issue 09/2010
content
cover artist – interview
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Oliver Weiss
Oliver Weiss is an illustrator from Germany who works in a variety of different techniques ranging from whimsical drawings to mixedmedia collage artwork.
Editor‘s choice
creative class Trick or treat Benoit Ladouceur
Fell in Love with an Alien Julia Trotti
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Gallery of Katerina Tumanova (Belkina)
photo retouch Smile
interview
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Tina Foster
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Interview with Alex Eckman-Lawn 20
Dearest Readers!
photomanipulation Solitude Andrei Oprinca
On the road Julie Waterhouse
interview Interview with Doopla
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workshop Making of a building - 1 Alex Eckman-Lawn
Making of a building - 2 Alex Eckman-Lawn
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I have a pleasure to present you the latest, October issue of our magazine. I hope you are as excited as I am and that you will be eager to try out all our tutorials. This month we decided to prepare you for Halloween with Benoit Ladouceur’s tutorial Trick or treat. You can also learn how to give your image a vintage look with Julia Trotti or how to build your portfolio with some help of Alex Eckman-Lawn’s exercises. We didn’t forget about photo retouch fans: check out Tina Foster’s tutorial. As always, you can find in our magazine interviews with artists. This time we talk with Oliver Weiss and Alex Eckman-Lawn who show us what it means for them to be digital artists. We have all this and much more for you in our October issue so I am leaving you a pleasure to discover all the other articles we prepared. Have a good lecture! Magdalena Mojska magdalena.mojska@psdmag.org Editor in Chief
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interview
Interview with
Oliver Weiss Oliver Weiss is an illustrator from Germany who works in a variety of different techniques ranging from whimsical drawings to mixedmedia collage artwork. His clients from twenty years include Random House, Rowohlt, Reed Business, Die Zeit, The Christian Science Monitor, Der Spiegel, Deutsche Bank, and the Munich Oktoberfest.
Oliver, could you say a few words about yourself? I remember the first time a drawing of mine ever got published was in a large parenting magazine in Munich when I was ten years old. The school had entered an art competition, and my drawing yielded an award that paid for a hiking trip for my class. I guess that’s when it all got started. I have always wanted to be an illustrator, and for me being able to work in this field professionally is like a dream come true, especially given that I come from a wholly different background in engineering and science.
What do you like the most about being a digital artist? Why do you think it is worth to choose this profession? Most of what I do is created and assembled directly on the computer, so I think it is fair to call me a digital artist, even though I still do use pen, pencil, paint and glue from time to time. It is such fun getting up in the morning and having a whole day of art ahead of you. I couldn’t picture myself doing anything else these days. I am always at awe that I am actually making a living from doing fun little images all the time. I think what is so exceptional about the art of illustration is that unlike fine art that hangs in galleries and museums your illustration needs to fit with a given topic or an article in a magazine, and this commercial aspect of it all gives you an immediate feedback about your work. I find that very gratifying. I also like working with editors and publishers, and crave to see the final product. I feel the best concepts are those that are receiving constructive critique on behalf of the client, and the final result is often (though not always) better than what I would have been able to come up with on my own.
Are there any downsides of being an illustrator? As with every profession, I am sure there are negative sides to being an illustrator. I am a freelancer, like most of us, which means that in lack of an employer you need to motivate yourself to get to work. Also, you only make money once you actually nail a given project. You don’t have regular working hours and sometimes have to pull an
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all-nighter. The very concept of “vacationing” is unheard of. The royalties are usually quite low, and so forth... But frankly, for me these aren’t really downsides but rather essentials that go with the profes-
sion and make it exciting. I am not sure that my peers will agree with me here, but this is how I feel. So all put together I don’t see a great deal of downsides to the profession as such.
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interview
Tell us about your biggest achievements. What are you especially proud of? I don’t really think I am “proud” of anything I have done, as pride is not a term that I can relate to. I do feel happy about a variety of projects I have been lucky to be involved in, even though I am not really looking back on my “achievements” all that much. I often feel the happiest when I am working on a new project, and I am sensing that it is turning out nicely. That said, there have been a number of lovely projects that I feel good about to this day. One such project is my Oktoberfest poster design award from 2008 which came about through a competition that I was invited to take part in. My design was chosen to be displayed on posters, beer steins and kitchenware, and on a great deal of apparel, too. That was really cool. Another venture that proved quite fortunate was my jacket design for a book on philosophy written by Richard David Precht. It got published by Random House, and has evolved into Germany’s bestselling nonfiction title currently, selling well over a million
copies so far, with no end in sight. I also enjoy assignments I do for Die Zeit, Germany’s largest weekly newspaper. In one such project I designed a large poster on the history of German parties since 1848. I used rivers as visuals for the political streams coming from the left, the right, and the liberal middle. The fun thing about the poster was that there was very little art direction involved, and so first I had to educate myself about the hundreds of German parties that evolved over the years through a PhD thesis from the 1960’s that they handed me, and through complementary research on the web before I was able to come up with suitable imagery. A really fun product that will come out this fall is a number of packaging designs for coffee, tea, sugar, flower and the like that I created for a large manufacturer of tin boxes. I am really excited about seeing them up for sale in the store shelves soon.
Where do you get your ideas from? Actually, the ideas come with the given assignment. It’s not like I have a preconceived mindset about a specific topic, but rather, once I tackle a project I need to get into things rather quickly, often within minutes. You develop a sense of coming up with visuals swiftly though – I guess this comes with the profession after doing it for a while. Typically, I conjure up a small handful of concepts before getting to work on the final art.
