Photo Retouch

.PSD PHOTOSHOP VOL.3 NO.11 ISSUE 11/2010/(23)

PHOTO RETOUCH. BECOME A MASTER

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SECRETS OF PHOTO RETOUCH

by Ylenia Peronti, Tina Foster and Soffía Gísladóttir

9ZVgZhi GZVYZgh While you’re geting ready for your winter holidays, we encourage you to find some time to release the creative juices.

This month we focused on photo retouch: Tina Foster shares with you her experience in this area, Ylenia Peronti teaches how to make a beauty retouch and Soffía Gísladóttir – how to make a landscape even more beautiful. But of course, it’s not all! BenoÎt Ladouceur decided to show you some matte painting and Natalia Voloshyn & Benjamin Delacour want to give you some inspiration by their photomanipulation tutorials: Dark Thoughts and Creating a Cyborg. You can also dicover the Vanishing Point filter, see some works of Narendra Keshkar and...just check what’s more in our December issue!

Magdalena Mojska Editor in Chief magdalena.mojska@psdmag.org

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Creating a Cyborg Benjamin Delacour

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Narendra Keshkar

3B51D9F5 3<1CC The Refinery Benoît Ladouceur

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My experience with retouching Tina Foster

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Beautiful Landscape Soffía Gísladóttir

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Beauty retouched Ylenia Peronti

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Vanishing Point Tomasz Lisikiewicz

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Dark Thoughts Natalia Voloshyn

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Creating a Dreamy Flying Land Narendra Keshkar

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Photoshop CS4 | avanced | 90 min

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CREATING A

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Benjamin Delacour Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m a graphic designer with over 10 years experience.

Passionate of graphics design and picture alteration (retouch), I work today as a freelance designer for widely renowned organizations. My spare time is devoted to Photoshop, one of my favorite tools by far!

1: THE BASE

After selecting the photo you want to transform into a cyborg, start with opening a new document with following parameters: 30 cm wide by 40 cm high at 300 pixels and RGB. Copy your photo into this new document, and position it in the center.

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CREATING A CYBORG 2

2: ADJUST THE FORMAT

In my case, picture lacked fur on both sides, so I duplicated and enlarged it to have more of it on both sides. Then with a Mask I removed the inside of the mask to leave the base image undistorted. You may have to adjust the brightness with Curves to match the two layers. I blurred the layer with the new fur to give it a volume as if it were more of it in the front.

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3: MAKE-UP

To give cheeks more volume we will have to add a little white to them. To do that weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll use large brush and reduced Opacity.

Then on the new layer we add little bit of pink on cheeks, also in harsh light.

Adjust the layersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; opacity to complete the cheeks. Choose a light blue and a layer set to Color. Add color over the eyelids to enhance the look. Do the same for the lips and soften the selection with a mask after copying it to a new layer. Use the Plastic wrap filter and select the layer mode to Hard light. It will give more contrast and there will be more reflections.

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CREATING A CYBORG 4

4: THE LOOK

With the Pen make a path to select the eye. Copy on a new layer and set its mode to Density, than adjust the opacity to settle the effect. Draw two circles on the iris of the eye. Choose a white brush with a width smaller than the size of the iris. On a new layer with the selected path in the Window tracks options you will find the option Contour plots â&#x20AC;&#x201C; uncheck it. Simulate the pressure and accept. You have just created two white circles on the iris. Switch the layer mode to Overlay. I did the same but with black to mark the edge of the iris.

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5: SKIN

Copy and duplicate layers by moving the new layer icon. Flatten it to get a new working basis. Clean the skin with the Stamp tool and Spot Healing Brush tool.

Duplicate this layer and apply the blur filter. With a mask limit its effect to the skin of the face. Keep up the edges. Now you have the original layer and the layer with the smoothen skin. You can use the Spot Healing Brush tool to smooth out some details.

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CREATING A CYBORG 6

6: LIGHTS AND COLORS

Create a new folder and name it Light. In this folder you can place different layers to illuminate the model and to give it different colors. I added yellow fur set to Bright light at 20% Opacity. I added the blue in the picture with a broad brush in color mode set to Density. Then I adjusted the Opacity to 15%. I also added black on the edges with a layer mode set to Multiply and white on the upper face with a layer mode set to Overlay.

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7: CONTRASTS DETAILS

Add a layer settings Brightness/Contrast and adjust the Contrast to 24%, and the Opacity to 25% to mitigate the effect. Add the Curves adjustment layer and play with different settings to obtain a green and blue atmosphere that fits well with our theme of Science Fiction. I also added a layer with black hair to less visible at the bottom and another layer in which I painted in white on the collar to make it shine.

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CREATING A CYBORG 8

8: LIPS

Now we will darken the lips. To do it, open new layer, select a brush and paint the lips with black. Set it to 60%, as shown. On a new layer I added on eyes and lips some white with a fine brush to add reflections.

