Advanced Photoshop (issue 17)

FREE CD!

Project files, desktop designs, stock art…

ISSUE 17 771748 727009

42

9

ISSUE 17 ISSN 1748-7277

Delve inside the mind behind Flatliner

17

£5.99

JASON COOK ES S -REIMAG ’S H E HIGOCKIS ISSU ST TH D ONREE C F

HOW TO… Visit us online – www.advancedphotoshop.co.uk

Get organised with Lightroom Make artwork from scratch Master Smart Objects Perfect layer effects

001_APM17_cover.indd 1

Videogame art

Create artwork with Photoshop to make the PlayStation jealous

GRADUATE SHOWCASE ISSUE 17

£5.99

The hottest young talent to hit the Photoshop scene

APPLYING 3D TEXTURES

Magictorch explains how to tackle eye-popping urban texture

pages of professional tips & essential stepby-step tutorials

ISS UE 17

Jason Cook | Graduate showcase | Start your own design studio | Create videogame masterpieces

6-PAGE INTERVIEW

23/3/06 09:53:11

Cover

Cover image This issue’s cover image comes from the mind of multiple personality creative, Jason Cook. A highly respected photographer and Photoshopper, this image, created for his Flatliner-V2 persona, demonstrates his aptitude for composition and his ability to keep up with trends. / For our full interview, turn to page 26.

Imageer: JASON COOK

IF I CARRIED ON DOING THE SAME STYLE ALL THE TIME, I THINK I’D GO COMPLETELY MAD 5

Advanced Photoshop

005_APM17_intro.indd 5

24/3/06 17:00:25

nds mme Reco

7 32

GIVE IT A GO

Get some inspiration from this robot themed tutorial. Send your attempts in and next issue you could win a state-of-the-art EPSON scanner

ISSUE #17

inside...

7 10 26 LETTERS Your comments shared with fellow readers

Inside the mind of Flatliner, Jacey and co

INSIGHT

7 14

News and showcases from around the globe Check out events and exhibitions in the UK Glorious model-making from Rachel Chapman Take a look at MDI Digital’s portfolio Landscapes from the mind of Stephane Belin

HELPDESK

14 20 22 24

7 78

Your technical traumas shared with fellow readers and answered by our expert

THE COVER

RESOURCES

Jason Cook captures the current trend of integrating photographs with harsh lines and hand-drawn elements. Find out what inspires him, and his four personas, by turning to page 26.

7 85

Vital assets to improve your Photoshop work Lightroom Beta 2: The Preview Books Plug-ins Portfolio sites

THIS MONTH’S CD

. E ..

IBe 76 R C g f BSto pa £s ofce U S rn ave pri Tu d s ver an e co th

86 90 92 94

7 96

Superb stock art, all the project files to go with this month’s issue and more!

14 16

The latest events and exhibitions

Awards for students as well as professionals

6

Advanced Photoshop

006-007_APM17_contents.indd 6

24/3/06 16:54:42

56

TECHNIQUES Faster, better, more… How can you work smarter?

Master the art of the videogame designer

FEATURES

ADD TEXTURE TO 3D OBJECTS 7

32

7

44

7

56

7

62

7

64

7

70

Create texture to be proud of

INTERVIEW: JASON COOK

7 26

LAYER EFFECTS

STARTING A DESIGN STUDIO

7 38

CREATING CONSOLE ART

THE GRADUATES

7 50

INSIDER INFO REDUCE NOISE

PEER PRESSURE

7 72

PERFECT YOUR BRUSHWORK

ROUND UP: CAMERAS

7 80

INSIDER INFO SMART OBJECTS

Discover the secrets behind his success

Unleash your solo potential

Discover the hot young talent snapping at your heels

Eye-catching images from your fellow readers

How the right camera can improve your digital art

Master the art of ice using layer effects

Be the mastermind behind stunning videogame art

Get the best from your images using the CS2 filter

Learn how to paint artwork from scratch in Photoshop

Discover the power of Smart Objects

PREVIEW: LIGHTROOM BETA 2 7 86 Adobe’s new offering under the microscope

7

Advanced Photoshop

006-007_APM17_contents.indd 7

24/3/06 16:55:04

Letters

Mailbox Send your emails about the magazine to the editor at advancedpshop@ imagine-publishing.co.uk SUBJECT: Hello…? FROM: Annabel Williams Is there anybody there? I’ve been buying Advanced Photoshop since the first issue, and I was so happy to finally find a publication featuring the app that was actually worth reading! But where have you gone? Issue 3 came and went with no sign of issue 4, and many a lunchtime I came away empty-handed from WHSmith. Is Advanced Photoshop throwing in the towel after just (sob) three killer issues? Either way, thanks for publishing such a fantastic magazine.

SUBJECT: Not just for Christmas? FROM: Barry Keating After picking up one issue of your fantastic mag I decided that I was hooked enough to take the £9 plunge and subscribe. But since then my post mat has been barren. What’s the deal, AP, are you coming or going? Editor replies: Thanks to all of you who got in touch wondering where we’d got to, it’s reassuring to know we were missed. Hopefully you all found your way to issue 16

(previously numbered 4) of the magazine. You’ll all be reassured to hear that not only are we here to stay but we’ve been spending our extra time wisely, reformatting the magazine. From now on you can expect to see us every month, as we have switched to a new four-weekly frequency. The next issue will reach you on 25 May, ensuring that we will well and truly make up for lost time.

SUBJECT: Advancing on the web FROM: Ali Dent Before magazines like yours hit the stands last year, the Internet was the only place where hardened Photoshoppers could commune and swap tips and experiences. So, one thing I’ve really enjoyed about the last couple of issues of Advanced Photoshop is the way you’ve featured renowned sites like PhotoshopCAFE and Pixelsurgeon, which really enhances the community feel of the magazine. Why is it, though, that Advanced Photoshop doesn’t have a website? Not only would it be great for the AP readers, but I think it would be a great way of extending the scope and interactivity of the magazine.

“BEFORE MAGS LIKE YOURS HIT THE SHELVES, THE INTERNET WAS THE ONLY PLACE TO SWAP TIPS” Editor replies: We’ve been spending the last few months concentrating on polishing Advanced Photoshop into the gleaming jewel you see before you. But that doesn’t mean the web has not been in our thoughts. Photoshop has a huge online community that we’re extremely keen to contribute to, so you can be sure that we’ll extend this into a thriving Advanced Photoshop site in the not-too-distant future. So watch this space!

SUBJECT: Professional advice FROM: Russell James

MORE TO LOVE: From now on, we’ll be educating Photoshopaholics every single month

CUTTING EDGE: The Pixelsurgeon site brings you the hippest creators and edgiest content

Finally, a magazine featuring pro-level content for Photoshop users! I’m a new reader of your magazine and I find the tutorials and features right on target – a superb step on from the Photoshop content of digital photography magazines. However, I do think there is something missing. As well as interviews and tutorials featuring Photoshop pros I think you could offer a wider scope of articles focusing on other issues affecting the Photoshop professional. Career and portfolio advice, promotional tips, even tutorials focusing on other Creative Suite apps would be ideal.

10

Advanced Photoshop

010-011_APM17_letters.indd 10

29/3/06 12:23:53

STUDIO LINE:

So, you think you’re good enough to Photoshop fulltime? Get kitted out to join the chaotic world of the professional creative with our guide to the gear you need on page 38

Straight to

the point Raising our game I’m sure I can’t be alone in wanting a bit more from my now-favourite creative magazine. Editor replies: Hi, and thanks for getting in touch! Hopefully our new-look magazine has quenched your thirst for more in-depth tutorials, and if you turn to page 38 you’ll see that we read your mind and decided to get you all the advice you need on starting your own design studio.

SUBJECT: Faulty disc? FROM: Terry Stone I bought your magazine today for the first time and I have found it excellent. Unfortunately my pleasure was dampened by the fact there were no images on the disc for the fantastic Let It Snow tutorial from p58. I think it’s also a pity that you don’t put video tutorials on the disc. Maybe next time! Regards Editor replies: You’re not the only person to have suffered the same fate. However, for those of you who emailed or called us, and for those of who haven’t done so yet, we have the solution. If you’d like to get your hands on the image that will enable you to recreate that snow scene, go to www.advancedphotoshop.co.uk/ snowscene.jpg and you will be able to download the

PIXEL PILGRIMS: Watch out for next year’s NEC imaging event at www.focus-on-imaging.co.uk

full sized image from there. Good luck with the tutorial, and don’t forget to email all those finished images in. There’s no greater pleasure for the digital artist than seeing your work in print.

SUBJECT: Oldie but boldie FROM: Peter O’Sullivan For anyone like me, who at the grand old age of 46 has only just discovered the delights of Photoshop, the program can be a little daunting. However, with the help of a course that I found on www.systematix. co.uk I am now a confident Photoshopper, and although some of your tutorials are still a little too advanced for me, with the next level of training I hope to soon be snapping at the heels of www.vault49.com and the like.

SUBJECT: Focus on imaging FROM: Helen French I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed Adobe’s Focus On Imaging event at the NEC last month. It was inspiring to see so many people with such a passion for creativity. I shall definitely be attending more of these events in the future.

SUBJECT: Go go gadget FROM: Stephanie Bridge After reading your Photoshop pros bang on and on about graphic tablets, I splurged on a teeny A5 Intuos3 (I know I’m getting serious about Photoshop when I pass up the latest Jimmy Choo sale in favour of a gadget). Well, I’m glad I did. I’ve always been more comfortable working with ‘real’ tools, so the stylus suits me perfectly, and I find that my work’s far more accurate now. And it’s loads of fun, too. Editor replies: We’re glad you’re enjoying your new toy, Stephanie, and even if it means you’ll be poorly clothed for a few months we think it’s worth it! Just to give it a proper test-drive, head to pages 44 and 56 of this issue, where you’ll find a couple of tutorials that will make for perfect pen practise. Enjoy!

SUBJECT: Advanced? FROM: Tommy Neilson I’ve just seen issue 16 of the magazine and wanted to say I completely agree with your raising the standard and level of tutorials in the magazine; many previously printed were not advanced at all! SUBJECT: Where’s the insight? FROM: Mike Harris I think it’s ironic that a magazine section called Insight is so difficult to read. While I find your tutorials user-friendly and bang on the mark, the first 20 or so pages of your magazine are a hard-to-follow mish-mash of Photoshop babble with no real order. Is it news, portfolios, new trends or what? As far as I can see it’s just a load of pretty pictures with captions and the odd hardware story thrown in for good measure. SUBJECT: Room for a review FROM: Matt Sykes Photoshop may be the world’s most awesome piece of software (in my humble opinion anyway) but it wouldn’t get very far without the hardware and peripherals needed to run it. With this in mind I think Advanced Photoshop should include hardware and plug-in reviews and news as well as Photoshop techniques. Editor replies: Message received and understood! Taking our command from you, the readers, this month’s Advanced Photoshop has continued in issue 16’s footsteps and had a bit of a shake-up. As well as including a four-page review of Adobe’s latest offering, Lightroom, we’ve also cast our eye over Insight. Tailored to be a veritable treasure chest of news and new trends, we like to keep the top end of the magazine completely fluid to move with the pace of the Photoshop community. But if your wish is for more clarity and order, then that is our command. We hope you’ll find this issue of Advanced Photoshop just that little bit more insightful.

11

Advanced Photoshop

010-011_APM17_letters.indd 11

29/3/06 12:30:30

Keeping an eye on the latest trends in contemporary photography, art, and design, Insight sets out to snapshot innovation in the making

Designer Of The Year: you decide Celebrating the greatest achievements from the world of design, the London Design Museum is hosting the Designer Of The Year exhibition until 28 June. Awarded annually, the UK’s most prestigious design prize celebrates the designer or team who have made the biggest contribution of design the proceeding year. Up for the vote in 2006 is furniture designer Tom Dixon, The Guardian design team for the redesign of the newspaper, Jamie Hewlett for designing the virtual band Gorillaz and humanitarian designer

A

Cameron Sinclair for his work with Architecture for Humanity. “The Designer Of The Year shortlist is a true indication of the breadth, depth and creativity of design in the UK today,” enthuses Christopher Bailey, creative director of Burberry. Even those not nominated for the awards can take part as the public can vote for the winner of the £25,000 design award. Judge their work for yourself at this Design Museum exhibition or online on the Designer Of The Year website at www. designmuseum.org/designeroftheyear.

B

www.designmuseum.org/ designeroftheyear

insight

A THE GUARDIAN, 12 SEPTEMBER 2005

DESIGN: THE GUARDIAN PRODUCTION: GUARDIAN NEWSPAPERS LTD One of the most ambitious design projects of 2005, The Guardian’s redesign has already led to increased sales in the declining newspaper market. Having decided to shrink its traditional broadsheet format, The Guardian redesigned every aspect of the newspaper. The design team, led by creative director Mark Porter, devised rigorous grids to ensure coherence, and developed new ways of using colour to enhance photography, illustration and infographics

B COPPER SHADE, 2005

DESIGN: TOM DIXON PRODUCTION: TOM DIXON OLD One of the UK’s most influential product designers, Tom Dixon was shortlisted after an exceptionally prolific year in 2005 and for his championship of emerging designers. During 2005, Dixon developed new furniture and lighting designs for Tom Dixon Ltd and Artek, the Finnish furniture maker

C A SCHOOL FOR 170 TAMIL AND MUSLIM

CHILDREN CONSTRUCTED BY ARCHITECTURE FOR HUMANITY IN SRI LANKA, 2005 In the year since the tsunami devastated the South East Asian coastline, Architecture for Humanity has constructed schools, medical clinics and community centres. It is now developing sustainable design solutions to the crises caused by Hurricane Katrina and the Kashmir earthquake

D GORILLAZ, 2005

CONCEPT & DESIGN: JAMIE HEWLETT Gorillaz has become the world’s most successful virtual band. Born in 1968, Hewlett designed anti-heroine Tank Girl before creating Gorillaz with musician Damon Albarn. In 2005, they took the visualisation of the band to a new level by working with the animation company Passion Pictures to stage a groundbreaking digital performance at the MTV Europe Awards

C © Architecture for Humanity

D

14

Advanced Photoshop

014-015_APM17_insight.indd 14

27/3/06 10:44:54

05.06 PRZEMEK SOBOCKI: Inspired by the ending of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s film The Double Life Of Veronique, when the main character touches a tree to confirm that she exists, this is one of the pieces that won Sobocki his title MODEL MUSES: Inspired by the likes of Erin O’Connor, Jade Parfitt and Linda Evangelista, Downton’s work has become iconic within the fashion and the art industry

Drawing inspiration As an artist, it is all too easy to get used to people overlooking your work. There’s no question about it. The life of an illustrator can be an unacknowledged and frustrating one. For creatives, exhibitions and competitions can be a lifeline and the V&A Illustration Awards are no different. The premier awards for book and editorial illustration in the UK, the awards, sponsored by the Enid Linder Foundation, have produced winners including Quentin Blake, Michael Foreman, Ian Pollock, Ralph Steadman, Posy Simmonds and Sara Fanelli. Winning illustrations are chosen from editorial publications, children’s books, adult illustrated books and book covers, so if you’ve had your work published in this way, keep reading. Renamed the V&A Illustration Awards in 2002, this event continues to be among the most substantial financial prizes for book and magazine illustration in the UK. But they’re not just recognising old hands. The 2005 Awards included a new category for Student Illustrator Of The Year, offered to students at UK colleges studying illustration at degree level equivalent or above. Although the closing date for the 2006 awards student category has been and gone, 1 August is D-Day for the rest of you. Check out www.vam.ac.uk for details of how to enter.

JULIANNA KASZA, STUDENT ILLUSTRATOR OF 2005 Inspired by medieval woodcut illustration, when artists were not so knowledgeable about rules of delineation but could create a narrative, Kasza’s illustration was based on a tale called The Little Piglet And The Wolves

Couture voyeur

PRZEMEK SOBOCKI, FIRST PRIZ ILLUSTRA TIO E EDITOR IAL images wer N: Featured in 125 M e his first pu ag blished as an azine, Sobocki’s win roots in fash ning ion and de illustrator, sign and reveal his

Art students pondering how to follow in the footsteps of the illustrious David Downton, one of the world’s leading fashion illustrators, should get down to the London College of Fashion between 28 April and 17 May. The stunning retrospective of the Paris couture shows include drawings that have never been exhibited in public before and portraits of the fashion industry’s most beautiful women, including Jade Parfitt, Erin O’Connor and Linda Evangelista. A familiar face both behind the scenes and in the front rows of the world’s most esteemed couture shows, David gained unprecedented access to the glamorous world of fashion, capturing both the star-studded front row as well as the excitement and energy of the models and designers backstage. Having originally trained in graphics, David’s natural ability with the human form, spontaneous approach and economy of line rapidly led to a hugely successful career working with, among others, Vogue, Tatler, Elle, Harpers & Queen, Estée Lauder and Christian Dior. As this is his first show for numerous years, and is an opportunity to buy prints for your own collection, this is one exhibition you can’t afford to miss.

15

Advanced Photoshop

014-015_APM17_insight.indd 15

24/3/06 17:55:10

insight The Greatest Show On Earth In keeping with the collaborative spirit with which design studio Vault49 was conceived, The Greatest Show On Earth showcases Vault49’s partnership with some of the hottest photographic, illustrative, and typographic talent around. Featuring illustration contributions from Daryl Waller, typographic image-making from Si Scott, and photography by Rinze van Brug and Michael Creagh in New York, and Stephan Langmanis in London, the show is set to be a truly great event. Vault49’s unfettered images, both bizarre and gorgeous, have appeared on or between the covers of Flaunt, Dazed & Confused, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. Since establishing Vault49 in early 2002, the collaborative’s pioneering work has gained rapid international recognition through countless features in the best of the global design press, and has sold hundreds of limited edition artworks worldwide to private collectors and other design and advertising companies. Maintaining that it is no longer possible to refer to graphic design as being so disconnected from the art world, Vault49 has carved a unique space for itself. Check out the exhibition, on in April at the Coningsby Gallery, London, and be well and truly inspired.

www.coningsbygallery.com

HOOCHIE COOCHIE: DESIGN: Vault49 with Daryl Waller PHOTOGRAPHY: Stephan Langmanis MODEL: Ksenia @ Models 1 STYLIST: Riccie Stoene HAIR & MAKE-UP: Marlene Andersson

Graphic design is growing and evolving to encompass many different approaches, techniques and genres, including much of the territory that was the exclusive reserve of the artist, such as self-commissioned and self-published work like The Greatest Show On Earth

KNIFE THROWER :

BEAR TAMER: DESIGN: Vault49 with Daryl Waller PHOTOGRAPHY: Rinze van Brug and Michael Creagh STYLIST: Keith Washington MAKE UP: Martha Amelia Friedlander HAIR: Livio Angileri at Ford Artists

DESIGN: Vault49 with Daryl Walle PHOTOGRAPHY: Rinze van Brug and Michael Creag STYLIST: Keith Washington MAKE-UP: Martha Amelia Friedlander HAIR: Livio Angileri at Ford Artists

New York-based Vault49 returns to the UK for its third London exhibition. Vault49 continues to create images which confront our visual tastes, and challenges us to re-imagine the world in which we live

The Greatest Show On Earth is inspired by a world of questionable morality and alternative pastimes, influenced by the lives and performances of early 20thcentury travelling entertainers. Worlds collide to give birth to a collection of unforgettable images

16

Advanced Photoshop

016-017_APM17_insight.indd 16

27/3/06 10:11:16

05.06

Making some NOISE

NOISE, the international youth arts festival, has hit UK shores. Based in the Tate, Liverpool, NOISE is the only online media arts festival of its kind. Showcasing new and original talent from under-25s nationwide, the festival will cover film, music, fashion, illustration, graphic design, writing, architecture and photography. Denise Proctor, chief executive of the festival, explains the ethos project’s ethos. “We have chosen our curators because they have consistently demonstrated originality, passion and innovation in their chosen art form. They are regarded as industry figureheads not only because of their successes within their chosen field but because they serve as an inspiration for the next generation of young creatives. NOISE targets every young person regardless of background or postcode. It gives them fantastic opportunities to showcase their talent.” The best submissions to www.noisefestival.com by 31 May will appear on television, radio, online and in print throughout October. YOUNG GUNS: If you’re under 25 and eager to get your creative skills seen, submit your tastiest offerings to the NOISE festival. Create anything, just make it loud!

