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ISSUE 16 Retro Chic | Add shadows to your art | Charles Darby interview | Create urban snow scenes | Get more out of Bridge | Aqua art with blending modes
Build a Bridge
HIS T IMA OCRKES INC G THILUDE ES S D
Organise and present your photos with Adobe Bridge
IS O FRESUE’SN EC D
MOVIE MASTER
HOW TO…
Add shadows to images Create urban snow scenes Design conceptual art Work with Camera Raw 3 Produce abstract art
Top imageer Charles Darby on the secrets of film backdrops
8-PAGE SPECIAL
RETRO CHIC Recreate a myriad of classic film photographic effects with Photoshop
ISSUE 16 ISSN 1748-7277
£5.99 16
PRO LIGHTING EFFECTS
Create stunning aqua art using layers and blending modes 001_APM04 2.indd 1
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pages of professional tips & essential stepby-step tutorials
ISS UE 16
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Cover
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Cover image This issue’s enigmatic cover image comes courtesy of imageer Brianna Wettlaufer and istockphoto.com. A superb example of how digital technology and software can be used to add authentic film effects to digital photographs, you can find out more about this type of imaging in Jason Arber’s Camera Effects masterclass starting on page 44.
Imageer: BRIANNA WETTLAUFER
A SUPERB EXAMPLE OF HOW SOFTWARE CAN BE USED TO CREATE FILM EFFECTS 5
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PEER PRESSURE
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Get some inspiration from this readers’ and artists’ gallery of high-end image editing
ISSUE #16
inside...
LETTERS 7 10 Your comments shared with fellow readers INSIGHT
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News and showcases from around the globe Check out new art from Acidtwist Glorious illustrations from James Jean Work from the LA-based duo Kozyndan The best wide-format printers on the market
HELPDESK
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Your technical traumas shared with fellow readers and answered by our expert
THE COVER
Brianna Wettlaufer captures the retro-style in this month’s cover image. Plus, Sam Gilbey dishes out some underwater love in his subaqua tutorial. Find out how he did it by turning to page 52.
RESOURCES
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Recreate retro film photo effects
Books Stock Art Websites Plug-ins
a r S th nd n t CR e sa o p IB co v a E ve e £ ge ... rp s 2 ric off 0 e
Typography
SU Tu B
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Vital assets to improve your Photoshop work
THIS MONTH’S CD
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Superb video tutorials, all the project files to go with this month’s issue and more!
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A glimpse into the world of Acidtwist
Brush up on the illustrations from Kozyndan
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Master the art of light, shadow, colour and tone
TECHNIQUES Faster, better, more… How can you work smarter?
FEATURES
ONLINE PORTFOLIOS
Improve your chances of being commissioned
INTERVIEW: CHARLES DARBY Discover the magic behind the movies
MASTERCLASS: ABSTRACTS
ZIP IT UP
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Gritty and chaotic imagery with George Smith
DIGITAL CAMERA EFFECTS
Recreate some creative lens and darkroom techniques
UNDERWATER LOVE
How layer blending can help you create ocean scenes
7 44 7 52
MASTERCLASS: SNOW SCENES 7 58 Transform a summer street scene using Noise and Layer Masks
Create a realistic photo-montage with zest
CONCEPT ART Be the master of sci-fi with this workshop
INSIDER INFO ADOBE BRIDGE PARTS THREE AND FOUR
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Search facilities, plus Slideshow and customisation
DEPTH OF FIELD Recreate focus effects using Gaussian Blur
SHADOWS Light sources, contours and textures
PEER PRESSURE Eye-catching images from fellow readers
TECHNICAL RUN-THROUGH Discover the power of Camera Raw 3
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Letters
Mailbox Send your emails to the Advanced Photoshop team at
[email protected] SUBJECT: Positive vibes FROM: Philip Jean-Pierre, America
SUBJECT: Weather the storm FROM: Steve Iles
I saw your first issue and took a pass. My girlfriend, unknowingly, got me your second issue as a gift while she was shopping. Let me just admit I am not the brightest bulb and never was; the point slammed home as much as when I read the second issue. To say I regret not getting your first issue would be an understatement! The second issue was amazing, with tutorials that were great springboards for other creative endeavours. I just added a new magazine to a list of the ‘must haves’ for my library. I am an American, and while we have excellent magazines on design, there’s nothing around with the bare bones hardcore information for the advanced Photoshopper. With the world of design changing so fast, it’s publications like these that help me keep up. Keep up the excellent work...
Great mag – a step up from my long-standing digital photo imaging mags. It was a couple of years ago when one of these titles showed you how to generate lightning in an image, and this picture (below) is my attempt at that time to make a winner. It sadly never got picked. As your weather feature is in the current edition, you may like to see my early attempts. The pier is real and part of the sea, but some sky and sea were added, and the tornado and sea spray, as well as some debris on the pier. Oh yeah…the lightning and flames… (obviously). Still, I thought it was amazing at the time. The original photo was heavily cropped from a 3MP camera so I used a technique to sharpen it (without generating so much noise) that is great for fur etc. It is the old high pass filter adjusted on a duplicate layer to get hard edges and blended in layers with soft light. The effect can then be backed off, as required. My son buys this mag regularly, so if you print this he will see it, and that would be nice, seeing my input to a pro mag!
SUBJECT: More praise! FROM: Darren Firth I picked up your Advanced Photoshop magazine in Borders on Saturday. It was a pretty cool read; I know some of the designers featured in your pages, so it was pretty funny seeing their silly faces in there! It seems there is a strong Pixelsurgeon vibe running throughout! It would be cool to get any future WEARITWITHPRIDE products and exhibitions in your magazine – you can see the fruits of our labours at www.wearitwithpride.com. Anyway, excellent job. Keep it up. Editor replies: Many thanks to both of you for your kind words on the magazine. We welcome any feedback, whether it is positive or negative so keep those comments coming in. Together we can strive to shape the Photoshop title that you deserve.
Publishing Ltd, Richmond House, Richmond Hill, Bournemouth BH2 6EQ, UK, and we’ll get you a replacement out as soon as possible.
Subject: Course of action FROM:
[email protected] I was looking to take up a part-time Photoshop course, but can’t decide on a course or college. I already know how to use Photoshop (up to a point!), but I need a course that enables me to get experimental and gain more in-depth knowledge of the program. Can you suggest a course in London? Many thanks! Editor replies: A good range of Adobe-accredited Photoshop training courses are listed on the company’s website at www.adobe.co.uk/support/training.html. The site will enable you to find an Adobe-certified training centre in your area, or get online support.
Subject: Inspired! FROM: Vincent MacTiernan SUBJECT: Disc depression FROM: Carol Fitzgerald I am a first year graphic design student in Sydney, Australia. Today (2nd Dec) I purchased the Oct issue of your magazine ($15 AUD). I am running a Mac G5 with OSX. This is the first of your magazines that I have purchased and probably the last. Your magazine stated that on the discs it had stock photos worth 1,200 pounds. I only managed to open two of the photos. One of a ginger cat and one of a cow. I’m very disappointed by this state of affairs. Editor replies: Please return the disc to Cover Disc Returns, Imagine
I recently went to a bookstore where I live here in New York, and saw your magazine on the rack. Normally I bypass magazines such as yours, as I use After Effects and 3D and never felt the need to look into Photoshop for other than I what I need to make a texture map. Your magazine changed all that. It has to be one of the best, no, THE best magazine I have ever seen on doing hi-end compositing with PS – you tell people not only HOW to make great images, but also WHY they are doing things along the way. I was so impressed by it that I was inspired to make this image: www.extremedigitalpro.com/ extremereel/Photoshop%20Images/HeadCase LowRes.jpg. Thanks for giving me more LONG nights of discovering new techniques!
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insight Acidtwist There’s no question about it. For Acidtwist, real name Tavish, being the son of a sculptor and architect has had a profound impact on his own career path. “Growing up, I never questioned whether I would go into a creative field; it was a given,” he says. Now an established painter in his own right, the Montreal-based creative freelances as an art director for print and interactive design – and has also recently begun directing videos. A multi-disciplined artist, Acidtwist’s degree in Art History continues to be relevant in many aspects of his working life. “Learning about everything from Graeco-Roman art to contemporary video installations gave me a great exposure to so many styles of work and I still refer back to that constantly.” His illustration style is a canny mix of East meets West – Acidtwist puts the influence down to growing up in Canada, where popular culture was often imported: “If I was watching a television cartoon, chances are that it was from America or Japan, though I didn’t know that when I was a kid watching Scooby-Doo or AstroBoy.” One of the key motifs in his work is Lichen, a sensual, green-haired figure, who brings to mind the almond-eyed splendour of anime and Jap pulp magazines. “Characters that go on to have lives outside their initial media appearances fascinate me,” he says. “I have this personal goal of creating 100 different images of her.” As for technique, Acidtwist draws first in pencil, then paints over the line-art in Photoshop. Perhaps most surprisingly, he prefers using a mouse to a tablet. “I’m just used to painting like this,” he says. “I’ve been using a mouse for ten years now and it feels natural. I should probably think about getting a tablet – pressure-sensitivity would be great – but I still like the way my hand rests on a mouse.” www.acidtwist.com/
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LICHEN AND THE GUN: “I was in the mood for doing something detailed and carefully painted. This actually started out as a pencilsketch a couple of years earlier. I liked the sketch, but never finished it because I felt there was something missing. I solved this in the final painting by putting Lichen’s gun in her right hand, which adds more focus.”
ITALIAN FASHION: “This was a commercial piece, made for a fictional Italian fashion label. Unusually, it has a lot of layers. Most of my paintings are done with only three: pencils, figure and background. I like the look I achieved by blurring the insects and using Gradients to colour the background elements. I also added a bit of texture with custom brushes.”
nother DRA: “A ASSAN lot, but never C D E MIS ed a CUSTO etch that I lik ed new custom old sk I design for the entire . d e h is fin em s d used th no pencil line shes an are paintbru or once, there is blocked out in F image. all; everything with the loose y t visible a was very happ e final image.” I f th colour. e look o ik -l sh bru
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LICHEN IN CHARCOAL: “This was one of the first series of Lichen paintings I did – and all four were drawn and later painted simultaneously… I was researching work by Egon Schiele at the time. The figure was painted with the standard Photoshop charcoal brushes at half Opacity, and the background is actually a scanned paper-bag.”
LOLLIPOP GIRL: “I specifically wanted to paint something different from my usual work. It took me a while to build up the dark, rich browns, and the hair colour changed several times before I settled on the typically – for me – unnatural hair colour. I prefer to avoid using Hue/Saturation to change a colour. I repaint areas instead.”
LATEST LICHEN: “This is the first of my latest series of Lichen paintings. I’ve taken the elements I had in the first paintings and elaborated on them. For example, the white outlines are wilder and flow into the background. I’ve also dropped the red from her colour scheme to go with the stripped-down aesthetic and upped the Saturation to reflect my original comic/animation inspiration.”
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insight James Jean “I didn’t know anything about illustration – or art, for that matter – until I started art school. But when I first picked up a paintbrush, I knew I’d found my calling,” says James Jean, former alumni of the New York School of Visual Arts, now resident of LA, where he counts DC Comics, TIME, Rolling Stone and Atlantic Records, among his many prestigious clients. How did he land the briefs? “I hit the pavement and walked right into the offices of DC Comics. That was pretty much it,” he says. “I’m notoriously passive in all aspects of my life, so it’s been my great fortune that my website does most of the work for me.” He puts the usefulness of Photoshop in context: “For me, the sketch stage is the most important. The essential structure of the whole picture, the life-force of the drawing, originates in the sketch. With some of my pieces, I take it to the halfway point in terms of rendering and painting, and finish the rest in Photoshop.” He’s a dedicated fan of Wacom’s Intuos3 (“Once I’d tasted that fruit, there was no going back,” he says), but his view on Adobe’s app is an interesting one. “I approach Photoshop as a printmaking tool,” he explains, “using layers to build upon the original drawing. Even in printmaking class, I would run a pencil drawing I’d done in a press under an etching plate to see what effect it would have, or paint on top of monoprints. Photoshop is a natural extension of that thinking. After applying basic colour, I use mostly layer effects to achieve depth. I also scan in hand-painted textures to develop the picture further. I do whatever it takes.” www.jamesjean.com
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BEST LIFE BABIES: “Germany’s Best Life Magazine asked me to illustrate an article about the different ways couples can start a family. The empty silhouette is the projection of a couple’s desire to have children.”
SIGUR ROS: “This illustration accompanied a magazine interview with the Icelandic band Sigur Ros. Their studio consists of an indoor pool converted into a studio, so I immediately thought of depicting them in a ‘pool of sound.’ They are known musically for creating complex and fragile textures, so I have them floating among coral in a composition that hopefully evokes their unique sound.”
RUNAWAYS #12 (MARVEL COMICS): “A cover for a popular Marvel Comics series. The story in this issue takes place in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. Right across the street from the cathedral, there’s a terrific Art Deco statue of Atlas in the Rockefeller Centre. I had a vision of the superhero characters caged in the globe held by Atlas, the original Incredible Hulk.”
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BATGIRL #45 (DC COMICS): “This remains one of my most popular comic book covers, depicting the new Batgirl dressed in the old Batgirl costume. I created the halftone pattern using the Colour Halftone filter in Photoshop.
GREEN ARROW 49 (DC COMICS): “A cover for Green Arrow for DC Comics. One of the maddening joys of Photoshop is the myriad of choices it affords the digital artist. The inverted look happened by accident. I find that the most successful pictures occur via the most circuitous and surprising methods. I never complete an illustration the same way twice.”
SUBWAY TARGET: “Retailer Target bought out an entire issue of the New Yorker and asked me to contribute an illustration to its campaign. The only stipulations were that the illustration had to reference New York, contain the Target logo, and use red and grey. I had a lot of fun with this one, since they gave me a free rein.”
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KIN-SAN’S BUSINESS TRIP: “One from our Panoramic series. I’d been seeing these guys in my head for some time – Japanese salary-men dressed as schoolgirls – and had some strange visions for what they’d be doing. If there’s a standard style or process that Kozyndan is known for, this would be it. The finished piece is kind of a jumbled commentary on modern Japanese culture: the feminisation of the male populace, the obsession with childlike purity, the sexualisation of young girls, and the overall proclivity towards strangeness that the Tokyo megalopolis promotes.”
UPRISINGS (BUNNY WAVE): “I’d been into Hokusai’s work for a long time and had in my mind an image of bunnies forming out of the foam of the wave,” says Kozy. “The final piece was painted completely in Photoshop – all the lines using the Brush tool, on a Wacom tablet. The paper textures were created completely with filters.”
Kozyndan As a couple working comfortably (and successfully) together in illustration, LA-based duo Kozyndan remain an industry rarity. “We met in painting class in college and had dated for a few years,” says Dan. “We were living together before we made our first piece of art together. Kozy had done a long drawing of the inside of our apartment and I liked it so much, I decided to colour it in Photoshop.” It was their famous collaborative design for the interior of LA store Giant Robot – spotted by shop founder Eric Nakamura – that put them on the map. “He liked it so much, he asked us to do some illustrations for Giant Robot magazine,” says Kozy. The pencil lines are invariably still visible in their finished works, but, as Dan explains, Photoshop is an essential tool: “Once all the elements are scanned in, we composite the characters into the environment and then clean the drawing up – a process that includes adjusting Levels, dodging and simply painting out imperfections and mistakes. Then we put the image on both our computers and start painting under the drawing in Photoshop. We just keep going until pretty much everything is painted on either one file or the other, then we just put the colour layers from one file into the other and clean everything up.” They don’t use many techniques. “We were both trained traditionally as illustrators,” says Kozy, “so we treat Photoshop the same way we treat physical paintings – almost everything is done using the Brush tool.” The pair are busy, but there was one job they had to take. “When the creator of Kozy’s favourite videogame, Katamari Damacy, asked us to do an illustration about the game, we jumped at the chance.” www.kozyndan.com
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LIKE SANDS THROUGH THE HOURGLASS: “Another in our Panoramic series, this one set at a street corner on Berwick Street, London, where Kozy and I once had a fight while on holiday. Most of the imagery revolves around the passage of time, with scenes covering vastly different lengths of time converging in one image. For example, a sequence showing a strawberry gleefully diving into whipped cream intermixes with Kozy and I as babies, growing up, meeting and growing old together.”
KATAMARI DAMACY: “The creator of videogame Katamari Damacy contacted us to do an illustration about the game for an article in Relax magazine in Japan. We wanted therefore to mix flat colours, like those of the game graphics, with the more natural look we’ve been working with this year. We achieved this by simply scanning in a piece of cardboard and laying it over the final artwork. A little real texture always changes the dynamic of a piece of work.”
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insight Epson Stylus Pro 9800 Manufacturer: Epson Price: £5,282 Web: www.epson.co.uk The 44-inch Stylus Pro 9800 is part of Epson’s UltraChrome K3 range and exploits a proprietary inkset that offers three black inks for truly superlative image quality. The print technology is Epson’s own Micro Piezo drop-on-demand with variable sized droplet technology and 3.5pl Epson Ultra Micro Dot. The print head configuration offers 180 nozzles in eight colours, and a resolution of 2880x1440, with quoted print speeds for B0+/Plain Paper in Draft Mode of up to 22.1m2 per hour. The 9800 also provides edge-to-edge and borderless printing for media from 515mm-1117mm. Images printed with the 9800 will last a lifetime, with the UltraChrome K3 inks offering lightfastness for up to 75 years for colour and 100 for black and white (if kept indoors). The printer itself boasts a pleasingly formidable physical presence, measuring 1702mm x 678mm x1196m, weighing around 90kg and producing noise levels around the 50dB mark. Flexibility is the key for connectivity, offering USB 2.0, Firewire and optional networking. The Stylus Pro is available for both the Mac and Windows platform, supporting OSX, OS9 and Windows 98, 2000 and XP.
Wide-format printers: best of the best For large-scale projects that demand only the highest quality output and performance, check out these six walletbusting offerings By Steve Jenkins
HP DesignJet 110 Plus Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard Price: £935 Web: www.hp.com The DesignJet 110 Plus is very much the budget baby of this issue’s round-up, coming in under the four-figure mark by an appreciable £65. It’s a six-colour, multi-format printing solution that delivers fade-resistant, photo-quality images every time. A C-size tray and automatic roll-feed to 24 inches makes it ideal for everything from postcards to posters, too. The standard tray holds up to 150 sheets (plain paper) and extra-wide front and rear paths allow oversize output up to 24 inches x 64 inches. A print resolution of 2400x1200dpi, combined with HP Professional Color technologies (including Automatic Closed Loop Color calibration and CMYKplus) gives quoted print speeds of 11.9 minutes for an A1 ‘Normal/Glossy’. But turn the quality up a notch to ‘Best/Glossy’ and you’ll be tapping your fingers for a further six minutes. Standard connectivity is provided by the lesser USB standard USB 1.1, but is compatible with USB 2.0, plus there is a Centronics parallel IEEE-1284 port and 1 EIO slot for networking. Support is provided for all Windows platforms (95, 98, Me, NT 4.0, 2000, XP) plus Mac 9.x and OS 10.1 and higher.
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Canon W6400 Kodak T200+ Manufacturer: Canon Price: £2,499 Web: www.canon.co.uk
The A1+ 24-inch W6400 is a six-colour pigment ink Large Format Printer (LFP) aimed specifically at the graphic arts market. It features a one-inch-wide, highdensity print-head that can produce microscopic 4-picolitre droplets for highquality imagery free of graininess. Output speeds of up to 2.2 minutes per page when producing an A0-size image ensures optimum hardcopy turnaround at the proofing stage. A1 output, on the other hand, slashes the output time by nearly half, offering an impressive speed of around 1.3 minutes per page. The printer comes complete with two bundled software packages. The first, Digital Photo Print Pro, enables users to process, enhance and print photographs. Poster Artist, meanwhile, comes with a set of templates and images to help you create large format designs.
Kodak 1200i Manufacturer: Kodak Price: 60-inch: £10,077; 42-inch: £7,121 Web: www.encad.com While the Kodak 1200i system offers great cost per print, the initial outlay will set you back around £7,000. Still, you get a lot for your money, including high-speed printing that delivers excellent image quality on every page. The dualcomponent rapid evaporation drying system improves drying efficiency, too, facilitating rapid dry times for instant take-up and faster print-to-lamination time. The Intelligent Mask Technology optimises colour gamut, density and vibrancy without compromising speed, while the Kodak Quantum Inks deliver an expanded colour gamut, enhanced durability and longevity for both indoor and outdoor applications. The 1200i is available in both 60-inch and 42-inch versions to suit all your outputting needs.
Manufacturer: Kodak Web: www.encad.com Price: £2,814 The Kodak T200+ offers two distinct outputs, effortlessly switching from fullcolour graphics printing to four-colour or monochrome Computer Aided Design output. The new CIS2 ink-set creates brilliant full-colour photographic images, plus CAD drawings with distinct line acuity, thanks to the CIS2 pigment black ink (with cyan, magenta and yellow) option. For ultra-fast monochrome printing, the T200+ also offers a CIS2 ink-set with four black pigment inks. This dual functionality is made easy maintain thanks to a range of pre-filled ink cartridges that simply snap on and off for quick, clean installation. In addition, ENCAD’s Ink Caddy System holds ample ink for extended printing. Handy transparent caddies ensure that printer ink levels are visible at all times. What’s more, the compact and sleek design of the T200 ensures the printer wil be able to find a home in more compact creative studios.
Epson Stylus Pro 7400 Manufacturer: Epson Web: www.epson.co.uk Price: £2,814 The A1 24-inch Stylus Pro 7400 is a four-colour large-format printer aimed at design professionals in the POS, CAD and GIS markets. The 7400 incorporates the Epson UltraChrome inkset (2xCyan, 2xMagenta, 2xYellow and 2xBlack), ensuring vivid, lifelike, edge-to edge output every time. These ink cartridges are deisgned for a large workflow and offer higher volumn capacities than rivals. An intuitive control panel and interface ensures quick and easy highresolution printing at up to 1440dpi, with a lightfastness of up to 75 years for colour prints. The 7400 supports matte and glossy media up to 1.5mm thick, and even caters for specialist techniques such as screen-printing. It can also print on transparent media too, with screen rulings up to 150lpi for creating designs like black-and-white masks.
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Feature
online art
Are you sat at your desk waiting for that big first break? Raise your profile and get your work out into the big bad world with this guide to producing online portfolios
Before you contemplate setting up a portfolio site of your own, consider realistically what you hope to achieve. Are you out to sell prints, raise your profile and kick-start your image-editing career, or produce a portfolio aimed at advertising agencies and clients as a means of securing further work? Identifying features and design style that will work best for you is crucial. Remember, a portfolio site may well be the first point of contact for many of your future clients, and should present a mature and professional image. As one commercial photographer Lonna Tucker, recognises: “A website is crucial to marketing an imageer’s work. Art buyers at advertising agencies now look at your website first rather than calling in your book.”
BY ROSS CONSTANTINI
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personal portfolio website can expand your potential client base. Many imageers have benefited from gaining contact with clients through their sites, and come to the realisation that a welldesigned and maintained website can significantly raise your profile and success as an illustrator. Other than simply providing a permanently accessible portfolio, a website can be useful in many other ways…
GALLERY PAGES: Should be simple to navigate and provide good sized, clear enlargements. This example shows effective design together with a userfriendly layout
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Online Art DARRAN REES: Darran has incorporated previous contract work into his site, acting both as a portfolio and client list. This shot was used in a Wrigleys advertising campaign
Professional advice KEEP IT SIMPLE: The simplicity and strong graphical design on Gene Peach’s portfolio site provides a professional appearance and enhances the content, instead of distracting from the photography
The Webby Awards is the leading international award honouring excellence in web design, creativity, usability and functionality. Tiffany Shlain, founder and chairperson of The Webby Awards, provides her top five tips for creating a winning website: LESS IS MORE What really sets Google apart is its simple interface. Avoid extraneous bells and whistles that slow users down. STAY ON COURSE Keep your navigation bar consistent and prominent on every page, so customers don’t get lost. Use guides to show users where they are and how to get back to where they started. MAKE CONTACT Put a clear link from the home page that leads to your contact info. Include as many forms of contact as you can process: telephone and fax numbers, postal mailing address and email address. Customers will place more trust in you if they know you are easily accessible. SET EXPECTATIONS Acknowledge all contact with an auto response email so customers know you received their message. In the auto response, let them know how long it will take for you to get back to them, and then respond in that time frame. KEEP UP APPEARANCES Unlike a movie or a book, a website is a constant work in progress. Keep your customers coming back by highlighting personal or industry news on your home page to keep it fresh. Every quarter (if not more often), review your site thoroughly to make sure everything is current and links are still live. In addition to this, we’d highly recommend updating the site regularly with your most recent work. This keeps visitors returning to your site to view new material. Finally, always present your best work. Avoid padding the galleries with sub-standard images; it will do you no favours. It is better to have a few top-notch images, rather than a vast array of mostly mediocre content. Jim Shannon from the Giraffe advertising agency informs us that when searching for a photographer, he looks for a website that is primarily clear and easy to use. Contact details are obviously important, as well as sites updated occasionally with new work. A client list and a stock selection is a good idea if a client won’t run to a full commission. Darran Rees has made various re-usage sales specifically from his site. Deborah Gasper from The Ad Agency says: “The site needs to be simple, images need to download fast, and examples of their experience need to be easy to find. Another major point with the design of a website is to design it so the search engines can pick it up.”