I duplicated this black layer and set it to the Color mode at 100% Opacity to desaturate the lips while keeping the reflections visible. I added a little black on another layer to erase the last faults.

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9: CUTTING

With the Pen tool draw rectangular shapes that follow the natural line of the face to break it into several pieces. Get your first selection line and complete it with black on a new layer. Add a drop shadow to this layer. Repeat the selection, complete it with white and move the new layer down.

This will give the impression that the skin was cut. By holding [Ctrl] and clicking on this layer, retrieve the selection of the white layer and using the Eyedropper paint colors of the surrounding skin. You can also add some black to give more volume. Repeat these steps on all of the lines that cut out the character. Remember to respect the general direction of the light.

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CREATING A CYBORG 10

10: REFLECTIONS AND DETAILS.

On a new layer add the black finish for the crossing of face cuts. Take the Pen and draw shapes that follow the curves of the edges of the cuts. Fill them with white and add outer glow layer effect. Soften the edges if necessary with a Mask. I also filled the nostrils with black and white reflection to restore volume. Fill a layer with black at 50%. Add noise and pass the layer mode to Overlay. Set the Opacity to define the grain achieved with the noise.

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11: OPENING

To accentuate the Cyborg, make a circle on a new layer and distort it so that it follows the line of the face. Set the Opacity to 50%.

Duplicate the layer and then move it under the previous layer to create a white outline.

Select the outline and erase the circle that we created in the firt step here. It will create the depth effect. Duplicate this layer and blur it slightly to Brighten.

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CREATING A CYBORG 12

12: OPENING VOLUME

By recovering the selection of the first circle, create a new layer above the previous one and with a broad brush add the gradient with white top and black bottom. Keep the selection on a new layer and add a shadow on the top of the circle.

Move the selection and the new layer filled with black up, to retrieve the selection of the first circle and delete the extra pixels.

Set the Opacity to 50% and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll get a cut in shadow on the top of our opening.

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13: DEPTH

Group the layers from the first round in a folder and duplicate it. With the Transformation tool, reduce the size of the file copied to create a second circle inside the first one. By recovering the selection of the first circle I created a new layer filled with black that I enlarged. To dig inside, I used the menu Selection>Modify>Contract which reduced the selection. Now you just need to cut the pixels inside the circle. Adjust with the Transformation tool if needed. Finally, with the use of mask layers I created a line that split the small circle.

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CREATING A CYBORG 14

14: FINAL ADJUSTMENTS

Add an adjustment layer to adjust the Saturation of the color mask of the Cyborg.

The goal is to desaturate the mask against the skin. I added a Photo Filter adjustment layer to change the overall color of the picture with a sepia tone to 35%. I then finished with a layer of Brightness/Contrast to strengthen once more the contrast of the image.

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15: FINAL STEP

To finish up, flatten your image and duplicate it one last time using the Plastic wrap effect with an Intensity of 5 on a detail and smoothing in order to achieve a soft effect. Add a layer mask and invert the black to clear plastic packaging. Then with a white brush at 50% Opacity paint robot parts on the mask. This will highlight the effect only on selected parts of the image.

You just go over the layerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mode lighter color. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s it!

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Narendra Keshkar Born in 1984 at Uttar Pradesh, India, Narendra Keshkar is a digital artist, graphic designer, blogger and tutorial writer. He started his career as a graphic designer in 2006, in 2009 he left his job and started fulltime freelancing to provide better services to his clients. Recently he won silver award in most prestigious Mediabistro Logo Award 2010 for his personal brand identity and being interviewed at psdfan.com. “Think, Act, Invent – that is my design process!” You can see more of his work at http://www.narendrakeshkar.com

1. Please introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a 26 year old artist from Indore, India. I have been drawing since my childhood, but never thought that I would choose it as my profession and my pencil would turn into a mouse. In 2003 was just a content developper and later got interested in design and took a basic design course for that. This was the turning point of my career and I started designing for my clients. Initially I created some horrible designs, crowded with a lot of images, colors and texts, but later improved my skills with time. Since 2006 I am teasing my mouse to create some nice stuff.

2. Do you like your profession? If so, what do you find the most exciting about it?

Of course I like my work or, in other words, I love what I do. It always inspires me and I always find myself filled with a lot of excitement when I start a new project which requires some new ideas, techniques and a different approach to complete it. I get excited when it turns out that this is a new thing to me and I have never done this type of project before. The most interesting thing about this is that it requires new ideas, processes and methods hence you will need to update your skills regularly to make a project successful. It sounds crazy but I like to do what I don’t know how to do.

3. And the most challenging thing about it?

The most challenging thing about it is to make a balance between creativity and client’s needs. Although it’s a very common problem, in some cases you need to compromise on creativity to match the client’s need. It requires a lot of research and visualization skills to give life to your ideas because each idea requires different approach, different set of skills and different methods. You need to continuously update your knowledge and skills to get perfect results.