ADOBE FULLY LOADED TOUR 10-11 April

London

20 April

Newcastle

25 April

Dublin

04 May

Bristol

11 May

Birmingham

DISCOVERING ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL 8 April

London Design Museum

Getting bigger STOCK EXCHANGE: “Our photographers will have a wider audience, and more people around the world will have access to what we consider to be the world’s greatest collection of value-priced imagery,” says Thompson

DIARY DATES

rtfolio dy extensive po expand its alrea tty 0 Ge $5 w e sa 9 Th . ry m Februa tockphoto.co cy to tion of www.is en isi ag qu k ac oc e st th or with tty the first maj Ge es ak m er million takeov s. yment service me one of the of fer micro-pa hoto has beco kp oc iSt , 00 g 20 in ng gi er Em ery sites, of ferin n low-cost imag as a site gs in nn web’s best-know gi be e mbl $1. With its hu es, stock from just s to swap imag er ph ra og d ot ph ed ow all at ed through wor th soon blossom ity lar pu y po er ’s st imag iStockphoto e world’s large ing up with th t Getty bu ce of mouth. Team pa in signal a change d ul co e sit ess, ny sin compa a separate bu iStockphoto as n ru ill w it ts insis y high. low and usabilit is comispletely keeping costs isitionMB acqu is th : “Th ith w LA d E TH lve D vo AN in LF e elted s fu THE WO haen started “Everyon at, wh I firs t th iripie sp ces t en lier nd ear pe my of de in one e is th tive to ea ed cr le. itt r sty be sem thi h comm wit m s ing lu ent -p l, 700,000 ve a real collage-style ingerim amazexp offee of it to ha , vice president ts iStockphoto’s I wantedom on ps componen out ou the Th cut lly d ha Ke I if id as ab eaunt tains t almost is gr mo . The community,” sa g th phat ingra oto phth orry . “Eeve tozin ga ma ho a that kp oc iSt con r of bytean fo ceplifiedcre a pie am phtoto marketing willofbe beg ss an e, abu the grafe mas saan e tio, andan th pa r nt ain fro m of my d re in g ill en was lyin iStock w r co oufro d.tI try to use all yar lizmemy ntnt e lo w fro enca de as s tak tu wa ni d an ag es m tur of tex r y for orde allny.”photograph obow enceofglmy even richer pres

COLOUR WITHOUT LIMITS 11 April

Amsterdam

DIGITAL EXPO 9-11 May

Birmingham

BAPLA PICTURE BUYERS’ FAIR 10-11 May

London

ADOBE LIVE 2006 24-25 May

London

17

Advanced Photoshop

016-017_APM17_insight.indd 17

27/3/06 10:47:09

insight

A REFUGE FROM THE STORM: Rachel created this piece for the Society of Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators contest. “The assignment was about a child becoming caught up in a storm and seeking refuge in a cage. This is my interpretation of what he finds in the cave – a forest creatures’ barbecue! I wanted to emphasize the lighting for this image so I photographed the clay figures inside a cardboard box, using a small candle as the light source and giving the clay that warm campfire feeling. This technique worked so well I barely had to change the colours on the figures. Texture was added in a transparent layer. I’ve learned how important lighting is to set a mood and pull a composition together.”

Rachel Chapman Rachel Chapman always knew she wanted to be an illustrator of some kind, but never envisaged becoming a digital artist. “I went to the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, USA, where I studied illustration and literature.” Her background in traditional art works to her favour with her quirky and original digital creations. “I really learned the power of Photoshop… I’ve been using this style ever since,” she enthuses. The images are so accurate and convincing that it’s hard to see any obvious Photoshop work, but far from it. “After an initial sketch to work out the composition, I begin working on sculpting the characters with modelling clay. I try to make as many elements as I can in clay, such as

characters, props and backgrounds. In my studio I take high-quality digital photos of figures, which are initially just a neutral brownish colour, and import these into Photoshop. I then select parts that I want to colour and make an adjustment layer mask to alter the hue/saturation. To give the figures textures, like fur, I’ll use a photograph of the fur I want, clone it and then paint a low-opacity layer on top of the figure.“ This technique is successful not only because of Rachel’s expertise in modelling, but also because of the subtlety with which she carries out her tweaks. “You can see the clay form underneath, but the slight fur textures gives the character more realism.” www.artbyrach.com

/

BAND AID SOLUTIONS: Rachel used her clay technique to create the globe in this image, while the background was originally painted texture on canvas. “I wanted to create a piece about governments’ responses to our planet’s environmental problems. It represents how some can only come up with short-term solutions that will only mask the problem, not solve it.”

20

Advanced Photoshop

020-021_APM17_insight.indd 20

27/3/06 14:49:06

TIED DOWN BY LANDLINES: “This was created for the December 2005 issue of The Wall Street Journal. Everything is made from clay, except for the executive’s suit. For that I did a sketch of the position I wanted him in, scanned it, added a transparent layer of a fabric texture over the sketch and cut out the suit shape. I added the shadows using the Burn and Dodge tools.”

SLUMPY IN THE CITY: “This is part of an unpublished picture book I made. The story is about a dog named Slumpy, who runs away to explore the world outside his tiny house. Everything in this composition is clay, except for the wall. It’s actually a wall against the alley behind my house in Baltimore. I love to insert pieces of my life: things only me and my friends know about.”

05.06 s LAMB: “Thi started AND THE st THE WOLF rlier pieces, when I fir d it to te y ea is one of m g with this style. I wan t as if I tin experimen llage-style feel, almos azine. ag co have a real mponents out of a m piece co photo of a tio, a had cut the as n ga t pa ains be The mount at was lying in my fron t yard. th on of concrete was taken from my fr y for s ph and the gras of my own photogra all the image.” of I try to use s rt pa r d othe textures an

21

Advanced Photoshop

020-021_APM17_insight.indd 21

27/3/06 14:50:57

insight

CICADA: Dance act Cicada commissioned MdiDigital with quite a flexible brief: “The girl was a stock art shot. Cicada was keen to have a bright and sparkly element to the shot and wasn’t sure how it was going to work – but was pleased with the result.”

MONEY CITY: A clever piece of coding in Photoshop posed a tricky problem for MdiDigital: “It’s impossible to scan notes into Photoshop – we think it may be something to do with the line details – so this shot wasn’t as simple as it should have been. We got around it by importing parts of the notes into individual layers; these were then applied to the skyline. The sky background was photographed from my front door!”

E N D: E WEEK FOR TH r Ministry Of G IN LIV e fo er imag ly using This cov as created sole t and w gh ri d b n e u o h S op. T of Photosh suited the style s lt su as very re w t f n e ri ra b ib v d the the MOS an hey supplied e . “T n… th a relaxed m o w d to of the images aks were adde e.” g re white st asis of the ima eb form th work in ating art ou’re cre the final result y n e h :W at CREAM ou may find th ss. After this y e le 3ds Max le dull and life ial to use Adob ts c n litt looks a ’s always benefi lour adjustme co it process p to tweak the bit of a lift. o a Photosh ast and give it tr and con

22

Advanced Photoshop

022-023_APM17_insight copy.indd 22

27/3/06 10:17:13

05.06

REFLECTION: This image was for a pitch for Ministry Of Sound, but unfortunately it was never commissioned. The swirly patterns and pattern marks were created in Photoshop and then wrapped around the girl in 3ds Max.

eye e h t r o f Mdi

six up shop ital set tor a re c MdiDig fter the a o g a mouth years Bourne d from te a and u rt . d A gra ge of d Virgin le Colle e imes an T th l g ia c in n k , and Poo Fina s see work and wa stration ou Design ing to With illu v “ a e until y h it t n o fi of n g is de tonous head o in -a n dream th o o o g m l n e actua b to the th m n u e c fastc iv a u s are g ct. It’s -five. n a proje ustry o d rt in e ta nine-to e s th to ere th outing orld wh ds of After sc .” hundre paced w ff ry quick o e g v in is d round les of a p and sen rn m t s a tu s ju s with s ital has n for cured it postcard MdiDig mmissio igital se iD d M , ted a co le n a p work r m le fo o c ossib mission d with p tern first com MT V, an mpany, o ith Wes c w re s n tu o c ti e le it ra z h o z und b u rc a al p colla just aro g a digit d Sony ce n in a s n s t a designin io a h l Un ms th diDigita er it see e board. M ure som the corn c e ing it. s p to p s ed ’s no sto ing job re manag is e rt e th al.com v d file a f didigit high-pro www.m inistry O M f o s e e lik s, from th cording ream Re C , d n u So

/

t elements for this bo BOT: The original shop and then oto Ph in ed ign des were age 3ds Max. “For an im later embedded in g of to-ing and fro-in lot a re’s the s thi like ges. I find that the cka pa re twa sof en betwe in tandem.” two programs work

23

Advanced Photoshop

022-023_APM17_insight copy.indd 23

27/3/06 10:17:46

insight

LOST TIME, LOST PLACE: “I created this piece to strengthen my photo-real portfolio when I was looking for a job as a concept artist. I’ve always been a fan of old adventure movies from the Fifties, and I wanted to convey that feeling in this image.”

MISSION: “I had this vivid image of rockets taking off in the desert in my mind’s eye. Throughout its creation, I learned a lot of things. This particular image received an Excellence Award in the well-known EXPOSÉ 2 art book from Ballistic Publishing.”

Stephane Belin Working at EA’s Montreal studios, Stephane Belin specialises in stunning vistas that are steeped in mood and emotive lighting. “I never had any kind of formal art training,” Stephane explains. “I started to draw little pixelly things for games back in the mid-Eighties and it grew on me. From there I learned how to produce graphics on computers.” Privileged with a dual-core Pentium 4 with 2GB RAM, a GeForce 7800 graphics card and a Wacom Intuos2 A4 tablet, the artist’s equipment has evolved since his fledgling days in the Eighties but his creative process remains ironclad. “First I lay out a quick perspective grid. Then I block out shapes. I then think in terms of composition, value, shape and colour. Then I gradually refine the piece to get the desired result.” Experience with Photoshop has swelled Stephane’s increasing portfolio, but he remains modest about his talent. “I’m not particularly gifted or smart,” he confesses, “but I’m very dedicated. It takes years of work and there’s no real shortcut for that.” Speaking as an artist who has actually made it in the real world of digital art, Stephane has advice for those starting out. “Getting the right palette and composition is the key to success. It’s never a good idea to start working on details unless you’re completely satisfied with the basics.” www.stephanebelin.com

/ 24

Advanced Photoshop

024-025_APM17_insight.indd 24

27/3/06 10:20:31

JUNGLE CONCEPT: “I completed this in one day. Photoshop is an amazing tool when it comes to quick colour paintings. I don’t usually go much deeper into detail, preferring to let the viewer’s imagination fill in the blanks.”

05.06

INDIAN CONCEPT: “This is one of my latest works. I tend to work more quickly and rough now, focusing exclusively on composition and colour. My job as a concept artist gives me the opportunity to face numerous and widely varied situations.”

FAR EAST: “This image is in the same vein as the other photo-real images I’ve done for my portfolio. I really enjoyed doing a backlit image as it gave me a different challenge to face. I love the way the sunlight bathes the field in its rays.”

25

Advanced Photoshop

024-025_APM17_insight.indd 25

27/3/06 10:20:48

Inter view FOUR FACES OF MAN In the world of Photoshop, many artists can find it hard to keep their work fresh. Jason Cook, with his four personas, has certainly overcome that problem

J

ason Cook is the kind of designer who makes all others sit up and take notice. Few designers embrace the concept of change in their work more than him. With a Czechoslovakian mother and English father, this Bradford-born creative’s colourful background radiates through his work. “I’ve done a little of everything,” he explains. “If I carried on doing the same style all the time, I think I’d go completely mad.” Originally from a photography background, Cook’s progression into the digital arts was a natural one. After studying visual communications at the University of Wolverhampton, where he specialised in photography design, Cook took some time out. “I bought myself a Mac – an old Centris 610 with about eight megabytes of RAM – and taught myself how to use Photoshop and 3D.” A self-confessed digital illustrator and pixel-pusher, his grounding in photography has served him well and he’s now one of the most sought-after talents in Photoshop. “I don’t think it matters what discipline you take up; as long as you understand form, colour and shape, then

BRAIN TREE (TOP): Created as a cover for Eureka magazine, Brain Tree is part of Cook’s Jaroslav portfolio. These personal creative projects are inspired by his background in photography

HELLO, DOLLY (ABOVE):

This pre-production illustration was created under the Jaroslav banner. Less limiting, as it is unrestricted by trends and passing vogues, this is Cook’s favourite persona

MTV MIX (RIGHT): Created for the MTV Style opening sequence, this image combines Cook’s two loves: photography and digital imaging. His own brand of irreverent humour shines through

26

Advanced Photoshop

026-031_APM17.indd 26

27/3/06 10:29:44

Jason Cook

27

Advanced Photoshop

026-031_APM17.indd 27

27/3/06 10:50:34

Inter view

bulb bonanza:

This black and white image is filled with intricate details – just count all the light bulbs…

28

Advanced Photoshop

026-031_APM17.indd 28

27/3/06 10:52:31

Jason Cook

you can apply it to any medium or discipline.” The basic beginnings of his development into a fully fledged Photoshopper are apparent in his illustrations, which are rooted in photography. However, his camera wasn’t his only muse. While growing up, Cook found himself surrounded by inspiration in the form of Francis Ford Coppola’s Rumble Fish and, perhaps less likely, in the film Tron. A groundbreaker for its day, the 1982 movie and its computer graphics whetted his appetite for the creative.

Dawn of Adobe From these early inspirations Cook went on to dabble in illustration on his own. “I’d never had any training, but while I was doing my course, mainly at foundation level, I’d use photographs and cut them up and comp them together so you’d get a kind of flat illustration. So more or less I was doing a manual way of using Photoshop.” Once the commissions started rolling in, however, Cook had to make the leap to the real Adobe app. “When I first got a copy of Photoshop – I think it was 2 or 2.5 – it had one Undo and that was it,” he recalls. “But it did teach you to work quite fast and to be quite disciplined as well.” And from there, the Cook empire has continued to grow. No more crude, homemade versions of Photoshop in sight – nowadays he works solely on Macs, favouring his dual G5: “I once went over to the dark side and got an SGI Windows PC, but I think I’ll stick with Macs.” Learning from his mistakes, not only does Cook

stick like glue to his G5, he also has a backup. “I’ve always got two machines; when I upgrade I keep the old one for mail and rendering, things like that. I’ve had so many external Hard Drives you wouldn’t believe. I’ve lost so many illustrations over the years from discs dying.”

Who’s who Having found inspiration in the realms of Hollywood films and photography, Cook’s style has made him popular with an eclectic mix of clients. But it’s not just his clientele that’s varied. His portfolio boasts many different styles of illustration, and much of this is due to his renowned four personalities: “The personas are partly to stop me getting bored, and also to keep the money coming in.” With Cook’s four faces come four very different styles. “Jacey is whom I am known best for,” explains Cook. “This style focuses on 2D and 3D digital generated art, a style that is commercial and very accessible.” Favouring Photoshop and Cinema 4D with his work under the Jacey banner, Cook’s most famous face has declined in popularity since the millennium. “I wasn’t trained as an illustrator, so

CATWALK CHIC:

Working for clients such as the Bee Gees, VH1 and MTV, Cook has made a name for himself within the music industry with fashion-conscious face Flatliner-V2

when I went freelance and joined my agency, Début Art, I fell into a niche – Photoshop and 3D work. That’s where the money was.” Cook, however, was to be no one-trick pony. Today’s popular trend of merging harsh lines, vectors and hand-drawn elements with photography is something Cook is well used to doing from his photographic past, and this is reflected in more than one of his personas. “ Flatliner-V2 pushes today’s highly graphic but loose style,” Cook explains. Combining hand-drawn, photographic and 3D graphic elements, the Flatliner-V2 arm has proved very popular with music and lifestyle sectors. While V2 focuses on a looser, more decorative style, Flatliner takes the form of more traditional illustration methods with a contemporary edge. It’s a sharp, clean vector style, popular within the lifestyle and IT industry. And although Cook still has not found his own style yet – “I’ve not got to the point where I feel any of the art I can use my name with at the moment” – there is one persona that does share a little something more with him. Jaroslav, Cook’s personal approach to creating art, is an ongoing portfolio not restricted by fashions or styles

THE PERSONAS ARE PARTLY TO STOP ME GETTING BORED, AND ALSO TO KEEP THE MONEY ROLLING IN 29

Advanced Photoshop

026-031_APM17.indd 29

27/3/06 10:53:25

Inter view THE LONDON ICE:

Created for the BBC’s Focus magazine, this Day After Tomorrow-esque image was designed as part of Cook’s firstcreated Jacey portfolio

ABSTRACT ART: Although

Jacey has fallen in popularity, his work is still on the pulse

in illustration. “It calls on my experiences with social documentary photography, design and traditional illustration.” His personal favourite style, Jaroslav is probably the closest portfolio to his photographic roots. “But it’s the one that gets the least commissions. That’s just the way isn’t it, the one you enjoy the most never seems to happen,” he muses.

Colour chameleon Life is never boring where Jason Cook is concerned. With trends in illustration changing more quickly than those on the New York catwalks, Cook has learnt to be somewhat of a chameleon. This approach has kept his work looking fresh and, vitally, commercially appealing. The bulk of Cook’s work five years ago, when the

A CLIENT WILL USE YOU FOR A WHILE, THEN GET BORED OR MOVE ON. YOU CAN’T GET PRECIOUS

dot-com era began, was for Jacey. This combination of Photoshop and 3D work, though once the height of fashion, has now given way to more fashion-led and lifestyle images. “At the moment I’m working on quite a few pitches and most of my work is around Flatliner-V2 and Flatliner,” he divulges. “The Flatliner work tends to be for IT and technical corporate clients. I’m doing an astrology book at the moment, that’s Flatliner-V2. I also did the Bee Gees album cover at Christmas.” This ability to move with the times and trends has meant Cook has been at the top of his game for a number of years now. “I’ve been an art director for a web design company, I’ve delved into the areas of music design, animation, social documentary photography,” he recalls. “I’ve done a little of everything, and the four personas just help to keep me interested.”

Future tactics Cook’s style has made him popular in a broad spectrum of the creative industry. This, as well as his ability to adapt, has proved an invaluable

30

Advanced Photoshop

026-031_APM17.indd 30

27/3/06 10:50:08

Jason Cook

SPLIT PERSONALITY

With each of Cook’s personas having their own creative identity, he uses different apps for each of them. Although all of his portfolios are predominantly Photoshop-based, he also strays into Freehand or Illustrator depending on client’s needs. This vector illustration was created for Now Magazine by Cook’s Flatliner face, proving that he’s far more than just a photomontage and manipulation man.

FACE OFF (RIGHT): Able to have fun in his personal portfolio, this image showcases Jason Cook’s areas of expertise perfectly

asset. “I tend to do cycles of illustration; each probably lasts about two years. It’s a case of keeping on top of what the trends are if you want to keep a nice steady income coming in, and to keep yourself interested.” But it’s not just his portfolios which go through cycles. As all freelancers are aware, working for yourself can be a tough business. “You tend to go through cycles,” he explains. “A client will use you for a while, then they got bored with you or want to move onto a different style – you can’t get precious about clients and assume you’ll have them for the next 15 years. They might use you for a month, they might use you for three years.” However long Jason Cook’s work is popular for you can be sure we haven’t seen the last of him, even if his next persona emerges somewhere outside of Photoshop, “Music is my big passion. Sometimes I wish I’d got into that, but you can’t have everything.” 5

31

Advanced Photoshop

026-031_APM17.indd 31

27/3/06 10:31:15

MASTERCLASS

32

Advanced Photoshop

032-036_APM17_robotNEW.indd 32

28/3/06 12:06:08

Starting with a simple 3D render, we’re going to show you how to apply realistic textures that add grit and character to an image BY MIKE CHIPPERFIELD

Add texture to 3D objects ON THE DISC Have a look at the tutorial resources folder on the cover disc. You’ll find Steve, our cheeky bot model (otherwise known as ‘robot_01.jpg’) there. You can adorn him with your own textural creations.

OUR EXPERT Mike Chipperfield is a digital illustrator and founder member of design collective Magictorch (www.magictorch. com). He lives and works in Cornwall.

Getting started Open up ‘robot_01.jpg’. This image contains the basic render of the robot and the background on separate layers, along with a render of the outlines of the robot called ‘Cel Render’. These outlines will be a helpful time-saver later on when we’re masking out the various textures.

layer masks Layer Masks are a really powerful part of the Photoshop armoury. If you don’t use them already then they’re really worth getting the knack of. They seem confusing at first but are quite simple when you know how they work. Basically, where a mask is white it is transparent and allows you to see that area of the layer. Where a mask is black it is opaque and hides that area of a layer. All the shades of grey offer varying degrees of transparency. The great thing about them is that you can mask off chunks of a layer without actually losing any of that layer’s data; you can edit the mask to reveal the layer at any time.

F

or this texture tutorial we’re starting with the render of our robot – hey, let’s call him Steve. He’s quite simple in design but we’re going to make him look much more interesting, as if he’s used, obsolete, rusty and unwanted, by adding textures. We need to wrap flat textures onto a 3D shape. Think of it as though you’re wrapping a particularly awkward present with separate pieces of paper for each side of the box. The trick is to make the textures look like they’ve been mapped onto their respective surfaces. They need to roughly follow the edges of the surfaces and also the perspective that is implied within the image. This is fairly easy with flat surfaces, as you can use the Distort part of the Transform tool to match up the texture edges with the edge of any given surface. But it’s slightly more difficult with curved or uneven surfaces, so for that we’ll use the Warp tool (which in itself is an extension of the Transform tool). We’ll also examine one of the recent additions to Photoshop, Smart Objects.

Transforming with texture

1

Harness the power:

2

The onset of rust Either create your own effect or get snapping up a rusty texture. Select All, then Copy and Paste the texture into our robot image, making sure it’s the top layer. Change the Blending Mode to Overlay and straight away you can see how well the textures are going to react with the tones of the robot. We’re going to place this texture on the side of Steve’s head, as it’s a good flat plane to start with.

