.Psd Photoshop Issue 02 - Feb 2010

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issue 02/2010

content

How to Create Neytiri Portrait Lina Eriksson

In this tutorial you will see a fast and efficient way of using the airbrushes when you paint. You get a smooth effect straight away instead of using several steps with liquid brushes to smooth your paintings. Using a lot of layers gives us greater control and when setting layers to multiply it helps with using the same colours but in darker tints.

interview with

Secret Place

Autodesk’s Role in the Production of Avatar – Interview with Marc Petit Ed Werzyn & Psd Team 14

digital painting

Extreme Retouching Ylenia Peronti

Is it Magic?-No it is Photoshop Carla Cabras

How to Retouch Your Picture Michael Ziemak

18 24 28

Fabiano Uesler

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typography White Had Type Andrew Hall

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creative class For the Heart of Town Alex Eckman-Lawn

Repeating Pattern Zena Santos

Tree House

Katrina Gonzales

42 46 52

photomanipulation Claudia McKinney

Masquerade

Waters of Time Travis Wright

Tools of the Trade-Paintbrush Rasha Al-Najjar

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68 72 76

self exposure A Siren is Born

Amanda K. Barnes

picture restoring Restoring The Past

Aleksandra Gładykowska

Alena Lazareva

beauty retouch

Mystic Harbor

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Night Driver

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I

have a great news for you. Since the first issue of PSD Photoshop received very possitive feedback from all of you we have product review Xara 90 decided to give it a shot and go with monthly magazine. This way you will get a chance to learn all Photoshop techniques each month! Now, few words on what we have prepared for you in March. As always to satisfy all of you we have tutorials on photomanipulation, photo restoring, photo retouch, digital painting and typography. There are a few new authors on the board showing off their great artwork and sharing their tips & tricks with you. Thank you all for joining our Team! I appreciate your support! Since, the new door have been open and it feels like new Avatar era just begun I invited Marc Petit from Autodesk to talk about their role in the production of Avatar movie. You will get a chance to get a sneak pick from behind the scene of this amazing production. Enjoy your reading then and keep the emails coming in! I love to hear from you! Jomar Machado

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Thank you for your support! Marta Kobus Editor in Chief

medium | 2-3 h. corel painter IX | wacom tablet

How to Create

Neytiri portrait

using Corel Painter IX

In this tutorial you will see a fast and efficient way of using the airbrushes when you paint. You get a smooth effect straight away instead of using several steps with liquid brushes to smooth your paintings. Using alot of layers gives us greater control and when setting layers to multiply it helps with using the same colours but in darker tints.

cover artist

01

Step 1

I start with two layers. One with a background colour and one with the sketch on it. I work with alot of layers and if you're not exactly sure of what you are doing, you should too. I used the digital airbrush at all time when painting this but with diffrent opacitys depending on what I was doing. You can have a greater value on the opactiy when it comes to hair and details but when shadowing I like to have it around 12-25 %. So now that I have my sketch it's time to start with the fun stuff - Colouring!

02

Step 2

I start with a base colour. Some type of blue. I put this layer underneath the sketch layer so I can see it at all times.

03

Step 3

I go straight for the eyes and put some sort of orangy base colour on them. Then I start to work with the shadowing on them and go darker and darker until I'm satisfied. I put they layers for the mouth and eyes on top of the layer with the sketch on it. 6

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neytiri portrait

04

Step 4

Added some more shadowing to the eyes and also some highlights. They are the key to getting a lifelike eye. She's also got some eyelashes.

05

Step 5

When I feel pleased with the eyes I move on to the lips and apply the same technique. A base colour and some basic shading. Think big first and then move onto the details.

06

Step 6

More colour on the lips and some highlights. I use white to accent the creases on the lips. .psd Photoshop

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cover artist

07

Step 7

Paint the face marking thingies with a deeper blue. They don't look awesome right now but they'll look better with some shading on them.

08

Step 8

Now start shading. Think big and get into the smaller details later. It may look like crap for a while but don't get discouraged! It will be better. I put the shading layers on top of the layer with the blue base colour. Since the layers for the mouth and eyes are on top of these, we can do whatever we want with the shading and it still wont affect them.

09

Step 9

Add some basic highlights. 8

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neytiri portrait

10

Step 10

I add some turqoise colouring to the half of her face to represent the lightwrap on her from the forest and I also add more and darker shadows. A good way to shadow is to have a skin colour (in this case... blue) and then create another layer and set it to multiply. Then you get a darker version of the colour you are using and you don't have to trouble with getting wrong tints of colour. Lower the opacity on the new shadow layer if you think the colour gets too strong.

11

Step 11

Now I just add more and more shadows and highlights. Moving into the details.

12

Step 12

I work with lighter shades of the colours I already have to create a shiny feeling .psd Photoshop

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cover artist

13

Step 13

When I feel finished with the shading; I add the little sparklies. I just go loose with some light green and light blue.

14

Step 14

I use black as a base colour for the hair. And no, I could not motivate myself into doing all the itsy bitsy braids so she got a hairstyle worn in some other scenes in the movie. I also shade her neck.

15

Step 15

Add some highlights and create strands of hair. The strands colour depends on the colour of the lighting in the image. 10

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neytiri portrait

16

Step 16

Some more details on the hair.

17

Step 17

Now I turn off the layer with the sketch on it since I don't need it anymore. Remember the first layer that was the gray background? I replace it with a colour that fits my Avatar forest better. I am now working on layers beneath the layers of Neytiri.

18

Step 18

Use a big brush and go nuts with colours. The background does not need to be perfect since it's not in focus. .psd Photoshop

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cover artist

19

Step 19

Final result of the background. by Lina Eriksson

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interview

Autodesk's role in the

Avatar

production of

Interview with Marc Petit, Senior Vice President, Autodesk Media & Entertainment Marc Petit leads Autodesk Media & Entertainment as Senior Vice President. In this role, he guides the development and marketing of Autodesk’s digital entertainment creation products, including Autodesk® Flame®, Smoke®, FlareTM, Lustre®, 3ds Max®, Maya®, MotionBuilder®, Softimage®, Mudbox® and FBX® software and technology. A native of France, Petit was studying to be a telecom engineer at Institut National des Télécommunications in Paris when a trip to a tradeshow in 1986 introduced him to creative computing. For the first time, Petit witnessed the creation of pictures and graphics with computers and found it far more interesting than anything related to telecom. After earning his graduate engineering degree, he joined 3D software pioneer Thomson Digital Image (TDI) in 1987, entering the field of computer graphics virtually at its inception. Petit spent much of 1988 working on one of the first computer-generated movies ever made. “Paris 1789” is a 10-minute visualization of Paris and the events of the French Revolution. Returning to TDI as a product manager, Petit soon developed a worldwide reputation for innovation within the media and entertainment industry. At the 1991 SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference, Petit’s reputation got him noticed by Softimage, then a fledgling company based in Montreal, Canada. After helping Softimage reach critical mass in Europe, Petit moved to Montreal in 1996 to serve as Vice President of 3D Products at Softimage, which had become a division of Microsoft. In 2000, Petit’s curiosity about new forms of internet media saw him migrate to another industry, serving as Vice President of Operations for Aptilon Health, a company specialized in online interactive marketing. However, the creative energy of media and entertainment prompted him to join Autodesk’s Discreet division in 2002. Although Petit believes that Autodesk Media & Entertainment’s greatest achievements are yet to be realized, and he is confident that the company’s commitment to the industry and its customers will bring about greater innovation: Autodesk is committed and stable. We are single-mindedly focused on bringing our users tools that allow them to fully express their creativity, he says. That is something to be proud of.

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interview with marc petit

What was Autodesk's role in the production of Avatar? Which Autodesk components were used in making the film? What software was used? Autodesk MotionBuilder and Autodesk Maya software were core technology in the creation of Avatar. They enabled James Cameron to direct computer-generated and live actors in real time, in digital environments. This had never been done before. Cameron and his Lightstorm Entertainment team pioneered this new method of virtual moviemaking. MotionBuilder is performance capture and character animation software. Using MotionBuilder, performances by Avatar’s live actors were applied onto pre-built digital characters and viewed in real time by both the director and the actors – allowing true interactivity between the virtual and real world. The digital characters were viewable in-context in Avatar’s digital environments, which were pre-built with MotionBuilder and Maya. These pre-built assets were low-resolution versions of the characters and sets/environments. Maya is 3D visual effects, modeling, animation and rendering software. In addition to being used on-set for Avatar, Maya was subsequently used for the high-resolution, beautifully lit final scene creation and finishing. As well, Autodesk Mudbox digital sculpting software was used for asset creation, Autodesk 3ds Max to create animations for the film’s Bio Lab and Ops Center - the bustling hub for military operations and one of the key environments in the film; Autodesk Flame for visual effects and compositing; and Autodesk Softimage for modeling.

How many people were dedicated to the production? A lot of people… Here’s a link to the film’s credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/fullcredits

in the first Matrix movie. Since then, MotionBuilder remains the de facto standard for mocap and device control and has evolved into a real time character animation tool and a hub for virtual cinematography. When James Cameron conceived the idea for ‘Avatar’ 15 years ago, the technology wasn’t available to make it, said Nolan Murtha, digital effects supervisor at Lightstorm Entertainment. Over the past few years, with the help of Autodesk software, we were able to bring his vision to life. On set, we essentially created a live video game of each scene; we could see what the movie was going to look like and make adjustments right away, rather than waiting until post-production. This was in large part due to the powerful real-time interactive capabilities of MotionBuilder.

How does the virtual camera integrate into Autodesk's software to produce real-time video? Data and video that has been captured with MotionBuilder can easily be integrated in other Autodesk Digital Entertainment Creation tools, whether they are 3D tools like 3ds Max, Maya or Softimage, or 2D tools like Flame, Smoke or Lustre, through our FBX file format.

When was MotionBuilder developed and what technology was used to develop it?

What type of computing power was necessary to achieve this?

MotionBuilder was originally developed as a motion capture tool more than 15 years ago. Beyond mocap, it’s also been used to drive devices like motion control cameras. In 1999, Kim Libreri and John Gaeta used MotionBuilder to create the bullet time effect

Our customers usually use the latest high-end graphics card to get the maximum performance out of our software.

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interview

What types of computers and operating systems were used?

What challenges did you have during the making of Avatar? What was the most challenging part?

We support multiple platforms: Windows, Mac and Linux. MotionBuilder is primarily used on Windows. Film companies tend to favour Linux for their pipeline so a lot of Maya seats are Linux seats.