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AE5CD9?>C 1>CG5BC 4. Do you have any personal favorites among your own works?

I have many favorites among my work, but the one I like the most is Flying Banana Ship manipulation. I had this idea in my mind, but I was not sure how to create it as it was new to me. It was quite a long project for me and it took more than three weeks to visualize and complete it. While creating this art, I learned a lot of things which helped me in my other projects and when it was completed, everyone just loved it.

5. What are your plans for future?

I have many plans for future and I’m working on some of them.

I have my personal blog and basing on this blogging experience, I will launch my new, professional blog based on creativity, research and design. I am also working to establish my own design studio

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intending to provide effective design services to the clients across the world. Apart from that, I am learning Z-brush to enhance my 3D modeling skills so that I can give life to my ideas by raising a new 3D animation company. I hope that I would have many golden moments in near future.

6. Any advices for the beginners?

Don’t get discouraged by odds and negative outcomes. An artist learns from his mistakes and hence it’s not uncommon when things go wrong with art, with idea or with project. Take criticism positively, learn from your mistakes and enhance your skills to give your best in any project. Don’t forget to dream because it keeps you motivated and fills you with new energy to work more efficiently and more creatively.

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Photoshop, softimage XSI + wacom tablet | avanced | 80 hrs

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BUVY^Ubi Benoit Ladouceur (aka. Yellowdog on numerous online art forums) 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 Montrealâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Vision Globale film studio. www.bladfx.com

For this tutorial I decided to go for the other side of my artistic life and cover some of the techniques I use in my special FX work as a digital matte painter. Matte painting is very similar to illustration, the main difference is that you usually spend 50% more time building the feeling of realism instead of letting your imagination run wild. This realism quest is very long, tedious and very energy consuming. In order to speed up the process I usually use a more organized approach that includes a lot of 3D elements. On top of accelerating the perspective and layout, 3D is also a life saver when you have retakes on a tight production deadline... you just rerender a few 3D layers and update your Photoshop files instead of starting again from scratch.

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1: 3D LAYERS

Based on a small thumbnail I drew on a piece of paper, I sat down in front of XSI and modeled the basic volumes of the refinery I wanted to do. Once I had the model done, the 3D package permitted me to quickly evaluate different camera angle and layouts without redrawing everything. Once I had and angle I liked, I did a quick light setup and rendered a few passes. Here are a few of the 3D passes I made and what they are used for:

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RGB: This pass contains only the color values of the objects without any light influence. I use it as a base for all the painting. Changes to this layer will later on affect the textures and details of the image.

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Key: A black and white pass which outputs only the area shown by the sceneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s key light. I use it as a layer mask to add my light source to the image

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Fill: A black and white pass which outputs the areas revealed by my sceneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fill light

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Ambient: An even colored pass that represents the sceneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s overall lighting

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Depth: A pass that renders out the depth values of the set (similar to atmospheric perspective). Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a black and white output so I use it as a mask to alter the images level and create depth.

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Occlusion: Another black and white pass that illustrates all the contact shadow areas of the image.

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2: STARTING POINT

I started by loading the RGB pass in Photoshop. I usually start with this pass since it contains all the shape information. On this stage it doesn’t look good yet.

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3: STACKING LAYERS

With the RGB layer as a base I quickly load up some other passes over it.

I use the Ambient pass as an overlay. The result is that it gives my objects more volume and it tints the color values to blueish tones. On top of it, I add the occlusion pass in Multiply to keep only the dark values. This gives me my contact shadows and greatly helps merging all the objects together.

The objects are now better defined without having a precise light direction.

The scene also seriously lack mood.

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4: CREATING MOOD

The best way I have to create mood quickly in a matte is to start working early on on the sky. I scrounged through my references folders and came up with interesting sky elements that I pieced up together. Once satisfied I placed them in behind the refineries. The sky, being the source of a lot of fill and bounce light is going to have huge impact on the composition... I’m starting to see I’ll have a lot of light blues to add to my shadows.

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5: DEPTH AND LIGHTING

In order to lighten the image a bit and to start blending the elements together, I use the depth pass as a level layer mask and tweak the settings to create atmospheric perspective. I also use the keylight pass to introduce a light direction to the background elements.

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6: DIRECTING THE EYE

Since the viewerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eye still has no defined area of focus, I decide to darken the foreground a little and paint in more light in the middle area to help our eye dive in the composition.

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7: MORE DEPTH

The image at this point is still missing some depth. I decide to cut and paste refinery elements behind the main buildings to give the impression that the refineries spread out further in the distance. This trick works very well, you just have to make sure to tweak the added elements so that they fit the atmospheric perspective you have established earlier on.

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8: DRAMA

One of the main requests I usually get working in film or tv is :” Make it more dramatic!”. After a short pause from the image, I came back thinking the background was way too nice and gentle looking for a sci-fi refinery. Using Gradient, Curve adjustment layers and the Airbrush tool, I made the mood a lot darker. The dark background now helps to bring out the tower to the right a lot better and makes for an interesting base for later light play. Our eyes still drift a bit too much to the upper left corner but this will be fixed when we add more lighting and detail work.

