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Saturday, June 29, 2013

Easy Digital Painting in

Easy Digital Painting in Photoshop

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This tutorial will walk you through the simple steps used to turn a regular photograph into an interesting digital painting illustration, using Photoshop's Filter Gallery and the Smudge Tool. Depending on the photograph you choose, it shouldn't take you more than a couple of hours to complete.

Before I begin, I must give a huge thanks to @kidhelios / for allowing me to use his photo of George Auckland (my old boss from the BBC) as the source for this illustration.

Preview

The first thing to do is to resize the photo to your desired output size. This is important as the Filter Gallery effects are heavily pixel based and if you resize after you've finished your work, it can blend them all back together and lessen the overall effect. My photo was taken with an original iPhone and is only 480x640 pixels. I wanted the final illustration to be bigger so I enlarged the image size to 960 pixels high and also increased the canvas width to 1200. Next I boosted the Brightness and Contrast to help the Filter Gallery effects really pick out the noise from the iPhone's less-than-brilliant camera. The easiest way to do this is with an adjustment layer, as it is non-destructive.

Next we need to drop out the background, fix any problems and prepare the photo for the filters. I'll leave you to choose your own way of removing the background, but I prefer straightforward painting in the Layer Mask, for the level of control is gives you. You can be fairly rough with elements like the hair as they'll be fixed when we get on to the smudging part later on. In my original photo, the subject's left shoulder has been cropped from the frame, so that needs to be put back in. I've just copied the right shoulder and flipped it across to the left, tweaking a few bits along the way. Again, it doesn't need to be precise and photo-realistic at all, as long as the basic shape is right and you pay attention to the highlights, shadows and overall tone of the area.

Now we are finished with our basic image adjustments, it's time to apply the filters.

Load your Layer Mask as a selection (hold down the Apple key and click the Layer Mask) and Copy Merged (Apple-Shift-C), then Paste into a new layer. If you find that the pasted version has moved slightly, just reposition it over the original - quickly flipping the Blend Mode to 'Difference' can help, when everything is black, the two layers are aligned.

Select the bottom layer of the three and apply the 'Poster Edges' effect from the Filter Gallery. Tweak the settings until you get some nice black lines defining areas of you subject, almost like cartoon outlines.

On the next layer up, apply the 'Accented Edges' effect. This one should brighten up your image and add some nice highlights. Set the Blend Mode to 'Overlay'.

On the third layer, apply the 'Glowing Edges' effect. Don't worry that your image has suddenly gone black, the extra highlights and neon glows will be perfect once you set the Blend Mode to 'Lighten' and reduce the Opacity down to 50%.

Obviously, all of these settings are specific to this photo and may not be right for yours, so feel free to tinker and tweak until you're happy, maybe even try out some of the other filters. When you're done you should end up with something like this.

Now for the fun part.

With your three Filter Gallery layers visible, Select All, Copy Merged and Paste once more, and make sure the pasted copy lines up with the other again. Duplicate this layer (so you have a merged back-up) and then this is layer that we will be painting, but before we start there are two little tweaks to Photoshop's default settings we should change first. In the Preferences, go to Performance and up the number of History States saved to at least 200 if you haven't already. The second tweak is in Keyboard Shortcuts from the Edit menu, and is to change the usual Undo command (good old Apple-Z) to activate Step Backward instead. This allows you to quickly go back through those 200 history states if something doesn't look right.

OK, now for the fun part...

Select the Smudge Tool - it's the third option of the Blur/Sharpen tool - and choose a smallish soft brush, with the Strength set to 50%. Now just start brushing your image and blend the combined Filter effects back together to resemble brush strokes. The key here is 'short, controlled bursts' and to follow the natural lines and curves of your subject. Go with the contours of the skin, the curls of the hair, the patterns of the clothing and so on. Be careful not to bend any of the black lines away from their curves, if you do then Apple-Z is your new best friend.

Other useful keyboard shortcuts to know for this process are the square bracket keys - [ ] - which reduce and increase your brush size, and the number keys, which will alter the strength of the smudge effect (remember; 0 sets it to 100%, 9 to 90% etc)

(200% zoom view with arrows showing the approximate direction and click duration for the Smudge Tool)

Keep going like this, working methodically around the subject. When you do the hair, you can tidy up your rough mask from earlier by extending whispy hairs out from the head when you smudge them and also correct any other areas that you're not happy with - I altered the cloned lapel of the jacket while smudging as I didn't think I had the angle right first time.

