlock it because you will not retouch it. Next, open the squirrel image and subtract it from the background with the Pen Tool (P). Paste the squirrel over the background and use a soft brush to blend it with the grass from the background layer.

Step 2

The next obvious step is to create the shadows casted by the squirrel. So create a new layer below the squirrel and paint some shadows underneath using a soft low opacity brush. I also painted some shadows over the lower parts of the squirrel’s body.

Step 3

Now you have to redo the fur on the squirrels body. Get the Smudge Tool set Strength to about 20% and a 40-50px soft brush and smudge the sharp edges. Then set the smudge brush to 1 or 2px set Strength to 80-90% and make the hairs of the squirrel.

Step 4

Open the helmet image in Photoshop (if you can’t open it try opening it in Paint and then save it as jpg and try opening it again in Photoshop.) Scale it down and place it over the squirrel’s head. In order to make the helmet more symmetric I cloned the right side. If you can’t clone it, copy the right side as shown below, paste it on the left side and blend the edges with a soft brush.

After that, create a shadow of the helmet on the squirrel’s head using a soft brush.

Step 5

Open the gun stock image and start cutting with the Pen Tool (P).

Once you masked the parts of the soldier you don’t need, scale down and place the image so that the left hand of the soldier fits the squirrels left arm.

Step 6

Next you will have to remove the shadow from the gun stock. Use the Clone Tool (S). See details on the images below.

Step 7

Now you have to recreate the butt of the rifle. Make a selection with the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) and then fill the selection with the Gradient Tool (G). As for the gradient colors I sampled them from the gun stock. After that add a 1 or 2 pixels Drop Shadow.

Step 8

Let’s get to something more difficult now. You have put the squirre’ls hand on the gun. Start with the left hand. Use the Clone Tool (S) to sample hair from the squirrel’s arm and cover the soldier’s hand. If you activate the “All layers” option you will be able to clone the hair on an empty layer. I suggest you don’t clone the hair directly on the gun layer because it’s very easy to mess up here If you do, make sure you have a copy of it as backup.
After cloning the finger on the trigger, copy the squirrel’s left fingers and paste them over the remaining soldier hand. Use the Brush Tool (B) to blend it and the Warp Tool to adjust it. See image below.

Step 9

Now go to the right arm.Select and copy the squirrel’s right hand and paste it on a new layer as backup. Now on the original squirrel layer hide the right arm with the Clone Too. Again, I cloned on a separate layer.

After hiding the arm, blend the copied arm using a Layer Mask and a soft brush. Rotate it so that it fits the soldier’s right hand fingers.

Step 10

The final step on this process is to cover the soldiers right hand fingers. Again, use the squirrels fingers and paste them over the soldier’s. Use the warp tool for adjustments and make it look as the squirrel is holding the gun.

Step 11

Now start making the ammo belt. Open the image with the bullets and delete the background using the Pen Tool (P) or any other technique you prefer. After that, duplicate the bullets and use the Clone Tool and Free Transform to position the duplicated bullets and “weld” them to the others. After fusing both ammo clips, duplicate then a few times and create a long strip like in the image below.

Step 12

Select the bullets layer and activate the Free Transform with Ctrl+T and select the Warp Tool. Adjust the ammo belt to create the illusion that it’s sitting around the squirrel’s body. Use Levels to increase the Midtones a bit. See Image below.

Step 13

Time for some Dodge & Burn because the manipulation is ready. Create a new layer above all layers on the palette and fill it with 50% gray from Edit>Fill or Shift+F5. Set the Blend Mode of the gray layer to Overlay and name it dodge-burn. Use the Burn and Dodge tool to enhance the shadows and highlights of the squirrel’s body and the gun. Also paint some shadows below the ammo belt on a separate layer.

Step 14

Time to make the final adjustments. Now you can turn this into something more interesting and more artistic tweaking the colors and lighting using some adjustment layers. Add a Photo Filter and a Gradient Map like in the image below.