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9: HAZE

To help with the impression of scale, I added more haze and atmospheric perspective, being careful that the colors I pick fit with my choice of sky and light source. Since my light source comes in from the left, I made sure the haze was just a bit stronger from left to right. This helps us define light direction at the same time as depth.

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10: TEXTURE AND DETAILS

At this point, being satisfied with the mood, I started the longest part of the work... texturing and painting the elements to push them further then my original RGB pass. This is very important since it’s at this point that I start to breakup the edges of the sharp 3D objects. It’s also here that I start adding all the interesting little details and elements that give the image more life. Most of this is done with overlayed textures on the RGB pass or simply with a paintbrush. Although this takes up only one step... in the end it took over half of the time spent on this image.

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11: LIGHTING

More lighting work is done at this point to help emphasize the different elements. The FG is brought to life with the help of the fill light pass and an Airbrush tool.

By simply bringing the values up to brighter intensity the foreground is now well anchored in the same color range as the rest of the scene.

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12: DETAILS

This is actually my favorite step... adding all the fun little story telling and life giving elements. I did a once over the image adding highlights, light â&#x20AC;&#x153;pingsâ&#x20AC;?, leaking metal, dirt, glowing lights, etc. A good trick for industrial matte work is that glowing lights and light windows add tons of life quickly and easily to an image.

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13: COLOR CORRECTIONS

At the end of a piece, I usually add a last color correction layer to even out all my colors and prevent uneven colors in my layers when my matte paintings are sent to compositing.

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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

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The deadline was three hours away and I was still working on the magazine cover trying to get the guy’s hair to look right feathering over the top of the headline text. Pre-extract filter, damn. It was challenging then and the layouts today are just as difficult, maybe even more so. Photoshop is an immense program, it keeps growing and to keep up with the technology is a big job, but Photoshop is by far the cutting edge you need in the graphics world. If you’re interested in learning (at any level) I’d encourage you to join an online group, take a local class or become self-taught using Adobe’s tutorials. They are excellent, practice, practice, practice. Make up an assignment for yourself with a deadline, the real deal – and figure out how to complete it correctly and on time. One of my biggest helps is being around other users. Exchanging tricks and shortcuts is the surest way to keep passing the knowledge on. There are many paths to the same result and if I don’t expand out of my comfort zone I won’t be able to learn them.

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=I 5H@5B95>35C G9D8 B5D?E389>7 I’ve had the opportunity to work on a lot of different projects, mostly printed material, newspapers, magazines, books, packaging. I’ve had to remove hair, add hair, color hair, We once gave a CEO horns. The fur filter (eye candy) is pretty cool if you want to freak out your friends.

I’ve added books to bookshelves, moved rugs, replaced a toaster with a blender, removed nipples, taken 20lbs off a rotund belly. I’ve given rocking chairs drop shadows and fixed fender benders. Color correction is a special passion and one company I worked for wanted only ‘believable’ color whereas another place did round after round of getting just the right color to match their products. Fun stuff.

Remember all the hoopla a few years ago surrounding digitally

altered pictures? In my opinion if you own the picture you can do whatever you want with it, the end. You shouldn’t have to state that it was digitally altered. No one questions an oil painter’s interpretation of the subject. It’s art. I believe photos are art also. If you don’t own the picture (you have to get permission to use it) and you digitally alter it, the photographer should always get a byline – photo by Joe Smith, digitally altered by Kevin Brown. If it’s a stock photo – stock photo, Getty images, enhancement by Frank Barnes. And so on.

You don’t have to be an expert to get amazing results just by knowing some Photoshop basics, don’t be intimidated. This church photo, for example, was taken on a very blustery fall day.

I shot quickly using whatever settings the camera happened to be on.

I brought it into Photoshop, Sharpened the hell out of it, did a Curves move for the Midtones & Cloned out the electric wires, all in about 10 minutes and now it’s a shot that I can add to my library. Photoshop is very forgiving of bad photography. You can’t fix everything but it lets you be creative and imaginative to no end.

Photoshop has moved into the 21st century and we have too, bringing with us Layer comps, the History brush, Smart objects and don’t forget, the Extract filter.

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Photoshop CS3 | medium | 30 min

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In this tutorial I will show you how to

Soffía Gísladóttir Soffía graduated from Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2001, with a B.A. in Fine Arts, specialized in printmaking.

She has used photographs a lot in her experiments in printmaking, weather it was lithography, silkscreen or other printmaking methods. That has led her to work mostly in photography now.