3

Flat headed Hit Control+T (use Command if you’re on a Mac) to start up the Transform tool. Right-click and choose Distort. Drag the handles from each corner to go just outside the corners of the side of Steve’s head. Because it’s a flat surface and the texture is roughly the right proportion, you’ll find that it all matches pretty well, with the texture appearing to be in the correct perspective.

33

Advanced Photoshop

032-036_APM17_robotNEW.indd 33

28/3/06 12:10:11

MASTERCLASS 4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

All the trimmings We need to trim the texture so it matches perfectly the portion of the robot we’re trying to texture. You can do this with the Polygonal Lasso tool, but for the purposes of this tutorial we need a faster option. This is where the Cel Render layer will come in handy. Select the Cel Render layer (it doesn’t need to be visible, but it can be if you prefer).

Wrapping the present Try to gauge the area of the surface you want to texture as if it existed in 3D space. Imagine it’s a present and you have cut out a rectangular piece of paper to cover each side – basically, consider each surface you texture and what size and proportion that texture needs to be. For instance, if a surface on the robot is foreshortened then you’ll need enough width on your texture so that it looks foreshortened too once it’s been transformed to fit the surface.

Hiding behind a mask Using the Magic Wand (the default settings are fine), click in the middle of the area we want to select. Now reselect the texture layer and click the Add Layer Mask button at the bottom of the Layers palette. You might need to do some more subtle work at the corners later on where the textures overlap, but the bulk of the texture is now correctly masked.

Texture the headphones We’re going to texture the large cylindrical part of the headphones. Create a subtle spray paint effect image and make a fairly tall and thin selection with the rectangular Marquee tool – a shape that roughly corresponds to the area we’re trying to cover. Copy and Paste that into our layered image. As before, set the Blending Mode to Overlay.

Another fine mesh Now you’ll see a nine-square grid with nodes at each corner and two handles coming from each corner – this is the Warp Mesh. What we want to do is manipulate that mesh until it roughly matches the cylindrical shape. You could use it now but we’ll start with one of the presets. Select Arch from the Warp drop-down, then click the Orientation button so that the arch bulges to the side.

“GAUGE THE AREA YOU WANT TO TEXTURE AS IF IT EXISTED IN 3D SPACE”

It’s just an illusion Continue using the above steps to apply textures to all the flat surfaces on the robot, such as the face, the chest, the neck and the intake on top of the head. For the face, just match up your chosen texture with all four corners of the hood. This will only make the texture match the forehead and chin, but we can get away with it with the nose and cheeks as the shading will provide the required illusion.

Transforming with Warp Using the Transform tool, roughly rotate and scale the texture so its corners are just outside the four most extreme points of the cylindrical shape. Still within the Transform tool, select Warp using the button on the contextual menu at the top of the screen or by rightclicking and choosing Warp from the list.

No commitments You’ll see that there’s only one handle with the Arch mesh. Drag it until the texture roughly follows the curve of the cylinder. If you feel you need to rotate the texture some more you can nip back into the regular Transform tool (Control+T). As long as you haven’t committed any of the changes then the whole transformation remains editable.

.

34

Advanced Photoshop

032-036_APM17_robotNEW.indd 34

28/3/06 12:06:48

12

13

15

16

Mecha mesh So, still within the same transformation, enter the Warp tool again. This time select Custom from the drop-down list. You can click and drag any part of the mesh to affect a change and tweak the handles for a bit more control. With this you should be able to tweak the curve we’ve already made until everything matches near-perfectly.

Background information Create your own industrial background layer. Select All, and copy and paste it into the layered image. Place it just above the background layer and set the Blending Mode to Overlay. Use the Transform tool to try to suggest a little perspective, using the horizontal lines of Steve’s chest plate and shoulders as a guide.

17

Name tag Here’s how you make the name tag to place on Steve’s chest. Start by making a new document with dimensions of 1000 by 500 pixels and a transparent background. Select the Text tool and choose a font (we used USAAF Stencil, which is available from www.dafont. com). Type ‘Steve’ (or whatever else you want to call him) in large black text.

Fun with the Warp Now we can commit the transformation. Add a mask as before. Repeat the above steps, experimenting with the Warp Mesh and the various presets for the other curved surfaces on the robot. The Warp tool is satisfying to use but sometimes it’s difficult to be precise. Don’t worry if the results aren’t exact as the overall effect will be there.

14

A light touch Using all the techniques explained in the previous two sections, add the various details to Steve. The drips and the stencils should have their Blending Modes set to Soft Light; this will let texture come through but won’t affect the colour saturation too much. The holes should be set to Normal so that the texture beneath doesn’t poke through.

Depth of field Knock the background texture’s layer opacity down to about 70% so it doesn’t overpower the foreground. We can add depth to the image by applying a little Gaussian blur to the background texture – try a value of 3 to keep things subtle. This gives us a hint of depth of field and brings Steve forward in the image.

Fun with

textures Making textures to use in Photoshop can be great fun and really creative. Just take your digital camera and go for a wander. You’ll be amazed at the usable textures you can find. Examples include: the roasting tray from your oven for some crusty burnt bits, while drains and service hatches are often metal and can have a rich patina or coating of rust. Tarmac, concrete and old brick walls are great for backgrounds.

35

Advanced Photoshop

032-036_APM17_robotNEW.indd 35

28/3/06 12:07:27

MASTERCLASS 18

19

Let us spray Now for the spray paint. Make a new layer. Select the Brush tool, set the Diameter to about 100 pixels, the Hardness to zero, the Mode to Dissolve and the Opacity to 20%. Now add some spray in blotches around various points of the letters. We’re trying to achieve a rushed stencil effect, as if little squirts of paint had bled through it here and there.

Dripping the paint Now for the drips. Add a New layer and, still with the Brush tool, set the Diameter to 8 pixels, the Hardness to 100%, the Mode to Normal and the Opacity to 100%. Choose an area of spray paint for your drip. Click and hold, then hold Shift and then drag to create a straight line down. Repeat this with varying diameters.

20

21

23

24

Heighten the illusion Make a new Layer Group and insert all the layers. Add a layer mask to the text layer. Select the Brush tool, set the Diameter to about 100 pixels, the Hardness to 0, the Mode to Dissolve and the Opacity to 20%. Make sure your foreground colour is black. Make a few random spray marks across the image as if the spray didn’t get through in all areas.

Adjusting Smart Objects Change the name from ‘Steve’ to ‘Bruce’. Save and close the Smart Object’s layered window (it has a .psb suffix, if you’re interested). The name should automatically update in the main image, retaining all the earlier transformations. What’s more, all your transformations remain editable with Smart Objects – you can transform repeatedly without losing quality.

Making a Smart Object Duplicate the Layer Group into the main image document (if you’ve already added the supplied name stencil then switch off the visibility of that layer). Right-click on the Layer Group and choose the ‘Group into new Smart Object’ option. Transform this layer as before to get it lined up on the breastplate. Set the Blending Mode to Soft Light.

22

What’s so smart about that? Okay, so what’s so special about Smart Objects? Here’s one reason: right-click on the Smart Object layer and choose Edit Contents. Click OK through the following dialog box. Now you’ll have a separate layered document that you can edit to change the contents of the Smart Object. If you edit and save this document it will change the Smart Object. Read on.

Using texture Obviously a lot of this texture work can be done in 3D but often it’s quicker and easier to control if you add textures in Photoshop. These techniques can be used in a multitude of ways, on photos as well as 3D renders. Our robot was fun but you could also add details to a car, tattoos on skin, change the signage on a shop front, add graffiti to a wall and so on.

“DON’T WORRY IF THE RESULTS AREN’T EXACT AS THE OVERALL EFFECT WILL BE THERE” 36

Advanced Photoshop

032-036_APM17_robotNEW.indd 36

28/3/06 12:12:55

Feature

38

Advanced Photoshop

038-043_AP17Ilovedust.indd 38

29/3/06 14:14:27

GOING SOLO

Going

Solo

Unleash your solo potential and set up a successful design studio with a little helping hand from iLovedust BY MARC GRAHAM

W

hen iLovedust started out just over three years ago, it saw Ben Beach and myself, Marc Graham, giving up our mediocre day jobs and going out into the big bad world on our own. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and looking back over that time there are plenty of fond memories – but a lot of utter devastation, too. Although iLovedust is by no means a household name yet, we are still working and making enough money to keep our heads above water and to employ a third designer, the very talented Sian Jiang. I imagine we have made more mistakes than most starting up, so take heed of our warnings – we know what we’re talking about. You name it, we did it: late tax returns, messed-up print jobs… we even flooded our first building due to lack of sleep! But today we are working with some great people and wonderful companies: Coca Cola, American Airlines, Johnnie Walker and Warner Bros to name but four. And that’s testament to how much work we put into running our own business and making sure we produce the very best work we can. After all, we live and die on the work we produce.

39

Advanced Photoshop

038-043_AP17Ilovedust.indd 39

29/3/06 14:16:11

Feature The ride of their life

iLovedust is a small and perfectly formed graphic design studio based in Southsea, just a length of cobbled pavement from the beach. Their clients range from big to little and are dotted around the globe. For each they aim to provide creative solutions to all sorts of briefs, offering

The iLovedust story

a friendly approach and loads of personality. The iLovedust line-up began as a duo in 2003 and has swelled out a little over time. Working closely as a team, iLovedust applies a passion for design to every project they tackle, taking pride in the details and the relationships that they build with their valuable clients.

IN THE BEGINNING So you’re thinking of setting up on your own. What could possibly be easier than starting up a small graphic design studio? After all, you don’t need much: a couple of computers, some backup for files and artwork, the obligatory toys on the table, a watercooler and, hey, why not throw a ping pong table in for good measure? It’s really that simple, isn’t it? Well maybe it is and maybe it isn’t; I can only really talk from the particular experiences that we have encountered when starting out. There were highs, lows, late nights and early mornings, copious amounts of coffee, wanting to strangle the clients (and, er, wanting to strangle your colleagues) and, of course, trying to make a living. We started out with a simple plan: let’s work for ourselves, let’s do things our way and let’s do things the way they should be done. In retrospect it was probably not a great way to go into this business: eyes wide shut. Like most graphic designers, illustrators and image-makers we truly do love what we do, and unlike so many other professions we really do live it. It’s very hard to switch off, regardless of office hours. This life-consuming dedication to our art is the catalyst for change. If we’re thinking about work 24 hours a day, why not let that work be for ourselves rather than for some faceless boss?

These three illustrations are part of a sequence created as part of a commission for US-based Ride magazine. The complete portfolio consists of five designs which accompanied reviews of cars. iLovedust managed to place their own quirky style on to the design with a cheeky cameo from design buddies TADO. Can you spot the little characters?

With more and more young creatives considering this move, and with the leaps and bounds in technology over the past few years, it’s possible to quite literally carry your studio around with you. Setting up in your mum’s garage or a remote office space has never been more of a possibility, and working in this way is becoming more the norm. But even with these factors considered, what happens next? Okay, so office space might not be an immediate problem, and you’re brimming with creative ideas, but after many weeks of trying to think of a name for yourself (then several more trying to come up with some branding that you can actually agree on), what do you do next?

Starting out Before you take the giant leap from working for someone else and enjoying the benefits that this lifestyle can bring, you need to sit down and write a business plan. The thinking behind a business plan is to show your bank manager or potential backer that you’re going to make as much money as you say you will, and that there is minimal risk involved for your lenders. Try to be realistic about what you can truly pay yourselves to get by and also how much work you think you can bring in. Writing a business plan is as much an exercise for yourself as a tool for the lender – things have a habit of looking and feeling far more realistic (or is that pessimistic!) when printed out in black and white.

40

Advanced Photoshop

038-043_AP17Ilovedust.indd 40

29/3/06 14:17:16

Going Solo THE ESSENTIALS PANTONE REFERENCE BOOK These are priceless when it comes to specifying exact match colours to your client and printer. Check out the range of Pantone Guides and Swatchbooks at www. colourconfidence.com.

PETTY CASH BOX

I IMAGINE WE’VE MADE MORE MISTAKES THAN MOST STARTING UP, SO TAKE HEED OF OUR WARNINGS, WE KNOW WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT Customers are going to be the key to your success, so try to be honest with yourself as to how many you have or can get in your first six months. It’s important to look at this realistically and have a firm idea of just how much money you can generate. If in doubt, round your figures down – if nothing else it makes for a nice surprise when your bank manager wants to take you out for lunch because you’re exceeding your targets. Just make sure he pays!

Cash incentive “Money, money, money. Must be funny in the rich man’s world.” Something to learn quick and sure, money is never funny. When starting out it really is the one thing that’s going to make the difference between creating a successful studio or a great idea that ended up costing you thousands of pounds. Talent at this point should not be in question, but money is the killer. Being realistic is the key. Start by writing down all your company’s outgoings: rent, telephone, Internet, electricity, postage, stationery… the list is endless. It’s also worth bearing in mind that a lot of companies might want paying upfront because you’re a new customer. A print job can take a few thousand pounds out of your potential startup capital, as can new computers, rent advances on home and office space and software. All these costs eat into your money and you haven’t even paid yourself yet. When we started iLovedust we were very naive about just

how long jobs take to get in, complete and get paid for. In general we have found it can take two weeks to get the green light, a further three or four weeks to get the sign-off and a further six to get paid. So in reality it’s likely that you’re looking at three months before getting paid for a job that you may be counting on for wages and rent. “In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes,’’ said the wise old Mr Benjamin Franklin, and didn’t we just find that out! When you do finally get around to paying yourself, try to remember that those lovely people at the Tax Office want some of your money. Try to keep a track of just what you owe the taxman. Income tax bills come when you least expect them. Seek advice from your accountant as to which way is best for you to draw money from your business; there are quite a few options and they can make a dramatic effect on how you manage your cash flow.

Sort yourself out Organisation: it’s the key word to remember if you want to work effectively. Keeping yourself organised can save so much time when the pressure is on. One of the first things we learned when starting out was that nothing ever goes according to plan, and with all the will in the world there are always things entirely out of your control that can push project on hours, days,

Spending a few quid here and there soon adds up! Always save receipts and keep a tally on a petty cash forms – you’ll be amazed what you can claim back on coffee, postage and the like.

FAX MACHINE Some may say you don’t really need to use fax machines these days but we have found it invaluable in times of need, beware of cheap fax machines with expensive ink!

A SUPPLY OF INK CARTRIDGES You just know that when you need to rush off a proof and have a bike waiting that your ink’s going to run out. A good office supplier should offer a sizeable discount if you buy in bulk.

MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS Lots of design magazines offer good subscription discounts and can really help you keep your finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the industry when you haven’t seen the light of day for weeks.

TELEPHONE BANKING Being able to access your bank account by phone or Internet can be a very useful tool when keeping tabs on your cash flow and checking dates of deposits and so on. So make sure you’re online.

41

Advanced Photoshop

038-043_AP17Ilovedust.indd 41

29/3/06 14:17:48

Feature

IT’S NOT UNHEARD OF TO BE CALLED TO A CONFERENCE CALL AT 9PM JUST AS YOU’RE GETTING IN THE BATH

STRAIGHT FROM THE TOP The industry pros let us in on their dirty secrets: what is the one thing you would have done differently when starting out? “Asked for more money” Jon Burgerman, www.jonburgerman.com “I shouldn’t have spent five years working for someone else before setting Insect up. A year would have been fine” Paul, www.insect.co.uk “Not spent so much money on what I thought/was told I needed (massive A3 scanner, expensive software I never actually used, top-of-the-line G3), but could easily have done without if my research had been a little more extensive” Richard May, www.richard-may.com “Hired a PA!” Jeremy, www.jeremyville.com “We have made many mistakes, but everything that we can remember seems to have had a silver lining. It’s hard to say we would do anything differently” Jonathon Kenyon, Vault49 “I would have tried to get an agent sooner, so I wouldn’t have had to go through such a long period of desperately trying to get people to look at my work and in most cases being ignored” Steve Wilson, www.wilson2000.com “Everything!” Arturo Sandoval, www.friendswithyou.com “Make sure you get someone who knows what they’re doing to look at your tax returns for you. It might cost you a penny or two but its bound to save you even more. Keep receipts for everything too. Hoard things!” Mike & Katie, www.tado.co.uk “I wish I made sure I had a decent amount of money behind me before I started, even if that meant working a job for a year” Rob Hare, www.robhare.co.uk “I’d have stuck to my guns. I’d have got an accountant in sooner. I’d have partied like it was 1999” John McFaul, www.mcfaul.net

weeks or even months over deadline. The key to keeping some kind of grip on these projects (and your sanity) is to allow realistic timescales for projects. Emailing work can save a lot of time, but it still doesn’t guarantee an instant response. A lot of the larger companies have certain procedures that may mean feedback on your work may take days to come back. This needs to be built into your timescales. Our company deals with a lot of clients in America and so the time difference can work in your favour on some days, and against you on others. It’s not unheard of to be called to an important conference call at 9pm with six creative directors just as you are getting in the bath or trying to watch the football in your local. Remember, there’s no point being overoptimistic and promising something you can’t deliver. You simply won’t get work from that client again. Prioritising jobs in order of timescales and deadlines can sometimes make for scary reading, but crossing each one off a list as you complete it is incredibly satisfying.

Paper works No matter how much you want to be behind your beloved G5 creating your next masterpiece, at some point you’re going to have to do the dreaded paperwork that comes with running your own business. Accounts, tax returns, wages, travel expenses and paying your bills are all things that

Setting up your own 1 WRITE A BUSINESS PROPOSAL Draft up a business plan to show to your bank manager or potential buyer. Be realistic about what you can bring in. You’re only be fooling yourself if you set out for a goal that’s way beyond your capabilities. You may find it easier if you build up a list of expenditures which you can keep by your side.

2 CUSTOMERS

Think about who your potential customers are going to be and how much income you can receive within your first six months. Be realistic about this – round your figures down if you’re not too confident you can bring in the big bucks straight off.

42

Advanced Photoshop

038-043_AP17Ilovedust.indd 42

29/3/06 14:18:36

n

Going Solo

can eat into your time, regardless of whether you enjoy that side of the business or not. Try setting aside a few hours a week dedicated to paperwork. Although it might seem like the last thing you want to do, paperwork really can get on top of you and before you know it you’re drowning in a swamp of misplaced bills, half-read mail and the odd red letter. Do it little at a time and you’ll find the task much more manageable. Getting a good accountant can save you precious time and can also save money. Explaining to your accountant how you work and your honest understanding of the business side of things is priceless. We know from painful experience ourselves that not getting your books in order can lead to late nights and arguments about just who did open that letter and then file it safely in a copy of Advanced Photoshop!

The bigger picture One thing about working for yourself or in a small group is that it can be very hard to be truly objective about your work. You may love something you have been working on for hours, but others in your group may not see it in quite the same light. Different opinions are just a matter of fact in design. To avoid people throwing hot cups of coffee and iPods at each other, try to have two or three rough versions of an idea and seek feedback from several sources. If you’re still not sure what version to present to your

business

client, show them all. It can saves hours of work if input at an early stage leads to a clearer understanding of the client’s wants and needs. It can also help the project become more organic and grow, and your client will be glad to be involved in the design process. Being a designer, illustrator or digital artist seems to be so much more than a job; you can’t seem to ever really escape it. Walking down the street looking at different posters and shop windows, going on holiday and checking out magazines, clothes and toys you would never find back home… it’s enough to drive some people insane. What defines us at iLovedust is that we love what we do and take inspiration from everything we see and the many interesting people we meet within the industry. Make no mistake, the hours are long and some days can be hugely frustrating, but the pride you have in your work when you see it on a cover of a magazine, on the wall of Grand Central Station, or stacked high in the lobby of Selfridges, more than makes up for that. It can be just a case of rolling up your sleeves, putting your best foot forward and seeing what happens. Our advice to anyone following in these welltrodden footsteps is simple: enjoy the experience. It really can be the making of you. 5

ON THE WEB: To find out more information about iLovedust and to browse through their portfolio visit their nifty website by logging onto www.ilovedust.com OTHER USEFUL RESOURCES: BUSINESS LINK www.businesslink.gov.uk TAXAID www.taxaid.org.uk BYTESTART www.bytestart.co.uk

The checklist

3 OUTGOINGS

Write down all of your company outgoings such as rent, telephone, Internet, electricity, postage and stationary. Don’t forget to include oddities like coffee or milk for your staff – it all adds up!

4 GET AN ACCOUNTANT

There will be trouble without one. Even though this may seem like an extravagant expense they’re a necessity. Let’s face it– artists were never created to work with numbers. Seek out a professional you know you can trust and has a good reputation. Ask around before taking the plunge.

5 GO ONLINE

Don’t forget to think about the basics. Getting a fast broadband connection will allow you to keep in touch with important clients over the pond. Remember you will be downloading large files sizes, so don’t opt for a sluggish package.

6 POLISH UP YOUR TEAMWORK A larger business will struggle if you intend to do everything by yourself. Think about employing individuals that you know you can get along with. Your workflow will run smoother if you all have the same train of thought. Try contacting universities to seek out willing work experience fillers or enthusiastic part-timers.

