Vector Polishing Techniques Someone emailed me and asked how did I do the illustration background on Next2Friends. It inspired me to write this article. He asked "Did I do it in Photoshop or Illustrator?" Well, it is a mixture of both. First I created the artwork in Illustrator, then polished it in Photoshop. Here I will unveil all my secret techniques. This tutorial includes 9 Photoshop techniques that will show you how to add more depth, color, contrast, and texture into your vector art.
Why do I need to polish the vector art? Vector artworks are usually very flat, dull, and lack visual effects due to software limitations; thus they look very boring. Unless you want that "flat and dull" appearance, otherwise you should polish your vector in Photoshop. By polishing vector art, you can: make the color more vivid, bring up the contrast, texturize the artwork, and add more life and depth to the image. Here are some of my work samples (before and after polish).
Technique 1: Lens Flare Effect
First technique, let’s start with one of my recent work on Next2Friends. I will show you how to create a stunning lens flare effect in two simple steps. I assume you have the vector artwork ready and you want to add a lens flare layer on top. First create a new layer on top and fill it with black color. Go to Filter > Render > Lens Flare. Then, set the layer’s blending mode to Screen. Done. Isn’t that nice and easy?
If you want the lens flare to focus on specify area only, you can delete the unwanted area. Make a circle selection, feather the selection (Cmd + Opt + D) by 10 to 20px, inverse selection (Cmd + Shift + i), and hit Delete key.
Sometime just the Lens Flare filter alone is not good enough. You can make it even better by manually adding more colorful circles and glows.
Technique 2: Colorful and Dusty Effect
This is one of my common styles that can be found in most of my design work. Again, it is very easy. It can be done in two easy steps. Use the Radial Gradient tool, randomly draw some soft edge glows on a layer and set the layer blending mode to Dissolve.
Repeat this step and create different color overlapping layers. Try to use bright colors such as yellow, megenta and cyan. Tips: you can control the dissolve level by adjusting the layer Opacity.
Technique 3: Rainbow
If you ever wondered how I did the rainbow effect on my Phoenix illustration (currently displaying on N.Design Studio). It is done by a Photoshop plugin, Polar Coordinates. Create a new square dimension file (ie. 800 x 800px). Make a spectrum gradation in the middle of the document using the Gradient tool with the default "Spectrum" preset. Go to Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates. There you go, a perfect circle spectrum!
Now, you have to blur the sharp edge. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, apply 5 to 10px radius, depending on the size of your document. Bigger document size will require more blur.
If you only to show partial of the rainbow, you can use the layer mask to hide the unwanted area. In the Layer palette, click on the "Add layer mask" icon. Use Gradient tool, select the "black to transparent" swatch, drag from left to right to mask out the unwanted area.
Technique 4: Glowing Lights - Background This is the quickiest and most easiest way to create a colorful light glowing background for your vector work.
First fill the layer with any dark gradient you desire. Use the Radial Gradient tool and start making soft (transparent) glows on separate layers. This effect works best with cyan, magenta, and purplish colors.
Experiment with the blending modes and drag the layers around (you will get unexpected results): Overlay, Color, Multiply, Screen, and Color Dodge.
Technique 5: Particles
Particle Tail Here is a technique on how to create a tail of particles as seen in my Flow artwork. This technique is also commonly used in the fairy tale books/movies (you know, the typical magic wand effects). Select the Pen tool, and draw an opening path. Select the Brush tool, set any brush size you want (ie. Brush size 3px). In the Brush panel, turn on Scattering and Shape Dynamics (you can play around with these settings to get different results).
In the Paths palette, right-click on the path layer and select "Stroke Path". It will fill the stroke with your active brush setting.
Tablet Drawing Of course you can manually create the particle effect by brushing with various brush sizes. If you have a tablet, this will be fun. In the Brush panel, turn on Shape Dynamics, Scattering, or any other controls to Pen Pressure and experiment the results. If you don’t have a tablet, have fun clicking and dragging.
Technique 6: Color Dodge
Vector artworks usually look very flat, by color dodging, you can bring up the contrast and create a focus point.
