1. Open up this stock image, or some of your own.

2. Duplicate this layer. All work will be done on the copy (top layer). Ctrl + Shift + U to desaturate. 3. Images > Adjustments > Color Balance, here are the settings I used. They will need varied if you are using another image, but these worked well on mine.

4. Most Sepia conversion techniques stop at this point - But the image can look washed out. To add the depth back into the image, set the top layer's blend mode to Color and reduce opacity to 80%, again this will depend on your image. 5. Much better, isn't it? Here are the results, Top is the basic process, bottom includes the depth step.

See the difference yourself!

Abstract Business Card

Author: NuPixel More by this author Added: July 22, 2008 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

Step 1: Create a new document 250x124 Step 2: Make a new layer, now add random shapes filled with all kinds of shades from one color.

Step 3: Now, Filter>Blur>MotionBlur and set it too 200 then press enter Step 4: Duplicate the layer (Layer>Duplicate Layer)

Step 5: Edit>Transform>Flip Vertical Step 6: Create a new layer, and fill it with the main color. Mine was blue so I used '2323E8'. Step 7: Now set that layer mode too 'Soft Light'.

Step 8: Add some lighting effects and some text, maybe change the hue of it and now your done.

Create a Realistic Wood Texture in Photoshop

Author: My Ink Blog More by this author Added: July 14, 2008 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

In part I of my series on "creating awesome textures using filters in Photoshop" I showed you how to create a realistic water texture using only 2 filters. In part II of this series I will show you how to create a realistic wood texture. This tutorial uses a few more filters than the last and requires a bit more finessing, but I think the end result is awesome. Let's Get Started

1. The first three steps are the same as the water effect. First, create a new document in Photoshop, size it to 500px by 500px, click OK. 2. Set the Foreground color to white and the background color to black.

3. Go to the toolbar at the top and click filter->render->clouds. This will give us a nice base to work from. Another good part about this filter is that you get a different result every time you render the clouds, so if you don't like what you get the first time, just try it again.

4. Next up we need the direction of the black and white variances to be more vertical. A quick way to achieve this is with the motion blur filter. So click filter->blur->motion blur. Make sure the preview is checked on so you can see what your changes look like, and drag the distance all the way out to 999px and make sure the angle is vertical set to 90 degrees and click ok. You can play around with the distance slider, but after some experimenting I find this works the best. Also you can change the angle to suit your needs, but in this case I want the wood panels to look vertical.

5. Although we need some black and white variance, we don't want it so drastically different that our final result looks unrealistic. We can dull it out a little bit by changing the levels. Click image->adjustments>levels. Drag the middle slider for the midtones to the left a little until you get the variance you'd like.

6. OK, now it's time to experiment with some of the filters a little. Click filter->brush strokes>accented edges. Play around with the sliders, I set mine to: Edge Width 2, Edge Brightness 42, Smoothness 4. These are just tentative suggestions however, because your effect will be slightly different based on the clouds that were rendered. 7. Stay in the filter window and click on the new effect layer icon down in the bottom right. If you are familiar with layers then you should be real comfortable with effect layers. They work in much the same way, and you can play around with which layer goes on top of each other and toggle the "Eye" to hide/show the layer. 8. In the new effect layer you just created toggle open the artistic filters and click on "Dry Brush. Again play around with the sliders, I set mine to Brush Size 2, Brush Detail 9, Texture 2.

9. Lastly, within this filter window, we can add a little bit of texture using the film grain effect. Repeat the prior step to add a new effect layer. And within the Artistic filters that you already toggled open in the previous step click "Film Grain." We want just a subtle amount of noise so I just used 1 for grain and 0 for highlight area and intensity. Click OK.

10. It's beginning to look more like the grainy wood texture that were after so let's add some color into the image. Click image->adjustments->hue/saturation. Check the colorize and preview boxes and play with the sliders until you get the color you want. I set mine to a nice grayish brown with the following settings: Hue +40, Saturation 30, Brightness -26. Click OK.

11. This step is where we really make the wood effect come together. Click filter->liquify. This brings up the liquify window which is complete with preview of the image and a set of tools unique to this filter. The options are almost limitless in this menu. First off, grab the turbulence tool from the panel of tools along the left side. This acts much like a smudge brush, accept it really keeps a lot of the good details. You can vary the size by hitting the bracket keys ([,]) on the keyboard, just like you would a brush. Click and drag

upwards and downwards to warp the wood into a more realistic pattern. I try to even things out and make it look like grain patterns as best I can.

12. Within the same liquify window, select the "Twirl Tool." It's with this tool that you will attempt to make the knots in the wood. Again you can change the brush size by clicking the bracket keys, and I would suggest making the knots varying sizes. When you have a place that you think looks like it could use a knot, click the twirl tool brush and hold, as you do so the brush will begin to spin the pixels. Let go when you have a knot you like. If you don't like the look, click ctrl-z and try it again. Make a bunch of them in the wood and click OK.

That's pretty much it. Some other suggestions to improve upon the look would be to play with the levels again, depending upon if it needs more contrast, adding some noise, and playing with the hue/saturation levels again. This is my final product

Turn Everything To Gold

Author: Photoshop8x.com More by this author Added: July 01, 2008 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

Step 1: Create a new document & fill it with #000000. Go to Filter -> Noise -> Add Noise to make twinkling stars Set amount 14% and tick Gaussian and Monochromatic Go to Image -> Brightness/Contrast and set option:

Step 2: Open the picture below

Use any cutting tool to cut the tower out of background (in this tutorial I used Extract tool)

Step 3: Now we will use some techniques to turn the tower into gold Press Ctrl + B to open Color Balance, set something like this:

Press Ctrl+L to open Levels :

At this state, the result will look like this :

Repeating that step with 2 another images:

The result:

Step 4: Create a new layer then put it over layer background. Use this brush (download brush)

Apply those brushes to the picture and you will get the result like this:

Step 5: Use Custom Shape Tool to make a ribbon to hide lacunas at the bottom. You can add some other details to make your work looks better Here is my final result

Oil Painting And Collapse Text Effects

Author: Photoshop-Garden.com More by this author Added: July 01, 2008 Rating: Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

Create a new document (640x480). Then open this photo:

Use any cutting tool to cut the model out of background then drag to the document

Click to enlarge

Name the model layer is Ellen. Go to Filter > Artistic > Dry Brush, set options:

Duplicate Ellen twice then make them be black and white. Set the topmost layer to Overlay (opacity 83%) and the second layer to Linear Light (opacity 41%) This is what you will get:

Click to enlarge

Duplicate Ellen (main), put this new one under Ellen and move it to right. Name it is E-BG.

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Then fill it with #FFFFFF. Create a new layer and put it over E-BG. Choose Text Tool:

Click to enlarge

Copy any text paragraph that you like (I use Far Away From Home lyric in this case) then edit your character palette until you see it's ok.

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Right click on the text layer, click Rasterize Layer. Select E-BG. Go to Select > Load selection. Press Ctrl + Shift + I to choose the outside selection:

Click to enlarge

Click Layer Text then hit Delete. Now you get this:

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Duplicate layer Ellen main, put it under Ellen then fill it with #e0e0e0 to make shadow. Choose Text tool to write something you like, in this tutorial I wrote "Far Away From Home".

Click to enlarge

Right click and select Rasterize Layer Use Lasso Tool to get selection on each letter, then press Ctrl+J to to separate each letter from sentence

Press Ctrl + T to transform. Your result:

Continue to repeat this step with all remaining

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Now merge all the text layer together. Use Lasso Tool to make selection like this:

Click to enlarge

Then hit Delete. Decorate your text with blending option:

Continue to type more text to decorate your work. In this case, I use warp text

Click to enlarge

Remember to rasterize layer so as you can use Transform. This is my result:

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Now create a new layer over Ellen BG. Use this brush to fill on your work (Download brush)

Click to enlarge

Finally, you merge all layers together then open Hue/Saturation (Ctrl+U) to adjust the color of artwork Here is my final result:

Click to enlarge

Drawing Colorful Flowers

Author: Photoshop-Garden.com More by this author Added: July 01, 2008 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

Create a new document, fill background with black color Create a new layer, use Pen tool to make lines like the picture below:

Press Ctrl+Enter to make selection then fill it with white color Create a new layer, use Pen tool to make other lines, Ctrl+Enter to make selection then fill it with white color

Merge 2 layers then fill it with color #820000

Create a new layer, Ctrl+Click on petal layer to get selection Choose Gradient to and set properties like this:

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Apply gradient to selection to get the result like this:

Hit "M" key, use down arrow key to move the selection down 1px then hit Delete key, you will get:

Repeat above step (create new layer, ctrl+click to get selection, fill Gradient), keep selection and hit M key, move the selection like the picture below:

Hit Delete key, change blend mode to Overlay or Softlight, you will get:

Continue to repeat above steps, you will have:

Repeat 2 or 3 times with different distances Now you will use above steps to makeup for right part

Use Eraser tool to remove redundant parts on your document

It should now look like this

Merge all layers, duplicate petal layer then arrange petals like this

Continue merge 4 petal layers, duplicate this layer 2 times then arrange like this:

You can add some other details you like. Now you will adjust the color (Ctrl+U) and use some blend modes (Overlay or Softlight) to make some different results

These are my final results

Blend Techniques With Layer Mask

Author: Photoshop-Garden.com More by this author

Added: June 17, 2008 Rating:

Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

Open a new file (1024x768) and prepare 3 images like this (put each image on one layer):

Open layer mask on Layer Center (which content the center image) by clicking its symbol:

Choose Brush Tool, foreground color is #000000 and set option like this picture:

Come back to layer mask of layer "center", use brush to make the image come through like this picture below:

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Continue to do it until the image looks good:

Click to enlarge

Create Layer mask for the top layer (layer "Right"), use the same brushes to make it come through too. This is what you get:

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The Layers:

After using layer mask, choose Eraser Tool with brushes like this:

Choose the bottom layer, now use Eraser Tool to clear the border of image, this step will make it looks better:

Click to enlarge

Continue with its top & bottom, now you get this:

After this step, choose Layer Center

Clear the top & bottom:

You will get this:

Click to enlarge

Continue to clear with Layer Right, your result:

Click to enlarge

Merge 3 layers together and name it "main". Make it be into Black & White (Desaturate) by press Ctrl + Shift + U. Go to Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen to make it looks sharp. Go to Layer > Adjustment > Level (or press Ctrl + L), and set option like this picture:

Duplicate layer Main twice and put them below layer Main, set opacity 23%. Move 1 layer to left and the other to right. You will get this result:

Open this texture and drag it into your file. Put it on the top and move wherever you like:

Click to enlarge

Set texture into screen mode. Choose Elliptical marquee tool and set option:

Make a selection and erase unnecessary areas:

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Duplicate the texture, move & erase like the picture below:

Click to enlarge

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Duplicate texture last time and move it to the right side of image:

Click to enlarge

The Layers at this time:

Well, I think you've finished your work. If you wanna decorate more so you can put brushes, text... into it. This is the final result

Click to enlarge

Ancient Photo Effect

Author: Photoshop8x.com More by this author Added: June 11, 2008 Rating: Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

The first you open the picture below:

Click to enlarge

Press Ctrl+J to duplicate layer Go to Image -> Adjustments -> Brightness/Contrast and do as the picture below

You will get:

Press Ctrl+B to open Color Balance, set properties as the pictures below:

You will get the result:

On menu bar, you go to Layer -> New adjustment layer -> Gradient map, set properties like this:

Click Ok and you will see a Gradient map window appear Continue to click Ok

You will get:

Go to Filter -> Texture -> Grain

You will get:

Now you will remove the effects over the model, You click on "add layer mask" icon at the bottom of Layer Palette

Hit D key to reset the color of background and foreground to default (black and white) then you choose a soft brush You brush on the model to remove the effects over it And you will get the result:

You open this texture, apply to your picture, use Free Transform to make it fits your picture then change blend mode of texture layer to Multiply.

Continue to open this texture, resize it then put it on the right of picture, change blend mode to Multiply

Open the picture below, use Elliptical Marquee Tool to make a selection like this

Set Feather = 5px, put it on the left of your picture, set Blend mode: Multiply

Choose this brush (download brush)

Apply brush to your picture

Press Ctrl+Shift+E to merge all layers then go to Image -> Adjustment -> Photo Filter

And you will get the final result:

Click to enlarge

Cold and Warm Photo Effect

Author: Photoshop-Garden.com More by this author Added: June 11, 2008 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

Open the picture below

Use Marquee tool (M) to divide the picture into halves and paste each part into one layer Click on layer 1 then go to Image -> Adjustments -> Curves

Go to Image -> Adjustments -> Color Balance, set properties like this:

Go to Image -> Hue / Saturation

You will get the result:

Now we will do on remain layer, click on layer 2 then go to Image -> Adjustments -> Curves

Image -> Adjustments -> Color Balance

Image -> Adjustments -> Photo Filter

Image -> Adjustments -> Selective Color Option

You will get the result:

After adjusting the color of 2 layers, you press Shift + Ctrl + E to merge all layers Go to Filter -> Sharpen -> Sharpen Open this texture, move it to your document, put it over the picture then change blend mode to Overlay And this is my final result:

Another Dark Art Picture Style

Author: Photoshop-Garden.com More by this author Added: June 04, 2008 Rating: Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

These are the stocks needed for this tutorials, click here to download. The first you open this picture, press Ctrl+J to duplicate layer then change blend mode: Soft light

Cut the lady out of background (Feather=5)

Move the lady to the first picture, press Ctrl+B to open Color Balance, set information like this:

Press Ctrl+J to duplicate lady layer, blend mode: Screen and adjust Opacity of layer copy: 70%. You will get the result:

Open cloud stock, use Elliptical marquee tool to make selection like this (Feather=20)

Move selected part of cloud to background, use Free Transform (Ctrl+T) to make it fit in background, change blend mode: Screen

Duplicate cloud layer, use Free Transform (Ctrl+T) to reverse layer copy then move it to bottom of background

Get Moon from this stock, feather 10px:

Move moon layer to background and put it under cloud layer. Press Ctrl+B to open Color Balance and set information like this:

You will get:

Use Elliptical Marquee Tool to draw a lozenge then click Right mouse, choose Stroke: white, 1px

Duplicate lozenge layer to make another layer copy (about 5,6 layers) then sort them like this:

Merge all lozenge layers to one layer then open Layer Style, set information like this:

Go to Filter -> Radial Blur:

Duplicate one more layer to make the ribbon lighter, then continue merge them to one, change blend mode to Hard light, you will get:

Duplicate layer, use Free Transform to revolve lozenge like the picture below:

Put some birds over cloud and you will have:

Move "paper" stock to background then change Blend mode to Linear Burn:

Open Color Balance (Ctrl+B) of paper layer, set information like this:

And this is my final result:

Click to enlarge

Make Photos More Suggestive

Author: Photoshop-Garden.com More by this author Added: May 26, 2008 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

1. Open a picture you like to make effect, in this tutorial I used Nelly Fraud model photo Press Ctrl +J to duplicate layer Go to Filter ~> Brush strokes ~> Spatter (Radius = 10, Smoothness = 5), choose mode = Lighten Use Eraser tool (choose Soft brush) to remove spatters put on the picture

2. Create a new layer then go to Image ~> Apply Image ~> Ok Continue go to Filter ~> Blur ~> Motion Blur and adjust angle match with the sun light on the picture. Distance = 50 Set mode this layer: Lighten and continue erase parts put on the model

3. Create a new layer ~> Image ~> Apply Image ~> Ok Use white Brush soft, 65px, Opacity=50% brush a line on the model and change mode = Soft light.