How many different companies were involved and what were their roles in the production of the final movie? What was captured live on-set for Avatar was given to numerous visual effects houses for finalization. Weta Digital was the lead visual effects house for Avatar and worked with 15 other studios, including ILM (battle), Framestore (Hell’s Gate shots), Prime Focus (bio lab, ops center), Buf Compagnie (tunnel, earth shots), Hybride (link room) and many others. These companies brought the entire set of Autodesk's digital entertainment creation tools to bear to help bring the story to life. Since what was captured onset was essentially low-resolution video game-like footage, there was much work to be done by the visual effects houses, and many of Autodesk’s Digital Entertainment Creation software products were used for modeling, compositing, visual effects, lighting, rendering, etc.

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I’d like to clarify that Autodesk software was used in the making of Avatar – but it was the work of James Cameron, Jon Landau, their Lightstorm Entertainment team, and the many other talented people credited on the film that actually made the movie.

Were any software modifications, or special plug-ins necessary to achieve the final results? Our customers always customize our tools and tend to keep their secrets secret! But we know that Weta has developed a new realistic muscle system in Maya to reach a higher level of realism using the performance capture facial data!

How was Pandora created? How was the realism achieved? This is a question for the creative geniuses at Weta Digital, the lead visual effects house for Avatar. CGSociety did an in-depth interview with Weta about their work on Avatar: http://features.cgsociety.org/ story_custom.php?story_id=5434&referer=rss 1,832 of the film’s shots were created by Weta. Weta made 60,000 digital bugs (insects) for Pandora, as well as its breathtaking jungles.

How does the technology used in the making of Avatar change the future of making live action movies? How does this technology open other possibilities? Avatar represents a turning point for the film industry. The filmmakers pioneered a groundbreaking method of virtual moviemaking, bridging the real and virtual worlds. Soon, the technology will be widely accessible, enabling human actors’ performances to be applied to all kinds of digital characters – characters that can look human or not. It also returns actors to the purest form of their craft. Gone is

.psd Photoshop

interview with marc petit the need for hours of make-up, costumes and prosthetics to get the talent camera-ready. Avatar is also one of the first mainstream live-action stereoscopic 3D (S3D) movies. Until now, most S3D movies have been stereo versions of computer graphics animated movies. Creating a live-action S3D movie is more difficult, and there was doubt as to whether moviegoers would enjoy the immersive experience of S3D for the 2.5hr-long Avatar. Now, Avatar has proven that live-action S3D movies are viable and profitable. And on average, attendance and ticket prices tend to be higher for S3D movies, earning 2 to 3 times the box-office receipts of their 2D equivalents.

Can you explain Virtual Production and Movie Making using Autodesk's MotionBuilder? Virtual production processes are starting to transform the way filmmakers and their teams create high quality entertainment. New digital technologies are providing filmmakers and their production teams with real-time, interactive environments and breakthrough workflows, transforming the way they plan and create movies. Using the latest 3D software, gaming and motion capture technology – including Autodesk MotionBuilder, they can explore, define, plan and communicate their creative ideas in new, more intuitive, visual ways; helping them reduce risk, eliminate confusion and address production unknowns much earlier in the filmmaking process. Innovators – from production companies like Lightstorm Entertainment, to previsualization specialists like The Third Floor – are already using Virtual Production technologies to push creative boundaries and save costs. To learn more, please refer to Autodesk’s whitepaper “The New Art of Virtual Moviemaking”: http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/the_new_art_of_virtual_ moviemaking_-_autodesk_whitepaper.pdf

What's next?

we were able to do a movie that we could not otherwise do.” There is still much work to be done by Autodesk and other technology developers who support the movie industry, in order to simplify and democratize the moviemaking process. We’ve got to leverage the progress in computing power and graphics to improve the visual quality of the real-time feedback shown to the actors and the director on what are often bare, or green screen–backed stages. Autodesk believes that the key to improved production efficiency and effectiveness lies in empowering creative visionaries and entire production teams with better, faster tools that communicate will together. It’s about carrying the vision from initial concept to final delivery in a way that drives creativity, efficiency, interaction and collaboration. This is what we strive to achieve with our Digital Entertainment Creation software.

Avatar Producer Jon Landau said, “What we were able to do with the Autodesk software is to make technology an enabling essence and

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Ed Werzyn & Psd Photoshop Team

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This retouching is a simple example of the power that has photoshop on how you can bring out the best of the beauty of a person. In this tutorial we will show simple techniques of retouching using the tools most popular of Photoshop.

medium | 2h. adobe photoshop CS3

Extreme Retouching

beauty retouch

01

Source Files

Step 1

First of all, duplicate background layer and call it healing brush. Select from the tool's panel the spot healing brush and use it to remove all the imperfections of the skin included spots and little wrinkles. Also you delete the hair in front of the eyes.

02 Step 2

After we cleaned her face,duplicate the healing brush layer and select lasso tool by the tool's panel . With lazo, make a rough selection of the eyebrow and apply free transform by the menù modify/free transform or by the shortcut ctrl+t. Resize the eyebrow intervening on the transform controls; In this case, move down the higher and lift up the lower transform control (indicated by the arrow) and click on the selection to move the eyebrow and reposition it. Press Enter to confirm and press Ctrl+D to clear (deselect) the selection. Duplicate the healing brush layer again and merge it at the eyebrow layer. Now,using clone stamp and healing brush tool, cleaning the old eyebrow and make uniform the skin around (img 1-2). Repeat the same procedure with the other eyebrow.(don't worry about the hair on, because they cover it later)

03

Step 3

Duplicate the healing brush layer. Start from the hairs, select the clone stamp tool and using the these values, diameter 80px e hardness 50% , Consider as source a part of thick hair,and cover these hair to get a similar result (img.3). Now make his teeth more regular using clone stamp tool with a small diameter (5px for example) and opacity about 85%(img.4). When we have reached a good results, remove circles with clone stamp tool(img.6), being attention to get a natural and homogeneous result. 20

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extreme retouching

04

Step 4

Duplicate the eyebrow copy layer and rename it liquify. Open from the menu bar Filter/liquefy (shortcut Maiusc+Ctrl+X); select plucker tool (s), and with a enough size of brush ( 205px for example) make the nose slightly small, giving like short shots with brush over the entire length of the nose. Using the bloat tool (b), reduce the brush size (90px for example) and give more volume to lips

05

Step 5

Duplicate the liquify layer and call it smooth skin. Go in Filter/noise/dust and scratches and set the radius about 10 pixel and press ok. Now go in Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur, and set the radius about 10 pixel, and press ok.

06

Step 6

Now go in menù Layer/layer mask/ hide all, it will be created a layer mask filled of black at our layer that it will hide the filters applied.So select the brush tool and set "foreground color" on white than set the opacity of brush tool with approximate values (60% for example) and begin "to paint" (with the mask selected) only on the skin excluding also hair,eyebrows,eyes, ecc. We'll see to back top the filters applied before. Using a lower opacity paint also on the lips to smooth it. .psd Photoshop

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beauty retouch

07

Step 7

Now we need to emphasize the eyes using the dodge and burn tools. Duplicate the liquify layer and rename it eyes Select the dodge tool from the tool's panel and set Range in Highlights, Opacity until 30%-40% and we choose a diameter that fits the eye (see the figure). So paint the inside of the eyes to make them brighter. Now select burn tool with a small diameter (6-7px) set an opacity about 10% and paint the edge of the iris to darken it.

08 Step 8

Now apply just a little bit of make up. Create a new layer (Maiusc+Ctrl+N) and we have to make sure that it is in top of the other layers. Select the brush tool, choose a dark color and set the opacity at 100%, painting on her eyelid like if you put on the eyeshadow; now apply a few of Filters/Blur/ Box Blur on this layer choosing like values 4px or 6px (in this range). At the end change the blending mode of the layer on Soft Light (you can try also Moltiply or Color) and reduce layer's opacity. Repeat the same procedure for the other eye and, if you want, also to add phard on the cheeks (but in this case we need to choose a higher value for a blur) and lipstick, creating a new layer for everything and choosing the colors that you prefer. This is my version:

09

Step 9

now retouch the brightness and contrast. Create a new layer from the menù bar: Layer/New adjustment layer/Curves, you can give a name at the layer and click Ok. Choose from a Preset Menu "Linear Contrast" and press Ok. So duplicate the "eyes" layer and go in Filter/Sharpen/Unsharp Mask.. and set this values: Amount=35%; Radius=5px; Threshold="0"; and press Ok. Go in menù Layer / Layer mask /hide all and now retouch the brightness and contrast. Create a new layer from the menù bar: Layer/New adjustment layer/Curves, you can give a name at the layer and click Ok. Choose from a Preset Menu "Linear Contrast" and press Ok. So duplicate the "eyes" layer and go in Filter/Sharpen/Unsharp Mask.. and seti this values: Amount=50%; Radius=5px; Threshold="0"; and presso Ok. Go in menù Layer / Layer mask /hide all. Select the brush tool and set as foreground color "white" and paint on the eyes to sharpen. The end. by Ylenia Peronti

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medium | 60 min. adobe photoshop CS4

it is photoshop

Source Files

Is it Magic? No, it is Photoshop Have you ever wondered why the models that we see in the newspapers are always so beautiful and perfect? Then we look in the mirror and think: Oh how I would be so perfect! How are they doing? The answer is very simple: The magic of photoshop! This tutorial was created with the intent to teach a few simple steps a true professional retouching. Even the less experienced, will thus be able to create fantastic dive for cover!

01

Step 1

First you need to open the photo you want to retouch. Duplicate the layer (Layer – Duplicate Layer) and call it "skin". Take, from the tool palette, the healing brush tool and remove possible defects, ie, pimples, hair flowing over his face, etc. Always from the tool palette, take Patch Tool (Healing brush tool - hold until the various instruments appear) and remove the wrinkles go to form below the neck.

02

Step 2

Duplicate the layer and name it “high pass”. Click over: Filter – Other – High Pass. Set 20 pixels and confirm. Now click Filter - Blur - Gaussian Blur, set 10 pixels. Invert the image [ctrl + I] and set the layer to Linear Light. Create a layer mask (layer – layer mask – reveal all) and reverse. With a soft brush and a diameter of about 170px, brush in areas where the skin should be brought better. Lower the opacity level to 60% and merge layers [ctrl + E]. .psd Photoshop

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beauty retouch

03

Step 3

Select the Dodge tool from the layers palette and set it this way: Light and exposure to 7% with a diameter of about 140px. Brush over the eye sockets. Now clean up the background. Duplicate the layer and name it "background". Remove, using (always from the tool palette) the Clone Stamp tool and the patch tool, any hair and stains.