Any advice for the beginners on this field? I think it is important to keep in mind that the profession of illustration is not all about drawing fun little
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pictures, but it is about running a business. The business of illustration, as I see it, is not so much about getting paid for art that you enjoy creating, but you get paid for creating art that pleases the client. Ideally, of course, both sides of the story will be addressed to in the process. I have come to learn that many of my peers are lacking common business sense big time. One of the greatest mistakes that artists make is that they are outsourcing all issues dealing with business matters and legal stuff. I think that is a big mistake, and quite irresponsible at that. As a freelancer you need to be in full control of your goings-on, and understand all financial matters. By this token, never sign a contract without knowing what exactly it says. I usually draft my own contracts, or modify the client’s contract to my liking. Also, never spend more money than you make, and always leave a little on the side, especially when you are starting out. As far as the artistic aspects of the profession are concerned, I recommend learning as much as you can, and see to it that you never stop getting inspired – not only by art, of course, but by the multitude of things going around us. Art is all about creativity, inspiration, and fun, and you shouldn’t loose that on the way. Also, it might be good to know for those starting out that even though the world is your market nowadays, there are substantial cultural differences that need to be taken into account. For example, if you are working for the American market, which in my view is the largest and most versatile in the world, you need to know that art directors don’t like it when you give them more than one style. Europe is probably the least restrictive market in that regard, but unfortunately the market for illustration isn’t all that large, particularly in German-speaking countries.
What do you currently work on? Do you have any ideas for your future projects? I got a number of things lined up for the future. I am working on some concepts for books, and in the longer run I also want to focus a little more on doing paintings and artwork for galleries.
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Trick or treat
With Halloween fast approaching I was in the mood for something a bit darker. Being a fan of zombie films it became apparent that this image would be a good occasioin to play around with one of my favorite horror themes. This time I decided to go for something more spontaneous... More along the lines of a mood study then a final highly polished image. I started thumbnailing on paper with "Trick or treat" as a main direction and came up with this: A woman hiding in a dark basement or room with a zombie knocking at the door. It fitted with what I wanted... a very cliche Halloween idea !! medium | 35 h. adobe photoshop CS3
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trick or treat
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preparing my canvas I don't particularly like starting from a blank canvas... and especially not from a white canvas. Once I had created a new Photoshop document I quickly proceeded, using a heavily textured brush, to covering the entire canvas with texture.
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references In order to speed up the process, I rumaged through my sketchbooks for a sitting character sketch I remembered doing a few months back. I always carry a sketchbook with me. I try to draw everything and anything that comes to mind. For most of my character work I try to sketch from live model or photo references to obtain realistic proportions. Looking for my sketch ended up taking me over 3 hours... would have probably been faster to draw the character again from scratch! Once I found it, I scanned it into photoshop and proceeded to clean the image up.
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basic layout sketch Once I had my character, I started layout out my different elements. The woman would occupy center stage with a zombie at the door to her back. I try at this stage to keep everything loose and flowing, nothing too tight for now. Going to tight in the begining can put us in a corner creating problems later on where it becomes difficult to go outside the planned idea. .psd Photoshop
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creative class
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perspective layout I work as a matte painter in my day job, a job where I frequently use 3D animation softwares to produce images. Because of this I often go to 3D packages and quickly build a 3D layout of my image to make sure my perspective work is good. Using 3D like this permits me to quickly evaluated different angles, lenses and spatial relation of every objects in the image. Once I made a 3D layout of the room, I screen captured a frame and imported it in Photoshop as a new layer. It's then blended with the background by changing the layer setting from Normal to Overlay.
05 basic values Grabbing a simple basic round photoshop brush with a 70% Opacity I set off placing my first attempt at light and shadows. It's an important step... since the dark masses that are painted in have a tremendous impact on the overall composition. The 3D layer being just a reference, I start covering it. I want all the attention to the main character so I'm leaving the area lighter. The zombie in the doorway will be mostly backlight since I don't want the image to be too gruesome with a nice light spot on the floor that will run to my character, helping to tie together background and foreground.
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more paint At this point, I'm just adding layers of paint to the elements in the picture. Slowly making the reference grid disapear and shaping the mood I want. I also start to move away from my now mostly black and white composition and add color to the main character. I've decided to go for another cliche... the red dress. I quickly scribble in some flesh tones and pick a bright red color for the dress area. quiclky putting thoses in like this permits me to, again, evaluatte the impact it's going to have on my composition. 10
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color I'm now satisfied with layout and composition. I add a layer over my sketch and set it to Overlay. With the same brush I used to paint my layout, I start putting flat colors over my grayscale sketch. This way the gray values get transformed to the colors I pick keeping my darks and whites mostly intact with a hint of tint. I'll use green values for the interior with golden tones for what we see through the door. I also add another layer of red to the dress.
08 clean up Working in this fashion although very fun and not constraining brings in it's share of issues. One issue being that the result feels extremely rough. In order to clean some roughness off of the image I switch to the Smudge tool. Set it to 50% and change the pattern to one of the spackled brush. I then use this brush to smooth out the rough brush strokes from most of the character, background and zombie. This step completely removes what was left from my perspective references. It also gives me a very fluid looking base from wich to continue my work. Almost like if I had used watercolors and washed over the whole area.