4. Go to Layer ~> New adjustment layer ~> Gradient Map. And do as the picture below, then change mode = Multiply, Opacity=60%

5. Make again Step 1 but this time you adjust Opacity=60% Create a new layer and use Spazzsplatter brush to brush anywhere on the picture that you like Use pen tool to draw a curved line, your picture will be softer

6. Make again Step 4 but now Opacity=70% and mode = Normal Create a new layer Gradient Map like this:

Mode=Softlight, Opacity=40%

7. Create a new Gradient Map like this:

Mode=Softlight, Opacity=30%

Swirl Mania in Illustrator & Photoshop

Author: Abduzeedo More by this author Added: May 21, 2008 Rating: Level: Experienced Software:

There are lots of ways to create swirls in Illustrator, you can even download vectors from sites such as bittbox and dezignus, and if you are using Photoshop you can download brushes with those sorts of symbols. However in this tutorial I will show 4 ways to create swirls, and by mixing them you will learn some very powerful techniques that will allow you to easily make tons of different styles of swirls and crazy sperm vectors. 1st Way - Arc, Circle, and Path tool Select the Arc Tool and create an arc. You can change the arc's properties by holding the mouse button and pressing the UP and DOWN keys for the angle of the arc, SPACE to move it, and ALT to change the center point. Now create an ellipse using the Ellipse Tool (L). After you create the arc go to Object>Path>Outline Stroke. The stroke will be converted to a shape, the select the Direct Selection Tool(A).

2nd Way - Blend Tool(W) Create 2 circles, one will be the start and the other the end points of our swirl. Then select the Blend Tool (W) and click on the small circle and after that on the big circle. Double-click the Blend Tool icon to open the Blend Options, there you will be able to change the spacing of the elements and the orientation. Select Specified Distance and use 1pt, for the Orientation use Align to Path. The spine is the path along which the steps in a blended object are aligned. By default, the spine forms a straight line. To adjust the shape of the spine, drag the anchor points and path segments on the spine with the Direct Selection tool.

To replace the spine with a different path, draw an object to use as the new spine. Select the spine object and the blended object, and choose Object > Blend > Replace Spine. To reverse the order of a blend on its spine, select the blended object and choose Object > Blend > Reverse Spine. You can test different styles for the blend, like adding a dark stroke with some light color.

3rd Way - Spiral Tool Select the Spiral Tool and create a spiral, you can change the style of the spiral by holding the mouse button and some keys like CMD/CTRL, ALT, SPACE, UP, and Down. You can go to Object>Path>Offset Path and specify the offset to 3pt, you will create a uniform spiral. But if you want to make the start point smaller than the end or vice-versa, you can use the spiral as spine for a Blend.

4th Way - Twirl Tool

Create an ellipse with the Ellipse Tool, after that select the Twirl Tool and double click on the icon to open the Twirl Tool Options. Deselect the Simplify option and use 10 for detail. Then go with the center of the twirl tool over the edge of the circle and press and hold the mouse button to create a spiral.

Mixing Techniques Step 1 Create the first swirl using the first technique. Use a very long line with a circle at the end.

Step 2 Duplicate the swirls and resize it, repeat that to create another one, so you will have 3 swirls.

Step 3 Create a spiral applying the 3rd or 4th technique, actually you can do that with blends too.

Step 4 Create another swirl this time make the circle or much bigger.

Step 5

Duplicate the new swirl, resize and make it a bit smaller than the other like the image below.

Step 6 Duplicate again the swirl, now go to Object>Transform>Reflect. Change the color to yellow.

Step 7

Create a new spiral like the image below, then duplicate it again resize it like and place it above the other spiral.

Step 8 Keep adding swirls.

Step 9 Now we will add some 3D effects using the Mesh Tool (U). This tool allows us to apply multiple gradients to one object. Just select the object then with the Mesh Tool click where you want to add a new color. Here in our swirl we will create a highlight area and a dark area. Repeat the process to the other swirls.

Step 10 With the Pen Tool create two lines following the shape of the tail of our "sperm" shape, then apply the Blend Tool with 5 Specified Steps. After that duplicate and resize the blend and use it on the other swirl

Step 11 Add more shapes and apply the Mesh Tool. Duplicate the yellow swirl and make it really bigger like the image below.

Step 12 For the spiral add a gradient from pink to cyan, then go to Effect>Stylize>Inner Glow... Use Screen for the Mode, 75% Opacity, 5pt Blur and Center.

Step 13 For those stripes following the spiral we will create a brush. To do that is really simple in Illustrator. Just create a rectangle and drag and drop it in the Brushes Palette, then in this case select New Pattern Brush. Use the image below for reference. After that create a spiral exactly like the one you want to add the stripes, and apply the brush.

Step 14 Select the spiral without the Brush Stroke and copy it. Then select the spiral with the stroke and go to the Transparency Palette (Window>Transparency). Double click the area next to the thumbnail, it will create a new thumb all black, select this thumb and paste the spiral. It will create a mask, just move the mast to align it with the original spiral. It looks complicated but it's easier than the explanation ;)

Step 15 Use the blend tool to add more elements and details to some shapes.

Step 16 Create more swirls using the techniques we've seen before and just change the sizes and colors. After that group all swirls. End result in Illustrator.

Step 17 (Photoshop) Create a new document and place your image, I used a photo from http://sxc.hu and 1440x900px for the document size.

Step 18 Copy the swirls in illustrator, the group with all swirls we have created, and paste it in Photoshop. Select Paste As Smart Objects. After that go to Layer>Layer Style>Bevel and Emboss, use the image below for reference.

Step 19 Duplicate the layer and go to Edit>Transform>Flip Vertical, and reduce the size of the layer and move it like the image below. After that select the 2 layers and convert them to Smart Objects and rename it to "Swirls"

Step 20 Duplicate the new "Swirls" and rename it to "Swirls Glow", then go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur, use 3px for the Amount, place it behind the "Swirls" and change the Blend Mode to Hard Light

Step 21

Duplicate the "Swirls" layer again and go to Edit>Transform>Flip Horizontal, again reduce its size and move it like the image below. Then go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur, use 3px for the amount again, but don't change the blend mode.

Step 22 Duplicate the "Swirls" layer one more time and this time just rotate it like the image below. Then go again to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur, however this time use 5.5px for the Amount and reduce the opacity to 70%

Conclusion

Just place your logo and that's it. You can add more elements, you can even copy and paste each element separately and apply different layer styles to each swirl. There are many options and tons of different results from these methods, now it's all about trying different combinations.

Click to enlarge

How to Create Big Popart Circle in Photoshop

Author: graphics-illustrations.com More by this author Added: May 14, 2008 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

Little update: please make sure to set up the image in Grayscale mode before applying the filter. And, please, please: it has to be done on a background layer! Don't create a new layer. Create a new document in Photoshop. Make sure it is in equally proportional dimensions (like 600x600 pixels or similar). Fill it in using "Radial gradient" from black (inside) to transparent (outside).

Use "Custom fill" option, and make gradient as in the image below (or similar).

Now use Filter -> Pixelate -> Color Halftone, and play with the options (for example radius size depends on the size of your document).

Voila!

Go even further - vectorize this image, play with it and enjoy the results.

Alpha HalfTone Cut-Away Effect

Author: Faze One Studio More by this author Added: Apr 23, 2008 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

Another effective tutorial showing us how to create this great effect using an alpha mask in the channels pallet. Nick at www.2gen.net was kind enough to show me this tip last night, so Thanks You! to him for the tip and now ill show you how its done. 1. Grab your image and create a new document, mine is 565px wide.

Click to enlarge

2. Select your Channels pallet and create a new layer it will become an alpha layer

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3. Now select the Gradient Tool and pick White to transparent.

...and Drag your Gradient In this direction

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4. Open Filter/Pixelate/Halftone and apply these setting. (depending on size increase the Radius with larger images)

5. Press and Hold Ctrl and click on the Alpha 1 Thumbnail, this will highlight the selection.

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6. Now Select RGB and then Go to Layers Pallet and select the layer you would like to effect and Cut. Final Image ~ Proceed to next steps to create additional effect

Click to enlarge

Optional Steps: 7. Merge all layers and then duplicate the layer, Go to Effects/Blur/Gaussian Blur to about 2.0 and then set mode to Darker Color.

Click to enlarge

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Create a Sketchy Work of Art in Just 10 Steps

Author: PSDFAN.com More by this author Added: Nov 07, 2008 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

Step 1 Open up your document. I made my image 500px wide, as this is the final size that I want it to be. However, for this technique you must resize your photo to 5 times its original size, so in this case 2500px wide. To do this go to image>image size and change the proportions. It doesn't matter that your image will be worse quality after doing this.

Step 2 Now with your image suitably resized, create a new layer called 'sketch lines'. Select your paintbrush tool, and a paintbrush of a dark brown color, 2px in size, 100% opacity. Now reduce your original photo layer's opacity to around 75% so that you'll be able to see your sketch lines more clearly. Now return to your 'sketch lines' layer and use your paintbrush tool to brush roughly lines over the lines of your photo. The trick here is to be fairly rough, and keep brushing roughly over the same areas to build up your image. If some of your lines mess up then don't delete them! This all helps build up the sketchy effect that we're trying to create. Also, try to pay attention to the textures of what you're drawing over. For instance, you can make your sketch lines for hair messier and more random than the detailed lines for the man's eyes. A great tip is to just hold down your mouse button whilst using the paintbrush and drag your cursor back and forth over the same lines, rather than keep clicking each time you need to make a new line. The images below show some stages of this process.

Step 3 Ok, things are looking good so far. You've laid out your rough sketch lines over every part of your photo (just sketch over the man, not the photo's background). Now you want to give a little variety to your lines, as well as capturing part of the shadowing of the original photo. To do this, zoom in to actual size, and use your paintbrush to brush over any line that looks like it is darker in the original photo. Do this on your 'sketch lines' layer still.

Step 4

You're now done with line drawing. Your image should be looking very messy, but have all of the details of the original photo pretty well covered. To see how your image is coming along be sure to keep hiding your original photo layer, leaving only your 'sketch lines' layer showing. Now comes the stage to fill in the color of the image. Select a watercolor brush set (you can find tonnes of great ones via Google). Create a new layer called 'paint' beneath your 'sketch lines' layer and above your photo layer. Select a brush from your watercolor brush set and make it's size around 150-200px and it's opacity around 40%. Then proceed to fill in parts of your image with color. Use your eyedropper tool to select the colors to use from your original photo, so for instance for your face just eyedrop an average skin shade from the man's face. Repeat the same for the man's hair and clothes. Also, be sure to use various brushes from your brush set to create a more random effect. The image below shows part of the image after filling it with color. The photo layer beneath it is still visible, so you're actually seeing a photo, covered with a 40% opacity brush. Your final product won't be this bold.

Step 5 Now create a new layer above your 'paint' layer called 'paint dark'. Paint in shadows very roughly using a large watercolor brush. The opacity will mean that any areas of existing paint on your 'paint layer' that you paint over will be darkened simply through layering your brush strokes. Just like your line sketching, be very rough with your painting. If you go over lines this doesn't matter at all, just be really free with your mouse movements.

The image below shows the image after shadows have been added, with the original photo layer still visible.

Step 6 Create a new layer called 'paint light', and you guessed it - paint in the highlight based on data from the original photo. This time just use a watercolor brush at 10%, color: white. Again, just be very free and rough. With both your dark/light layers if you want to make a particular area more intense just brush over it several times to build up it's opacity. The image below shows the addition of highlights, with the original photo layer still visible.

Step 7 Now hide your photo layer, and duplicate your 'sketch lines' layer 3 times in order to build up the boldness of the sketched lines. Then merge the duplicate sketch line layers with the original. The image below shows the result. As you can see the lines are much bolder, and the paint marks are fainter due to the photo being hidden.

Step 8 Now resize your image back to it's original 500px width. Reducing your image to a fifth of it's size means that your rough sketch lines now appear incredibly detailed. They are still sketchy, but the fact that you applied them to a much bigger image means that you have captured an extraordinary amount of detail without too much effort. The image below shows your image so far at 100% zoom (actual size).

Step 9 The painted areas are not looking quite intense enough, so I duplicate my 'paint' layer. However, this is too intense, so I reduce the opacity of the duplicate to 50%. I leave my dark/light paint layers alone.

Step 10 To finish up I add a paper texture as my background. The yellow tone of the background allows the white of the man's clothes stand out more than against a white background.

And We're Done!

I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial. Despite being quite a basic technique, this tutorial can be used on virtually any image and create some really cool effects. It may take a while to sketch over an image as complex as this one, but hopefully you can see that for something as similar as an RSS icon it's as simple as resize (larger)>sketch>paint>resize (smaller). It's a great way to create grungy elements for your designs, or just wow someone with a 'hand-drawn' portrait of them.

Making Wood
Author: LokenII More by this author Added: Mar 07, 2008 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

This tutorial will show you how to make realistic wood and will work from photoshop 7 to CS3. It will also show us how to use actions and some of the uses that the fibre, filter has. Let us begin. Begin by opening a document that is 500px square. then go to Window>Actions. This will open a new dialogue box and in it will be Default Actions. You don't want these, so you'll have to click on the symbol indicated by the red arrow (please not on cs2 and below, this icon will be a small circle with an arrow inside it.

When you click this a drop down box will appear. Near the bottom of this box is Textures, select this and it should load up a textures box under default actions. Click the small arrow next to the word Textures to open up the options and find Rosewood 2, select this and near the bottom, click the play button, as is shown here.

The process is now automatic, the only thing you have to do is click OK in the shear dialogue box when it prompts you to do so. When done, you will have this.

