Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 143 i Advanced Photoshop

Challenge entries The best entries and overall challenge winner 1 Hendrix Hawkins Still Happy At Any Time “I tried to create something as real as possible, but something that can put a smile on your face. I placed the shark beneath the waves and the two gamers in a boat each with juice drinks.” 2 Jeferson Silva Watching The Game “In this entry, the shark and a few fish are all watching the game. Adjustment layers were used to recolour the original pictures.” 3 Anita Elder Extreme Aquarium “Imagine you could climb into a glass room, inside an aquarium to become part of the exhibit.” 4 Sly Morozov Change Your World “I used all four pictures for this image. The idea is that when you immerse yourself in a passion,…

01 Import the render After working in 3ds Max to create the car model and render, we were ready to start work in Photoshop. The first step was to set up the file and separate each different element of the car using the render material mattes. 02 Add texture We then started to work up the rubber texture and add different photographic textures in order to enhance the age and wear of the car. We wanted to maintain a clean look, but the D-Type is still vintage. 03 Relight and enhance detail In a plain-body image such as this one, it’s all about the detail in order to create realism. Using the Normal pass we were able to tweak certain elements of the car and relight them in order to…

Essentials Works with What you’ll learn How to use layers, masks and Camera Raw to transform animal pictures Time taken 3 hours Expert Mark White “I had a lot of fun sharpening, dodging and burning to bring out this tiger’s best details. It looks great in a vibrant composition. The subject-enhancing techniques here apply to almost any animal. As senior staff writer on Photoshop Creative, I’ve learned all kinds of quick tips to help with even the most impressive-looking pictures.” When you visit the zoo, it doesn’t matter how good the photos you take are: animals always look more majestic in the wild. Photoshop at its very heart has always been software for improving your photos, but this is one of the most ambitious kinds of photo-editing projects you can…

The first step to conceptualising a new world is to break down the elements of the story that you or the client want to tell. This story is about a pair of adventurers in the Forties who begin investigating mysterious artefacts, and are ultimately drawn to the dark jungles in Mexico. Here they encounter a terrifying, tentacled creature and are forced to fight to survive. The trick to combining concept art and storytelling is to convey as much of this story through the characters and the environment design. For this tutorial you will be working towards a single polished image so it is important to establish a pivotal moment, which brings all of these elements together and spend time making sure each part is fleshed out enough that it feels…

First we had vinyl, but then along came cassettes, then CDs and most recently MP3s. Though technology is as ever-changing as our music tastes, there’s something classic about the old formats, and it’s still a great gift to create somebody a CD of all their favourite music, or even just make one for your car. You might like to get creative with your playlists, but why stop there? Creating the perfect cover sleeve and disc artwork can be just as fun, especially if there’s a theme to the music on the album. You might want to spoof famous album covers, include pictures of your friends, or simply add a great image for each of your compilation CDs so that you can keep track of them easily. When you have the…

GLUE TOGETHER Fold along where the edges meet, lightly glue over the flaps, in this case the grey areas, and stick behind the other sides. You might have a CD case ready to print onto, but it’s perfectly possible to print your CD case design onto paper, fold the paper and stick it together and form a paper case for your CD to slip into. This is a technique that you can use for a CD case that doesn’t have a spine; if you created one earlier, simply remove it from the design. 01 Rotate the cover Merge your layers in the CD case document. Select the right-hand side and rotate the image 90 degrees clockwise. Select the left-hand side and rotate 90 degrees in the opposite direction. 02 Print…

This tutorial concentrates on colour, painting, layers and using composition to produce an illustration that you can then use within your different projects at home or work. Draw your image on to paper using a pencil and scan it in to the computer as a PDF. This ensures a clear image, which uses the high-quality resolution of 300dpi. Alternatively, you can download and use our sketch from the FileSilo. It is easy to add a transparent layer and trace over the image with the Brush tool. Go to Layer>New Layer, set the Opacity to 100%, then draw on top of your scan using the Brush tool (B). You can use a quicker more efficient method by multiplying the layer and painting on a transparent layer underneath leaving a crisp black…