Step 4

04

Create the make up. New Layer [Shift - Ctrl – N] and call it "eyeshadow". Take the brush (soft) and set it to 40px. Set the layer to soft light. Choose a color and brush on the lower lid. If the color chosen is not desired, go to: Image - adjustments - hue and saturation, and regulated. Again, create a new layer, set to soft light and brush (with another color choice) on the upper eyelid. Fade the color with the eraser using these settings: Opacity 30%, hardness 0 and diameter 150px. Now we need to create the light and shade of make up. New layer and color the areas where you want to create the nuance, in black. Go to Filter - Blur - Gaussian Blur and set 40px. Remove with the eraser, the areas of light. If you want to accentuate further, create a new layer, set to soft light and brush over the gradient created earlier; Fade with the eraser, soft and low opacity. You now need to accentuate the areas of light. New layer set to soft light, color the light areas of white with a soft brush. Fade with the eraser.

05

Step 5

Now, you should adjust the lights of the picture, then, create a new adjustment layer (livello – nuovo livello di regolazione – curve). For the shadows, output: 98 input: 155, press Ctrl + I and brush areas in shadow with a soft brush. Go to Filter - Blur - Gaussian Blur and set 50px confirm. Fade with the eraser with 30% opacity. For lights, output: 138 input: 115 and light brush areas. 26

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it is photoshop

06

Step 6

Adjust the colors of the photo. Create a new adjustment layer - hue / saturation. Set the saturation to -20. Create a new adjustment layer - selective color correction; Red: Cyan: -20, yellow: +30. Press Ctrl + I and just brush her hair with the brush set to white. Yet another new adjustment layer - selective color correction, set Neutral: Cyan: +8, magenta: -3, Yellow: +8, black -2. To brighten eyes, go to: New Adjustment Layer - Curves; output: 143 input 109. Press Ctrl + I and brush on the iris.

07

Step 7

Merge the layers with the initial one. Duplicate it. Select the Burn tool, set shadows and 5% opacity. Brush in shaded areas. Same thing for the lights. Select the Dodge tool, set lights to 7% opacity and brush areas light. Finally to give a contrast, duplicate the layer, go to filter – sharpen – sharpen. by Carla Cabras

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beauty retouch

How to retouch your picture Source Files

In this tutorial I am going to explain few steps to achieve a nice and good looking photo. I will be using Adobe Photoshop software and Wacom Intuos4 M tablet. The software isn’t a-must-have one – you may use any type of soft that has a dodge and burn tool, clone stamp and brush. The tablet IS a-musthave one. Whole postporcess will be very difficult for ones who operate only with mouse. So… Let’s get started.

Chapter I. The main preparations. Step 1.

First thing you need to do – is to set up some preferences of your software to make your work comfortable. Because I`m using Photoshop – I`ll show you my settings – and you’ll have to find out how to set them up in your software (if other than PS). First thing to do is to set the hotkeys for Dodge Tool and Burn Tool (Edit->Keyoard Shortcuts | Alt+Shift+Ctrl+K). Because we will use them a lot – we need to have a quick access to them – that’s why I set [A] for Dodge and [S] for Burn. Next you have to change settings for Dodge and Burn tools. Just take a look at the screenshot and set those settings the same for Dodge tool and Burn tool. After that go to Brushes [F5] and turn on Other dynamics and Smoothing – again the same for Dodge Tool and Burn Tool. Now you’re ready to go to step 2.

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Step 2.

Now you need to get a photo for retouch. If you are going to practice only – you can search Uncle Google for photos of celebrates for example. You can also download a free-image from such services as www.deviantart.org or www.sxc.hu (remember to always read the licence). Finally you can grab your camera and shoot someone… For the purpose of this tutorial I’ve chosen the third option. I`m an amateur in photography and I don’t have a pro camera, so don’t mind the quality of the base image. As we can see the photo is quite dark, the skin isn’t perfect and the model has some strange colors reflected from the studio (which was my room).

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how to retouch your picture Step 3.

So now we are going to fix the main problems with color, contrast and levels. To do that go to Layer->New adjustment layer->Curves and change the curve untill you’re satisfied with the result. For my photo I’ve set the curves like that. I’ve noticed that the brightest areas of the picture were now too bright – so I painted over those with Soft Brush [B] (Opacity set to 40%, Other Dynamics on and set to Pen Pressure – just like here [plik other_dynamics.jpg]) using Black Color. I like this way of tweaking the Adjustment Layers – because you can always go back to them and change the settings – that keeps the work fast and simple. Another step was to brighten the background using Levels (Layer>New Adjustment Layer->Levels) and painting out the areas I didn’t want to change. Last thing in this step was warming a bit the colors. For this purpose I’ve used the Color Balance (Layer>New Adjustment Layer->Color Balance) and I was playing around with the sliders to achieve desired effect. Wen you finish your color corrections you may want to put the Adjustment Layers into a group – I did it, because that way I was able to turn them on and off quickly to check the image without them. After those steps you are ready to go to the Chapter II.

Step 1.

First of all – you have to duplicate your background into a layer you will work on. To do that – click on the Background and go Ctrl+J – and there you go! You have a nice Backgroundcopy layer – and you’re ready to start to remove skin artifacts and etc. To do that – you have at least 3 different tools to use. • • •

Spot Healing Brush Tool, Clone Stamp, Dodge and Burn Tool.

The first one is good for removing very small imperfections. Clone Stamp is good for eresing single hairs that just ruin the image, refining the nails or removing highlighted areas. Dodge and Burn tools are usefull for all of those things and I`m using them most often. While retouching the skin I`m trying to achieve very nice, soft – but still skin, that’s why I`m not duplicating the skin and bluring it – because then you will loose all of the skin texture and it will look unnatural. Dodge and Burn tools are amazing here, because you can blend out the imperfections without loosing the skin texture. All you need to remember is to keep the brush size small, and work small and slow instead of big and fast. The same way you will retouch the skin folds and etc. It’s a good way to turn off and on the visibility of your copied layer to see the differences – that’s how you will keep the output photo natural. I`ve marked few areas for example for you to understand where to use what kind of tool.

Chapter II. Retouching the skin. Memo

Starting from this step it’s good to work in 100% zoom (or higher) and zooming out from time to time. It’s important because that’s how you can spot some mistakes you’ve made or left unfixed. Keep that in mind while all the postprocess work described further.

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beauty retouch

Step 2.

When you’re satisfied with retouched skin imperfections and skin folds – you will need to darken the highlighted areas caused by the flashlight. Again – to save the skin texture – you use the Clone Stamp set to Darken, opacity set to 30-40%, size – not too big – still keep to the small and slow rule.

Hint.

While using Dodge tool and Burn tool for a long time you will notice some color changes to the skin (or other surface you’re working on). To fix it take your Brush tool [B] set it to Color, Opacity 30-40%, pick the natural skin color from the photo and paint out the strange colors.

Step 2.

You will always need to look at the fingers and nails if they appear on the picture. Nails will have to be perfect just as the skin etc. So grab your Clone Stamp Tool, set it to Normal, Opacity to 100%, size small enough and picking the nearest spot draw the proper nail shape. Then using Dodge and Burn Tool blend it and give it a nice shiny effect. If you want to change to color of the nail – just take your Brush Tool, set it to Color, Opacity 30-40%, size small again and paint over the nails with color you want. Sometimes you will need to remove color from the nails before – to do that grab your Lasso Tool [L], select the nails and push Shift+Ctrl+U. This will desaturate your nails. Then paint over the nails with your Brush Tool and color you want. After that push Ctrl+D to deselect. If you look close to earlier screenshots you will notice that shape of the finger in After changed. To change the shape you need to select an area you want to work on – for example the hand (again Lasso Tool) and push Shift+Ctrl+X (Filter->Liquify…). Set up the preferences similar to pickture below and using Forward Warp Tool [W] change the shape you want (remember to stick to the small and slow rule). The same way you can fix the shape of lips, eyes, eyebrows, arms and etc.

Chapter III. Removing hairs, refining nails, fixing shapes, eyes and lips. Step 1.

Removing hair needs combining Dodge and Burn tool with Healing Brush Tool. HBT is similar to Spot Healing Brush Tool but with Healing Brush Tool it’s you who picks the source area. First thing to do is erasing those single hair using Healing Brush Tool (set size just around 2x bigger than the single hair). You need to instantly check the source space – and change it when needed – to avoid mistakes. After that you take your Dodge Tool and Burn Tool to blend the skin nicely and smoothly. If you want to remove some hair strands you don’t need – my suggestion is to use Clone Stamp Tool set to Lighten, with opacity around 70% and then Dodge and Burn Tool to blend. Here are some screens from my work.

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how to retouch your picture Step 3.

The last thing to do in this chapter is fixing the eyes and lips. Let’s take the eyes first. You have to remove the reflected colors from the eyeball. Take your Brush Tool, set it to Color and pick up some nice gray shade from the eye. Paint over the eyeball untill you’re satisfied. Use Dodge and Burn Tools to blend and remove those eye-veins cause nobody wants to see them. You can also make a selection and push Shift+Ctrl+U to remove color from the eyeball but it depends on the photo – remember you want the picture to look natural. To increase the contrast on the pupil it’s good to use Brush Tool set to Multiply (to darken some areas) – other settings the same (play with Hardness – it depends on what you want to achieve – for example, if you want to draw some aditional lashes or eyebrows set Hardness to 90%, if you want to work over some bigger areas such as the pupil – set Hardness to 20-40%). You may want to refine lashes and eyebrows to make the model look more feminine. To do that – again Brush Tool set to Normal this time, Hardness around 90%, size really small (as I worked on the image sized 2600x3900 px in 240dpi, I was using size 4 for lashes and eyebrows) but this time remember to turn on the Shape dynamics in the Brushes Menu [F5] and set Size Jitter to react on Pen Pressure. Don’t forget to turn this off when you finish your eyelashes or eyebrows or etc – it may cause some problems when you work on something else. Here you can see how I did the eyes in my photo.

Step 4.

Lips. What you are going to do with lips depends on many aspects, for example – model wish, your imagination, directors directive. My model wanted to have lips brighter than you can see in the original picture. First of all I tried to blend and balance the shadows on the lips – ofcourse using Dodge and Burn tools again. Next I’ve selected the lips area with Lasso Tool, and using Liquify filter [Shift+Ctrl+X] I’ve refined shape of the lips too. Next step was lighten them up – I’ve done that using Dodge Tool but this time I was using bigger size of the brush (adjust your size to fit the lips). Aditionally you can boost the color of lips for example using a Brush Tool set to Soft Light (or Overlay – it depends on what effect you want to achieve), Opacity 30-40% using color picked up from the lips. To change the color you will need to desaturate lips first, then use Brush Tool set to Color (but in my opinion it’s not the best idea). Take a look at the screenies to see what it looks like in my photo.

Memo

You may say that I’ve forgot about the hair. Yes – it may look this way – but I must say that I’ve found the hair look so good and natural and there was no need to fix them. But If you need to fix the hair – then the steps to do that are mostly the same as the rest. But The easiest way to boost the haircut a bit is to create two Adjustment Layers -> Curves, one set to lighten the image and the other one to darken the image. Than click on the layer mask (Layers Window), Ctrl+I to reverse it and then, using the Brush Tool, small size, Other dynamics turned on and color White – you highlight the bright strands (that would be Curves that lighten the image) and darken the shadows (Curves that darken the image). You can also add some hairs using the Brush Tool (on the new layer) with a very small size, sharp edge, Shape dynamics turned on and Other dynamics turned off, opacity around 90% - but this will be pretty tough and needs some practice.