Now this is good, but by no means perfect, so we shall ad some modifications to our own. Duplicate the layer (ctrl/cmd + J) and go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set it to about 1.0, like so.

What this does is take the slight pixelation that the action creates away. Next step is to press Ctrl+ D to reset your colour swatch and go to Filter > Render > Fibres and just use the default settings.

Next, press ctrl/cmd + t to transform the layer, right click inside the bounding box and click rotate it 90 degrees clockwise or counter clock wise, doesn't really matter. Now, set this fibre's layer to soft light and you're pretty much done. It should look something like this.

Looks pretty effective and by pressing Ctrl/Cmd + E to merge it all and then by duplicating the layer again and using other layer effects, you can get darker or lighter woods. It looks particularly effective when some lighting effects are applied, like so.

Simple Glass Effect

Author: Hv-Designs.co.uk More by this author Added: Oct 27, 2008 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

For this glass effect were going to be creating a glass picture frame with a photo in it. Create a new document 600 x 450 pixels, now were going to need a busy background to see the effect, black or white just wont show it very good. Im using a wooden floor background. Select the rectangular marquee tool and create a big rectangle on the canvas.

Add these layer styles to your rectangle.

Your rectangle should now be transformed into someting like this.

Select the polygonal lasso tool and create a selection like this (see image below), this will be a simple shine across the picture frame.

Fill the selection with the color white and set layer opacity to about 2%, this will make the shine just visable as we dont want it to be too visable. You should have something like this.

Now were going to create the slot where the photo goes, select the rounded rectangle tool and create a rectangle in the center of our picture frame, once you have your rectangle select the pen tool right-click on your canvas and goto "fill selection" make sure you fill it with the color white.

Now add these layer styles to your rounded rectangle.

Your inner rectangle should now look like this.

Make a selection on the rounded rectangle by click the layer it is on whilst holding down the Ctrl key on the keyboard. Open up your photo and copy it to the clipboard, go back to your orginal canvas then goto "edit > paste into" your photo should now be pasted within that selection. Re-size/Re-align your photo to fit into the rectangle.

Add this layer style to your photo layer.

Selec the pen tool and create a selection like this.

Fill the selection with white then set layer opacity to about 12-15% your final image should now look like this.

Images Inside Text

Author: PhotoshopAtoms More by this author Added: Oct 23, 2008 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

We will start off with the following image opened up in PhotoShop:

We will add some text to the image:

Once we have the image we want to use as the background of the text, we will open up the image we want to use as the text background in PhotoShop:

Next, we will Ctrl+A to select all of our new image, and then Ctrl+C to copy it. Then we go back to our original document, Ctrl-click the text layer to make a selection of it, and then Ctrl+Shift+V to Paste Into the text. This will create a new layer of the image we copied and also a layer mask of the selection we had (the text). It should look something like this:

And the layers palette will look something like this:

The good thing about using this method is that when we select the pasted images layer (not the layer mask thumbnail), we are able to respotion it with the move tool. This gives us great controls, rather than just pasting with the text selected. And as always, we are able to apply layer styles to the masked image to further add to it:

You may also want to experiment with different color patterns, and different kinds of patterns (vertical lines, diagonal lines, squares, and even more complex designs). Creating your own Patterns is just one of PhotoShops powerful features.

Floral Background
Author: Adobetutorialz.com More by this author Added: Feb 26, 2008 Rating: Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

Start working by creating a new file (File>New) with 1024x768 px and 72 dpi. Choose for the layer the Paint Bucket Tool (G) to paint it in the next shown color: #023D65

Find in Internet a picture, representing the grass:

Cut out a fragment of the shown grass, as it is presented below and insert the fragment on our picture:

Set the next parameters for the layer by making a mouse click on the layer on the layers' panel: Blending Options>Gradient Overlay

Gradient's parameters:

Find in Internet a picture representing this time a mill:

Cut out the element and introduce it in our picture:

Create a new layer and select for it the Brush Tool (B) with blurred edges, white color and Opacity of 10%. This layer must be placed lower than the layers containing the grass and the mill (on the layers' panel):

Find next in Internet a picture showing the sky:

Cut out the unnecessary part of the sky and insert on the picture only that fragment we need, placing this layer also lower than the layers containing the grass and the mill (on the layers' panel).

Apply for this layer the next demonstrated parameters: Blending mode-Pin Light

Download out of Internet a set of ready to use brushes for Adobe Photoshop, named Flowery by ca_pris. Next step includes creating a new layer (Create new layer) and applying the brush from the mentioned above set. This layer should be placed also lower than the layer containing the grass and the mill (on the layers' panel). The brush's color this time is white.

Make a copy of the last made layer and place the copy above the recently made one:

Create a new layer and apply one of the brushes from the set Flowery by ca_pris. Place this layer lower than the layer containing the mill (on the layers' panel).The brush's color is white.

Now we have to download out of Internet again another set of brushes for Adobe Photoshop: Floral. Next step we should apply the set's brush and place this layer above the layer with the grass (on the layers' panel). The brush's color is white again.

Find in Internet a picture representing the trees:

Cut out the trees and insert them on the basic picture, placing the trees' layer lower than the layer having the mill on it. Press Ctrl+U

Create a new layer and use on it the Floral set's brush. The brush's color is white and the layer in case must be placed above the trees' layer, but lower than the layer containing the mill (on the layers' panel).

Next we'll use the Custom Shape Tool (U) for representing a small star, colored with #FFE725

Make four copies of the last made layer and select the Free Transform option to make the copies smaller and to turn them over the same way shown below:

Using the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U), (radius 10), it's possible to represent a cross. For the beginning we'll try to represent the first element and then the other one by pressing the Shift button. The color should be #99CC01

The layer's parameters: Blending Options>Stroke

Make two copies of the last made layer and select Free Transform option to change the copies' sizes if necessary and to place them the way shown next picture:

Using the Custom Shape Tool (U), it's possible to represent a flower of white color.

Apply the next demonstrated parameters: Blending Options>Stroke

Make the necessary number of copies of the last made layer and select again the Free Transform option to change the copies' sizes and to place them the way demonstrated below:

Find in Internet this time a picture representing an air balloon:

Cut out the balloon and insert it on our picture, pressing Ctrl+U buttons and changing its color:

Make a copy of the balloon layer and choose again the Free Transform selection to enlarge the copy. Press Ctrl+U combination of buttons and change the copy's color. We have to place the copy as it is shown next picture:

Click to enlarge

Girl Sense Photo Effects

Author: Adobetutorialz.com More by this author Added: Feb 26, 2008 Rating: Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

Let's begin working by creating a new file (File>New) with 768x1024 px and 72 dpi. Next select the Paint Bucket Tool (G) to make the new layer of black color.

Apply for the background's layer this option: Filter>Noise>Add Noise

On a new layer (Create new layer) we'll select the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) to mark out the necessary zone on the picture, reserved for working with it. After that we'll apply the Paint Bucket Tool (G) to paint this zone with the next color - #301A0D

Select for the last layer the same filter used on the black background, choosing the same parameters too:

Now we have to find in Internet a photo of a girl, like the next one:

Cit it out and insert it on our picture:

Select the next demonstrated parameters for the girl's layer: Blending Options>Outer Glow

Next we'll try to draw the girl's shadow - reflection. This operation needs copying the girl's layer and choosing Free Transform selection for turning around the copy, placing her reflection under her legs.

Now we have to download out of Internet a several sets of ready to use brushes in Adobe Photoshop, named Floral, BRUSHES_01_02, Brushes - curls Attention! If you see an ornament on the picture made with the brush and it is turned over, it means that this brush is applied on a separate layer and turned over with Free Transform selection. Next create a new layer (Create new layer) and choose the Brush Tool (B) out of the set Floral. The brush's color is white and its layer should be placed on the layers' panel lower than the girl's layer.

Make a mouse click on the last layer on Add a Mask option that may be found on the lowest part of the layers' panel. Select the Brush Tool (B) of black color and Opacity of 10% to clean out easily and attentively the brushes' ornament.

Create a new layer again and select this time the brushes out of this set: BRUSHES_01_02. Select also the white color for the brushes and situate this layer on the layers' panel also lower than the girl's layer.

Select the next indicated parameters for the brush's layer: Blending mode-Soft Light

Create one more new layer (Create new layer) where we'll use the brush out of the earlier mentioned set: (BRUSHES_01_02) But this time we must select this color for the brush #747474. This layer should be positioned the same way the previous are.

The layer's parameters: Blending mode-Vivid Light

Now it's time to create one more new layer for using on it the sampled Brushes - curls of white color. The new layer should be placed the same way with the rest of the layers - lower than the girl's layer (on the layers' panel).

Make a mouse click on the same layer on Add a Mask option that may be found as you already know on the lowest part of the layers' panel. Choose quickly the Brush Tool (B) of black color and Opacity of 10% to clean out smoothly the brushes' ornaments.

Create another new layer (Create new layer) for applying on it the Brushes - curls of white color, placing the new layer lower than the girl's layer on the layers' panel.

The layer's parameters: Blending mode-Soft Light

On the next new layer we'll apply the brushes out of the same set used earlier. Their color is white too. The new layer should be positioned the same way as the previous layers were placed out.

The layer's parameters: Fill 30%

On the next stage we have to draw a kind of light around the girl. Create a new layer for this operation and apply on it the Brush Tool (B) of white color and Opacity of 10%. It's necessary to situate this layer on the layers' panel lower than the girl's layer too.

Next create another new layer (Create new layer) and use again the Brushes - curls.

the color of the brush is #6F3C27

the color of the brush is #97BD58

the color of the brush is #0A224A

Select these parameters from below for the last made layer: Blending mode-Hue

Create once again a new layer (Create new layer) where we have to use the Brush Tool (B) and Opacity of 10% with the colors used before for the previous brushes to give more volume to the luminescence around the girl.

The layer's parameters: Fill 50% Blending mode-Hard Light

On the next new layer we'll select again the brushes out of the set BRUSHES_01_02

the brush's color: #F6B36F

the brush's color: #781A01

The layer's parameters: Blending mode-Soft Light

Click to enlarge

Rag Skin using Adobe Photoshop

Author: OnlyPhotoshop More by this author Added: Oct 14, 2008 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

1. We will begin with 2 layers: of the image and the texture.

2. To select the layer of the texture. To select "Clone Tool", to deactivate "alignment" and then, "click" to the center of the texture.

3. Now, we created a new layer, with the option "multiply" and to begin to clone (pay attention that "align" option is deactivated, above)

4. It must be more or less as indicate the image, pay attention no activate "aligne" option, up there (that option will be desactivate for the rest of the tutorial)

5. To make a "Circulate" selection with a little "feather" on the indicated layer and changing the color: pay attention the color selected; you can change it to obtain other results.

6. To create a new layer, to make 5 circles on the eye (they will be the holes of the future button), soon to select them and to revert the selection. Next, with the Clone Tool you can do it like the example, by the edge (the selection is hidden 'cause you can see the result).

7. Deselect everything! ... To create new layer (in normal mode) and to continue cloning, same to the example: to create "threads" of the rag around the eye and the nose.

8. To create new layer (normal mode); now we will paint with "brush tool", the hairs of different colors. Change the opacity.

9. Now, to select "thread" layer and choose something of darkness (shade) in the indicated points. Pay attention "exposure" option, above (change it if you like)

10. It's Done!!!.... Now, we chose the layer of the skin and we applied it something of "light" in the points, indicated with red.

I hope has been very clear the explanation. For the mouth and others it is the same.... Greetings

Burning Wheels
Author: Digital Photo News More by this author Added: Jan 24, 2008 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

Step 1. Open our photo of wheel. You can download it from here. Step 2. Copy "background" layer by pressing Ctrl + J on keyboard. Name that layer "wheel_copy". Create new layer, name it "black" and put it below "wheel_copy" layer. Delete "background" layer. Step 3. Now we have to remove white background from wheel. Pick Magic Wand tool (W) and click on the white on "wheel_copy" layer. Press DEL on keyboard to delete selection. Now we have only contour of wheel. Step 4. Press Ctrl + Alt + C to change canvas size. Enter these values,

click OK and fill "black" layer with black color. Step 5. Create new layer, name it "fire" and put it below "wheel_copy" layer. Press Ctrl and click on "wheel_copy" to select the wheel. Go to Select - Modify - Contract and enter value of 25px. Change the opacity of "wheel_copy" so we can see what we are doing behind the wheel. Click back on "fire" layer and start drawing something like I did on the photo below.

For the gray colors I used this values H:0 S:0 B:60 and H:0 S:0 B:85 . Deselect selection.

Step 6. Click on "fire" layer if it's not selected. Go to the Create new adjustment layer and select Color Balance. Set values as I did.

Step 7. Pick Smudge tool (R), select brush, set the strenght to 80% and start making flames.

Step 8. Click on "wheel_copy" layer and change opacity back to 100%. Now press and hold Ctrl and click on this layer. This will select wheel. Go to the Filter - Blur - Radial Blur and enter value of 15 and best method (you can experiment with these values).

Click OK. Step 9. You can size down image if you need to use it for your sig or avatar.

Halloween Photo Effect: Turning Portrait Into Stone Statue

Author: Dphotojournal More by this author Added: Jan 14, 2008 Rating: Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

This is a simple tutorial on how you can make a statue from a portrait with Photoshop. It is highly recommended if you're using a close up portrait of a woman/man. You can download the stone texture image for free at Free Stockphotos.com Have fun!

Step1. Open your portrait (file>open or ctrl+o) Step 2. Desaturate your photo; image>adjustments>desaturate or shift+control+u

Step 3. Open your stone texture file, and drag it into your face photo. Change the layer blend mode to multiply.

Step 4. Now you'll need to eliminate the eyes. using your pen tool draw a path around her left eye and make a selection (go to your Paths Palette, click on the work path, and click the 'Load Path as a Selection' in the bottom of your palette).

Step 5. Use the clone tool and select an area of the stone texture as your source and clone it around the eye. Go to curve adjustment and play around with the curve to adjust her new eye brightness/contrast. Choose your blur tool, and smooth the edges of the new eye. Here's what I come up with:

Step 6. Now repeat step 4 and 5 to do the right eye.

Step 7. To make the eye more three dimensional: create new layer, change the blend mode to 'linear burn' and change the opacity to around 20-30%. Choose the brush tool and choose black foreground color. Start to burn the area around the eyes with your brush tool. Play around with your opacity to get the perfect result. Here's mine:

Step 8. To add three dimensional effect to your statue: Create new layer, choose gradient tool, set radial gradient, white to black and apply it to your new layer.

Step 9. Change the blend mode to linear burn, and play around with the opacity for your desired result.

So here she is with her new look..