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The method most suited to you will depend not only on budget, but also the features you want to see on the site, and how original and professional the results are. Once you have established your requirements, there are basically three main methods of getting your own personal photography site up and running. Choosing the correct option for you is the first step on your way to a worldwide client base.
The budget site For those with a limited budget the best option is to design and develop the site yourself. This requires relevant software, the technical knowledge, some design sense and a whole lot of time, but provides an original site that is designed around your requirements. There are some online aids for those new to the game, which guide you through the major steps to launch your site. The only costs involved are in securing a domain name and hosting the site, which usually demands a yearly sum dependent on the amount of space required. One good site to look at for advice and information on all aspects of web development and design is www.jessett.com.
The template site A pre-designed template can be purchased fairly cheaply, offers an easier option for those on a budget, and is a popular way to get a site up and running quickly. The text and images are added to the template to complete the site. Finding a host and publishing the site is still up to you. Xpose-gallery.co.uk and foliolink. com offer templates specifically for photographic websites. Webeden.co.uk and buildmygallery. co.uk offer online website builders. This requires no knowledge of website development, and by using the wide range of template options you can be set up and ready to go in a matter of hours. Lonna Tucker, a commercial photographer from Arizona, worked with Foliolink to produce her template-based site. Using one of its Flash templates, she worked closely with Foliolink to customise the site to suit her requirements. She knew what she wanted from the site beforehand, so they could arrange one to suit her needs. “I wanted a site I could manage, upload photos and other content, and have a client area for assignment pre-production requirements, like viewing scout locations, casting pics, etc. It was a collaborative
BEFORE CONTEMPLATING SETTING UP A PORTFOLIO SITE, CONSIDER WHAT YOU HOPE TO ACHIEVE
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Feature
LONNA TUCKER: Lonna has modified her template site to her requirements. The Flash-based site includes a client area, and provides information on each
process that took a few months, but it was an enjoyable experience.” Lonna made good use of the template method to achieve a professional result.
The custom site The site is designed and developed around your needs – all you have to do is supply the information and images. This is by far the most expensive option, but hosting and publishing can be managed by the company, and the results will be of a professional standard. Prices vary, but as with most things you get what you pay for. Domain name and hosting fees are typically not included, but offered by the company for an additional charge. Darran Rees, a London-based photographer, employed the expertise of Taylor James to produce his stunning custom site. Originally a photographic retouching company, Taylor James has branched out into website development, making use of its many ESSENTIAL INFO: Incorporating contact details is a must, and providing a client list will give integrity
years’ experience of the photographic industry to produce effective custom websites for its clients. “The site was actually co-designed by myself and Taylor James. ‘The picture house’ idea was my own; I wanted to get away from the usual two-dimensional way of displaying pictures on-screen, and introduce some perspective, while retaining the simple graphic of the design. It’s really the same as walking through a real gallery; we see something that catches our eye, and wander up to it for a closer look. Taylor James took care of all the technical stuff like purchasing of space and getting it all up and running, thankfully.”
Content It is important not to overwhelm the viewer with information and pictures. Keep it concise yet effective. We recommend you plan your site around these simple contents: 5 GALLERY PAGES: Thumbnails should be large enough for the viewer to recognise the content, and ideally be continually
present on the portfolio page. The enlarged images should display an increased level of detail, but avoid huge images that require scrolling. A portfolio of more than about 100 images becomes a chore to view, and distracts from your best work; select your very best photos and categorise clearly into different pages. 5 BIOGRAPHY: A personal biography is often included to provide the viewer with a bit of information on your background, and perhaps your aspirations for the future. 5 CLIENT LIST: For those of you who have been working for a while, and have built up a client base, it might be worth listing your major clients. If you have received any recent press coverage, then this could be included here, along with any awards that will add credentials to your work. 5 CONTACT DETAILS: This is an absolute essential – if the potential buyers or clients can’t get hold of you, it defeats the purpose of the site.
FOLIOLINK: There are many companies offering template-based website design; one of the better providers is Foliolink. Dedicated to photography clients, it provides a range of solutions to meet your needs
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Online Art Advertising your site is crucial. To avoid it getting lost in the tangled mass of the web, it’s imperative that your site has ‘web presence’. There are many methods that can be used to raise your site’s profile. The most common and perhaps most effective is to optimise it for search engines. This simply means that by cleverly adapting the site coding, you can gain a higher listing position in search engines. To have your site listed among the first few results of a search will guarantee more visitors. Another method is to advertise your site on relevant photography sites and search engines. This obviously costs money, but it is a worthy investment if you advertise smartly. In his experience, Gene Peach has seen the majority of clients reach his site through group websites. “Even when my individual site floats at the top of a Google search, I hear mostly from people who found it on a New Mexico group listing.” To get involved with a local web group or with a group of similar content, simply make contact and arrange a connection. See www.guava.co.uk or www.Find-My-Link.com for details on how a specialist company can help.
Copyrighting issues Illegal downloading of images has always been a hazard associated with portfolio sites. Darran Rees was well aware of the risks, and ensured measures were in place to protect his work. “Illegal download and copyright infringement are very important and common parts of any web design – or should be! In my particular site we have an inbuilt mechanism that prevents the download of images from the site, plus the file-sizes are small enough so that they are not able to be reproduced commercially.” If you want to keep image sizes as large as possible, watermarking may be the best option.
Go interactive? Macromedia’s Flash is increasingly being used in the design and development of websites to enhance the visual appeal and functionality. Incorporating Flash content into a site is a great way of creating a more appealing experience, and when used well can RANCH ROAD: Taken from Lonna Tucker’s portfolio site, www.lonnatucker.com
© Darran Rees
Publicising
TOO MUCH FLASH CONTENT CAN ACTUALLY DISTRACT FROM YOUR WORK IF NOT USED WITH CAREFUL CONSIDERATION provide a professional touch to your online portfolio. There’s always a danger of overkill though – many sites overload on Flash, which becomes annoying. Too much Flash content can actually distract from your work if not used with careful consideration. Jim Shannon from Giraffe says that when looking for a photographer to shoot a job, “Flash intro pages, and especially waiting for large Flash files to load, is not something we’re keen on! Unless it performs a function like navigation or a slideshow, don’t use it.”
E-commerce Producing an online portfolio is a great way to get your work out there; however, selling prints through your site is an opportunity too few photographers
embrace. Recently conducted research suggests that just eight per cent of artists sell prints online, despite the rapid growth of e-commerce. Selling prints can be a good way of supplementing your income and making the most of a site. The system can be included in many templates, or custom-designed by web-development companies. Lonna Tucker has plans to sell art prints and stock photography through her personal website, and seems enthusiastic about the possibilities: “Foliolink is finalising the e-commerce end of things. I can’t tell you how exciting this technology is. It will enable individual photographers to market their work, and do it in a very professional, upscale way.” The management of online sales may put some off the idea of selling prints. Artists need the organisation and time to invest in such an enterprise, as well as the extra costs involved in printing, packaging and distributing the orders. James Randklev, a landscape photographer with an e-commerce-enabled site, unfortunately has had little success selling his prints online. “It’s not because people aren’t interested in having prints made; it’s mainly the production and fineart costs of the prints.” For those concerned about overheads and organisation, there are other options. Theimagefile.com offers an all-in-one solution, which takes care of the complete process from ordering, using secure online payment, to the production
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Feature ORIGINALITY: Darran Rees’ highly original site was custom made to his rough design. The virtual gallery idea was Darran’s concept, which was brought to life by a web developer
Has your website had a positive effect on your career?
© Darran Rees
5 DARRAN REES “I think my own site that is linked to my agent’s websites has aided my career. The proof is the various contacts we receive from people who would not otherwise have seen the work. Generally speaking, more people know my work now, more people have access to my work now, and this is no bad thing for an artist.” www.darranrees.com 5 LONNA TUCKER “Imageers have been concerned about the declining number of assignments in the USA, and that – coupled with the state of the stock art industry – leads to rampant pessimism about the photo business here. Hopefully, my existing client base will remain strong, and the website will bring new business my way.” 5 GENE PEACH “I have no doubts that creating my website was the best marketing decision of my career. My website is the strongest connection with the ‘great wide yonder’ I have.” Living and working in rural New Mexico makes it tough for Gene to find local work: “My website is definitely my best tool for attracting outside clients.” For a top-notch design, we recommend you take a look at Gene’s site: www.genepeach.com. His instructions to the developer were for a very simple, elegant, easy-to-navigate and quick-to-load site, which has resulted in one of the best sites we’ve seen. Although the gallery images could do with being slightly larger, the balance of aesthetics and functionality are spot on – great design.
NICARAGUAN MAN: Taken from the dedicated archive gallery in Darran Rees’ site
PHOTOGRAPHY SITES MUST BE UPDATED WITH RECENT WORK AND INFO. THIS CAN BE DONE AT HOME and delivery of images. This service can be incorporated into an existing site by simply cutting the code from theimagefile and pasting it into your site. Even those without a website needn’t worry, as one can be provided free by the system. Howard Butterfield from theimagefile points out that: “The prints and products available for clients to purchase through theimagefile’s embedded e-commerce service are of an extremely high quality. The system even does a logic check on the image EXIF data to automatically decide if the image should be balanced and optimised, or printed as it is. The system then generates an invoice, and processes and dispatches the order, without any intervention from the artist at all.” Jo Andreae’s site, oneworldonecamera.co.uk, has made good use of theimagefile system to create a fully automated e-commerce business. Selling a range of products, Jo’s site has been really successful. “The print sales are going well, and people like the site – it has well and truly paid for itself. As a small business, I can alter the website to fit in with marketing campaigns, and develop it as the business develops.” For more information visit www.theimagefile.com. The service costs from £20 plus VAT per month. Without exception, all those we spoke to believed that the addition of an online portfolio had a positive effect on their career. Gene Peach believes that the lack of personal contact has an effect on his business, meaning clients are less likely to form long-term working relationships. Whichever method of site construction you choose though, the basics of getting your site up and running remain the same. There are generally three major steps to consider: the domain name (or URL), hosting and promotion.
Before he was an ad man, Kerry took the art foundation course route. It was here that he had his first brush with graphic design. He immediately connected with it and went on to do a degree in advertising and graphic design. Today he is still balancing the two – an act he enjoys. All his freelance work is done under the banner of You Are Beautiful, his company, while between the hours of 9 to 5 he is head of design and typography. “I work for clients like P&O and the Radio Times, so I can’t be too wild. But sometimes I’ll get a client that likes the style of my private stuff and it’ll find its way into the advertising.”
Domain names The domain name is the address of your website, for example the Google search engine’s domain name is www.google.com. Domain names are secured for a set period; once the registration period is up, the domain is free for other prospective web-developers to secure, unless of course you decide to continue with the domain. This should be the first thing you consider. Names are being secured all the time, so when you find an appropriate available name, secure it! It’s usually best to secure a domain that’s simple and provides a sense of the contents of the site. Involving your name somewhere in the sequence is a good idea because, after all, it’s your personal site and your name is the front for your business. www.rc-photoshop.com
Contacts www.Darranrees.com www.lonnatucker.com www.jamesrandklev.com www.genepeach.com www.taylorjames.com www.foliolink.com www.theimagefile.com
www.guava.com.uk www.Find-My-Link.com www.Xpose-gallery.co.uk www.webeden.co.uk www.buildmygallery.co.uk www.jessett.com
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Online Art Which host boasts the most? With so many options available, it’s worth looking around for the best deal. Here are some questions you should ask before picking a host:
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How much space do they offer? Make sure there is enough space available for the site data, plus some additional space for expansion. How often is data backup conducted? Ideally, daily backup will be offered, meaning any updates are saved on a daily basis. Look for companies that guarantee regular data backup if you will be changing your site often. Do they offer POP3 password-protected email accounts? Important for securing your email accounts. What kind of technical support is offered? In reality, you don’t know what the support will be like until something goes wrong. Phone and email support should be offered; try contacting previous clients for their experiences. What is the speed of the connection? The net connection should be at least T-3 (45 Mbps); anything less is simply inadequate. Slow connections mean a slow-loading site, especially evident when a number of visitors access your site at once. Do they offer full FTP access? FTP access allows for updates to be made personally anywhere in the world – provided Internet access is available, of course. If not, it means costly updates, processed by your host. With the right technical knowledge, users can overhaul and redesign the website completely. Do they offer website data logs? Data logs allow you to assess the visitor numbers, what pages are visited and even where they have arrived from. This is a kind of market research for your site, which can help you understand how well your site is functioning. Do they have an uptime guarantee? Downtime is the amount of time that your website is down and out of action. Every now and then, the host server fails and people cannot access your site. Obviously this has to be kept to a minimum. Cheap hosting from a cowboy host company will inevitably involve a lot of downtime. Companies with a minimum uptime guarantee are more likely to provide a consistent service. Do they provide options for personal updates, editing and email adjustments? The ability to manipulate and edit certain aspects of your site is an important feature that gives control over the content and the working of your site.
2 3 4 is not quite as good as www.rosscostantini.com, simply because when people search for your site, the likelihood of them finding the latter is greater. If you have a common name like John Smith, this domain name may already have been secured by somebody else. Therefore you may have to be a little creative, and consider: john-smith, johnsmith-photo, jsmithphotography, etc. Use www.checkdomain.com to search for available domain names. Generally, .co. uk/.info/.net names are less esteemed than .com, and can be secured for a reduced price. However, domain registration is very cheap, so go with .com if it’s still available. To secure your domain name you’ll need to register it through one of the numerous companies that offers the service. Domains can typically be secured for around £5 a year. www.godaddy.com is a popular website where prospective webmasters can register and secure their domain.
Hosting Before you can publish your site, you will need to arrange for it to be hosted on a dedicated computer system. Hosting is a term used to describe a service
LOST IN THOUGHT: Greg Funnell’s striking portrait taken from his self-built portfolio site whereby all the website data is stored on a computer. This computer system is known as a server, and is permanently connected to the net. When somebody wishes to access the site, the site data is lifted from the server and displayed on the user’s screen. While it is possible to use your home PC as a website host, the technical knowledge required, along with the slow connection speeds and intense requirements on your system, make it more sensible to employ a company to host the site for you. This does not mean you should necessarily use the company that made your site. There will probably be other cheaper and better options available. Do not feel obliged to opt for their hosting service – these are two separate services. There are usually a few options available, the price dependent on the amount of space required and options like email services. There are some offers of free hosting on the net, but they obviously don’t offer a great service, and this is not a good idea if you want a professional image. Guy Tucker from the Internet design house Webeurope spoke to us about hosting and the process of publishing websites. “We rent dedicated servers and aim to fill each with around 100 websites (depending on their popularity). Clients aren’t actually involved in the hosting; we fully manage and set up each hosting account. Our standard hosting package includes telephone technical support and, if required, control panel access (using software called Plesk – see www.sw-soft.com). The control panel MAKE TEA MAN: Consider whether you want your work just to be viewed, or if you want it to be possible for purchases to be made as well
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Feature GIRL IN HEADSCARF: Taken from focus52. com. Many include their name in the web address, but Greg chose not to personalise his site, giving it the potential for branding
allows the user to create, edit or delete email accounts, and also many other features such as installing applications (including forums) and creating secure, password-protected directories.” This allows users to have full control over the site content, as well as additional services provided with the hosting. For affordable website hosting, try the awardwinning ipower.com. It offers hosting services for a small monthly charge, and domain registration is available for an additional yearly charge. powweb.com also provides affordable website hosting from $93 a year, setup and domain registration included. Websites with e-commerce facilities need specific hosting services to cope with the additional requirements. “For e-commerce sites, customers ideally need a content management system to add, edit or delete their products. This would require hosting with PHP and MySQL (databases). The products would have a unique ID, which could be referenced and passed to a payment gateway like PayPal.” E-commerce-enabled sites and selling prints or stock require a specialised hosting service to handle the databases behind the order processing.
DOMAIN REGISTRATION: This is the first port of call in your publishing process. The name can be a crucial factor for a successful site
PROMOTING YOUR SITE IS CRUCIAL. THERE’S NO POINT IN HAVING A SITE IF NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT IT Hostrocket.com offers inexpensive hosting for database sites – and for a listing of other reputable hosting companies, check out hostindex.com. Website hosting services vary greatly, and some are faster than others. It has been proved that the vast majority of viewers will give up and look elsewhere if it takes the site more than a few seconds to appear. It is therefore imperative to have a quick-loading site. Whereas a lot of this is down to the size of the website and how much data has to be transferred, the actual hosting performance has a major effect on the load speed. If you’re unsure of your hosting service performance, check out alertbot.com. Net mechanic’s Server Check Pro provides a similar service.
Updating your site Illustration sites must be updated with recent work and information. This can be achieved easily at home, providing you have the correct software. Guy Tucker says: “Users have the ability to upload data from their own computer systems using programs like Microsoft’s FrontPage. They can be given FTP access so they can keep their site up to date simply from within FrontPage.” FTP, or File Transfer Protocol, is a method of interacting with the website server. It allows the user to edit and adjust their websites from home using their own computer. This is ideal for sites
that need continual refreshment, but requires some form of web-design software such as FrontPage to edit the content and upload the changes. Once the site has been uploaded to the server, it is important to test every aspect of it. Test all links, and if it includes e-commerce, thorough testing of this system is vital. Checks should also be conducted of the content, as spelling mistakes and bad grammar don’t give a good impression.
Promotion Promoting your website is extremely important. There is simply no point in having a site published on the net without anybody knowing about it. Promotion can take many forms, and there are now services available to help you publicise your site and increase its visibility. Search engine optimisation is possibly the most important promotional technique you can employ. It is relatively easy to do, and can cost you nothing. Search engine placement should be checked regularly to maintain a high listing position. New websites, and those that have been modified to increase their visibility, may well push your site down the listings, and so the likelihood is that your site will get fewer visitors. Websites must be submitted to search engines in order to be listed within searches. Ideally, you should aim to submit your site to search
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Online Art engines every four to six weeks. Start with the four largest search engines: Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Google, and work from there. www.addme.com offers free submission to 14 major engines, saving you the hassle of doing it yourself. To track the ranking of your sites on search engines, take a look at SERanker Pro from www.monocle-solutions.com. Photographer Greg Funnell explained: “Webrings are now considered a degrading factor in this field, alongside most ‘links’ pages, with the exception of those run by the search engine itself.” It is important that any sites you link to for promotion are professional, and convey the same quality content as your own. Webrings are not always a popular method of promotion; almost anybody can join the ring, and they generally do not help your image on the net. Advertising is also a good way to increase exposure and visitor numbers. Placing banners on relevant websites is one way of advertising; another is to exchange ad banners with other websites, making it free! Paid advertising slots have to be assessed to determine how many print sales are generated from that particular ad. If the advert costs £50 a month and in that month only two sales were directly generated, each sale cost £25 in advertising. You have to decide whether this is an acceptable margin. Other ads may have generated 20-30 sales, in which case you are paying around £2 per print sale. Assessing the performance of each advert is important, firstly to understand what advertising strategy works well, and secondly to eliminate those ads which don’t pay for themselves. Linking with other related sites is a little more discreet than banner ads. linkexchanged.com will put you in touch with suitable partners. You should look for sites with a good ranking, and plenty of traffic and trade links with them. Offline advertising is another way of generating interest, and should not be forgotten. This method allows you to target the audience, and can prove not only cheaper but more effective than online methods. Placing ads in specific magazines targets the audience who may have a special interest in your type of photography. Other than that, just get your name out there. Adding the URL and a short description of your website to every email you send in your signature file, letterheads and business cards is simple and free marketing. Search for directories and listings of photographic websites (or those relevant to your area of specialisation), and get your site link up there. Old fashioned business networking also helps; use word of mouth both online and off. Relevant forums are a good way to meet people and market your
MR HAWA: Greg chose the name focus52 because he felt it rolled off the tongue and would therefore be easier for people to remember it
work. Perhaps arrange to swap links, and generate relationships and contacts with those in the same business. Get yourself known – these relationships will help you to gain the most from the Internet, and can be a valuable source of information, and helping each other out will benefit both parties. In producing his website, Greg explains: “The common practices of providing text links and metadata were followed, after which the site was submitted to Google, Yahoo and MSN for indexing during the next web-crawling cycle. Linking your site to other relevant sites, web groups or directories is a good way of attracting suitable visitors from alternative sources.” Greg’s site, www.focus52.com has a portfolio of his work which will be his major contact point for future employees, and hopefully a connection to freelance work. www.apromotionguide.com will provide you with useful tips on all forms of website promotion.
Maintenance Apart from updating with new work, photographic portfolio sites don’t require much maintenance. Some maintenance tasks however, are well worth the small amount of time they take to complete. Your site’s search engine listing is something that should be checked every now and again to make sure you haven’t been pushed down the list by other similar websites. Another important maintenance check, especially after uploading and editing your site, is to check all of your site’s links. This is something that many site owners overlook, and doesn’t give a good impression to prospective clients or customers.
CHECK YOUR WEBSITE’S SEARCH ENGINE LISTING TO MAKE SURE YOU’RE STILL HIGH UP THE LIST
All this, of course, can be handled for you professionally. However, if you have the software and basic website knowledge, these are all simple and quick tasks that will ensure your site keeps running in tip-top form without the added expenses. Check out www.netmechanic.com for maintenance and promotion tools. Promotion of your site is an ongoing process – the more effort you put into advertising and generally promoting your site, the more hits it will receive. Now that you know the major steps to getting your site up and running successfully, you are well on your way to giving your career a major boost. Whether a portfolio or e-commerce, print sales site, your new website will make all the difference – but like many things in life, it will only be as successful as the amount of time and effort you’re prepared to put into it. Donate a little time once a week to maintaining, updating and possibly improving your site to get the best out of it. 5
Case study Advanced Photoshop spoke to photographer Greg Funnell, a student who has recently set up his own website with the help of his friend and programmer Naresh Verlander. His deciding factors when choosing a website host were partly specific to his requirements: “When choosing a host, the deciding factor was really reliability. However, obviously cost in hand, and the features provided for that cost, also played a decisive role (eg the inclusion of PHP, MySQL processing, large space and bandwidth).” Once a host has been chosen, the domain has to be pointed toward the host server. This basically means that when the domain name is typed into a browser, it knows where to find the site.
Contacts netmechanic.com addme.com webeurope.co.uk ipower.com
powweb.com checkdomain.com focus52.com
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MATTE MAN
TITANIC: “Titanic was a hard one because it just seemed to go on and on,” says Darby. “Like Crouching Tiger, it was high-maintenance for historical reasons. There are some photographs of the day Titanic left Southampton, but as you can imagine, they’re pretty rough to look at. We had to go into such detail – exactly which ships were in dock on that day, even which masts would have been poking out and how tall, what the look of the hotel in the background was... That’s fine with me, because I find it interesting, the historical side. You’re not only painting something memorable, but you’ve also learned something at the end of it. “With Titanic, we truly believed the show we were working on was going to be quite special, even if at times it looked as though it could have been a flop. We just felt it was great subject matter – Titanic back on the water. It’s the kind of show where you’re just excited about the idea of it. There was a lot of pressure on all of us. It was fun for a while and then got rather hard work, and by the time we finished it we were about six months behind. But even now, quite a few of the images really hold up, and historically, it’s as good as it’s going to get.”
His digital work may have helped shape the look of some of the biggest films of the last decade – but Charles Darby still likes to whip out a traditional paintbrush before dabbling with cutting edge Photoshop effects
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itanic, The Matrix, The Fifth Element, I, Robot, Harry Potter… Not a bad set of films to have on your CV. And yet esteemed Photoshop artist Charles Darby is always at pains to emphasise just how basic his working knowledge of Adobe’s app really is. The difference, he believes, comes down to his background in classical painting. “Learning [how to use] the computer, the Wacom tablet and the software is actually the easier part,” he says. “There are a few people who can use Photoshop probably far better than myself. They have a deeper understanding of it.” Born in Liverpool in 1969, Darby studied painting in Florence, Italy from 1988-91, under the guidance of Charles H Cecil, because “it was the only thing I was any good at”. A stint at Goldsmiths College immediately afterwards taught him that, in painting, anything goes. But it’s his grounding in classical technique that has served him well – as a matte painter and visual effects supervisor, he’s now one of the most sought-after talents in Tinseltown. Such an outcome could not
have been predicted from his early encounters with the technology. “I’ve always been playing with computers, although I’d never tried to actually paint with them,” he recalls. “When I was very young, I was playing with rudimentary tablet software and paint software, and I was using a Commodore 64. I don’t remember doing anything half-decent on it and I didn’t really use computers for anything terribly creative until I was living in LA and was asked whether I might be able to convert a
photo-real oil painting into something on the computer.” It took time to make the transition from oils to digital, but perseverance paid off and he’s now as au fait with the brush as he is with a tablet and pen. “I don’t think about it any more, but when I started, that was probably the hardest thing to get used to – the fact that there’s no ‘tooth’ to the surface, so you’re sliding along, almost like painting on glass. It makes it much harder to draw. Quite a few really good, traditional matte artists at
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Charles Darby
the beginning of the Nineties hated having to use the computer, and some of them didn’t cross over into digital because it was a different kind of artform at that point.”