She studied multimedia in 2005, her main projects today in that field are making music videos, shooting promo shots for bands and designing cd cover and websites. Soffia currently lives in Reykjavik, Iceland.

enhance colors and contrast in a photo and how to create a lomo vignette to get more depth in a photo. We will learn how to use Levels, Hue/Saturation, Layers and the Gradient Fill. I will also show you how I work with few layers of Levels. The reason I use many layers of Levels is because I erase part of each layer so each layer affects different part of the photo. This is my way

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to dodge and burn a photo.

(Note: Brush sizes in this tutorial depend on the size of the photo, in this tutorial the brush size is matched with an Image of 2000x2000 px)

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Save the photo to your computer and open it in Photoshop. Select from the menu: File>Open and open the photo you are going to work on.

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Click on Create new fill or Adjustment layer button in the Layers window and choose Levels (or in the menu bar Layers>New Adjustment Layer>Levels).

Adjust the three arrows on the slider for the Input Levels, typing these values: 33, 1, 45 and 223. Click OK. Rename the layer Contrast for mountains and sky. To rename a layer you double click on the layer´s name in the layers window with the mouse, this time the layers name is Levels 1. Pick the Eraser tool and make the brush soft in around 600 pixels, the Opacity 40% and Flow 100%.

Erase the clouds to bring back the details in the clouds.

TIP: To see the difference you can turn the layer on and off by clicking on the eye icon on the left next to the Contrast for mountains and sky layer.

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2C

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Go to Create new fill or Adjustment layer in the Layers window and choose Brightness/Contrast (or in the menu bar Layers>New Adjustment Layer>Brightness/ Contrast). Typing these values: +20 in Brightness and +87 in Contrast. Click OK. Rename that layer Contrast for mountains.

Pick the Eraser tool and make the brush soft in around 900 pixels and the Opacity 100% and Flow 100%.

Erase the whole sky. Go to Create new fill or Adjustment layer in the Layers window and choose Levels (or in the menu bar Layers>New Adjustment Layer>Levels).

Adjust the three arrows on the slider for the Input Levels, or type these values: 20, 0, 80 and 238. Click OK. Rename the layer Contrast for clouds. Pick the Eraser tool and make the brush soft in around 600 px and the Opacity 100% and Flow 100%. Erase the mountains.

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TIP: Use different opacity, from 10-30 % on the Erase brush to avoid obvious eraser marks.

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Go to Create new fill or Adjustment layer in the Layers window and choose Hue/Saturation(or in the menu bar Layers>New Adjustment Layer>Hue/Saturation). We only want to change the blue tones. Choose Blues and type these values: -21 in Hue and -24 in Saturation. Choose Cyan and type these values: -17 in Hue and -47 in Saturation. Click OK. Reame the layer Hue/ Saturation.

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Now we will make a lomo vignette to add more dramatic feel to the photo. In Menu bar go to Layer>New fill layer>Gradient. Name it Vignette and click OK. In the Gradient Fill window type in the following values: Style: Radial, Angle: 90, Scale:100 %, Reverse and Align with layer should be checked.

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Open Gradient Editor. Do the following: Left Color Stop should be black, right Color Stop should be white, left Opacity Stop is 80%, right Opacity Stop is 0%. Click OK and again OK to close the Gradient Fill window.

Change the layer to Overlay and Opacity to 78% Erase all parts of the vignette layer where you find it too dark. I erased most of the mountain and part of the sky. I use a big (800 - 1200 pixels) soft brush with different opacity on the brush from 30 - 60 %. That´s it! Now you can try again with your own photos, play around until you are happy with the result.

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Photoshop CS5 | medium | 60 min

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

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1:

Open the picture, duplicate background layer and rename it in Healing. Select from the tools panel the Healing brush tool and remove all the imperfections of the skin as spots, pimples or little wrinkles. Then select the Clone stamp tool and with a size of 30px, define the lip contour, cloning parts of lips with a single, continuous movement.

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Now duplicate the Healing layer and call it High pass.

Go in Filter>Other>High pass and set the radius on 10,0 px. Press Ok. Set the blending mode of the layer to Overlay and add a layer mask filled with black to this layer (Menu: Layer>Layer mask>Hide all). Using a white brush with a size of about 300px, paint in the blurry zone and the parts of the face that you want make more defined.

Then reduce the layerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Opacity (to 60% for example) to soften the image and give it a natural aspect.

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Now create a new group and call it Skin.

Create a stamp of the layers (shortcut: [Alt]+[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[E]), duplicate this layer and move the two layers into the group Skin.

Rename the layer below Blur and the layer above: High pass.

In the layer High pass, apply the High pass filter with a radius of 5px and press Ok. Set the blending mode of this layer to Soft light and go

to Layer>Layer mask>Hide all. Now paint with a soft white brush only on the skin. Select Blur layer and go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian blur and set the radius to 60px; press Ok. Now apply a layer mask as we did in the High pass layer, and paint the skin again (with white). Lower the Opacity of this layer to about 55%, to obtain a natural result.