Paste your vector artwork in a new layer, use the Eyedropper tool and pick a bright color from the original image. Set your Brush mode to Color Dodge and brush Opacity 5 to 10%. Gentling click on the area where you want to be dodged. Be easy and try to over-dodge the image.
Technique 7: Blurred and Darkened. As mentioned earler, vector artwork is usually very flat. You can add more depth to the image by blurring and darkening the background objects. Examples can be found in my Flow illustration. Notice the floral patterns in the background are blurred and darkened?
Just duplicate the foreground objects and apply 3 to 5px Gaussian Blur.
Technique 8: Watercolor As seen on this site, watercolor texture and vector can mix very well together. Here is how I did the watercolor effects.
Choose any pastel colors, such as pink, green, purple, orange, etc. Select the Pencil tool, set the brush size to about 100px, Opacity 10%, and randomly draw on the layer.
Repeat this step for different colors. This technique is also posted in the previous tutorial, Watercolor Effect Menu.
Technique 9: Vintage Here is a technique on how to create vintage effect to give more texture to your vector work. Although I have never used this technique in my illustration work, but I have seen it a lot. So, here is it.
Paste your vector artwork in Photoshop. Select the Erase tool, set the mode to Pencil, select one of the grunge/splatter brushes, and gentling erase partial of the layer.
Credits: The brush sets used here are splatter and watercolor, from Bittbox. The icons are from my free Christmas Holiday Icon Pack.
Photoshop Secret Shortcuts It is proven that by using software shortcuts can boost up productivity. Here are 30 secret Photoshop shortcuts that I’ve learned from years of experience. Well, what I mean by "secret" is that these shortcuts are not documented in the menus. Keep reading and you will find how these shortcuts can speed up your productivity. I bet you don’t know all of them. Note: this article is written in Mac Photoshop format. If you are using PC, Cmd = Ctrl and Opt = Alt. 1.
Drag selection With the Marquee tool, drag on the document (do not release the mouse yet), now hold down Spacebar, it will let you drag the undefined selection.
2.
Navigate the document left or right Hold down the Cmd key and scroll up or down allows you to navigate the document left or right. For example, hold down Cmd + scroll up will navigate to right.
3.
Browse the font list Put your cursor in the font list dropdown, you can browse the font list by
pressing arrow Up or Down key.
4.
Scale font size Select the text that you want to scale the font size, press Cmd + Shift + > or < to increase / decrease font size.
5.
Zoom with the scroll wheel You can zoom in / out by Cmd + Opt + scroll up or down.
6.
Drag to adjust numberic value Mouseover the input box, hold down Cmd + drag left or right to increase / decrease. Hold down Cmd + Opt or Shift key and drag can change the value in decimal or 10 interval. This shortcut works in all dialog palettes.
7.
Scroll to adjust numeric value Put the cursor in the input box, scroll up or down to increase / decrease value. This shortcut works in all dialog palettes.
8.
Arrow up / down to adjust numeric value Put the cursor in the input box, press arrow Up or Down to increase / decrease. Hold down Shift and press arrow Up or Down will change value in 10 interval.
9.
Zoom to 100% Double click on the Zoom tool will zoom document to 100%.
10. Collapse or expand all layer groups You can collapse or expand all root-level layer groups by holding down Cmd + click on the triangle icon. Hold down Cmd + Opt + click on the triangle icon
will collapse or expand all level layer groups.
11. Show / hide in a row If you need to show / hide more than one layers, instead of clicking one by one, you can click on the visibility icon and drag in a row.
12. Hide other layers Hold down Opt + click on the visibility icon will hide all other layers.
13. Navigate layer blending mode Opt + Shift + "-" or "+" key allows you to navigate through the blending mode
dropdown.