Matte master The bulk of Darby’s commercial work is matte painting for the movies, brought to life with the help of Photoshop CS, a 2.5GB Mac G5 and 23-inch Apple monitor. Then, of course, there’s his
trusty watercolour paints and brushes… “Watercolours are the way I like to work, because I tend to find that directors and producers are able to comment more easily about the physical drawing or painting. They can actually sketch on it if they fancy. There isn’t some sort of barrier there, which a monitor actually becomes. So if they’re looking at a watercolour, I can get feedback quicker. I then scan it in, whichever version they choose. It’s like a blueprint. When you have a 3D matte painting, where the camera’s
CHARLES DARBY:
Computers were just for games, as far as Charles was concerned, when he was young. But all that changed after he took an oil painting into digital. Now he produces matte paintings for the top movies
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DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: “Director
Courtney Solomon asked if I could re-do 12 shots for the independent movie, Dungeons and Dragons,” said Darby. “Production hoped I’d take LightWave files and work with what had been done already.” But, given the time-frame – about eight weeks – it would’ve taken longer to work with other people’s files. He explained: “These would’ve been quite complex 3D models that would have taken an eternity to render. So I redesigned all 12 shots with watercolours and then we created quite basic 3D models for the main buildings and in a 2.5D-type matte painting world, where you’re taking a basic 3D model and applying very advanced texturing. The textures give the illusion of enormous detail, which means you can render a scene overnight, rather than in a week or so.”
moving far more, then the watercolour isn’t quite as beneficial because it can only cover one frame of what could be a huge move. So here I’ll do the first and end frames. Still, you tend to work out a lot of problems at this stage, rather than finding them out later on. It’s almost like you build it and work out your problems, then build it again, avoiding all those problems. If you went straight into Photoshop, you’d tend to look at the composition differently.” Early in his film career, Darby worked for Cinesite in LA and then Digital Domain, subsequently setting up his own company Digital Firepower. Although now defunct, DF started off promisingly enough, albeit with a slight hiccup when a deal to work on George Lucas’ Star Wars: The Phantom Menace fell through at the last minute. Thankfully, within two weeks, Darby received a call from the makers of The Matrix. “They contacted us and said, ‘Would you be able to do these matte paintings?’.” It was, however, a little like working in the dark. “Not only because we were separated by a few
hundred miles,” says Darby. “It was tricky to know exactly what you were working on. It was all a little bit abstract, and tricky to know the ‘feel’ of what they were after. We weren’t really shown much of the rest of the movie, so by the time we finished it, I don’t think I was particularly excited about working on the show. And when it came out, it was completely different to anything I’d imagined. It was very surprising – you can’t guess what shows are going to be like.”
When in Rome… Darby has spent most of his life in America, but he travels the world a lot, often because the production on which he’s working demands it. His most recent project was the BBC’s historical drama Rome. “I was living there for just over three months and that’s the perfect-case scenario, where you’re creating ancient Rome and you can go into the town, live in the town and look at all the small details – not the big stuff that you can read about in books anyway. It’s the small details
STAR WARS FELL THROUGH, BUT WITHIN TWO WEEKS HE GOT A CALL FROM THE MAKERS OF THE MATRIX
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Charles Darby
THE FIFTH ELEMENT: “I was supervising a sequence for The Fifth Element at Digital Domain a while ago now,” recalls Darby. “Most of the model-work had been shot in Pinewood and the rest we were doing in Venice, California. It was beautiful stuff – large-scale. Most of The Fifth Element was not only a lot of fun, it was taking these fantastic models and expanding the whole universe from them.” Everyone involved was guessing what it would look like in the final movie, remembers Darby: “People were reporting it as Bladerunner with the lights turned on. Everything gels really nicely. It was great for my line of work, because I had something to base the city on, which was the model-work, and then you could go crazy from there. As long as you kept a colourful, intricate, highly detailed look, everything worked.”
INSIGHT INTO DARBY’S WATERCOLOURS This pre-production watercolour, and the subsequent computergenerated scene, from Michael Cristofer’s 2001 movie, provides an insight into how Darby works. The watercolour is first presented to the director, producer (or both), who then comment on it, decide what they like and then mark changes on the artwork itself. Darby then scans in the watercolour and works it up, typically at a very high resolution, in Photoshop. He finds that watercolours tend to produce a better response from the people whose job it is to make decisions about the film: “Computer monitors create a barrier between the client and the artwork, which can seriously hamper creativity and slow the production down.”
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Inter view MINORITY REPORT: “The movie started and stopped production a few times,” recalls Darby. “The first time, it was going to be 200 years in the future, or something. When you’re working on a Spielberg production, he juggles with quite a few productions and he chooses quite late in. It was closed down for about six months while everybody waited to see whether he would do it or not. When it came back, it was 50 years into the future. “Fifty years ahead was chosen because it’s more believable and there’s quite a lot of buildings even now that, in 50 years’ time, represent what most cities will look like. We went to Washington DC and shot plates from the top of the USA Today building – I nearly froze to death up there, taking those plates over a number of days. “Then we started planning cities which were believable – based in reality. I also got a helicopter to take me over LA, which was where I was living, and you get a lot of reference from the height of the more modern buildings. For conceptual reasons, I started placing them into this scheme, painting new tops and changing the sides. It was quite a long process. In the end, we chose something that was believable, but it had magnetic strips on it, I think, so that cars could travel.”
ONE OF DARBY’S MATTES FOR HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN WAS OVER 600 FEET LONG that you wouldn’t ever consider or think about. For instance, how the light is in that particular part of the world. Every country has different light, different clouds – you notice that kind of thing when you’re travelling.” His work on Harry Potter And The Prisoner of Azkaban was based on a different kind of reality, but it introduced Darby to the delights of seeing his mattes on a massive scale: “One of them for Azkaban was over 600 feet long,” he reveals. “It covered the entire sound stage, all the way around. This was a newer part of the job for me. I’m more used to taking my watercolour, scanning it in and keeping it digital. Then you see it on screen, which is great. But you’re actually working at a much higher resolution and printing it out, then putting all the set pieces in front of it. It’s completely different, especially with the Potter stuff. With the 600-foot fellah, you can only paint in sections, and for that one there’d be about eight or nine sections and each would be about 2GB. You were running right to the edge of what the hardware could do.” His superlative matte-work also graced the most recent JK Rowling adaptation, Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire. “It’s similar to what I did for Azkaban,” he says. “It’s the kind of work where it was a very large-scale backing. Most was done
before the beginning of the shoot, so it feels like some time ago now. Again, it was a section of Hogwart’s views using landscapes and putting snow over everything at a very high resolution. It was building locations such as Riddle’s house. They don’t have a proper house to do long shots of, so I would create views of the house at different angles within the landscape and at enormous resolution. That in turn would be turned into matte paintings and then supplied to the VFX houses.”
Composition counts While the equipment may be struggling to keep up, Darby avows that it’s not the be-all and end-all of being a successful artist for film. “When it comes to VFX houses, they’ve all got the same hardware and software, so there’s a level playing field,” he says. “What they don’t really find so easily is people who understand what makes a good composition; people who can draw out their ideas and explain them. People who have a good sense of history and can capture the flavour of a place. For Rome, it wasn’t just recreating Rome, but having a flavour that feels right. You can’t capture it completely, because it has to work for a film. And the better you are at drawing out your ideas and creating compositions that convey a certain
feeling, the more effective will Photoshop and that stuff be – they’re just tools.” For anyone seeking to exercise their artistic and Photoshop skills in the world of film, there’s yet more to learn, and it’s little to do with being a computer-whiz or having skill with a brush. “It varies from person to person,” says Darby. “But when you’re in a meeting and you’re trying to work out what the client wants, you’ve got to ask the right questions to figure out whether they know exactly what they want, or whether they’re just coming up with ideas that they actually want to be changed. “You have to read between the lines a little bit to see whether they’re open to one way or another. Knowing the right questions to ask only comes with experience, but it’s an enormous help, and if you interpret the answers correctly it cuts down the work by half. It may be the first time they’ve had to define what they’re after, and if they can’t do that, it’s up to you to start defining it for them.” At present, Darby is having a rest and waiting for the next job to come in, which is how the movie industry works. However, he’s still to be found online at www.charlesdarby.com, where you can see a full run-down of the productions on which he has worked. A
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CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON
This scene from Ang Lee’s exotic masterpiece was a real challenge for Darby, who had to create a realistic look with little or no reference material: “I try to avoid a generic look, which a lot of visual effects can have. I guess that’s one of the advantages of travelling to a location where you’re actually recreating it in a different period. With Crouching Tiger, I didn’t have that opportunity. I was in LA in a studio, reading books and looking at artists’ representations of what it might have looked like, without the ability to actually go there and get the information as to what the skies looked like. It was one of the hardest fought-for – it’s quite a large painting, and it’s slap in the middle of the screen, and it lingers… that’s a tough one, but it does look quite good in the context of the movie.”
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WORKSHOPS
ZIP IT UP! 7
PEER PRESSURE
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Want to see how powerful Photoshop can be in the right hands? Then take a look at some of the stunning imagery this month, including Times Square Aftermath by Meowza, and the powerful XBot and NGCBot by Wai Mann. If you like what you see, you can contact the artist directly, or just read our in-depth descriptions and set about creating some magnificent imagery of your own.
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THE BEAUTY OF BRIDGE
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Parts Three and Four of our guide to Adobe Bridge concentrate on the Find command, helping you master it within seconds.
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Make sure fruit is kept firmly in its place, with the help of our zipped-up orange tutorial.
UNDER THE SEA 7 52 Perfect complex underwater lighting effects using Layers and Blending Modes
URBAN SNOW SCENES
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CONCEPT ART
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All you need to know about transferring an urban summer scene into a winter wonderland, making use of Noise and Layer Masks.
Mastering the art of light, shadow, colour and tone can make all the difference to your preproduction artwork, as we prove here.
CASTING SHADOW 7 74 Making shadows look realistic can be a bit of a bind, but not if you follow our expert advice.
HELPDESK
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Our resident expert Karl Foster sets out to solve your technical conundra. Having trouble adapting to CS2? Not sure of the best way to create black-and-white shots from colour? Find the answers here!
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MASTERCLASS
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Abstract design
Extra
Resources Also included on the CD found on the inside back cover of this month’s Advanced Photoshop are nine other renders that George is sharing with you from his own personal collection. He’s used these to create some of his more recent artwork. Feel free to use them to create some of your own abstract designs.
Find out how to use selections to create abstract grit and chaos. Keyboard shortcuts help speed the process and create smooth workflow BY GEORGE SMITH
ON THE DISC Want to try out these expert techniques for yourself? Then check out the relevant tutorial file (‘R ender01.psd) provided on the cover CD. Simply insert the disc into your drive and follow the on-screen prompts.
OUR EXPERT George is a self-taught 24-year-old digital artist who has been creating for eight years. He houses his digital pieces on his personal website EndEffect.com and also runs a clothing line, Naature.com. Personal quote: “I made fkn Gravity Well!”
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reating generic abstract designs can be a nightmare for a graphic artist. With vague commissions and maybe only one or two elements to include within the artwork, the initial stages can be a traumatic time. However, more often than not you’ll find that as soon as you start on your project, your creative juices will begin to flow and your design will soon start to form. Knowing some essential skills and techniques can help you make the process run a lot smoother and give you a great starting base for your art. This tutorial sets out to show you how the abstract artwork on the previous page was created. More important than the final design are the techniques used to create it. Once you’ve got the hang of the processes involved in shaping together this design, you can create a masterpiece out of any original elements. We’ll start off with some simple gradient techniques to give the design a strong, aesthetic background. Then, using the file found on this month’s disc, the shot will be built together using basic selection commands and layer masks and modes. You can also find out how to speed up the process with invaluable keyboard shortcuts. As the core of this tutorial relies on some random image shifting, your end result will probably differ slightly from our final image. Don’t fret – this is just your creative side letting rip!
Discover your abstract side
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Start with a new document Create a new document of 16x20” and 300 dpi with a plain white background. On a new layer, using the Gradient tool (press G in order to select the tool) create a few black gradients to give the background some depth. Now reduce the layer Opacity to 25% to make the gradients very subtle.
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Creating the bars Next, create a new layer. Using the Square Marquee tool (press M to select the tool), draw one tall slim selection. Enter Quick Mask mode by pressing Q, and then use the Marquee tool to select and clone your visual representation of the selection. Hold Ctrl, Alt+Shift, and then click and drag your selection to clone it and keep it aligned horizontally. Press Q again to exit Quick Mask mode.
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Adding gradients Use the Gradient tool to fill the selection and make a transition from dark to light grey. Using the Marquee, offset each bar a little from the previous one to create a stair effect. (Make a selection around each bar one at a time, then hold Ctrl+Shift while dragging up or down to move the selection and lock it horizontally.) Deselect everything, then rotate the bars 45 degrees clockwise (hold Shift while rotating in order to snap to 15-degree increments)
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Creating grit Open ‘render01.psd’ (included on the CD). Remove the object from the background by going to the Channels window and Ctrl-clicking on the Alpha channel. Click and drag the object to the main canvas using the Move tool (press V to select the tool). Using the Magic Wand tool (press W to select it), click anywhere on the render to create a random selection (you can alter the Tolerance level of the tool to make it grab more or fewer similar pixels).
Try something different You could also hold Ctrl, Alt+Shift after you’ve made a selection, then click and drag to clone that fill on the same layer. Also make sure to drop the Opacity of some of your layers. You want to create some depth and not be left with solid black/white/red bars all over the place. Create a few bars that stand out on top of all the others, using a contrasting colour (red, in our case).
Random shifts Once you have your random selection, hide the render layer and select your main bars layer. With the Square Marquee tool, click and drag the random selection so that a portion of it is overlapping our black bars. Now press the Delete button on your keyboard. Move the selection again and then hit Delete again. Repeat this process a few times, moving the selection each time in random spots. Also try Ctrl-clicking the layer in order to create a selection; move it so that it is offset and then hit the Delete button.
Adding elements Now add elements to your work such as letters and shapes. In this case we’ll add a few capital letters using the Ruritania font (included on the CD). Also try to explore the grit you have created by Ctrl-clicking on random layers to see what kind of random selections you can get. We also added a regal lion (regal.psd on the CD) which we duplicated and flipped horizontally to make them standing with their backs to each other. Use the same duplicate/select/delete technique to break apart the lions and create chaos within them.
Duplicating the bars Click and drag your main bar layer onto the New Layer button to duplicate it a few times. Play around by rotating, flipping horizontally or vertically, inverting the colour (hold Ctrl then press the I button) and even filling a layer with another colour. (Ctrl-click a layer to create a selection, make a new layer, select a colour from the Swatches window, then hold Alt and hit the Backspace button to fill the selection with the foreground colour. Deselect everything by pressing Ctrl+D.)
Adding more elements and depth Another little technique we can use to create some depth is to hide all the layers except the lions, text and render layers. Press Ctrl+A to select the entire canvas, then copy merged (Ctrl, Shift+C) and paste (Ctrl+V). Gaussian Blur (20 pixels) the layer then set it to Overlay. Paste two more copies and use the Quick Transform tool to size each one down a little more than the previous one. Set their Layer Modes to Lighten.
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Colour layer As a final touch, add a layer on top of everything else and fill it with a solid colour, then play around with the Layer Mode and Opacity. In this case, we used Pastel Green Cyan, set the Opacity to 50% and set the Layer Mode to Overlay. Change the Opacity and overlap a few different colours to see what kind of results you get. You can change the Layer Modes as well to create even more different results.
“TRY TO CREATE DEPTH, SO YOU AREN’T LEFT WITH SOLID BARS” 40
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Step-by-step
Workshop
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Prepare your image Open ‘orange.jpg’ and ‘orange_zip.jpg’, provided on Disc A. With both files open, use the Move tool to drag-and-drop the zip-less orange image over the top of orange_zip, so that the two layers exist on orange zip. At the top of the Layers palette, reduce the Opacity of the orange layer to 70 per cent and align it over the orange zip layer until the zip is completely covered. Bring the Opacity of the orange layer back to 100 per cent and switch off visibility by clicking on the eye icon next to it.
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Isolate the zip Select the orange zip layer, then choose the Pen tool (check it’s set to Paths) and carefully draw around the zip’s metal edge. Start at the top-left and work your way down. At the bottom of the orange, add a point that cuts across the zip and start tracing up the other side. When the path is complete, click the right arrow on the Paths palette and choose Save Path. Now click on the Load Path as Selection button at the bottom of the Paths palette. Ensure the ‘marching ants’ line is around the zip and not the background, or you’ll need to inverse the selection (Select>Inverse).
ZIP IT UP!
They’re noisy fruit, oranges. Keep them in their place with Operation Zip-Up. Just don’t tell the rest of the fruit-bowl! BY GILES ANGEL
ON THE DISC You’ll find all the files you need to complete this tutorial (orange_ zip.jpg, orange.jpg and zip_base. jpg) on Disc A. Don’t forget to check out the two .psd files, too.
OUR EXPERT
Giles Angel
Giles Angel is co-founder and director of Vision Architects, a digital communications agency, and has five years’ experience in media design. Past clients include 02, Microsoft and Toyota. He’s also an award-winning photographer. For more details, visit www.angelphoto.co.uk
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ver told an orange to shut up? Thought not. But the bizarre ap-peel (sorry!) of this zipped-up orange proved just too good to resist. This fun tutorial is an excellent opportunity for testing your montage techniques, taking into account the subject’s vivid textures and curvaceous profile and the complex interlocked design of the zip itself. In addition, consider how light and shade interact with the two objects once they’ve been carefully combined. Feel free to follow our concept exactly, or improvise and come up with a similar idea yourself. The important point is to practise the techniques here first, then branch out in new creative directions. You’ll be making extensive use of Layer Masks and the Color Adjustment tool, and you will need a steady hand when it comes to isolating those zip-teeth.
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Create an Adjustment Layer Mask With the selection still active, select the orange layer and go to Layer>Layer Mask>Hide Selection. This will reveal the zip selection, which is underneath.
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Make colour adjustments Now that the zip is showing through the mask, it’s time to make the zip blend in with the orange peel. There are a number of tools for the job, but in this instance we’re going to use Color Balance. Select the orange zip layer (as this is the layer showing through the mask). Go to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Color Balance and, in the dialog, select the midtones and move the top slider towards the red. Now move the middle slider towards the green and the bottom one towards the blue. Before clicking OK, repeat these steps with the Shadow and Highlights respectively. You should end up with a supersaturated dark reddish/orange tint. Now go to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Levels and move the middle (midtones) slider towards the left (shadows). This will lighten the colour saturation for a closer match on the orange peel
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Colour-adjust zip base Duplicate the Colour Balance Adjustment Layer above the orange zip layer and drag it above the zip base layer. Now create a Clipping Mask (Opt/Alt-click) and roll the mouse between the Adjustment Layer and the zip base layer. As you do so, you’ll see a little icon of two overlapping circles appear. Click on it and the Adjustment Layer becomes indented and a downward arrow appears to indicate an active clipping mask. The Colour Adjustment Layer now only affects the layer immediately underneath. Add one more Adjustment Layer, this time for Brightness and Contrast, and reduce Brightness to -29 to make the colour match the zipper. Now create another Clipping Mask from this Adjustment Layer so that both Adjustment Layers are indented.
Adjustment Layers The beauty of Adjustment Layers, although RAMhungry, is that you can go back and make changes later on. Just double-click on the layer thumbnail icon in the Layers palette to bring up the settings – and make your changes.
will need a bit of skewing to make it look like it’s wrapping around the orange. To skew an image, just go to Edit>Free Transform, hold down Opt/Alt, and drag on the corner handles.
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Cut out the composite Now flatten the file and cut out the composite with the Pen tool. Make a selection and press Cmd/Ctrl+J to bring it onto a new layer. The image is now ready for a background. To make it look more realistic, we took another low-angle macro shot of an orange in some grass. Open ‘orange_grass.jpeg’, provided on Disc A, and dragand-drop a copy of the cut-out layer onto it.
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Adding zip base Open up ‘zip_base.jpg’, provided on Disc A, and drag it onto your working document so that it’s sitting above the orange layer. Reduce Layer Opacity and use the arrow tools to nudge it into position. Go to Edit>Free Transform and, holding down Shift (to constrain proportions), drag the corner inwards to ensure it’s the correct size.
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Isolating zip base Now repeat steps 4 and 5 to isolate the metal using the Pen tool, and mask out the unwanted material around the edge. In each instance, the original layer is intact underneath the mask, so any tweaks are being done to the mask not the image itself.
Prepare the shadows 1 The orange and the zip are now blended together, but we need shadows to add realism. Go back to the Paths palette, where we isolated the zip in step 4, and load the path as a selection. Click on the New Layer icon and fill it with dark reddish brown. Next, reduce its Opacity to 33. Use the arrow keys to nudge the new layer into position over the zip. With the Eraser tool and a small hard-edged brush, ease back the top edges until a subtle shadow layer appears underneath the metal. Now add a little Gaussian Blur from the Filter menu to soften the shadow effect.
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Blend composite with the background Align the composite layer over the orange in the background layer. Now go to Layer>Add Layer Mask Reveal and choose the Paintbrush with black as the foreground colour. With the Layer Mask selected in the Layers palette, start painting in black to reveal the detail underneath. With patience, you’ll be able to get a nice blend between the two. If you make a mistake, simply press X to flip the foreground colour to white, which will enable you to paint the mask back in. 5
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Prepare the shadows 2 You’ll need to repeat step 9 with the zip handle and zip base. The former, however, will need a separate path, and the shadow-filled layer
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MASTERCLASS
W
hen compared to film, digital images can appear a little too polished, which is why many photographers still cling to their old equipment and modus operandi, which haven’t changed fundamentally in over 160 years. Thankfully, with Photoshop, you can duplicate many of the films, processes and techniques of the pre-digital era without having to bump into things in the darkroom or put your hands into dubious, smelly chemicals. Best of all, most of them are easy to achieve in a small number of steps, and in many cases are non-destructive, thanks to the power of Adjustment Layers. In this Masterclass, we’ll look at eye-catching photographic effects, touch on the important topic of colour spaces, show you how to add convincing film grain to your images and reveal how to convert your colour images into black and white. Sepia-toning, cross-processing and solarisation are what could be classed as ‘darkroom’ techniques. Our infrared technique on the other hand shows you how to mimic the appearance of hard-to-find infrared film, which can be difficult to handle in the field. And while nothing can replace the pleasure of using a Lomo Kompakt camera, one of Russia’s finest exports, you can still replicate that unique ‘Lomographic’ style by following our simple steps. Understanding colour spaces, together with regularly calibrating your monitor, will help to ensure consistently excellent results. But if your eyes start to glaze over at the very words colour-management, then our concise introduction to the subject (page 51) is for you. A grainy, gritty image can look amazing, but Photoshop’s built-in Grain filter isn’t the best solution. Rolling up your sleeves to do a bit of groundwork first, then using small amounts of Noise and Gaussian Blur, will produce better results indistinguishable from the real thing. It’s an ideal technique for digital artists who insert new items into a photograph and then have to match the film grain so that the new item doesn’t look too crisp. Thought there was only one way to turn a colour image into black-and-white? Then think again. Here we show you three ways of transforming your RGB images into shades of grey. Usefully, we also explain the pros and cons of each technique, so that you can decide which one’s best for you. You can apply most of the techniques outlined here to any digital image – check out the Photoshop Actions on our cover CD for one-click access. They’re easy to edit, so feel free to fine-tune them to suit your own needs.
Digital photography tricks Give your digital images the traditional veneer of analogue photography, complete with texture and grain, using these easy-to-follow techniques BY JASON ARBER
ON THE DISC You’ll find a stack of resources on the cover CD to help you recreate the techniques shown here, including a batch of handy Photoshop Actions.
OUR EXPERT
Jason Arber
Jason is co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of online art and culture magazine Pixelsurgeon (www.pixelsurgeon.com). He’s also an Art Director at Start Creative in London, has used Photoshop since version one and even dreams in Layer Blend mode.
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Sepia
Sepia-toning can evoke the stylish look of an aged photograph if used in the right way. In the 19th and early 20th Centuries, the pigment was prepared from the black ink secreted by cuttlefish, but modern photographic processes rely on a chemical dye. You can recreate this look in Photoshop with a high degree of flexibility
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Colorize in Hue/Saturation Open a colour image (or a greyscale one converted to the RGB colour space) and select Hue/ Saturation from the Image menu (Image>Adjustments> Hue/Saturation). Click the Colorize checkbox and move the Hue slider until your image is a warm brown colour.
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Tweak the slider Adjust the Saturation slider to change the amount of colour. Higher numbers will create a richer, more vivid effect while smaller numbers create a subtler, more realistic sepia look. Try adjusting the Hue slider to create the look of blue or green photographic dyes, silver and selenium toning. If you don’t want to change the underlying image, use an Adjustment Layer instead.
Solarisation
In photographic terms, solarisation is the overexposure of the dark parts of an image and is easily achieved in the darkroom by quickly exposing a developing print to a flash of light. Recreating the effect in Photoshop is simpler than you might think
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Invert image This technique will work with colour and greyscale images. Take an image and make a copy of the layer by dragging it to the New layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. Invert the duplicated layer (Image> Adjustments>Invert) to create a negative.
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Apply Adjustment Layer and tweak Change the duplicate layer’s Transparency mode to Exclusion in the drop-down menu at the top of the Layers palette. Create a Levels Adjustment Layer (Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Levels), ensuring that ‘Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask’ is checked and tweak the Levels to find the correct balance that works for your image. As this process is typically used with black-and-white images, create a new Hue/ Saturation Adjustment Layer for the whole image and reduce Saturation to make a greyscale image.
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MASTERCLASS
Infrared
Special infrared film can photograph the infrared spectrum, which is invisible to the human eye. Blue skies darken dramatically to black, while foliage develops an unearthly glow. This technique is best used on landscapes, as infrared film can have an unusual effect on human faces, which is beyond the scope of this tutorial
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Adjust Color Range Open up an image that contains clear blue skies, clouds and some foliage. Using the Color Range tool (Select>Color Range) with a high Fuzziness setting, sample the blue sky and click OK. This will create a selection out of the blue sky. With the help of Levels (Image>Adjustments>Levels), use the grey triangle to darken the sky. Now use the Color Range tool again for the green foliage and boost its saturation using Hue/ Saturation (Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation).