WE STARTED OUT WITH A SIMPLE PLAN: LET’S WORK FOR OURSELVES, LET’S DO THINGS OUR WAY 43

Advanced Photoshop

038-043_AP17Ilovedust.indd 43

29/3/06 14:20:31

MASTERCLASS

Layer effects Tim Shelbourne wraps up warm for winter and ventures out into the cold. With Photoshop CS2 in hand, he stumbles upon a fantasy ice maiden… BY TIM SHELBOURNE

44

Advanced Photoshop

044-049_APM17_ice.indd 44

27/3/06 11:50:23

ON THE DISC You’ll find all the files you need to complete this tutorial on www.istockphoto.com, we renamed them ‘ice1’, ‘ice2’ and ‘ice3’ for ease.

OUR EXPERT

Tim Shelbourne

With 20 years’ experience as an artist and illustrator, Tim Shelbourne is one of Photoshop’s leading lights. He believes that too much instructional material intimidates new users, and he is keen to help novices painlessly harness the software’s true potential. For further details, check out his first book, the Photoshop Photo Effects Cookbook (Ilex, £17.95, ISBN: 1-904705-61-8) or visit www.timshelbourne.com.

O

ne of Photoshop’s greatest strengths is its ability to create fantasy images that break all the accepted rules of reality. With Photoshop CS2 at your fingertips, anything is possible. My brief this month was for an effect I’d never thought of or attempted before, namely, to take a run-of-the-mill digital shot of a figure and turn it into ice. There’s nothing like a challenge to get the old Photoshop juices flowing. Enter the ice maiden! Now, ice has properties not found in any other material. It’s opaque but it’s translucent; it reflects yet at the same time it absorbs and scatters light. More than this, the finished image needs to convey the feeling and atmosphere of a moment frozen in time, and a tangible blast of icy air. This walkthrough shows you every single step of the creation of this image, which not only involves some careful manipulation of photographic images but also a good deal of painting. Although the very mention of painting in Photoshop can make even an expert’s blood run colder, it’s easier than you might think. The process itself demands the use of a pressure-sensitive graphics tablet. The advantage of a tablet and stylus is that the brushes in Photoshop CS2 can be configured to use the pressure capabilities of the tablet to control things such as opacity and brush size. This makes your Photoshop tools respond in a way comparable with the way brushes and pencils operate in the real world. Add to this the fact that it is much more instinctive to draw with a pen-shaped object than a mouse and you’ll soon see how indispensable graphics tablets are.

Dip into the deep freeze

1

Getting started To begin with we need to promote the original background layer to a floating layer, so simply doubleclick it in the Layers palette and click OK to the New Layer dialog. Add a layer mask to this new Layer 0 by going to Layer>Layer Mask>Reveal All. Choose the Brush tool and select a hard round brush from the Brush Picker. Hit D to revert to the default foreground/background colours.

Layer

masks

2

“THE MENTION OF PAINTING IN PHOTOSHOP CAN MAKE AN EXPERT’S BLOOD RUN COLDER”

3

4

Painting the mask We need to isolate the figure from its background. First, make sure that you’re working on the layer mask for Layer 0 (check for this by clicking on the thumbnail for the layer mask in the Layers palette and checking for a bold outline around it). Now, slowly begin to paint around the outline of the figure using black for your foreground colour. Take care to keep exactly to the outer edges of the figure.

Mask corrections If you make a mistake and accidentally paint over the figure itself, simply hit X on the keyboard to swap your foreground/background colours and paint back into the image with white to correct the mask. You need to paint over all of the unwanted surrounding background, leaving just the figure visible on the layer, so take as much time as you need here.

Duplicating the layer We also need to isolate the background elements on a separate layer, so once the mask is completed, duplicate this layer (complete with the mask) via Layer>Duplicate Layer or by hitting Ctrl+J on the keyboard. On this new duplicate layer, again click on the mask thumbnail and go to Image>Adjustments>Invert to reverse the mask. Now drag this layer down to the bottom of the layer stack, below the isolated figure layer.

We use quite a lot of layer masks to create this image. Layer masks are a great way of hiding certain parts of a layer, rather than permanently erasing it with the Eraser tool. Layer masks are remarkably easy to work with. Once you’ve added a mask, you can paint on the mask with black to conceal part of the associated image layer, or paint on the mask with white to reveal it. Painting with grey (black at low opacity) partially reveals the layer. Before you paint onto a mask, make sure you click directly on the mask thumbnail in the Layers palette and check for a bold outline around it.

45

Advanced Photoshop

044-049_APM17_ice.indd 45

27/3/06 11:15:38

MASTERCLASS 5

6

7

8

10

11

Applying layer masks Now to apply the layer masks. For each layer in turn, right-click the Layer Mask thumbnail where the layers are listed and choose Apply Layer Mask from the sub-menu that pops up.

Brush

dynamics The Brush Dynamics dialog controls how Photoshop’s brushes respond to a pressuresensitive graphic tablet and stylus. The modifiable properties are divided into separate categories. The main two categories we concentrate on in this project are Size Dynamics and Other Dynamics. To activate the dynamics in a particular category, you need to check the box. You can modify the specific dynamics by clicking on its pane and selecting the appropriate control options from within the dialog. All the brushes we use in this project need Opacity Jitter setting to Pen Pressure.

9

Add an adjustment layer Click on the main figure layer and go to Layer >New Adjustment Layer>Hue/Saturation. This will add the cool blue hue to the image. Just click OK for the moment to apply the layer without any adjustments. Hold down Ctrl and click the thumbnail for the figure layer to generate a transparency selection from it. Click on the layer mask thumbnail on the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and go to Select>Inverse. Now go to Edit>Fill, choosing black for contents to fill this area of the layer mask.

Choose a brush Make sure you’re working on the bottom layer in the stack (which is the one containing the background elements) and choose the Brush tool. Select the Spatter 59 pixels brush from the Brush Picker. Now hold down the Alt key on the keyboard to access the Eyedropper and click on one of the mid-blues in the sky area of the image. Display the Brush Options dialog by selecting Window>Brushes and click in the Other Dynamics category. Here, set Opacity Jitter to Pen Pressure. Click the Shape Dynamics category and set Size Jitter to Off, making sure that the Shape Dynamics checkmark box is clear.

Tweak the saturation Next, tweak the shade of blue that we’ve bestowed upon our unfortunate frozen female. Doubleclick the thumbnail for the adjustment layer to activate the Hue/Saturation dialog. Check the Colourise box and set the Hue slider to 212. Set Saturation to 41. Click OK to apply the Hue/Saturation changes. Now hit Ctrl+D to deselect (alternatively, go to Select>Deselect).

Extend the canvas We need some extra space at the bottom of the image, so go to Image>Canvas Size. Check the Relative box and click in the top centre square of the Anchor map. Next to the Height box choose Inches for measurement units and enter 4 for Height. For Canvas Extension Colour, choose White.

A little painting Now you need to begin painting over the unwanted dark shapes in the lower third of the image. You may find if you’re using a brush with opacity controlled by pressure applied to the stylus you can easily blend your brushwork in with the existing image. This is achieved by careful control of the pressure applied to the stylus. Every now and then as you paint, hold down the Alt key and sample another blue from the existing image to colour with. This may seem like a laborious task, but once you get into the swing of things you’ll be surprised at how quickly you pick up the technique as the picture rapidly builds in front of you.

Add the first ice Click on the lowest layer in the stack. Open ‘ice1.jpg’ (istockphoto.com 119142) and go to Select>All, Edit>Copy. Close this and return to the main composition. Go to Edit>Paste to. Use the Move Tool (V) to drag the ice down to the bottom, so that it sits below the figure. Still on the ice layer, go to Image>Adjustments>Levels. Change the Input Level values to 0, 1.40, 235 from left to right.

46

Advanced Photoshop

044-049_APM17_ice.indd 46

27/3/06 11:17:09

12

Transform and distort Go to Edit>Transform>Distort and use the handles around the Bounding Box to stretch the ice layer to fit the image. Using the central handles around the bounding box, and by dragging on the corners you can skew the ice layer a little. Hit Enter to commit the transformation. Use the eraser with a hard brush to erase any unwanted black areas above the ice.

13

Into the blue Click the Layer Mask thumbnail for the Hue/ Saturation layer and return to the Brush tool. Using a hard round brush, paint white over the ice, creating a cool finish that ties in with the rest of the image.

i.

15

Lighting up Select Layer>Merge Down to merge the two lower layers. To modify the lighting on this layer, go to Filter>Render>Lighting Effects. For the Light Type, choose Spotlight. Drag the bottom-right handle on the light pool in the Preview Pane anti-clockwise with the mouse so that the light shines down from the top left corner. Click in the light colour swatch and choose a vivid ice blue from the colour picker.

Getting colder Return to the lowest layer in the stack and open ‘ice2.jpg’ (istockphoto.com 173693). Copy and paste into the main composition. Move the ice into position over the left-hand side of the image with the Move Tool (V). Go to Edit>Transform>Distort and drag the bottom right-hand handle on the Bounding Box a little to the right to distort the layer. Hit ‘Enter’ to commit. Change the Layer Blending Mode for this layer to Overlay and reduce the layer Opacity to 55%. Use the Eraser tool at 25% Opacity to erase the line in the centre of the image where the ice layer meets the background we have been using.

16

Seeing the light Drag the side handles around the Light Pool outwards so that the pool covers the entire width of the image. Refer to the screenshot for the exact position and size for the pool. Set the Ambience slider to 25. Leave all other settings at the default values. Click OK to apply the Lighting Effects filter. When the filter has been applied, go to Edit>Fade Lighting Effects. Set the Fade Opacity to 40% and the Fade Mode to Multiply.

“THE LIGHTING EFFECTS FILTER IS A VERY VALUABLE TOOL THAT’S OFTEN OVERLOOKED” 17 Levels adjustment Return to the main figure layer in the Layers palette. Go to Image>Adjustments>Levels. Grab the centre (Gamma) slider and drag it to the left until the Input Level box reads 1.20. Click OK to apply the Levels adjustment. Right-click the thumbnail for the Layer Mask attached to the figure layer and select Apply Layer Mask.

14

Lighting

effects The Lighting Effects filter (Filter>Render>Lighting Effects), enables you to simulate the effect of various types of lights shining on your Photoshop scene. You simply choose the format of the source light itself from the Light Type box (here we’ve decided to use a Spotlight). Next, you need to rotate and expand the light pool from within the Preview pane. This light pool has handles around its edge, which you can grab with the mouse to rotate and expand the pool of light. Then to choose a colour for the light, simply click on the upper colour swatch in the dialog. The Lighting Effects Filter is a very valuable Photoshop tool that’s usually overlooked, so try experimenting with it.

47

Advanced Photoshop

044-049_APM17_ice.indd 47

27/3/06 11:18:21

MASTERCLASS Transparency

selections When you have a single image component on an otherwise transparent layer, as we have here on the figure layer, you can generate a selection from its transparency, which makes painting over or around the object much easier than trying to stay within the object itself manually as you paint. To do this, hold down the Ctrl key on the keyboard and click the image thumbnail for the layer. Alternatively, it is possible for you to right-click on the image thumbnail for the layer and then choose Select Layer Transparency from the submenu.

18

19

20

21

23

24

Plastic wrap ice Now duplicate the figure layer (Ctrl+J). Double-click the name for this layer and rename it ‘Ice Effect’. On this new duplicate layer go to Filter>Artistic> Plastic Wrap. Set Highlight Strength to 16, Detail 14, Smoothness 15. Click OK to apply the filter.

Set up a brush Click on the top layer in the stack (the Hue/ Saturation Adjustment Layer). Add a new layer (using Ctrl+Shift+N) and set this new layer’s Blending Mode to Colour. Now choose the Brush tool. Hold down the Alt key to access the Eyedropper, and sample one of the bright turquoise blues in the top left of the background. From the Brush Picker, choose a large, soft brush. Hit F5 to display the Brush Dynamics. Set Opacity Jitter to Pen Pressure and make sure that the checkbox against Shape Dynamics is unticked.

Duplicate and invert Duplicate this layer (Ctrl+J). On the duplicate layer, go to Image>Adjustments>Invert. Now set the Layer Blending Mode for this inverted layer to Hue and set the layer Opacity to 65%.

Add subtle colour Control-click the thumbnail for one of the figure layers to generate a selection from it. Now, using the brush at a fairly small size, begin to paint some lowopacity blue over parts of the figure. Just small touches of subtle colour here and there over curves of the figure will help to create the impression of the blue light from the background glinting off the surface of the icy figure. Take your time here, carefully positioning your strokes of colour.

22

More ice colour Now go to Select>Inverse and paint some of the same colour over the ice below the figure, positioning your strokes according to how the blue background would reflect on the ice on the ground. Use the brush at low Opacity and paint over certain areas again to increase the intensity. When you’re done painting, hit Ctrl+D to deselect.

Add a shadow Return to the layer containing the ice on the ground and add a new layer (Ctrl+Shift+N). Set the Blending Mode for this layer to Overlay. Still using the same brush, choose black for your foreground colour. Now paint a rough shadow onto the ice under the figure’s leg. Then paint some small areas of black at low Opacity here and there over the darker areas of ice.

Choose a brush and trace Return to the top layer in the palette and add a new layer. Zoom into the top half of the figure. From the Brush Picker, choose Chalk 23 Pixels, and set Opacity Jitter in Other Dynamics to Pen Pressure. With a pale ice blue, begin to roughly trace around the upper outline of the figure. This will give our ice maiden some subtle light touches around the edges.

48

Advanced Photoshop

044-049_APM17_ice.indd 48

27/3/06 11:18:56

25

26

27

28

29

“MISS OUT PART OF THE OUTLINE TO MIMIC THE EFFECT OF LIGHT CATCHING ON THE EDGES”

30

31

32

Lost and found edges As you trace the upper edge of the figure, miss out parts of the outline, creating ‘lost and found’ lines to mimic the effect of light catching on the edges. Try to square off any curved edges, thinking ice all the time as you work! Once you have added all of the edge highlights you need, drop in some here and there over the ice on the ground using the same method.

Tidying up loose ends Choose the Chalk brush again, and using it at a very small size, add some shape to the ends of the hair. First, sample a nearby mid-blue with the Eyedropper tool and paint in the end shape at various opacities. After this, sample a much lighter blue and brush in a few lighter areas. Finally, add highlights with white.

Transform and distort Set the Blending Mode for this layer to Overlay and the layer Opacity to 65%. Now go to Edit> Transform>Distort. Grab the bottom left-hand corner handle on the Bounding Box and drag it down and across the image. Hit Enter to commit the transformation.

Bright highlights Now change your foreground colour to white, then go back and add a few touches with the brush along your previously painted highlights. This will add some really convincing super-bright highlights to the image. Also add a few of these touches here and there within the actual figure, again being conscious of where the light would glint and reflect.

Add more ice Click on the bottom layer in the stack and open ‘ice3.jpg’ (istockphoto.com 119142). On this image, go to Select>All, followed by Edit> Copy. Close this image and return to the main composition. Go to Edit>Paste to paste the copied ice. Size this ice layer to fit in the right hand half of the image via Edit>Transform> Scale. Simply drag on the handles around the Bounding Box to increase the size of the layer. You can move the ice into position by dragging inside the Bounding Box. Hit Enter to commit the transformation.

Go Gaussian To adjust the tones in the ice, go to Image> Adjustments>Levels. Type in the following Input Levels values from left to right: 0, 0.84, 249. Click OK to apply the changes. Now blur this layer a little via Filter>Blur> Gaussian Blur. Use a Blur Radius of 3 pixels.

Add some sparkles Click in the Brush Picker and hit the small right-pointing arrow in the top left of the Picker palette. Choose assorted Brushes, and click OK to load the Brush Set. Scroll down the brush thumbnails and double click on the Star Large brush. Now, with single clicks, add a few of these starbursts over the brightest highlight around the edge of the figure. Vary the size of these starbursts by enlarging or reducing the size of the brush via the square bracket keys on the keyboard.

Erase and blend Finally, choose the Eraser tool. Set the Opacity for the tool to 25% in the Options Bar and choose a large soft brush for the Eraser from the Brush Picker. Now carefully erase the hard line at the edge of the ice layer to blend in softly into the background. 5

.

49

Advanced Photoshop

044-049_APM17_ice.indd 49

27/3/06 11:20:10

Feature

CHINTU SHAH, PAGE 53: “This image appeared in the Association of Illustrators Images 29 annual. It was one of three editorial illustrations exploring the recent blackout problems that have been encountered in New York. Again, like I do in much of my work, I have imagined electricity as a human and, with a parallel to the blackout, the solitary figure is feeling down with a guy in the flat screaming at him for more electricity!”

CHINTU SHAH, PAGE 53: “This was produced towards the end of my time at uni . My brief was the theme ‘Let’s Face It’. The image was an award-winner and appeared in the Association of Illustrators Images 29 annual.”

CHRIS LAAKVAND, PAGE 52: Chris exhibited this piece last year while at university in his degree show in Truman Brewery, London. Since university he has wanted to be part of the world of creative design, and loves his Wacom tablet.

50

Advanced Photoshop

050-055_APM17_graduates.indd 50

29/3/06 11:00:16

(RIGHT) Illustration by Chintu Shah

graduate showcase (TOP) ROB FLOWERS, PAGE 52: Rob finds the Eraser, Lasso and Magic Wand Tool a must for creating his unusual collage-like images. This is an atmospheric illustration from his book, Spring Heeled Jack. (MIDDLE) EDMUND FRANCIS BROWN, PAGE 55: “I wanted to glamorize Barcelona for something other than Cervezas and skaters. I overlaid traces of wallpaper, a photo I took of the Sagrada Familia Cathedral, the Osborne bull and Marilyn Monroe lips.” (BOTTOM) AD SMITH, PAGE 54: Ad wanted to portray the theme of wrath in his image by creating a figure that is ‘lashing out’. He used textures such as brick, nails and wood splint to help the image along.

Hot New

Talent

Here are some artists with a real flair for Photoshop. We showcase the work of five of our favourite recent graduates and designers

I

t can be difficult to get your first break into the design industry. It’s one of the most competitive environments you can be in. Unless you already have an extensive portfolio full of previous commissions with which to impress future clients, you can find that the same artists are used again and again. It can be difficult to get a look in. Us Advanced Photoshop lot really are suckers for punishment, aren’t we? If you’re a last year student or a recent graduate the most valuable thing you can do is get your work out there, either on a portfolio site or your own web page that’s search enginefriendly. It’s surprising how very few university design courses have instigated the means for showcasing student work. So, even if you have the support of a course you will need to make your own independent jump into the foray. Setting up on your own is a daunting business. Whether you’re looking to join a company or considering braving the world of freelance

creatives, it’s essential to make sure your portfolio is up to scratch, and it’s always valuable to know what level of competition you’re up against. Making that leap into the working world of commercial design and illustration is tough, but getting your work seen is half the battle won. This month we’re printing the work of some promising young designers, giving them a chance to share their designs and creative influences. These five designers not only differ in their approach to their artwork but have also already developed their own individual styles. You saw them here first…

GET YOUR WORK SEEN Don’t underestimate the power of the web. Showcase your work on these portfolio sites: The Association of Illustrators www.theaoi.com Portfolios.com www.portfolios.com D&AD Talentpool http://talentpool.dandad.co.uk Artshole.co.uk www.artshole.co.uk Artwanted.com www.artwanted.com

IT’S SURPRISING HOW FEW COURSES HAVE THE MEANS FOR SHOWCASING STUDENT WORK 51

Advanced Photoshop

050-055_APM17_graduates.indd 51

29/3/06 11:08:58

Feature Rob Flowers STUDIED: Animation and illustration, Bucks College

BATMAN: “This Batman image was drawn directly into Photoshop using a Wacom graphics tablet and then worked upon with different brushes.”

Chris Laakvand

STUDIED: Communication design, University of Portsmouth

ABOUT CHRIS: For as long as Chris can remember, he has always been fascinated with drawing. During his GCSEs he thought his work stood out from the crowd and enrolled in an Art and Design course at a local college, then later a Communications Design course at university. “As time passed at university my eyes opened to the creative community, in which I have wanted to be involved ever since.” INFLUENCED BY: “STUNTKID, the boy fitz hammond, Nigel Evan Dennis of Electric Heat, Chuck Anderson of No Pattern.” HE WOULDN’T BE WITHOUT: The Brush “I use Illustrator for the majority of vector drawing and tend to tidy things up with the Brush Tool. I was given a Wacom tablet last year and there’s much more freedom in Photoshop with this. I strongly recommend it to anyone.” WHAT HE’S DOING NOW: “I’ve just completed a website commission for a large corporate company based in London.” WHAT’S IN HIS CRYSTAL BALL?: “I hope to be in a position where illustration is a major part of my working life, although in the south the industry is a little thin on the ground. I hope to work on briefs that are rewarding, both creatively and financially. It would be great to be my own boss.” HE WOULD LOVE TO: “Get involved in fashion illustration, as well as magazine commissions for cover work.”