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beauty retouch

Chapter 4. Final touch.

You’re almost done. Assuming you have succesfully went through all those long, borring and time-eating steps I`ve described before - there’s some quick corrections to do – and the picture is finished. First you have to zoom out and ask yourself Hmm… Do I like it? If you do click Save as Noooo…. :D Not that fast! I`m almost sure you will not like it just like that (well I didn’t). I was still able to point some strange colors on the skin that were hard to hide. I wasn’t also happy with overall color temperature of the picture. So here is what I did.

Step 1.

With my Color Picker I’ve picked up a nice, natural color of the skin. I`ve created a new layer over my Background-copy layer (the one we were working on in Chapter 2 and 3) and under the Group made for color corrections (we’ve created it in Chapter 1). Then I’ve just filled the whole layer with my skin-natural-color, I’ve added a Layer Mask (it’s the gray square with white circle in the middle icon placed in your Layers Window). After that I`ve set this layer blend mode to Color, played around with Opacity and Flow of that layer to achieve desired skin tone and then, using Brush Tool set to Normal, Opacity 100%, all dynamics turned off – I’ve painted on the Layer Mask over the areas I didn’t want to have a skin-natural-color (such as hair, lips, eyes etc). It’s good to start with biiig brush so you can quickly cut out unnecessarry areas, and then grab some smaller brush to refine the edges of our Layer Mask – all of that to make the picture look most natural.

Step 2.

I still wasn’t happy with the result. Mostly because of the low contrast. So I’ve created another Adjustment Layer (Layer->New Adjustmend Layer->Gradient Map) with gradient from dark and bright skin tone of the model. I’ve set the blending mode of that layer to Overlay and again – playing around with Opacity and Flow sliders to get the desired result. After that my picture looked like this:

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how to retouch your picture Last step.

Now you’re going to sharpen the image. It will be better if you don’t use the Filter->Sharpen options. You can try other way instead. Simply push Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E (this will make new layer with your image) or create a new layer and go to Image->Apply Image. Next set the layer’s blending mode to Overlay, go to Filter->Other->High pass set the Radious to 2,0 and click OK. Now you need to play with Opacity of the layer to get the desired result. You can create a Layer Mask to this layer and paint with Black color to erase the sharpen effect from the areas you don’t want to be sharpened. Because my picture has kind-a plain background – I’ve ignored that step. Finish, finito, we’re done… by Michael Ziemak

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Restoring the past From this tutorial you will learn how to restore an old photo and take care of the faded areas as well as color balance. medium | 1 h. corel paint shop pro photo X2

restoring the past

Source Files

01

Step 1

With the original photo in hand we can see that it is faded and color aged, with minor problems with risks and scratches. Here we have a photo from 1977, taken in south of Brazil.

02

Step 2

Now, for questions of fidelity we are going to keep the original photo and start adjusting the faded photo. You can use the Fade Correction Adjust at will, but keep in mind that in some cases it will dark the image. Therefore, we use here a level of 45 to get the faded colors better. Adjust>color>fade correction>amount 45.

03

Step 3

Than, we can use an effect that will sharp a lithe and improve brightness of the image. Take care to use it; a higher amount of this effect will get the photo too sharp. I used an amount of five in this case, it gets a good effect and do not affect the original aspect of the photo. Adjust>Brightness and Contrast>Clarify>amount 5 .psd Photoshop

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picture restoring

04

Step 4

A little bit of Contrast and Brightness. A value of 10 of each will be good enough. Adjust>Brightness and Contrast>Brightness/Contrast>amount of brightness 10 / amount of contrast 10.

05

Step 5

Lets remove some minor specks of the image with the Salt and Pepper filter. In many cases a low value will be good enough. Adjust>Add/Remove Noise>Salt and Pepper Filter…>Speck size (pixels) 10/Sensitivity to specks 2.

06

Step 6

We are almost finished here; we can adjust the color to be a little bit warmer using the color balance option. I used here a preset adjust. Adjust>Color Balance…>Settings>Fluorescent – Cool (4300K) So here, it is, you do not have to change many physical aspects of the image using tools like the clone tool, we used just some filters and that is the result. Keep in mind that the restoration of old photos needs to change just a few things to keep it as an original photo, not a photoshoped one. by Fabiano Uesler 36

.psd Photoshop

contributing writers Lina Eriksson

cover artist

Katrina Gonzales I love photography and manipulate my photos in Photoshop CS3 to edit the colors. I always want my photos to look happy and colorful. Every time I take photos, I always put my emotions and feelings into it. To improve my skills, I always watch tutorials on the internet to learn more about photography and manipulation. Please visit my Portfolio and Deviantart Account:

I’m a 22 year old from Sweden who loves to paint, especially when I started doing it on the computer. Messing with sticky oil colours has never been my thing. I’ve been painting more or less since I was 17 but it wasn’t until 3 years ago when I started to use the comp and corel painter to draw that I was hooked. So I am still quite a noob and learn new things everyday! When I’m not painting I study Digital Media Design at a university and I hope I can use my interest in a future occupation.

Travis Wright

Michael Ziemak

I’ve been drawing ever since I can remember, one of those kids that just forgot to put the pencil down and do something else. I’m originally from Brisbane, Australia, where I previously completed a couple of independent comic stories. I’ve never been to any formal art school or college and am happy to admit that I am mostly self-taught. I moved to Japan in 2005 to get a new outlook on life and fell into the world of digital painting, which I immediately fell in love with. I have worked on various game-mods, card and board games, and comic books.

I was born in 1981, I come from Poland. My adventure with Photoshop started few years ago and it was all about Virtual Tuning. Then I caught myself thinking Hey… It’s a lot of fun – working with photos. Right now I`m studying computer graphics and I`m willing to work as a graphic or digital painter. Photography and drawing was (and still is) my hobby and my goal is to improve my skills to be very good at what I love to do. Tutorials found on the websites helped me a lot – and I hope my one will help you as well. If you have any questions – please note me on deviantart – you will find link to my account at the end of my tutorial. mishaart.deviantart.com or mishaart.digart.pl or mishaart.artician.com or grafart.org

Alex Eckman-Lawn Alex Eckman-Lawn is a vicious young illustrator who completed the Illustration program at University of the Arts in Philadelphia. He graduated in 2007 with various awards in Illustration and writing. Alex has worked with bands like Psyopus, Architect, Yakuza, Dark Tranquility and Circle of Dead Children, designing tshirts and album art. He has also done design and/or artwork for Willowtip Records Debello Records, Tribunal Records, Black Market Activities, and Century Media, and Scholastic Books. He is currently hard at work illustrating Awakening, an existential horror comic book being published by Archaia Studios Press. Alex uses a combination of photo and traditional media with heavy digital work in photoshop and painter.

Alena Azareva Hello ! My name is Alena. I am 29 years old. I live in Russia, in the city of Naberezhnye Chelny. Naberezhnye Chelny is the second largest city in the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. I have been drawing since childhood. I studied at the School of Art at the artist. There I drew painting, figure, was engaged in a sculpture and studied history of arts. Then I went to the graphic design courses, and began to paint in Photoshop. I love to paint in the style of Fantasy: fairies, elves, mermaids and angels. I use Photoshop and Wacom Intuos3. Website: http://alenalazareva.daportfolio.com Email: [email protected] BLOG : http://alenalazareva.blogspot.com/

Andrew Hall My name is Andrew Hall and I live in Jackson, Mississippi. When not designing, I can be found hanging out with friends, surfing the web, or playing a computer game. The two programs I use the most are Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. I just received an Associates degree for Graphic Design Technology at Hinds Community College and am ready to build up a portfolio of clients.

Ylena Peronti Ylenia Peronti. I’m 19 years old italian artist. From 3 years I have a passion for photo retouch and generally for phtoshop so I started to practice retouch first on what I call „extreme makeover”, as described in this tutorial, and then devot himelf to studying professional photo retouching refining technical professional and actually retouch fashion shots. I’m supermoderator in the Forum Graphics www.graficicreativi.com and I manage especially the section of photoretouch. you can find me at the following links: www.yleniaperonti.wordpress.com http://yleniuccia.deviantart.com/

Carla Cabras Carla Cabras, 18, born in Sassari (Sardinia - Italy-). She attends the fourth year of the Institute of Art “F. Figari”, course graphics design and photography. The passion of the photoretouch comes about a year ago. She has learned the photoretouch, watching only some tutorials on the web.

Fabiano Uesler Claudia McKinney

About me: Name: Fabiano Uesler; Age: 32; Job: Portuguese teacher and photo restorer; City: Blumenau; State: Santa Catarina; Country: Brazil.

She says her work is like her own version of keeping a journal. Each piece represents a time in Claudia’s life so she can instantly recall what was happening. Her first book – Light Beneath Ferns by Anne Spollen cover out in February .

Rasha Al-Najjar Rasha Al-Najjar is a 22 year old Graphic Design student in her final year of university. Although not a professional in any respect, she enjoys working to expand upon her hobby of drawing and character design and encourages others to get out there and create some new and exciting worlds and concepts. Illustration has always been her passion and she doubts that she’ll ever become bored with it because there will always be something new to draw.

Zena Santos

02/2008

At a young age I found a love for Photoshop, finding what was possible in the program to be wonderful, but then Illustrator was introduced to me and I found it being more helpful to my illustratve style. Currently I study at Billy Blue College of Design in Sydney and will graduate at the end of 2010. 37

white hand type

White Hand

Source Files

Type

In this tutorial I will teach you how to make a photo-realistic rendering of a picture using Photoshop. You will learn how to lay down type in Photoshop, using various effects to create a 3D look from your image. By eliminating the need for different colors to be used as texture, this tutorial focuses on making an image “pop” out of what is really just a bunch of text in different shapes in the same color. By the end of this tutorial, you should be able to apply this knowledge to any image, and create unique text art that is entirely your own.

01

Stock provider – Mallory Heinz/USA. http://box-o-fox-stock.deviantart.com/.

Step 1

First you need a stock image you can lay your text on. A common technique for Illustrator users is to draw their designs on paper, scan it in, and trace/ draw directly on top of the image in the program. We are going to take the same approach with a stock image. After finding your stock photo, open it up in Photoshop. You are going to want your image size to be high enough that you can see the details of the photo, but low enough that you don’t get lost in the image while laying your text down. For me, about 800 pixels wide or tall is best. To change the size of your image go to Image>Image Size and select 800 pixels in either the wide or tall text box. Make sure Constrain Proportions is checked in the bulleted buttons, or your image will stretch. I also turned my image sideways to the way I wanted it by going to Image>Image Rotation.