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Blur and Grain Go to the Channels palette and click the Green channel. You’ll notice that the sky is virtually black and the foliage appears as though the leaves are white. Select all (Select>All), copy the channel and paste it into a new layer in the Layers palette. Use the Color Range tool to select the foliage again (using the original layer), create a new layer, fill with light grey, deselect and then add a touch of Gaussian Blur (Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur). Finally, flatten the image and add a small amount of Grain from the Filter Gallery (Filter>Filter Gallery).
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Film grain
Unlike its digital counterpart, film that’s pushed several stops and then pushprocessed often achieves a grainy look which is pleasing to the eye. High ISO ratings on a digital camera, on the other hand, result in digital noise that doesn’t look remotely aesthetic. Although Photoshop has a handy Grain filter, it doesn’t look realistic because it applies a uniform coating of noise. In film, grain is more noticeable in the midtones and shadow areas and tends to clump. By excluding the highlights and repeating a noise-blur-noise cycle with small values, you can achieve a more lifelike film grain without sacrificing detail
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Drag background layer to new layer Open an RGB image that’s been desaturated or channel-mixed to black and white. Make a duplicate of the image by dragging the background layer to the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette.
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Tweaking the channels Click on the Channels palette and duplicate one of the channels by dragging it onto the New Channel icon at the bottom of the palette. For black-and-white images, the channels will all be pretty much the same. On the duplicate channel, invert the image (Image>Invert), boost Contrast using Levels (Image> Adjustments>Levels) and click OK.
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Load the selection Making sure that the RGB channels have been selected again, return to the layers and choose Select>Load Selection and load the duplicated channel to create a selection that will exclude the highlights. Apply a small amount of noise (Filter>Noise>Add Noise) – the precise value of which depends on the size of your image, but 10-15 is a good starting point – and ensure that Gaussian and Monochromatic are selected.
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Repeat blur-and-noise cycle With the midtones and shadows still selected (you can hide the ‘marching ants’ selection indicator by turning off View>Show>Selection Edges), apply a Gaussian Blur (Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur) with a Radius of no more than one pixel. Apply the Noise again and repeat the blurring and adding of noise until a suitable degree of ‘grain’ is achieved.
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MASTERCLASS
Lomo style
The Lomo Kompact was a Russianmade camera that, thanks to its unique glass lens design and build, somehow managed to produce vivid, saturated images, even of the most mundane subjects. Outgrowing its Communist roots, Lomography has spawned societies and aficionados all over the world dedicated to the Lomo look
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Retain image details Open up an RGB image and duplicate the layer by dragging it to the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. Change the Layer Blending mode to Luminosity, so that details from the image that would be lost implementing the next step are preserved. Now select the bottom layer and create a new Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer to pump up Saturation to +58.
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Create new Colour Balance Adjustment Layer To increase the vividness of the image and warm up the tones, create a new Colour Balance Adjustment Layer, and tweak the midtones. Increase the red and yellow values (for example, to +17, 0, -43) and click OK. For absolute authenticity, grab a large soft brush loaded with black and on a new layer add a touch of vignetting to the corners to mimic the camera’s optics.
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Cross process
Cross processing occurs when you use the wrong chemicals to process colour film – processing negative print film in E6 chemicals and colour reversal or transparency film in C-41 chemicals. This creates unexpected colour shifts and higher-than-usual contrast
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Remove contrast Take an RGB image and duplicate the layer, turning the top layer’s Blending mode to Luminosity to preserve the image detail. With the bottom layer selected, create a new Curves Adjustment Layer and remove some of the contrast with a flattened S-shaped curve (ensure that the light end of the curve is dragged down).
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Adjust Colour Balance Create a Colour Balance Adjustment Layer. Select Highlights and shift the balance towards the Red and the Yellow (for example +27, 0, -49), then select the Shadows and move parameters towards the Cyan and Blue (for example -70, -15, +32). Finally, create a Levels Adjustment Layer above all the other layers and beef up the contrast by dragging the white triangle to the left.
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MASTERCLASS Converting to black and white
There are many ways to create a black-and-white image from a colour image, and each one has its own advantages and disadvantages
Greyscale
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RGB to Greyscale The simplest and quickest way is to change Image mode from RGB to Greyscale (Image>Mode>Greyscale). Unless your image is destined for black-and-white output, though, we’d advise against this, since it throws away two-thirds of the image information by condensing three channels into a single Greyscale channel.
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Duotone, tritone, quadtone An advantage of the Greyscale mode is that it’s a stepping stone to exploiting Photoshop’s Duotone, Tritone and Quadtone capabilities, which can generate very subtle effects. But this still doesn’t change the fact that valuable pixel information is being thrown away. With this in mind, always remember to convert a duplicate image to Greyscale, never the original.
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Desaturation
Channel Mixer
Use a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer For a non-destructive desaturation approach, open up a colour RGB image and create a Hue/ Saturation Adjustment Layer. Take the Saturation slider down to zero and click OK.
Use Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer One of the most flexible ways of converting an image to black and white is by using the recently introduced Channel Mixer. Open up a colour RGB image, then create a Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer (Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Channel Mixer).
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Add saturation The advantage of this method is that it maintains all the detail in your original image, resulting in a richer print when it’s converted to CMYK and output on a process colour page. By adding a little saturation back into the image, you can create some subtle, aged looks that look almost like hand-tinted photographs.
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Adjust RGB sliders in Monochrome Tick the Monochrome box and then adjust the Red, Green and Blue sliders so that they’re all in roughly the same position, but their values add up to 100 per cent. If the sliders add up to less the 100 per cent, the image may look underexposed, while values above 100 per cent may make the image look overexposed.
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Experiment! The real fun with the Channel Mixer comes when you experiment with the RGB sliders to achieve 100 per cent values that aren’t uniform across the channels. You can make blue eyes paler, darken skin, bring out hidden freckles and completely change the tone of your photograph. 5
Colour
space Many digital artists, Photoshop users and professional photographers have never really considered colour spaces – or, if they have, decided the subject is far too complex and moved on to the more exciting business of creating images instead. But understanding the topic is vital if you want to get the most out of your work. To confuse matters, a number of colour ‘models’, such as CMYK, RGB, HSB and Lab, are mistaken for colour spaces. In fact, the models define how colours can be represented in terms of values, while colour spaces define what the colours should
look like. A colour profile is the combination of a colour model and a colour space, which tells external devices such as monitors and printers how colours should be mapped. Colour spaces essentially tell external devices how to display the material you present them with. This is the crucial part to remember, because a pixel with an RGB value of 39, 210, 26 can look very different on different monitors. For further details, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_space and www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/ digitalphotography/prophoto/colorspaces.mspx
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Advanced Photoshop
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Step-by-step
Workshop
UNDERWATER LOVE Combine hand-drawn techniques and careful use of layer blending and effects to create a compelling ocean scene BY SAM GILBEY
ON THE DISC You’ll find all the accompanying files and images you’ll need to complete this tutorial (‘sketch.jpg’) on this issue’s free CD.
OUR EXPERT
Sam Gilbey
Sam’s illustrations have appeared in numerous publications, both on and offline, all over the globe. His observational, colourful and distinct style often draws upon and celebrates popular culture. He is also a senior editor for popular arts and design news portal, Pixelsurgeon. More of his work can be found at www.sam-gilbey.com
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f you’ve seen Pixar’s epic movie Finding Nemo, then you already know that computers can help create a sumptuous, convincing underwater world. Now, we’re not saying that our humble piece could be lifted from the movie as such, but we certainly had lots of fun creating it. This has got a lot to do with the fact that the way light plays underwater is fascinating. We’ve certainly always wanted to try and recreate that ‘wet look’, and on the following pages you’ll see how we did it. As you’ll find, the key is in using layers, and lots of them, to build up the image
piece by subtle piece. We’ve also deliberately steered clear of any ripple filters and effects, preferring to create the look by hand as much as possible. As such, you may find the following tutorial a little easier (and quicker) with a drawing tablet of some kind, but it’s not essential. On the following pages, you’ll cover brush dynamics, will see how to create your own unique brushes, and work through all manner of techniques leading towards this striking underwater scene. From here there’s no limit to what you could do, from a simple fish study to the whole of Atlantis.
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Advanced Photoshop
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“THE KEY IS IN USING LAYERS TO BUILD UP THE IMAGE PIECE BY PIECE” 1 It starts with a sketch Open the file from the coverdisc called ‘sketch.jpg’. Duplicate the background layer and set the layer blending mode to Screen. Select all of the background layer via the Select menu, and then fill it with a deep sea green/blue. Flatten the image. Duplicate the background layer again, and this time set the blending mode to Multiply. Use the Gradient Fill tool to render a gradient that fades from a medium sea blue down to a darker one on the background layer.
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A slightly textured look On the right of the Brush Diameter icon there’s a small arrow. Click on this. From the palette that opens up, click the arrow towards the top right, and select the Dry Media Brushes. At the bottom of this brush set you’ll fine the Pastel Medium Tip. Set the opacity to 50%, and the size at 30, and start to add texture to the girl, following the contours of the shading. Change the brushes back to the default set.
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Outlines beneath Reduce the brush diameter, and use darker tones to supplement the outline of the sketch. Now proceed to work on the facial detail. Add a subtle red to the cheeks. Adjust the brush size and opacity as appropriate. Render the lips with some light pink highlights, and introduce some varying tones into the hair, following the basic flow of the hairstyle. Use the Eraser to remove the crosshatched shading on the sketch.
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Bolder outlines and highlight Working beneath the sketch, darken the main outlines further. Keep the brush opacity around 50%. Now select a strong orange, and paint a narrow orange highlight to the left side of the character. This will ultimately be the light from the jellyfish.
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Flat colours and highlights Create a new layer in between the background and the sketch. Use a hard-edged round brush at 100% opacity to paint the different areas of the girl in. Make sure you go up to and include the edges with the various tones. Then, for each area, use a slightly lighter tone to paint in a flat highlight, as if the light is on the right of the scene.
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More hair detail Your next step is to create a new layer above the sketch, and then you can start to thicken up the hair. It’s best to begin with a relatively small brush, adding in lighter and darker tones that flow along the hair, and then to use a larger, softer brush to blend everything together, making it appear more natural. Alternate these techniques until you can see that the hair is starting to look more realistic.
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Shadows and blending Pick a darker tone for each area, and now work some shadows in on the left of the character. Use the Magic Wand to select the character accurately (to reduce overlap), then use a larger soft-edged brush (around 130 diameter), reducing the opacity to around 40%. The idea is to blend shadows and highlights with the main colour, rendering the body, clothing and face as you go.
Layer blending modes We have used a lot of layers in this piece, gradually building up the textures and colours as we go. But that’s only half the story. A crucial part of getting the right look, especially when you’re creating an underwater scene such as this one, is to use the correct blending modes on all those layers. Changing them from one mode to another can have a dramatic effect on the image. Learn how they all work, and then you’ll find that you have a much better idea of which one to use in a given situation. Remember, less is often more. The most dramatic one isn’t always the best for the job!
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Advanced Photoshop
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Step-by-step
Workshop
“IF YOU GET INTO THE HABIT OF USING LAYER STYLES, YOU WILL FIND THEM EXTREMELY HANDY”
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A deeper blue Duplicate the background layer, and then drag it to the top of the layers. Now set the blending mode to Multiply and the opacity to 48% so you can see through to the character. Select the Eraser, and a soft-edged brush, setting it to the largest size (2500). You may need to zoom out, but proceed to erase the top half of this gradient layer.
The power of layer styles Layer styles are great, and if you can get into the habit of using them you will find them extremely handy, partly because you can add so many different effects to your images with ease. Most importantly though, when you’ve got a better idea for the effect you’re using or want to adjust it slightly, you can go back to it any time you want to. From your Layers palette, simply double-click on the thumbnail of the layer, and the Layer Style options will then pop up. This is also a shortcut to adding a layer style in the first place, without having to use the Layer menu.
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Light rays Create a new layer beneath the character and use the Polygonal Lasso to define the boundaries of a light ray. Use the Gradient Fill tool to apply a gradient that fades from white down to a bright blue. Apply a broad Gaussian blur via the Filter menu. Go to Layer>Layer Styles>Outer Glow and apply a soft, bright blue glow. Set the opacity of the ray layer to around 20%. Duplicate it and move the new layer across to the right a little. Repeat this process a few times and build up a few rays of light cutting into the scene. They should open out across the composition.
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More photography Next, we have used a photograph taken by Hrvoje Pastar, which you will be able to find at the following website: www.fotolia.co.uk/id/178135. Paste this photograph in over the other photo layers, and then scale it up in order to make it fill the entire canvas. Having done that, your next step is to set the blending mode to Overlay and the opacity to 59%. Finally, apply a Motion blur by using the Filter menu, and set it at an angle of 62°.
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Photographic texture We’ve used an image by Chronis Chamaldis here, which you can purchase relatively cheaply at the following site: www.fotolia.co.uk/id/90501. Paste the image above the background layer, setting the layer blending mode to Hard Light. Now go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation. Decrease the Hue to –26, and the Lightness to – 13. Use the Clone Stamp to copy the texture so that it reaches the edges of the canvas.
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Brighter rays Now it’s time to make another copy of the rays. Having done that, set the opacity to 30%, and then use the same large eraser to rub out the lower half, leaving a brighter highlight at the top of the screen. The next step is to duplicate the photography layer by right-clicking or pressing Control-click in the layers palette. Now set the blending mode to Overlay, and then use the same eraser to remove the lower half of the texture, again brightening up the top half of your screen.
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Dappled light Your next step is to create a new layer above everything else, and then select white as your foreground colour. You’re going to create a dappled light effect, and in order to do this you need to paint a rippled pattern of light over the girl – varying the width and opacity of your softedged brush as you go. Having done that, use a large soft eraser with a low opacity to reduce the intensity of the light in a few places. Finally, apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of 10 pixels, and add an outer glow layer style. Keep the blending mode on Screen, the spread at 0, and put the size up to 84px.
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Blurred hair Duplicate the hair layer above the sketch and apply a reasonably subtle Motion blur. Repeat the process, rotating the hair very slightly each time and varying the blur. It’s only really the isolated hairs in the water that need to blur, so you can erase anything else around the face.
Jellyfish colours Create a new layer below the sketch, and set the blending mode to Hard Light. With a large soft-edged brush (around 150), at an opacity of around 30%, start to paint in the jellyfish. Use pinks and purples, building up the texture with round marks. Paint the tendrils, and the inside of the jellyfish that you can just see below, in white.
Jelly veins Create a new layer on top of the jellyfish, and using a fine brush with a very low opacity, paint in pale orange veins spreading out over the top of it. Apply a small Gaussian blur and copy the layer. Increase the brush size and create a soft halo of orange and white light around the top.
Brush creation We’ve just used brush creation tools in Photoshop for our bubbles, but you could easily exploit this technique further, especially in the creation of an underwater scene. Take a look at the other brush ‘dynamics’ that are available to you, especially the Color dynamics. For instance, you could create a brush design of a single fish, and use brush dynamics to quickly render a whole school of them in the background. Play with brightness settings, and they’ll even start to shimmer in the underwater light, or automatically vary the angle that they’re placed at. Perhaps you could use brush dynamics to create coral, or simply to add texture to sand and rocks on the seabed.
Jelly blur Select all the layers that make up the jellyfish and group them. Duplicate the group and then merge the lower group. Apply a gentle Radial blur of around 12 pixels to the layer, with the centre point near the top of the jellyfish. Now rotate the blurred version about 2 degrees counter-clockwise to create a sense of movement. Enhance the pale orange highlights on both the girl and jellyfish on a new layer, and Motion blur them slightly. At this stage we’ve also repositioned the light rays for better composition, and added a new one in front of the girl.
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Luminous tentacles Create a new layer beneath, and use a soft white brush at varying sizes and with a low opacity, to build up the long tentacles. Apply a bright blue/purple outer glow layer style, with the blending mode set to Normal and a size of 18px. Create a new layer above everything, and repeat the technique, adding soft brighter highlights here and there. Use a light blue outer glow on this layer, and erase the pencil sketch over the jellyfish.
“WE’VE USED BRUSH CREATION TOOLS JUST FOR BUBBLES, BUT YOU COULD TAKE THIS FURTHER” 55
Advanced Photoshop
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Step-by-step
Workshop
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“TO GET THE MOST OUT OF THESE TECHNIQUES, IT WILL HELP TO STUDY SOME UNDERWATER PHOTOS” 19 Bubble brush Create a new document that’s 500 x 500 pixels, at 300 dpi. Using the techniques you prefer, create an image of a bubble, essentially a circle with a soft edge and a few highlights. Note that the blacker the line, the more opaque that part of the brush will be, and white will be completely transparent. Flatten the image once you’re ready, and go to Edit>Define Brush Preset. Name your brush ‘Bubble’ and click OK. It will appear at the bottom of the current brush set.
Look and learn To get the most out of these techniques, it will naturally help to carefully study some underwater photos. As well as places like Fotolia, where you can purchase images relatively cheaply, there are plenty of other places to look – such as the appropriately named www.underwater-art.com, for instance, or even just a Google image search. It’s by studying how light plays underwater and how creatures move within it, that your imagination can run riot, and your illustrations can be fantastical but believable in their own right.
Brush dynamics To the right of the Options bar, you’ll find the Brushes tab. Open it and turn on Shape Dynamics. Set Size Jitter to 100%. Also turn on Scattering and set it to the maximum. From Other Dynamics, set Opacity Jitter to 60%. Proceed to paint bubbles around the canvas, with the diameter at 80, on a new layer at the top. Don’t make more than a couple of bubbles at a time. After a while, reduce the brush diameter and add some smaller ones. Apply a soft white outer glow layer style, and a vertical Motion blur of 7 pixels.
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Deeper sea At this stage you might want to adjust the colours of the girl, so that she complements the background better. Use the Layer> Adjustments options, or create a new Adjustment layer in order to make your changes. Go back down to the bubbles photo, and then add a new layer. Create a gradient that fades up from the bottom into nothing this time, covering approximately one third of your screen. Now apply a Color Overlay and experiment with various tones. We’ve gone for a suitable deep sea green/blue.
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More bubbles On a new layer, create lots of tiny bubbles, following the girl’s hair and the tendrils of the jellyfish in particular. Go back down to the photo of bubbles we added, and duplicate the layer. Move it above the photo of the bubbles, set the blending mode to Overlay and the opacity to 37%. Apply a Color Overlay layer style with a midtoned orange. Set the opacity of the overlay to 57%. Use a large soft eraser to remove the top sixth or so of the layer, revealing the lighter tones beneath.
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It’s brighter at the top Beneath the bubbles photo, create a new layer and set the blending mode to Overlay. Use the Gradient Fill tool to add a gradient that fades downwards from white to nothing, just down say a fifth of the screen. Move it up a little so the top of the image isn’t quite so bright. For extra effect, add a layer at the top, and paint in some broad (but quite faint) white strokes at the top of the image. Apply a Gaussian blur of 50 to the layer to give the sense of more light breaking through.
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Final details Go and have another look at the character, and then add any more detail that you think it may need. Concentrate in particular on the face, especially the lips and eyes. We have also added quite a lot more bubbles here, on various layers so that we can blur them to different amounts. Besides this, we’ve also brought the hair around the front of the neck to create the impression that the water is swirling. Now – why don’t you try experimenting with using some of these techniques in an underwater scene of your own?. 5
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Advanced Photoshop
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Step-by-step
Workshop
LET IT SNOW!
Desaturate, invert and make use of Noise and Layer Masks to transform this urban summer scene into a winter wonderland BY TIM SHELBOURNE
ON THE DISC You’ll find all the files you need to complete this tutorial (snow_start. jpg, snow done.tif and snow smaller. psd) on the cover CD.
OUR EXPERT
Tim Shelbourne
With 20 years’ experience as an artist and illustrator, Tim Shelbourne is one of Photoshop’s leading lights. He believes that too much instructional material intimidates new users and is keen to help novices painlessly harness the software’s true potential. For further details, check out his first book, the Photoshop Photo Effects Cookbook (Ilex, £17.95, ISBN: 1-904705-61-8) or visit www.timshelbourne.com.
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here’s virtually no limit to the power of Photoshop. Using Adobe’s flagship application, we can distort reality with incredible results – as this workshop clearly shows. Here you’re going to learn how to seamlessly change a summer scene into a winter one – and it won’t just involve painting white ‘snow’ onto the image. The key is to ensure that the snowy areas follow the contours of the landscape, and fit in with the original scene in terms of light and shade. The solution? To desaturate and invert the image on a number of separate layers, adjust the Levels on each, and then combine the result with Layer Masking to selectively reveal only parts of these ‘snow’ layers. Careful use of layer blending modes ensures that the virtual snow interacts convincingly with the underlying image layer. For the falling snow, we’ll use a simple Noise layer. By manipulating and modifying this layer, we can clump the noise together to form truly realistic snowfall. You can then use another variation of this Noise layer to create convincing frost and the impression of lighter areas of snow. If that isn’t cold enough for you, we’ll up the chill factor a touch up by adjusting the overall colour temperature of the final image.
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Create a snow layer Open ‘snow_start jpg’. For the first areas, we need an inverted copy of the background layer. Duplicate this by going to Layer>Duplicate Layer. On the duplicate layer, go to Image> Adjustments>Invert. Desaturate this inverted layer via Image>Adjustments>Desaturate.
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Reveal some snow With the brush set at 100 per cent Opacity, and White for the foreground colour, paint directly onto the Layer Mask over the pavement and road area, revealing the ‘snow’ from the associated image layer. To be sure that you’re painting onto the mask and not the image layer itself, check for a bold outline around the Layer Mask thumbnail in the Layers palette. Create an uneven line between the pavement and the building to suggest that the snow has depth.
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Fine detail Reduce the Opacity of the brush to 40 per cent and paint a rough line over the top of the car. Paint a line across the car’s bumper and over the wheel arches to give the impression of settled snow. You can easily reduce or increase the size of the brush by using the [ or ] keys.
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Adjust highlights Now to lighten the snow highlights. Go to Image>Adjustments>Levels. Drag the White Point slider to the left, setting Input at 180, then the Gamma (Midpoint) slider to the left to a value of 1.00. Click OK and set the Layer Blending mode to Hard Light in the Layers palette.
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More snow Now paint over the rooftops and chimneys on the main building. Take care to keep to the outlines of the rooftop areas. If you accidentally paint over any areas of sky, simply swap your foreground and background colour (X) and paint back into the mask with Black. Reveal the snow only along the top edge of the guttering, so that the shaded area underneath shows through from the background layer. By varying the Opacity of the brush over parts of the rooftops you can easily reduce/increase the apparent snow cover.
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Hide behind the mask Go to Layer>Layer Mask>Hide All. This applies a mask filled with Black, which hides the entire layer. Choose the Brush tool and click in the Brush Picker. Scroll down the list of brush thumbnails and select the Spatter 46 pixels brush.
Layer Mask essentials
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Thicker snow cover Duplicate this layer via Layer>Duplicate Layer. After making sure that you’ve clicked on the Layer Mask thumbnail for this duplicate layer, go to Edit>Fill, choosing Black for contents to fill the duplicated mask with Black. Reduce the Opacity of the brush to 50 per cent. Now, by painting again into this mask with White, you can increase the thickness of the snow in certain areas of the pavement, road and rooftops.
Make some noise Time to create that frosty effect. Add a new layer to the image (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+N) and hit D to revert to default foreground and background colours. Fill the Layer with Black via Edit>Fill> Contents: Black. Now go to Filter>Noise> Add Noise. Drag the Amount slider to 50, choose Gaussian for Distribution and check Monochromatic. Hit OK to apply the Noise.
To ensure that you’re painting on a Layer Mask and not the actual image layer, click directly on the thumbnail of the Mask itself in the Layers palette. Before painting, check for a bold outline around the thumbnail – this indicates that the Mask is your target. And remember that, in Layer Masking terms, Black conceals and White reveals the associated image layer.
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Step-by-step
Workshop
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Blend the frost Go to Image>Adjustments>Brightness and Contrast and drag the Contrast slider to +80. Now change the Blending Mode for this layer to Linear Dodge in the Layers palette and reduce Layer Opacity to 90 per cent. Hide this layer with a mask via Layer>Layer Mask>Hide All.
Blizzard conditions
deciding which areas of snow should be the thickest. Think where the snow would gather…
To suggest that the snow is falling slowly here, we’ve assigned small values to the Motion Blur settings on the snow layers (see step 16). However, creating a blizzard is just as straightforward. Simply duplicate one of the snow layers again and use a higher Motion Blur value on each of the falling snow layers. Obviously, in a blizzard, snow often blows across an image almost horizontally. Modify the Angle value in the Motion Blur filter to recreate this effect. It can really add atmosphere to your landscapes.
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Frosty buildings and windows Continue to paint with the brush over parts of the rooftops and the windows to suggest frost. By painting over parts of the building faces and over the distant buildings, you can spread this effect throughout the entire image.
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Delicate frost effects Choose the Brush tool again and click in the Brush Picker. Scroll down the brushes and choose Chalk 44 Pixels. Reduce the brush Opacity to 50 per cent. Now, using White for your foreground colour – and ensuring that you’re painting onto the Layer Mask – paint over the car to reveal a little frost. Vary the Opacity of the brush to simulate different densities.