Halloween Photoshop Tutorial: Creating Zombie

Author: Dphotojournal More by this author Added: Jan 14, 2008 Rating: Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

This Photoshop CS2 tutorial will show you how to rot people's face, expose their skull and turn them into zombie. What you need: + A portrait of the victim. AKA, the zombie and a picture of a human skull. Ideally in the roughly the same pose as your portrait which can be found on Google images.

+ Download The "Pretty" free brush collection found here. Ideally you will need to grab "Pretty Cuts`n`cracks" & "Pretty Sore" + Download The "Veins" brushes here. + It would also be nice if you had the `tonemapping` plug-in by Photomatix. Not essential but handy. Let's get started! OK, First off, install the downloaded brushes into your Photoshop brushes folder, we'll need them a bit later. Stage 1 Now, we need to prepare your portrait. These next steps are not obligatory, and you can skip to Stage 2 and start to zombify your image.

I would recommend resizing the image to roughly 1300 pixels at its longest edge. The reason for this is that some of the brushes we downloaded earlier look a bit crappy if we try to enlarge them to accommodate a bigger image, I found that working on a medium sized image allows us to retain the clarity of the brushes later on. You may crop it to the desired format at this point as well as I have below.

Next, and this part is optional, we tonemap the image. So first off you will need to convert the image to 16bit, the run the tonemapping filter. Play with the sliders until you get an effect you like. I use tonemapping as it gives the image a nice dirty look.

Next I duplicate that bottom layer,s o now we have two layers the same. Selecting the top layer You need to Desaturate it (Ctrl+Shift+U) then set the blending mode of the newest layer to OVERLAY. Set the opacity of the new layer to roughly 70%. You should end up with something akin to this.

We need to bring the eye detail back into the image, so we are going to add a layer mask to the top layer. To do this, select the layer and click the little black rectangle with the white circle at the bottom of the layers palette. You should now get a white rectangle alongside the thumbnail of the top layer. Next select the brush tool and select black as your colour. Now click on the white rectangle next to the top layer thumbnail to select it. Now you should be able to `paint` over the eye and you will see the bottom layer appear. Close up view below.

OK, now that's all done, we will flatten these two layers into a new single layer, press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+N then Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E. this will consolidate all the work we have done so far into a new, single layer. This will now act as our base image. You may hide the previous 2 layers. Stage 2 - Adding the skull (next page..)

Right, now we need to add the skull to the image and fit it to our face. The image of the skull I use in this tutorial was a skull I borrowed from the Oral Surgery department at the hospital where I work. Anyway, I opened the image in Photoshop, cropped the skull to size, then copied it into my base document.­­ I reduced the opacity of the skull to 50%, then hit Ctrl+T to enter into transform mode. Move and resize the skull to fit your face. The best way to line this up so it is more realistic is to pay attention to key feature. The most important being the upper ridge of the eye-socket lines up with the same ridge on your face, the jawbone needs to roughly line up as well, and also make sure the teeth and nose are in roughly the right place. This may mean you need to distort the skull image quite a lot from how it originally looked, but since we wont be seeing too much of the skull it doesn't matter if the rest of it isn't perfect.. basically the ridges of the eyes/eyebrows, the teeth and the nose are the most important here. See below for example.

Once you are happy with the skull placement, hit enter and then set the opacity of the layer back upto 100%. Add a layer mask to the skull layer and mask out the edges around the skull. I also had to mask around the fingers as they would, in real-life(?) be obstructing the face/skull. This is what I have so far, hopefully yours will be looking something like this now.

OK, next we need to go back to our base layer, that is the composite of the first two layers, and duplicate it and drag it to the top of the layer stack. Create a layer mask on that layer and get ready to scrape away some of your skin!! Selecting the newest layer mask, select the brush tool, medium hardness, and select black from the colour palette (remember you can switch between Black and White by pressing the "X" key). Now, when you start to paint on the face, you will see the skull layer beginning to appear, freaky huh? I find its best to completely paint out the nose and one of the eyes and of course the teeth! Another great tip to remember is to use the square brackets "[ & ]" to Alter your brush size on-the-fly. Take you time on this stage and have fun, pay particular attention to the area around the teeth and try to make the skin/teeth blend in nicely together. Hopefully your image will look something similar to this now.

Even at this stage the picture looks super gruesome already, but what kind of self-respecting zombie doesn't have a bit of flesh-rot to really stink up the place!! This is where things get very nasty indeed.

Stage 3 - Rips and Scars and Veins, oh my!! OK, next you need to create another layer, name this one veins. OK, here you need to load up the "Pretty Cracks & Sores" brush set we downloaded earlier. These are pretty big brushes, however we really need them to cover the whole face (we will mask out the surplus veins in a minute). Select a brush you like the look of, choose a nice dark, deep red from the colour picker (and RGB value of 74,0,0 works well) and stamp it over your face (on the new layer). Don't worry if it looks a bit strange at the moment. Add a layer mask to this layer and use the black brush tool to delete the veins'n'stuff from areas that don't need them (eyes, bits of skull, fingers, teeth etc). Set the layer mode to `Multiply". Again, spend a bit of time on this to make it look badass. Once finished, right click on the layer. Select "Blending Options" and put a tick in the "Bevel & Emboss" check box, here I used the defaults but adjusted the depth a tiny bit to increase the bumpiness of the veins. Now, you can add more layers and use more of the brushes we download earlier to add more scarring, tearing and veinage, experiment and have fun, it really is great defacing yourself or a loved one!! Remember to use separate layers for the hands, body etc.

So next is just a few more overall cosmetic changes to the image to make it darker & grittier. Basically I just add a gradient map layer (black to white), contrast/brightness layer and adjust to taste!! Now, hopefully you should be zombified up to the max. George Romero would be proud of you! R.I.P.

Vector Art
Author: Aleksandar Jurukovski More by this author Added: Dec 18, 2007 Rating: Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

Before we begin let me point the essential stuff you need to know for this tutorial. First, your images have to be large and with high resolution, because with small and low resolution images is nearly impossible to trace and have a good looking vector image. Second, we are going to use the pen tool every step of the way, every outline, every little thing you want to draw, the pen tool is going to be your friend, so you have to know the basics of this tool. And that's about it. So lets start. For this tutorial I have the image of Rihanna. You can find large, high-resolution images at www.skins.be

Open the photo you want to turn into vector. This photo is going to be your background layer. Create a new layer above your background layer, rename it to white background and fill it with white color. Turn the visibility on this layer off by clicking the eye next to it. Create a new layer above your white background layer and call it outlines. We are going to draw all the outlines from the image on to this layer. Lets do that. Make sure your brush has a 2 pixel diameter. Get the pen tool and start outlining the person on your photo. Hair, eyes, nose, mouth, ears, lips, clothes, detail on clothes, nails, eyebrows... After a long, long work, this is what you should have:

The next step is to color the image. You can take any color you want, or you can take the original colors from your image (eyedropper tool). OK, so lets start. Create a new layer below your outline layer (the outline layer will always be on top). We are going to color first, the skin, so call this layer skin color. This is what I do when I am coloring my art. I take the magnetic lasso tool, select the skin with it and fill it with my color, it saves you a lot of time. If something else is colored that's not the skin, just take the eraser tool and

erase it. Next, create a new layer below your skin layer. Call this layer hair color and color the hair. Do this for every detail that you have outlined. This is what I have so far:

Now for the shadows and highlights. I know two ways how we can do this. The first one is, create a duplicate of the original image, in my case, just Rihanna, put it on top of the layer palete. Go Filter>Noise>Reduce Noise check the "Remove JPEG Artifact" box, play a little with the options until you are satisfied and click OK. Now put this layer in Overlay Mode. Save the image as JPEG file and open it in Illustrator. Once in there, select the image and choose Object>Live Trace>Tracing Options...and experiment with the options there. Once you finish, save the file as JPEG and open it once more in Photoshop and continue with your work...... Or, we can do this.On a new layer with your pen tool trace all the shadows. After you trace all the shadows trace all the highlights on a new layer. Color them with darker and lighter skin color. Do this for the hair, clothes, eyebrows,.....Bouth ways end up with the same result. This is what I have now:

After this, its time for the background. You need some flower,grunge brushes to create a cool background. I am not going to explain this, because its very easy to do. All you need to know is, don't stop until you are satisfied and blend modes and opacity are your friends. Here is my final result:

Smokin' Woman
Author: PhotoTutorial.info More by this author Added: Nov 26, 2008 Rating: Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

In this tutorial, I'm going to show how to create one smokin' woman using a couple source pics.. So follow along and I'll try to share a few secrets into some of the magic, without the smoke and mirrors.

Well, maybe a little smoke. With the general idea already in my mind, I needed to find a suitable background image. The image I found turned out perfect because of the line of direction of the main figure's vision. He's looking directly where we're going to place our smoke, creating unity among our elements. How convenient!

1. The first step was to remove most of the smoke from the original image, as we'll be bringing in our own later on.

I did this simply by taking the Clone stamp tool, shift-clicking a clean area of the background to sample, and painting over the smoke covered areas with our selected sample.

It doesn't need to be perfect at this point, as most of it will be covered by the end anyways. 2. Next, I brought in a high contrast image of a model. Not only do the natural stark shadows and highlights of this image look good, but hey, the contrast will do half the work for us in the long run. Using a combination of the Move and Distortion tools, I resized and situated the model right where we want her. Then set the layer's blend mode to "Screen".

3. Now that we have our basic composition in place, it's time to get to the real action. Using the liquify tool, I smudged the edges of the figure and pulled out trails to draw a smokey effect. I did that until I was left with a wispy looking figure. And remember, the more work you do in this stage, the less time it'll take to cover your overlooked areas later on.

It's almost good to go just as is, if I do say so myself. But since we saved time by finding excellent source pics to begin with, let's spend our free time fine tuning this thing up. 4. Our lady could always be more smokin'. And what's more smokin' than, well, smoke? Using the Lasso tool, I copied and pasted a segment from an image of actual smoke onto a new layer.

I set this layer to "Screen", just as we did with the woman. Using the Move tool, I resized the piece to situate around our lady friend.

I repeated that step numerous times until our lady was covered entirely hiding my earlier (now hideous in comparison) attempts to freehand the smoke entirely.

5. Now we're getting somewhere! But I still wanted to expose a few of the highlights of the smoke a bit more. Just to give it that extra pop. I did this by using a white brush to paint a rough outline around the figure on a new layer, then set this layer to "Overlay".

6. Then, as a final touch, I filled the entire image in a light blue on a new layer, then set this layer to "Overlay", and set the opacity to 25%. Of course, this step is not 100% necessary, but it adds a little extra mood and brings the whole image together harmoniously.

And there you have it. With the magic of Photoshop, you've created the smokin' woman of your dreams.

Changing a Woman into Vampire

Author: MastersOfPhotoshop.com More by this author

Added: Nov 30, 2007 Rating:

Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

Start by opening an image of a girl face.

Select brush tool and apply it over the mouth. Use dark shades of red.

Using pen tool create tongue shape as shown.

Double click the layer to open layer style window. Apply settings as shown.

From select menu click "Color Range". Click over the click area using eyedropper tool.

Press Ctrl+J to copy paste the selection in a new layer.

Press Ctrl+U to open hue/saturation window. Apply settings as shown.

Change the layer mode to "screen" from top of the layer palette.

Select burn tool and apply as shown .

Select and merge all the layers. Press Ctrl+L to open level settings. Apply settings as shown.

Sphere Text
Author: EZPhotoshop More by this author Added: Nov 28, 2007 Rating: Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

Let's learn how to make new Text effect where I will give text effect to the word glove using Filter > distort > pinch. 1. First of all we have to open a new document. I have use 300px and 300px and fill the background with the Black color.

2. Here with the Rectangular Marquee Tool draw a new shape and fill with the color #EE9D11.

3. Now with the Horizontal Type Tool you can write any Text, as you can see in the image below.

4. Now go to the Layer and click on Merge Down. Now the Text and the background will be Merge.

5. Now with the Elliptical Marquee Tool draw a circle. Now go to Edit > Copy > click on Paste as you can see below.

6. Now go to Filter > Distort > click on Pinch. see below for the effect.

7. Now Double click on the Layer > Layer Style > click on Inner Glow and give Effects as shown in the following figures.

8. Here again Layer style > click on Bevel and Emboss and give a little more Effects as shown in the image below.

9. Now again go to Layer Style > click on Gradient Overlay > now change the color of Gradient and Press ok.

10. Here with the Elliptical Marquee Tool draw a new circle, fill it with the color. Now the image will look like this.

11. Now Make the Opacity of Layer2 equal to 49%.

12. Final image.

Abstract-Grunge Signature Tutorial

Author: Aviva Directory More by this author Added: Nov 19, 2007 Rating: Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

To start off open a new document 500 x 300 pixels, resolution 300 and a White background. 1. Go to Filter > Render > Clouds. (Make sure your colors are set to default black/white). 2. Add a new layer and hit Ctrl F to apply the clouds again, change the layer mode to overlay. 3. Take the pen tool and make a path, connect the path to make a triangle like this:

4. With the pen tool right click on the path and choose make selection. Click OK. 5. Get the gradient fill tool, and make the gradient from black to a dark red with the red opacity set to 64% like this:

6. Fill the selection with the gradient from the bottom right of the canvas to the middle. Set the layer to multiply. 7. Ctrl Click on the layer to select it and then Ctrl + Shift + I to inverse the selection. 8. With this selected create a new layer, go back to the gradient picker and choose a dark green to replace the red, keep everything else the same. 9. Once again fill the selection with the gradient from the top left to the middle. Set the layer to multiply. 10. Get the Rectangle Tool and make a rectangle the size of the document with a white fill. Go to Filter > Render > Fibers and use a variance of 21 and a strength of 24. Set the layer to multiply and bring the opacity down to 20%. 11. Next go to deviantart.com and search grunge brushes (get a nice looking set of brushes) I chose grunge brushes 3 and grunge brushes 4. 12. After you have some good brushes go to your layers palette and click the adjustment layer button (see below).