ABOUT ROB: Rob grew up in Barking, East London. “I was always interested in art; I was never any good at maths.” INFLUENCED BY: “There are so many people that inspire me: Gustave Doré, Saul Steinberg, Max Ersnt, Richard Scarry, Jim Houser, Chris Ware, Francis Bacon, Florence Upton. I love old lithographs and prints and badly made knitted toys.” HE WOULDN’T BE WITHOUT: Undo and History “To be able to undo and change a mistake at the touch of a button is a godsend.” HOW DOES HE NORMALLY APPROACH A PROJECT? “I see Photoshop as a tool, much in the same way that I see a pencil or a paintbrush. I’ll always plan out in my mind how I want my final project to look. This, of course, is subject to change as you get deeper and deeper into a project.”

WHAT HE’S DOING NOW: “I’m in a group exhibition at the moment in Portland, Oregon, for printed illustration. I also sell my own books through a shop called Beyond The Valley.” WHAT’S IN HIS CRYSTAL BALL? “I’m just about to start looking into getting a couple of my illustrated books published, which I also write, so I’d like to be in a position where I can have my own studio and just continue to make art that I love.” HE WOULD LOVE TO: “I am more interested in pursuing my own projects and ideas, but I would love to do more book jackets and record sleeves. I’m open to any avenue. I’m just about to start some singlesleeve artwork and an animated video to go with it.”

/ email: [email protected]

/ web: www.chrislaakvand.co.uk / email: [email protected] / contact: 07833 698424

Rob’s book Spring JACK: This is from e story of Jack, SPRING HEELED tru “a as s ibe he descr Heeled Jack, which in the mid-19th century.” on who terrorised Lond

52

Advanced Photoshop

050-055_APM17_graduates.indd 52

29/3/06 11:12:08

(RIGHT) Illustration by Rob Flowers

graduate showcase

MY WORK FUSES DRAWN IMAGERY WITH FOUND OBJECTS, PHOTOGRAPHY AND COLLAGE

MEXICO (BELOW): “I always intended to do some work based on experiences in Mexico since visiting last year. This takes a humorous twist on the Day Of The Dead festival, which Mexicans celebrate every year.”

Chintu Shah STUDIED: Illustration, Loughborough University School of Art and Design

ABOUT CHINTU: Chintu Shah is a British Asian who grew up in Leicester. He has enjoyed drawing, painting and being creative since a very young age. “As a youngster, I was always encouraged to pursue my art by both of my parents and teachers at school. I think it’s quite rare for someone coming from an Asian background to be encouraged to pursue a career in illustration or the creative industries, so I am very lucky to have had full support from my family.” INFLUENCED BY: “Pop art, Richard Hamilton, Peter Blake, Romare Bearden, vintage Indian graphics.” HE WOULDN’T BE WITHOUT: Dodge and Burn “I am always coming up with new, exciting colours and textures that can then be collaged – the Dodge and Burn tools are invaluable for doing this.” WHAT HE’S DOING NOW: “I have produced a few magazine covers for local temples and community centres. I also recently submitted an illustration to be used in an e-mag entitled The Thing Is…, which was put together by fellow young creatives.” HOW HE APPROACHES HIS WORK: “My work consistently fuses drawn imagery with found objects, photography and collage. In my own working process I view the technology as simply a tool to achieve what I want. I will normally approach any project in the sketchbook first, where I will come up with the ideas and

concepts. I try not to plan the look of the overall image in the early stages, as it’s inevitably going to change once I get into Photoshop and experiment. Once in Photoshop, I will access the various folders I keep full of different textures, backgrounds, patterns and facial features. If I’m trying to create a particular character, I will concentrate on this separately. Once all the individual elements are worked out, I will bring them together to finally create the final composition. So there are many, many layers involved.” WHAT’S IN HIS CRYSTAL BALL? “I hope to see myself established in the design and illustration industry. I have been approached by a former teacher who wrote a children’s story and has asked me to illustrate it. This should be interesting, as I have never attempted to illustrate a whole storybook before! I am also going to be collaborating with a family friend who teaches Gujarati language in schools to create some clip-art-style images of the various Indian and other exotic fruits and vegetables. This will hopefully be turned into a CD.” HE WOULD LOVE TO: Learn more about animation and push his imagery into this direction.

/ web: www.chintushah.com / email: [email protected] / contact: 07833 698424

JANE: “This was one of a series of images that I produced on the theme of ‘fireworks’. The idea behind the series was to simply play on the names of the various fireworks that you can get. I also turned the firework into an actual character and had the character thinking of what she could get up to once lit!”

53

Advanced Photoshop

050-055_APM17_graduates.indd 53

29/3/06 11:02:46

Feature Ad Smith STUDIED: Illustration

ABOUT AD: Ad grew up in Bournemouth and has been a permanent fixture ever since. “I think that this insulation, plus the divorce of my parents at a young age, has inspired the lust for the phantasm behind many of my designs. I was never looked upon favourably by my teachers at school as I applied a bit too much of my own artistic licence to my projects. But once I had started at university this ceased to be a problem and I became an encouraging graduate.” INFLUENCED BY: “Ben Temple Smith and Dave McKean, who lured me into the beautiful use of surrealism through photomontage.” HE WOULDN’T BE WITHOUT: Variations “Probably a slightly boring choice, but it’s such an easy way of creating tones for all effects.” WHAT HE’S DOING NOW: “I’ve recently completed work for the National Student Drama Festival (sponsored by The Times). I also illustrate editorial designs for Dark Moon Book Publishing and my first cover, Liber Coronzom: An Enochian Grimoire, will hopefully be published in the next month or so.” WHAT’S IN HIS CRYSTAL BALL? “I would see myself as a freelancer working on narrative-based projects such as novel covers, graphic novels and editorial work.” HE WOULD LOVE TO: “Work on cover and book designs for adults or children and magazine illustrations. Freelance fine art would also be nice.” HE WOULDN’T: “Work on an average cut-and-paste job such as putting together flyers and posters with little artistic licence. However, it’s not very wise to say no to anything.”

/ web: www.adamwilliamsmith.co.uk / email: [email protected]

is a l of a pierced heart PAIN: “The symbo e Th . on oti em nt a blu blunt statement for collage, spray r pe pa of nd ble a image is cation and paints, acrylic appli s.” appropriated X-ray

(LEFT) PAGE 3: “These are creations for a children’s book called Run Tyler Run, a story that deals with the contemporary issue of bullying and abuse. It will hopefully be considered for entry into this year’s Macmillan Book Fair.” (FAR LEFT) WORM’S EYE (PRIDE): “This image is a mixture of photography, acrylic painting and textiles, brought together through extensive use of the Blur, Opacity and Variations techniques.”

54

Advanced Photoshop

050-055_APM17_graduates.indd 54

29/3/06 11:13:35

(RIGHT) Illustration by Edmund Francis Brown

graduate showcase FLYER: Commissioned as a postcard flyer for the Newham Mayor’s show. “I unblemished the model’s skin in the original photograph and then set about creating assets, setting up several layers all masking each other.”

Edmund Francis Brown STUDIED: BTEC Media Production, Bedford College

ABOUT EDMUND: He was born in Welwyn Garden City (during a thunderstorm, according to his mum). “My mother is an artist and was studying for a Fine Art degree while I was growing up. I used to pull sickies off school and she’d take me to her university. I used to love hanging around the art studios for hours.” He went to study a BTEC in Media Production at Bedford College and begged his tutors to be allowed on the editing computers. “I taught myself Photoshop and Premier in a couple of months. I also tried my hand at web design, so a lot of my Photoshop skills were developed either for special effects in Premier or for web page graphics.” WORST EXPERIENCE: “In the summer of 2005, I moved to London and shared a room with my girlfriend and tried looking for work. After two months of waiting tables and getting up at the crack of dawn to work in posh events wearing a Primark shirt-and-trousers uniform, I was getting tired of posting CVs. In desperation one day, I scrawled ‘Will Work For Food’ on my CV and posted it at Vice Magazine – they weren’t interested. Strange, that.” INFLUENCED BY: “Nigel Dennis, 123klan, Psyop, the Brooklyn school of graffiti.” HE WOULDN’T BE WITHOUT: The Layer Comp palette “It’s a great addition that makes my fickle design decisions easy to save without making a huge stack of incremented big Photoshop files that is hard to organise.” WHAT’S NOT A HIT IN HIS WORLD? Adobe Bridge “It’s slow and heavy.” WHAT HE’S DOING NOW: “I saw a post on Shooting

People [http://shootingpeople.org] for a junior to join an animation studio, and I saw that they, like me, were based in Hackney, around the corner from my new flat. On the ride home from another unsuccessful day of application forms and rejection, I stopped in at Shroomstudio. They invited me in for a chat and, several cups of tea and another knock on the door later, I had a job. So now I work in a role that involves hours of Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects. I consider myself very lucky indeed. I have missed the deadline to return to university and complete my degree, but something tells me it’ll be okay.” WHAT’S IN HIS CRYSTAL BALL? Edmund would like to see his career in digital arts take a varied route. “I’m quixotic with my interests, flicking between writing, design and video work, so it’s hard to set goals.” HE WOULD LOVE TO: “Have the opportunity to do some flyer design, or an album cover. The sheer creative genius of the Sixties and Seventies record label is something I feel is sadly lacking from contemporary music graphic design.” 5

SNAKEY7FLAT: “This was my first Photoshop fashion shoot trace. The background is from one of my photos of the amazing street graffiti in Barcelona (sadly, no longer there). I applied the Cutout filter to the graffiti. It’s overlaid with a texture of a photo of some rust on a metal door.”

KOOKS2PUNK: Edmund created this image from a photograph of his girlfriend, Kooks. “Upon turning off the ‘stroke’ layer I saw that the only features visible on her face were her eyelashes, lips and one ear. I thought this was cool, so I added two gradient layers.”

/ web: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/iline / email: [email protected]

I HAVE MISSED THE DEADLINE TO RETURN TO UNIVERSITY, BUT SOMETHING TELLS ME IT’LL BE OKAY 55

Advanced Photoshop

050-055_APM17_graduates.indd 55

29/3/06 11:14:25

Step-by-step

Workshop

CREATE CONSOLE ART Throw yourself into this funky fighting videogame-inspired tutorial. You’ll be merging diverse techniques to create a cool composite BY SAM GILBEY

ON THE DISC You’ll find all the accompanying files and images you’ll need to complete this tutorial on this issue’s free CD.

OUR EXPERT

Sam Gilbey

Sam’s illustrations have appeared in numerous publications, both on and offline, all over the globe. His observational, colourful and distinct style often draws upon and celebrates popular culture. He is also a senior editor for popular arts and design news portal, Pixelsurgeon. More of his work can be found at www.sam-gilbey.com

I

f you’ve been reading previous issues of Advanced Photoshop, you’ll certainly be more than familiar with the idea that Photoshop can let you do just about anything you put your exceedingly creative mind to. Still, it’s easy to fall into the habit of doing one particular thing that you favour, be it hand-drawn illustration, photography manipulation or more vector-style work. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course, but it can also be fun to combine several different stylistic approaches in the same piece, and that’s what we thought we’d try here. And what better way to test your

skills than with an old-school videogame beat-’em-up crossed with a snowball fight? It enables us to work on some photography in the background, some hand-drawn illustration for our characters, and some shiny paths and vector shapes for our interface. For the hand-drawn elements you’ll probably find a drawing tablet will help, although it’s not actually essential. Once you’ve had a go with our idea, there’s a plethora of videogame-style composites you could try for yourself. Think intense colour, dramatic action and plenty of effects, and you’re on the right track. Player one, ready?

56

Advanced Photoshop

056-061_APM17_snow.indd 56

27/3/06 11:50:58

iqu es Te ch n

“THINK COLOUR, DRAMATIC ACTION 6 AND PLENTY OF EFFECTS AND YOU’RE ON THE RIGHT TRACK” 1 Getting started Create a new document in Photoshop that’s 25cm wide and 18.52cm tall, set at 300dpi. To set our wintry scene we’ve used a photograph by Sascha Burkard from Fotolia, which you can find at www.fotolia.co.uk/id/164938 relatively cheaply. If you have something very similar in your own photo collection, use that if you prefer. Copy and paste it onto your canvas. Scale the photo down to the canvas width, but place it so that the horizon is roughly in the middle.

2

Replacing colours We want the colour of the building to be a bit richer, so go to Image>Adjustments>Replace Color. Pick the main yellow that features, set the Fuzziness to 180, the Hue down to -66 and the Saturation up to +62. Now, select some of the deeper shadows, making those a deep red rather than a pale greeny brown. Finally, take the greens from the roof and increase the hue to around 100 for a purple tint.

4

A third floor Go back to the temple photo and select the lower floor with the Polygonal Lasso. Paste it onto the main image and scale it down so it looks like it could be a larger floor below. The roof won’t quite line up, but use the Clone Stamp to fill in the gaps, sampling the most appropriate elements of the existing texture. Now use a round eraser, or create a selection, to give the roof a curved edge.

Lining up the horizons Next, we’ve used a Egidijus Mika photo (from www.fotolia.co.uk/id/77682). This is smaller than the canvas width, but it’s okay to scale it up because we’re going to pixelate the background later. Reduce the opacity of the layer so you can line up the textured snow from the new image over the blank space. Flip the photo horizontally so that the light comes from the left. Delete the top half with the Marquee tool, then use a round eraser brush so the snow fits neatly over the first photo.

7

Getting it pixel-perfect To give our backdrop a more videogamey feel, we want to pixelate it. Duplicate the layers that make up the scene, and hide the lower versions. Select the temple layer, and from the Filter menu go to Pixelate>Mosaic. Set the Cell Size to 5 square and press OK. On the tree and mountain layer, set the Cell Size to 7. On the foreground snow, set it to 8.

5 3

Building up the background Next is Naomi Hasegawa’s temple photo, from www.fotolia.co.uk/id/142137. Duplicate the background layer, then Select All and fill the layer with any colour. Use any cut-out technique you favour to remove the background around the temple, leaving the top two floors. Where the tree overlaps the balcony at the bottom, just guess the shape that the wood would take by referring to the other side. Paste the temple onto the image so the roof complements the mountain peak. Set the opacity to around 40%.

Seeing the trees through the wood Merge the new floor layer down so the temple is on one layer. Go to Layer>Layer Mask >Reveal All. Fade the opacity of the layer down so you can see the trees that should be overlapping the building. Click the chain icon between the image and the mask to unlink them, then select the mask. Paint black over the trees, varying the brush size as needed, to hide the temple. If you make a mistake, paint with white to reveal again.

Videogame as art? Well, the people at WEARGAME think so, because along with Creative Pride they’re creating GamePaused, described as “a creative celebration of the videogame”. As you can see from the list of artists ‘playing’ on the website at www.weargame.com, it has proved to be popular with creatives of a certain age who’ve grown up twitching their thumbs. Keep an eye out for the book and the exhibition, which will happen in the near future…

57

Advanced Photoshop

056-061_APM17_snow.indd 57

27/3/06 11:52:10

Step-by-step

Workshop

“WHEN YOU BUILD A COMPLEX PIECE, YOU’RE BOUND TO WANT TO ADJUST THE COLOURS”

9

Snow business Use the Clone Stamp in order to copy some of the foreground snow texture around the base of the trees so it all matches up, and then pixelate the layer again. A winter scene just wouldn’t be right without snow, so create a new layer and select a round brush with a diameter of around 60. Open the Brushes tab (which you’ll find to the right of the Options bar) and turn on Shape Dynamics. Put the Size Jitter up to 100% and add some snow to the scene. Now apply a Motion blur of around 40 pixels, and then use a Mosaic filter.

12 8

Hyper-real colour Beat-’em-up backdrops are usually a little more intense than ours at the moment. You can use any of the options from the Image> Adjustments menu, but it’s also worth using an adjustment layer, which allows you to keep the original colours intact. Go to Layer>New Adjustment Layer, and select the type of adjustment that you want to make. Remember, you can apply more than one adjustment layer at any one time. We have made the sky more purple, the trees more green and the foreground snow a little more cyan.

10

Introducing the characters Open the file from the cover disc called ‘fighters_sketch.jpg’. Copy and paste it onto the scene, and set the layer blending mode to Multiply from the drop-down menu at the top of the Layers palette. Now create a layer underneath the sketch, and, using a round brush with 100% opacity, apply flat colours to the different areas of the man and the woman to flesh them out a bit and start building up the scene. Finally, turn the Size jitter off.

Highlights and shadows Making the brush smaller (down to around 30), choose colours from each area then add lighter tones to the left and darker tones to the right of the characters. Follow the contours of the clothing or skin so the illustration starts to have depth. Don’t make the highlights or shadows too strong as we don’t want it to clash with the overall image.

13 Colour separation When you’re building a piece as complex as this one, you’re bound to find that as you go you want to adjust your colours here and there. This is fine, but every change you make takes you a step away from your source material, and you may even find yourself wishing you could go back to an earlier version. Well, there is an answer, and it’s adjustment layers. Try to use one whenever you can, because it means you can go back to your original colours should you ever want or need to. It’s certainly easier (and takes up less room on your Hard Drive) than saving several different versions of your work.

11

Light needs shadows To lead the eye across the image, and to integrate the characters into the backdrop, we need a shadow. This will also give our character some grounding and make the overall effect more convincing. On a new layer, select one of the dark tones from the foreground snow. Use a round brush to paint shadows extending from the character’s feet. Use a very large eraser with a soft edge (around 400) to erase the right-hand side of the shadows, so that they fade. Now apply a Mosaic filter to the layer.

Blending it together Next, choose a brush with a soft edge, set the size to 70 and switch the opacity down to 30%. Select tones from each area, and then paint gradually over the tones they overlap. Pick different tones as you go judging the effect by eye, and soon the colours will blend, rounding the characters off and making them look far more three-dimensional. Our characters are now really starting to take shape.

58

Advanced Photoshop

056-061_APM17_snow.indd 58

27/3/06 11:53:49

iqu es Te ch n

14

Stronger outlines On a new layer above the sketch, we want to strengthen the character’s definition. Select the Hard Round 9 Pixels brush, with a 100% opacity, and proceed to work over the main character outlines using a very dark grey (but not black). There’s a lot going on in the image, but we still want the characters to be striking.

17

Glow for it Select Layer>Layer Style>Cover Overlay. Set the blend mode to Color, and use a blue-green tone. Now use the Burn tool, with a soft-edged brush around 300 and an Exposure of 5%, in order to darken the right-hand side of the snowball. Next, apply an orange Outer Glow layer style on Screen blend mode with a Spread of 0 and a Size of 114 pixels. Create a new layer underneath it, and use the Polygonal Lasso tool to draw a marquee expanding from the girl’s hands into the snowball. Finally, use the Gradient tool to fill it with a gradient fading from orange to nothing.

Grouping layers One of the most useful additions to recent versions of Photoshop is being able to group layers together. This is especially true when you’ve got as many layers building up as we have here, and we’re using different styles for the various components. Not only that, but you can manipulate several layers at once if you need to. It’s great for repositioning things as you go, and allows a flexible approach to your compositions. Duplicating a group and then merging it also lets you play with your creations without worrying how many levels of Undo are left.

15

Additional highlights It always helps to add a highlight that isn’t just based on the colours you’re shading. Choose a pale blue, and with a 20-pixel brush at an opacity of 30, paint some highlights on the right-hand side of the man and the left side of the woman. Build up the strokes to intensify the highlights a little more.

18

The mighty whoosh Duplicate the snowball layer. Select the lower version and adjust the colour of the overlay to a warm pink. Go to Filter>Blur>Radial Blur and apply a Zoom blur, centred as near to the middle of the snowball as possible. Move the snowball to the right of the one above, and set the layer blending mode to Linear Light. Duplicate the top snowball layer, and apply a Radial blur to it. Apply a bright blue Outer Glow layer style, and fade the layer opacity to 75%. Apply an additional Motion blur at a Distance of 60 and Angle of -17.

16

Photo fix Now you’re going to need a photo by Zastavkin, which you will find at the following website: www.fotolia.co.uk/id/107897. Once you’ve got it, go to Image>Adjustments> Brightness/Contrast. Set the Brightness to +32 and the Contrast to +7. There’s a peak of snow towards the bottom right of the image. Use the Polygonal Lasso tool to create a marquee in the shape of a roundish but quite angular snowball. Copy and paste the snowball onto the main canvas, and then position and scale it so that it’s hitting the man on the raised arm.

59

Advanced Photoshop

056-062_APM17_snow.indd 59

27/3/06 11:29:36

Step-by-step

Workshop

19

It’s all a blur On another new layer underneath the snowballs, create a further ‘beam’ of energy flowing from the girl’s hands to the snowball. Make this one fade from a light bright blue to a soft lilac. Set the layer blending mode to Hard Light and apply a bright blue Outer Glow to the layer. Also add a Motion blur that follows the direction of the beam.

“TRY TO COLLECT A RANGE OF COOL PHOTO TEXTURES TO USE IN YOUR CREATIONS” Texture library You might not consider yourself the greatest photographer in the world, but the more you get into the habit of taking your digital camera with you wherever you go the more time you’ll save yourself when trying to create artwork back at home. Okay, so perhaps you’ve not got a beautiful mountain range near you to photograph, but if it ever snows, get yourself outside and snap away. Not just because you’ll have loads of great snow photos, but also because you might be able to use the snow textures to supplement another piece, and one that doesn’t necessarily have a snowflake in sight. Try to collect a range of cool photo textures to use in your creations.