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lighting In order to created a quick lighting scheme, I add a layer, fill it with black the use the Gradient tool to create a big round gradiant over my main light source. I then change the layer setting to Overlay and bring the Transparency to about 20%. This makes the area around the door brighter and everything else like if it was in shadows. I also take a few minutes to make a fake news paper front page with headline to help the viewer understand the picture's story. .psd Photoshop
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creative class
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uneveness At the moment I get the feeling that all the values in my image are a bit all over the place. That they lack unity. A quick way of fixing this is with the help of the Gradient map adjustment layer. I generate the layer and I pick 2 values, a warm one for the lights and a cool one for the darks. I then switch the layer to overlay and push it's Tranparency to 30%. This instantly evens out the whole image by adding common values to the whole composition.
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change I pick up a couple of days later and start to think that I don't have the impact I want with the composition. The eye wanders in the image without locking to my main character. After a few minutes thinking about it I start experimenting and come to the conclusion that I have conflicting areas... the window behind the character brings the eye to the background away from where I want it. The zombie is also a bit big. I cut the image to pieces with the lasso tool, remove the window and scale down the door and zombie.
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fixes The image is pretty damaged at this point. I add a layer on top and start painting in some fixes and more details on the different elements. This image is all about the woman character so I move onto painting in more light on her, more details on her face and dress. 12
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13 quick background work In order to obtain a quick background I go through my image reference bank looking for some very textured pieces of flooring and walls. After finding a couple of interesting images I want to use, I shut off my foreground elements (character, table, zombie) keeping only my background ones. I then paste my refs over the desired areas and use the Transformation>Distort function to deform them to the right pespective. I blend them to my painted background by switching the textures layers to Soft light with a Transparency setting of 35%. I now have a nice heavily textured environnent to build on.
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more paint I turn on the foreground elements again wich brings a new look to the image and continue painting in light information, details and mood. The door still bugs me a little but I keep it aside for now.
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all about the character Like I said, I want this image to be all about the woman character. I still feel a bit distracted between the competing shapes and brightness of the zombie-door combo vs. my character. I decide to darken the wall behing her to broaden the contrast of her light skin against the dark background and at the same time I add planks to the door to kind of fence out and breakup the zombie's silhouette. My eye now goes to my character's face wich is what I wanted. .psd Photoshop
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blood, guts and lighting Time to move on to the fun stuff... I zoom in to the area occupied by the zombie and start painting in details. I texture the planks with ovelayed texture, followed by painted in brush strokes. The zombie is painted over with a heavily textured brush at a 50% Opacity. I like this technique since it works by building up the values, and with a texture brush you can see all sorts of motifs and patterns emerge... just great for a rotting corpse. Altough I wanted them to be mildly gruesome, the zombies wouldn't be zombies without blood all over. So I use a nice red color on a separate darken layer to paint in the juicy spots. Having the blood on a different layer is great since you can tone it up or down as needed. A nice trick to have when doing illustration at a professional level where some markets will want to censor things like blood. You can then quickly produce the "censored" version without going in to do a full repaint. At this point I also work in some "interactive" lighting. In order to obtain my bright light from the door I'm going to use a layer+layer mask technique. I use the round Gradient tool on a top layer, picking my color from one of the colours seen through the door, I the make a large round gradiant making sure the center is in the middle of the source of the light I want to cover. I then use a Layer Mask and the Lasso tool to cut out the shadow covered areas. Switching this layer to Color dodge or Vivid light always gives the best results. You obtain a nice bright lighting that you can control without having to repaint everything if you're not satisfied.
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character details The BG and zombies are mostly done at this point, I move on to the female character... some area are still rought so I blend them more and I also spent time on her hair. I fix the dark looking shadow areas and give her smoother skin. Her hair color is also evened out.
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details Once I'm down to this point I usually zoom in to my canvas and start fiddleing in the details. I add makeup to the characters, fix the eyes, lips, jewelry, gun... I also darken her lower left leg to make it as if it was in shadows. This helps making the character feel in the light patch coming from the door. 14
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the girl with the dragon tattoo Even though I'm satisfied with the image at this point, the character feels a bit plain... I start playing around with different ideas and the best results came from adding body art on her. I scrounged the net for tribal inspired tattoo motifs and created my own design. I then painted it on a different layer before Hard lighting it on her. It makes the character more interesting.
20 final touches I find there is too much warm tones in the picture so I use a cool blue photo filter adjustment layer to remove some of it. It leaves the image a damp cool basement feeling color. In order to even out my values more and to add a bit of glare, I select all [Ctrl]+[A] then copy all layers [ctrl]+[shift]+[C] then paste to another layer. This gives me a layer with a full copy of the image. I proceed to Gaussian blur this layer with a strong value slider at half way. This blurred version is then switched to lighten over my work and toned down to 15%. this evens out my colours by adding surrounding values to different areas and at the same time imitated the glare produced by highlights in low light conditions.
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save work... it’s done! by Benoit Ladouceur .psd Photoshop
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IwithFell in Love an Alien In this tutorial, you are going to learn how to add clouds to a photo by using layer masks, how to edit colours in Photoshop to give your image a vintage look and how to work with layering textures. This tutorial is relatively easy, but gives amazing looking results from the simplest tools. medium | 30 min. adobe photoshop CS5
i fell in love with an alien
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Step 1 Open the original image with the girl holding the umbrella in Photoshop. Press [C] for the Crop Tool, and hold [Shift] down to crop the image into a square. Use the Blur tool with a brush of 70px Diameter, 20% Hardness and 10% Strength to slightly blur down some sections of the grass.
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Step 2 Press [Ctrl]+[J] two times to copy the background image twice. Make the top layer invisible by pressing the eye, and make the middle layer active by clicking on it. Press [Ctrl]+[M] to bring up the curves box. This section is all up to personal preference – move each of the red, green and blue colour curves around to try and get something similar as the example, keeping in mind that you are trying to bring out the reds more, keeping the greens out of the image as much as you can. When you are happy with how it looks, press [OK] and change the layer style to Color.