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Now the finishing regulations. Create a new group and call it Adjustments. Create a new Selective color layer adjustment (Layer>New adjustment layer>Selective color) and set these values: Colors: Red: Cyan +28%; Magenta +7%; Yellow +4%; Create a new curves layer (Layer>New adjustment layer>Curves) and create a curve like this to illuminate the picture.

Finaly, create a new levels adjustment layer (Layer>New adjustment layer>Levels), from the dropdown menu select Increase contrast1 and you should obtain the final result.

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Photoshop CS3 | medium | 45 min

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In this tutorial we will cover Vanishing Point filter. This filter has been in Photoshop for few versions now with some modifications, but it is somewhat underappreciated because it allows you to do many different things. The main thing it allows you to do is to match the perspective of the scene. What we have here is a picture of a hall at the airport terminal in Munich. It has sort a dull look with all those white unappealing walls. As a matter of fact any picture presenting similar perspective like underground tunnel, subway tunnel, etc. will

be sufficient enough for this lesson. The end result will be a panoramic shots of pictures on the wall and then reflecting them of the floor.

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Tomasz Lisikiewicz For the last few years photography has been my passion.

First it started as a hobby, and now I do work as a freelancer. The more challenging the project, the more fun I have. Wedding photography is my main focus, but not only. My spare time is completely devoted to Photoshop, one of the best set of tools for photographers by far.

Contact: exchman@hotmail.com

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STEP 1:

Select the picture you would like to place on the wall. This is a picture of Rosneninsel on the Starnbergersee near Munich. Picture was taken in October to capture the colors of the fall. They should nicely warm up that cold, white wall of the terminal.

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STEP 2:

From the menu Select, choose an option All and you should see â&#x20AC;&#x153;marching antsâ&#x20AC;? around the picture

STEP 3:

From the Edit menu select Copy or use the keyboard shortcut [Ctrl]+[C].

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STEP 4:

Move to the picture you will be working with. In my case the hall at the terminal.

Create a layer and call it (as an example) Pictures.

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STEP 5:

Make sure that the Layer called Pictures is selected, and from the Filter menu select Vanishing Point.

Vanishing Point looks at all the layers at the same time, but it will deliver the result only on the selected layer. Vanishing point is one of the few functions in Photoshop which opens up an independent utility. It is like a little program running within Photoshop.

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STEP 6:

From the left side tool bar select Create Plane tool, and click the left button of your mouse in each corner to create a grid. Use the control points to position and to size the plane to where you want it to be.

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STEP 7:

Now it is the time to bring the other picture in. To do that, you need to use the keyboard shortcut [Ctrl]+[V] to paste the picture in. In the menu, Paste command is totally dimmed, and that is the feature of Vanishing Point.

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Select Transform tool, and start placing the picture in the plane. With the Transform tool you will be able to resize and position the picture precisely where you want. Once you have the first picture positioned and adjusted, press [Shift]+[A]+hold the left mouse button and drag the picture along the grid to the next location. Be careful here, you can only make adjustments to one picture at the time. Once the picture is dragged to the new location you will only be able to make any adjustments (size and position) to the copied one. So first adjust the first location and then copy to the next one.

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STEP 9:

Press [OK], and now it is a time to start working on the reflection on the floor. Create a new layer called Reflection, highlight that new layer and from the Filter menu select Vanishing Point again. Using one of the control point, drag the plane directly down.

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STEP 10:

Now is the time to use Marquee tool within Vanishing Point. The great thing about this tool is that is subscribes to the perspective of the scene. That is also the only selection tool in this filter. With Marquee select the pictures and press and hold [Shift]+[Alt]+hold left mouse button and drag the selection to the lower part of the plane.

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STEP 11:

As you see on the above picture, the reflection is totally wrong. We need to turn it around. Select Transform tool and click inside the box Flop to see this. Next click [OK]. If the reflection still needs some adjustments use Free Transform tool to position the reflected image.

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STEP 12:

We can reduce the opacity of the reflected image to about 30% or whichever looks good for you. However we can still see a hard age of the image on the floor.

To reduce or eliminate that hard edge of the reflection we need to create a mask and the next few steps will explain that process.

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What we need to do here is to create a gradient, then we will take it into Vanishing Point to add perspective there, and then we will turn it into mask. It may sound strange, but it actually works. So let’s start with the gradient. Create a layer called Gradient and with the use of Gradient toll make a selection.

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STEP 14:

Select the gradient you just created (you should see “marching ants” around it), next from the Edit menu select copy. Highlight the Reflection layer created earlier and make another layer. Let’s call it a Layer 1. Highlight that layer and from the Filter menu select Vanishing Point again. In Vanishing Point use [Ctrl]+[V] to paste earlier selected gradient. Then with Transform tool place the gradient over the reflection.

Remember that in masking black hides and white reveals. Picture should look like this.