Take your tablet Although not essential, a pressure-sensitive graphic tablet and stylus has huge advantages over a conventional mouse when it comes to projects like this. Rather than having to constantly adjust the Opacity of your brush in the Options bar, when you’re using a graphics tablet you can control the Opacity and even the size of the brush by simply altering the pressure you apply to the stylus. To activate these brush characteristics, hit F5. This brings up the Brush Options panel – in the Other Dynamic category, set Opacity Jitter to Pen Pressure.
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Snow is noisy Add another new layer (Cmd/ Ctrl+Shift+N) and fill it with Black via Edit>Fill>Contents: Black. Now go to Filter>Noise>Add Noise. In the dialog, check Monochromatic and choose Gaussian for Distribution. Drag the Amount slider to 75 per cent. Click OK to apply the noise.
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Using the Channel Mixer Click on the background layer, duplicate it (Cmd/Ctrl+J), then drag the duplicate up to the top of the layer stack. Now go to Image >Adjustments>Invert. The Channel Mixer will help us to create snow on this layer. Go to Image> Adjustments>Channel Mixer and, in the dialog, check the Monochrome box and adjust the sliders as follows: Red: +34, Green: +52 and Blue: 108. Click OK to apply the adjustment.
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Generating snowfall Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Use a Blur Radius of 5 pixels and click OK. Now go to Image>Adjustments>Levels and drag all three pointers, so that they sit closely together towards the right-hand end of the short histogram. You’ll be left with just white clumps on a black background, which look pretty much like snowdrifts. To complete the illusion, set the Blending Mode to Screen.
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Increase snow density Reduce the Opacity of this new snow layer to 88 per cent, but leave the Layer Blending mode set to Normal. Add a Hide All Layer Mask via Layer>Layer Mask>Hide All. Now paint over it with White to reveal some of this snow layer on the bricks. Use a low Opacity (30-40 per cent) setting and paint over some areas repeatedly to increase the snow density. Use your intuition when
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“A PRESSURE-SENSITIVE GRAPHICS TABLET REALLY WORKS WELL WITH THIS KIND OF PROJECT. JUST HIT F5 AND SET OPACITY JITTER TO PEN PRESSURE” 16 Swirling snow Go to Filter>Blur>Motion Blur and set the Angle to 23 and Distance to, say, 10-15. Click OK to apply. To intensify the snow, duplicate this layer via Layer>Duplicate Layer. Now use the Eraser tool (with a soft brush) to erase some areas of this duplicated layer and vary the opacity of the swirling snowflakes.
slider to 13 per cent and click OK to apply the Adjustment Layer. See the improvement?
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Create a backup .psd file Always save a version of your file with the layers intact, so that you can make alterations later – simply go to File>Save and choose .psd. Now you can safely flatten the layers in the image via Layer>Flatten Image, and, via File>Save, save the flattened image as a suitable TIFF or JPEG. 5
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Automatic Layer Mask The great thing about Adjustment Layers is that they come complete with a Layer Mask attached. So now you can paint onto this mask with black to hide the summery blue colour that appears in certain buildings.
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Snow focus Click on the lower snowflake layer and duplicate it (Cmd/Ctrl+J). Flip the layer via Edit>Transform>Flip Horizontal, then drag the duplicate to the top of the layer stack. Now blur this layer via Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Use a Blur Radius of 8 pixels and click OK.
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Getting colder To enhance the effect, we now need to cool the entire image down a little. Photo Filter is ideal for the job. Go to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Photo Filter, click OK, and, in the Filter dropdown, choose Cooling Filter (80). Set the Density
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Painting fine detail Finally, return to the Layer Masks on the lower snow layers and paint onto each with a small brush to reveal details of snow along window ledges and on distant chimneys. Here, we’ve painted around the edges of the shop signs with a small brush on the upper snow Layer Mask to indicate smaller areas of settled snow.
Where next? Once you’ve mastered this technique, why not try it on a portrait to add a little wintry interest? The secret is to use your Photoshop brushes subtly on the Layer Masks to reveal the snow and frost at varying intensities over skin and clothes. By increasing the Density of the final Photo Filter Adjustment Layer, you can give the finished portrait a strikingly cool blue ambience.
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Step-by-step
Workshop
CONCEPT ART
Add a hand-drawn polish to your pre-production artwork with this sci-fi themed workshop, where you’ll learn to master the art of light, shadow, colour and tone BY SAM GILBEY
ON THE DISC All the files you need to complete this workshop (concept_bck.jpg, robot_ sketch and final_artwork.psd) are provided on the cover CD.
OUR EXPERT
Sam Gilbey
Sam Gilbey is a freelance graphic designer and illustrator whose client list includes Weetabix, The British Museum and Motorola. You can find further examples of his work at www.sam-gilbey.com. He is also a Senior Editor for popular web portal www.pixelsurgeon.com.
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e all know that Photoshop is an extremely powerful application, but all too often it’s considered ‘just’ an image-manipulating tool rather than a potent image-creator in its own right. It’s an unfortunate assumption as in reality many artists rely on Adobe’s flagship app as a primary design tool. The software is an integral part of pre-production workflow in both the videogame and film industries, for instance, as you’ll know if you’ve read our interview with Charles Darby on page 30. Naturally, having ideas that lend themselves to visual representation helps, particularly during the initial drafting stage. But once you’ve mastered the techniques outlined here, you’ll find that such
ideas flow much more freely anyway. The trick is not to make anything too complex. You’re not trying to create a ‘realistic’ textured look – for that, you should use dedicated 3D software. The best concept art is vibrant and evidently made by hand. It reaches out and grabs you, because it evokes a space without literally demonstrating it. Concept art is about the mastery of light and shadow, colour and tone. It’s about creating an illusion, and that’s why Photoshop is a natural choice for the job. Once you’ve had a go at this workshop, why not try creating something from your own imagination? Never stray too far from a sketchbook and pencil – and, where possible, use a graphics tablet for the most natural results.
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First marks Open the file called ‘robot_sketch.jpg’ and create a new layer. Select the Brush tool from the Tools palette and click on the small arrow next to the icon on the Options bar showing the brush diameter. From the default brush set, choose the Hard Round 19 pixels brush. With the foreground colour set to Black and Brush Opacity at 100 per cent, start going over the pencil lines.
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Keep it clean (ish) Try to make each mark as smoothly and deftly as possible, but remember that you want the artwork to look hand-drawn; you don’t want the lines to be anywhere near as smooth as a vector. If you’re using a Wacom tablet, you can control the width of the stroke via the pressure you apply without having to resize the brush diameter. Gradually build up the main lines, but don’t replicate any of the cross-hatching.
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Extra definition By and large, all your lines at this stage will be of a similar thickness. We want to see a difference between the lines that simply connect shapes and those that make up the edges of the character. So increase the brush size to around 25 and go over the edges with it. Make sure you do the same with the head in front of the neck and the gun arm in front of the leg.
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Light and shadow Imagining that the light source is on the right-hand side, begin adding some black shadows to the left side of the drawing. Use the shape of the body-parts as your guide. For the larger plates on the arms and legs, leave a gap between the edge and the line of shadow. This starts to give the illusion that there’s a shiny surface. Zoom in so that you’re looking at the image at 100 per cent. Fill in any obvious gaps in the shadowed areas and use the Eraser to correct any overlapping lines.
Night in at the movies Next time you watch a movie, particularly anything in the sci-fi or fantasy genre, remember that everything you see on screen was visualised by an artist long before it became a 3D CG (or real) model. Luckily, thanks to the fact that it’s become the norm to offer behind-the-scenes footage on DVD movie releases, concept art galleries are becoming increasingly accessible. It’s always interesting to see why some ideas never made it to the final cut… Creating believable worlds is all about establishing a coherent logical narrative, and the concept artist needs to imbue his or her work with sensible choices as much as creative flourishes.
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A rough idea Open the file called ‘concept_bck.jpg’. As you can see, this is in a much rougher state than the character design sketch. It has a strong, angular composition, but we’ll need Photoshop’s help to turn it into something more tangible, and with any luck, more impressive.
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Keep things in perspective Create a new layer and use the Marquée tool to draw a rectangle in landscape format, as shown. The size isn’t really important – a sixth of the image width at most is fine. You just need to fill it in with a mid-grey colour and copy the shape to your clipboard. Hide this layer and add a new one. Now go to Filter>Vanishing Point.
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Remove the drawing Once you’ve replaced all the main defining lines, it’s time to get rid of the original drawing. Create a new layer above the sketch, select the Paintbucket tool and fill in the whole layer with a mid-toned petrol blue, as shown.
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Two-toned robot Create a new layer between the background and the black outlines. After setting the brush size to around 65, colour the robot in with two flat tones. Use a light silvery grey for the head and all the main limb panels, and a darker grey/blue for the other areas and the gun. If you haven’t already, save your file. Now it’s time to work on the background.
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Create a perspective plane When the Vanishing Point window opens, click on the second icon down the left-hand side (the Create Plane tool). We’re now going to base our perspective on the diagonal panel visible on the left. Move over to the image and click to add perspective points at the four corners of the panel. Now paste the rectangle you’ve already created on the scene and simply drag it until it snaps into the perspective of the grid. Select the fifth icon down, the Transform tool, and resize the shape to fit the panel. Click OK to render the results.
Master of concepts
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A question of symmetry The ‘reactor’ was drawn freehand, but is meant to be symmetrical. Use the Pen tool to create a shape that follows the outlines of the lefthand edge. When it comes to the ellipses at the top, use the Convert Point tool to turn the straight lines into curves. Adjust the handles of the points using the Direct Selection tool.
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Pasting on the ceiling Reveal the layer with the rectangle and use the Magic Wand to select it again. Fill it with a slightly lighter grey, copy it and hide the layer. Now create a new layer and open the Vanishing Point filter. Create a new grid, with the vertical centre-point roughly aligned with the centre of the ‘reactor’ object. If the grid is red, it’s not aligned with the original perspective, so use the Transform tool to adjust the corners until it turns blue. Paste the rectangle in as before and attach it to the ceiling. Click OK when you’re done.
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You may not have heard of Feng Zhu, but you’ve almost certainly seen his work – he was a key artist on Revenge Of The Sith – and his art direction is hugely impressive. He’s also worked with directors James Cameron and Michael Bay, as well as countless videogame companies. If you’re really serious about emulating the techniques established artists like Feng Zhu use, check out his excellent tutorial DVDs (available from www.thegnom onworkshop.com for $49 each – around £28). It’s always inspiring to see a master in action, especially with concept art, where the mark-making is an intrinsic part of the process. For further examples of his work, visit www. fengzhudesign.com.
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Thicker lines for edges As with the robot figure earlier, we want the edges of our subject to be more strongly defined than the internal lines. Increase the brush diameter and go over these edges. The drawing will instantly acquire more depth.
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Use Paths to outline the ellipses We want the ellipses at the top of the object to have black outlines, too, but it can be difficult to do this freehand when you can’t rotate the canvas. Starting with the internal ellipse, create a shape using the Ellipse tool. Go to the Paths palette and click on the small arrow at the top-right. Select Make Selection from the options. Keep the Feather Radius at 0 and make sure that it’s antialiased. Revisit the layer with the outlines and, via Edit>Stroke, apply a 5-pixel centred stroke.
Halve the workload Set the Opacity of the layer down, so that you see through to the drawing. Duplicate it and flip it horizontally. Move it so that the righthand side of the object matches. Set the Opacity of the two layers back to 100 per cent and merge the top one down. Reduce the Layer Opacity of the combined layer a little.
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Perfect all the main outlines Repeat the previous technique, creating a vector path and then a selection, to add a stroke to the outer outline of the circular section that meets the ceiling. Where the curves overlap the central column, create a rectangular marquée and delete the contents.
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When a circle becomes an ellipse Now it’s time to create a circle. Use the Elliptical Marquée tool, but hold down Shift to constrain the shape. Fill the circle with a light blue. Copy it to the clipboard and open the Vanishing Point filter once more. Drag it so that it snaps to the ceiling grid you’ve created, then position it over the ellipse at the top of the ‘reactor’. Click OK.
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Working with straight lines On paper, drawing straight lines is more natural at certain angles and you can easily turn the paper if one is particularly tricky. Obviously, working in Photoshop requires a different method. Select the same hard-edged brush you used for the character, but set its size to around 50. Click on one of the corners and hold down Shift. Click again at another point to draw a straight line between the two points. Keep Shift held and work around the object.
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Markings and indentations Ever since Star Wars, sci-fi objects need to consist of multiple, angled panels or they just don’t look right. Using the same technique outlined in step 14, hold down the Shift key and add detail to the reactor with the help of straight lines. There’s not a right or wrong way to do this, but try to be instinctive. Ideally, you want to lead the eye around the object.
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Vary line thickness to add depth As you work across the reactor, adding details, include a variety of line types. As it all starts to take shape, go over some of the lines to thicken them up. This is how you decide which lines represent a protrusion. The reactor soon starts to acquire a suitably 3D, sci-fi look – and it’s all down to the varying thicknesses of the lines.
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Time for a new brush On a brand new layer between the background colour and the outlines, it’s time to add some texture. Select the Brush tool and click the small arrow next to the Brush Size indicator. From the drop-down, click the small arrow to the top-right. Select the Dry Media Brushes set, scroll to the bottom and you’ll find the Pastel Medium Tip.
An excellent resource One of the first places you really must take a look at is the easy-toremember www. conceptart.org. Be warned, though – there’s so much talent in the field, visiting the site can be a little daunting. Don’t be put off, though. Browse the forums and, once you’ve had a few attempts at creating your own pieces, show them off. A bit of constructive criticism can only improve your game.
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A soft blue glow We can now use some of the indentations we’ve created to represent a channel of power flowing through the reactor. On a new layer, use a hard-edged brush from the default set to colour in the channels with a flat blue. Go to Layer>Layer Style and apply an Outer Glow. With Blend Mode on Screen, set Opacity to 100 per cent, Spread to 0 per cent and Size to 21 pixels.
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Ramp up the textures From the Dry Media brushes, select the Soft Oil Pastel (fourth brush down). Set Size to around 70 and Opacity to around 30 per cent, then paint an additional layer of texture over the reactor, on the layer below the blue glow. Increase the contrast between light and dark across the various sides, to give the object a stronger presence. Also, add some texture to the wall behind, on a separate (lower) layer.
Adding pastel textures Using the adjusters on the Options bar, set the Size of the brush to approximately 80 pixels, Opacity to about 50 per cent and Flow to around 60 per cent. Start to add marks to the bottom-left ‘foot’ of the reactor. Don’t worry about overlap. Use a dark tone for the left-hand side and a lighter tone for the right.
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Completing the background Once you’re satisfied with the level of detail on the reactor segment, use the same straight-line technique to render the main edges in the background. There’s no need to work on any additional panels, because we want the reactor to be the main focus. Concept art relies as much on what you leave out as what you put in.
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Building it up Reduce the size of the brush slightly and work over the texture with different tones. Add depth by darkening the panels at the bottom and around the edges. Use a clean hard Eraser to remove brushstrokes that overlap the lines.
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Time to hide the sketch You’re now as familiar with the pencil lines as their digital counterparts, but the best bit comes when you hide the former for good. Create a new layer beneath the black outlines layer and fill it with a mid-toned grey/blue. Remember also that you want to hide the angled rectangles you created with the Vanishing Point filter at this stage – so make sure this layer is above them.
A Photoshop specialist Many still think concept art is largely produced in Painter, not Photoshop, but this isn’t the case. Painter certainly has some interesting, powerful features, with its emphasis on reproducing natural media, but Photoshop has its own strengths, too. Many artists use both, of course, but one artist who swears by Photoshop alone is Niklas Jansson. Check out his superb work at www.itchstudios. com/psg/.
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Highlights and shadows This simple trick is a great way to get a hi-tech look with ease. Go back to a hard-edged round brush from the default set, and, with Size at 50 and Opacity at 35 per cent, paint in straightlined highlights and shadows on the appropriate side of the panels. Go over some of the lines a few times to increase their strength.
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Need more brushes?
Burning in the shadows To give the object more solidity, select the Burn tool. Using a soft-edged round brush (Size: 120, Range: Midtones, Exposure: 10 per cent), subtly define the edges of the panels.
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A new colour balance The steely blues we’ve been using up to now are a little cold. Add a new layer and set the Blending Mode to Soft Light. Select an earthy orangey brown tone. Then, with a soft-edged round brush from the default range, and Opacity set to 100 per cent, paint a layer of colour over most of the reactor. It’s okay to leave gaps here and there.
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Intensify the colour Create a new layer and set Blending Mode to Color. Select a mustardy orange and a solid brush, then paint over the lightest panels of the reactor. On another new layer, above the black outlines, use a soft-edged brush to paint in some highlights for the blue energy channels. Apply an Outer Glow to the Layer to intensify the effect.
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Additional markings The panels added earlier have given the reactor presence, but we can go further. On a new layer, with a round brush (Size: 9), draw in straight lines to represent additional markings on the structure. Don’t think too much about where these should go, but try and complement the structure you’ve already established.
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A blurry background Create a new layer underneath all those you’ve created for the reactor. Using the brushes you’ve already used from the Dry Media selection (but at much larger sizes), build up the background in terms of tone and texture. Go to Filter>Box Blur and apply a Blur of 99 pixels, then a Motion Blur of 350 pixels at an Angle of 0 degrees.
Textures play an important role in concept art, even if they lie ‘hidden’ beneath the broader, obviously handmade strokes. We’ve used some of the Dry Media brushes to add detail to our piece, but you don’t have to stop there. Creating your own brushes is easy and you could even bring in some photographic textures to help. Essentially, you can turn any bitmap into a brush, by clicking on Create Brush Preset from the Edit menu. When combined with the powerful brush dynamics, such as Scattering, the possibilities really are endless.
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The hand-drawn look At this point, the room is rendered quite strongly, but it hasn’t really got the fluidity that a striking piece of concept art needs. Using a hard-edged round brush, work hand-drawn marks back into the piece. The trick is to follow the contours of the objects and the perspective, leading the eye to the focal points. Keep brush Size as large as possible and Opacity low. Vary the colours, so that it’s not just a two-toned piece. This all helps the hand-drawn quality to shine through.
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Something to reflect on Once you’re happy with the results, it’s time to add the reflections of the objects in the floor. Go to File>Save As and save your image as a JPEG, 100 per cent quality. Open it up and copy and paste the reactor onto the main canvas. Flip it vertically, remove anything beyond its outer edge, set Layer Mode to Lighten and Opacity to 50 per cent. Apply a Gaussian Blur of 2.3 pixels. Repeat the technique for the rest of the background, with the floor as the reflection point. Cut around the reactor shape as well.
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Scattering and radial blurs On a new layer, choose a 19-pixel hard round brush, Opacity set at 100 per cent. From the Brushes tab to the right of the Options bar, turn on Shape Dynamics and set Size Jitter to 29 per cent and Minimum Diameter to 15 per cent. From the Scattering menu, set Scattering to Max. Paint over the ellipse at the top of the reactor, letting white particles spill out. Go to Filter>Blur>Radial Blur and apply a Radial Zoom Blur of 30 pixels, centred on the middle of the reactor ellipse. Afterwards, apply a blue Outer Glow Layer Style.
Just enough detail The background still needs a little more definition – now you’ve created the main tonal shape, work some of those Dry Media brush textures back in. Use the Burn tool to solidify some of the smaller panels on the door and add in lots of fine straight lines, similar to the ones you created on the reactor. Also, add highlights to the wall behind, which would be cast by the reactor light.
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A bit of character Go back to the character design and group the outline and flat colour layers. Drag the result to the main canvas and position it appropriately. Starting with hard-edged brushes at a low Opacity, build up the surface with streaks that follow the contours of the body. This should be beneath the outlines. Apply a Color Overlay style to the outlines layer, changing the colour from black to dark grey. On a new layer above, use a soft-edged brush to add glowing, airbrush-style highlights. Finally, add a broad blue highlight to the right-hand side of the character. 5
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The beauty of Bridge: Finding your files
A note about Sets
Bridge’s Find command can not only help you to locate files by name, date and type, but also by keywords and collection. Adobe expert Trevor Morris explains how to get the most from this advanced functionality OUR EXPERT
Trevor Morris
Trevor Morris is an official Photoshop beta tester and amateur digital photographer with more than a dozen years’ design experience. He works as a Senior Graphic Designer for a Canadian web design company and also maintains the Photoshop-centric website GFX™ (http://user.fundy.net/morris/).
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elcome to the penultimate part of our four-part series dedicated to Adobe Bridge. So far, we’ve covered the interface, including its various panels, View modes and the Toolbar, and explained how to select, rank, label and organise your media using a rack of specialist tools. This issue, we’re exploring Bridge’s keywords, the Find command, Collections and Adobe Stock Photos.
Keywords Quite simply, keywords are typically nouns – people, places or things – that you associate with your files to categorise
KEYWORDS PANEL: By default, the Keywords panel contains only three sets (plus “Other Keywords”). However, you’re free to add, edit or entries and start from scratch.
them and/or distinguish them from other files. For example, if you own a digital camera, you might take several dozen (maybe even hundreds of) photos on a particular day, but not necessarily all of the same subject matter. Assigning keywords to each photo makes it easier to find in the future. In Bridge, keywords are organised into sets (eg, Event, People and Place, by default). New keywords and sets are created via the icons at the bottom of the Keywords panel, the panel flyout menu or the panel context menu. Assigning keywords is easy: simply select one or more files and click the empty square to the left of the desired keyword. You can assign any number of keywords, even entire sets, to the selected file(s). Assigned keywords appear with a checkmark and are also listed across the top of the Keywords panel. A dash next to a set name indicates that one or more – but not all – of its keywords have been assigned to the selected file(s). A dash next to a keyword shows the keyword is applied to only some of the selected files. When Bridge finds an undefined keyword (ie, an assigned keyword that isn’t in the Keywords panel), it’s displayed in italics within the Other Keywords set. These ‘temporary’ keywords aren’t saved as part of Bridge’s Preferences. But you can add them by selecting Make Persistent from the Keyword’s Context menu. Or you can drag them from the Other Keywords set and into any other set, to make them persistent. To delete a keyword or set, select it, then press Delete or the Delete Keyword button (at the bottom of the Keywords panel). Alternatively, choose Delete from the panel menu or context menu. Note, however, that deleting a keyword from
It is worth remembering that Sets are only an interface convenience and therefore they are not stored with files. For example, something like Event>Wedding would only store Wedding for the selected files.
Keywords saved As of version 1.0.2, Bridge saves your keywords as an XML-based Preference file, which makes them easy to back up, share and even edit with a simple text editor. Keywords are saved on exit to a file named ‘Adobe Bridge Keywords.xml’, located in the following folder: Mac:
/Users//Library/Application Support/ Adobe/Bridge/ PC: C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Adobe\Bridge\ Note: Bridge 1.0.2 is an essential update, with improved overall stability and performance, and is highly recommended for all Bridge users.
FIND DIALOG: Bridge’s powerful Find dialog enables you to add up to 13 unique criteria for finding exactly the files you’re looking for. For example, this is what the Find dialog might look like if you were trying to find all Raw photos that contained the keywords ‘sunset’ and ‘Fredericton’, shot this year, with a rating of three stars or more.
the interface doesn’t remove it from any files to which it was assigned. In order to remove keywords from files, uncheck them in the Keywords panel or delete them from the Keywords field in the File Info dialog.
Search and Find The Find command (located in the Edit menu) uses the standard keyboard shortcut Cmd/Ctrl+F. You can use it to locate files anywhere on your local hard drive, removable media, network or even
“KEYWORDS ARE TYPICALLY NOUNS – PEOPLE, PLACES OR THINGS – THAT YOU ASSOCIATE WITH YOUR FILES”
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Double-click on a keyword set to expand/collapse it.
Click on (checkmark) a set to apply all keywords within the set to the selected files. Not all files can be assigned keywords (eg, Microsoft Word and Macromedia Flash files). To find the location of a file in a collection, select it and choose File>Reveal In Bridge. Copy and paste a collection to create/edit a new collection based on an existing one. Enable the Include All Subfolders and Find All Files options in the Find dialog, and then save the search as a collection for creating a ‘flat view’ of any folder.
ADOBE STOCK PHOTOS: Available via the Favorites panel, this is an online library of royalty-free images. There are thousands to choose from and you have the option to download free, low-resolution comps until you decide to buy the highresolution print versions.
your downloaded stock photos (if you use the Adobe Stock – more on this later). While the majority of options in the Find dialog are self-explanatory, there are a couple that warrant further explanation. For instance, Find All Files does exactly what the name implies (and hence disables the Criteria section below it), but if you combine it with the Include All Subfolders option you can create a ‘flat view’ of the specified folder. The Criteria section of the Find dialog enables you to refine your searches by specifying up to 13 different criteria. Use the adjacent + and – buttons to add or subtract a criterion, respectively. This enables you to refine your search to an astonishing degree. If I wanted to pull out all the Raw files I have of sunsets taken in my hometown, in a certain year, with a rating of three stars or more, it’s just a
SAVE COLLECTION: A convenient way to save search criteria so that the same search can be quickly conducted again at any time in the future. To access your collections, click on the Collections icon in the Favorites panel.
case of selecting the appropriate criteria and letting Bridge do the hard work. Another way to quickly search for files with specific keywords is to Ctrl/rightclick on a keyword in the Keywords panel and choose Find. This will open the Find dialog with the selected keyword already defined as part of the search criteria.
To access your saved collections, choose Collections from the Favorites panel. Double-click on a saved collection to perform the search again. Use the Edit Collection button (top-right of the Content area) to edit the options and criteria for the current collection.