03 Step 3 Make the third background layer visible and active. Press [Ctrl]+[M] to bring up the curves box. This time while going through each of the colour curves, we are going to do the opposite and bring out the yellows and green of the image. When you are happy with how it looks, press [OK] and change the layer style to Darken. Now your colours should look almost as you want them to look in the final image. Open the clouds image and drag it on to the fields image in a new layer. Change the layer style to Overlay. With the clouds layer selected, press the Add layer mask in the bottom of the layers box. It is the second from the left and looks like a square with a circle in it. .psd Photoshop
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creative class
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Step 4 To start with, grab a brush of 100% Opacity, 175px in Diameter, and 75% Hardness and press [D] to reset your colour palette, and [X] to switch the colours around, so white is in the foreground and black is in the background. Then proceed to get rid of the entire bottom part of the clouds image where there are trees and grass. With a brush of 100% Opacity, 75px in Diameter and 75% Hardness, remove all the blue you can see in the girl's dress.
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Step 5 To make the final finishing touches so the clouds blend in seamlessly with the fields, use a brush of 40% Opacity, 125px in Diameter and 75% Hardness and dab and brush over and over again at the edge of the fields until you are happy. The results are subtle, but make a drastic impact over the look of the final image.
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Step 6 At the moment, the blue of the clouds are standing out compared to the rest of the image, so press [Ctrl]+[M] to bring up the curves box with the clouds layer selected. I used the following settings to give the clouds a more vintage feel like rest of the image. 18
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Step 7 Open the first rusty and scratchy looking texture and drag it on to the image you are working on. Set the layer style to Soft light and Opacity to 64%. Press the Add layer mask and with a brush of 40% Opacity, 150px in Diameter and 75% Hardness begin to remove some of the intensity of the scratches around the middle area of the image.
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Step 8 To tie in all the elements of this picture, drag the final paper looking texture onto the image, and set the layer style to Multiply and Opacity to 100%. by Julia Trotti
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interview
Interview with
Alex Eckman-Lawn Alex Eckman-Lawn is a bloodthirsty young illustrator from Philadelphia who completed the Illustration program at University of the Arts in 2007. He has worked with many bands, including Psyopus, Architect, Yakuza, Hacride and Circle of Dead Children, designing tshirts and album art. He has also done design and/or artwork for Willowtip Records, Black Market Activities, Tribunal Records, and Scholastic Books. Alex has just wrapped up work on Awakening, an existential horror comic book being published by Archaia Studios Press. He uses a combination of photo and traditional media with heavy digital work in Photoshop and Painter.
Could you introduce yourself to our readers? Sure, I’m Alex Eckman-Lawn, a freelance illustrator from Philadelphia. I work primarily in comic books and music illustration.
proach in some of their work. Using this kind of rich, textural work as inspiration, I started experimenting more with Photoshop and things really clicked. I can remember pretty clearly the feeling that I’d found my direction, and I haven’t really looked back since.
Why did you choose to become a digital artist? How did it happen?
Which of your own works is your favourite and why?
I really didn’t know how I wanted to work when I first got to college, but I knew I liked to draw. Early influences of mine were guys like Derek Hess and Jake Bannon, artists I’d run into through hardcore music. I discovered some more fine art minded comic artists like Ashley Wood and Dave McKean, who both use a strong digital ap-
Wow, that is a really tough question! I don’t know if I can choose just one thing, but usually what I’m working on right now is what I’m most excited about. I just wrapped up the second and final collected volume of Awakening, a comic book that I’ve been illustrating for the last 4 years. I’m pretty excited and proud about it and I really hope
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interview
people check it out and get as excited as I am!This question is extra tough since I try to work in a few different styles, but lately I’ve really enjoyed working with buildings and architecture.
What do you find the most challenging about your profession? Making a living? There’s a lot that’s tough about freelance illustration, but often the hardest thing is finding a way to make work for your clients and still make it your own and a success on your own terms. Sometimes this is way easy, but if a client asks for a change you don’t agree with, the choice is ultimately theirs. And also making money is not easy in this profession.
Would you recommend our readers to become artists as well? Do you have any advices you could give them about this occupation? I want to say Of course I recommend you all become artists! but it’s not really that simple. It’s pretty hard out there and takes a lot of time and commitment, and moreover, late nights. This really has to be something you love the most in the world. That said, if this is something you’re really passionate about and you’re willing to stick with it, it’s the best job you could ever ask for, even when the money’s not so good! My advice is just to do the kind of art that gets you excited and not to get discouraged. If you’re excited about the work then it’ll come across in the final product and if you stick with it, you will always improve. Also, don’t be afraid to shame-
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lessly promote yourself and network either! People have to see your work before they can start loving it.
Say a few words about your current projects and future plans. As I mentioned earlier, I just wrapped up Awakening vol. 2, which will be out in October 20th! You can get it at your local comic shop or pre-order (with a discount) here: http://www.amazon.com/Awakening-2-Nick-Tapalansky/dp/1932386955/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UT F8&qid=1285491070&sr=1-1 I’m always hard at work on a few album covers, so if you’re into metal music keep an eye out for the new Maruta, Dim Mak, and Backstabbers Incorporated albums. My art will grace their covers. I also just did some art for Clinging to the Trees of a Forrest Fire and that album, Songs of ill-Hope and Desperation is killer. I’m about to start on a new comic project called Rusted/Faded Signal with the writer of Awakening and you can get a taste of it in Popgun vol. 4, which is out now through Image comics. And of course, my building blog where I cut up and reassemble photos of buildings: http://re-building.tumblr.com/ And last but not least, my website: http://alexeckmanlawn.com/
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medium | 60 min. adobe photoshop CS4
Solitude Creating a night scene can be a challenging task. In this tutorial I show you a few techniques that I used to make this manipulation. I will show you how to use adjustment layers and how to create light effects and shadows to achieve a more realistic look.