14. Set specific blending mode Opt + Shift + C, N, M, S, Dâ&#x20AC;Ś allows to set layer to specific blending mode. For examples: Normal = Opt + Shift + N Screen = Opt + Shift + S Multiply = Opt + Shift + M Color = Opt + Shift + C
15. Lock layer transparency Press forward slash ("/") to lock layer transparency.
16. Load Channel selection You probably know that Cmd + number keys (1, 2, 3) will activate the channels in sequent. Press Cmd + Opt + number keys will load the selection.
For example, press Cmd + Opt + 4 will load Alpha channel 1.
17. Tool panels Press Tab to toggle tool panels.
18. Precise cursor Caps lock will display tool cursor in precise mode.
19. Navigate the tool list You can navigate through the tool list by pressing Shift + tool shorcut. For example: B = Brush tool, if you press Shift + B again, you will switch to Pencil tool.
20. Increase / decrease brush size With the Brush tool selected, you can increase / decrease the brush size by pressing [ or ] key (square bracket key). Press Shift + [ or ] will increase /
decrease brush hardness.
21. Opacity You can set the layer opacity by pressing the number keys (ie. 1 = 10%, 2 = 20%â&#x20AC;Ś). When you have the brush tool selected, pressing the number keys will adjust the brush opacity.
22. Duplicate layer There are several shortcuts to duplicate layers. 1. You can hold down Cmd + Opt + drag to duplicate the active layer. 2. Cmd + Opt + arrow keys (Up, Down, Left, Right). 3. Cmd + J will duplicate the active layer in exact position. 4. Hold down Opt + drag within the Layers palette can also duplicate layers.
23. Copy visible and paste in a new layer Press Cmd + Opt + Shift + E will copy the visible layers and paste in a new layer.
24. Change workspace background By default Photoshop use grey for the workspace background color. You can change that by: 1. select your favorite color 2. choose the Paint Bucket tool 3. Hold down Shift + click on the working area (outside the document area)
Update: right-click on the workspace area to get a dropdown menu - allows you to set the background to black, grey, or a custom color (commented by Todd Patrick). 25. Fill background or foreground color Opt + Delete (Backspace) = fill the layer with foreground color. Cmd + Delete (Backspace) = fill the layer with background color
Update: Cmd + Shift + Delete (Backspace) = Fill non-transparent pixels with background color Opt + Shift + Delete (Backspace) = Fill non-transparent pixels with foreground color (commented by AndrĂŠ Dion) 26. Switch between document windows Ctrl + Tab will switch between document windows.
27. Load layer transparent Cmd + click on the layer thumbnail will load its transparency.
28. Scale proportionally from center When you are using the Marquee tools or Free Transform, hold down Opt + Shift + drag will scale proportionally from the center.
29. Shortcut to Eyedropper If you have the Brush tool selected, hold down Opt key will quickly activate the Eyedropper tool. Hold down Opt + Shift will activate the Color Sampler Tool.
30. Finallyâ&#x20AC;Ś Finally, if you want to check or set your own custom shortcuts, press Cmd +
Opt + Shift + K will bring up the Keyboard Shortcuts panel.
Additional from the comments In some dialog boxes, holding the Opt key will turn the “Cancel” button into a most useful “Reset”. (by Miguel Tavares) To stroke a path, first select the path, then change to the brush tool, select a brush, and type Enter or Return. This works with all of the brush-like tools (eraser, clone, blur, etc.). (by buddhistMonkey) To turn a path into a selection, type Command-Enter or Command-Return (doesn’t matter what tool is selected). If there is already a selection, then Command-Shift-Return will add your path’s shape to the selection, Command-Option-Return will subtract it, and Command-Option-Shift-Return will select the intersection. (by buddhistMonkey) If you are adding a “Drop Shadow” layer effect, and you have the Layer Style dialog open to the Drop Shadow settings, you can move the shadow around by clicking and dragging in the image. This also works with the “Inner Shadow” effect. If you hold down the Option key, you can also adjust the Gradient Overlay, Pattern Overlay, and Satin effects by clicking and dragging. (by buddhistMonkey)
Do you know more shortcuts? Do you know more Photoshop shortcuts that are not listed in this article? Please post them in the comment form. Make sure they are "secret" (not documented in the Photoshop menus).