01 Sketchbooks Draw in a variety of sketchbooks to keep your work organised. Choose the cover for your sketchbooks and whether they require a passcode, and choose a paper type to draw onto. 02 Configuration When you click on a sketchbook to start editing in, you will have to set up your stylus. Click on Configuration and press the stylus into the centre of the target. This will connect the device and pen. 03 Writing posture You can alter the pen’s settings depending on whether you are right or left-handed and the angle with which you draw onto the surface of the iPad. Click on Writing Posture and choose your setting. 04 Pen styles There are various styles of brushstroke that you can experiment with within the app. Click on…

Sketching and pasting First create a rough sketch of what you want to create, perhaps even on your background image so that you have an idea of scale and size. Visually place the elements. Adding and blending Choose similar images to comp into your picture so they’ll look more natural. Here, the violins are part of a set of stock images, which work well with the snow. Lighting and shadow The most important part for realism: insert a light source in the sky and use some brushes set to Colour Dodge on the subject to create a backlight. Final adjustments Add Gaussian Blur progressively on the violins, giving the sensation of distance. Retouch and fix anything and add final details, like shadows, sunrays and falling snow.…

There’s nothing more inspiring than surfing the internet and seeing what other artists are creating, and we encourage you to do so. Here are some of our favourite pictures that caught our attention recently, from some of the world’s most exciting artists and designers. Amar Kakad www.behance.net/amarkakad “These cars were both stationary when they were shot, before they were retouched and then incorporated into a dramatic composition. This picture was originally created for an article on supercars.” Ollie Hooper www.olliehooper.com “Most of my illustrations start off as a quick sketch, usually ideas that’ll pop into my head throughout the day while at work. I use Cinema 4D for all my 3D modelling and Photoshop is used for 2D elements and colour correcting.” Spencer Watson www.spencerwatson.ca “This image is titled Audrey,…

Proving that one small idea can lead to big things, INK studio was initially formed to produce a single-motion graphics film by David Macey and Kamen Sirashki when they were made redundant in the recession of 2009. Working with just the last of their savings and a computer built by Sirashki himself, the duo created a successful animation. Fast forward to the present day and there are 10 permanent studio team members as well as a wide range of freelancers, producing live-action film, animation digital imagery, photography, print and interactive media. As well as working for a whole host of well-known clients, INK pursues notable, self-directed projects in order to keep it at the forefront of the industry. Most recently, it created a plain-body D-Type Jaguar to coincide with the…

Essentials Works with What you’ll learn How to use the Warp tool, clipping masks, light and shadow Time taken 6 hours Expert Rodrigo Marinelli “In all my images I love to work with bright colours. Here, I used Color Balance, Levels, Brightness and Contrast adjustment tools. “I’m an art director and have 10 years of experience in advertising agencies. I learned and am still learning to use Photoshop through following tutorials.” Photoshop 3D is a great way to add a new dimension to your composition. In this tutorial we’ll show you how to create and work in the 3D space and then bring in 2D elements to make an incredible surreal scene. To create a 3D object in Photoshop we need to work with three different palettes simultaneously: the Layers…

Essentials Works with What you’ll learn How to create 3D effects with layer styles, gradients and layer masks Time taken 2 hours Expert Sarah Cousens “I found that using photo filters and gradients with different blending modes really helped to achieve the bright and cheerful feel of this artwork. I am a freelance illustrator, designer and writer, and have been using Photoshop extensively since forming my own illustration and design company, Cool Surface, eight years ago.” Word-based art comes in many forms; from personalised text posters, or powerful inspirational quotes to impressive ASCII art. One way of transforming simple text into a work of art is to bring the word’s meaning to life. In this tutorial we’ll be taking the word ‘grow’ and embracing its definition to create a vibrant…

Claire Hummel (www.claire hummel.com) didn’t plan to work in the games industry. “I was planning on going into visual development for animation,” she explains, “but Microsoft swooped in and interviewed me right as I was graduating from RISD – they made a compelling enough offer that I switched tack and ended up working on Xbox titles for a solid six years.” It’s the first part of concept art that excites Hummel most: “What I love about concept art is that it’s not just about technical skills and polish; it’s about ideas, and being able to communicate visually with your audience. It’s a challenge to paint anything, honestly, but painting something that implies a larger context – whether it’s historical, cultural, personal or geological – is always a particularly enticing puzzle…