Collections
The Favorites pane also provides quick access to Adobe Stock Photos, a library of online royalty-free images from leading stock libraries. To find specific images, enter the desired keywords. All searches are saved for offline viewing and searching, and may be accessed by clicking on Previous Searches in the Favorites panel. Adobe Stock Photos gives you the option to download non-watermarked, low-resolution, complementary (comp) versions of images for your mock-ups. Once you make a final decision, you can buy and download a high-res version. To view your downloaded comps, click Downloaded Comps in the Favorites pane. Comps may be resized with the thumbnail slider, or moved, copied, renamed, deleted, etc. They’ll even show up in your search results if their metadata matches the search criteria used. A
Collections are nothing more than saved search criteria (typically less than 1KB in size). They enable you to repeat the same search again at any time, on any folder. Collections are also dynamically generated, based on the saved search criteria – so if matching files are added or removed, the results are reflected whenever the collection is displayed. To save a collection, use the Save As Collection button that appears above the search results (to the right of the Find Criteria) after performing a Find. Enter a name for the collection and enable ‘Start Search From Current Folder’ to perform relative searches (based on the folder specified by the Look In drop-down menu). Alternatively, leave the option unchecked to perform absolute searches (based on the same path used for the current search).
Adobe Stock Photos
Where are comps stored? To view and manage your offline comps, first click on Adobe Stock Photos in the Favorites panel, then click on Downloaded Comps. Alternatively, navigate to the default folder where comps are saved, as follows: Mac: My Documents\ AdobeStockPhotos\ PC: Documents/AdobeStockPhotos/
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Bridge: Slideshow and customisation W
elcome to the last chapter in our four-part Adobe Bridge series. Over the past three chapters we’ve discussed: the interface; selecting, ranking and labelling; managing and locating your media files; keywords, collections and Adobe Stock Photos. In this final part we’ll explore Bridge’s Slideshow as well as some ways you can customise the Bridge interface and functionality to optimise your workflow.
Auto-launch There’s a further Bridge setting that might be of interest, but it actually appears inside the Photoshop Preferences dialog. Launch Photoshop and choose Edit> Preferences>General, then select Automatically Launch Bridge to have Bridge launch whenever Photoshop does.
Locked files? When a file is already opened in another application (Photoshop, for example), a document/paper icon appears near the bottom-right of its thumbnail (in the content area). Until the file is closed (and the icon disappears), you cannot rename or delete the file, nor can you assign a rating or label.
Slideshow On the surface, Bridge’s Slideshow looks and feels much like any other slideshow, but it’s actually a surprisingly powerful view mode. To launch Slideshow, press Cmd/Ctrl+L, or choose View>Slide Show. The first time you launch Slideshow, a help overlay appears with a summary of the available keyboard shortcuts: this summary may be accessed again at any time by pressing the H or ~ (tilde) key. By default, Slideshow displays the selected files in Fullscreen mode – press W to toggle Window mode on and off. Press the spacebar to begin/pause automatic playback, or use the left/right arrow keys (or Page Up/Page Down) to move to the previous or next file. In addition to simply viewing your media files, you can also perform the following operations while you’re in Slideshow mode: ● assign a rating of one to five stars (1–5) ● increase/decrease ratings by one star (period/comma) ● clear ratings (zero) ● apply a label (6–9) ● rotate left/right ( [ / ] ) Slideshow is perfect for rating your digital photographs, reviewing and labelling comps with a client, or for simply seeing your images fullscreen. You can even view and navigate the pages of an Acrobat document (PDF) in Slideshow mode.
Workspaces One of the things that makes Bridge such a versatile application is its flexible user interface: panels may be resized, reorganised or hidden; there are four different view modes; thumbnails can be almost any size, and so on. Thankfully,
Two views To compare two images side by side in Windows, try the following: 1. Launch Bridge and choose File>New Window (Ctrl+N). 2. In the Windows Taskbar, Ctrl-click on the first Bridge, so that both application ‘footprints’ are selected. 3. Right-click on either of the application footprints and choose Tile Vertically. Voila! Now you can compare and rate your images without having to remember your previous pics. Note that while you can’t save multiple Bridge windows as a single workspace, you can save each one independently (ie, ‘2-Up View, Left’ and ‘2-Up View, Right’). you can save these layouts as ● Filmstrip Focus (Cmd/Ctrl+F5) – workspaces by choosing horizontal Filmstrip view with large Window>Workspace>Save Workspace. thumbnails and all panels hidden The Save Workspace dialog also enables To delete a custom workspace, simply you to save the window size and position choose Window>Workspace>Delete as well as assign a keyboard shortcut – Workspace and select the workspace to something we highly recommend if you be deleted. Note that you cannot delete plan to switch between workspaces on a any of the five preconfigured workspaces regular basis. Saved workspaces are mentioned above. appended to the bottom of the Window>Workspace submenu. Preferences Bridge has five preconfigured Like the rest of its CS2 siblings, Bridge’s workspaces: interface and behaviour can be further ● Default (Cmd/Ctrl+F1) – tiny customised via the Preferences dialog: Thumbnails view with three sets of Bridge>Preferences (Cmd+K) on the Mac, panels (Favorites/Folders, Preview and or Edit>Preferences (Ctrl+K) on the PC. Metadata/Keywords). This is the initial The Preferences dialog is divided into FIND DIALOG: Bridge’s powerful Find dialog enables you to add up to 13 unique ‘out of the box’ layout. six pages. page criteria for finding exactly the files you’re looking for.The For General example, thisenables is what you the ● Lightbox to:tochange background ofcontained the Find dialog(Cmd/Ctrl+F2) might look like– ifsmall you were trying find allthe Raw photos that theThumbnails keywords “sunset” “Fredericton”, shot this year, with ratingof ofgrey; threetoggle stars view withand all of the content area to anya shade or panels more. hidden tooltips on/off; customise up to three ● File Navigator (Cmd/Ctrl+F3) – medium lines of thumbnail metadata; choose Thumbnails view with the Favorites which of the default icons appear in the and Folder panel Favorites panel. There are also two ● Metadata Focus (Cmd/Ctrl+F4) – controls/buttons – one to reveal the medium Thumbnails view with the scripts in Finder/Explorer, and the other large Metadata panel, as well as the for resetting all warning (ie, turn them Favorites and Keywords panels all back on). The Metadata page allows you to choose which metadata fields or groups of fields appear in the Metadata panel. There’s also an option at the bottom of the page to hide empty fields. The options on the Labels page enable you to customise your labels – just the names, not the colours – and designate
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INSIDER INFO
Colour settings If you own the entire Creative Suite 2, you can even synchronise your colour settings by choosing Edit> Creative Suite Color Settings. This single set of preferences controls the colour settings for Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2 and InDesign CS2, helping to ensure colour fidelity as you move from screen to print, and file to file.
SLIDESHOW HELP: Press the H or ~ (tilde) key while in Slideshow to display a summary of keyboard shortcuts. whether or not the Cmd/Ctrl key is required when applying labels and also ratings. The File Type Associations page is used to specify which applications open which types of files when double-clicked or opened via File>Open (Cmd/Ctrl+O) from within Bridge. Note that any changes made on this page affect only Bridge, not the operating system or any other application. The Advanced page is broken into two main categories: Miscellaneous and Cache. The first option under Miscellaneous allows you to specify the maximum file size (in Megabytes) for which Bridge will create a thumbnail and image preview. Immediately below that you can indicate the number of folders (between 0 and 30) to be displayed in the ‘Look In’ drop-down located on the main application toolbar. Next, you can designate which application – Bridge (checked) or Photoshop (unchecked) – will host the Camera Raw plug-in when doubleclicking on camera raw files. Note that regardless of which you choose, File> Open in Camera Raw (Cmd/Ctrl+R) will always open camera raw files in Bridge. Finally, the Language drop-down allows
you to select your preferred language. However, Bridge must be restarted for the change to take effect. The Cache section of the Advanced page allows you to specify how and where cache files are created. ‘Centralized’ implies that all cache files are stored in a single location (specified via the Choose button), while ‘Distributed’ means that the cache files are stored within each and every folder you visit with Bridge (except in the case of read-only devices, for which cache files are written to the central cache). So, while a centralised cache is tidier, there are a few disadvantages. First, if you move or rename a folder outside of Bridge, its association to the central cache is broken and the folder will need to be re-cached. Second, when you back up your files to an external/ removable device, you must first export the cache using the Tools>Cache>Export Cache command, otherwise the cache for the backup will be recreated the next time it’s read by Bridge. The final page in the Preferences dialog pertains to Adobe Stock Photos (accessible via the Favorites panel or Edit>Search Adobe Stock Photos). Here you are able to configure such things as search options, where to save
downloaded stock photos, billing currency and download options.
Conclusion That concludes our coverage of Adobe Bridge, but we’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg, so you’re encouraged to continue exploring its potential. Don’t let the simple interface fool you: Bridge is a deceptively powerful application – especially for an initial release.A
Bridge & Camera Raw shortcuts A complete list of Adobe Bridge and Camera Raw keyboard shortcuts is available from Ian Lyons’ site, Computer-Darkroom (computer-darkroom.com): Mac: www.btinternet.com/~ian.lyons/mac_kb.pdf PC: www.btinternet.com/~ian.lyons/win_kb.pdf
Bridge updates Make sure you get the Bridge 1.0.3 update from Adobe’s website: PC: www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=108&platf orm=Windows Mac: www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=108&plat form=Macintosh This patch greatly improves the stability and speed of Adobe Bridge, and it also adds a few enhancements. Note that 1.0.3 is a cumulative update, so you need not download 1.0.1 or 1.0.2 before installing 1.0.3.
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Step-by-step
Workshop
LOSING FOCUS
Attempting to create the effect of narrow depth of field was a difficult task until Adobe introduced its new Lens Blur filter into Photoshop’s arsenal of effects BY JASON ARBER
ON THE DISC You’ll find lots of stock photos on the disc to practise your depth of field technique on, including ‘truskawki.tif’.
OUR EXPERT
Jason Arber
Jason is the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of online art and culture magazine Pixelsurgeon (www.pixelsurgeon.com). He’s also an Art Director at Start Creative in London.
I
f you’ve ever tried to create the illusion of narrow depth of field in a photograph that was uniformly sharp, you’ll know it’s not as easy as it sounds. Creating a graduated blur that gradually moved from sharp to out of focus typically used to involve complex layers and masks, and the results were variable at best. The problem was that the best blurring option Photoshop used to offer was Gaussian – but this doesn’t work as a camera’s lens and optics, which blur out-of-focus elements in a certain way. (See Lens Blur vs Gaussian Blur boxout.)
With the introduction of Photoshop CS, Adobe included a tool which is a photographer and digital artist’s dream: the Lens Filter. But packing this filter with a mind-boggling array of options can make it seem a bit overwhelming. It works best when you create a mask for the image detailing the areas you’d like to keep in focus and those you’d like to blur. Initially you don’t need to worry about the professional features such as Iris Shape or Blade Curvature, although they are fun to play with. Simply create a mask, set the Blur Focal Distance and the amount of blur, and away you go.
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Lens vs Gaussian Blur
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See sharp Open up the image ‘truskawki.tif’ in Photoshop CS2. Aside from a small amount of blurring in the top and bottom left, most of the strawberries are still quite sharp. The plan is to create a plane of focus that concentrates on the central strawberry.
Gaussian Blur is fine for most kinds of blurring, but its smooth blur distribution doesn’t reflect how the world is seen through a camera lens. The new Lens Blur filter, on the other hand, has been built from the ground up to emulate camera optics, including specular highlights and a more natural looking kind of focus bloom that increases as objects become more blurred. Because it’s aimed at pro photographers and retouchers, the Lens Blur filter includes useful features such as Noise replacement for out-of-focus areas that emulates film grain or digital camera noise still existing in the sharp areas of the image.
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It’s all a blur With the Depth Mask channel deselected, open up the Lens Blur filter (Filter>Blur>Lens Blur). The large, friendly interface has a number of options, including a generous preview area which may have applied a default blur to the image already.
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New channel Create a new channel in the Channels palette by clicking the Create New Channel button at the bottom of the palette. Double-click on the new channel, rename the channel Depth Mask and change the default colour to something other than red.
Soften the focus Fine-tune the results by increasing the Radius to 50 in the Iris section. This increases the amount of blur in the out-of-focus areas. In the Specular Highlights section change the Brightness to 2, which subtly blows out the highlights in the blurred areas. Finally, click OK.
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Sink to new depths In the Depth Map section, select the Depth Mask as the source from the drop-down menu of options, and set the Blur Focal Distance to the halfway point to represent the 50% black. Immediately the preview should update to reflect the mask.
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Create the mask With all the channels selected, fill the Depth Mask channel with 50% grey, which will represent the area of 100% sharpness. Black will be out of focus behind the plane of sharpness, and white will be out of focus in front. Using a combination of large soft brushes and small soft brushes, paint in the areas you want to be in and out of focus.
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Finishing touches The filter can take a while to apply its calculations to the whole image. Once done check the results, which may vary slightly from the preview if the Faster option was selected. Undo the results if you’re not happy with them and reapply the filter, tweaking the settings. Once you’re happy, apply the Smart Sharpen filter (Filter>Sharpen>Smart Sharpen) to make the infocus areas really sharp. 5
“THE NEW LENS BLUR FILTER HAS BEEN BUILT FROM THE GROUND UP TO EMULATE CAMERA OPTICS” 73
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Step-by-step
Workshop
CASTING SHADOWS
Discover how the characteristics of a light source and the contours and texture of an object’s surface impact on the casting of virtual shadows
G
ood shadows can bring a complex composition to life, but making them look realistic is tricky if your project features lots of objects or layers. So many amateur composites fail because the creator lacks the experience to create shadows suitable for the scene in hand. Shadows generated by single, harsh lights are strong and sharp, for example, while those created by more uniform lighting are softer and more diffuse. For external scenes, consider the time of day – shadows are shorter at dawn/dusk than at midday. Then there’s the nature of the surfaces on which the shadows fall. Here, we’ll use techniques to produce realistic-looking shadows for different lighting conditions.
ON THE DISC You’ll find all three .psd files to accompany this tutorial (cartoon001, cartoon002 and cartoon003) on Disc A.
OUR EXPERT
Christian Darkin
Christian is a freelance illustrator and journalist who has produced images for a range of high-profile newspapers and magazines, including The Sun, the Financial Times, Now and scientific journal Nature, as well as a mix of advertising agencies, websites and museums. He’s also the man behind the Darwin plug-in for 3ds max. For further examples of his work, visit www.darkin.demon.co.uk.
ME AND MY SHADOW
“Shadows generated by single, harsh lights are strong and sharp, while those from more uniform lighting are softer and more diffuse”
Basic shading
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Create a new layer This shadow is going to be soft and formless – more a sketched shading than anything else. It’s the kind of shadow you’d find on a dull day and is simply there to relate the object to its surroundings. Right now, for instance, the sphere could be touching the ground or floating above it. There’s no way of telling. Create a new layer between the ground and the sphere layers
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Set up the brush Select a large, soft brush and set its Opacity to about 40 per cent. Set Mode to Darken to ensure it shades in (but doesn’t entirely obliterate) the colour beneath. Begin painting in black using simple strokes, following the profile of the underside of the sphere.
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Paint in the shadow Extend the shadow slowly outwards with successive clicks of the mouse. Photoshop interprets each click as a new paint stroke, which adds to the Opacity of the shadow. This is why it’s important to paint the first strokes closest to the object, as subsequent strokes will darken the first. Tidy up the shadow with a soft Eraser and then fine-tune Opacity with the Layer Opacity control.
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Hard shadows
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Copy your layer Here, we want to produce the effect of a strong single light, like bright sunshine. The shadow will be sharp and a similar shape to the object casting the shadow. Copy the object’s layer and place it between the object and its background
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Darken the object Reduce the Brightness/Contrast of the shadow to zero to create this hard, black shape. Feel free to use the Eraser tool or a brush to refine the shape a little more naturally.
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Distort the layer Distort the layer using the Free Transform tool (Edit>Transform). This isn’t a perfect solution, because, in reality, depending on the direction of the light, the shadow can have an entirely different profile to that of the object, but without a 3D model this is as close as we can get.
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Exterminate give your shadows and ng, hard Dalek the stromands shadow it de
Place it You can now place the shadow and, if necessary, distort it a little further to fit perfectly with the object that’s casting it. Reducing the Opacity a little will allow for the effects of bounced and filler lights in your scene.
Shadow shapes Using a duplicated layer as a shadow doesn’t work all the time. Beyond a certain point (if the shadow is cast at an extreme angle, for instance), you’ll have to draw or edit the outline by hand or the result will look unnatural. As always, trust your artistic instincts. If it doesn’t look right, it’s time to get your hands dirty.
Soft shadows
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Create a shadow Even on the brightest day, shadows are rarely solid blocks of colour, and they blur and fade with distance. To recreate this effect, start off with a sharp shadow (as created on the left).
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Add a blur Now add a Gaussian Blur to diffuse the shadow at its edges. Doing this often creates an unwanted shadow around the bottom of the object on its lit side, because the Blur tends to spread the shadow out. You’ll need to tidy this up with an Eraser.
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Fade the edges Dab a much larger and very soft Eraser around the furthest points of the shadow to suggest that the shadow is dissipating with distance. The degree of fading will depend on the strength of the light in your scene
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Step-by-step
Workshop Distorted shadows
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Create a sharp shadow Here, our shadow is cast on an uneven surface. The steps will break the shadow up suddenly, while the undulating ground beneath will simply distort it. Begin, as always, with a sharp shadow.
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Adjust the Opacity Each shadow section is now on a separate layer, so you can easily adjust the Opacity settings to make the shadow strongest where it’s closest to the light source (and, of course, progressively weaker the further away from the light you go).
wider at the furthest distance from the subject. Such distortion can become quite pronounced in long shadows.
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Cut and Paste Using the Polygonal Lasso, slice the shadow along the edges of the steps, cutting and pasting, as shown – simply drag each section downwards vertically until it meets the next step. With a different configuration of steps, we’d have had to fill in the shadow on the upright sections as well.
Late and early shadows
Shorten the shadow For a midday shadow, distortion is minimal. The sun overhead casts its shade straight down and reduces the shadow to a blob around the feet. For relatively short shadows, simply compress the image vertically. It’s best to do this distortion before you rotate and place the shadow in its proper place, though. In this way, you can judge the length against the height of the object casting the shadow.
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Create a shadow To produce a more sophisticated shadow, and adjust it for different times of day, again, start by copying the layer and eliminating Brightness and Contrast. This time, we’ll use a different kind of Blur to produce a more realistic dissipating shadow.
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Use Liquify on curved surfaces Distorting the shadow on the bumpy ground requires a different technique – enter, stage right, the Liquify tool. Follow the contours of the ground, but don’t worry too much about being exact. If the correct distortion isn’t obvious to you, then the casual viewer is unlikely to notice any ‘errors’.
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Create a gradient Create a new layer and use the Gradient tool to produce a gradient from black to white over the length of the shadow. Select and cut the gradient out, then, switching to the Channels palette for the shadow layer, produce a new channel and paste the gradient into it. Meanwhile, fill in the background of the shadow layer with white and set it to Darken mode..
Stretch and squeeze To produce a dawn or evening shadow, use Free Transform to pull it out to an appropriate length. This will depend on how low the sun is in the sky. Now apply a Distort to make the shadow
Subtlety Most shadows in the real world are quite subtle. In most lighting conditions, there’s so much light bouncing around, that perfectly sharp, solid areas of shadow are rare. The shadows we’re creating are mainly there to convince viewers that the objects inserted are part of the original shot, or at least to give them a solid place within the shot. There’s really no need to make them too powerful.
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Add Camera Blur Now to add a Camera Blur filter. Camera Blurs are designed to create an accurate depth-of-
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iqu es Te ch n field effect using a matte to define the depth of objects in a shot. The upshot is that by producing a simple gradient, and switching the Camera Blur to use that alpha channel as its source, we can produce a blur that grows uniformly stronger over the length of the shadow.
Multiple shadows With multiple light sources, you’ll need to generate more than one shadow, of course, but bear in mind that each one will need to be a different shape – and Opacity settings will be affected by neighbouring light sources. This kind of shading is most often used when representing an object under artificial lights, such as stage spotlights or stadium floodlights.
“USE THE LEVELS FILTER TO MAKE SHADOWS SHARPER OR SOFTER” STEP-BY-STEP
Different surfaces have a range of effects on shadows. Here, the steps break up the shadow
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Fade along the gradient Using a large Eraser as before, you can fade the shadow slowly over its length to produce a very lifelike effect. It’s possible to use the same gradient that we used in step 5 to produce the fade, but the results aren’t generally as good as with an Eraser. Since smaller objects (such as the figure’s hand) will become fainter more quickly, a freehand approach provides a more controllable look
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Add a highlight Depending on the time of day and strength of the light, the shading of the object itself will change. Of course, you can’t switch the shadow from one side of a face to the other very easily, but you can use tools like the Levels filter to make shadows sharper or softer, depending on the mood of your image. Occasionally, painting in artificial highlights can work, but if you’re not careful, the result can look unrealistic.
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You’ll stand a better chance of seeing your work in print if you adhere to the following criteria: make sure that your images are high-quality TIFFs or JPEGs (RGB or CMYK), 300dpi minimum, and can be printed at 15cm x 15cm minimum. Don’t forget to include a small text file detailing how you created your work, too.
Eye-catching imagery that both inspires and challenges
P
ictures may tell a thousand words, but sometimes you need a thousand words just to get to the bottom of a picture. Here we look at strange and interesting images created by readers and artists and we find out how they were executed and the problems encountered along the way. All the images featured in Peer Pressure demonstrate a diverse range of techniques that you’ll find useful in your own work. Like what you see? Then contact the artist directly – or read the accompanying rubric, which details how the image was created. If you’d like to see your own work on these pages, please send us JPEGs at [email protected] and we’ll get back to you if we want to print them.
Wooden Shoe NAME: Juthathip Tybon EMAIL: [email protected] SOURCE: Original photography by Ernest von Rosen After preparing the ‘raw materials’ – generating the best black-and-white image by selecting the optimum Colour Channel, then duplicating the selection into a new image – Juthathip applied a Gaussian Blur to eliminate sharp edges. She then saved this as a new .psd file, to be used as a Displacement Map later on. “Now it was simply a matter of manipulating the image using two layers, created from the original shoe shot and the wooden texture,” she explains. “After selecting the layer with the wooden texture, I applied the Displacement filter, using the .psd file. After placing the texture over the shoe, I applied a Layer Mask to cut out the unwanted regions of the wooden texture layer.”
Kitty Koozie and Times Square Aftermath ARTIST: Meowza EMAIL: [email protected] SOURCES: www.sxc.hu, Times Square image by Rose Forschen (used with permission) The faintly disturbing Kitty Koozie proved a great testbed for Meowza’s hair and fur techniques – particularly the furry edges of the cat’s head: “I did this simply by taking a one-pixel brush and ‘painting’ in some rough fur around the figure,” he says. “I then used the Smudge tool, set at 50-60 per cent pressure, to ‘pull’ the tips of the fur to create a more natural, flowing look.” After that it was a case of finding an object to insert into the hollowed-out feline… “I played around with a number of objects, including a cat wearing a cat-suit and a mouse in cat’s clothing, but ultimately went with the beer-can.” The scene of devastation seen in Times Square Aftermath goes to show just how powerful Photoshop can be in the right hands – and enabled Meowza to practise his flame and smoke effects. “Starting with a strong, clean image is the most important step,” he says. “There are a million ways to create fire and smoke, as any Photoshopper can tell you. My approach was to find strong source images of fire, explosions and smoke to reduce the amount of drawing-in work I’d have to do.” He set about pasting these source images into his original image, using the Smudge tool set at various widths
and pressure-settings, to draw in and blend the edges of the smoke. “I used the same technique with the fire.” And the collapsing signs? “A simple cut-and-paste job,” says Meowza. “I added Motion Blur to some of the debris to suggest movement and violent force.” He also used images of damaged buildings and rubble to replace those in the background, adding a slight hint of ‘scalding’ with the help of the Burn tool.
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iqu es Te ch n Security Beetle ARTIST: Brant Vondruska EMAIL: [email protected]
XBot and NGCBot NAME: Wai Mann CONTACT: [email protected] These two mecha designs, created entirely in Photoshop (bar the right hand of the NGCBot, below-right, created using 3ds max), prove just how adept Adobe’s 2D app is at generating 3D effects. Each bot was assembled from a basic image of its respective console (NGC GameCube and Xbox), before being edited into shape. With the NGCBot, the flame effects proved particularly troublesome. “I spent a long time manipulating them, and they still didn’t look like they emanated from the robot in the correct way,” he says. “But after some proper research, I found a few images that worked really well.” It was all a matter of resizing and carefully masking out the areas that weren’t required; the dark backdrop helped immensely. “Using the Screen filter enabled me to place the flames in the correct parts without having to mask unwanted black areas,” he says. The electricity was added as a final flourish – and to fill out the left arm a little. “I lifted this from another piece of my work. I altered the colours and screen-filtered the background out.” Attaching real human fists helped the Xbot (above) look more ‘realistic’, reckons Wai: “It makes it feel slightly more organic.” He created the head entirely from shapes cut out using the
Pen tool, and used real shots of fire for the foreground flames. But integrating the bot’s hands with the Windows Media Player skins on the figure’s armature proved difficult: “I had to manipulate several skins to get the angle of the arm,” he says. “I spent ages trying to create a smoke/fire effect on the samurai sword, too. Using the same flame images for most part of the sword, I had to Blur and Smudge green flames to get the effect I wanted.” A red layer helps to suggest that the blade is smouldering… For the background, Wai used simple green light layers, Blurred and Motion Blurred several times. “I manually added the highlights under the bot’s legs using a green highlight layer, masked to blend with the bot.”