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STEP 15:

Click [OK] in Vanishing Point. Now we got something what wants to be a mask. But we can just drag it into Reflection layer, it will not work. What we need to do instead is to turn this gradient into selection. Now click on the reflection layer. What we want is white going into black (gradient) and the rest should be all black. This is going to serve as a Mask for now. Create a layer called Black, and with the background color selected as black press [Ctrl]+[Backspace] to fill the picture. It should look like this.

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STEP 16:

Now open up Channels palette. Press and hold [Ctrl] and select RGB. It should look like this.

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STEP 17:

Return to the layers palette, and turn off Gradient, Layer 1, and Black. It should look like this.

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STEP 18:

Highlight Reflection layer and create a Mask from the selection. As you see the hard edge is gone, and we have now nice dissipating reflection of the picture on the floor. I hope you had fun and enjoyed this tutorial. Remember, play, experiment and practice. That is the best way to learn.

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Photoshop CS4 | medium | 40 min

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This tutorial will teach you how to create a fantasy manipulation which has a concept behind it.

Natalia Voloshyn I’m a 21 years old master student from a beautiful city of Lviv, Ukraine. Though my occupation (I’m a linguist) can hardly be called arty, I’ve been madly in love with Photoshop and photography for nearly 3 years. Being an artist is an amazing feeling.

You can find more of my work at: http://voloschka-photo.deviantart.com/ http://voloschka.deviantart.com/

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Choosing stock. I’ve chosen a beautiful background image and a picture of a model, both of which are perfect for a fantasy manipulation.

You will also need bird brushes and hair brushes.

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2:

As our background is ready and it doesn’t need any changes, let’s start with the model. Open the picture as a separate image, identify layer from background in your layer manager. Then start erasing the background with a medium-soft brush at 100% Opacity. When you finish, paste the model onto the main (background) image.

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Paint the grass over the bottom of the model’s dress to make it look more realistic. Clone stamp tool can help you with this, or you can just do it using a Brush tool.

4:

Let’s add some vamp make-up to our model. Use soft brush at medium Opacity to do this. You can experiment as much as you want. Just don’t forget to create a separate transparent layer and then paint. This will help you in case you make mistakes.

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5:

Our model image stands out from the background not in the good way. It seems too bright for our dark fantasy picture. Go to Image>Adjustments>Vibrance and set Saturation to a lower level.

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6:

Paint the hair. You can paint it either from scratch or use hair brushes. Remember that hair strands are usually of slightly different shades of color. When you finish, use Smudge tool to make your hair appear more natural.

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Add birds. Use bird brushes and experiment with the size of the brush to make the flock look more realistic.

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Merge visible layers.

Stock Credits

Model http://faestock.deviantart.com/ Background http://fairiegoodmother.deviantart.com/ Hair brushes http://wcs-wildcat.deviantart.com/ Bird brushes http://redheadstock.deviantart.com/

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9:

Go to Image>Adjustments>Curves and set both Input and Output to 255.

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Photoshop CS3 | avanced | 30 min

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Fantasy scene has always been difficult to create with

Narendra Keshkar Born in 1984 at Uttar Pradesh, India, Narendra Keshkar is a digital artist, graphic designer, blogger and tutorial writer. He started his career as a graphic designer in 2006, in 2009 he left his job and started full-time freelancing to provide better services to his clients. Recently he won silver award in most prestigious Mediabistro Logo Award 2010 for his personal brand identity and being interviewed at psdfan. com. “Think, Act, Invent – that is my design process!” You can see more of his work at http://www.narendrakeshkar.com

great details. In this tutorial I will show you how to create a dreamy flying land scene by using various basic Photoshop techniques such as masking, color corrections, path layers. You will learn about creating some complexed and photorealistic things by combining various objects and effects.

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2:

Create a blank document and open the image entitled hill.jpg then isolate the hill part and import it to the document. Press [Ctrl] + [T] to transform layer and select Flip Horizontal then Flip Vertical to change the direction of hill, again transform layer and select Warp to adjust the shape of layer.

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After warping image, it may lose some finer details and look a little blurred. To fix it, duplicate the hill layer and go to Filter>Sharpen>Sharpen More to sharpen the image.

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Create upper surface of land by using land1.jpg and land2.jpg. Clip mask both layer to upper surface, mask the outer part of land1.jpg and center part of land2.jpg. In upper land, add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer; change its Hue to +3 and Saturation to -31 to match the upper land color with whole flying land. On lower part add anotherHue/ Saturation layer with Hue + 11, Saturation -29 and Lightness: +1.

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4:

Download some crack brushes from various website like brusheezy.com and then add some cracks to the surface of upper land.

Press [F5] to access brush panel and change its rotation, size to create precise cracks of the surface. Select the land surface layer, go to Layers>Create Clip Mask or press [Alt]+[Ctrl]+[G] to mask the unwanted area and add some more rocks on lower part to give it more realism. Now import clouds.jpg to add cloudy sky to the background.