13. Choose hue/saturation adjustment layer and use these settings:

14. If you downloaded grunge brush 4 choose brush #368 and increase the size to about 862 then select a white color and put it on the left side. Set the opacity to 30% then select brush #430 and put it in the top left. You should be looking at something like this:

15. Next take your pen tool (make sure its set to path) and draw a path along the grunge line at the top, after this take the text tool and place it over the path then click and you will now be able to type on that path. 16. Take your grungiest looking text (in my case its called plaguedeath can also be found on deviant art) and write whatever you want for the sake of the tutorial I wrote "grungesig". Now set the layer to overlay. Press Ctrl J to duplicate the text layer. With the copied layer go to Layer > Rasterize > Text. Press Ctrl T and scale the text down so that you're able to see the other text in the background something like this:

17. Next go back to your new adjustment layer button in the layer palette and choose a gradient map adjustment layer, choose a bloody red as the first color and a black as the second for the gradient click ok. 18. Next take this picture:

Click to enlarge

19. Place it like so:

20. Set the layer to multiply and then (Ctrl J) to duplicate the layer, go to Filter > Blur > Motion blur with an angle of 0 degrees and a distance of 188 pixels. 21. Duplicate the (original car) layer and set the layer to overlay, then go to Filter > Ink > Outlines and use these settings:

22. After this take your text layers and bring them on top of all the layers, your layers should look like this:

23. Create a new layer, Take brush 473 increase the size to 764 select a white color and brush covering more of the left than the right. Set the layer to color dodge and the opacity to 24%. 24. Create another new layer, take brush 517 and change the color to black then brush like this:

25. Brush it so it covers the text with black specks. 26. Next go back to layer 10 and go to layer effects and choose an outer glow with these options:

27. Create a new layer and select the rounded rectangle tool, make sure its on paths and not fill pixels, then make a rectangle like this:

28. Right click on the rectangle and select make selection, click OK. Now you have a selection press Ctrl + Shift + I to inverse the selection. You now have the outline of a border. Select the gradient tool and make a gradient like this:

29. Press OK then take the gradient line from the left side to the right side. Click the layer effects menu and press bevel and emboss. Use these settings:

Now you should have something that looks like this:

Click to enlarge

Creating Paint / Blood Dripping Text

Author: Aviva Directory More by this author Added: Nov 16, 2007 Rating: Level: Experienced Software: Paint Shop Pro

Start a "400x200" pixels, 16 million colors, white background image. Add a new Raster Layer (Layers>New Raster Layer). Enter any text as shown below using the Type Tool on the new layer.

My Text Settings: Font = 08 Underground Color = Black) Size = 72 Antialias = Checked Floating = Selected Stroke = 0

Apply Inner Bevel filter (Effects>3D Effects>Inner Bevel) on the current text selection.

Add a new layer (Layers>New Raster Layer). Then, Floodfill text selection with "#ff0000" (red) color. Apply Inner Bevel Filter (Effects>3D Effects>Inner Bevel) using the previous settings.

Deselect the selection by pressing "CTRL+D". Make sure your active layer is 'Raster 2' (red font layer). Pick the "Eraser Tool" and randomly erase the lower portion of the red text revealing the black text as shown below.

Click to enlarge

Pick the "Smudge Tool" and apply the smudge brush on the selected areas as shown. Simply click your mouse on the starting point (Point A) and drag your mouse towards Point B.

Click to enlarge

Repeat same procedure in Step 5 using different brush sizes. Now you are DONE! You should have gotten something like this:

Casting Realistic Shadows

Author: Aviva Directory More by this author Added: Nov 05, 2007 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

To start find a picture you would like to add a shadow too. For this tutorial I will be using this picture:

Now take your render layer and duplicate it by dragging it over the New Layer button. Now your layer's palette should look like this:

Now take your copy layer go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation, or just press Ctrl- Hue. Then set the Lightness on -100. Now you picture should look like this:

Now go to Edit > Transform > Distort. And take the top middle dot and drag it down like so:

Now your shadow should look something like this:

So now we have our basic shadow. But it's time to edit it to make it look realistic. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Use these settings:

Now go to your layers palette and lower the opacity of your layer anywhere between 85% - 95%. Just see what looks best for you. I used 91%. Now go to layers palette again and add a quick mask to your shadow layer. Then apply this gradient to it.

Click to enlarge

Now you have your gradient settings lined up so take your gradient click and drag it like this:

Now if you applied the gradient correctly you should have something like this:

And congratulations! You have finished my tutorial on how to cast a shadow! Now you can create shadows on anything. Enjoy!

Transformer Style
Author: EZPhotoshop More by this author Added: Oct 31, 2007 Rating: Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

1. Create new document, size 5 x 4 cm,300 dpi

2. Create new render, we I'll use Cloud Go to Filter >> Render >> Cloud 3. Next, Filter >> Sketch >> Water Paper and set parameter as I did

Go to Image >> Adjustment >> Brightness/Contract and raise Contract number We have

4. Make some color there Go to Image >> New adjustment layer.. >> Color Balance and set parameter for Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights area and move this adjustment layer to the TOP

Wow, cool color :X

5. Choose this gradient

With Diamond fill mode

Preview in Gradient Editor windows

6. Make new guide, View >> New Guide..

Set 299 px, because 5 cm ~ 600 px, this guide will cross the center of page

7. Create new layer and Fill this gradient by the direction

8. Now, add some Layer Style for that

and set Blending mode = " Soft Light " for this layer

9. Now, make new layer, and go to Filter >> Noise >> Add noise..

Then Motion Blur ( Filter >> Blur >> Motion Blur )

Set Blending Mode = " Color Dodge " for this layer

Done !!! You can write some text and use it to sign :)

Rock Girl Style

Author: EZPhotoshop More by this author Added: Oct 29, 2007 Rating: Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

1. Create new file size 1024 x 768, fill with your favorite pattern.

2. Create new layer fill gradient like this, mode = Overlay

3. Add your picture here...

4. Retouch the color to match with the background.

5. Duplicate your image layer, Filter >> Blur >> Gaussian Blur >> 10 px, place this layer below its original layer (this step can be leaved out) 6. Use Rectangular Marquee Tool and Transform Selections to create the below selection.

7. Press Ctrl + J

8. Double click on the layer icon to open Blending Options , use these settings

9. This is our result!!!!! Incredible

10. Make 2 more selections below, with the same Blending options (the below layer should be in Color Overlay with color #000000 , opacity settings like the below image.

11. Result !

Make a selection like this....

12. Choose layer "background", press Ctrl + J, with mode = Overlay, place above layer "background".

13. Duplicate layer "background" , set mode = Overlay, use brush with soft Opacity to draw at the picture's edge.

14. This is our last layer palette

15. Add some texts. We have last result.

Stylish Vector T-Shirt

Author: Aviva Directory More by this author Added: Oct 17, 2007 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

Step 1: New Document First open up Photoshop and make a new document using the settings below:

Step 2: T-Shirt Body Now we're going to make the main body of the shirt. Get out your 'Pen Tool' and use the settings below:

Now make an outline of a shirt. Use my screen shot as a guideline:

Now fill that in with black and move onto the next step. Step 3: Adding Shadows Get out your 'Pen Tool' again and use the same settings as above to make shadows on the shirt. Fill the shadows in using the color #828282. Start with the collar of the shirt and use my screenshot below as a guide: Now make another shadow for the left and right arms. Fill it in using the same color. Use my screenshot below as a guide:

Left:

Right: (This shadow is filled in to show you how it should look like)

Now make another shadow for the bottom part of the t-shirt. Use my screenshot below as a guide:

Now just add one more shadow on the right and you will be done with the shadows! After all that shading you should have something similar to this:

Step 4: Finishing Touches Now you're done with your t-shirt template! You can now add your design and display it on the web! Here's an example:

Old Photo Effect

Author: Hv-Designs.co.uk More by this author Added: July 03, 2007 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

Step 1 Load up your image in photoshop, Then start by clicking on the Create New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and, from the pop-up menu, choose Hue/Saturation.

Turn on the Colorize checkbox in the Hue/Saturation dialog, and move the sliders to get the color tint you want, I'm going to use a light orangey color, my settings are below.

Step 2 Create a new layer above the background layer and Fill it with white by using the "paint bucket tool". Then from the Filter menu, choose "Texture > Grain" Change the Grain Type to Vertical and type in 91 for Intensity and 83 for Contrast.

Then change the blend mode of the grain layer to Multiply and opacity to 50% or 60%. Step 3 Now click on your background layer and goto "filter > noise > add noise"

You should then have something like below.

Can you see how the 2 images differ?.

Metalic Sphere
Author: EmpireDezign More by this author Added: June 21, 2007 Rating: Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

To start this tutorial create a new canvas, if you haven't already at 500 x 500, with black as the foreground. Then go to Filter in the main menu and highlight "Render" then click "Lens Flare," with the below settings.

Click "OK" and you should have the following image.

Next, create even more "Lens Flares" like I have done. I also added another with a "Lens Type" of "105mm Prime" at 63%.

Once you are satisfied with your image go to "Filter" then "Distort" and lastly "Polar Coordinates" using the default settings. Now simply grab the "Elliptical Marquee Tool" and while holding the "Shift Key" drag out a perfect circle to outline your newly created metal ball. Now go to "Select" then "Inverse" and finally you are able to delete the selection by going to "Edit" then "Cut" and there you have it.

As you can see, I have added some reflection and shadow to give it more depth. Hope you enjoy! The Results!!!

Old Movie Effect (Exclusive Tutorial)

Author: Reiven More by this author Added: June 14, 2007 Rating: Level: All levels Software: Photoshop

Have you ever wanted to create your own avatar with a Movie Effect? Maybe a nostalgic Old Movie Effect? Now you can do it! Study this step-by-step tutorial and you will be able to create an Old Movie Effect using your photo. So first you need to pick out a photo. I've chosen a picture with the friend of mine, George.

Now create a new Photoshop document 150x150 px with a #725F3B background. Drag the photo over to this document. Next, we need to make this photo look old. So, desaturate the image, then use the Add Noise filter with the following settings:

You'll get something like this:

Now we need to darken and color the picture using the Levels and Hue\Saturation with the following values:

Here's what I've got:

It looks a little rough, so you use the Blur filter and repeat.

Not bad. But it's a little boring with the picture so static. Let's liven it up by adding some degraded stripes and shifts. Let's begin with the stripes. Create a new layer and paint it black. Use the Grain Filter with the following values:

Now change the Blending Mode for Screen and you'll get something like this:

This will be one of the shots. To create the other 5 shots you need to repeat the procedure: create the new layer, paint it black, use the Grain Filter with slightly changed values and change the Blending Mode for Screen. And there's a much easier way to do this. Duplicate the layer with the stripes and then repeat the use of the last filter. Do that 5 times. You should get this:

Don't be afraid of too much noise. We will correct it in Image Ready. To make the correction make all layers with the Grain invisible. Then in the Animation Panel push the button Duplicate current frame 10 times. Make visible the first layer with Grain for the first shot. Now the second layer - for the second shot and etc. The seventh shot leave with the sixth visible layer, the eighth with the fifth, and so on in a reverse sequence.

Now we've got some movement, but it is very quick. Select all the shots and then set delay time to 0.1 sec.

Almost done. The last thing I'd like to add is a shift for a couple of the shots. Select the sixth shot (where the shot with Grain repeats), select the layer with the picture and shift it for several pixels below and to the right. Then select the next seventh shot and shift it for several pixels to the right. Save it - and enjoy the results:

The only thing you could add to this is to put the picture on an old TV screen.

Oil Paint Conversion

Author: YourPhotoshopGuide.com More by this author Added: June 13, 2007 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

Open your image. Press control+j to duplicate the image :

Go to filter>texture>Craquelure

Now, go to filter>others>High Pass

Change the layer mode from normal to Linear Light and reduce the opacity to 70%. Now you have oil paint image :)

Glossy Icon
Author: YourPhotoshopGuide.com More by this author Added: June 07, 2007 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

Draw this shape with ellipse tool :

Apply these layer styles in it:

Create a new layer. Select Elliptical Marquee tool and draw a selection as shown. Fill the selection with white color (I know the white color is not appearing but its just due to web optimization of the image

Now, reduce the opacity of this layer to 66%.

Now, draw any shape which you want to use for icon. For this tutorial, I have used an autoshape. Make sure that this shape/image should be appear below the second layer (or it should be the middle layer)

Now apply gradient overlay as shown. If you are not satisfied with the result, try to move lighter color to your desired location while applying Gradient Overlay by selecting the move tool and dragging the lighter color within the shape to your desired location. I have used this trick in both the layers (in first and in the last layer)

Our glossy icon is ready :)

Draw a Pencil
Author: Adobeusersite.com More by this author Added: May 15, 2007 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

1. First of all to open a new Document. Go to Menu, select File > new and then a new document will appear. In the new Document type the name of the document and then specify the size width = 400 pixel, height = 400 pixel and resolution = 96 pixel/inch. You can do it with the file new > then press Ctrl+N.

2. Select Pen Tool from the Toolbar.

3. Now create a new Layer1, to create a new layer click on the icon that is shown with the hand sign in the Layer window or press Shift+Ctrl+N.

4. Now create a new shape with the Pen Tool as shown in the Image below

5. Right click > Make selection > select Feather=0.2px > click ok.

6. Click on the set Foreground color in the Toolbar.

7. When you click on the Set foreground you will see the color picker window now put the color code #CCC9C2 in the box shown with the red circle.

8. Press Alt+Backspace to fill the color then press Ctrl+D to deselect.

9. From the Menu bar Select Filter > Texture > Craquelure

10. In the Craquelure select Spacing 35 / Crack Depth-3 / Crack Brightness- 7 and then click ok.

11. Now the Image will look like this.

12. Now with the Pen Tool create 3 new shapes as shown below.

13. Create a new Layer2.

14. Now press Alt+Backspace and fill the color code #355D80 and then press Ctrl+D for deselect.

15. Now click on the Layer1 while pressing Ctrl to make selection as shown below.

16. Now press Shift+Ctrl+I to inverse and then press Delete in your keyboard after that press Ctrl+D for Deselect.

17. Now choose the Opacity = 62 % for Layer2.

18. Now select Filter > Render > Lighting Effects choose every thing according to the Image below and then click ok.

19. Here select background and then create a new Layer3.

20. Now here create a new shape with the help of Pen Tool and fill the color code #C67D41.

21. Select Filter > Noise > Add Noise > in Add Noise Select Amount= 37.21% distribution = Uniform / Monochromatic and then click ok.

22. Now again select Filter > Blur > Radial Blur with the Amount-71,Blur method=spin, Quality= best and then click ok.

23. The Image will look like this now press Ctrl+D for deselect.

24. Select background and create a new Layer4.

25. Now create a new shape with the help of Pen Tool as shown in the Image below.

26. Fill the color # 70706E.

27. Now select Filter > Noise > Add Noise with the Amount-3.48 % and Distribution=uniform click ok.

28. Now the Image will look like this.

29. Here create a new Layer5.

30. Create a new shape with the help of Pen Tool and then fill the shape with the Black color.

31. Select Elliptical Marquee Tool from the Toolbar.

32. Create a new Layer6 and create an Ellipse with the help of Elliptical Marquee Tool as shown below.

33. Right click > select Feather and then fill the shape with the White color.

34. Double click on Layer6 select Outer Glow with the Opacity=75% ,Spread=1 % , Size=98 % and then click ok.

35. Here select Layer1 and make selection with the help of Pen Tool and then use Burn Tool with the brush size=50 , Range= Highlights , Exposure=50% and give some Effects then Press Ctrl+D fpr deselect

36. Here select Layer4 make selection with the Pen Tool and with the help of step35 give some more effects with the Burn Tool with the Brush size=20 after that press Ctrl+D for Deselect.