After collating his source imagery – a beetle, a key, a rusty metal plate and a chain and lock – Brant set about isolating each item from its background, using the Pen tool for extra precision. “It’s a time-consuming process,” he admits, “but you can’t beat the results – and here it helped me to achieve the rusty look I was aiming for.” For each layer (lock and chain, main beetle body and hindquarters), Brant created a mask, then blended the pieces together using a 200-pixel feathered brush. “I used Levels to bring down the contrast of all three elements by 30 per cent,” he adds. “This helped to retain detail, yet introduce the rusty look I wanted.” And the rusty look itself? Turns out he used the same process for all the elements in the composition, from the beetle’s body right down to the lock and key. “I created a new layer underneath the subject, into which I placed the rusty metal plate. Afterwards, I created a selection – Altclicking the Edit icon on the Layers menu – of the main subject.” Then it was a case of selecting the metal plate layer, inverting it and hitting Delete. “This erases all of the metal plate except the selection in question,” he explains. “Now, underneath, I have the exact shape of the insect/lock and key in the form of the rusty metal plate.” Back on the subject layer, Brant selects Blending Mode>Luminosity and reduces Opacity to 15 per cent. This brings the rust effect to the fore without sacrificing any detail in the newly formed creature.
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Discover the thinking behind the art
Gargoyle ARTIST: Den Cops EMAIL: [email protected], www.kyzer.co.uk The idea here was to create a living gargoyle; the source image simply showed a face with a cracking mud mask. “Bits of skin were still visible – the area around the eyes, the lips and ears – which I had to cover, using mostly the Clone Stamp and Patch tools.” Den then placed a Hue/Saturation layer mask over the top to homogenise the colour scheme. “Out of this Hue/Saturation layer, I masked the mouth and the eyes to retain original flesh tones, and brightened the eyes a little.” The Liquify>Forward Warp tool helped with the fangs, but he had to be careful. “First, I had to copy-merge the mouth on a different layer, mainly because, when using Forward Warp on the teeth, the surrounding area – the other teeth and the back of the mouth – were dragged along with it and unpleasant banding appeared.” After applying the filter, Den could more easily mask out the unwanted liquified areas.
Blue Car ARTIST: Den Cops EMAIL: [email protected], www.kyzer.co.uk “You don’t need a multitude of layers and effects to create a good image,” argues Den. “All I did here was cut out the car and boost colour by increasing contrast and colour saturation.” The background is a photo of the sunrise taken from the window of an airplane. Den altered the colours via a Hue/Saturation layer so it would better match the tones of the car. “The two images had different levels of noise, too, so I had to blur the background slightly and then add noise, so that the transition between car and sky appeared seamless.”
Downunder ARTIST: Den Cops Email: [email protected], www.kyzer.co.uk “Here, I had to deal with the areas around the eyes and anywhere not covered in black makeup,” explains Den. In Hue/ Saturation, he desaturated the flesh tones and then retouched the face with a little airbrushing to matte the skin. “The filaments effect is a photograph of ink drops in water,” he adds. “Once placed, the two elements had to be colour-adjusted to blend in with each other. I painted the tear on afterwards.”
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iqu es Te ch n Egg Boat and Elastic iMac ARTIST: Marcel Wiegers (Fris Design) EMAIL: [email protected], www.fris-design.nl
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For artist Marcel, simply compositing broken egg-shells into this water scene would’ve failed to evoke the right impression. “I had to bring several broken shells together to get the right shape,” he explains, “using the Blur tool to make the inside of the shell look slightly out of focus, and airbrushing the front of the egg back together again from the broken original.” Shadows deftly applied to the egg-boat’s underside add to the illusion. “I did some colour correction, adding shadows with the airbrush and Burn tool. I also duplicated the egg layer, darkened it with Levels, then masked it with the airbrush to provide deeper areas of shade ( A - C ).” Once he’d located a suitable pilot (a work colleague), he slipped him in, tweaking colours and adding shadows en route. Advanced Photoshop came to his aid with the reflections: “I used the techniques printed in issue two,” says Marcel. “They worked a treat.” “I made sure the two pictures were shot under the same conditions,” says the Amsterdam-based designer, referring to the two elements in his other startling montage: Elastic iMac. “I crudely masked out my arm ( D ), then copied the screen to a separate layer and used the Liquify and Smudge tools to ‘flex’ the display, as if my fist was going through it. I darkened parts of it much as I did with the Egg Boat ( E and F ).” Creating the effect at the rear of the display was quite challenging, he says. “I took the fist onto a separate layer, and, with a little colour correction, turned it white. For the screen, I created a shape using the Pen tool, which I then airbrushed in ( G ).” To finish off the effect, Marcel duplicated the arm/fist and used Filter>Artistic>Plastic Wrap. He then set the Layer Blending mode to Multiply, reduced Opacity and implemented a few colour corrections.
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Helpdesk Our resident imaging uncle deals with a host of Photoshop dilemmas, from cropping conundrums, through to handy key commands and Easter eggs BY KARL FOSTER
CROPPING CAPER I take a few digital photos and enhance them in Photoshop. What puzzles me is cropping them correctly for print. I have a couple of photo printers, one for 6x4s and one that prints at A4, but I find it a hassle getting cropped images to match the aspect ratio of the stock. It’s usually a case of making my best guess, then trimming the image to size using the Canvas Size dialog, which is timeconsuming. Have you any advice on making accurate crops more efficiently? James Hanson, Macclesfield There is a quick and easy means of forcing the Crop tool to maintain a fixed aspect ratio as you drag it across an image, and it’s also possible to set the print resolution as you go – typically to a value of 300dpi. Open the image you wish to print at, say, 6x4, access the Crop tool and click on the icon that appears at the top left of Photoshop’s interface. You’ll find a drop-down list of cropping presets, at the top of which is 6x4 at 300dpi. This’ll force the Crop tool to match the aspect ratio of the paper as you drag. You can also create custom presets should you ever need to print on other paper sizes.
Go to the Histogram palette’s Expanded view to access the option to define which layers are included in the histogram display
PHOTO COMPOSITES Having seen some excellent examples of composite photos on the Internet, I thought I’d give it a go myself. Results have been poor, however. I’m fairly proficient at cutting out, usually with a vector path, but when an item is placed against a background, it looks stuck-on. I’ve tried burning in shadow, but it still doesn’t sit well. Have you any tips to make composite photos look more realistic?
HISTOGRAM HELP I create a lot of multi-layered documents in Photoshop and rely on the Histogram palette to ensure the tonal range of each document is fully optimised. But are the values shown by the histogram applicable to every layer in the image? It would help to be able to switch between the two so I can check each layer individually and the composition as a whole. Graham Brown, Brighton
Helen Harris, Cardiff Use the Crop tool’s presets to ensure the crop will match the aspect ratio of the paper on which you intend to print
Adding shade is a good ploy, but also ensure the lighting and tonality of the new element matches the background. Choose elements with the same direction and temperature of light as the background. You can marry them up further by going to Image>Adjustments>Match Color. Set the background as the source, then use the Color Options sliders to match the colour characteristics of the cut-out with the background.
Presumably, you’ve got the palette set to the Compact view. If you click on the icon at top right and scroll to Expanded View in the fly-out menu, you can set up the layers to be included. Entire Image includes all layers, whereas Selected Layer just shows a histogram of whichever layer is active in the Layers palette. The bottom entry, Adjustment Composite, kicks in when you’re using adjustment layers. Select such a layer and you’ll see its histogram, plus other adjustment layers below.
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iqu es Te ch n SNAPZ PROBLEM In my work, I have to take a lot of screengrabs of Photoshop, but I find that it keeps locking up and my copy of Snapz Pro bombs out, which means force-quitting Photoshop or rebooting entirely. Is there a stability issue with this software combination? I’m running CS2 on a Mac G5 with OS X 10.4.3. It only seems to have started happening since I upgraded the Mac. Adam Farmer, Nottingham You don’t mention which version of Snapz Pro you’re using, but it would be very much worth your while to visit the publisher’s website (www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/ snapzprox) and download the latest version, which is 2.0.2. It’s a free upgrade to users of Snapz Pro X 2 and is optimised for use with Mac OS X Tiger. Both stills and video capture versions have been updated and, from our tests, they appear to work fine with Photoshop CS2.
TOOL TIPS I frequently use keyboard commands to access various Photoshop facilities, but find the Toolbox a bit of a bother. Many of the Toolbox icons have fly-out menus offering a list of tools, all of which are accessible with the same keypress. So if the tool I’m after isn’t already showing in the box, I have to resort to using the menus. Is there any way of getting around this? Peter Walker, London Yes there is, and you can use your beloved keypresses to do it. Hold down Shift and press the appropriate letter key. You’ll find that with each keypress, the tool selection will cycle through the menu. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work for the anchor point conversion tools in the Pen tool menu, but you probably already know the key commands for converting the Pen in the work area.
Create fake italic text with any font on the system via the Character palette’s fly-out menu
FAUX FUN I read one of your magazine’s tips about creating outline text from any font and wondered if you could help me with another typographical conundrum. Many of the fonts in my copy of Photoshop CS don’t show up as having italic versions, which is a bit of a problem for me. Should I rasterize the text and distort it to create a fake italic effect, or is there a better way of doing this? Andrew Majors, Bristol There is a way of creating bold and italic type from fonts that lack italic versions, although it’s not immediately apparent. Create some text with the font you plan to use and bring up the Character palette from the Window menu, if it’s not already open. Select the text for italicising and click at the top right of the palette. You’ll see an entry labelled Faux Italic in the fly-out menu. Select it and see your text lean over.
MULTIPLE PROCESSORS
You can cycle between the Pen and Freeform Pen tools by holding down Shift and pressing P
I have a copy of Photoshop that I use at home and would like to install it on a machine at work. But I don’t want to fall foul of the systems department by running an illegal copy. Is it permissible to have the software installed on more than one machine, or will I get busted by the software police? It’s a copy of CS2 for Macintosh, by the way.
Provided, however, you only install it on two machines and don’t use it on both at the same time. You can, of course, install Photoshop CS2 on many machines, but you’ll only be able to activate it on two at once. So, as long as you’re not using the software at home and at work simultaneously, you’re fine. Best to give systems a copy of the licence agreement, though.
MERLIN, BEGONE! When I press the Alt key in Photoshop and go to Palette Options in the Layers palette, a little graphic of a wizard pops up with the heading Merlin Lives. Underneath is a button labelled Begone which, when clicked, makes him disappear. What’s that about? Sarah Matterson, Bournemouth That’ll be an Easter egg. There are various ones in different versions of Photoshop and they’re fun to find. The Photoshop programmers put them in for amusement.
HELPDESK CALL FOR QUESTIONS Want help with your Photoshop problems? Then let our team of experts sort you out.
Steve Kane, London
Send your emails to us at: [email protected]
If you take a close look at the end-user licence agreement, a copy of which is in the application folder on the computer’s hard drive, you will indeed find that such usage is permissible.
Remember to specify whether you are using a PC or Mac and the version number of your edition of Photoshop.
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INSIDER INFO
Insider
Info
The power of Camera Raw 3
Whether you’re a professional photographer or an aspiring amateur, Camera Raw 3 is one of the single best reasons to upgrade to Photoshop CS2
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ince its initial release as a plug-in for Photoshop 7, Adobe Camera Raw has been a revolutionary tool for processing digital Raw photos. With the release of version 3, Adobe raises the bar even higher. Arguably the single biggest improvement to Adobe Camera Raw is the ability to process multiple Raw files simultaneously. Now when two or more Raw files are opened, they’re displayed as thumbnails down the left-hand side of the Camera Raw dialog. With multiple files selected, any edits you make – even panning and zooming – are applied simultaneously to each photo in the selection. Selecting files in the Thumbnails panel is analogous to selecting them in Bridge or Finder/Explorer. Simply use the Shift key for contiguous and Cmd/Ctrl for non-contiguous selections. You can even rank and label select files inside the Camera Raw dialog.
Slew of new tools
ON THE DISC You’ll find all the files you need to complete this tutorial (BackgroundRight.psd, BackgroundLeft.psd, Banner.psd, FooterBackground.psd, Tabs.psd, TabsBackground.psd and WebInterface.psd, as well as an Optimized_Output folder, featuring all the graphic elements used for this tutorial) on Disc A.
OUR EXPERT
Trevor Morris
Trevor Morris is an official Photoshop beta tester and amateur digital photographer with more than a dozen years’ design experience. He works as a Senior Graphic Designer for a Canadian web design company and also maintains the Photoshop-centric website GFX™ (http://user.fundy.net/morris/).
While the layout of the interface hasn’t changed significantly since version 2, the tools, Preview option and RGB readouts have all migrated to the top of the dialog to make room for the new Thumbnail panel. You’ll also notice several new tools to the right of the White Balance tool. The Color Sampler (S) A works just like the Color Sampler tool inside Photoshop, but instead of only four samplers, Camera Raw actually enables you to monitor up to nine regions at a time – ten if you
Here, there, everywhere With the release of Adobe Bridge, Camera Raw has become a shared plug-in that can be hosted by both Bridge and Photoshop. This presents a number of workflow advantages, including the ability to: • process and save Raw files without ever having to load Photoshop • execute a batch-process in Photoshop, while editing your Raw files in Bridge • open two Camera Raw dialogs at the same time (one in Photoshop as well as one in Bridge)
Straight from the source For all the latest news regarding Camera Raw, including a complete list of supported camera models, visit the official Adobe Camera Raw website at www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html. include the RGB readout for the current cursor position. Another great addition is the Crop tool (C) B , which enables you to perform non-destructive crops (stored as XMP metadata for the associated Raw files). The Crop button contains a drop-down (or Context) menu with common aspect ratios, as well as a Clear command. You can also clear the crop by pressing Esc or by clicking on the grey background of the image Preview area. As in Photoshop, you can drag the crop boundary to reposition it, resize it using the corner nodes and rotate it by dragging anywhere outside the crop boundary. Closely related to the Crop tool is the Straighten tool (A) C , a real time-saver
B A
C
THE INTERFACE: New tools and features ensure that Adobe Camera Raw 3 is now faster and more efficient than ever.
that simultaneously straightens and crops the image based on a reference line that you draw (eg, along a horizon, the edge of a building, etc). Images are cropped to the maximum size available based on the original image dimensions, or the Crop tool’s currently selected aspect ratio. Note that if a crop already exists, it will simply be rotated to match the reference line. To the right of the Preview are the new Shadows (press U – for ‘Underexposed’) and Highlights (press O – for ‘Overexposed’) clipping warning checkboxes. Previously, these two options were only available by holding down the Opt/Alt key while dragging the Exposure and Shadows sliders (which still works, if you prefer it to the checkboxes). An interesting addition to Camera Raw 3 is the Auto Adjustments feature (Cmd/ Ctrl+T). When this feature is enabled, as it is by default, a fairly sophisticated algorithm attempts to establish the best settings for each image (correcting for both tone and exposure). Also new is the Curve tab (Cmd/ Ctrl+Opt/Alt+4), which enables you to fine-tune the tonality of the selected image(s). If you’re familiar with the Curves command/dialog in Photoshop, you’ll feel right at home here. One notable exception is that you must hold down the Cmd/Ctrl key when moving the cursor over an image to see the corresponding pixels on the curve. Finally, the new Save button enables you to save the selected image(s) as a DNG, TIFF, JPEG or PSD directly from the Camera Raw dialog without having to involve Photoshop – another huge timesaver when processing multiple Raw files.
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Scripting Photoshop
Whether it’s automating tedious tasks, customising commands or adding features, scripting makes almost anything possible
OUR EXPERT
Trevor Morris
Trevor Morris is an official Photoshop beta tester and amateur digital photographer with more than a dozen years’ design experience. He works as a Senior Graphic Designer for a Canadian web design company and also maintains the Photoshop-centric website GFX™ (http://user. fundy.net/morris/).
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he ability to script Photoshop debuted in version seven as a plug-in that could be downloaded from Adobe’s website. From version eight (CS), the scripting plug-in was installed by default. Today, in version nine (CS2), scripting the back-end of Photoshop is more accessible and powerful than ever. But despite this, few people take advantage of it – and many people don’t even know that Photoshop can be scripted.
The scripting advantage So what’s so great about scripting and what can it do that can’t be done via traditional actions? Quite a lot. While actions (including batches and droplets) are powerful and flexible, they have many limitations that scripts don’t have. Consider something as simple as toggling the visibility of the current layer. You could record an action to turn the visibility on or off, but not both. The problem is that actions aren’t capable of decision-making, or ‘conditional logic’. In addition, actions can only execute commands within the host application, whereas scripts can execute commands involving multiple CS2 applications. For example, you could write a single script that initiated a procedure in Illustrator CS2 and then forwarded the results to Photoshop CS2 for completion.
Installing scripts Installing scripts is much the same as installing any other preset. First, copy the script into the Presets/Scripts subfolder: Mac: /Applications/ Adobe Photoshop CS2/Presets/Scripts/ PC: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS2\Presets\Scripts\ After you quit and restart Photoshop, the scripts will appear in the File>Scripts submenu (in alphabetical order).
Running scripts To run a script, choose it from the File> Scripts submenu, or choose File>Scripts> Browse to locate and run scripts that don’t appear in the Scripts menu. You can also run scripts (or actions) automatically based on an event, eg on startup, opening a document or creating a new document. To define an event-based script, go to File>Scripts>Script Events Manager. Turn on the ‘Enable Events To Run Scripts/ Actions’ checkbox, and pick an event in the Photoshop Event drop-down. Select Script, and pick the desired script in the drop-down (or choose Browse at the bottom). Press Add to add the event to the Event List. Finally, hit Done to apply all changes and enable the event. To remove an event, select it in the Event List and press Remove; hit Remove All to remove all events from the Event List. To disable events without removing them, turn off ‘Enable Events To Run Scripts/Actions’. Press Done to apply.
Learn by example For a better understanding of scripting, check out the many resources installed by default in the following locations: Mac: /Applications/ Adobe Photoshop CS2/Scripting Guide/
“SCRIPTS CAN EXECUTE COMMANDS INVOLVING MULTIPLE CS2 APPS”
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INSIDER INFO
The Manager
Keep current
The Script Events Manager (File> Scripts>Script Events Manager) allows you to configure scripts (or actions) to run automatically based on certain events, for example on startup, opening a document, creating a new document, and so on.
The latest versions of the Scripting and Reference Guides are available from Adobe’s website at the following location: Adobe Photoshop Scripting Documentation http://partners.adobe.com/public/ developer/photoshop/sdk/index_ scripting.html You can also purchase a printed version of the Photoshop Scripting Guide from amazon.com: Adobe Photoshop CS2 Official JavaScript Reference http://tinyurl.com/dqj6t
PC: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS2\Scripting Guide\ Photoshop Scripting Guide – intro to scripting Photoshop CS2 (with examples) AppleScript Reference Guide – AppleScript companion to the Photoshop Scripting Guide JavaScript Reference Guide – JavaScript companion to the Photoshop Scripting Guide VisualBasic Reference Guide – VisualBasic companion to the Photoshop Scripting Guide Samples Scripts folder – sample scripts written in AppleScript, JavaScript and VBScript; see ‘Sample Scripts Description. pdf’ for descriptions of each script Utilities folder – the ScriptListener plug-in. (For more information on the ScriptListener plug-in, see Chapter 3 of the JavaScript Reference Guide or VBScript Reference Guide.)
Why JavaScript? Although you can write Photoshop scripts using JavaScript, AppleScript or VisualBasic, JavaScript has two advantages: it’s platform- independent (ie works on both Mac and PC), and many web designers are already familiar with it.