Essentials Time taken 3 hours Expert Alex Pushilin “w I’m a . freelance thepixelprositess game artist .com from @t Chelyabinsk i elprosites , Russia, and have used Blender and Photoshop for about four years since I changed my career from advertising to game art.” For more of Alex’s eye-catching work, head to www.be.net/plannit. Learn how to create a three-dimensional landscape scene in Blender, then take the 3D render into Photoshop to perfect it. If you’ve not used Blender before, it’s free to download and we’ll guide you on how to create the low-poly render. You can get the latest version of Blender on the official developer site, blender.org. But if you’d rather download our Photoshop-ready render from the FileSilo, you can start the tutorial at step 12. The low-poly style…

Album artwork can be an art form in itself. There are all kinds of iconic album sleeves and it can be fun to try and create your own, but every great album cover starts with a bright, striking base image. Elements offers great tools, such as shapes and gradients to help you build upon your base image; feel free to try out all kinds of styles and shapes until you’re happy with the final result. WHITE BORDERS The white borders on a CD case aren’t compulsory, but they do give the album cover a classic feel. Shortcut Hold the Shift key down to create perfect shapes 01 Set dimensions and guide Start off by creating a new document.CD cases are 13.5cm square, so make the height 13.5cm, and the length…

UNDER EYES Always try to soften the skin under the eyes to avoid any bumpiness or rough edges, and make your subject look younger. EYEBROWS Copy one of the eyebrows, flip horizontal and paste over the other one if the two look noticeably different on your subject. It’s no secret that we tend to only upload the most flattering photos of ourselves to social media. It’s extremely rare, if not impossible to take a perfect picture of somebody first time around, so naturally, most photos could do with a little bit of subtle editing. When people think of photo retouching, they tend to think of the extremes; Photoshop itself can sometimes be used as a negative word to describe overly retouched portraits. Though there are extraordinary examples of retouched photos…

Price £32.75 / $49 US Web www.akvis.com COLOUR OPTIONS Toggle between either vivid or black-and-white colour options for your drawing, and set a background of a particular colour. The specs Company AKVIS Additional specs Windows XP + Mac OS X 10.6 + Photoshop CS + Photoshop Elements compatible AKVIS Draw is a plug-in that acts rather similarly to a Photoshop filter from the Filter Gallery, only there are even more sliders to create something wildly different every time. Though its plug-ins are designed to feel like filters, AKVIS’s software is far more powerful. Draw looks and feels familiar as soon as you load it on your picture. The preview window is large enough to see the effects of your filter close up, and the sliders are located to the right,…

Jeferson Silva www.photoshopcreative. co.uk/user/jefferz Image of the issue “I tried to show my creativity and the love I have for nature in this picture. I wanted to portray India with this composition, but as I was creating, a kind of paradise came into my head.” Rabin Dhakal www.photoshopcreative.co.uk/user/rabind1 “I call this The Lime Surfer. It consists of six different images, which I combined in Photoshop CC 2015 to create this effect. The Warp and Transform tools were used, along with adjustments and a lens flare.” Edit Ballai www.photoshopcreative.co.uk/user/ editballai “This picture is about how we should respect nature. The photo of the hands was originally shot with a friend who modelled, then I added nature elements, including grass, trees and ivies.” Achraf Baznani www.photoshopcreative.co.uk/user/ abphotographe “This picture consists of the…

PAINTS AND MARKERS Grab a set of basic watercolour paints and a brush, plus some alcohol-based markers to give bright colours. PLASTIC WRAP You will need a roll of plastic wrap. If you don’t have any, you can draw or paint directly on the glass. GLASS SURFACE You are going to need a glass surface to work on. This will help to keep the plastic wrap flat as you work. Ever since the invention of digital photography, there has been a debate surrounding digital and film. When photography was first invented, it was very hands on. Developing, enlarging and editing film was a difficult and time-consuming process. But like many difficult things, it was very rewarding. Photographers were regarded as artists, for being able to manipulate the landscapes they saw…