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Model
Creating the ambience Download the background image from: http:// phatpuppy.deviantart.com/art/Phatpuppy-ForestStairs-Stock-145249785 and open it in Photoshop. You will have to make adjustments to this layer and turn it into a night scene. I suggest you use Adjustment Layers to create the night effect because they don’t damage the image. Create a Hue/ Saturation adjustment layer: Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Hue/Saturation and increase Saturation to + 27. Create a Gradient Map adjustment layer and use a Black to White gradient. Set the Blend Mode of the adjustment layer to Soft Light and reduce the Opacity to 40%. Select the Gradient Tool, choose the radial type from the toolbar and use the Black to Transparent preset. Draw the gradient from the middle of the image outwards. The Blend Mode should be Normal but you can experiment with Soft Light. Duplicate the layer if you want to get a darker effect. Your objective is to darken the image using the gradient but leave the stairs visible.
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Download the image pack with the model from here: http://faestock.deviantart.com/art/Sylph7 -102629570. You will use two images from the pack. Open Sylph faestock (1).jpg from the pack in Photoshop. The first thing you have to do is to subtract the model from the original background. Use the Pen Tool because it’s the most accurate selection tool. Exclude the wings, you don’t need them for this tutorial. Place the girl model on a new layer and scale it down to 35%. As you can see, the dress is not entirely visible but luckily you can use another photo from the same pack to complete the dress. Open Sylph faestock(2).jpg from the same pack and cut the part of the dress that is missing. Blend the images using a soft eraser brush or a layer mask. After you blend the edges, if there are color or contrast differences, use the Levels and/or Color Balance tools to match both pieces. When everything is OK, merge the two layers by first selecting them and then pressing [Ctrl]+[E] or from Layer>Merge Layers.
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photomanipulation
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Model shading The realism of the scene is given by the lights and shadows. Use Clipping Mask Layers to make all the adjustments on the model because the background is already done so you only want to affect the model layer. Just as you did with the background layer, create a Black to Transparent radial Gradient to darken the model. Apply an Inner Shadow to the model layer with the following settings: Blend Mode Multiply, Angle 50º, Distance 12px, Choke 8px, Size 58px. That will create a nice shadow on the edges of the girl’s body.
04 Model color and contrast adjustments The model needs more color and a stronger contrast. Again, use Adjustment layers. Create a Color Balance Adjustment Layer by going to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Color Balance or from the icon located below the Layers Palette. When the popup window appears, check the option Use Previous Layer to create Clipping Mask. Set the Yellow value to - 6 on the Shadows, Midtones and Highlights. On the Midtones, also set the value to +6. Increase the Saturation of the model to +10 and using Levels, increase Shadows to 7, Midtones to 0.92 and Highlights to 246.
05 Dodge/Burn sculpting Create a new layer above the model layer and select the entire canvas with [Ctrl]+[A]. When you have the selection loaded, right click and select Fill. On Use, choose 50% gray and set the layer’s Blend Mode to Soft Light. Get the Burn Tool, set Range to Midtones and Exposure 6-9%. Burn on the gray layer over the the girl’s body. The objective is to darken the dark areas. Then, use the Dodge Tool with the same settings as with the Burn Tool and paint over the lighter areas of the girl’s body. The preview is in Normal Blend Mode so you can see where I used the Dodge and Burn 26
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solitude
06 Add the lamp Download the lamp from here: http://pieceofmestock.deviantart.com/art/Glowing-Lantern3stock-104991466. Open it in Photoshop and subtract it using the Pen Tool. Scale it down and put it on a new layer above the model layer. Use a large brush and the color #e6dfb0 to simulate a glow light around the lamp. Set the Blend Mode to Hard Light and reduce Opacity to about 50%. I also added a Lens Flare on a new layer with a black background. I used Hue/Saturation to make the flare yellow and then I changed the layer’s Blend Mode to Screen to hide the black background.
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Lighting up and final shading Now that you have the light source, you cast some shadows and recreate the light on the ground. Use a big soft brush about 600-700px and set your Foreground Color to #e9d89b. Create a new layer below the lamp layer and stroke twice on both sides of the lamp. Set the layer Blend Mode to Overlay. Use the same brush to create another light on a new layer using the color #9e975a. This time change the Blend Mode to Color Dodge and reduce Opacity to 75%. This light will make a very realistic light effect.
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Shadows We have the lights, but now we must make the shadows. Shadows are very important because they give more realism and depth. Right now, the lamp and the girl look like they are floating because of the lack of shadows. Get a soft brush, black color and create a new layer below the girl and the lamp layers, right above the background. Set your brush Opacity to about 20% and start painting along the edges of the girl’s feet and under her dress and legs and also under the lamp. Make several passes. .psd Photoshop
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photomanipulation
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Post editing As a final step, create a new Stamp with the shortcut [Shift]+[Ctrl]+[Alt]+[E] but first make sure you select the top most layer on the palette. Then go to Filter>Render>Lighting Effects. Use the following settings: Intensity 16, Color #f6f2dd, Narrow 53, Material 78, Ambience 10.