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5:

Similarly add some more cracks on the lower part of land. Now to extend the lower part, press [P] and select some rocks in the lower part and then press [Ctrl]+[J] to isolate these rocks to extend lower part. Make sure to turn Shape Layers option on, this will save your selection as shapes so that you can access any selection any time.

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Now we have isolated some rocks to extend the lower part. Duplicate various rock layers, transform, rotate, change size of the rocks and place them accurately to precisely extend lower part. Spread some rocks around the land in the sky to give it more natural look.

Next, import the earth.jpg, remove its background and place it precisely on land. Select a large brush of Softness – 100% and Roundness – 20%, select foreground color black and create earth’s shadow on land.

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8:

Add Selective Color adjustment layer with these settings: cyans: Cyan -36, Magenta -53, Yellow -8, Black 0, blues: Cyan +92, Magenta -100, Yellow -78, Black 0.

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9:

Now I want to give it hollow egg type look in which I will remove top portion of earth. Press [B] to select Brush tool and add some cracks to the top of earth to create a clear lining from where we have to remove top part. Add some cracks to the bottom to give it crushed look from bottom.

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10:

Remove the top portion of earth from crack lining, [Ctrl]+Click on earth to get its selection after removing top portion, then create a new layer and fill this layer with color #746858. Name this layer Brown, shift this layer slightly up from earth, then [Ctrl] + Click on earth layer and press [Delete] key to remove unwanted area of brown layer. Add some shadows and cracks to match with earth surface.

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11:

Similarly create the back part of the earth’s opening, select crack brushes and create a lining of the back part to give it natural look. Select a soft brush of size 200px, select foreground color to black and create shadows on earth back part.

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12:

Now I want to add an octopus arm coming through the earth’s surface. For this select crack brushes and create a hole on the earth’s surface. Fill the hole with color #685a4b and name this layer brown_ hole. Apply Inner Glow layer style of Size 20px and Opacity 50% to this layer. Duplicate this layer, fill with black color, press [Ctrl]+[T] to transform layer and make it a little smaller than the brown layer.

Name this layer black_hole.

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13:

Next open the octopus.jpg, isolate its arms and place with arm hole. Add shadows to make scene more realistic, add another arm coming out from top portion of earth. Add Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to the arm layer with Hue +18, Saturation -18 and Lightness 0.

Darken some part of arm near the hole to give it more realistic look.

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To add some shadows to the flying rocks and flying land group all the layers except the sky layer. Press [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[E] to merge these layers. Press [Ctrl]+click to this layer, create a new layer and select a soft brush of color black to add shadows on the rocks and land.

Select all layers except sky layer, merge them, set the blending mode to Soft Light and Opacity to 60%.

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15:

Now we are adding some more details to the scene to make it more natural. Add some rocks, enlarge them and go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Add blur of Radius 10 px to each rock. Set these rocks to corners partially visible to the scene, import some aircraft to the file and precisely arrange them into the scene so that they can merge with scene easily.

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Next, select flowing land merged layer, duplicate it, and transform it to reduce its size. Press [F7] to access layer palate and click to the Add layer mask icon at the bottom of layer palate. Now select a soft brush, press [D] to set foreground and background color black and white, than mask some area to merge it with clouds.

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17:

We have almost completed the tutorial, just need to add some more details to the scene. Open woodpecker.jpg and nest.jpg. Add woodpecker and nest to the scene after removing their background.

Group all layers and merge this group, then rename this layer scene.

Duplicate the scene layer and apply Gaussian Blur of Radius 10 px. Add a layer mask to the layer, set brush Opacity to 60% and hide the blur effect from main elements of the scene like earth, flowing land, aircrafts, etc., hide the blur effect wherever needed then set its Opacity to 60%. Again duplicate the scene layer, go to Image>Adjustments>Desaturate to desaturate the layer. Apply Gaussian Blur of size 10 px and set its blending mode to Soft light and Opacity to 40%.

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This is the last step of tutorial in which we will add some effect to the scene. Select a large soft brush and paint on a new layer with vibrant blue, green, red, yellow, orange colors. Set its blending mode to Soft light and Opacity 40% and we have finished this tutorial, this is the final result.

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9]QWU 3bUTYdc Earth http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=909780 Wood peacker http://www.sxc.hu/browse. phtml?f=view&id=1009403 Nest http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=762874 Octopus http://maxxitaly.deviantart.com/ gallery/8714728?offset=48#/d1yz410 Clouds http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=14799172 Rock http://cocacolagirlie.deviantart.com/ gallery/966086?offset=48#/d19belt Hill http://aussiesteve-stocks.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d1e70w9 land 1 http://night-fate-stock.deviantart.com/art/desert-28173280763?q=gallery%3Anight-fate-stock%2F24560601&qo=7 land 2 http://night-fate-stock.deviantart.com/art/desert-12138336044?q=gallery%3Anight-fate-stock%2F24560601&qo=36 aircraft 1 http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=525060 aircraft 2 http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=623078

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