Step 15

I also created a vignette effect. You can easily make it by selecting the Rectangular Marquee tool, set Feather to 150-200 px (smaller if you use a low res image) and drag to select the entire canvas (Ctrl+A will not work as the father will not be applied). After you make the selection invert it and fill it with black using the shortcut Alt+Backspace, change the layer blending mode to Soft Light.

Step 16

Next up I created a stamp with Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E and made more adjustments. I used the Lighting Effects from Filter>Render>Lighting Effects to focus the light on the squirrel. I also adjusted the Shadows/Highlights from Image>Adjustments>Shadows/Highlights and I increased the Midtone Contrast to 12 and decreased the Color Correction to -56.
The final touch is given by a Black & White adjustment layer set to Lighter Color and Opacity 25%.

I hope you learned something out of this tutorial. As you can see the Warp tool can be a really cool tool if used correctly.

Final result

Author : Neijman

About The Writer
Hello! My name is Tommy. I'm a blogger, I love graphics design and now i went to Architechture Technical Senior High School. | Facebook |

Abstract Shining Text

2012-11-18T09:10:00.001+07:00

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stock:
Font

Step 1

Create a new document (sized doesn’t really matter here), fill the background layer with the gradients shown below:

Create a new layer on top of the background layer, either paint or render some cloud on the center and bottom – this acts as the foundation of the text effect:

Hint: don’t paint or render too much cloud, a subtle effect will do.

You can use the perspective option via Ctrl + T (right-click) for the cloud on th
e bottom to adjust its shape:

Step 2

Use the font we downloaded, type some text to the center of the canvas: (I used a yellowish colour)

Apply the following layer blending options to this text:
Drop Shadow

Inner Glow

Bevel and Emboss

Stroke

and you will have the following effect:

Duplicate this text layer twice and move each duplicated layer towards the top left a little, reduce their layer opacity to 15% and 40% respectively – this creates a layered text effect:

Step 3

Now let’s get to create the stripe brush :) Create a new document with the same size as our text document, add a new layer on top of the background layer.
Choose the slice tool from the toolbox:

Right-click on the canvas with the slice tool selected, choose “divide slice … “:

Tick the “Divide vertically into” box and enter “10″ into the textbox, click on “OK”:

Then use the rectangular marquee tool to draw selection for every second slice: (make sure you hold down “shift” key for multiple selection)

Fill the selection with black colour:

and you will have the following effect:

Turn off the background, and go to Edit > Define Brush Preset and define a vertical stripe brush set:

Now we can also rotate this stripe layer a bit and define another brush set:

Then we can use it to paint some stripe pattern on top of the text: (make sure you reduce the brush flow and opacity to be both around 30%)

Step 4

Now let’s create a base for this text effect. Create a new layer under the text layer and use the vertical stripe brush to paint the following pattern:

Go to Filter > Distort > Twirl and apply the following settings:

Hit Ctrl + F and re-apply the twirl filter, you will have the following effect:

Use the Free Transform tool to compress it down, and reduce the layer opacity to around 30%, then use a soft eraser to remove its edges. You will have the following effect:

Create a layer on top of the base layer, use a soft black brush to gently paint some shadow under the text:

Step 5

Now let’s create another abstract pattern with the stripe brush we created. Create a new layer and make a selection with elliptical tool, grab the vertical stripe brush (reduce brush tip size) and paint inside the selection: (Make sure you set the brush opacity to 50%)

Then duplicate this layer once, rotate the duplicated layer 90 degree CW:

Merge the two layers, you will have the following effect:

Then we can use the warp tool to manipulate its shape, as shown below:

Once you finish the warping, duplicate this pattern layer a few times and resize each of them, scatter them around the canvas as shown below:

Hint: make sure you adjust the layer opacity, or use a soft eraser with 50% flow and opacity to remove some part of the pattern, in order to create more depth for the image.