02

Step 2

Create a solid background of your choice. Mine is a lime green color. I made a new layer and used the Paint Bucket Tool located under the Gradient Tool. .psd Photoshop

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typography

03

Step 3

Turn off visibility on your new background. Create a new layer and type out your text with the Horizontal Type Tool. Click your Move Tool. Hold down [ctrl]+[T] (or [command]+[T] on a Mac) to Free Transform. Roughly size it down to about the size of the space you want the text to fit in. Now select your text with the Horizontal Type Tool and click Create Warped Text. Choose a style and modify how it looks to your liking. I chose Arc, and set it to +19% on Bend. Hit OK and use Free Transform to resize and rotate the image to where you want it.

04

Step 4

Repeat this process by following the contours of the image underneath. Keep consistent with the inner shapes of the background only deviating from size/shape every so often to make a word pop from the shapes at a distance. Don’t be afraid to get the type real tiny either, even if you can’t read it at actual size. Every so often, click on the visibility of your solid background layer and look at it from a distance. The more the type blends together to show an image, the better.

05

Step 5

A good design element is to let text go off the canvas. In this piece I’ve created depth by simply making the type larger on the arm, than the palm or anywhere else. 40

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white hand type

06

Step 6

Pay attention to negative and positive space! How tightly you pack the type or how much space you put between elements is important. This space counts as a shape in its own right.

07

Step 7

Some tips: The Bulge style in Warp Text is perfect for cylindrical shapes while the Arc, Flag, and Rise styles are great for outlining and curvy shapes. Hold down your spacebar while using a tool besides the Type Tool to turn your cursor into the Hand Tool whenever you need to quickly click and drag your canvas around. Now fill up all that space with the same curves and shapes on the image.

08

Step 8

08 Once you’ve filled up the original image with type, turn on the solid background you made earlier. I added a white inner stroke to blend into the type bleeding off the page in Layer Style>Stroke. And you’re done! Save as a .jpg, or whatever image file type you prefer. by Andrew Hall .psd Photoshop

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medium | 18 h. adobe photoshop CS3

the heart of town

for The Heart

Source Files

of Town

In my tutorial I will focus on the collage and building part of my process. I often start with a black and white image, and work until I like the balance and values, then add the color. Hopefully this tutorial will give you some ideas for your own work as well as showing you how to combine photo collage and digital painting in a less sterile way than the typical matte paintings. First things first, I did a quick and rough sketch just to give myself a VERY basic idea of where I want the piece to start. You’ll notice that the finishes is quite different from my sketch, which I think is fine in personal work! In fact, it’s part of what keeps things exciting, in my opinion.

01 Step 1

So I’ve started to do some light painting, using a slightly textured custom brush with about 30 opacity and 40 flow, just covering up most of the pencil to start with. I’ve done a tiny bit of rendering in the face, nothing too intense. I’ve also added some ink and splatter to keep things looking more alive. Sometimes doing inks in the computer can look way too clean or soft. Getting a sense of grit early on is important, and even if you cover it up as you build overtop it will enrich the final product, I promise. So far things are looking kind of boring. It’s too still, too peaceful, not very dynamic or interesting.

02 Step 2

That’s better! I’ve decided not to stick so closely to the sketch, and let the city spill out over the border. I want some chaos and movement around my figure so I’ve decided to build the city up around and on top of him. The person can stay serene and still as long as the city has life and motion to it. (insert building1.jpg and building3.jpg) I grab a few photos I took around town that I think could work, play with the levels until I find what feels like the right balance, and then pile them on! Painting out sections with the layer mask helps things to blend together a bit more easily, but at this point it’s really all about shapes. .psd Photoshop

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creative class

03 Step 3

Now I’m actually getting excited about the piece. I like the shapes and adding the powerlines (a favorite crutch of mine) keeps the eye moving and feels appropriate to the piece. (insert wires.jpg, buildings2.jpg and buildings4.jpg) for the wires I upped the contrast all the way on some photos of phone lines and then copy sections I want, and paste them as a multiply layer. Then it’s just a matter of banding them to look natural using transform-warp. I use some new building facades as well to filll some of the space around our central figure, and set the layer property to screen. I also add some grey tone at this stage, and paint parts out with the layer mask to get a nice value structure and make sure the right places get focus. I want to make sure my figure doesn’t get TOO buried since he is our focal point.

Step 4

04

This step is mostly just little adjustments, piling on more little pieces and texture to fill out the piece. I want there to be tons of wires, telephone poles, lamp posts, etc. I’ve added a section of fence, some street lights, all the things that catch my eye when I’m in the city, and also that crazy splattery eclipsed sun. (insert buildings5.jpg and texture.jpg) I’ve also overlayed this pretty awesome running paint texture over sections that felt too flat and dull. It’s really handy to keep a folder of pictures like this one (preferably that you take yourself). I think it goes a long way towards keeping things from looking too clean and sterile, and a sort of human touch is something that’s really important to me in my work. To this end I’ve also added some more ink and splatter, as well as a little oil paint texture, since I did bury most of the ink from the early stages. At this point I’m pretty happy with how things are looking in black and white, and we can flatten and add some color.

05

Step 5

I’ll let you all in on a trick that I use fairly often. Image-adjustment-variations. It’s not terribly refined, but it can be a great way to add some color to a flat b/w image. I usually make a copy of the flat image, then try out some variations, lower the opacity and layer them until I’ve got some rich an interesting color as a base to work on top of. Then it’s just the usual color overlays, a bit of texture work, and some multiply layers. I paint into the face some more at this point to give it a bit of a glow and a richer skintone. I mostly do this with a few overlay and soft light layers with varying opacity, and a low opacity brush, then some highlights to finish him off. I’ve added some dot tone to the architectural sections at this stage also to give them some more texture and also help differentiate between building and man. I wasn’t the man to seem nestled in, surrounded, even a part of the building, but still markedly distinct from them, at least texturally. Basically this stage is a lot of little refining touches and push and pull. I added the blue windows and shapes at the bottom at the very end of the process and I don’t think I was satisfied with the piece until I did. I’m always a big fan of tan and blue as a color scheme, and I think they do a lot to draw the eye through the piece. It’s always worth exploring weird color experiments, especially in digital work like this, since you never have to really commit to anything. Well there you have it! Hopefully this was at all helpful, and if you didn’t learn anything, maybe my crazy process gave you some ideas to try out in your own stuff. Good luck and keep it brutal. by Alex Eckman 44

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Editor in Chief: Marta Kobus [email protected] Executive Editor: Ewa Samulska [email protected] Copy Editors: Ed Werzyn, Bonnie Lynn Wagner Art Director: Agnieszka Marchocka DTP: Ireneusz Pogroszewski, Przemysław Banasiewicz Art Executive Manager: Ireneusz Pogroszewski Senior Consultant/Publisher/President: Paweł Marciniak Software Press CEO: Ewa Łozowicka Marketing Director: Marta Kobus [email protected] Executive Ad Consultant: Ewa Samulska [email protected] Production Director: Andrzej Kuca [email protected] Postal addres: Publisher: Software Press Sp.z.o.o SK 02-682 Warszawa, ul. Bokserska 1 worldwide publishing www.psdmag.org All trade marks presented in the magazine were used only for informative purposes. All rights to trade marks presented in the magazine are reserved by the companies which own them. Mathematical formulas created by Design Science MathType™. The editors use automatic DTP system Editorial contributions should be sent to: [email protected] Customer Service +1 917 338 3631 The Software Press Sp.z.o.o SK works individually from Adobe. The psd Photoshop team reserves the right not to be responsible for the topicality, correctness, completeness or quality of the information provided by contributors.

medium | 30 min. adobe photoshop CS3 | adobe illustrator CS3

repeating pattern

Repeating Pattern In the following tutorial I will show you that it is not a matter of Photoshop vs Illustrator, But rather they complement one another. I wouldn’t be surprised if Adobe mesh these two programs as one, one day.I bet every designer has wondered how repeating patterns were made Traditionally they can be tedious and time consuming. But digitally its a sinch.

01

New Ai Document

Open a new documwent in illustrator make it any size as this will just be place where we make the elements we will use for the repeating pattern.

TIP: L

02

Keyboad shortcut for the elipse tool will be very handy the more you work in illustrator.

Make a Circle

The follwing steps will show how you can make easy pattern motifs from a simple circle in illustrator. So firstly make a circle. .psd Photoshop

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creative class

03

Drag Anchor Point

Drag right anchor point with the direct selection tool ( not the black, but the white arrow tool) . Knowing how anchor points work are very useful across both Photoshop and Illustrator.

04

Rotate Duplicate

Now get the rotate tool and reposition the little registration circle that appears when you select this tool, to the edge of the smallest curve, hold alt/ option and rotate, you’ll have a duplicate. Now for the magic, press cmd/ctrl d to see a simple graphic become a beautiful flower.

05

Reflect n Unite

Alternatively, from step three you could make a leaf. Select the Convert Anchor Point tool and click once on the right most anchor point. It will make it pointy. Now select the releflect tool and reposition the registration point that appears on the left edge. Now, while pressing option/ alt click and drag towards the left, adjust with the move tool if needed, then use the pathfinder to unite these shapes. Play around with the pathfinder until you have a desireable leaf shape. 48

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repeating pattern

06

TIP: Color If you keep the swatches panel close to whatever artwork you want to color and ensure the fill is active, you can drag and drop color onto the closed paths’s fills.

Art Brush

Now to make a cool leaf/ flower brush,select either graphic and drag and drop it into the brushes panel, an option box will pop up. Select art brush and specify the above deails.

07

Draw On

Select the Brush tool and select either the Flower or Leaf and paint, notice how they follow the shape of the drawn path.

08

New PS Doc

Now its off to Photoshop. Document size can be any size just ensure that it is a square shape. .psd Photoshop

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creative class

09

Compose

When composing the pattern within Photoshop try to design with a heirarchy in mind it will make the end pattern look better, also ensure to not touch the edges or corners of the document or else it will not repeat. A way to compose is via the Free Transform tool [cmd/ctrl T].

10

Offset=Repeat

Group all the graphics [Cmd/ Ctrl G] and Merge [Cmd/Ctrl E] and apply the Offset filter under Other.

11

Toggle to Corners

Toggle the settings of the offset filter until you get the graphics to cover the corners of the document. The offset filter is key to a seamless repeating pattern, as it cuts out one edge and re-appears on the opposite edge. 50

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repeating pattern

12

Fill and Repeat

Fill in the rest of the white and space and repeat Steps 11-12 until desired design is achieved.

13

Define Pattern

Merge the the pattern design in one layer exculding the background. Select the merged layer and define the pattern via the Edit Menu, name the pattern.