37. Select Layer3 and make selection with the Pen Tool and then give some more effects with the Burn Tool but this time use the brush size=30 and Range= Shadow.

38. Now here select Layer1 and press Ctrl+E to merge Layers 3,4,1.

39. Double click on the merged Layer4 > Layer Style > select Drop Shadow with the Opacity=75% , Distance=15px , Spread=16% , Size=27px and then click ok.

40. Final Image.

Animated Earth (Exclusive Tutorial)

Author: Reiven More by this author Added: Mar 15, 2007 Rating: Level: All levels Software:

There are tons of tutorials describing how to draw our Earth. But all of them are static and they only show the Earth from one side. It is more interesting to see the globe rotating. I've decided to fill this gap and write a tutorial devoted to the Earth's rotation. Tip: If you want to repeat my steps using the picture resolution that I use, make sure your computer is powerful enough to handle it. Otherwise, you can reduce all the parameters and work with smaller images. I prefer to work with larger resolution, because I want to have more freedom while editing images, and to save the resulting image at a smaller size for better quality. The first part of the project will be done in Photoshop. Open Photoshop and create a new 600x600 px document with a transparent background. Select the Ellipse tool, set the Shape Layers in the tool's properties and draw a circle in the center sized 500x500 px. It doesn't matter what color you use. This will be the basis for our globe. Call this layer Back.

Now apply the following Blending Options: Inner Shadow and Gradient Overlay.

And don't forget to set the Opacity at 40%. It should look like this:

Duplicate this layer, hide the lower layer, and for the upper layer set the parameters for Blending Options as follows:

Also set Opacity at 60%. Call this layer "Background". You should have something like this:

Duplicate this layer once more, hide the lower layer, and for the upper layer change Blending Options in the following way:

Set Opacity at 100%, and call this layer Foreground. You will have something like this:

Now hide these circles, we'll get back to them later. We need these three circles for showing different parts of the Earth: first for the transparent part, second for the continents, which are moving from the invisible side of the Earth, third for continents which are moving from the visible side. Now I'll show you how it looks in reality.

Download a file containing the map of the earth's surface from here and import it into your document. It fits the height, but it is a little wider than we need. Everything is OK, just make the canvas wider too: set the width to 2000 pixels.

Click to enlarge

For our goals we need a stretched map. Duplicate the map layer, then move it to any side by 800 px. Merge all map layers. Repeat this procedure moving layers to the opposite side. The result looks like this:

Click to enlarge

Duplicate this layer so that you get two maps. Send backward one of them until it's place is under the Foreground layer (I'll call this layer "Map Foreground"). Do the same for the other layer until it is situated under the Background layer (I'll call this layer Map Background). This is how my panel with the layers looks.:

Now Ctrl+click on one of the circle layers, then select the map layer and Add Layer Mask. Repeat this procedure for the second map layer. Then unlink Layer Masks. After that select the Foreground layer and create a clipping mask. Do the same for the Background layer. You'll get the following in the layers list:

Now make all layers visible and look at what you've done:

Click to enlarge

Here, we can clearly discern the contours of the continents and our home planet. However, only the front part of the globe is visible, and the back one, semi-transparent, is hidden, because it corresponds to the front part and is covered by it. The front layer continents will be moving from left to right and on the back layer, vice versa, from right to left. Correspondently, you have to flip the map on the front layer horizontally. Also you need to shift the front or back map in such a way that Foreground map will show one part of the map and Background map - its opposite part (just move the layer with map left or right). This is how it looks after the shift:

Click to enlarge

Now we can see both front and back parts of the globe. In general, if you don't want to use animation we can stop right here. We've created another static picture of the Earth. But we'll continue our learning process and finish our tutorial in ImageReady. Proceed to ImageReady. Now we'll talk about the most simple and interesting part. It is simple because we did all the preliminary work, and interesting because in only several simple steps we'll create an animation. Press the Duplicate Current Frame button. In a new frame move the Map Foreground layer with the help of the Move tool by 800 pixels to the left, and Map Background layer by 800 pixels to the right. Then press the Tween button.... Set the following parameters:

Use the Crop tool for cropping the globe to the size you need and save it. I set the size to 60 60 px, because it is the best size for a thumbnail at www.webdesign.org.

Now you have your own rotating Earth. Enjoy it!

Blending Faces
Author: Ettoremarzocchi.com More by this author Added: Mar 13, 2007 Rating: Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

Ever wanted to change someone's face? Ever wanted to change someone's body?

That's what we are going to do using Adobe Photoshop and few easy steps. Surprising result guaranteed! The goal: The goal of this Photoshop Tutorial is to blend together two different pictures and obtain a new one with exchanged faces.

The starting material: Our starting material will be one picture of Brigitte Bardot:

...and a picture of Austin Powers:

As always, if you want to start the tutorial using the same material we used you can simply download the original photos by clicking on it and save it (right click -> save as...) Action: Time to start the action! Just launch Photoshop and open up both the pictures you are going to use. Make sure Austin Powers is the active window (click on its title bar to give it focus) then Select -> All (or simply press Ctrl-A) to select the entire frame. Then Edit->Copy (Ctrl-C) and move to the Brigitte's photo (click on its title bar), here paste the clipboard content by clicking on Edit->Paste (Ctrl-V). Now you should have something like this:

The next few steps are done in order to match the two faces size and orientation. To better compare the two faces we are going to set opacity for the new Austin's layer to 50% or some value which lets you see enough of the top layer and enough of the bottom layer. To change opacity you have to change its value in the layer's panel:

Then we need to transform the Austin's layer to match Brigitte's face. Choose Edit->Free Transform (Ctrl-T) and a bounding box with handles will appear around the layer:

Now you can drag it around, scale it and rotate it, simply using those handles. That's exactly what we are going to do. Move it on Brigitte's face and scale it down a bit. Use the eyes and the mouth to match the size and the position. You can play around with the opacity again, to better see the result. Depending on what you have in mind you can choose to make the new face slightly bigger, add some fun look or whatever you like. In this tutorial we are going to do it clean, the fun effect will come out anyway ;)

Here's what we did:

We just scaled it down a bit and moved in position. Then we decided that flipping the layer horizontally produced a more convincing effect. To do that just select Edit->Transform->Flip Horizontal. Lastly we rotated it few degrees counterclockwise. Layer mask technique: The technique we are going to apply is the Layer Mask Technique. A Layer Mask is a greyscale mask linked to one specific layer. It works like a soft selection and lets you paint the layer's opacity with a brush. If you paint it black the opacity is 0%. If you paint it white the opacity is 100%. 256 greyscale tones can be used to paint in between values. To create a new Layer Mask just select the layer you want to use and click on the Add Layer Mask button at the bottom part of the Layer Panel:

These masks are extremely useful. Let's see how to use them at their most! Blend softly the two layers: We have to remove all the white frame around Austin's face and make him softly merge the Brigitte's layer. For this step a higher opacity value is often useful, letting you better control what's going on. We used 65%. Make sure the foreground color is black and the background is white

Select the Brush tool along with a medium/big brush (30 px for our photo), 40% hardness. Start painting some black strokes on Austin's white frame, you'll see it disappearing and start seeing Brigitte's hair instead:

Notice the Layer's panel. In the small thumbnail beside the Austin face there's the thumbnail for the Layer Mask. We painted a couple of black strokes. But we didn't actually painted black color on the image, the black strokes are in the mask (the information of the layer is still there, it's just temporarily masked, we didn't affected the original image). If you want to paint with your brush back onto the Austin's face you should make active the Layer content. To do this just left-click on it. To paint again on the mask click back on it. And what if you want to see the Layer Mask content in the main window? You can simply Alt-click on the Mask's thumbnail or on the Layer's thumbnail to switch from one view to the other. With your soft brush still selected and the layer's mask active keep on painting until you masked away all the useless part of Austin, in order to make it fit on Brigitte's face. The workflow will be very fast and linear: We said that we are not deleting information, simply masking it. This also means that if you paint a stroke you're not satisfied with you can simply press 'x' key on your keyboard to switch from foreground color to background color (from black to white) and paint back the information with the white brush.

This technique allows you to make and extra fine work because you can make a first rough mask with a big hard brush, then refine it with a soft brush and switch back and forth from mask and unmask to make it the way you like it the most. Here's our work after few minutes brushing:

Austin's opacity is restored to 100%. That's starting to make sense!! The use of Layer Mask helped us so much to mix the two layers softly and choose the correct selection of Austin to use. But the colors are still pretty different and we don't want our beloved Austin Powers to be sticked onto Brigitte's body. They must be one! Matching colors: These are not necessary steps, this work is just made to improve the blending. If you're doing it for fun you can be satisfied already. We are going to use two main function: - Image->Adjustments->Color Balance - Image->Adjustments->Levels

Make sure to make active Austin's Layer, click on its thumbnail (deselect the mask or we'll apply changes to the black and white mask). Then open up the Color Balance window. Here you can choose to adjust balance for Shadows, Midtones, Highlights. Start from Midtones and drag back and forth each of the bars you have and look at the result. Keep adjusting until you see the color matches. Repeat for Shadows and Highlights. here are the setting we used for these pictures: - Midtones: -36 ; +5 ; +11 ; - Shadows: -19 ; +13 ; +32 ; - Highlights: +3 ; +1 ; -1 ; Here's the result compared with the unbalanced version:

That's much better. Go for the Levels now: The technique is the same, just look what happens sliding the bars back and forth. Until you're satisfied. Here are the setting we used: RGB Channel Input levels: 0 ; 0.94 ; 255 RGB Channel Output levels: 8 ; 233 And here's the result:

Our improvements did a good job. We then also subtracted 5 points from saturation (Image->Adjustments->Hue/Saturation) And here's the final result:

Uh! Now Austin has the real mojo! Shagging!

Layer Masks
Author: Force More by this author Added: Mar 01, 2007 Rating: Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

This tutorial will show you how to use the layer mask feature of photoshop to blend different images. I have made a 400x400px canvas and added a few random 'spawn' pictures onto it. I also made the background black. Here is how they look

Click to enlarge

Now select a layer and go to Layer>Add Layer Mask>Hide All. Do this for each of the layers you want to blend. I added a layer mask to all of my picture layers that i want to blend together. Now my layers look like this

Click to enlarge

Now get a nice soft brush and select the black layer mask part of the image layer. Use the paint brush and brush around where you want the image to appear. Brushing with the white color selected will make the image appear. Brushing with black as your foreground color will make the image disappear (it will be hidden so if you make a mistake you can always swap to white and make the image reappear).

Click to enlarge

Continue to brush the other layers.... make sure you are on the black layer mask layer when you brush around. If you are not on the black layer when you brush, the actual image will be altered !!!! For a little extra feel to your images, go to Layer>Distort>Diffuse. This will brighten the images a bit. Here's what mine looks like-

Click to enlarge

And that's all there is to layer masks. You can use this technique for many other things. I use this as a lazy way to extract an image from its background. It's so much faster and easier to go back on mistakes.

Movement Effect
Author: DesignTutorials.info More by this author Added: Nov 10, 2006 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

Step 1 Open the next picture in Photoshop:

Step 2 Duplicate the layer in Layers Tab. And on the duplicate layer apply the effect Filter > Blur > Radial Blur with the next settings:

The new layer should look like this now:

Step 3 With a small brush (like "Soft Round 30 pixels") delete an area on the duplicate layer and adjust the luminosity and the contrast on the layers, and that's the result: a nice dynamic movement from a static picture.

Texturing Basics
Author: DesignTutorials.info More by this author Added: Nov 09, 2006 Rating: Level: All levels Software: Photoshop

Introduction This tutorial will show you how to use textures to dramatically change the look of pictures in a few easy steps. This is only a variant of how you can achieve that, the key is (like everyone says) to keep experimenting. Textures are very important is photographic manipulations, and used properly can create great effects. Step 1 - Choosing the images The first step is choosing the image you will be using. Pick a crisp, well shot image (quality of the original picture is very important). Different textures create different effect, usually wood or stone textures create the best effects. For this tutorial I chose this free image from www.deviantArt.com.

I will also be using a texture (fig.2) to transform this image.

Step 2 - Preparing the scene Open the image, right click on the layer in the layers tab and click "duplicate layer". Click on the newly duplicated layer and desaturate it (CTRL+SHIFT+U). Now set this layer to "soft light". This will give the

image more consistency. Now paste the texture and put it between the original image and the duplicated layer.

Step 3 - Texturing Click on the texture layer and set it to "color burn". This blending mode may work on another image so it's best to play around with this. The best blending modes are "multiply", "color burn", "overlay" and "soft light". Choose the one that suits the image best. Now the image should look something like below. Starting to look good now. We're almost done now

Step 4 - The finishing touches Now for the finishing touches First thing that bothers me is that the texture is all over the image now. Erase the parts that you don't want, leaving texture only on the face or the desired area you want to texture. Leaving the texture all over the image will make it look very flat. Another thing that bothers me is the fact that the image is too orange, I want it to give it a dead look. Create a hue/saturation layer above all this and play with the settings (I used these settings: hue: +170 and saturation: +29 then set the blend mode to "soft light"). One more thing needs fixing nowthere are some light areas in the background with seem distracting to me, so I just created a new layer above everything used the brush tool to paint those black. That's itI hope you didn't fall asleep during this tutorial but I wanted to explain most of the things related to texturing. Now go and have funand remember "experimenting is the key".

Final image

Retro Vector Style

Author: Fantasylabs.net More by this author Added: Oct 25, 2006 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

This tutorial will teach you how to make a vector landscape as shown below. Final:

Click to enlarge

Find Image 1. I found my image searchin on google-images after 'city / city panorama / ...'

Click to enlarge

Cutting Out The Buildings.. 1. Get the picture in photoshop and then grab Pen Tool

2. Now get this settings:

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

3. Zoom in and cut out the buildings (uneeded stuff you simply don't select)

Click to enlarge

4. Make a new layer and

-> Right click with the Pen Tool and click fill-path. 5. Press right then enter (should unselect the path). If not, click on the paths tab in the layers list and deselect it. 6. Hide (or delete) the layer with the picture 7. Give the background a kewl color, i took ffc600 The Retro Touch

1. Make a new layer and get the Polygonal Lasso Tool and make a selection like this

Click to enlarge

2. Fill it with a darker color:

Click to enlarge

That's it, it's finished!