20

Sparks and particles On a new layer, select a soft-edged brush with a diameter of 40. From the Brushes tab, turn on Shape Dynamics and set the Size Jitter to 100%. Turn on Scattering and set it to 1000%. Paint some particles around the man where the snowball impacts. Add an Outer Glow to the layer and apply a Radial Zoom blur, centred at the tip of the snowball.

24

Shape and shading Use the Direct Selection tool (the white arrow) to move the points of the outer shape, and the Convert Point tool (one of the options in the toolset item below) to add some curves. Use the Delete Anchor Point tool on the right side so you can make a sweeping curve. Apply a vertical gradient overlay with a darker band in the middle for a cool chrome effect. Duplicate the layer, then use the Direct Selection tool to scale down the outer points. Change the gradient overlay to fade down from dark to light.

21

Face facts Select the Rounded Rectangle tool, and create a rounded rectangle (adjust the corner Radius along the Options bar) in the top left-hand corner. On the Paths palette, click the arrow at the top right, and from the options choose Make Selection, keeping the Feather Radius at 0 pixels. Open the file from the cover disc called ‘faces.jpg’. Copy the man’s face with the Rectangular Marquee and paste it into the selection. Go to Edit>Transform and scale it down to fit. Apply an outer Stroke layer style and an Inner Glow, with the Choke set to 47%

25

22

26

Face paint Apply a gradient overlay to the original rounded rectangle layer, and set the blending mode of the face to Multiply. Create a new layer between the two and colour in the face, just using a few simple tones.

23

Interface design Now to set the videogame scene a little more. Select the Rounded Rectangle tool, and set the Radius to 15px. Draw the outline of the main energy bar, then change the settings of the tool to Subtract From Shape Area, which is the third icon along the Options bar to the right of the Radius setting. Set Radius down to 12px, and cut a slightly smaller shape out of the middle. This is the rough outline for our troublesome twosome’s energy bars, which we’ll work up next.

Grouping layers Now make a smaller bar beneath in the same way, and add a rectangle with a gradient overlay underneath each to represent the energy levels. From the Layers palette, select all the layers that make up the interface, click the top right arrow on the palette, and then select the New Group From Layers option. Call the group ‘Energy Bar’, and then duplicate it. Finally, use the Transform tools to flip it horizontally and then move it to the far right.

Ramp up the detail Paste in the girl’s face, reverse the gradient direction on the energy bars and increase the width of the main bar. Use more of the layer styles (strokes, inner glows and so on) to make everything feel more solid. Add a central set of ellipses to show the time left in the game. We’ve used a font called Eras Medium ITC, but you don’t have to. Rasterize the ‘Time’ text and go to Edit>Transform>Warp, bending the text around the interface as appropriate. Change the group blending mode to Overlay and fade it to 96%.

60

Advanced Photoshop

056-062_APM17_snow.indd 60

27/3/06 11:29:49

iqu es Te ch n

27

Icy shards Select a light blue foreground colour, and using the Pen tool, create a large shard expanding diagonally downwards. Set the layer blending mode to Color Burn. Now create a new shard towards the right of the first, overlapping some of it. Set the blending mode to Overlay, so it looks like a lighter side of the shape. Create a couple more polygons as desired, experimenting with the blending modes. To add some interest, apply Outer Glow layer styles to the shapes in various colours.

28

Copy and repeat Select the layers that make up the shard, and create a New Group From Layers. Duplicate this group and scale the copy down, rotating it anti-clockwise and moving it around the snowball as appropriate. Now rasterize the layers in the group, then use a large eraser to soften the edge where it connects with the snowball. Repeat the process, building up a wall of icicles around the right side. Scale each one slightly differently. This gives our snowball a nice stylistic wintry look.

30

Character blurs Create a new layer group from the layers that make up the characters, and duplicate it. Right-click to the right of the Layer Group icon on the Layers palette (Apple-click on Macs), and Merge Group. Use the Magic Wand to select and delete the white outside the characters. Broadly select the man’s shoulders, scarf and head with the Elliptical Marquee. Apply a Motion blur at an Angle of -27 ° and a Distance of 70 pixels. Use a large soft eraser to preserve some of the detail from below. Repeat for the areas you want to blur.

“KEEP ADDING DETAIL AND MAKING TWEAKS UNTIL YOU’RE HAPPY WITH THE FINISHED PRODUCT”

31

Final touches We added an extra layer of pencil-type lines on the characters, defining where the highlights meet the main clothing colours. We duplicated the energy bars on the left and blurred them slightly to indicate that the man has been hit. There’s also another layer of snow added, and some more icicles on the snowball. Essentially, keep adding detail and making tweaks until you’re happy with the finished product. 5

29

Real icicle texture Use the Polygonal Lasso to make a selection around the icicles. Locate Zastavkin’s icicle photo here: www.fotolia.co.uk/id/107891. Paste the photo into the selection, and rotate the image clockwise so the icicles cut diagonally down from right to left through the shards. Set the layer blending mode to Luminosity, and fade it down to 19% Opacity. Use a large eraser to soften where the shards connect with the snowball, and then apply a Motion blur along the same angle as the icicles.

61

Advanced Photoshop

056-062_APM17_snow.indd 61

27/3/06 11:30:18

Insider

Info

INSIDER INFO

Face the noise

One of the many new filters in Photoshop CS2 is Reduce Noise, which isolates and minimises noise while preserving the maximum detail

Additional resources The following articles provide in-depth comparisons of several noise reduction applications: ● Michael Almond: Noise Reduction Tool Comparison www.michaelalmond.com/Articles/noise.htm ● Ben Long: Quiet Those Noisy Images www.creativepro.com/story/feature/22546.html

M

ost digital cameras use an image sensor comprised of a matrix of light sensors called photosites, each corresponding to one pixel in your digital image. Occasionally, either in low light or at high ISO speeds, the electrical signal in these photosites ‘spills over’ into neighbouring photosites, resulting in something that all imageers recognise: noise. This noise comes in two distinct flavours: luminance noise (which appears as speckled light and dark pixels) and chrominance noise (which appears as coloured blotches – typically yellow or magenta).

OUR EXPERT

Trevor Morris

Trevor Morris is an official Photoshop beta tester and amateur digital photographer with more than a dozen years’ design experience. He works as a senior graphic designer for a Canadian web design company and also maintains the Photoshop-centric website GFX™ (http://user.fundy.net/morris/).

ADVANCED NOISE REDUCTION: Reduce Noise’s Advanced mode allows you to target individual channels for optimal noise reduction

Regardless of where noise comes from or how it was produced, it’s generally unwanted. The goal is to reduce the noise without compromising the detail in the image, which is exactly what the Reduce Noise filter (Filter>Noise>Reduce Noise) is designed to do. In Basic mode there are four sliders, and, as with most of Photoshop’s dialogs, it’s best to adjust them in the order they appear. ● Strength: This controls the amount of luminance noise reduction applied to all channels. Values range from 0 (no reduction) to 10 (maximum reduction). ● Preserve Details: Used to fine-tune the image and restore some of the detail affected by the Strength slider. Values range from 0% (no preservation) to 100% (full preservation). Note that Strength has no noticeable effect when Preserve Details is set to 100%. ● Reduce Color Noise: This reduces the amount of chrominance noise that’s present in the image. The values range from 0% (no reduction) to 100% (maximum reduction). ● Sharpen Details: This controls the amount of sharpening applied to the filtered image. Values range from 0% (no sharpening) to 100% (maximum sharpening). Use this slider with caution, because too much sharpening will simply introduce more artefacts. For best results, use Filter>Sharpen>Smart Sharpen instead. The Reduce Noise filter

“THE SMOOTHING USED TO REDUCE ARTEFACTS SOFTENS IMAGE DETAIL”

REDUCE NOISE – BEFORE AND AFTER: Photoshop’s new Reduce Noise filter reduces image noise while attempting to preserve the detail of the original photo

also has an option called Remove JPEG Artefact. As the name implies, this option is designed to reduce the blocky artefacts and halos that typically appear in highly compressed (low-quality) JPEG images. Use this option judiciously, as the smoothing used to reduce artefacts typically softens image detail and there aren’t any options to control it. Advanced mode allows you to perform noise reduction on a per-channel basis, so will allow you more control over the image. For example, if the Blue channel contains the majority of the image noise, you might apply more aggressive reduction to that channel. Be aware, however, that the values on the Per Channel tab are cumulative, so you may need to use more conservative values on the Overall

tab. Reduce Noise is a great addition to Photoshop, however its luminance noise reduction isn’t nearly as impressive as its chrominance noise reduction, and the JPEG artefact reduction provides mixed results. Still, for a ‘free’ plug-in, it does a very respectable job of reducing noise without significant loss of detail.

What’s the alternative? If you’re looking for an alternative – and you’re willing to spend a little cold hard cash – there are plenty of alternatives available, including ABSoft’s Neat Image (www.neatimage.com) and PictureCode’s Noise Ninja (www. picturecode.com). Both offer support for Mac and PC, and are available as standalone applications and/or Photoshop-compatible plug-ins. 5

Save your settings Another nice feature of the Reduce Noise filter is the ability to save your settings as a preset. To delete a saved preset, simply select it from the Settings drop-down and click Delete Settings (the Trash icon).

62

Advanced Photoshop

062_APM17_ii_noiseNEW.indd 62

27/3/06 10:34:25

Step-by-step

Workshop ON THE DISC You’ll find the simple drawing you need to get your painting on its way (girl_sketch.tif) on your included Advanced Photoshop CD.

OUR EXPERT

Tim Shelbourne

With 20 years’ experience as an artist and illustrator, Tim Shelbourne is one of Photoshop’s leading lights. He believes that too much instructional material intimidates new users and is keen to help novices painlessly harness the software’s true potential. For further details, check out his first book, the Photoshop Photo Effects Cookbook (Ilex, £17.95, ISBN: 1-904705-61-8) or visit www.timshelbourne.com.

J

ust put the thought of digital photography out of your mind for a moment, and think of pixels. Essentially, if you think in pixels, you think in Photoshop. So much Photoshop material out there today concentrates solely on images supplied by a digital camera that it’s easy to forget that Photoshop was made to manufacture pixels, not simply move them around on screen. If you’ve never started from a pure blank canvas in Photoshop, you’re missing so much of its true creative potential. So, starting with a blank canvas, we’re going to create a stunning piece of original art from scratch! But you’re thinking, “don’t I have to be able to draw and paint to do that?” Well, in Photoshop the answer is no. Once you’ve started making marks on separate layers, you’ll be amazed at just how much you can mould and manipulate these marks to produce truly worthy art. To get you started we’re supplying you with the initial sketch, but you could just as easily trace over a photograph loaded into your workspace. If you make your tracing on a separate layer you can then ditch the original photograph when the sketch is complete. With painting Photoshop CS2 begins to demonstrate its stunning capabilities, supplying you with a wealth of super-realistic brushes, which, when used in conjunction with a pressure-sensitive graphics tablet, can offer every bit as much adaptability and responsiveness as their real-world counterparts. A pressure-sensitive graphics tablet is essential for this kind of project, as it will enable you to take full advantage of the power of Photoshop brushes.

WORKING WITH BRUSHES

Free yourself from the shackles of the photographic image and create truly unique images from scratch. Tim Shelbourne stares at a blank canvas and gets painting BY TIM SHELBOURNE

64

Advanced Photoshop

064-068_APM17_portrait.indd 64

27/3/06 11:39:14

iqu es Te ch n

“VARY THE OPACITY OF THE STROKES, ESPECIALLY WHERE THEY MEET THE SHADOW”

1

Trace elements You can always begin by drawing your own sketch or by opening a photographic image in Photoshop and using a small brush to trace around it on to a separate layer. Once your sketch is complete, fill the original Background Layer with a background colour for your canvas.

4 2

Start with the sketch If you’re working from the supplied sketch, open up ‘girl_sketch.tif’ from the cover CD. The sketch itself is already supplied on a separate layer. First, you need to ensure that the sketch layer is set to Multiply Blending Mode. Click on the Background Layer and choose a colour for your painting’s canvas from the Foreground colour swatch. Go to Edit>Fill, choosing Foreground Colour for Contents.

Size matters Hit F5 to display the Brush Options. In Shape Dynamics, set the Minimum Size slider to 50%. Set the Size Jitter Control to Pen Pressure. Now click Other Dynamics and set Opacity Control to Pen Pressure. Using the brush at a medium size (you can change this using the square bracket keys on the keyboard), begin to block in the shadow areas of the head with rough scribble.

6

Delineate the details Zoom into the eyes and nose area of the image and reduce the brush to a very small size, as this is where you need to be very careful with the details. Now increase the Opacity of the brush to 75% and, following the overlaid sketch, use a few sharp strokes to delineate the eyes and the nostrils. It might take a couple of attempts to get this looking just right.

5

Light fantastic In this image the light is falling from the top right of the picture, so bear this in mind as you’re blocking in the shadow areas (see the ‘Out of the shadows’ boxout below). Make your brush strokes rather straight and angular, but think about the basic contours of the head as you paint. Build up the tones and depth by working over some areas again with the brush.

3

Dip into Brushes Hit Ctrl+Shift+N to add a new layer then name the layer ‘Shading’ and click OK. Now choose a deep blue for the Foreground colour swatch, as it will sit nicely against our vibrant red background. Don’t feel compelled to stick with skin tones – experiment! We’ll take a look at setting up the brush options next. Choose the Brush tool. Click in the Brush Picker, hit the small right-pointing arrow and load the Thick Heavy Brushes set. Now choose Flat Bristle from the brush thumbnails. Set the brush Opacity to 25% in the Options Bar.

Out of the shadows Essentially, it’s light that makes an object three-dimensional, whether it is a simple cube or something as complicated as a human head. This point illustrates perfectly why having a good idea which direction light falls on to a figure is key to producing convincing results. Take time to study various images to become adept at judging light direction and modelling. In this image, the light falls from the upper right of the picture.

65

Advanced Photoshop

064-068_APM17_portrait.indd 65

27/3/06 11:39:30

Step-by-step

Workshop

7

Tonal work Click again on the red-filled layer and add a new layer (Ctrl+Shift+N). Name this layer ‘Mid Tones’. Choose a mid-tone orange/yellow for the Foreground swatch. Now, using the brush at a fairly large size, begin to fill in the majority of the empty areas in the head with this colour using rough angular strokes. You don’t need to worry about being neat here.

8

See-through strokes Again, vary the opacity of the strokes, especially where they meet the shadow areas. Because this layer is beneath both the shading and sketch layer, all of the structural elements will remain visible. Bear in mind which direction the light is coming from in the image. Don’t paint over the lips just yet.

Feeling the pressure The majority of Photoshop brushes, particularly the ones we’re using here, can be set to respond directly to the pressure input from a pressuresensitive graphics tablet. These dynamics features are controlled via the Brush Option palette (displayed by hitting F5 on the keyboard). Each set of Brush Dynamics is located in its own entry within the palette. Active dynamics are denoted by a check mark next to them. The main categories we use in the walkthrough are Shape and Other Dynamics. In each example, we set the menu Control option for these to Pen Pressure.

“ROUGHLY PAINT WITH THE SAME BRUSH AT A LARGER SIZE BEHIND THE HEAD TO CREATE TEXTURE” 10

Think pink Using the brush at 30% Opacity, add some bright, vibrant accents where the mid-tones meet the shadow areas. Also, use a few marks to add some structure to the lower part of the nose, and a few accents over the eyelids and in the eye sockets. These areas will add depth and interest to the portrait.

13

Warp effect Go to Edit>Transform>Warp. Drag the top two corners of the warp map down, and the bottom two down and inwards to replicate the shape shown in the screenshot. Now go to Edit>Transform>Rotate. Rotate the shape a little way anti-clockwise. Hit the commit checkmark in the Options Bar to commit the transformation.

11

Shaping up nicely At this stage, we want to add some interest to the background. A few simple graphic elements will add the required punch. Click on the red-filled layer and add a new layer. Name the layer ‘Shapes’. Now choose the Rectangular Marquee tool, and drag a selection around the head and shoulders.

9

14

Livening up Now click on the Shading layer and add another new layer (Ctrl+Shift+N). Name this layer ‘Mid Accents’ and set the Blending mode for this layer to Vivid Light. Now choose a vivid hot pink for the Foreground colour. Click in the Brush Picker and change to the Rough Flat Bristle brush. Set the Brush Options as in step four.

Duplicate and merge Set the Opacity of this layer to 55%. Now duplicate this layer (Ctrl+J), and return to Edit>Transform>Rotate. Rotate this duplicated layer a little way clockwise. Merge the two shape layers together via Layer>Merge Down.

12

Create a gradient Choose the Gradient tool and click in the Gradient Picker. Select the Blue, Red, Yellow Gradient from the swatches. Choose Linear Gradient from the Options Bar, and then click and drag the gradient vertically over the selection. Hit Ctrl+D to deselect.

66

Advanced Photoshop

064-068_APM17_portrait.indd 66

27/3/06 11:39:49

iqu es Te ch n

15

Wet work Add a layer mask to this merged layer via Layer>Layer Mask>Reveal All. Choose the Brush tool and click in the Brush Picker. Hit the right-pointing arrow and load the Wet Media Brushes. Scroll down the thumbnails here and choose Rough Dry Brush. Set the Brush Opacity to 50% in the Options Bar.

18

Line up Now for some defining line work. Add a new layer and drag it to the very top of the layer stack. Name this layer ‘Line Work’. Now choose the Brush tool. Click in the Brush Picker and load the Thick Heavy Brushes set. Choose Smoother Round Bristle from the brush thumbnails. Reduce the Brush size to around 10-15 pixels.

Path to success Creating Paths with the Pen is a fantastic way to create flowing lines. In this project we use the Pen to add a framework of key lines to the image. The key here is to draw a collection of short paths around the outline of the figure. It’s the usual Pen technique of clicking and dragging to create smooth curves. Bear in mind that if you need the path to take a dramatic change in direction, such as here at the tip of a point, hold down the Alt key on the keyboard to chop off half of the curved point before drawing the next section of the path. Stroke each section of path separately before drawing the next.

16

Add texture Ensure that your Foreground colour is Black and paint roughly over the face with this brush onto the layer mask to add a little texture to the background.

19

Pile on the pressure Set the Brush Opacity to 100% in the Options Bar. Hit F5 to display the Brush Options and click the Shape Dynamics category. Set the Minimum Diameter slider to 40% and set the Size Jitter control to Pen Pressure, giving your tablet a bit of the action. Ensure that your Foreground Colour swatch is Black. We’ll use this brush in step 21 to stroke paths.

17

Head for the blend Choose the red-filled layer and add a new layer (Ctrl+Shift+N). Set the Blending mode for this layer to Hard Mix. Choose a bright orange for the Foreground colour. Roughly paint with the same brush at a larger size behind the girl’s head and shoulders to create more textural interest.

67

Advanced Photoshop

064-068_APM17_portrait.indd 67

27/3/06 11:40:16

Step-by-step

Workshop

20

Create a path Choose the Pen tool from the toolbar. In the Options Bar choose the Paths icon (the middle of the three icons on the left). Also, select the Add To Path icon. Make sure that you’re working on the Line Work layer and hit the tab for the Paths palette. Now, with the Pen tool, begin to carefully draw a path around a small section of the portrait’s outline.

21

Brushwork Once the short section of path is complete, right-click the current work path in the Paths palette and choose Stroke Path from the sub-menu. In the Stroke Path dialog, check Simulate Pressure and choose Brush for Tool. The path will now be stroked with the brush we set up earlier. Before moving on, click away from the Work Path in the Paths palette.

22

Adding lines Continue to add more sinuous lines by drawing paths around the edge of the head, stroking each one separately as you go. You can use as many or as few of these as you like, but try to place them well to give the whole piece a framework. For more help on drawing and stroking Paths, refer to the ‘Path to success’ boxout on page 67.

“ADD SINUOUS LINES BY DRAWING PATHS – PLACE THEM WELL TO GIVE THE PIECE A FRAMEWORK” Better safe than sorry

24

Now for the highlights Add a final new layer to the image, naming it ‘Highlights and Details’. Load the Wet Media Brushes set from the Brush Picker. From the brush thumbnails, choose Oil Medium Brush Wet Edges. Hit F5 to display Brush Options and in Other Dynamics set the Opacity Jitter Control to Pen Pressure. In Shape Dynamics set Minimum Diameter to 75%.

25

Get moody At this point, the great advantage of painting in Photoshop rather than real-world painting is that we can modify each part of the painting independently of the others. You can now use the Image>Adjustments> Hue/Saturation on each layer. By adjusting the Hue slider, you can completely transform the mood and appearance of the whole image.

23

Now for the highlights Add a final new layer to the image, naming it ‘Highlights and Details’. Load the Wet Media Brushes set from the Brush Picker. From the brush thumbnails, choose Oil Medium Brush Wet Edges. Hit F5 to display Brush Options and in Other Dynamics set the Opacity Jitter Control to Pen Pressure. In Shape Dynamics set Minimum Diameter to 75%.