14

Apply the Pattern

Make a new layer and fill it with any solid colour. Double click on this layer apply a pattern overlay and select the pattern you have just made. Play around with the scale slider and see how it seamlessly repeats. by Zena Santos .psd Photoshop

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Tree House We always dream about seeing the beauty of nature, so I always visit various galleries from great artists and photographers on the internet. I’m always inspired by their artwork, so I decided to make a manipulation of a beautiful landscape. In this tutorial, you will learn to make your photo manipulation look like one natural photograph. The important thing is to keep on practicing to enhance your skills as an artist. beginer | 15-30 min. adobe photoshop CS3

tree house

Source Files

01

Step 1

Step 2

Open the Tree/Field stock image in Photoshop (This will be your base). After that, open the Sky stock image and drag it to the base using the Move Tool or press [V]. Adjust the size of your base image to 1600x1200 or whatever size you want for your image. To adjust it, click Image, then change the width to 1600 and the height to 1200.

Align the images between the field and the trees. Change the layer of the Sky stock image from Normal to Darken. I used 100% for the Opacity and Fill levels. If you want to make it a little bit lighter, you can adjust it to a setting between 95-98% opacity. Erase the excess sky on the trees using the Eraser Tool (Press [E]).

02

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creative class

03

Step 4

Step 3

For the final step, use Actions to make the colors of the tree, field, and sky more even. You can download Photoshop Actions from the internet. I always use Photoshop Actions on my images because it really helps my photographs become more colorful. You can also adjust the color of your images by changing them in Color Balance [Ctrl]+[B].

Open the stock image of the dandelion field and press [E] to erase the tree, mountain, and sky. Drag it to the base using the Move Tool. Align it between the trees and the field. If there is still excess, erase the top of the field to make it more natural like a single photograph.

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by Katrina Gonzales

.psd Photoshop

Mystic Harbor

I chose this tutorial because often times some tutorials in magazines are a bit difficult for newbies. I wanted to offer something that Anyone could do – even my eight year old son. It's important to feel successful at something when learning and I hope this tutorial will give you that. Expect to try a few times until you're happy with it. Don't stress – just create and remember to have fun. The most important thing I tell people is learn to train your eye. Read art magazines – look at a lot of paintings – why? Because this will help train your eyes in color and placement – depth of field, and so much more. I hope you enjoy this one.

beginer | 2 h. adobe photoshop CS4 | cintiq wacom tablet

photomanipulation

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Source Files

Step 1

Background picture from fotolia – as your main layer. Pick something that has good resolution and depth. I love ocean settings so this one suited me nicely.

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Step 2

Duplicate Layer and make color balance adjustment to your liking. Play with the settings until you have the warmth and tones you like. I wanted something here that was warm – yet at the same time, had a cooler mysterious feeling to it. The color balance is just the tool to help me with that effect. Be careful not to overdo it – slight adjustments for this kind of thing is usually all you need.

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Step 3

Add Curves Adjustment Layer to add more drama to the picture (darken tones and bring out sky). Bring down the S curve to add darkness – you can see how immediately this will add a lot of great contrast and give you some very dramatic effects with the sky. One of my favorite tools! 58

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mystic harbor

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Step 4

Add Boat Layer (mask out or erase – whichever you prefer) bottom half of pic so that the boats mesh with the underlying layer. I would recommend masking if you're a newbie – add layer mask, reveal all. And with a low opacity black brush start masking out those areas of the boat picture that don't work for the scene. Like the brush in front....remember though, you can leave a slight trace, if you do it correctly – then it can add an almost kind of texture to your image as you see here in mine. Just a little though because this is not really considered a textured art piece.

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Step 5

Add Cloud Pic – Gaussian Blur until well blended and then set to soft light. I usually Guassian blur something like this to the max it wil go and then move it around to give it the right tone, contrast and light effects. See what works for you – you might not want to Guassian Blur as much. Start with a low number and move up to see the different effects it can give.

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Step 6

Add Color Balance Adjustment Layer – we want to play with some more tones here. I wanted even more color so I added this adjustment. If I'm happy with it but still not perfect, I leave it alone here and move on to another color adjustment – to make sure I don't lose the progress I've made. When you find you are at a good spot with color – STOP – and go to another adjustment to continue on. This way you insure you won't lose permanently the color choices you've made and are happy with. .psd Photoshop

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Step 7

Add yet another Color Balance Adjustment Layer – final one. A tweak here and a tweak there and I'm satisfied. If there are parts of the adjusment you don't like, remember – you can use a low opacity black brush and take those areas out with masking. This is always reversible by painting over it in white....remember?

08 Step 8

Add Curves Adjustment Layer (Hide All) and bring out with white brush, low opacity, those areas where you want there to be more light cast. Go easy here but if you feel still not enough light = then up the opacity of the brush and go with a larger soft edged brush. See if that brings out more of the sky for you. The hide all feature is such a great way to add things with adjustment masks – color, light, everything.... This is a very simple manip – and i hope it helps you to learn a few new techniques. by Claudia McKinney

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secret place

Secret

Source Files

Place

Usually I get inspired from my own feelings, for example, my dreams, memories, or when I’m missing somebody. My favourite work, Secret Place, was one piece that came from my own experiences. I have spent a lot of time on swings with my best friend Rose and have been swinging on my own, lonely, since losing her. I decided to make a piece of art featuring swings with solitude as the theme, since that’s also my favourite subject. An important thing for me while I’m creating art is to show deep emotion and make the image realistic-looking. I must say, it’s hard to create a melancholic atmosphere. I find that atmosphere, well-shown feelings, and great colours are the most important things in art. 1.Choice of Stock

We have to look for stock that is easy to cut and manipulate with good contrast and lighting. I know it’s hard to find the perfect one but it’s also a funny process because some stocks can inspire you even further. Secret Place is about a lonely girl who is doing what she likes: swinging. To portray sadness, I was looking not for the swing, but for a model who had a sad face. It’s not hard to find perfect stock images when you know the exact type of stock you need. The girl for this piece had to be lonely, sad, and abandoned. To portray loneliness, I decided to look for a deep forest because forests have something magical about them and there’s a great sense of silence to them, so you can relax and think about several things while you’re alone. I thought that pairing the swing and the sad girl together with a forest would look wonderful. I’ve picked these images to use:

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2.Making a New Document

I prefer to work on a 1300px x 2000 px canvas because when you finish your work and resize it to something smaller, your small mistakes will disappear because the image will lose some quality as it shrinks. After making new document and opening all the stock images you’ll need, move them to your canvas. To begin your first composition, lower the opacity level of your stock images and move them around and play with resizing options, rotation, and anything else you want to do. This process is something like sketching down our first ideas as we put together our concept. At first, change the opacity of the stock image featuring grass and flowers to about 30-40% and move it to the bottom of your layers panel. Now we have an idea of where we’re going, a bit of composition:

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3.Blending

Manipulating and blending images together is the thing I like the most. Whenever I need to cut out and blend stock images, it’s a challenge for me. I get more experience whenever I blend. I always have to think about ways to cut the images or come up with ideas for how to blend or hide something.To blend images together, I usually use masks. I find masks to be very comfortable tools. It’s easy to edit our blending: we can change anything whenever we want. It’s not like the Eraser Tool when you want to change something after two hours of work; it’s almost impossible to do quickly. Make a new mask with your grass stock. There’s a button at the bottom of the layer panel (You can also go to Layer>Enable Layer Mask. A small white rectangle will appear on your stock layer; press it.To blend large images, I usually pick a large soft brush (Hardness set to 0% and 300px) and set it to black. Next, paint over your grass stock. As you do, you should notice that the black brush is working as an eraser. If you would like to change something (For example, blending), change the colour to white. Now, hide the unnecessary area of grass, like this:

Set the opacity of this layer to 40% and hide the grass from the girl’s body and the swing. Change your brush to about 15px and the hardness to about 75%. Zoom in at least 300% and start blending carefully. It can take some time, but the model need to be perfectly cut out. When you’re done, set the opacity back to 100% and look for mistakes, then fix them with the white colour.

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4.Blending the Forest

Now it’s time to manipulate and blend our beautiful forest. At first, we have to move, transform, or resize the forest to see what will look best with the other stock images. Open your forest image and move it onto the canvas. I resized and moved mine around until it was the way I wanted it. At this time, we must repeat Step 3. We must blend the forest and girl together. Create a layer mask and set the opacity to 40% on the forest layer. Start blending with the black brush (hardness: 75%). Do not blend the chain; we’ll do that later. Blending images together isn’t a very nice experience unless you know how to blend them well.When we are done, duplicate the layer to be safe and hide it (click on the eye next to your layer’s name).

Take a large soft brush (Hardness: 0%, 350px) and start blending the forest with the grass. The result must be soft. Here we can see that the image doesn’t look that good. We need do something with these areas: [Img9.jpg]. I think the best way to make it better is to use the Stamp Tool. I copied fragments of grass stock. Take the Stamp Tool and click on the grass layer, copy some grass, and fill in your holes until it looks something like this:

5.Setting the Colour of the Forest

It’s hard to chose the correct colour for your artwork because there are so many sets of colours. I wanted to make this scene magical and was wondering whether to use blue, orange, or green. Finally, I decided to pick a sharp, warm shade of green, which, I think, turned out to be a good idea. The green colour is nice on the eyes and can help the viewer relax. As you know, we can change our image colour in different ways depending on what result we want to achieve. Doing this piece, I used several Variations because this tool is easy to use and you can see the final effect immediately. Before each step, I usually duplicate the layer and hide it so I can go back to it later. By doing this, whenever you want to go back to your original image/layer, you’ll always be able to. To use Variations, go to Image>Adjustments>Variations. In these small thumbnails, you can see your layer in various different colours. Now, click on the yellow colour three times. Go back to your Blend Modes and choose Gradient. I pick out a warm yellow (#e6cb6c). Set your gradient to Line, scale it to about 108% with a 90° angle. Set this layer to Blend Mode>Colour and change the opacity to 50%. As you can see, the forest and the grass have the same tones now. Setting the same colours and tones to your images is another form of blending. .psd Photoshop

secret place 6.Blending the Chain

I think this is the hardest step of all. You need a lot of time and patience to blend this chain well. Of course, you can also download chain brushes from somewhere or stamp in parts of the chain. I like experimenting and getting more experience, so I did it manually, without using brushes or the Stamp Tool. It took a long time, but now it looks great. Turn on your forest layer, set the opacity to 40%, and click on mask. Choose a black brush with a hardness of about 80%, sized at 4-5px. Now you have to be careful. Start blending the chain; if you have a tablet, the process will be faster. I know it’s hard, boring, precise work, but by doing it this way, the final effect will look more natural than, for example, using a chain brush. When finished, zoom in about 200% and look for mistakes, then zoom out to 100% and see if it looks good. If so, move on to the next step.