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Conclusion As you can see, the most important part of this tutorial are the light effects and shadows. You sould always work with adjustment layers because when you finish, you can make all the fine tuning you want without affecting the original image. I hope you learned something useful out of this tutorial. by Andrei Oprinca
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contributing writers
Oliver Weiss
cover artist
Julia Trotti As an artist, Julia Trotti tries to capture the ‘other’, those spaces and places that evoke a memory. The detail fascinates her, colour, light, reflection, the atmosphere of the artwork that evokes a mood and presence and explains something of her. Wandering through veils of life, meandering through the paths that she chooses, everywhere there are choices. These choices are what makes Julia’s practice. She senses the world through her photography. Time, space and emotion become the narrative of her subjects. Julia’s works are her signature of life and how she feels. She is from Sydney, Australia. Visit her website: www.juliatrotti.com
Oliver Weiss is an illustrator from Germany who works in a variety of different techniques ranging from whimsical drawings to mixed-media collage artwork. His clients from twenty years include Random House, Rowohlt, Reed Business, Die Zeit, The Christian Science Monitor, Der Spiegel, Deutsche Bank, and the Munich Oktoberfest.
Alex Eckman-Lawn Alex Eckman-Lawn is a bloodthirsty young illustrator from Philadelphia who completed the Illustration program at University of the Arts in 2007. He has worked with many bands, including Psyopus, Architect, Yakuza, Hacride and Circle of Dead Children, designing t-shirts and album art. He has also done design and/ or artwork for Willowtip Records, Black Market Activities, Tribunal Records, and Scholastic Books. Alex has just wrapped up work on Awakening, an existential horror comic book being published by Archaia Studios Press. He uses a combination of photo and traditional media with heavy digital work in Photoshop and Painter.
Julie Waterhouse Julie Waterhouse is the author and photographer behind the Ultimate Photo Tips website. Stop by for more photo tips and inspiration! Ultimate Photo Tips provides friendly education and encouragement for photo enthusiasts around the world, presented in a way that’s clear, organized, and easy to understand. Julie is passionate about photography, and loves to teach workshops, coach one-on-one, and share her passion in any way she can. Her photo tips website was born out of a desire to reach even more budding photographers. Julie is a digital fine art photographer who resides near Toronto, Canada, close to the local farmland and woods she loves to photograph.
Tina Foster Tina Foster is a graphic artist who has worked in the publishing and packaging industry for over 25 years. She can be contacted at: beachtree.foster@gmail.com
Andrei Oprinca My name is Andrei. I’m a 22 self taught romanian artist based in Spain. I usually work with Photoshop and I do it as a hobby. In the early days of 2010 I created PSD Box my own website where I write my photoshop tutorials. I work with graphics since 2008 but I learn pretty fast. I don’t like to write tutorials about the same things that are on the internet so I usually scan the best known design sites and try to write about something different.
Benoit Ladouceur aka. Yellowdog Benoit Ladouceur is a Canadian artist based in Montreal. He has been working in the field of film and television as a digital matte painter, concept artist and illustrator for the last 15 years. He presently works as a senior matte painter and with Montreal’s Vision Globale film studio. www.bladfx.com
Editor in Chief: Magdalena Mojska magdalena.mojska@psdmag.org Special thanks to: Aurus Sy, Jack Waddington, Susie Ngamsuwan, Ricardo Nakazawa and Tomasz W. Listkiewicz. DTP: Przemysław Banasiewicz Senior Consultant/Publisher/President: Paweł Marciniak Managing Director: Ewa Łozowicka Marketing Director: Magdalena Mojska magdalena.mojska@psdmag.org Production Director: Andrzej Kuca andrzej.kuca@psdmag.org Postal address: Publisher: Software Press Sp.z.o.o SK 02-682 Warszawa, ul. Bokserska 1 worldwide publishing www.psdmag.org/en
All trade marks presented in the magazine were used only for informative purposes. All rights to trade marks presented in the magazine are reserved by the companies which own them. Mathematical formulas created by Design Science MathType™. The editors use automatic DTP system Editorial contributions should be sent to: editors@psdmag.org Customer Service +1 917 338 3631 The Software Press Sp.z.o.o SK works individually from Adobe. The psd Photoshop team reserves the right not to be responsible for the topicality, correctness, completeness or quality of the information provided by contributors.
02/2008
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On the
road
There are many ways to play with photographs in Photoshop to give them a creative “boost.” Which method you choose depends both on your personal preference and what suits the particular image. The techniques used here won’t work for every image, but they may give you some ideas for other applications. advanced | 40 min. adobe photoshop CS4
on the road
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Step 1 The original image is a photograph of the Valley of Fire, in Nevada, USA. The photograph was taken at the end of the day, and the subtle colors produced by the dusk light gave the scene a bit of a surreal look that I decided to magnify in Photoshop.
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Step 2: Starting image - overexposed by 2 stops The image I started with was a shot of the scene that was deliberately overexposed by two stops. Don’t worry about the washed-out look. You will see why the overexposure is necessary, and how we bring back the contrast, when we get to step 3.
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Step 3 - Black and White Filter Copy road layer. To make the color even more subtle, add a Black & White adjustment layer. Reduce the layer opacity to 60% so that some of the original colors show through. Adjust the color sliders to map colors to tones according to your own taste. .psd Photoshop
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photomanipulation
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Step 4 - Linear Burn Merge all layers to create a new layer, and change the blend mode of the layer to Linear Burn. Playing with layer blend modes is a fun way to experiment creatively with your images. The Linear Burn blend mode uses the channel information for each color (RGB) to determine how dark each pixel in the top layer should be. It darkens the top layer by decreasing the brightness, according to the color of the layer below. The darker the layer below, the more of its color is used. Using this blend mode keeps our colors subtle, but brings back the contrast in our image.