Step 6

OK we’re almost done! For the final touches, I added a new layer on top of all previous layer and use a small soft white brush, and painted some shining dots around the text, as shown below:

I also created another new layer on top and set its blending mode to “overlay”, use a soft white brush to paint around the edges of the text to add a glowing effect:

I added some more colours to the text, as well as using the Lens Flare filter to further highlight certain parts of the text:

If you wish to find out how to apply this Lens Flare filter to the text, check out this tutorial here on psdvault.com.
I also added some particle effect around the text, and here is my final effect for this tut: (click to enlarge)

That’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy this tutorial and find it useful! Till next time, have a great day!

Source : PSDVault.com

About The Writer
Hello! My name is Tommy. I'm a blogger, I love graphics design and now i went to Architechture Technical Senior High School. | Facebook |

Flying Brain

2012-11-17T13:12:00.002+07:00

Tutorial Resources

Hair by TrissteBrushes
Sea by BerryBlu
Sky by CatStock
Model by MjRanum
Brain by LotusOnlineDe

Step 1

Create a new file with a width and height of 4000 pixels.

Step 2

Open the Sky image. Copy and paste it it to your main document
. To do this, Go to Select > All, copy (Ctrl/Cmd+C), switch back to your main document and paste (Ctrl/Cmd+V). Delete your background laye
r.

Step 3

Use the Free Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T or Edit > Free Transform)

Scale the image like shown below. Hold down the shift key so that the proportions are constrained while scaling.

Step 4

Create a new layer above the sky layer (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+N or Layer > New > Layer).

Step 5

First, set your foreground color to white and background to black – you can do this quickly by pressing D then X on your keyboard. Select the Brush tool (B). Using a large and soft brush (1100px, 0 hardness), paint a curve around the sky like shown in the image below.

Step 6

Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and apply a blur of 250 pixels.

Step 7

Set the blending mode to Overlay. Duplicate the current layer (Ctrl/Cmd+J) then set the opacity of the new layer to 60%.

Step 8

Select both layers then right-click and choose “Create Clipping Mask”.

Step 9

Open the Sea image then copy and paste it to your main document. To do this, go to File > Open to open the sea image. Go to Select > All then Edit > Copy. Switch back to your main document and go to Edit > Paste. Position this layer as the top layer.

Step 10

Use the Free Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T or Edit > Free Transform) to scale the image like shown in the image below.

Position the layer to the bottom of your document.

Step 11

Now we’re going to create a selection of the sky. Select the Magic Wand tool (W) then set the tolerance to 50%. Click on the sky then press Delete on your keyboard to delete the selected area.

Step 12

Now we’re going to dodge/burn the sky using a nondestructive editing technique. Create a new layer (Ctrl+Shift+N or Layer > New > Layer) and position it as the top layer. Set the foreground color to #808080 (This is 50% gray). Fill the layer with this gray. Change the blending mode of this layer to Overlay then right-click on the layer and choose “Create Clipping Mask”.

Step 13

Select the Burn tool and make sure that the range is set to Midtones and exposure to 100%. Paint over the mountain to darken it like shown in the image below.

Step 14

Duplicate the layer (Ctrl/Cmd+J) then reduce the opacity of this new layer to 70%. The layer should be clipped to the previous layer as well – if it isn’t, right-click on the layer and choose Create Clipping Mask.

Step 15

Open the Brain image then copy and paste it to your main document. Use the Free Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T or Edit > Free Transform) to scale it like shown in the image below. Hold shift to constrain the proportions.

Step 16

Create a cutout of the brain. There are many ways of doing this such as using the Lasso Tool (L).

Step 17

Open the image of the model then copy and paste it to your main document. Use the Free Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T or Edit > Free Transform) to scale the image like shown below then go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal.

Step 18

Create a cutout of the model like shown in the image below. Erase her right leg to around the knees.

Step 19

Use the Free Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T or Edit > Free Transform) to scale the model so that it looks seated on the brain.