Painting Effect
Author: Atul Thakur More by this author Added: Aug 10, 2006 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

1. Open Photoshop. Open Image to apply painting effect.

2. Make a Duplicate of the image layer and keep it selected. Filter > Stylize > Find Edges

3. Image > Adjustments > Desaturate (Change the layer mode to "Multiply)

4. Select Bottom Layer

5. Filter > Artistic > Dry Brush

6. Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation (Drag Saturation to 50)

7. Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast

8. You can experiment with Brightness/Contrast values.

Displacement Effect
Author: Daniel Piechnick More by this author Added: May 29, 2006 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

It's easy to make a coloured block of text, or a simple diagram (e.g. a flag), but to make it look like it's actually real, you'll need to follow these steps: 1 - Setting Up

Take your object (Australian flag in this case), and make some space around it, by clicking Image > Canvas Size, and putting in a greater height and width for the canvas. 2 - Creating a Gradient

Now make a new image, the same size as your first image. Select the "Gradient" tool, and edit the gradient (Click on the visual representation of the gradient, or click on "Edit" on the Options tab.) Put in lots of black and white markers, as I've done in the image (this will make your gradient produce black and white bars). 3 - Applying the Gradient

Hold down Shift, and apply the gradient across your new image from left to right. 4 - Softening the Gradient

Click Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, and blur your image a bit. This image is now your "displacement map". Save this image (I generally use the name "dispmap.psd"). 5 - Applying the Displacement Map

Now go back to your original flag image, and click Filter > Distort > Displace. Put 0% in "Horizontal Scale" and 5% in "Vertical Scale". (You can go higher if you want the waves to be bigger.) When it asks for a file, select your displacement map. (This will distort your image depending on how dark the displacement map is at that point.) 6 - Bringing in the Displacement Map

Now grab your displacement map image, and drag it onto your image. Use the arrow keys to nudge the displacement map until it covers the whole image. 7 - Using an Overlay to Create Some Light

Making Cartoon
Author: GreyCobra.com More by this author Added: May 11, 2006 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

This can be done using Photoshop or Flash. For this tutorial, I am using Photoshop. This tutorial requires patience; although its not very hard, its a long process. First, open a picture of yourself or someone else you wish to "cartoonize". For this tutorial, I will use a picture of myself.

Click to enlarge

Then, to start off, make a new layer. Then choose a feature and outline it using the pencil tool. You can use the brush tool, if you size it down to one pixel. I just suggest the pencil tool because it is automatically one pixel. I will do the eyes first. For the eyes, it is best to zoom in as much as possible:

Now, return to your background layer or the layer containing the actual photo and use the eyedropper tool to obtain the eye color (in my case, I have to pick out the color using the color mixer because the web cam isn't good quality). Fill in that part of the eye with that color like so:

Fill in the rest with and extremely light grey:

Now use a black brush for the pupils:

Now use a small white brush for the glares:

Now, while you're zoomed in, draw the wrinkles (don't be afraid, we all got 'em, and it looks weird w/o them):

From here, order doesn't matter except for hair, which comes last. I'm going to do my facial hair next to show an important factor of "cartoonization". Again, zooming in is recommended.

Its important not to leave out imperfect features such as my half-goatee. One part of cartooning is exaggerating such imperfections. Fill in black hair with extremely dark grey so outlines are visible. While I'm zoomed in here, I'll go ahead with the mouth. Start by outlining, then obtain the colors from the background using the eyedropper tool:

Next I'll scroll up to the nose. Again, zoom as much as possible, outline, but don't fill in yet. That comes later.

Now I'll continue the outlining with my ear. Again, filling this will come later, and zoom as much as possible.

Next comes the eyebrows. Very simple.

Now comes the outline of the face. Start with the bottom, then the sideburns (if a guy, if not skip). Again, exaggeration of the sideburns may have a better effect depending on how you imagine your digital self (just remember the Matrix).

Now make the outline of the hairline. This is very tedious, so be patient and don't destroy your mouse for being retarded. Fill the hair in with the same dark dark grey used for the facial hair (if a guy; if not, find a dark, dark grey). Fill in the eyebrows while you're at it.:

Now, obtain the skin color and fill in the rest of the face. Fill in the nostrils with black if you haven't already.

If your nose is as large as my honker, it is necessary to make the bottom part darker like the following. Just choose a darker color of the skin tone. Don't use the eyedropper tool.

Now, press ctrl+A (select all) on the layer with your cartoon and then ctrl+c (copy). Open a new file and press ctrl+v (paste).

That's it! Hope this has been useful!

Tracing and Colouring

Author: MickM.com More by this author Added: Apr 20, 2006 Rating: Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

In this tutorial, I will teach you how to trace your drawings in photoshop and then give them a nice color! Step 1 Open your drawingin photoshop;

Note: trace and color your drawing on the same size you opened it in ohotoshop: large images with thick lines will liik very nice once downscaled! Step 2 Then, select the Brush-Tool and set the size of the brush to a size that would be suitable for your lineart. Then select the Pen-Tool and make sure you got the following settings:

Step 3 When you trace the lines, you don't want to witness that all of a sudden, you can't continue because you only have 1 line at your disposal. What then to do is simple. Just draw a random line and when you're done, press ESC on your keyboard. That way, you deselect it, allowing you to make a new path. This is shown in the images below!

Step 3 Then select the Pen-Tool and make sure you got the following settings:

Step 4 When you got a nice path, or multiple paths, Right-click and a menu will pop up. Use that menu to give the path some lines! Press excape once more to remove the lines!

Step 5 Use the Brush-Tool at a desired size to color the different layers ON A NEW LAYER EACH!

Step 6 Then add shadow by making selections with either the Pen-Tool or the Polygonal Lasso-Tool, and fill them with black. Then group them with the origianl layer and lower the opacity!

Step 7 Use a normal brush and brush little hairs (if needed);

Step 8 THINK when you shade, because the sun can only come from 1 direction!

Step 9 Finish the shading;

Step 10 And now you see the transition of lineart into grayscale coloring (often used by Animators/Designer) and finally the finished product!

Click to enlarge

Anime Eyes
Author: MickM.com More by this author Added: Mar 21, 2006 Rating: Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

This tutorial teaches you how to draw perfect eyes for your anime-drawings! Step 1 Go to the place where you need your eyes in your drawing, or just draw your own in a new document!

Step 2 Draw the outer lines of the eye

Step 3 Then, give the eye some color, behind the outer lines!

Step 4 On a new layer, set it to multiply and with the same color, draw a cirle and 2 diagonal lines and cover it up to make it look that shadow. Then lower the opacity and press CTRL+G

Step 5 Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and blur it a little...

Step 6 Place a white orb on a new layer and press CTRL+G

Step 7 Add a simple black outer glow

Step 8 Then lower the fill to 0%

Step 9 With the Pen-Tool, add some black shade and lower the opacity

Step 10 Add 2 white orbs on a new layer.

Step 11 Then create a new layer, fill it with white or black and go to Filter>Noise>Add Noise and set it to the max

Step 12 Then Filter>Blur>Radial Blur and set it to ZOOM and BEST

Step 13 Then select a circle, and go to Select>Feather and choose 20px and press delete

Step 14 Place it under all grouped layers once you pressed CTRL+G

Step 15 Then change the base-color with CTRL+U and you're done!

Digital Coloring
Author: Chris Arlidge More by this author Browse Pages: 1 2 > >> Added: Aug 23, 2005 Rating: Level: Professional Software: Photoshop

Welcome to part one of the two part Digital Coloring for coloring comics Series. In this tutorial we will explore how to prepare line art for coloring comics in Adobe Photoshop. If you require line art to practice with you can get it here. This tutorial(s) makes use of the channels palette extensively, so if you are unfimiliar or uncomfortable with them you can use layers with some modifications, but it is recommended that you knuckle down and get into using channels as they are key to using Adobe Photoshop to its full potential. Since we recieved the line art as is (on purpose) we are just going to do a quick fix for our line art for illustration purposes in this tutorial (step 1). It is recommended however that you follow the 'Scanning Line art Tutorial' for best results. Original Scan (below): (Line art by John Rauch Jr. www.pensnpixels.com) 1. Levels Adjustment. <ctrl L> Brings up levels palette

Slide the arrow on the right towards the middle until the grey noise (pencil marks in this case) is gone. You may notice some of the black in the line will fade, so you need to slide the left most slider a little ways towards the middle. This will help darken the line again, but don't over do it, as you do not want to lose the integrity of the original line art. Note: You should remove any dark flecks or aberrations first as to get rid of them with levels will degrade the line art too much. You can do this buy either using the eraser (h) or by using the brush (b) tool with the foreground color set to white.

Before and After Levels Adjustments.

Before

After 2. Lets make an alpha channel for our Line Art. Go to the channels palette and create an alpha channel. Click onthe little arrow beside the channels pallette and select New Channel, you must turn the color swatch to black, and make it 100%. Now you can name it whatever you like although I suggest you name it Line Art, as it will become easier to identify if and when you get many channels going. Select ok.

With the new line art channel selected, fill it with white Alt+backspace (with foreground color selected as white). Your Line art channel should look something like mine to the left.

3. Now we need to make a selection of the Line While pressing the <ctrl> key, click on the little picture window beside the blue channel. This will load it as a selection. You should now have a marquee on white. Now <ctrl + shift+ I> inverse the selection. 4. Fill the selection with black. Make sure your foreground color is black and then hit <alt+Backspace>. As demonstrated in the figure to the left.

To the left is what your channels palette should look like at this time.

6. Remove the original Line art Okay now that we have the Line art stored in an Alpha Channel we can remove the original line art from the RGB channel. This is simple. Select the RGB channel - fill the channel with white (make sure the foreground color is white) and then press alt+backspace. Now you should no longer have anything in the channels R,G,B or RGB.

7. Make the line art visible.

Digital Coloring
Author: Chris Arlidge More by this author Browse Pages: << < 1 2 Added: Aug 05, 2005 Rating: Level: Professional Software: Photoshop

In this tutorial we will learn how to use Adobe Photoshop to render line art like they do in the comics. The following procedure is not the only way its done, but it is one of the methods used by professionals. This tutorial unlike previous versions of my Photoshop coloring tutorial is done almost entirely in the channels. If using this method is not the thing for you can use layers instead, but I strongly recommend that you give

this way a try. It's more friendly on your file size and memory and it teaches you some important fundamentals about the ever so important channels in Adobe Photoshop.

Download some line art to practice with

Step 1 -Add in a base color. This tutorial is not about painting a background, but its always good to give yourself soemthing to work with, it may help establish mood and color scheme...this doestn have to be written in stone...it may change later (as you will see in this tutorial). So for now I make the foreground color a darker blue and in the RGB Channel (select that channel) and press alt+backspace to fill the entire area. You will notice your line art remains untouched.

At this stage your channels should look something like mine to the left.

Step 2 - Begin making selections for the Flat Colors We need to create the 'Flats'. These will help divide our different color areas. It's important to do this part carefully - even though it seems like the easiest step, its actually quite important. To begin selecting areas choose your selection tool, I prefer the Polygonal Lasso Tool, but some people may use the pen tool or even the normal lasso tool. I do not recommend using the magic wand at this stage. Now you want to switch the 'anti-aliasing' option off in the Lasso tool options. This option is located in different spots in different versions, screen shot from the horizontal tool options bar in Photoshop 7. Make sure 'feather' is set to zero as well. Hover over the Images to see what they refer to. TIP: remember to save often and if you want, save incrementally as I do - adding a number to the end of the file name to show its progression.

Step 3 - Begin Flatting Selecting along the middle of the line art is ideal (John has made his art work very easy to work with as you can see he has nice thick lines).

Step 4 - Fill Selections We are still working in the RGB channel. Once you have an area selected drop in a base color for that part using the Paint Bucket Tool (G) with a color of your choice. I like to go with darker colors as the flat colors tend to end up being my shadow areas color. Continue selecting and filling areas, keep the fills tight you don't what any color of one section showing anywhere in another. TIP: get to know your shortcuts in Adobe Photoshop. Theycan be real time savers. ALT + BACKSPACE will do the same as the paint bucket tool by filling a selected area withthe foreground color.

At this point your channels should look something like mine to the left.

Step 5 - Back up your flats. We are going to create another alpha channel like we did for the lLine art except here we are going to store our flats in case we need them later for selections. Okay this part might seem tricky but its quite straight forward. Select one of the channels (either R,G, or B not RGB) make a copy of that 'channel'. To do this press ctrl+a, then ctrl+c. This step selects the contents of the channel then copies it into memory. Now by clicking on the new channel icon at the bottom of the palette, or by using the fly out menu arrow on the top right select 'New channel'. Then with that new channel selected press ctrl+v. After all that, your channels should look like mine below. This will make life so much easier, I love Adobe Photoshop :)

Step 6 - Getting back to the RGB Channel When we created the new channel the visibility by default turned off on all the other channels so click on the RGB channel again and then click the visibility icon beside the Line Art channel to get back into business. Your line art and 'colored' flat colors should now be visible again.

Step 7 - Hue adjustment This step is optional of course. As is usually the case I see changes that need to be made to the colors I chose for the flats. In this case I want the skin tones a little darker. Using the magic wand (w) I select the skin areas and apply a Hue Adjustment (ctrl+h) and slide the lightness slider to the left. Feel free to experiment with the saturation and hue sliders at this point if you want, but in this case I simply decreased the lightness a tad.

Step 8 -Selecting an area for lighting. One of the hardest things about coloring line art in my opinion and is something I struggle with is knowing what lighting to use and how to apply it. I try to read the line art for obvious tell tale signs of where the light is strongest or what direction its coming from. Some things you may wish to look for in the line art is the line weight...a good inker will indicate an area further away from the light with a heavier line than one that is closer. Remember as well, that light temperature and color can affect the highlight color as well. One thing you can do to help with rendering is take an object and place it on a flat surface then using a flashlite or other strong light source move in, out and around it seeing how it reacts and the cast shadows it makes, etc. In the figure to the left I have begun by selecting the arms only, again using the magic wand. If you get other areas selected in this process as can often be the case you can go in with the Lasso tool (L) and while holding the alt key - remove sections that are highlighted that you don't want. We are still working on the

RGB channel. That's right, we are going to render this guy all on one layer (that's why we have undos and the history palette, and the backed up flats). No safety net of layers! Lets keep the file size manageable.