Once you've finished your painting, you'll need a background. I've used and tweaked Fabio's excellent space background tutorial and added a spiral galaxy from the NASA archive for mine. As a finishing touch I've duplicated my painted layer, given it a high Gaussian Blur and moved it below the painting layer to add an overall glow to the image. If you plan on painting your background using the same effect, it's useful to keep it separate from your foreground image so you don't end up smudging the two together.

About the Author

My name is Nathan Barry and I'm currently a freelance Web Designer/Coder, after spending nearly 10 years building websites for the BBC. I also write for Wired's GeekDad blog http://www.wired.com/geekdad/author/discotechnological and I'm a keen photographer and full-time Dad. You can follow me on twitter @GeekDadNath if you like. Thanks for reading!

Super Easy Colorful Effects in Photoshop

abduzeedo Mon, 06/10/2013 - 00:04

A few weeks ago I posted artwork I created for a poster inspired by the Man of Steel movie. I used Pixelmator for that project and got quite a few comments and requests about how to achieve the same effect in Photoshop. As Photoshop doesn't have the awesome Vintage filters that Pixelmator now has, I tried emulating the effect using brushes which I will share with you today.

So in this tutorial I will show you how to create a nice colorful background using Photoshop. The whole process is pretty simple and straightforward. One good requirement is to understand a little bit of Color Theory in order to create different color combinations.

Step 1

Open Photoshop and create a new document. I am using 2880x1800 pixels. After that fill the background layer with black.

Step 2

Create a new document and then with the Brush Tool (B) use a very soft brush and then paint some yellow brush spots.

Step 3

Add another layer and then still with the Brush Tool, paint now a blue spot next to the yellow.

Step 4

Add another layer and now paint a red spot. Use the image below for reference.

Step 5

Select the 3 layers and group them. After that convert the group to Smart Objects, Layer>Smart Objects>Convert to Smart Objects. Then go to Edit>Transform>Warp. Deform the mesh in order to make the colors transitions less uniform.

Step 6

Now resize the image a little bit, only in the height. Make sure the colors are blending well with the background, otherwise use the Eraser Tool (E) to smooth things out. Also go to Image>Adjustments>Levels. Boost the Black and White Inputs to increase the contrast.

Step 7

Duplicate the layer with the colors and change its Blend Mode to Overlay.

Step 8

Change the background color to a dark blue like the image below.

Conclusion

Add your logo and the image is done. There are lots of ways to achieve this effect, this for me is the easiest one, but it's up to you to come up with your own workflow. Remember the most important thing is to have fun.

Download Photoshop file

Download the Photoshop file used for this tutorial

About the author

Abduzeedo is a blog about design. There are all sorts of articles for those who want to look for inspiration. Also you will find very useful tutorials for the most used applications out there, with a special selection of Photoshop Tutorials and Illustrator Tutorials. Of course there are other softwares conteplated like Pixelmator, Fireworks, and web design tutorials.

Oblivion Inspiring Artwork in Photoshop

abduzeedo Mon, 01/21/2013 - 02:55

Following our movie poster inspired tutorials, today we bring to you an image inspired by Oblivion, the new Tom Cruise film we can't wait to check out. The poster has a post-apocalyptical composition of a waterfall with some ruins of old buildings including the iconic Chrysler building in NYC. Of course we loved the poster and we decided to create something similar in Photoshop.

So in this tutorial we will show you how to create a photo manipulation of an 'end of the world' style image. To do that we will use stock photos and adjustment layers to make sure the image looks legit.

Step 1

Open Photoshop and create a new document. I am using a A4 format for this document.

Step 2

The most important thing when doing this photo montages is to get the right images. To start the compostion we will use a sky picture found on Google Image Search downloaded from http://www.beachwallpapers.in/bulkupload/New_beaches/Sunset/Sunset%20Sky.... We also used a photo of the Chrysler Building, courtesy of <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-718624p1.html?pl=edit-00&cr=00">gagliardifoto</a> / <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/?pl=edit-00&cr=00">Shutterstock.com</a>.

Place both images in the composition, erase the sky from the building photo an position them like the image below.

Step 3

Now let's add another photo of a mountain in order to mix it with the building. You can download it at (http://www.backpacker.com/media/originals/RockyMountainNationalParkConti...). Use the Brush Tool (B) with a custom brush using a stone pattern for the Texture.