8.Making the Model Better

I was thinking about what I should change with my model. I thought that longer hair would look better; personally, I like long, dark hair. Next, I wondered how to add some hair: Should I should paint the strands or use brushes? I decided to look for a good pack of hair brushes. It wasn’t hard to find; there are so many types of brushes to choose from. Now that we have our brushes, make a new layer titled Hair and load the hair brushes from our stock pack. Set theforeground colour of your brush to light brown and the background to dark brown, then brush some hair onto your layer and switch colours, making something like layers. By doing it this way, our hair will look more natural because it’s normal to have highlights. When you’re done, take a soft eraser and delete some parts of hair to create a soft blend between her original hair and the brushes. Set the opacity to 50% and delete the hair from her face, then go back to 100% opacity. Now you can see that her face and the top of her head are a little grey/white. Make a new layer, then choose a soft brush and warm brown colour. Personally I used #866b3b. Brush her face, then go to Blend Mode and set the layer to Soft Light. Next, make another new layer and pick #583e10, then paint the top of her head, set the layer’s Blend Mode to Multiply, and give it an opacity of about 40-50%, whatever you like.

7.Lights and Shadows

Well-done lights and shadows are the most important things in art. If you want to make artwork look realistic, you have to set these correctly. Light should be in the middle of the work so our eye will keep looking at the piece longer because it will be more interesting. Look at the forest stock. There’s really strong light already. Let’s use that light and make it more powerful. Everything I do goes onto a new, titled layer. I like having everything in order. Set your brush colour to white and load some light/rays brushes from the stock pack. Look for one good brush. I used this one, but light from the top of forest should have a different angle. Go to Edit>Transform>Horizontal and resize its height. Some of this ray should be on the head of the girl as well. After that, go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and set the radius to about 3px (Before, it was too strong and sharp). Now, go back to your swing and model layerand duplicate it [Ctrl]+[J], then choose the Dodge Tool. Set the Dodge Tool to fight shadows and exposure at about 20-30% and start making model lighter, such as I did on image below. Set the burn tool exposure to 20% and make little shadows on her stomach, near her knees, and onher face. With lights and shadows, this image looks much better.

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Information and Credits for stock used: • • • • •

Swing & Model by dazzle-stock http://dazzlestock.deviantart.com/art/Depressed-95857052 Forest by umbradenoapte-stock http://umbradenoaptestock.deviantart.com/art/Stock-10-80055109 Nature Pack by resurgere http:// resurgere.deviantart.com/art/Package-Nature-2-8563778 Hair Brushes by falln-stock http://fallnstock.deviantart.com/art/Hair-Brushes-Set-6-92731728 Light Brushes by redheadstock http://redheadstock.devia ntart.com/art/Light-Beams-Rays-Brushes-72493128

9.Final Colours and Editing

Finally we have a perfect scene. Everything is blended correctly, so we are almost done. Let’s make our image more colorful. Colour is the second-most important thing when we are creating art because we have to decide which one and what tone, then choose blending options, etc. As I said before, I decided to make this piece a lively green. It should make our work seem magical and mysterious. Go to Blending Options and click Color Overlay. Look for a warm yellow color again (#d8c43a), then press ok. Set the Blend Mode to Soft Light and the opacity to 50%. Now our picture is warm and easy on the eyes. We can see that the forest is more yellow and the grass is greener. To fix this, go to Blending Mode again and choose Gradient. Using the same colour, set the Blend Mode to colour and the opacity to about 50%. Go again to Blending Mode and choose Selective Colour. At the top, you can see the names of various colours such as green, yellow, white, etc. We want our picture to be more yellow and less green. Click Green and make it more Yellow (65%), then set the Cyan to 55%. I won’t detail all the settings I used; you have to try them out on your own. Choose the colours you like the best, be a little self-dependent. Do several experiments with this tool because Selective Colour is a really interesting and helpful tool whenever you need to change your colours. Finally, one thing I don’t like is this strong light, so let’s change it. Make a new layer and take a hard brush and. Copy the color from the top of your forest and paint something like this:

Next, go to Blur Gaussian Blur and set the Radius to about 95px. Set your opacity to 45-50%. I think it looks better now. If you want, you can crop this image and make it smaller. Personally, I usually crop and resize to reduce the size of my artwork once I’m finished everything else. by Aleksandra Gładykowska

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Masquerade

Masquerade... the wonderful and merry stranger in a mask... I used rich colours for this picture. Spared the special attention to the shallow details on clothes. medium | 4 days adobe photoshop | wacom intuos 3

masquerade

Source Files

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Step 1

First ,I made a photo of the girl , specially for this idea. Also has cleaned a background.

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Step 2

On new layers has added a mask and a red curtain. On a curtain I have made light and a shadow. For this purpose I used Toolbox Photoshop : Burn Tool and Dodge Tool.

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Step 3

We clean on a photo some fragments of a black dress ( erase shoulder straps of a dress). For this purpose it is necessary to use the Toolbox : Clone Stamp. Then using the Dodge tool, we do patches of light on a body. Then, on a tablet I have drawn the sketch of a dress and a contour of hair. .psd Photoshop

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digital painting

04

Step 4

I have drawn hair on a tablet. I drew on several layers, used a soft brush of a different transparency. First drew dark sites of hair. Hair should be different shades that the volume has turned out. The ends of a hair to wash away the tool: Blur Tool.

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Step 5

When hair will be ready, it is necessary to make a shadow on a mask(Burn Tool), on each side. And to wash away edges of a mask (Blur Tool). Dress completely to paint over red color. And I have improved color of a body, have drawn an easy make-up.

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Step 6

On a dress we draw light and shadows. For this purpose I used Toolbox Photoshop : Burn Tool and Dodge Tool. 70

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masquerade

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Step 7

On new layers we draw an ornament on a dress and curtains. The layer with the Ornament of a dress should be slightly transparent (50-70 %). In a shadow the Ornament should be more dark, and on light surfaces - should be more light.

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Step 8

Background completely we paint in green color. To make effect of light, the left edge of a wall is done light, and right (behind a curtain) is done more darkly. For this purpose I used Toolbox Photoshop : Burn Tool and Dodge Tool. Then, by means of the Blur Tool (50%), it is necessary to wash away edges of a dress, a body, a curtain.

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Step 9

From above a background, on a new layer to add an ornament of a wall. This layer should be transparent (30-50 %). On a tablet I draw fine details on a mask and shine of stones. The picture is ready! by Alena Lazareva .psd Photoshop

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Waters of Time A speed-painting is a rough concept that allows you to get several ideas out in front of a client in a short amount of time. They can be as simple as a five minute sketch to something more difficult such as a four-plus hour detailed painting that conveys an idea and/or mood within seconds of looking at it. When you’re on a tight schedule, it makes sense to not waste a lot of time working on one painting that may never actually be approved. A concept artist will usually create several variations of an idea in that same amount of time through speed-painting. This particular step-by-step process is just one of the many ways in which I work on a painting. How I work usually depends on what I’m trying to accomplish, so if the painting is supposed to be a final concept for a client, I’ll usually work on several layers at once and pull out all the little tricks I know to get it done. For this painting, I just wanted to do something that was quick and relatively simple to a beginner’s eyes so for the most part, I’ve kept things on just one layer and haven’t utilized too many of the various functions of Photoshop.

medium | 3 h. photoshop CS3

waters of time

01

Step 1

I open up a blank canvas in Photoshop set at 3000 x 1280 at 300dpi and, as quickly as possible, I cover the white by making broad marks of color across it with a standard round brush and a chalk brush (both of which come with Photoshop). I’m not actually painting anything yet. I just want to get rid of the blank canvas and create some mood – a mood that should continue throughout the painting. I do have an idea of what I want to paint at this point, but it’s still a good (and fun) process to follow as the random brushstrokes can lead to ideas and take your work in a direction you previously may not have considered. In my head, I want to do a classic ‘epic’ landscape image, something you might see in a video game or film where the camera pans back and you see the main character in a huge world full of potential and wonder. I want people to be able to hear the music of the scene when they see this painting and inspire them, which is an important part of what Concept Design is.

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Step 2

I keep the canvas zoomed out so I can see everything. At this point, I don’t want to get slowed down with details. I make some broad marks to represent a waterfall flowing out of a canyon. I try to keep the colors and general mood of the painting cool at this point, especially in the shadows, as I know I want the sunlight I’ll be adding later on to be warm. Warm light always creates cool shadows and vice versa.

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Step 3

Keeping the canvas zoomed out, I start to clean up and define the areas of interest in the painting. I add a horizon line high on the canvas to emphasize the vastness of this environment. Most of my attention is focused on the waterfall as I plan to make it the ‘star’ of the painting. I make my brush slightly smaller but still refrain from zooming in and over-detailing too early. .psd Photoshop

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speed painting

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Step 4

I switch over to a smaller detail brush and start to work on my edges, again focusing most of my attention around the waterfall to lead the viewer’s eye there. I quickly rough-sketch some small trees, etc. onto the island at the base of the waterfall as it was looking a little desolate.

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Step 5

This step isn’t too different from the last one. I continue adding more details like trees, etc. to give the environment more life. I change to the Dodge and Burn tools found in the Photoshop Toolbox and use them with a very low opacity to darken the shadows of the canyon and brighten the waterfall to really make it pop off the page (screen).

06 Step 6

I add a Color Balance Adjustment layer and play around with the overall mood of the painting. I like the bright fantasy look for this particular image, so I really play that up. It’s at this point that I also start getting a little closer into my painting and begin focusing on the small details. Again, most of my work is being done around the waterfall. I add some bouncing light from the water to the inside of the canyon wall. At this point, I leave the painting alone for a couple of hours. It’s always good to give yourself a break near the end of a painting so that you can come back and look at it with fresh eyes. Usually with speed-painting you don’t have this luxury, but I wanted to give this piece a more finalized look for the magazine. 74

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waters of time

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Step 7

I come back to the painting and flip it over a few times (another trick for looking at a painting with fresh eyes and also useful for ironing out any perspective/anatomy issues). The painting seemed a little boring with nothing in the foreground of the image and there wasn’t much that really sold the sense of scale that I wanted to create. I quickly paint in a simple foreground element of a man standing on an adjacent mountain, paying attention to my value scale (darker for elements closer to the viewer and lighter as you get to the horizon). Adding a figure immediately scales an image as we all understand what size a person should be. It also pulls the viewer into the piece as a humanoid figure is something we can relate to in an otherwise extraordinary world. I also paint in a couple of weird flying creatures with human riders; this helps us understand the vast distance between the human figure and the waterfall more easily.