Step 20

Create a new layer (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+N or Layer > New > Layer) and position this layer below the layer of the model.

Step 21

Select the Brush tool (B) then load the brush shown in the image below.

Paint the hair by clicking once anywhere. Make sure that your foreground color is black and brush opacity set to 100%.

Step 22

Rename the layer to “Hair” then go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal.

Now rotate and position her hair like shown in the image below. Once you’re done, you can duplicate the layer (Ctrl/Cmd+J) and resize it to add more hair. If you do this, make sure you merge both of the layers back together by pressing Ctrl/Cmd+E (with the top hair layer selected).

Step 23

Create a new layer below the Sea layer. Set your foreground color to white then select the Brush tool. Using a soft brush (0% feather) with a brush size around 600 pixels, paint around the landscape like shown in the image below.

Step 24

Rename this layer to “White Glow” then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set the radius to 43 pixels then click OK.

Step 25

Duplicate this layer then drag the new layer above the Sea layer. Make sure it is clipped to the layer below – if it isn’t, right-click and select Create Clipping Mask. Set the blending mode to Soft Light.

Step 26

Activate the Free Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T or Edit > Free Transform). Scale the image like shown below.

Step 27

Select the first Dodge/Burn layer.

Use the Burn tool (B) to burn the area shown in the image below. I used a brush size of 1300 pixels with the range set to midtones and exposure at 100%.

Step 28

Select the layer with the model. Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Vibrance. Apply the settings as shown below.

Step 29

Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation. Apply the settings as shown below.

Step 30

Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Photo Filter. Apply the settings as shown below.

Step 31

Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Brightness/Contrast. Apply the settings as shown below.

Step 32

Select the four adjustment layers (Hold Ctrl/Cmd to select more than one layer) then right-click and choose Create Clipping Mask.

Step 33

Go to the Brain layer then press Ctrl/Cmd+J to duplicate the layer. Change the blending mode of the new layer to Multiply.

Step 34

Select the Dodge tool then set the range to Highlights and brush size to around 1000 pixels. Paint the front of the brain to brighten it up.

Step 35

Select the Brain Copy and Brain layer (Hold Ctrl or Cmd to select multiple layers) then merge the layers (Ctrl/Cmd+E).

Step 36

Now we’re going to create two iron bars for the handle. Create a new layer then move it to the top. Name this layer “Iron”.

Step 37

Select the Rectangular Marquee tool then create a selection like shown in the image below.

Step 38

Select the Paint Bucket Tool (G) then fill it with black. Press Ctrl+D to deselect.

Step 39

Now we’re going to apply some effects to the iron with layer styles. Go to Layer > Layer Style > Bevel & Emboss. Apply the settings as shown below.

Step 40

Create a new layer under the Iron layer. Select the original Iron layer then press Ctrl/Cmd+E to merge this Iron layer to the empty layer. We have only one layer again.

Step 41

Select the Eraser tool then with a hard brush (7-0100% feather), delete the bottom and top areas of the iron so that it looks like it fits in the models hands.

Step 42

Dodge and burn the layer a bit. Burn the part next to the hand and hole of the brain and dodge the middle of the iron to lighten it a bit.

Step 43

Press Ctrl/Cmd+J to duplicate the Iron layer. Now we have two bars. Use the Free Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T) to scale and position the iron rod like shown below. Delete the unnecessary parts of the iron just like what you did earlier with the other iron bar.

Step 44

Create a new layer above the Brain layer and name it “Shadow”.

Select the Brush tool (B) then using a soft brush, paint under the model like shown below.

Step 45

We’re almost done! Let’s apply some more adjustment layers for the whole image. Select the Brain layer then apply the adjustment layers in the order shown in the image below.

Here’s how your layers should look.

Step 46

Select the Sea layer then use the Blur tool at 50% strength to blur the top of the mountain.