Once you’ve finished an image, your final move should be to flatten the layers in the PSD image so you can save the finished piece as either a JPEG or TIFF file. But there’s a word of caution necessary here: before you flatten the image, it’s a good idea to save a version of the image with the layers intact in case you want to return to the original image at some later date to make alterations. You can easily save a layered version by going to Image>Duplicate, followed by File>Save As. Make sure to save the layered file as a PSD file, and give it a distinct title. Now close this duplicate image and return to your original file for flattening.

68

Advanced Photoshop

064-068_APM17_portrait.indd 68

27/3/06 11:40:32

Insider

Info

Smart Objects video tutorials

Work smarter with Smart Objects

One of Photoshop CS2’s most exciting additions was Smart Objects. These ‘super layers’ could revolutionise your non-destructive workflow

S

o, just what is a Smart Object? Essentially, a Smart Object allows you to embed raster or vector data inside your Photoshop documents, while preserving all the original characteristics and editability of that data. This includes raster images, Illustrator artwork, Camera Raw files, and even other Photoshop documents. Best of all, Smart Objects allow you to apply non-destructive transformations and deformations to the embedded artwork. It will give you many more creative options, allowing you to preserve the quality and clarity of the data you import – whatever you do to it!

OUR EXPERT

Trevor Morris

Trevor Morris is an official Photoshop beta tester and amateur digital photographer with more than a dozen years’ design experience. He works as a senior graphic designer for a Canadian web design company and also maintains the Photoshop-centric website GFX™ (http://user.fundy.net/morris/).

PASTE DIALOG: When pasting any vector data into Photoshop, the Paste dialog box shown below provides four options: paste as Smart Object, Pixels, Path, or Shape Layer

There are several different ways to create Smart Objects: ● To embed an external file as a Smart Object, choose File>Place. This command is only available when a document already exists in Photoshop. ● From Adobe Bridge, select a file and move along to File>Place>In Photoshop. Note that this only works with a single file at a time and, as mentioned above, a document must already exist in Photoshop. ● If the clipboard contains vector data (such as copied Illustrator artwork), simply paste the data inside Photoshop and choose Smart Object from the Paste dialog (see ‘Paste Dialog’ on the left). ● From within Photoshop, select the layer(s) to convert, Ctrl+right-click on the layer(s) in the Layers palette, and choose Group into New Smart Object (or choose Layer>Smart Objects>Group into New Smart Object from the main menus).

Flexible objects SMART OBJECT ICON: Smart Objects may be distinguished from other layers by the Smart Object icon that appears in the lower right corner of the thumbnail in the Layers palette

Now to demonstrate the flexibility offered by Smart Objects. First, select one of the aforementioned methods to create a Smart Object. For example, I opened ‘Chinese Opera.ai’ (located in the default Illustrator Sample Art folder) into Illustrator and then copied the artwork. In Photoshop, I created a new

For more information about working with Smart Objects, check out the excellent video tutorial series over at Xeler8r.com, http://xeler8r.com/ lessons/pscs2/s_objects. You’ll be working smarter, faster!

Copy and paste from Illustrator into Photoshop For greatest flexibility, make sure that both PDF and AICB (No Transparency Support) are enabled in the Illustrator’s File Handling & Clipboard preferences (Illustrator>Preferences>File Handling & Clipboard on the Mac, or Edit>Preferences>File Handling & Clipboard on the PC). document (using the default Clipboard preset size, resolution, etc) and pasted the artwork by choosing Smart Object from the Paste dialog (again, refer to the ‘Paste Dialog’ image here). When pasting (or placing) as a Smart Object, Photoshop automatically fits the artwork to the canvas. However, you may move, rotate, size, or skew (and even warp – for raster art only) the artwork prior to accepting the results. Press the Return/Enter key (or click the Commit transform icon on the Options bar) to create the Smart Object. Note the Smart Object icon that appears near the lower right corner of the thumbnail in the Layers palette (see ‘Smart Object Icon’). Press Cmd/Ctrl+T to initiate Free Transform and notice that, unlike traditional layers, all transformation/ deformation values are remembered in the Options bar. Smart Objects may also be repeatedly transformed/deformed with no degradation, because they’re always re-rendered based on the original data (see ‘Smart vs Layers’). To edit the contents of the Smart Object, simply double-click on its layer thumbnail (or choose Layer>Smart Objects>Edit Contents). This will open the data for editing in the appropriate application, as follows: ● Raster artwork, including embedded

raster files, native Photoshop layers and/ or groups, as well as other nested Smart Objects, are opened in a separate document window inside of Photoshop. ● Embedded Camera Raw files are opened with the Camera Raw plug-in. ● Vector data, including files such as PDF and Illustrator artwork, are opened with Illustrator. Upon save, any changes made to the Smart Object will be updated in the main document (for all ‘instances’). To export the contents of a Smart Object, Ctrl+right-click and choose Export Contents from the Layers palette context menu (or Layer>Smart Objects>Export Contents). The Smart Object is saved in PSB format for raster data, or AI format for vector data. Alternatively, you can also double-click to edit the Smart Object’s contents and then choose File>Save As from the host application. There’s also a Replace Contents command (Layer>Smart Objects>Replace Contents), which, as the name implies, lets you replace the contents of a Smart Object (and all ‘instances’) with another document.

In an instance For those of you who are familiar with Macromedia Flash (now Adobe Flash), Smart Objects are akin to ‘instances’ in

“SMART OBJECTS ARE ARGUABLY THE COOLEST THING TO HAPPEN TO PHOTOSHOP SINCE LAYERS” 70

Advanced Photoshop

070_071_APM17_smartobjects.indd 70

27/3/06 11:23:53

iqu es Te ch n

INSIDER INFO

Twice as effective Smart Objects can also be used to apply two or more of the same kind of layer effect to a single layer: for example, two drop-shadows, three strokes, etc. To do this, apply a layer style, as you normally would, then group the layer into a Smart Object. Now apply the second style to the Smart Object. Repeat this procedure as often as you like, but understand that this trick has its limitations, and may not always produce quite the desired results.

SMART VS LAYERS: In this example, the same Illustrator artwork was pasted into Photoshop two times: once as a Smart Object (left), and once as a raster object (right). Each was scaled to 10% of its original size, then increased to 150%. Note the degradation of the raster object, while the Smart Object looks flawless

that they let you create cloned copies of an object, and when you update one of the cloned objects they’re all updated simultaneously. This is especially useful for web and interface design, where you might have multiple buttons based on a template. Consider, for example, a tabbed interface where a tab may be comprised of one or more layers, with associated styles, blending modes, opacities and so on. Using the new multi-layer selection capabilities in CS2, you could select the layers and combine them into a single Smart Object – you can even nest other Smart Objects. This tab could then be duplicated any number of times, allowing you to update all instances simultaneously based on the changes made to any one of the tabs. To create a duplicate of a Smart Object that isn’t ‘linked’ to the original, choose New Smart Object Via Copy from the Layers palette context menu (or choose Layer>Smart Objects>New Smart Object Via Copy). Any changes made to the copy will not affect the original Smart Object, and vice versa.

Although Smart Objects are arguably the coolest thing to happen to Photoshop since the addition of layers (added back in version 3), they’re not without compromise.

Smart obstacles The first obstacle you’re likely to encounter with Smart Objects is that, like Shape Layers and Type layers, they must be rasterized before you can apply filters to them. You can either acknowledge the warning dialog – in which case Photoshop will rasterize the Smart Object for you – or choose Layer>Smart Objects>Convert To Layer (or Layer>Rasterize>Smart Object). Either way, the Smart Object is converted to a regular layer and the Smart Object thumbnail disappears. (Be sure to duplicate your Smart Objects prior to rasterizing them!) Another thing to be aware of is that styles and blending modes applied to layers inside Smart Objects don’t always interact properly with layers in the parent document. Similarly, styles

applied to Smart Objects are applied with no regard for the objects contained within the Smart Object. Finally, note that there’s no Ungroup Smart Object command; in order to release the contents of a Smart Object back, you must first open the Smart Object and then drag and drop the contents back in the main document. We’re sure that these issues will be addressed in future versions of Photoshop, but for now we think that they’re minor in comparison to the benefits offered by employing Smart Objects into your workflow. 5

OBSTACLES: On the left is a regular Shape Layer, and on the right it is grouped into a Smart Object. Modes applied to layers inside Smart Objects don’t always interact properly

PSD vs PSB When you double-click to open or edit a raster-based Smart Object, you may have noticed that it’s opened as a PSB document. PSB is a Large Document Format that supports twice as many channels, and 100-times larger document sizes than the traditional PSD format. All Photoshop features are preserved in PSB files, but they’re only supported by Photoshop CS and higher. To save a new document as a PSB, you must turn on Enable Large Document (Photoshop>Preferences>File Handling on the Mac, or Edit>Preferences>File Handling on the PC). However, existing PSBs (such as Smart Objects) may be opened and saved without enabling the Large Document option.

71

Advanced Photoshop

070_071_APM17_smartobjects.indd 71

27/3/06 11:24:18

Furry Rubik’s NAME: J Michael Kriz

There’s no resting on your laurels where the competitive Photoshop crew is concerned! Here we’ve collected together some of the top creative offerings from fellow imageers

Because Mike took the picture of the source image himself, he was able to mess up the Rubik’s Cube in such a way that all the colours were distributed to his liking. “Each colour block is well-defined, so with my Magic Wand tool I selected one of the colour blocks and copied and pasted the selection on a new layer,” explains Mike. “I wanted to make sure there was some definition to the hair at the base, so I added some Noise at about 25-30% (with the Monochromatic box checked to keep the colour in the same tone).” He then used the Eyedropper tool to select two colours in the right tonal range, using a lighter colour for the foreground and a darker colour for the background. “With my Smudge tool set very soft with about 15-20% pressure, I dragged the colours out until they looked like little hairs at the base. Then I selected a brush that I thought would make good longer hair. Luckily, there is one called Dune Brush that ended up working perfectly, as it incorporates both the foreground and background colours, giving depth to the hairs. I painted in the hair until I was satisfied and erased any parts that looked awkward.” The process was repeated for each colour block, as well as for the shadow. “I used a new layer for each block so I could arrange them at the end, making sure the blocks at the foreground overlapped those in the background.”

P

ictures may tell a thousand words, but sometimes you need a thousand words just to get to the bottom of a picture. Here we look at strange and interesting images created by readers and artists and discover how they were executed and the problems encountered along the way. Many of the images featured this issue have been specially selected from the Worth1000 website (www.worth1000.com), a Photoshop contest site, and demonstrate a diverse range of techniques that you’ll find useful in your own work. Like what you see? Then read the accompanying rubric, which details how the image was created. If you’d like to see your own work on these pages, please send us your JPEGs to [email protected] and we’ll get back to you if we want to print them.

You’ll stand a better chance of seeing your work in print if you adhere to the following criteria: make sure that your images are high-quality TIFFs or JPEGs (RGB or CMYK), 300dpi minimum, and can be printed at 15cm x 15cm minimum. Don’t forget to include a small text file detailing how you created your work, too.

72

Advanced Photoshop

072-075_APM17_peersp.indd 72

27/3/06 10:55:28

iqu es Te ch n Nicotine Fairy NAME: Ivo van der Ent SOURCE: Original photo from www.istockphoto.com “After gaining permission from the great photographer Graham Jeffery to let me use this source for my creation I was able to set about starting my image,” artist Ivo van der Ent explains. “I began by using the Liquifying tool in various ways to stretch and shape the smoke into the body of a man. This is the most elaborate and time-consuming part of the process. It’s like drawing, not with ink but with the white and grey parts from the original image. I didn’t add colour,” Ivo explains. “I just used what was already there, just moving it around.” The final stage involved making the man-shaped smoke become more than just a mere silhouette, as Ivo explains: “I used a real image of a head and blended it in with high transparency.”

Needle NAME: Randy McSorley SOURCE: Original photo from www.istockphoto.com “Sometimes, hair grows where you least expect it,” enthuses Randy McSorley, the artist behind this hairy piece, which is simple yet effective. “I used a macro photo of a needle, and, with the help of Photoshop CS2 and a Wacom Intuos2 tablet, made hair sprout from metal.” He began by creating a new layer and naming it ‘hair’. “Then I choose the Smudge tool at 84% strength, Normal blend and Sample All Layers checked. With the stylus and a very small brush, about 2 pixels, I chose the dark edges of the needle, and lightly flicked the dark areas outward in a more or less random fashion to simulate hair.” What must have seemed like a million strokes later, “the dark areas were hirsute, but the shiny metal areas were still not. So, I created a new layer and named it ‘additional hair’. This time, I used a soft-edged regular brush and varied the colour from dark brown to black.” Many strokes later and we are introduced to McSorley’s very hairy needle.

73

Advanced Photoshop

072-075_APM17_peersp.indd 73

24/3/06 17:27:21

Discover the thinking behind the art

Grape Fly NAME: Gavin Haywood SOURCE: Original image from www.sxc.hu After collating his source imagery – a bunch of grapes and a fly – Gavin set about masking the fly and pasting it on the grape. He used the same image of a fly for each occurrence. “I then set the opacity level of the layer to around 20%,” he explains. “Next, I selected the layer, flattened the image, and then contracted the selection by five pixels.” And the transparent look of the fly? “I darkened the layer with the paint bucket set at 20% and this was repeated twice.” Finally, Gavin made the umbilical cord using the Path tool: “Gaussian Blur was used last to even out the entire look.”

Baseball Chair NAME: Tom Schulzki “The first thing I had to did was find good picture of a baseball glove, but what to do with it? It took one hour of looking – staring – into this picture until my idea was born: combine this glove with a leather chair! To combine the two sources wasn’t very difficult,” Tom explains. “The lighting, perspective and the leather surface matched in such a way that one can think they really belong together.” The first thing Tom had to do was to change the properties of the chair in order to match the glove. “It was only the upper section, the leather section, I needed to change. The wooden part on the bottom was the second major part. I used the rubber tool and carefully erased the areas where my two sources met each other. This part was nearly 90 per cent of the work, the other ten per cent was spent shadowing and blending.” However, that footless chair was not the end result, “The feet of the original chair were only 40 per cent visible because parts were hidden by another chair standing in front of it. Because of this I used the parts that were not hidden and created whole feet with coping, resizing, recolouring, shadowing and cloning until nice wooden feet were produced.”

74

Advanced Photoshop

072-075_APM17_peersp.indd 74

24/3/06 17:27:42

iqu es Te ch n Money To Burn NAME: Deschain “I started off by arranging bits and pieces of the currency in the general spots I thought they would end up. I then erased the un-needed, overlapping sections,” explains Deschain. Next, he made everything but the cigarette layer invisible, then duplicated it and gave it a Gaussian Blur of 2.5. This was then saved as a displacement map. “Next I deleted the blurred copy of the cigarette layer and made all of the layers visible again. After this I went on to select the money layers one at a time, and ran Filter>Distort>Displace for each, selecting my displacement map when prompted.” Once this was done, Deschain lowered the opacity of the money layers and ran Edit>Transform>Warp, which rolled the edges of the newly displaced currencies to match the shape of the cigarette. “Then I masked out any part of the money that wasn’t covering a part of the cigarette or the ashes.” Finally, the opacity of the money was raised back to 100% and the Layer Style changed to Soft Light. “I then flattened the image, ran a Levels adjustment to what looked good and applied an Unsharp Mask at about 80.”

Giants NAME: Fritz Bonjernoor “This was really a very simple image to make,” Fritz, aka Furitisu, says. “There are really just the two images here. I started with the whales, which were cut out with a layer mask. Then I connected a colour layer to the whales with Alt-click.” Next, Fritz turned his attention to the space image. “I colour-picked some surrounding hues from the space image and airbrushed over portions of the whales to let them blend into the background more. On top I created a new layer to airbrush some lights from the stars over their tails and fins. For a final touch I made a duplicate of the document and experimented with some noise, a bit of Gaussian blur and then some Unsharp masking, because the two source images were of different resolution and quality.”

75

Advanced Photoshop

072-075_APM17_peersp.indd 75

24/3/06 17:27:59

Helpdesk Facing a creative conundrum in Photoshop? Check out our latest batch of problem-busting tips

BY ANDY STEWART

BALANCING ACT Frequently, I find myself having to adjust the colour balance of my digital photos to make the tones appear a little more realistic. I don’t know whether I keep setting the wrong White Balance values on my camera, but most of my shots turn out looking either too warm or too cold. Is there an easy way to fix this? Any help would be appreciated! Josh Pinker, Cardiff Unfortunately, even with today’s sophisticated digicams it’s all too easy to muck up a photo with incorrect White Balance settings. If your shots are demonstrating an unnatural colour cast, chances are that they were captured at the wrong colour temperature. The easiest way to stop this is to manually set your camera’s white balance setting, or by shooting in RAW mode, if at all possible, so you can tweak your white balance settings using Photoshop’s RAW plug-in facility. However, when it comes to fixing existing shots that are too warm or too cold, Photoshop can help. One of the quickest and methods is to use a Photo Filter Adjustment Layer. Open up the image, select Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Photo Filter and pick one of the warming or cooling options from the Filter list.

AUTO ARCHIVING I’m in the process of transferring all my old 6x4 photos to digital by scanning them in and saving them in Photoshop. So far, I’ve been scanning each photo in separately, but is there is a way I could scan multiple photos at a time and quickly crop them into individual files? I’ve bought a high-res scanner that can scan A4-size sheets, so there’s room enough for at least a few photos per scan. Darren Hoyle, Leeds

BALANCING ACT: If your photography skills aren’t up to

scratch, Photo Filter can rescue your shot

Scanning in multiple photos at a time is indeed the fastest way of digitising a large image collection. In the past, the quickest way to separate the photos once they were scanned in was to use the Crop tool to manually cut them out. Now, though, the process is much easier with Photoshop’s Crop and Straighten Photos tool. All you need to do is scan in some photos in a single pass, load the file and hit File>Automate>Crop and Straighten Photos. Photoshop will analyse the image then chop out and straighten each photo automatically.

LEAVE IT TO THE PROFESSIONAL: Drag your glossies kicking and screaming into the 21st century with a little help from Photoshop’s Automate engine

LAYERS LICKED When I’m building up illustrations, I often find that I need to apply the same filter or effect to a number of different layers. Doing this individually always takes some time, so is there a way that I can select multiple layers at once for editing? Keith Matherson, Leicester There is indeed. With Photoshop CS2’s Layers palette, there are a couple of ways that you can select multiple layers. You can select consecutive layers by holding down Shift and clicking on each item in turn. Alternatively, you can select non-consecutive layers by holding down the Ctrl key while clicking in the layer stack.

78

Advanced Photoshop

078-079_APM17_Helpd.indd 78

24/3/06 17:23:56

iqu es Te ch n SPIN ME ROUND Like most photographers, when I’m out on a shoot I tend to capture a mixture of portrait and landscape-orientated shots. This means that one of the first things I need to do when I get home and get the images onto my computer is flip them around so that they are at the correct orientation. I know how to do this on an individual basis in Photoshop, but is there a quick way that I can select multiple shots in a folder and flip them around all at once? Billy Backman, Liverpool The quickest way to achieve multiple image rotations is to use the tools available in Adobe Bridge. Once the photos have been copied over from the camera onto your computer, load Photoshop and click on the Go To Bridge button on the Options bar. Navigate to the folder containing the photos and Ctrl-click on each picture you want to rotate. Once they’ve been selected, all you need to do is hit one of the Rotate 90° buttons at the top of the interface to spin the photographs around. Now, the next time you open up the images in Photoshop they will automatically flip to the correct orientation.

TIF TERRORS I read in your magazine a while ago that if you want to ensure that your digital artwork retains all of its detail when you save, it’s best to save the file in the TIF format. So, I thought I’d give it a try during one of my photo editing sessions and saved the image I was working on in this format. But the next time I opened up the TIF image file, there was obvious corruption and some of the detail had been lost. Why is this happening? Ken Scott, Taunton It sounds like you’ve been saving your picture with compression. When you ask Photoshop to save an image in the TIF format, it pops up a dialog box in which you can specify if you want to use compression, which helps keep the file size down. To ensure that all image detail is preserved, make sure you select NONE in the Image Compression field at the top of the window.

LAYER ACHE: If you unlock the background layer you’ll find that you have much more freedom, especially if you’re working with a multitude of layers. To choose a new layer as a locked background, head to Layer>New>Background From Layer

LOAD AND LOCK I’ve recently started messing around with drawing pixel art in Photoshop, and I’ve started to develop a method of building up images by designing objects on separate layers. This gives me much more control when I come to move things around, because I don’t have to mess around with cutting things out, making the whole process far more streamlined. However, this method means that I keep having to alter the layer I’m using as a background, and once I’ve unlocked the default Background Layer, I can’t find a way of re-locking it. Can you help? Eleanor Connell, Dorchester In many instances, Photoshop’s knack of locking the background layer is a nuisance. Indeed, one of the first things that many pixel-manglers do once an image has loaded is double-click this layer to unlock it. However, there is a way of selecting a new layer as a locked background. Just click on the layer that you want to use as the background in the Layers palette, then hit Layer>New>Background From Layer.