Step 9 - Add general Highlight I used the Radial Gradient Tool, and selected the foreground to transparent option as indicated in the screen shot below. Layer mode is set to Normal. Some people use screen or even dodge modes, but I am not ready to do that at this stage so I just picked a hue that is higher on the HSB display, by grabbing the Eyedropper (I) and selecting the base color of the arm's skin tone then bring in up the HSB dialogue by clicking on the foreground color in the Tools palette. You can see the slight increase in volume by the subtle gradation of tones when I stroked the gradient across the selection. I did this going from the point closes to the light sources to furthest. This might take some practice so don't get frustrated, just keep trying.

Step 10 - Selective Highlighting Keep making selections and applying the gradient to areas you want highlighted, keep in mind your trying to represent 3 dimensions so look for areas that will have cast shadow and don't select those areas. This will help define your shadows more. In the figure below I have continued with he uniform and glove. TIP: For softer edges to your selections try usng photoshop's 'feather' feature..Ctrl+Alt+D and choose 3-5 pixels or whatever you feel is good.

Step 11 - Second stage highlights Now that we have our lighting direction figured out and a general lighting applied to the figure we can begin refining the highs by adding more on top of previous ones. In the figure below I have added a selection to the baseball cap, and doing the same thing as before with selecting a higher more saturated color, I will

apply the radial gradient to this selection for a more pronounced highlight. If you don't like using the Gradient tool feel free to use the airbrush at 0% hardness, you will have to play with opacity and size settings.

I continue to add highlights based on, trying my best to keep them consistent in value ( First pic on the left). Then I begin doing the same with the skin tones ( 2nd pic).

Step 12 - Third Stage highlights Yep more highlights...and we won't be done here either (at least not for this pic, but you could stop here with the highlights if you so desire). Going back over the areas we did previously, with slightly smaller selections, and an even lighter hue, its time to add more highlights. This gradual contraction of selections is sometimes referred to as 'cuts' but I am quite sure every colorist has a different method for accomplishing this effect, this is just how I like to do it.

Step 13 - Adding Secondary Light This step is optional. Secondary lighting and reflected ligh can make a color job much more interesting, it wasn't really needed here but I added it for illustration. Taking a light blue and making selections along the opposite edge of the primary light source, I added in very lightly - a blue cast using the airbrush. Be careful not to over do it here. Secondary lights or reflected light should be very subtle, unless of course you are dealing with some really whacky and dramatic lighting!

Step 14 -Changing the hue of the Background. This step is optional. At this stage I am not happy with the background color, yeah it happens. So now we get to use our back up flats channel to select the background and change its hue. Once you have gone to the Backup flats channel and selected the background using the magic wand (w), you will want to restore the visibility back the way we did way back in Step 6. Then with the RGB channel selected bring up the Hue/Saturation/Brightness dialogue (ctrl+u). Click on the 'Colorize' box and then adjust the Hue and saturation levels to your satisfaction.

Step 15 - Adding Final Highlights and Corrections Well if I haven't lost you up to this point, this is probably where its going to happen, because what is about to happen here is me 'correcting' mistakes I made with the render up to this point, as well as adding some 'dodged' final highlights for that extra shiny feel. In order to do this final highlight step set your tool (either the airbrush or gradient) to Color Dodge Mode, and select (using the Eyedropper (I)) the base color from the area you wish to highlight and then fly at it. In this next step I added a gradient to the background just after I finished the changing of its hues. I did this with the background still selected. I then added some final dodged highlights, and made some corrections to the shadow areas and reflected light on the face. TIP: It may help to think about the coloring as 'building up' the highlights one layer at a time.

Step 16 - Apply the line art This step is essential to package up your image and this step is also necessary if you wish to add special effects that cover the line art, like glows, etc. Bring up a selection of the lineart channel by Ctrl + Clicking on it. Invert the selection (Ctrl +Shift + I) then in the RGB channel fill the selection with Black (Alt + Backspace if the foreground color is black already). Step 17 - Delete the Line Art Channel. Now that you have applied the line art you need to delete the lineart channel and any other channels you are not going to use. Drag the channels(s) to the trash icon or right click and select 'delete channel'. Now if you want you can go and add glows or glints or whatever you like...have fun and experiment! Step 18 - Save File

You might want to save your file at this point under a different name, just in case you decide to go back into it later.

Text on Rust
Author: Tutorialwiz.com More by this author Added: June 14, 2005 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

Start with a black background, and set your foreground abd background color to #87681E and Black.

Go to Filter>Render>Clouds

Go to Images>Adjust>Brightness/Contrast: Set : Brightness: 40 and contrast: -30

Go to Filter>Brush Strokes>Sprayed Strokes. Set: Stroke Length: 5 Spray Radius: 20 Stroke Direction: Horizontal

Go to Filter>Noise>Add Noise. Set: Amount: 3 Distribution: Gausian Monochromatic: Checked

Go to Filter>Brush Strokes>Splatter Set: Radius: 25 Smoothness: 15

Go to Filter > Sharpen>Unsharp Mask Set:

Amount: 70% Radius: 55px Threshold: 0 Do it 1 more time, this time, set: Amount: 50% Radius: 40px Threshold: 0

Use the type tool to create a new text. and apply the following layer styles: DropShadow: Inner Shadow and 1 pixel stroke. you can play around with these.

Then set the text layer blending mode to "Linear Dodge"

Colouring Some More Lineart

Author: Psionic3d.co.uk More by this author Added: June 14, 2005 Rating: Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

Step 1: I found a nice cool bit of lineart by a dude called BOMU and decided to colour it up. I opened up the file, double clicked the layer name "background" and renamed it to inkwork and changed its properties to "MULTIPLY" as ringed in red. By renaming it we can change the properties, cus you cant with a background layer. Anyway, I then created several blank layers and dragged them below the inkwork layer. I used the Polygon Selection tool to select an area then I filled it using the paint bucket with some solid colour. I also named the layers, so I can tell whats what! As you can see the eyes and mouth are above the hand, the hand layer is above the face, and the face is above the collar and background.

Step 2: Now, on each of the colour layers, click the little Tick to Preserve Transparency as shown in red, This basically stops paint from going outside the area thats filled, like masking but quicker :). Now I selected the eyes and mouth layer and added some detail using the airbrush and The Dodge & Burn tool (marked in red). The Dodge & Burn tool is tricky to use so practice a lot, but basically when you draw with it it will darken the colour, but if you hold ALT it will lighten the colour, its a nice way to shade quickly without constantly picking colours. But be careful overuse can make you pic look crap.

Step 3: Now I am working on the face layer, as you can see the hand is unnaffected because its on the layer above and so are the eyes. Now is the fun part, lots of soft Dodge and Burning with a big brush and loads of airbrushing, using ALT to pick colours from the face itself. As you can see the airbrush is on a low opacity setting, this allows me to build up the colours more gradually.

Step 4: Nearly done, coloured the hand the same way as I did the face, then did the collar and background. I also added some extra lighting with the airbrush down the side of her face and in her big eyes!!!! Save it, Flatten it, resize it and save for the web!

Step 5: OK heres the finished picture, I also used a big airbrush set to "SOFT LIGHT" and sprayed a bit of green and blue over the skin in places to change the tones a bit. I know this tut doesn't explain exactly how I draw stuff, its just meant show you my process and hopefully give you some tips along the way. If you found it useful drop me an Email :) better still post it up on my forums!!!!

Changing Color
Author: Tutorialwiz.com More by this author Added: June 10, 2005 Rating: Level: Experienced Software: Photoshop

Open the document you want to change the color of. Remember to make a back up of the original. Select the area of color that you wish to alter, in this case, the girl's T-Shirt. Use a combination of the Lasso and Extract tools. To make an accurate selection, zoom in on the image, to about 800%, then select the polygonal lasso tool.

With the polygonal lasso tool, make your selection by clicking around the target's edges.

Continue clicking around the edges until you come back to the beginning to end the loop. If you have multiple area you want to select, then hold down SHIFT then start making another selection, this will add the next selection to your current one. Dont worry too much if you accidently go outside or select unwanted area. We can fix this later. Once you have your selection, zoom back to 100%.

Now click on the quick mask button, this is the right button located just below the colors.

Now you will see something similar to mine below, your selected area in normal colors, and the rest (un selected area) in transparent red. This is quick mask mode.

Now make sure your colors are set to black and white, select the "paint brush" tool and set the brush size to 13 hard edge.

Now if you "paint" over your image with BLACK, it adds to the selection, and if you paint in WHITE, it DELETE from the selection. with this in mind, zoom in on the image and find spots that you missed or are not accurate and paint accordingly. if you look at my image below, my selection using the lasso tool was not perfect, so I use the brush tool now, and color in where I missed. Tip: press "X" to change alternate the black and white colors.

If the brush size is too big, change it to smaller brush to get into tight areas. But remember to use hard edge brushes, as soft edge will give you inaccurate results. This is how it look after I paint over the area with black.

Do this for your whole image to get accurate selection. Once you think you're done, click on the NORMAL mode button (the LEFT button next to the quick mask mode). This is how it should look now, a sharp accurate selection around my targetted area. If you see that you missed a spot, just go back to quick mask mode to fix it.

Now create a new Adjustment layer for Hue and Saturation.

Play around with the Hue and Saturation sliders to get the desired colors. You can also try turning on the colorize on and off to see the different effects. The important thing to remember when changing tonal information is not to get too carried away - it's all too easy to lose shadow tones and the texture of the fabric. Subtle adjustments of the sliders will help retain the grain in the fabric as well as ensuring that shadows look realistic.

Another way to change color of the selection is using variations function Image->Adjustments->Variation. This enables you to easily add shades of colour to highlights, midtones or shadows and is a useful means of creating new tones. Unfortunately, it lacks the subtlety of other methods.

Discover the Quick Mask Mode

Author: BasicPhotoshop.com More by this author Added: May 30, 2005 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

This is an important tutorial because it is introducing you to the quick mask. The Photoshop quick mask is a powerful way to get great selections accurately and it's very flexible. First start off with the lasso tool

and make a very loose selection around an object

Now that you have made a selection, you can view it at any time (and do further editing) in the quick mask mode. To enter the quick mask mode press the icon as shown right here (you can also toggle between regular and quick mask modes with the Q' keyboard shortcut).

When you enter the quick mask mode you get a rubylith. This shows that areas that are de-selected in Red and the areas that are selected as untouched or clear.

You can further edit your selection in process (the quick mask becomes a temporary channel in the Channels palette and is gone when you exit the mode) by a number of ways including selection and filling (combined), gradient and using the brush tool (most common). Select the brush tool while you are in quick mask mode.

You can change the size of your brush in the brush dialog box in the options bar. Basically what you're going to do is paint in' the areas that you want to deselect.

In order to do this you also have to understand that black must be the foreground color in order to paint in red (don't let this confuse you...if the rubylith was black you wouldn't see anything) to deselect. To RESELECT you use white as your foreground color with the paintbrush. This is a very important concept I refer to often: Black hides pixels. White buys them back. It could take you a long time to get comfortable with this in an operational proficiency. I cover dozens of tutorials on quick masking and getting great selections in my Basic Photoshop DVD Training; this will help you fully grasp and know how to use all of these tools like a pro. Also, when you choose any shade between white and black you will get different levels of opacity in the resulting selection. The closer to black you are the more invisible the pixels and the closer to white the shade of grey, the more visible the pixels will be.

White is pure original pixels ("buys back" your pixels)

and black is pure hidden (masked) or invisible.

Because the quick mask is essentially a grayscale alpha channel, no other colors are involved, just white to black and shades of grey in between. These are what you will paint' with in order to select or deselect. Now just take your brush with black as the foreground color and fill in the rest of the sky carefully.

The quick mask (or layer mask) rubylith just shows you the actual job that you are doing. Feel free to lower the size of the brush to get into smaller areas (use the bracket keys [ ] to make the brush size larger or smaller).

If you accidentally (or purposefully) spillover and deselect an area with red use the shortcuts of D,X to switch and get white as your new foreground color. With white remember you are buying back pixels, or preserving them in the ultimate selection, so just eraser the red rubylith to where it spills over into your mountain or selection object.

It might take a few minutes depending on the type of selection job and complexity (even for pro's) but learning this 'quick mask' method is really a time saver. Try using the rectangular marquee to get a selection like this (yikes). Remember that you can also combine other selection tools and you can use the

gradient tool, making selections in the quick mask mode and then filling with either white or black or your shade of grey. You can also enter the quick mask mode from scratch without first making any selection (not recommended) and then you can use a large brush to just start deselecting areas to close in around your selection with black as your foreground color. Press the Edit in standard mode button

or Q to exit quick mask, delete the temporary channel (which will return once you enter again) and see the selection job that you have created. You can always enter quick mask mode again to keep working on or editing your selection. I much prefer the quick mask mode personally than to edit selections by making them into work paths and using pen editing tools. With the brushes it usually gets a great selection every time with nice clean edges.

Here is the view of the quick mask mode in the Channels palette where the temporary channel (alpha) is created. Note that the black area is deselected and the white area is the selected' portion. The rubylith simply allows you to view your selection / quick mask job in progress.

Remember that you can also right click in standard mode (with selection tools such as the marquee...) to choose make work path. This is covered in another tutorial and is another (harder) way of editing your selections/paths.

Red Bow
Author: Solinari.net More by this author Added: Feb 08, 2005 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

For celebratory occasions

01. Create the path below with the pen tool. You can also use the polygonal lasso, or any other method you choose.

02. Fill the path or shape with the color of your bow, and apply an 'Inner Glow' with Normal Blend Mode, a darker color than your bow (in this case, #C30000), and Size 6.

03. You should achieve the following shape:

04. Duplicate this shape 3 times, and position them as shown.

05. Now use the Shape Tool and create a Path using the rounded rectangle with radius 10px.

06. Fill the shape, and apply the same layer style as the other shapes (inner glow).

07. Position the rounded rectangle over the center of the four outside pieces.

08. Using the elliptical marquee tool, create a thin oval and color it with a darker color than your bow.

09. Position the thin oval under an outside piece as shown:

10. Do the same for all the outside pieces.

11. Using the polygonal lasso tool, create this trapazoidal shape and apply the same layer style.

12. Place two trapazoids beneath the rest of the bow as shown. You have now completed the bow.

Engraved Text
Author: Annesdesign.net More by this author Added: July 29, 2004 Rating: Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

1. Make sure you have black as you forground colour and apply the text on a seperate layer.

2. Copy the text layer and change the colour on the text to white. Move the text 1 pixel down and 1 pixel to the right using the arrow keys. Change the layer mode from Normal to Soft Light.

3. The last thing you have to do is to change the opacity of the black textlayer to ca. 60%