05 Step 5 - Selective Color Blacks The Linear Burn blend darkened the bush in the bottom right corner too much. One trick to correct problems like these is to open the blending properties for the layer, and use the “blend-if� sliders to bring back the blocked up shadows. In this case, however, I like the blacks everywhere else in the image, and want to localize the corrections to the bush only. Using a Selective Color adjustment layer allows us to mask out everything except the bush. Select Blacks in the Colors drop down menu, and reduce the amount of black from -3 to -5%. Note that in many images, increasing the blacks through Selective Color is a great way to add a little punch to the picture. Try adding 3-5% to the black slider in either the Blacks or the Neutrals.
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Step 6 - Poster Edges A subtle application of the Poster Edges filter adds to the surreal nature of the scene. Merge the layers below to create a new layer. Choose Filters>Artistic>Poster Edges. Use an edge thickness of 1, an edge intensity of 1, and a posterization value of 3. Note that the image will have to be in 8-bit mode in order for this filter to be available. After applying the filter, you may find the effect too strong. If so, reduce the layer opacity to about 65%. 32
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on the road
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Step 7 – Noise The Poster Edges filter gave the image some added texture, but had very little effect on the sky. In order to add some interest there, and to enhance the overall look of the image, I chose to add some noise. Merge the layers below to create a new layer, and choose Filter>Noise>Add Noise. Add Uniform noise in the amount of 25%. As always, experiment with the setting to find what works for you.
Step 8 – Gradient
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The sky at the top of the image is quite bright compared to the rest of the image, and appears a bit washed out. I didn’t use a graduated neutral density filter in the field, which would have counteracted this problem. As long as the sky is not blown out, and the dynamic range of the image is not too great, you can achieve the same effect in Photoshop using a Gradient adjustment layer. Set the foreground color to black so you can use the default gradient setting. Reverse the direction using an angle of -90 degrees so that the dark part covers the sky. While the dialog is open, you can click on the image and drag the gradient upward to reduce its effect is not as strong. After you added the gradient change, you must change the layer’s blend mode to Soft Light. Soft Light blend mode works by lightening or darkening the lower layer based on the brightness of the top layer. In this case, the black gradient is our top layer, so it darkens the pixels of the layers below. Now our sky has a bit more detail and the colors stand out more.
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Step 9 - Curves and Mask Often there are specific areas within an image that you want to selectively lighten. In this case, the gradient has darkened the road sign. It would be nice to make it pop a bit more. We could mask our gradient layer, but using a Curves adjustment layer with a mask gives us even more control to make it even brighter than it was before we added the gradient. Add a Curves adjustment layer, and pull the entire curve up a bit. You can adjust it properly later. First, create a solid black mask so that the Curves layer has no effect. Now, paint in white on your mask over just the sign. In order to see where you are painting, you can hit the backslash key [\] to toggle the mask on and off in the main image. The mask will appear in red. This makes it easy for you to see exactly where you are painting. Once the mask is created, adjust the curve to brighten the sign the desired amount. by Julie Waterhouse .psd Photoshop
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interview
Interview with Doopla We are Doopla. Multidisciplinary design team who loves you. We work for fun and for money. We don’t have many friends. We won’t accept work just because someone wants us to. Our Art Director is a 70 s robot named Pedro. Looking forward to hear from you soon.
Could you tell our readers a few words about Doopla? Who are you and what you do? It may seem that there are many of us here, but actually we are only two: André Santos (Graphic Designer and Illustrator) and Lee Anne Ferreira (Decorator, Stylist and 3D Developer).
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We are a duo based in Lisbon (Portugal) that is in diversity of skills the main added value.We like the details, many details, symmetry, Fashion, experimental photography, Drum’n’Bass, opposite colors, irreverent Styling, urban art, Super Bock beer, Custo Barcelona, Renault 4L, Apple gadgets and techni-
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interview with doopla
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interview
cal drawing. We love our profession, even though in Portugal it is highly stigmatized. We do not accept projects just because
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someone wants to commit them to us, we accept, most of all, challenges.
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interview with doopla
What kind of services do you mainly specialize in?
What values are the most important for you in your work?
In the Portuguese market it’s very difficult for an artist (no matter what his segment is), to work in only one area. It is a process that can unfortunately take many years. Lately we have been referenced in some sites and blogs inspired digital art which allows us to give the world our true vision: Impact Communication. We believe that regardless of the area, specifying an artist is the best way to contribute to the development of the visual culture. We work with a very clear vision: to tease people’s senses. Our expertise therefore become less technical and more conceptual.
What motivates us to do everything we do, is our job, our unconditional love for art, and will to share it with the others. Why? We do so because we believe in art and its power to change mentalities. This is the way design is seen and considered in Portugal. The most important for us is the result of our products, the conceptual design and impact communication. Doopla Collective’s work is basically the taste for digital art, love for design and for the beautiful city of Lisbon.
Is it possible to benefit of your services from any place in the world? Sure thing! Please just forgive our poor English... We are ready to collaborate with agencies all around the world. As I said above, we accept challenges, from wherever they come from.
Tell us about your most important and interesting clients or comissions. Not always the customers with the most resounding names asked for the most interesting work. Last year we had the opportunity to work with brands like Opel, AutoEuropa, The KDU, Universal Music, Computer Arts, among others. Anyway, we continue to prefer, without any doubt, our personal projects. They’re always the best way to sell ideas at its most pure and sincere form, without thinking that there is a product that has to be sold or to enhance a brand.