Additional resources Below is a selection online resources dedicated to sharing scripts and information about scripting: / Adobe Photoshop Scripting Forum http://tinyurl.com/afncy / Adobe Studio Exchange – Photoshop Scripts http://share.studio.adobe.com/axBrowseSubmit.asp?t=74 / Working With Photoshop Scripts (PhotoshopSupport.com) www.photoshopsupport.com/tutorials/jennifer/photoshop-scripts.html / Photoshop Scripting using JavaScript (Tranberry.com) www.tranberry.com/photoshop/photoshop_scripting/index.html / Scripts for Photoshop CS and Photoshop CS2 (Trevor Morris) http://user.fundy.net/morris/?photoshop28.shtml / Photoshop Scripting Community Forum (PS-Scripts) www.ps-scripts.com/bb/ / Photoshop CS Scripting (Andrew Hall) http://ah-photo.com/photoshop-scripts/index.html / CS User Interface Builder 1.0 (WYSIWYG GUI builder for Photoshop/Bridge) www.jkozniewski.com/tools/csuib.html (CSUIB 2.0 alpha: www.jkozniewski.com/tools/CSUIB_2.0a.zip)
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books Erotique Digitale: The Art Of Erotic Digital Photography Focal Easy Guide To Photoshop CS2, The How To Cheat In Photoshop Photoshop Masking & Compositing Pixel Surgeons: Extreme Manipulation… Photoshop CS2 Book For Digital Photographers, The Photoshop CS2 For Windows & Macintosh Photoshop CS2: Up To Speed Photoshop Filter Effects Cookbook Photoshop LAB Color Adobe Photoshop CS2 one-on-one Digital Imaging: Essential Skills Digital SLR Handbook. The Photoshop Blending Modes Cookbook Photoshop Photo Effects Cookbook
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plug-ins
stock art websites Acclaim Images ArtBitz Illustration Works InMagine Laughing Stock ShutterStock
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DesignsByMark Eyes On Design N-Sane Phong Photoshop Café Planet Photoshop
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20/20 Color MD 3D Invigorator ColorTheory Pro Deep Paint 3D Digitalizer PhotoFreebies Primatte Chromakey 2 Shadow Filter
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typography Download Free Fonts FontFile Font Garden Font Pool, The Identifont Linotype
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resources
books
Staring bleary-eyed at your LCD? Need a little inspiration? Then check out these excellent tomes
Further reading
Erotique Digitale: The Art of Erotic Digital Photography
How To Cheat In Photoshop Author: Steve Caplin Publisher: Sybex Price: £24.99 ISBN: 0-240-51985-X Web: www.focalpress.com
Authors: Minnie Cook, Rod MacDonald Publisher: Ilex Price: £17.95 ISBN: 1-9047-055-61 Web: www.ilex-press.com
Looked at in a certain way, all Photoshop work could be considered ‘cheating’, really – after all, the whole idea behind the program is to take a photo and fiddle around with it in order to improve upon the original. But with How To Cheat In Photoshop, author Steve Caplin aims to broaden your horizons by showing you how you can use a variety of techniques to create an effect. One of the book’s greatest assets is its sense of humour, and although some of the images aren’t particularly ‘photo-realistic’, the tips and tricks are always superb. 5
A
rguably one of Photoshop’s greatest strengths is its ability to help photographers turn standard photographs into stunning works of digital art. Whether it concerns basic photo retouches (in order to sort out skin imperfections), the removal of unwanted items, the correction of poorly reproduced colours, or, at a more advanced level, implementing intricate photo-montages, the program has the tools to get the job done. Indeed, all of the above is used in one of the most emergent digital art genres – erotica – and this style of imagery and illustration is looked at in interesting depth in Cook and MacDonald’s Erotique Digitale: The Art of Erotic Digital Photography. The tome is packed full of full-colour images demonstrating some of the very best examples of digital eroticism, from standard risqué portraiture to some more elaborate illustrations. Alongside each example is a short description of the techniques used by the artist to create the image, although
Photoshop Masking & Compositing
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these rarely go into enough detail to ensure you can reproduce the effect yourself. In essence, this is little more than a coffee-table showcase of niche imaging, although it’s no less interesting for that. However, if you’re looking for a more tutorial-based erotic photography handbook, you’d do best to shift your attention elsewhere. 5 Rating:
2/5
Recom mends
Author: Katrin Eismann Publisher: New Riders Price: £41.99 ISBN: 07-357-127-94 Web: www.peachpit.com
3/5
Pixel Surgeons: Extreme Manipulation Of The Figure In Photography Author: Martin Dawber Publisher: Mitchell Beazley Price: £20 ISBN: 0-84533-157-5 Web: www.mitchell-beazley.com
For many creatives, it’s the sheer flexibility of digital art that makes it such an appealing medium. With stacks of pixel-mangling tools on offer, it’s little surprise that many examples of the most innovative new art expressions are created using such popular apps as Photoshop and Illustrator. To get an idea of what these programs are capable of, you need only turn to Martin Dawber’s stunning Pixel Surgeons. This coffeetable tome offers 224 pages of intriguing imagery from a number of established digital artists, plus a wide selection of material from emerging imageers. Sadly, no-one explains how such great images were created, which limits the usefulness of the book to mere muse. 5 Rating:
3/5
The Focal Easy Guide To Photoshop CS2
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hen generating intricate photo-montages, it’s often necessary to separate an image element from its background before you can reposition it elsewhere within the composition. Thankfully, Adobe’s top image-editing suite has several tools that are perfect for the job, but which one should you choose without adversely affecting your subject? Learning how to make the most of these procedures – not to mention being aware of the contexts in which you should apply them – takes time, patience and lots of trial and error; unless, of course, you have this comprehensive guide to each technique kept close at hand. As its name suggests, Katrin Eismann’s Photoshop Masking & Retouching is dedicated to taking the mystery out of Photoshop selection. Over the course of 300 pages, it unveils how to properly use tools such as the Magic Wand, Freehand Selection, Quick Masks and more, in order to make accurate selections of
mends Recom
Author: Brad Hinkel Publisher: Focal Press Price: £14.99 ISBN: 0-240-52001-7 Web: www.focalpress.com
pretty much anything. Its clear, straightforward and easy-to-follow workshops mean that you’ll rarely become stuck, and although the many pictures and photos may seem conventional at first, they serve to perfectly illustrate key points. It’s expensive, sure, but the advice offered is more than worth the asking price. 5 Rating:
5/5
Ready to step up your game? Mastered your Spot Healing Brush and Red-Eye tool and eager to explore Photoshop CS2’s more advanced facilities? Then read on… The Focal Easy Guide To Photoshop CS2 is an easy-to-follow, 212-page guide to all of the app’s key features, and delivers simple step-by-step instructions packed with colour screenshots. Although there’s no CD, the procedures are explained clearly enough to ensure they’re applicable to whatever subject you’re looking at. A concise introduction to Photoshop CS2’s many image-editing facilities. 5 Rating:
4/5
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Photoshop LAB Color F
Photoshop CS2: Up to Speed Author: Ben Wilmore Publisher: Peachpit Press Price: £17.99 ISBN: 03211330501 Web: www.peachpit.com
mends Recom
Author: Dan Margulis Publisher: Peachpit Press Price: £39.99 ISBN: 03-213-567-80 Web: www.peachpit.com
This concise guide focuses exclusively on all the features new to Photoshop CS2, from the enhanced Clone, Spot and Healing brush, through Adobe Stock Photos, Camera Raw, HDR and beyond. Once comfortable with the ins and outs of the new File Browser, you’ll soon be moving on to enjoy Wilmore’s explanation of Adobe’s latest application, Bridge. By explaining how the app’s older features relate to the newer ones, the author helps us understand the reasoning behind the changes Adobe has made. You can even practise your new-found techniques on images provided at the book’s companion website. 5 Rating:
5/5
Photoshop Filter Effects Cookbook
ixing poor colour reproduction in Photoshop is a job you can undertake in a number of ways. Beginners immediately reach for the Hue/Saturation controls, intermediate users tend to plump for a few canny Adjustment Layers, while more advanced photo editors head straight for the Curves dialog, in order to start manipulating graph points. However, no matter what your level of expertise, it’s surprising how few people make use of one of Photoshop’s most powerful and flexible gems: the Lab Color mode. Once an image has been properly converted, the task of enhancing colour tones in a digital photo becomes much more rewarding. It’s not all that surprising pixel-manglers are unaware of the benefits of Lab Color, though. It’s not something that’s commonly covered in any detail in Photoshop guidebooks. But that’s something renowned Photoshop Hall Of Famer Dan Margulis hopes to change with his remarkable tome, entitled Photoshop LAB Color. Inside this book, Margulis offers up a wealth of techniques on how to use this Photoshop mode to get the very best out of all your digital images. Although the subject may at first seem dry, the book takes such an approachable style that you’ll soon be drawn into the world of professional prepress methodology. 5
Author: Roger Pring Publisher: Ilex Price: £17.95 ISBN: 1-904705-67-7 Web: www.ilex-press.com
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Many people turn to Photoshop’s built-in Filter menu when they’re looking for a quick fix. Whether it’s correcting warped lens effects, putting the detail back into blurry photos with a spot of crafty sharpening, or spicing things up by adding an artistic effect, the Filter menu has an option to suit. In the Photoshop Filter Effects Cookbook, Roger Pring reveals how to take these filters and create some even more interesting effects for use in your artwork. Each chapter looks at how to properly apply the settings available, and handson tutorials are provided to show you how to get great results with ease. You’ll be hard-pushed to find a better introduction to Photoshop’s built-in filter set. 5 Rating:
3/5
The Photoshop CS2 Book For Digital Photographers Author: Scott Kelby Publisher: Peachpit Price: £28.99 ISBN: 0-32133-062-5 Web: www.peachpit.com
Scott Kelby’s no-nonsense approach to image-editing has won him many fans in the Photoshop community – and this latest tome, offering a variety of exciting tricks and techniques, looks set to consolidate his position as guru extraordinaire. Illustrated throughout with stunning imagery, the guide demonstrates how to perform such feats as digital body sculpting, 16-bit editing, correcting problem colour casts, and even how to properly output images in order to maintain the highest possible quality. A useful look inside the professional world of Photoshop pixel-tweakery. 5 Rating:
Photoshop CS2 for Windows & Macintosh Authors: Elaine Weinmann, Peter Lourekas Publisher: Peachpit Press Price: £17.99 ISBN: 03-213-365-50 Web: www.peachpit.com
resources
Further reading
4/5
A
s creative applications go, Photoshop can be extremely tricky to get the hang of if you’re a new user. Its learning curve is particularly steep – and the sheer number of buttons, tools, palettes, filters, dialogs and panels on display has been known to put off potential imageers in their droves. If only there was a good basic introduction to the program that enabled readers to get inside the app and really start to get a feel for just what it can do… Well, if you’re looking to boost your Photoshop knowledge fast, without having to fiddle around or get confused by meaningless mumbo-jumbo, Photoshop CS2 for Windows & Macintosh is a fairly decent place to start. For a shade under £18, it’ll provide a pleasingly solid grounding in many of the program’s most important features. What’s more, it’s been fully updated to cover a host of new additions to the most recent version of Photoshop, CS2, so now you can find out much more about the powerful new possibilities of gadgets such as the Vanishing Point filter and the one-click Healing Brush. This attention to detail is one of the book’s major plus points. Illustrated throughout with some superb full-colour photos, step-by-step workshops and friendly advice, this tome proves a useful – if admittedly slightly low-end – resource for those seeking a quick and dirty introduction to the world’s leading image-editing app. 5 Rating:
3/5
4/5
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resources
Digital Imaging: Essential Skills
Further reading Adobe Photoshop CS2 one-on-one
Authors: Les Horvat, Mark Galer Publisher: Focal Press Price: £21.99 ISBN: 02-405197-1X Web: www.focalpress.com
Author: Deke McClelland Publisher: Deke Press/O’Reilly Price: £28.50 ISBN: 0-596-10096-5 Web: www.oreilly.com
Both McClelland’s books and ‘Total Training’ video mends Recom tutorials are proving to be must-have resources for aspiring creatives. However, with Adobe Photoshop CS2 one-onone, both the print and multimedia worlds collide; for here, McClelland provides over 470 pages of extensive Photoshop lessons, plus a CD containing no less than two hours’ worth of Total Training video workshops. It’s an essential addition to the bookshelf of every Photoshop CS2 user. 5
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n the heady pursuit of great digital art, messing around with images in Photoshop is really only one part of the creative process. Arguably, in order to generate inspiring and mind-bending artwork that really guarantees widespread success, you have to take the time to master a number of visual disciplines. With this in mind, Les Horvat and Mark Galer have produced what is essentially a comprehensive crash-course in visual design skills, one that will form the backbone of your further artistic endeavours. Rather than simply focusing on Photoshop’s all-powerful manipulation tools, this book goes back to the source and demonstrates how to be more effective at every stage of the design process, from early previsualisation techniques and image capture, right through Photoshop production, to prepress and output. This tome is certainly a complete creative guide, and really does manage to inject a sense of fun into the learning process. This is all thanks to a wide range of easy-to-follow tutorials,
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mind-stretching briefs and limitless useful advice. If that wasn’t already enough to get your creative juices well and truly flowing, the book also comes with a CD-ROM, which manages to include a bit more than the average digital art guidebook. Take a peek and you’ll find a host of video workshops, project files, sample images, Photoshop presets and more, all ready and waiting to power up your digital studio. 5 Rating:
4/5
The Digital SLR Handbook Author: Michael Freeman Publisher: Ilex Price: £24.95 ISBN: 19-047053-67 Web: www.ilex-press.com
Photoshop Photo Effects Cookbook Author: Tim Shelbourne Publisher: Ilex Price: £17.95 ISBN: 1-904705-61-8 Web: www.ilex-press.com
mends Recom
It’s rare to find a book as jam-packed with useful techniques as this. Put simply, this tome provides wall-to-wall tutorials on how to create a huge range of photo effects. Pared down to the essentials, this isn’t a hard work read, but rather a full-colour, large-format guide on how to turn photos into eye art. Divided into nine chapters, the book details how to create tonal effects and graphic art effects, how to master lighting, and even how to produce weather effects such as rain and snow. What’s more, there are workshops on how to make traditional photo effects such as colour filters, contrast masking, infrared and duotones. How refreshing to find a book so focused on delivering hard-line techniques. 5 Rating:
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5/5
Photoshop Blending Modes Cookbook For Digital Photographers Author: John Beardsworth Publisher: Ilex Price: £17.95 ISBN: 1-904705-69-5 Web: www.ilex-press.com
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n the world of photography, no type of camera offers more creative control than a digital SLR. Favoured by enthusiasts and professionals alike, digi-SLRs present a huge range of shooting options from which canny photographers can elicit truly inspiring, high-resolution photos. But the thing is, in order to get the most out of such high-end equipment, it’s important to know how to master its many advanced, configurable settings. Thankfully, The Digital SLR Handbook is here to ensure that all SLR owners are able to get the very best shots with relative ease. But it’s not just committed to bringing new photographers up to speed – it also includes a range of articles that answer FAQs by seasoned film-based shooters who’ve recently switched to digital. Although the shooting process can be similar, there are differences in the way digital cameras generate images
5/5
compared to film, so it’s great to find a book that seeks to address (and explain) these differences. However, don’t be fooled into thinking that this is a dry, techy manual. With comprehensive advice on how to properly take control of shutter speeds, aperture, resolution, image formats, histograms and much more, it’s an essential resource that should be in the kit-bag of every self-respecting shooter. 5 Rating:
5/5
Blending Modes are one of the most widely used yet misunderstood features in Photoshop – but the Photoshop Blending Modes Cookbook aims to change all that. Another excellent contribution from Ilex, it comes packed with tutorials and information on how to use Blending Modes to produce a diverse array of impressive effects. Although the subject matter may not be all that exciting, there’s no getting around the fact that this book brilliantly explains one of Photoshop’s most powerful and useful features. Read and learn. 5 Rating:
4/5
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resources
stock art
These tried-and-tested image libraries provide excellent service at a price to suit every pocket
ArtBitz
Take stock
Web: www.artbitz.com
Shutterstock Web: www.shutterstock.com
If you’re a workaholic digital artist, chances are you’ll need to get your hands on a large number of stock images during the course of an average month. Trouble is, the cost of downloading images from some premium sites can be restrictive, particularly if you’re on a tight budget. The result? Valuable creative time wasted shopping around for bargain photos that help to keep your costs down. But fear not, because there is a solution. ShutterStock has been set up with these needs in mind, and offers a monthly subscriptionbased service that enables you to download up to 25 images per day, up to a maximum of 750 per month. One month’s subscription will set you back $139 (around £78), or you can opt for a three-month stint for $395 (around £223). Sounds good value to us. 5 Rating:
3/5
Illustration Works
lthough the majority of online stock art repositories concentrate on offering photographic images, there’s still a number of places that seek to deliver something a little bit different. With a bit of determined searching, it’s possible to turn up libraries that sell some more esoteric material, which you can then use to build up excellent illustration work. As a case in point, ArtBitz is well worth checking out if you’re after some unusual image elements. Much of the stock on sale here has a definite line-art, natural media look that should suit more traditional illustrative styles. If this sounds like your creative direction, dive right in and have a look at what’s on offer. 5 Rating:
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Acclaim Images Web: www.acclaimimages.com
Web: www.illustrationworks.com
Many designers have built up a number of preconceptions about stock art, with the most mends popular being that it’s all Recom about boring old photos of business people chatting ecstatically on the phone, or cherubic kiddies playing with their parents in golden pastures. In a word: cheesy. However, this isn’t always the case, as Illustration Works is keen to point out. At this site, you’ll find a vast library of royaltyfree illustrations, created by many industry heavyweights, all of which you can pick up and use in your designs. There’s a wealth of talent on display and some really unusual ideas, so it’s worth having a browse, even if you’re just looking for inspiration. 5 Rating:
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n direct contrast to the largely illustrative material in ArtBitz (above), Acclaim Images concentrates on providing artists with more traditional photographic pictures. And what a selection it boasts. Head on over and you’ll find not only an intuitive, fully searchable archive, but also a simply huge library of quality photos that have been sorted into handy categories for easier browsing. What’s more, if you haven’t the time to skim through the extensive library yourself, you can make use of Acclaim Images’ complimentary photo research facility, where you can instruct the company to dig out the image you need without having to part with a penny.5 Rating:
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InMagine
Laughing Stock Web: www.laughing-stock.com
Continuing the theme of alternative stock art collections, Laughing Stock joins the ranks by offering a particularly unusual bundle of images that may well be just what you need to pep up a lacklustre project. Here, you’ll find an impressive archive of illustrative designs, including logos, animations, infographics, book covers, posters and much more. Again, it’s well worth a lengthy browse if you’re in need of some new ideas, or on the lookout for a novel approach to a tired topic. Even if you do want to use an image, the competitive prices factor in exactly what you’re going to use the image for, so you may well find yourself picking up a bargain. 5 Rating:
4/5
Web: www.inmagine.com
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hen you’re on the hunt for a specific image for use in your current design project, it’s not uncommon to have to scoot through a number of different stock art sites before you uncover a suitable candidate. This, of course, can be hugely time-consuming, so it makes sense to try and keep search times down to an absolute minimum. One of the best ways of doing this is to make your first step a trip to InMagine. Put simply, this stock art repository houses one of the web’s largest image archives, so the chances of you finding that perfect shot are pretty good. With over one million photos on offer, there’s every possibility that this could become your one and only stock art bookmark.5 Rating:
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resources
websites
Tutorials, community forums, FAQs, special hints and tips… Keep abreast of what’s available online
Catch it online
Phong
Planet Photoshop
Web: www.phong.com
Web: www.planetphotoshop.com
Planet Photoshop has become one of the leading locations for digital imageers to congregate when searching for new ideas. And when you take a look at what this site has to offer, it’s not hard to see why. With its heady blend of the best up-to-date Photoshop information, Planet Photoshop keeps you informed of all the latest industry goings-on via Photoshop TV, a video podcast featuring such luminaries as Scott Kelby and Dave Cross, to name but two. In addition, the site offers some fantastic tutorials in which you can learn new techniques with ease. 5
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uite simply, Phong is one of the most impressive examples of creative site designs on the net. It’s a visual feast of clever Flash programming, and, if you’re not pushed for time, we’d recommend spending a good few minutes playing around with the numerous Flash displays on offer. If nothing else, it’s a great way to clear your head from all those tough design decisions, and open up your mind to a bit of unusual fractal-based inspiration. But that’s not all that Phong has to offer, because it’s also jampacked with excellent tutorials that demonstrate how to get the very best out of myriad creative apps, including Photoshop. In a word: unmissable. 5 Rating:
5/5
DesignsByMark Web: www.designsbymark.com
I
f you’re after some solid, beginner-friendly Photoshop advice, DesignsByMark is an excellent place to start your journey. Created by the eponymous Californian Photoshopper, this site is a one-stop-shop for all kinds of techniques, from creating stunningly realistic textured text, through generating convincing 3D images using 2D drawing and painting tools, to more general tasks such as retouching poor digital photos and creating greeting cards. Tutorials can be downloaded in various formats, including written PDFs and even video files, which means there’s little chance of you becoming stuck during a particularly tricky or time-consuming workshop. 5 Rating:
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N-Sane Web: www.n-sane.net
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or one of the most useful and hands-on introductions to Photoshop, there are few sites on the web that offer a more comprehensive yet user-friendly selection of workshops as N-Sane. This site is home to a huge number of tutorials that covers all different skill levels, and what’s more, each task has been graded out of five in terms of difficulty, so that you can be sure chosen techniques will suit your proficiency. Offering general tool introductions, texture generation ideas, stunning text creation tutorials and so much more, this website cannot fail to impress with the sheer quantity of its high-quality resources. 5 Rating:
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Photoshop Café Web: www.photoshopcafe.com
On the lookout for a relaxed yet still professional Photoshop hang-out? Then the Photoshop Café may be just what you’re after. Plonk your virtual posterior here and you’ll find an extensive set of Photoshop resources that offer tips and advice on a wide range of pursuits, including some particularly innovative tutorials that detail fresh new methods of performing many common (and not-so-common) image-editing tasks. In addition, there’s a load of Actions for you to download that should make routine image fixes a much quicker affair, a forum for the usual community support, and a stack of images by the site’s creator Colin Smith. 5 Rating:
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Eyes on Design Web: www.eyeondesign.net
One of the best things about working with Photoshop is that when you’re suffering from mends artist’s block, you can Recom always turn to the web and check out the works of others to help you find a way through. And there’s no better place to turn to than Eyes on Design. Besides offering a stack of professional-level tutorials that really do deliver first-class results, it also provides a great gallery section where you can peruse the latest creations by a host of talented digital artists. It’s top stuff, so we’d recommend making this one of your most treasured bookmarks for those times when ideas are a little thin on the ground. 5 Rating:
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resources
plug-ins
Not all plug-ins are made equal. Here we highlight some of the best money can buy
Expand your toolset ColorTheory Pro Developer: Digital Anarchy Price: $99 (£56) Web: www.digitalanarchy.com
When preparing a digital illustration, an important aspect to get right from the off is the colour scheme. Not all colours work well together, and sometimes a single jarring hue is enough to spoil a piece of work. Experience helps, of course, but sometimes even an experienced eye needs help deciding what to use. Which is where ColorTheoryPro comes in. Wrapping armfuls of technical theory into one easy-to-use plug-in, it can instantly tell you which colours support each other (or clash), based on established scientific criteria. 5 Rating:
4/5
Deep Paint 3D Developer: Right Hemisphere Price: $595 (£334) Web: www.righthemisphere.com
A number of artists build 3D models in apps such as Maya, LightWave or Cinema4D for use in mends their Photoshop work, Recom where they can add textures, colour, etc. Deep Paint 3D is specifically designed to streamline this workflow by offering a bidirectional interface between Photoshop and your 3D modeller of choice. Output quality is second to none, so no wonder it’s a favourite of pros in the film and videogame industries. 5 Rating:
5/5
Primatte Chromakey 2 Although Photoshop offers built-in tools to help with the cut-outs, some materials are tricky to excise – so most imageers shoot their subjects in front of a bright blue or green screen, then digitally remove the block of solid colour in post, using a dedicated tool like Primatte Chromakey. Primatte Chromakey 2 is the professional choice for creating precise cuts from coloured backgrounds. It may not be cheap, but the results are uniformly spectacular. 5
5/5
3D Invigorator Developer: Zaxwerks Price: $49 (£27) Web: www.zaxwerks.com
Photoshop is good at helping artists create pseudo-3D elements, but if you need to build something a little more intricate, its native design tools just aren’t up to scratch. But now with 3D Invigorator, a Mac-only plug-in from Zaxwerks, you can design, build and render 3D objects right inside Photoshop. What’s more, the company has even created special versions for After Effects and Illustrator, should you need them. Check it out now. 5 Rating:
Developer: The Plugin Site Price: Free Web: http://thepluginsite.com
Developer: Panopticum Price: $25 (£14) Web: www.panopticum.com
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hotoshop’s built-in collection of filters enables artists to generate a wide variety of effects without having to invest in extra software. But sometimes a brief requires you to look for a third-party solution to a specific design problem that Photoshop’s standard set of tools just can’t create. Panopticum’s Digitalizer is one such filter. It only really has one application, but it performs it so well that it’s worth having, just in case its unique effect can boost the occasional project. In essence this useful filter enables users to covert a standard photographic image into an amazing illustration that’s made up of an astonishing matrix of figures, text characters and a range of other graphical symbols. Although Panopticum’s Digitalizer is limited in its range of effects, it is nevertheless certainly an extremely interesting effect that’s particularly suited to futuristic or science-fiction-based briefs. Why not download the free demo right now and see just what it can do for you? 5 Rating:
4/5
I
n a world full of highpriced, commercial Photoshop plug-ins, it’s always nice to stumble across a selection of freeware tools with which to power up the standard program feature-set. Indeed, if you’re after a collection of useful Photoshop add-ons that specialise in tweaking digital photos, you could do a lot worse than head on over to The Plugin Site and download the generous PhotoFreebies bundle. For your efforts, you’ll be rewarded with a decent black-andwhite filter that improves on Photoshop’s native Greyscale tool, a desaturation gradient, a particularly effective Sepia filter and much more besides. Definitely one for photographers, this free set is well worth investigating when you’ve got a few minutes to spare. 5
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Rating:
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20/20 Color MD
Shadow Filter
Developer: Phototune Price: $49.95 (£29) Web: www.phototune.com
Developer: Andromeda Software Inc Price: $109 (£63) Web: www.andromeda.com
Developer: Digital Anarchy Price: $299 (£168) Web: www.digitalanarchy.com
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PhotoFreebies
Digitalizer
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reating convincing shadow effects in Photoshop can be one of the trickiest of design duties, so it’s nice to know that the boffins at Andromeda Software have made the whole process much easier with the innovative Shadow Filter. Billed as one of the most advanced shadowing plug-ins currently available for Photoshop, this friendly tool enables you to quickly and effortlessly generate realistic shadow effects from 2D image elements. Its powerful virtual camera and perspective-correction technology ensures that realist results are a given, no matter how complex the object throwing the shadow. But before you write it off as sounding too complicated, the software features both novice and advanced modes to ensure that you can obtain perfect drop-shadows, no matter what your level of proficiency. Very impressive. 5 Rating:
4/5
W
ith today’s crop of intelligent digital cameras, it’s possible to capture great photos by just pointing and shooting. With impressive automatic features built into even the cheapest compact digicam, there’s no reason why you can’t fill up a memory card of useful shots in a single day’s shooting, right? Well, that’s not entirely true. In fact, there’s still a lot that can go wrong when capturing a photo, such as colour reproduction. Of course, you can sort out such problems in Photoshop, but sometimes correcting such things as colour casts can be a chore – unless you have 20/20 Color MD at your command. This deceptively powerful plug-in presents a step-by-step wizard with which you can quickly and efficiently correct the colours in any digital shot. Better still, the technology it uses to determine exactly what colours need to be correct utilises realworld eye exam techniques, so there’s little room for error. 5 Rating:
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resources
typography It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it…
Perfect fonts
FontFile
The Font Pool
Web: www.fontfile.com
Web: www.fontpool.com
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Some font sites on the web mean well but prove tricky to navigate when you actually try to find a decent font in a hurry. In light of this, The Font Pool feels like a breath of fresh air, thanks to an effortlessly usable search tool that manages to pick out great fonts based on your specifications in seconds. Alternatively, you can manually browse through the site’s collection of over 27,000 fonts, if you prefer to pick out a winning option based on eye-catching appeal. But whichever method you choose, you can be sure that you’ll find something worth investigating in this huge online repository. 5
inding the correct font for use in an illustration can be one of the hardest parts of the design process. There are just so many typefaces to choose from, and Internetbased archives often provide scarce idea of how a font will appear once you’ve bought, downloaded and installed it on your computer. So the answer is to head to a freeware font depot that offers not only an extensive collection of fonts to try, but also a usefully large thumbnail preview of how it’ll appear on screen. As a good starting point, FontFile offers all this and more, with a searchable and categorised collection of styles all ready for your perusal. 5 Rating:
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Linotype Web: www.linotype.com
When it comes to professional-level typefaces, Internet-based retailers can throw up a wide variety of standards. Some sites will present some good yet still noticeably amateurish options, while others manage to offer extremely high-quality items as a matter of course. When you take a look at Linotype, you’ll discover that this site falls into the latter category. Although it carries only 6,000 fonts, the quality on offer is second to none. What’s more, the archive is fully searchable, so there’s no problem turning up specific matches when you’re in a hurry. Furthermore, the innovative Font Finder device enables you to locate typefaces based on themes, categories, usage and more. 5
Download Free Fonts Web: www.downloadfreefonts.com
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ome font stores – particularly those that offer commercial typefaces – unintentionally make it difficult to locate suitable items by presenting tricky interfaces, weird categorising and complicated checkout processes. So it’s always a delight to come across a plain, straightforward site that just offers easy access to a set of varied freeware styles. And this is just what Download Free Fonts provides. Here, you’ll find little more than a scrollable list of free fonts that you can download and use on both PC and Mac. Although it’s not the biggest collection on the web, it still lists some great lettering ideas that may just be what you’re looking for.. 5 Rating:
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Font Garden Web: www.fontgarden.com
3/5
Identifont Web: www.identifont.com
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inally, here’s something a little different. We all know how hard (not to mention time-consuming) it can be to manually search or browse through expansive online font archives in an effort to discover a typeface that conforms to your strict requirements. So why not make things a bit easier on yourself by taking a trip to Identifont? This unique online system enables you to track down fonts via a wizard-like process of elimination. Basically, it asks a set of questions about the appearance of the font you’re after (eg, how letter tails behave) and shortlists a set of items that match your requirements. It’s quick, easy and undoubtedly effective, so check it out right now. 5 Rating:
4/5
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Ask any graphic designer what’s the most important yet often overlooked aspect of illustration work and you’ll get an unequivocal answer: the fonts you use. How you incorporate these into your work can make or break a design. But the problem is, if you’re after an organic, hand-drawn feel, suitable typefaces can be hard to find. So if you’re looking for a font that emulates decent handwriting, we’d recommend that you point your browser at Font Garden. Here you’ll find a huge selection of freeware and commercial offerings, covering a variety of handwriting styles. There’s plenty here that would complement a loose, traditional style of illustration. 5 Rating:
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