Take a screengrab from any film, especially one of a fantastical nature and examine it; every object in that scene had to be researched and designed by a concept artist. Concept art is in many ways the ultimate fantasy for young, budding artists, a career in which you can design orcs and spaceships and brave adventurers all day and where reading and researching is as important as actually drawing. This feature focuses on that thought process and the techniques required to bring a fantastical world to life. In order to provide a fairly realistic impression of how a real job might play out, we have created a mini project brief to follow: these concepts will be created for a videogame in the action-adventure genre, something similar to the Uncharted series,…

THE RUINS Once the overall forms of the buildings have been blocked in, you can start to introduce design elements based on your reference photos. 3D REFERENCE The relatively complex shapes of the jeep are easy to sketch thanks to the 3D reference model, but this could also be achieved with photo references to save time. There are several ways to go about creating the concept illustration, and one of the most useful in production is to roughly model the environment in a 3D program then paint over it in Photoshop. This technique will enable you to change the concept on the fly if you need to, and one thing that all concept artists have to be aware of is that projects can change at the drop of a hat.…

With a substantial number of artists working on different parts of the film, Stu Ellis from Atomhawk (www.atomhawk.com) tackled Hawkeye’s farmhouse. He explains that even initial ideas “were executed to a relatively finished standard using Photoshop so we could show the production designer the ideas in as realistic a light as possible in the time frame we had.” But once his designs had been approved, the “palette sorted and everything set in place, I then add those finishing touches to an image to unify everything,” explains Ellis. “I’ll usually save out a new version of the image in case I need anything from the original. With my new image I flatten it so that everything I do affects the same layer. Here I’ll play about with the levels and curves…

GAUSSIAN BLUR You can apply a simple soft focus to any image and decide on how powerful it should be by altering the radius. When people think of the Blur filters in Photoshop and Elements, they think of smoothing, adding haziness and distorting your picture. However, the Blur filters should be used as a tool to add focus, rather than remove it, because if you can converge your blur to a specific area of your picture, you can bring out the detail in another area. The key to the Blur filters is to add them around subjects that need focus. By duplicating layers and masking out the excess, you can pinpoint your blur to a specific area. Most of the time in Photoshop, you might only use one or two…

With the basic CD case designed, it’s time to start creating the artwork for the actual disc. There’s not so much pressure for the design of your disc as it will be hidden behind the cover. You can choose to be as creative as you like, or just follow the basic template of your case; you might even want to consider creating a piece of art that will look good when it’s spinning in your CD player. USING THE TEMPLATE Adding your artwork to a disc template simply gives you an idea of where all the elements sit. You can hide these layers before you print. What does it mean? LAYER STYLES – Layer Styles are primarily used to make objects on your layers stand out above other objects. While…

In this straightforward tutorial you will explore a range of professional tools available in Photoshop Elements and transform an ordinary photo into a beautiful, surreal composition. You will be surprised at how much you can do with just a basic knowledge of the tools and lots of creativity. You’ll start by creating a gradient background and then apply different techniques, such as blend modes and filters, to create an interesting effect. You’ll learn how to use the Quick Selection tool and the Refine Edge command to create accurate selections and masks. We’ll also cover how to work with custom brushes and modify their settings to add bubbles and other great effects. Photoshop Elements has a very easy and intuitive interface, making it easier for beginners or enthusiastic artists to get…

Price £64.99/ $79.99 US Web www.wacom.com BUTTONS Use the buttons on the side of the stylus for quick access to the Undo or the Eraser tool, and change these within the Bamboo app. INTERCHANGEABLE NIB The stylus comes with a spare nib, of the same size and width, which can be swapped with the other one. The specs Company Wacom Additional specs 2048 levels of pen pressure Bluetooth 4.0 2.9mm nib There are those who dislike the idea of using a stylus with tablets and there are those who prefer to use a pen when using an iPad, for example. There’s no doubting that it can improve your sketching, and Wacom has developed a few of the leading tablet styluses of the last few years. As the tablet evolves and…