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Finishing touches

To finish the painting, I mess around with the contrast and brightness to really bring the image to life. I add some photographs of rock textures onto a Soft Light layer over the canyon walls to give them some more detail and make them more interesting. Lastly, I flip the image one last time and decide that it works better with the waterfall as the focal point on the right-hand side. In total, this piece took me about three hours. by Travis Wright

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tools of the trade: paintbrush

Tools of the Trade:

Paintbrush It’s easy to create dramatic lighting and shading in a picture, all it takes is a little time and some basic knowledge of light. In this tutorial you’ll learn a few tips about shading to get that effect you want and see that it’s not so hard after all.

01

Lineart and Base Colour

You can start with either a scanned sketch, or with a freehand sketch done on photoshop. I used a scanned in image and gave it a slightly feathered outline. The first thing we do is fill in the main bulk of the colour with a flat background tone. For this you can use a big fat brush.

Shading Tips When shading material or anything I want to give a high amount of shadow to, I like to remember that: 1) Directly beside an area of high light will always be an area of deep shadow, this way you make both light and dark stand out and show the extreme difference. It also gives a nice, almost “shiny” effect.

Tip Don’t be afraid to use layers, actually it’s encouraged, that way you won’t run the risk of going over colours. Just remember which layer you put everything on and name it!

2) If the light is a little behind the subject, remember that some light will pass around it, so remember to leave a small “Channel” of light right near the outline.

02 Shading in the detail

To add the shading I usually like to use a softer brush, just so I don’t get the jagged straight line. I made a preset which also varies the thickness of the brush and opacity too. I find it helps when I want to blend colours. When it comes down to the actual shading technique it is important to remember where you want your shadow and where you want your light. Work slowly and layer up different values of the same colour. On top of your light base tone, choose a darker value of the same colour and add it in the area of shadow. I would advise using a relatively dark background when shading light areas. Once you’re happy, choose an even darker value and shade that in a smaller area of the shadow, in this case, the closest section near the material crease will be a wee bit darker. Finally, choose a value very close to black, and use it sparingly on a very low opacity and just keep layering it. .psd Photoshop

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digital painting Tip

03

Remember that objects closer to the light source will cast darker shadows, while those further will have lighter shadows.

Lighting

bChoose the colour you want in the background and Foreground boxes and use the Gradient tool. Set this to a Radial gradient so you get a circle of light. Place this in the upper corner, or anywhere you want. For the purpose of this picture I wanted dramatic lighting at the top of the paintbrush. Next I used the Layer mask option over the gradient layer. I did this because it meant if I made a mistake I could easily fix it without having to re-do the gradient again. The purpose of this is to erase parts of the gradient, to make it look as if the paintbrush is actually Within the light itself, remember that light is not a flat thing, it’s actually very 3 dimensional. Using the colour black and your paintbrush, just erase away long thin Shadow beams behind the object closest to the light source.

Tip When an object casts a shadow and the light source is slightly above and to the back, then the shadow will always be narrower closest to the base of the object and expand outwards.

04

Don’t leave it floating

Finally we have to bring everything to earth, as you can see, the character is floating in an endless black void, we don’t want that, it’s time to create a ground. For filling in large areas I used a big fat fuzzy brush with a very low opacity so I can fade it out and add more colour where I want. Here I used a reddish orange for the light shining on the ground. Remember, once you’re happy filling in the small patch where the light shines, there is going to be a shadow.For this just used the eraser tool, set it to a relatively hard brush and just methodically erase where the shadows would be, remember, that the ground is flat, if the light is slightly above and behind, then the shadow will come out at an angle.

05

Finishing Touches

To make the light a lot more vibrant, Duplicate the layer, put it on top and set it to Overlay The finishing touches were to create a layer right on top of all the others and create another radial gradient, this time with the yellow and a transparent other colour. Again erase some Shadow beams making these lighter and thicker in comparison to the first ones we made in step b) of Lighting. by Rasha Al-Najjar 78

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self exposure

A Siren is Born – Rachel Stephens It started simply enough – a woman with a photography hobby and a sincere love for women and self-empowerment. But it quickly became much more. Rachel Stephens is not only a hobbyist-turned-professional photographer. She has been called therapist, miracle worker, philanthropist. Rachel doesn’t just take photographs, she changes lives.

W

ho remembers Glamour Shots? Remember? The mall chain that would throw you in a feather boa, put on the heaviest of stage make-up and snap photos of you in front of a school picture background? And despite its cheesiness factor, women ate it up! They LOVED it! It gave the everyday soccer mom (who only donned makeup and dresses for special occasions and holidays) an opportunity to feel beautiful and special and sexy. To feel glamorous. Rachel is not Glamour Shots - not even close, she has taken it to a whole new level. What she offers her clients is a modern, elegant and high-end experience that is nurturing, non-judgmental and fun. I have a natural sisterhood with women and I found a way to use that to help women feel beautiful and special, Rachel says, eyes sparkling and full of inspiration. As we get older and busier,

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after children and marriage, we sometimes lose those beautiful and special feelings. By giving women a chance to see themselves professionally processed, I give them a chance to embrace themselves in their own skin. Rachel is primarily known for her Sirens work. Sirens (branded after the strong, beautiful and playful screen sirens of the ‘40’s and ‘50’s) is the trademark for her breathtaking series of photography for women. Rachel travels the country with her trusted and equally talented makeup artist Catherine Crump seeing up to 50 clients per month. Rachel Stephens started shooting Sirens when she lived in Los Angeles, CA in early 2004. She had an idea – a vision – of transforming everyday women into sirens. She started simply by shooting her

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a siren is born

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friends in the living room of her 2-bedroom condo. She even did all the hair and makeup herself, working for trade, building her portfolio and honing her craft. Her friends would get a cd of digital images that she had taken and Photoshopped with the request that if they used the images for anything (i.e. friendster profile pictures, etc) that she would receive a photo credit. It was then, faced with long lists of retouching requests from her subjects, that she realized how integral knowing Photoshop was going to be. Being a single mother, finding the time or funds to go to school was not an option available to her so she scoured the internet for all of the information she could find. Soon enough she was being contacted by strangers, by friends of friends and they then talked to other friends and before she knew it – she was booking sessions and finally get paid for her hard work. I was teaching myself everything I could about photography, lighting, digital imaging, makeup, styling, posing, posing direction and, most importantly, retouching in Photoshop, reminisces Rachel. The old Hollywood glamour look just came naturally to me and is still a staple of my work. It was then that she decided that her art needed to be seen. In Hollywood there is a large movie theater called the Arclight. Home to many movie premieres, the Arclight also boasts two art galleries in their high-traffic areas. Rachel felt that this would be a great venue for her very first gallery show. She contacted the manager of the theater and made an appointment to show him her work. At this time, Rachel didn’t even have a look-book nor a portfolio. She scrambled to assemble some of her favorite and strongest images, put together a portfolio and (very nervously) made her way to the theater not knowing what to expect. After showing her book and meeting with the manager for all of 15 minutes, her show was booked. She had booked her very first gallery show! Rachel was ecstatic! It didn’t hit me until I was in the parking lot after I left the meeting. I was going to have my own show. My art. It was incredibly uplifting to go from taking pictures of girls in my garage, not really knowing if

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.psd Photoshop

a siren is born

I was doing it right, to the curator of an art gallery booking my work in his venue. I was going to be hanging my art on the walls of a space that boasted 40,000 people per week through their halls, Rachel laughs, My show was up for eight weeks and I was told it was the longest-running show ever at the Arclight. I used to pay for a movie ticket just so I could go sit in the hall and watch people look at my ‘before and after makeover portraiture’ exhibit. They would look at the ‘before’ pictures, then at the ‘after’ pictures, back to the ‘before’ picture and I would relish in their comments made to one another or the long sighs as if what they saw was romantic. It was pretty amazing. Sirens was a hit – and Rachel was beginning to be recognized for the artist that she is. I had my pics done last night and I fell in love. With me… says client, Taryn. I felt so beautiful when I left the hotel. I felt special… something I haven’t felt in a long time. I felt that I was the absolute most gorgeous woman Rachel has ever photographed. Rachel made me feel this way. I never felt so included, safe and beautiful before. Rachel and Catherine felt like old friends to me. Sirens Tours hit a number of cities throughout the country each year – two cities per month (which means a total of 15 – 24 new Sirens each city). Rachel chooses her cities based on concentration of clients in the area, client requests, and personal preference - researching each city to find the ideal hotel that boasts the most unique, luxurious suites that will suit her needs (from both a visual and hospitality standpoint). Sirens clients are to show up alone – no husbands, boyfriends, friends allowed. This is a special time for just the client. It is an all-inclusive session - a Sirens client should expect to be enveloped

in warmth and love from the moment she arrives to the time that she departs. She will leave renewed with an almost-overwhelming sense of appreciation for being a woman, for being sexy and glamorous, for being herself. She will love herself for who she is – and she will love Rachel for helping to show her how beautiful she truly is. Rachel is reaching out with Sirens in a philanthropic way – offering a complimentary package, one per event, to a breast cancer survivor. Rachel knows the power of helping women who are struggling to see their own beauty – and how powerful a tool like a Sirens session and photograph can be. Images are an incredibly powerful thing. I have met women who have never felt sexy, have never felt glamorous, have never felt beautiful and I have changed that for them, Rachel says. I am always overwhelmed by the emotion that these women experience – they cry tears of disbelief, tears of joy. They laugh. They can’t breathe. It’s such a gift to see what I am able to help them see in themselves. I treasure it. Women contact Rachel every day to book sessions with the therapist, miracle worker, and philanthropist, and Rachel handles this privilege with honesty, love and respect. Remember, Rachel doesn’t just take photographs, she changes lives. And she wants to change the world. One Siren at a time. by Amanda K. Barnes

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Editor’s Choice Lina Eriksson

I’m a 22 year old from Sweden who loves to paint, especially when I started doing it on the computer. Messing with sticky oil colours has never been my thing. I’ve been painting more or less since I was 17 but it wasn’t until 3 years ago when I started to use the comp and corel painter to draw that I was hooked. So I am still quite a noob and learn new things everyday! When I’m not painting I study Digital Media Design at a university and I hope I can use my interest in a future occupation.

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Night Driver

self exposure

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love sci-fi literature and movies like Batman, XMen and film noir. Suddenly the opportunity arrived.The car in the scene I'd modelled for an advertising piece that was cancelled so I had the

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principal piece for it.The bridge-road, light poles and some buildings I had to model, some buildings I've downloaded from the internet.The Shaders of the car are from Jeff Patton's site and all the others are

.psd Photoshop

night driver

from the Arch&Models library.I did the ilumination with target lights uniform diffuse and Spotlights (light poles). I used mr Photographic Exposure Control and Final Gather in Mental Ray. The hue saturation, building's lights, clouds and fog were made in Photoshop CS3. I hope you enjoy the end result. by Jomar Machado http://www.jomarmachado.com http://machadoj.cgsociety.org/gallery/

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.Psd Photoshop Issue 02 - Feb 2010

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