Step 47

Now go to Layer > Flatten Image.
Editors Note: This tutorial suggests to flatten the image which will merge all of your layers into one. Instead of flattening the image, you can convert all the layers into a Smart Object. To do this, select all of the layers then right-click on the layer and choose Convert to Smart Object.

Step 48

Press Ctrl+J to duplicate the layer. Go to Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. Apply the settings shown below.

Step 49

Reduce the opacity of the new layer to 55%. Select the background layer then press Ctrl+J to duplicate it. Select the top layer then press Ctrl+E to merge it.

Step 50

Press Ctrl/Cmd+J to duplicate the background layer. Go to Filter > Other > Custom. Do not change anything – just click OK. Lower the opacity to 20%.

As you can see, the sharpening effect is very strong. Reduce the opacity to 20%. Press Ctrl+E to merge the layer.

Step 51

Create a new layer then fill the layer with black.

Step 52

Go to Filter > Render > Lens Flare. Apply the lens flare shown in the image below.

Step 53

Change the blending mode to Screen then position the light behind the model. You can use the Free Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T) to see the bounding box of your layer which may help you see where it is moving but this isn’t necessary.

Step 54

Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set the Radius to 43 pixels then click OK.

Step 55

Press Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+U to desaturate the lens flare. Use the Free Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd+T) to scale down the lens flare. You can also reduce the opacity to 60% if you’d like.

Final Results

{end}

Author : Dany Owergoor

About The Writer
Hello! My name is Tommy. I'm a blogger, I love graphics design and now i went to Architechture Technical Senior High School. | Facebook |

Terrifying Halloween Demon

2012-11-16T16:25:00.001+07:00

Resources Used In This Tutorial

Step 1

Firstly, we will manipulate a demon from the liberty stock picture. So, just open the image in photoshop. The image will be a new document with name of background in the layer panel.
Right click on the background layer to unlock and make it an ordinary layer with name of layer 0:

Now, we will clean out the blue background of the image. To do this purpose, we will use magic wand tool to select the background. activate the tool. Please refer to the screenshot to see the setting of it. Click on the blue background:

Here is the result after clicking the blue background. The entire blue background is selected now:

Hit Del on the keyboard to clean the blue. There is still part unneeded part of the background left. With eraser tool, clean the part.

Here is the result:

Step 2

From this step on, we will alter the face of the liberty statue. With the liberty layer still selected, hit Shift+Ctrl+X to go to liquify filter. Set the setting of the filter as shown in the screenshot:

Make sure to activate Foward Warp Tool by clicking its icon in the liquify tool panel. Place the cursor on the one of the eyebrow. Then, click and drag the cursor up a bit:

Here is the effect of liquify tool on the eyebrow should be:

Procceed to alter the different parts of the face by warping them. Try to vary the size of the brush according to the widths of the parts to be warped.

Here is the result I created:

Step 3

After altering the shape of the face, we still have to repair the shape of its nose:

To repair the nose, we just simply cut out the other part of the nose:

Then, flip the cut out and place on the part of the nose to be repair:

Finally, mask the unneeded part of the cut out to make it well blended. Here is the result:

Step 4

In this step, we will start painting over the face. Activate the brush tool and choose one of the halloween brushes after we have downloaded and installed in photoshop:

Create a new layer (Shift+Ctrl+N). Set the foreground color to black. On this new layer, paint the brush right on the altered face :

Cut out the the mouth into a new single layer:

Take pen tool in the tool panel. Zoom in the bird picture. Start tracing each bird by clicking the pen tool on the edge of each until the path is closed. When the path is closed, right click on the path to show the path option ccommand box. Choose make path selection. Hit Ctrl+J to duplicate the selection into a single layer.
Then, place the cut out layer on the face. Mask parts of this layer to make it well blended:

Select all the face layers previously made and group them (Ctrl+G). mask the parts overlapping on the forehead. Finally, go to Layer > New Adjustment Layers > Hue/saturation. Create a clipping mask to this adjustment layer so that it just effect the face layer to which it is clipped.