Step 4

Let's add another photo blend it with the building and mountain images from the previous step. This one can be found on Google Image Search.

Step 5

Start deleting some areas of the mountain image like the image below.

Step 6

Now, to make it very cathastrofic, let's add a waterfall photo. The one I am using is courtesy of Shutterstock, it's called A woman dressed in a red jacket carrying a red umbrella standing at the base of a waterfall. Shot on location at Skogafoss in Iceland by Darren Baker.

Step 7

With the Eraser Tool (E) and a regular and very soft brush, start deleting some areas to blend the images together. One of the most important things when chosing images is to make sure that the light sources are almost the same. It's almost impossible to find images with exactly the same light source, but having them with similar sources will make your design more realistic.

Step 8

Once you position all images together you will have to match the colors and saturation. There are different ways you can achieve that, for this tutorial we will use Hue and Saturation. Use adjustment layers on top of each layer and them Clipping Mask to apply Hue Saturation to each of the images. For the Waterfall lets use 220 for the Hue, 3 for the Saturation and 0 for the Lightness.

Step 9

For the building and mountains use 0 for the Hue, -68 for the Saturation and -19 for the Lightness.

Step 10

Add a new layer on top of the mountain and building layers, then change the Blend Mode to Multiply. With the Brush Too (B) and a very soft brush, use black for the color to create a shadow over the building and the mountain.

Step 11

Now lets add 2 more images, one for a base of rocks and a guy staring at the utopic view. You can search for the images on Google Images to get them. It's up to you here as this step is not really necessary.

Step 12

Once you have all images together, use the Brush Tool (B) with a custom brush using Clouds for the Texture to paint some sort of clouds/water on the base of the waterfall.

Step 13

In the layers panel, make sure that the layer at the top is selected, then go to Image>New Adjustment Layer>Hue/Saturation. Use 34 for the Hue, 15 for the Saturation and 0 for the Lightness.

Step 14

Select all layers and duplicate them, after that with all new layer selected, merge them into a new layer. Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Use 10 pixels for the Radius. Change the Blend Mode of this new layer to Screen.

Conclusion

Select all layers and then duplicate them again. Merge the new duplicated layers again and then change the Blend Mode of the new layer to Overlay. These two last steps will give more realism to the composition and help the images to match the colors and styles. After that it's up to you to add more elements or adjust colors and styles.

Download Photoshop file

Download Photoshop file used for this tutorial

About the author

Man of Steel Poster

abduzeedo Mon, 05/13/2013 - 02:54

Next month one of the most anticipated movies of the year will open in the theaters, I am talking about Man of Steel, the new Superman movie. It's amazing how much promotion this movie is getting lately, every day there's a new picture, poster or some news about it. With all of that, of course I also get really inspired to create some artwork about it. I've created the symbol in the past using Illustrator and Photoshop a few weeks ago. Now I will create a simple poster, this time however I will use the new Pixelmator 2.2 to test it out.

So in this post I will walk you through the creative process behind my minimalist poster for the Man of Steel movie. I will use Pixelmator's new features like the Vector Tools and Light Leak effects.

Step 1

Open Pixelmator and then grab the latest poster of the movie to use for reference and to trace superman.

Step 2

Using the Pen Tool, start tracing the silhouette of superman. Don't add to many points and also don't worry if it's not super perfect. You can always edit that later.

Step 3

Here's the final trace.

Step 4

Fill the background with a dark blue using the Paint Bucket Tool (N). Change the superman color to white.

Step 5

Using the Rectangle Shape Tool create 2 lines like the image below.

Step 6

Add the text. If you notice the kerning of the text is really crazy, I changed to 250%.

Step 7

With the rectangle shape tool, add another rectangle with no color and white for the stroke. Select inside for the options and then use 50px for the stroke width. The idea here is to add a simple white border to the composition.

Step 8

This is not really necessary, I prefer the version without the effect but you can also add a nice vintage look by using the new Light Leak Effects in Pixelmator. Just select the background color and then drag it to the composition. I used Nebula with 100% for the Amount and 65% for Sunniness.

Conclusion

The poster is done. It was a great exercise to test the new Pixelmator and some of the new features. I can also say that Pixelmator is faster than ever and getting more complete at each release. It's a nice alternative if you don't want to pay Adobe's subscription. There are some important tools missing but I am sure they will be added in the next release.