Is it possible to become a part of your team? If so, how to do it? Doopla means a team of two people in Portuguese. So, not for now, sorry... We have good and talented friends who will help in some areas that we do not specialize in (web developping, programming, printing issues).
Why is it worth to choose Doopla? You tell me!
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Making of a building – 1 These two tutorials are fun and quick little exercises I do twice a week, basically just to keep myself limber. It’s a really fun way to keep your mind sharp and build your portfolio quickly and the best news is they’re pretty easy to pull off, especially if you have a nice source material.
beginner | 20 min. adobe photoshop CS3
making of a building – 1
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Step 1 This is my original photograph: the picturesque street of Philadelphia. I like these crazy blue rowhomes very much but right away I know I’ll want to get rid of those cars and change the colors to something more vivid.
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Step 2 Here I’ve got the image into my format and I’ve added some oil paint texture that I made, and a blue tint. I’ve even started painting out the street area on the left. Clearly I’m not worried about it looking really tight just yet.
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Step 3 All I’ve done here is doubled the image and pulled it down a bit. This will be a 2-story row. There are still rough edges here and there and it looks a bit too obvious but we’ve covered up those ugly cars! Now I need to replace the white façade of the house on the far right with the blue façade of the middle house and then paint out some sections with a Vector mask. With a bit of sneaky brushing and healing brushing here and there and some color correction. I think it starts to look less like a carbon copy. .psd Photoshop
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workshop
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Step 4 Now we need to add lots of soft light and overlay layers for color to create a bit more dramatic light. I’ve cleaned up some of the edges and added some small windows here and there, like in the bottom right corner. These don’t make strict sense but I think they look nice and make for a richer visual feast! I’ve also added some splatter and a bit of pattern to the face of the top middle building.
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Step 5 Just a couple of finishing touches here. I added some lightness to the windows in the center, just to give the piece a focal point of some sort, and I’ve done some blurring around the outside to soften some of those harsh textures. Nothing fancy there, just Gaussian blur in some key spots. This also helps the piece look a bit more photographic, kind of like an old snapshot. Have fun here, choose sections to lighten and darken. And we’re done! by Alex Eckman-Lawn
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beginner | 20 min. adobe photoshop CS3
workshop
Making of a building – 2 This tutorial is the second one from these two some way simple photo edits that hopefully show you can transform a space without really overdoing it, or losing what made the original photo exciting.
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Step 1 Once again, here’s the original photograph. Already a pretty awesome building! Again, here I’m planning on just doing some subtle changes, adding texture and getting rid of the pieces I don’t like.
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Step 2 Here’s the photo in format. I’ve pretty haphazardly cut out the sections I don’t want in the image. 42
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making of a building – 2
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Step 3 So far I’m just painting out the empty sections, and building some shape with shadows. I’m trying to pull the eye upwards.
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Step 4 I’ve added some color and paint texture for starters. Also I’ve replaced the center window with the doorway we cut out earlier, and added a third window to the top. I like how this is looking but that black area is a bit too dead still.
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Step 5 I’ve added some scanned overlayed boards here and there to add some more chaos and interest, and some delicate linework pattern to the black areas. I’ve kept it subtle so as not to overwhelm the image, but the shadow areas looked too empty without it. Then I just do some fun little touch ups, like adding some blue to the windows and blur around the edges again and we’re done! by Alex Eckman-Lawn .psd Photoshop
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Klimt
.psd Photoshop
Editor’s Choice Belkina
Bluebeard
Katerina Tumanova (Belkina) Russian digital artist, painter and photographer, born in 1974. Education: art school and than art college “Petrov-Vodkin”(Samara) 2000-2002 - Photo Academy. Samara. She was one of the first Russian digital artists. Member of Russian Union of photo artist.
Awards: 2008 Art Interview - 14th International Online Artist Competition -1st place for Hieroglyph series 2008 Px3 PHOTO COMPETITION -2nd place in subcategory for No man’s world series 2008 International Photography Awards -2nd place in subcategory for No man’s world series 2007 Nominated to the Kandinsky Prize-2007 (Russian artist of Year) 2007 International Photography Awards - 2nd place in subcategory for Masks series .psd Photoshop
Currently lives and works in Moscow
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Homage to Picasso
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Sleeping beauty
Snow White
.psd Photoshop
Thumbelina
Smile This tutorial shows how to improve your photos with a minimal amount of work, especially if you’re working with big batches or for presentations where finals are to be selected.
beginner | 20 min. adobe photoshop CS3
smile
Step 1 Open image and convert to CMYK : Image>Mode> CMYK. Drag the picture to a new layer. Now you have a copy that won’t be touched. We’ll clean and sharpen on background layer.
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Step 2 Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp masking. Amounts according to need.
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Step 3 Clean up dirt, blemishes, etc. Zoom to at least 300% and use a grid View>Show>Grid if the shot is large to be sure no areas are left out. Change grid size and color under Preferences>Guides, Grids, Slices. .psd Photoshop
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photo retouch
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Step 4 A simple curves move: Layer>New adjustment layer>Curves will improve the contrast.
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Step 5 This photo is a little red and needs color correction especially the skin tones. Layer>New adjustment layer>Selective color. Choose Red then adjust the Magenta in the Red. I also adjusted the Cyan and Black in the blue sky. To finish up I erased some of the mask from the selective color around the red tile roof in the background and her hair. Now our photo is ready to view. by Tina Foster
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