Step 5

Create a new layer. On this layer, paint over the fangs to make them brighter. Use brush with small size about 10-20pxl at 50-70% hardness.

Step 6

Create another new layer. set this layer’s blending to color in the layer panel. On this layer we will paint over parts on the face. Activate brush tool. Choose round brush. Set the hardness of the brush varied to 30-60%. Paint over the cheek and chin with colors combined among #a1c4c6, #6e9092 and #314547.

Proceed to create two more layers. Set the first layer to color blending and the second one to soft light at 50% opacity. In this step, we will still paint over the face to define more details. With brush tool selected, paint over the cheek and forehead area with color of #012123 on the first layer. Then, select the second layer on which we will paint over the face with color of #afd7d4.

Create one more layer. Again, set the color of foreground to #034f52. With round brush tool set to 20-30% hardness at 30-40% opacity, paint over the forehead area:

We are almost done with the face. In this step we will give highlight and shadow on the face. To do this purpose, firstly create another layer and fill (Shift+F5) the new layer with 50% grey color. Set this layer to overlay at 100% opacity. Activate brush tool. Choose a very soft round brush at 15-25% opacity. On the new layer, stoke white color to some area on cheek, fangs and foreground to give them highlight. On the contrary, paint black color to the areas to be given shadow or shading. Here is the result I created:

Step 7

Create again a new layer. On this layer we will paint eyes. Select bright orange color as the color of the foreground. Paint an eye shape with the color (1). Then duplicate the eye layer and set the duplication layer to color dodge blending at 40-50% opacity (2).
Select the eye layer and hit Ctrl+G to group them.

Duplicate the group and flip it horizontally. Then, place the the group on the other eye:

Create another new layer above the two eye groups. Paint white spots on this layer right in the middle of the eyes. Then go to Layer > Layer Styles > Outer Glow:

Result::

Step 8

Here is the result should look like so far. Next, we will replace the outfit of the demon with the original one.

Firstly, go to the original layer of the liberty image. Crop out the outfit of it into a new single layer:

Then, just simply add the cut out to the modified liberty we have created:

Step 9

In this step, we will add a halloween icon to the scene. We will replace the manuscript held by the statue with the halloween pumpkin. Open the pumpkin stock image. Crop out the pumpkin:

Add the cropped pumpkin to the scene. Activate free transform tool (T). Warp the pumpkin to alter its shape:

Place the pumpkin above the manuscript. Mask the pumpkin to reveal the fingers:

Step 10

We will add a hat to the pumpkin. Open the hat stock image. Crop the hat out into a single layer:

Paint over the hat with black to alter its color. Then, add the hat on the pumpkin:

Step 11

In this step, we will proceed to dramatize the lool of the demon by adding an axe as the replacement of the torch. Open the axe stock image and crop the axe out into a single layer:

We need to repair the axe by hidding the rest of the fingers. Cut out the wood part of the axe stick into a new single layer:

Then, place the cut out on the fingers to cover them. Mask the edges of it to make it well blended.

Do the same to the other left fingers. Here is the result should be:

Step 12

Add the axe to the scene. Place it on the torch.

Mask the axe to reveal the fingers of the demon. Finally, mask the torch and manuscript to hide them. Here is the result:

step 13

What to do next is creating nails to the fingers. Create a new layer. activate pen tool to create a triangle shape on one of the fingers. Fill the shape with grey:

Now activate burn tool. Choose a very soft brush of the burn tool. Set its range to highlight at 66% exposure. Stoke on the area to be burn:

Apply more burn effect to the finger:

Do the same to add more nail to the other fingers:

Step 14

We will add some textures on the face and hands of the demon. Open the texture stock image. Hit Ctrl+I to invert the image:

Step 15

Add the texture to the demon. Place it on the face:

Set the texture layer to overlay:

Mask the unneeded part of the texture. Then, reduce the opacity of this layer to 50-60%:

Duplicate the texture as many as needed and add the duplication to the other parts of the face. Vary the sizes and the opacities of the duplication layers accordingly:

Do the same to add textures on the arm and fingers:

We are done with the demon. Merge all the demon layers into a single layer. We are done with the demon. Here is the result:

Step 16

Create a new document (Ctrl+N) with size of 1024 pixel wide and 1229 pixel high:

Activate gradient tool. Choose linier gradient. Set the foreground to #626a71 and backfround to #d8d8d8. Click the top of the document, hold and drag down to fill it with gradient:

Duplicate the gradient background into a new single layer. Set the duplication to multiply blending at 100% opacity, then, mask some part of it (Marked in red). Use a very soft round brush at 20-40% opacity to mask the layer:

Step 17

Now we will add cloud texture to the scene. We will manipulate the texture from the other stock image provided. Open the image in the document. Hit T on the keyboard to activate free transform tool. Scale up the size of the image by dragging one of the transform point. Make sure to hit Shift key while dragging it.

Here is the result should be:

Then, mask the lower part of the image to hide the unneeded part and just the cloud part is revealed. Use a very soft round brush to mask it.

Go to layer > new adjustment layers > gradient map. Make sure to create a clipping mask to this adjustment layer. Refer to the screenshot to see the setting of the gradient:

Step 18

We still need to add more cloud to the scene. To do this perpose, duplicate the previously made cloud. Re-scale the size of the duplication accordingly and place it where needed. See screenshot below for your inspiration:.

Mask the unneeded parts of the duplication image:

With the duplication layer still selected, go to layer > new adjustment layers > curve. Make sure to create a clipping mask to this adjustment layer:

Step 19

Finally, give the two cloud layers some surface blur by going to filter > blur > surface blur:

Here is the result will look like:

Step 20

In this step we will add a city as the background of the scene. Open the city stock image. Scale up the size and arrange its position where needed:

Hide the cloud part of the image by masking it.

Set the blending of this city layer to multiply at 15% opacity:

With the city layer selected, go to filter > brush strokes > spatter:

Here is the result:

Step 21

Next, we will give adjustment layers to the scene. Firstly, go again to layer > new adjustment layer > gradient map. Please see the screenshot for the setting of this gradient. Set the gradient layer to normal blending at 100% opacity. Then, duplicate this gradient layer and set the blending of this duplication to soft light at 100% opacity. Mask some part of the duplication gradient ( marked in red in the screenshot):

Give another new adjustment layer: photo filter. After applying the photo filter, mask some part of it as marked in red in the screenshot. Finally, set its blending to multiply at 100% opacity.

This is the result should look like:

Step 22

Add the demon we have previously made to the main document. This demon image will de the top most layer in the layer panel so far.

Step 23

Next, create a new layer above the demon layer. On this layer we will paint white color which is supposed to be ray of light. The red mark in the screenshot is the place where we should paint the light:

Set the foreground color to white. Activate a very soft round brush with opacity of about 15-25%. Then, paint light to the area where needed:

Step 24

Create a new layer again above all the other layer. On this layer we will paint shading on the edges and lower part of the scene. To do this, firstly set black as the foreground color. Then, with a very soft round brush at low opacity of about 10%, paint the area to be given shading (marked in red)

Here is the result will be:

Create another new layer filled with black. Set this new layer to soft light. Mask some part marked in red. This layer will give more shading to the scene:

Step 25

In this step, we will add more new adjustment layers to set the overall mood of the scene. Go again to layer > new adjustment layer > color balance:

Then, add another adjustment layer: vibrance. Set this vibrance later to normal at 40% opacity.

Next, more new adjustment layer. This time, we will add curve adjustment layer. Mask the red marked area of the curve to hide the effect of it. Set its blending to normal at 75% opacity.

Finally, add the last adjustment layer: photo filter. Hide the effect of this adjustment layer by masking the red marked part. Set its blending to normal and reduce its opacity to 30%.

Step 26

After setting the mood of the scene, we need to retouch the appearance of the demon. Select the demon layer again and give the layer a layer mask. Mask the lower part of it to make it look transparent. After finding the desire result, hit Ctrl+G to make the demon layer in a group. Name this group: Demon.

Step 27

Within the demon group, duplicate the demon layer. Create a clipping mask to this duplication layer. Now, go to filter > others > high pass. The filter will change the color of the demon into grey. Activate brush tool and choose a very soft round brush. Then, paint white color to some area where needed to define highlight. Here is the normal blending of the high passed duplication layer will look like after being painted with white color:

Here the result will look like in overlay blending:

Step 28

Next, add a new adjustment layer to the demon. This time we will add curve adjustment layer. Make sure to give a clipping mask to this curve layer so that it will just effect the layers below to which it clipped.

Step 29

Again create another new layer within the demon group. On this layer, paint some shadow to the areas shown by the red arrows.

Step 30

Next, select the demon layer in the group. With the demon layer selected, go to layer > layer styles > inner shadow. Follow the setting of this layer style as shown in the screenshot. Then, right click the eye icon of inner shadow in the layer panel to show layer style’s command option. Choose create layer. This option will change the inner shadow style into a single layer clipped to the demon layer. Set the blending of this layer to color dodge at 100% opacity. Place the inner shadow layer on the top most position among the other layers within the demon group. Mask a little bit on the unneeded part of the inner shadow.

The effect of the inner shadow will give more highlight to the demon. Here ia the result should look like:

To make the highlight brighter, duplicate the inner shadow layer one time and set the duplication layer to screen:

Step 31

I decided to paint over more highlight on the neck of the demon by consideration that the area is where the light is strongly being casted:

step 32

In this step we will dramatize the scene by adding fire and smoke from which the demon is being appeared. We will manipulate the fire and smoke from the stock image provided. Open the image. Cut out some of the fire images given into new layers.

Scale the size of the cut outs accordingly and combine them to create a new single shape. Set the blanding of each to screen blending mode with opacities varied to about 35-58%. Mask parts of each cut out where needed to find the desired single shape. The shape I created below may give you inspiration:

Here is the scene will look like after being given smoke:

And here is the one with more gentle smoke:

Step 33

Now we will add more fire effect to the scene. Create a new layer again that is filled with black. Set this new layer to color dodge blending. Activate brush tool. Choose a very soft round brush at opacity of 5-7%. With bright orange color (#fd6e17), stroke the brush repeatedly to the area where the flame and fire should be. Then, switch to bright yellow (#fcd703) to paint more light on some areas of the cloud and the demon outfit. Here is the look of the layer set in normal mode at 100% opacity:

Here is the result when the layer set to overlay at 100% opacity.

Step 34

Create a new layer under the shading layers previously made (step 24). Take rectangular marquee tool. On this layer, create rectangular selection and fill it with black. Next, go to filter > render > lens flare. Choose 105mm prime for the lens type at about 40-50% brightness.

Set the flare layer to screen and place it on the axe and reduce its opacity to 75%.

Step 35

Now duplicate the flare layer. Activate free transform tool. Alter the shape of the flare a bit by warping it:

Place the duplication flare layer near the neck of the demon. Reduce its opacity to 60%.

Finally, duplicate the warped duplication flare layer three times. Place each duplication layer to where needed. The red arrows shown in the screenshot point to the places where each duplication layer is added:

And…here it is the result:

And We’re Done!

You can view the final outcome below. I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial and would love to hear your feedback on the techniques and outcome.

Author : Dek Wid

About The Writer
Hello! My name is Tommy. I'm a blogger, I love graphics design and now i went to Architechture Technical Senior High School. | Facebook |

21 Fresh Fonts To Spice Up Your Creatives

2012-11-15T09:46:00.001+07:00

In this post we have put together some high quality free fonts.