CANVAS CONUNDRUM When I come to expand a canvas in Photoshop, I often find it difficult to work out exactly how many pixels I need to add on top of the dimensions that are already entered in the Width and Height fields. Any tips on how to make this a bit easier on the brain? Gem Stokely, Brighton The easiest way to increase the size of a canvas is to use the Relative command in the Canvas Size dialog. Once you tick this option, you’re then free to just enter the amount of pixels you want to increase the canvas by, instead of having to try and add on the value to the existing dimensions. You can also use the Anchor arrows to tell Photoshop to which edge of the canvas you want to add the new pixels.

HELPDESK CALL FOR QUESTIONS Want help with your Photoshop problems? Then let our team of experts sort you out. Send your emails to us at: [email protected]

OPEN UP A DIALOG: Choosing not to compress your images will leave you the maximum quality to work with

Remember to specify whether you are using a PC or Mac and the version number of your edition of Photoshop.

79

Advanced Photoshop

078-079_APM17_Helpd.indd 79

24/3/06 17:24:20

cam eras

PHOTO SHOPPING Do you want to be a creative all-rounder? Then take a quick glance at this round up of the best digital cameras on the market

F

or a Photoshop artist, far too much time is taken up hunting high and low for original pieces of art to include in illustrations, or to use as the basis for a bigger project. If images are found on a stock art site, not only do you have to worry about extra costs but you also run the risk of spotting your original image in someone else’s handiwork. An instant dent to your Photoshop kudos. It can be invaluable to be able to take your own source images and build up a digital library on your Hard Drive, from which you can pick suitable shots as you need them. If you’re using your own digital images you may think that you don’t have to be concerned with image quality, especially if you’re going to manipulate them at a later stage. However, it’s far better to start off with an image that’s of prime quality. You won’t be doing your projects any favours using a low-res camera that has been in your possession since the dawn of the digital age. A new model will not only give you the chance to capture large, higher resolution images, but will also give you the opportunity to experiment with features and settings to give you the most creative end result. Okay, so surely we’ve talked you into kitting yourself out with a digital camera by now? But

YOU’LL NEED TO MAKE SURE THAT YOUR CAMERA HAS PUNCH

the prospect of buying a new model is a bit like walking into a newsagent’s and being greeted by a wall full of sweets. There’s so much to choose from, and when you’ve taken the final leap are you going to worry that you’ve bought the wrong model? The most important thing to ask yourself is what you will be using the camera for. Because your images will be used for commercial purposes or large-scale projects, you will need to make sure that your camera model has punch. Not only will this give you the opportunity to work with large images without any restrictions on your final product’s size, but it will also ensure that you don’t end up working with images that are of poor quality or spoilt by noise. This in no way means that you have to spend thousands on buying the biggest and bulkiest pieces of kit. It could be more important that you’re able to pop your camera into your pocket, so it’s on hand and you also have the ease of automatic functions so you can quickly point and shoot without fiddling with manual functions.

Compact All compact cameras will have an automatic setting, so you don’t have to worry about the technicalities of choosing the correct settings. They might also give you the option of valuable shooting modes to help you take night shots, portraits or landscapes, among a few. The quality of compact cameras nowadays is pretty astounding, and you can achieve images of a high resolution. This can be a very good option if you’re not familiar with the workings of a camera and would prefer to make the most out of user-

friendly controls and menu options. It’s also a perfect option if you only want to take rough snaps as a basis for your artwork.

Prosumer The word prosumer covers quite a small area of the market. Literally meaning ‘professional/ consumer’, this category includes models that have more scope for manual settings than a compact, but without the option for alternating lenses. The response of a prosumer camera is slightly slower than a SLR. You can pick up a great piece of kit at a reasonable price, but it does seem as though this brand is deteriorating as cheaper SLR cameras come onto the market. If you’re keen to spend this much money on a camera you may find yourself better off purchasing a SLR.

SLR SLR (single lens reflex) cameras are an essential piece of kit for those who are keen to produce highly professional images and have control over their photographic capture. The benefits of using a digital SLR are complete reign over shooting with fully manual settings, large file sizes with good resolution and the option for swapping and changing camera lenses. SLRs can reach staggering asking prices. However, the good news is that more and more budget SLRs are entering the camera market and so it’s now an affordable option. A good-quality SLR will be an invaluable accessory for any serious imageer and although it can mean forking out anything up to £5,000, you’ll find that these models keep their value for quite a considerable amount of time.

80

Advanced Photoshop

080-083_APM17_camera.indd 80

28/3/06 14:11:26

Hardware

ROUND UP

Digital cameras: the cream of the crop

jargon

The digital camera industry is full of terms with which you may not be familiar. It’s a good idea to swot up on the technical issues before you make any decisions on buying a model.

Konica Minolta Dynax 5D SRP: £490 (with kit lens) Megapixels (effective): 6.3 Max resolution: 3008 x 2000 Zoom: Depends on lens Weight: 590g Dimensions: 130.5 x 92.5 x 66.5mm Website: www.konicaminolta.co.uk Contact: 0870 242 1222

Megapixels

Resolution will be a prime concern, as you will want your original photographs to be of optimum quality. On a camera, resolution is measured in megapixels. A higher megapixel value will give you larger images, sharper colours and finer details. For good-quality Photoshop work you will need to treat yourself to a model that’s capable of seven megapixels or more. If you tend to use your images only as a basis for tracing, or will be applying drastic filter effects, you can get away with a lower resolution.

Kodak EasyShare V570 SRP: £299 Megapixels (effective): 5 Max resolution: 2690 x 1995 Zoom: 5x optical, 4x digital Weight: 125g Dimensions: 101 x 49.8 x 20.4mm Website: www.kodak.com Contact: 0870 243 0270

Digital zoom

Take a look at the specifications of any camera and you may find that the zoom is given in two different quotes – optical and/or digital zoom. A Photoshop professional who intends to use their own digital images in their work should avoid capturing a shot with a digital zoom like the plague. Unlike optical zoom, which captures a closer image by using the lens, digital zoom artificially magnifies area of your image by expanding and cropping the photo in your LCD screen. This causes the resolution of your photograph to diminish, giving you an image that looks pixellated with very little detail.

The Konica Minolta has entered the SLR market with the 5D. It’s competitively priced, and it’s easy to kit yourself up with a stack of accessories and lenses available. Don’t be put off by the price. There are plenty of features to keep control freaks happy. Image quality is generally good with the 5D, but the metering tends to be overcautious, often creating muted and underexposed shots. This might be a bit of a chore if you want to quickly dive into your image creation. This is a great option if you want to become accustomed to the SLR market and will only occasionally use your camera for odd jobs. Perfect too, if you’re only working with a small budget.

It may be your priority to be able to carry a camera around with you at all times without being bogged down by heavy kit. The stylish Kodak V570 is a great compact camera with a stack of features. It’s the world’s first dual-lens camera, squeezing an ultra wide-angle 23mm lens and a 39-117mm optical zoom lens into a sleek and sturdy black compact body. The camera captures images with a resolution of 5MP, which is adequate for most basic imaging tasks. A real treat for those who are keen to create original artwork is a feature that allows you to capture a 180-degree vista – the images are then stitched together on-camera with very reasonable results. You may find that you need to heal some areas, but overall the end results are pretty accurate. Fashion-conscious office workers will be pleased with the bundled photo frame dock, which allows you to safely place your camera on your desk and scroll through images with a slideshow.

Nikon D50

SRP: £380 (body only) £499 (kit) Megapixels (ef fective): 6.1 Max resolutio n: 2256x1496 Zoom: Depend s on lens Weight: 540g Dimensions: 1133x102x76mm Website: www.n ikon.co.uk Contact: 0845 450 0155

It’s pretty asto unding that yo u can get a digital SLR for this price. The Nikon D50 is th perfect camer e a to introduce high-end photography te chniques to th ose moving from compact digicams for th e first time. It takes some fant astic images w ith good resolution and plenty of deta il. It’s a good st model for thos arting e who aren’t th at accustomed and scene mod to photograph es. There’s only y, with plenty a resolution of of automatic may not be th 6.1 ef fective m e right option egapixels, how if you need to w ever, so this It’s of a good st ork with large urdy build and file sizes. is a reliable mod But if you are ex el with plenty perienced with of scope for ac high-end cam uses quite quick cessories. eras you may fin ly. d that you outg row its

Under £500

Cut the

ROUND UP

Whatever your budget there’s a camera for you. Save your browsing time with our pick of the best models around, from bargain SLRs to pedigree pro shooters

81

Advanced Photoshop

080-083_APM17_camera.indd 81

28/3/06 14:11:38

cam eras Samsung Pro 815 The Samsung Pro 815 looks like a traditional DSLR but has a fixed lens of 28-420mm (35mm equivalent), which is handy if you want to shoot subjects from a distance without having to worry about swapping lenses. It’s hard not to be impressed by the Samsung’s astounding lens size, and it’s of a good, solid construction. There is a very impressive 3.5-inch LCD screen on the back, plus a 1.44-inch LCD on the top and an electronic viewfinder. The zoom is controlled by a manual ring, rather than a zoom lever, which, although a little tricky to get to grips with, is very precise, and perfect for those who are accustomed to using a film SLR. There are a few let-downs here, namely the limited shutter speed options and the tendency to produce noisy shots in challenging conditions. The reasonable £550 street price makes it a good option for those who are considering an upgrade from a compact camera.

Olympus E-500 SRP: £588 Megapixels (effective): 8 Max resolution: 3264 x 2448 Zoom: Depends on lens Weight: 435g Dimensions: 129.5 x 94.5 x 66mm Website: www.olympus.co.uk Contact: 0207 253 2772

The Olympus E-500 sits at the beginner’s end of the digital SLR market and offers good resolutions and manual features for a reasonable price. There are the common scene modes and a good automatic mode for imageers who want quick results without the technical know-how, while fully manual options are easily accessed and changed from within the intuitive menu system. The camera is capable of capturing RAW images, which can later be manipulated for perfect end results using the RAW features in Photoshop. Image quality is remarkable, with very little barrel distortion and excellent colour reproduction and saturation. Noise is only evident in shots taken at high ISO settings, but this is no more than is average for the class.

Sony Cyber-shot R1 SRP: £650 tive): 10.3 Megapixels (effec 8 x 2592 Max resolution: 388 l, ica opt 5x : Zoom 10x precision digital

Weight: 995g 168 x 97mm Dimensions: 139 x Website: www.sony.co.uk 1999 Contact: 0870 511

on a non-SLR ge of ISO settings has the widest ran R1 ny So g of lighting kin ay rea The groundb re images in an arr portunity to captu op ol over your the u ntr yo co r ing ate camera, giv files, giving you gre B RG e ob n an SLR Ad ts or pp er model rather tha situations. It also su Sony R1 is a prosum the h ality is ug qu ho e Alt ag Im nt. al control. colour manageme portunity for manu n and tio tor dis l there’s plenty of op rre ba , with no noticeable LR DS y an as od as go on the highest els of noise, even very acceptable lev ISO setting. framing a breeze, kes shooting and ma D LC le ng e-a fre The ut having to crane frame a shot witho to r sie ea it g kin ma composition. around for a good very tures of the R1 is the One of the best fea tion. With olu res ective megapixel impressive 10.3 eff ly large ive ess pr im re u can captu this little beauty yo at xibility a very u extra creative fle images, giving yo int. reasonable price po

Camera

Jargon

ROUND UP

Under £1,000

SRP: £550 Megapixels (effective): 8 Max resolution: 3264 x 2448 Zoom: 15x Weight: 870.5g Dimensions: 135.5 x 87 x 78.6mm Website: www.samsungcamera.co.uk Contact: 0870 242 0303

THE 5D’S RESULTS ARE INCREDIBLE FOR A CAMERA THAT’S ON THE MARKET FOR LESS THAN £2,000

There are so many different technical terms banded around the digital SLR market. Here are the main definitions you need to know: MEGAPIXELS: The measurement of resolution. Each megapixel consists of one million pixels. You measure the horizontal resolution by the vertical. SLR: Single Lens Reflex- this means that the camera’s viewfinder uses the same mirror as the camera’s lens. Great for accurate, speedy photography as what you see is what you get. FOCAL LENGTH: The distance measured in millimetres between the lens and the focal plane if your camera. As the focal length increases, the field of view decreases.

82

Advanced Photoshop

080-083_APM17_camera.indd 32

28/3/06 14:11:49

Hardware

SRP: £1,199 Megapixels (effective): 10.2 Max resolution: 3872 x 2592 Zoom: Depends on lens Weight: 830g Dimensions: 147 x 113 x 74mm Website: www.nikon.co.uk Contact: 0845 450 0155

Canon EOS 5D Nikon’s new pro-level DSLR gives users the chance to capture great resolution images at a very reasonable price. Image quality is the name of the game with this model, and Nikon has developed a very reliable piece of kit with a newly developed sensor that incorporates a four-channel data output system and a new filter, meaning that images should be free of moiré and colour fringing. There’s a phenomenal lack of noise in shots taken with this camera – perfect if you’re keen to take low light images and will reduce the need for meddling with the Gaussian Blur or Reduce Noise filters. We think that this is the perfect option for those who are willing to splash a little cash, and it will be guaranteed to stand the test of time.

FujiFilm F30 SRP: TBA Megapixels (effective): 6.3 Zoom: 3x optical LCD: 2.5-inch Website: www.fujifilm.co.uk Contact: 0870 084 1310

SRP: £1,900 Megapixels (effective): 12.8 Max resolution: 4368 x 2912 Zoom: Depends on lens Weight: 810g Dimensions: 152 x 113 x 75mm Website: www.canon.co.uk Contact: 0870 514 3723

The EOS 5D is a superb piece of kit. Packing 12.8 megapixels, a soft touch shutter release, fast write times and minimal shutter lag, this is a great camera for photographers on the go who need quick results. The images captured are superb, with high colour saturation and amazingly accurate reproduction of fine detail – an essential attribute for studio work. Noise is barely evident – the Canon 5D is above average for the class in this respect. The EOS 5D’s first-class results are pretty incredible for a camera that’s on the market for less than £2,000, and it would be both a valuable asset for any studio and a reliable camera for any artist who wants to take their photography seriously.

Canon EOS 30D Based on the highly successful FujiFilm F10, the F30 is the world’s first camera to offer sensitivity levels of up to ISO 3200. This gives you the chance to capture images in low-light conditions. You’ll be a master of the night with a new ‘intelligent’ flash system that uses the camera’s sensitivity to combine natural foreground illumination with balanced exposure in the background. Most importantly, you can rely on the F30 for shooting power, with a battery that’s capable of a generous 500 images.

SRP: TBA Megapixels (effective): 8.2 Zoom: Depends on lens LCD: 2.5-inch Website: www.canon.co.uk Contact: 0870 514 3723

The recently announced Canon EOS 30D (not to be confused with the six-year-old Canon D30!) will be sure to make some waves in the photographic world, and will be the perfect addition for any studio setup. The camera is still in its very early stages, but we can tell you that it will have a lower asking price than its predecessor, the EOS 20D, along with a larger monitor size of 2.5 inches, a 100,000-shot shutter cycle, touch-soft shutter release button and advanced PictureStyles for total image control. Set some money aside now.

Hot new models…

Nikon D200

£1,000 and over

ROUNDUP

83

Advanced Photoshop

080-083_APM17_camera.indd 83

29/3/06 11:17:02

resources

Let us do the searching

We bring you the best resources around to enhance your Photoshop experience

DEAD FAMOUS: How imaging wizardry brought back the Dodo PAGE 91

Recom mends

books

90

Be inspired, awed and impressed with our pick of the most creative titles

plug-ins

92

Extend your imaging kit and make Photoshop work a little harder

portfolios

94

Show the world your creative prowess with our collection of the best sites

T

his issue we delve deeper into the varied and valuable world of Photoshop resources than ever before. There may be the chance to develop and enhance your Photoshop skills with our insight into some of the most useful publications on the shelves at the moment. If some of these take your fancy, you may want to make use of our exclusive discount offer. We’ve teamed up with Ilex Press Ltd to give Advanced Photoshop readers astounding savings on every Ilex book featured. For more information, head to www.ilex-press.com/ apm. Plug-ins can give you so many possibilities for creative image production and here we show you the Internet’s indispensable downloads, from handy freeware versions to the more cash-consuming. Getting your work out into the public arena is the most important task for any serious digital artist, but finding the right place to do this can be a challenge. We’ve done some legwork for you and found the very best portfolio sites – submit your designs to these and you stand a better chance of getting a commission.

85

Advanced Photoshop

085_APM17_resources.indd 85

27/3/06 11:08:31

resources

Adobe Lightroom

Make room on your desktop for the latest update designed to kill off Aperture, Lightroom

With Lightroom Adobe has upped the stakes, bringing us a slick image-handler that belies its beta status. So can it leave competing programs in the shade? System requirements Macintosh OS X 10.4.3 1GHz PowerPC G4 processor 768MB RAM 1024x768 resolution screen Further info: www.adobe.co.uk

T

he recent release of Apple Aperture gave users a more complete control over the workflow of digital images and overshadowed the now-familiar Adobe Bridge. It gave us the potential to manage our digital files and create a more fluid and professional workflow. Adobe isn’t one to be left in the backdrop for long, so it’s with bated breath that we’ve been waiting for the response. The good news is that it’s pretty much here. The unveiling of Adobe Lightroom took place early in 2005. One year on and it’s a program that’s still not available as a full product. However, the recently developed Adobe Lightroom Beta 2 is available for download now and gives users the chance to sample the delights of this software program, which offers a multitude of digital delicacies for the serious artist. The beta version

we’re looking at is only available for Macintosh users at the moment, but it will later support both the Windows and Macintosh platforms. Adobe Lightroom Beta will drastically develop over the coming months and it’s very much a work in progress. For those of you who are too impatient to wait for the final result and would like to become familiar with the workings of Lightroom as soon as possible, the next few pages are for you. Adobe is encouraging photographers and digital artists to try out the beta version of Lightroom and relay back comments. Modules and features are likely to change depending on customers’ preference and priorities, so you can’t really have your say unless you’ve had a try. Let’s have a look at some of the main features so far and see what Lightroom has to offer.

86

Advanced Photoshop

086-089_APM17_lightroom.indd 86

27/3/06 10:58:01

resources

RELOCATION, RELOCATION: You have complete control over your file management with Lightroom, as it offers plenty of scope for renaming and relocating images

BROWSING THE LIBRARY: Quickly browse through your entire library, special collections or recently uploaded shots with the Photo Library palette

KEY WORDING: Make sure your keyword entries are thorough and precise. You will need to rely on these to find your images using the search facility

Adobe Lightroom has the power to do so much more than Adobe Bridge, which by comparison does really seem now like a glorified file browser. There are plenty of opportunities to import, select, develop and showcase your digital images. The program is designed to assist an artist only when it’s needed and so much of Lightroom’s success relies upon the ability to dive in, adjust shots or catalogue them for presentation and then hide the program so you can get on with your design work unhindered. It does this very well at the moment, and although you can expect a few hiccups with a beta version, it’s an impressive achievement to be able to scroll through large files sizes without being hindered by a sluggish load-up time.

found at the top of the left palette, helps you to locate files and sort them into different collections. Show Entire Library will present all of the files you have imported into Lightroom or have created links for, Show Quick Collection brings up a small batch of selected thumbnails and should be thought of as a temporary catalogue, while Show Previous Import only displays the images that were recently added to Lightroom. Once images have been imported, it will pay to work through your files and assign keywords and

ratings. You can then use the Browse functions to find files. It’s initially quite time-consuming, but will help once you have imported a number of collections. If keywords have been entered into the Quick Develop palette you will see that they then appear in the Browse Keywords palette. If images have already been tagged in Adobe Bridge then these will automatically be transferred over into Lightroom. This also applies to ratings, which can be used to trim down your searches using the Minimum Rating slider. Imagine you’ve

Starting up The first thing to do with Adobe Lightroom Beta is import your files, rename them and tag them with important shooting information. There are no fussy menu controls with which to dabble, as all it takes is a quick press of File>New>New Collection/New Shoot (Opt+N or Shift+Opt+N). You have complete control over file handling with this method. Not only do you get to name your collection using a bulk rename option but you can also decide on whether your files are permanently moved to the library location, copied or just linked with reference files. Lightroom is split up into four different areas, so it’s very easy to concentrate on one task at the click of a button. Hovering your mouse over the upper area of the main workspace allows you to alternate between interfaces.

“BETA 2 GIVES USERS THE CHANCE TO SAMPLE THE DELIGHTS OF THIS PROGRAM” EASY MANIPULATION: The setup of Adobe Lightroom is fluid; you can quickly alter the view of your images to show either one image, a collection of thumbnails or a few shots for comparison

Into the Library The Library is a good base from which to get to grips with your catalogue content and arrangement, and it’s here that you can assign keywords or rate your files, making the selection process a lot easier later on. The Photo Library,

87

Advanced Photoshop

086-089_APM17_lightroom.indd 87

24/3/06 17:36:55

resources

Adobe Lightroom

precision editing: You can perfect your image using the precise slider controls to alter Grayscale Mixing, Split Toning, HSL Color Tuning, Detail, Lens Corrections and Camera Calibration – that should save you working on unnecessary problems in Photoshop

Panel beaters: If you want to get rid of the clutter of the panels around the image, press the Tab key while in Loupe or Compare view. F5 can then be used to hide the options at the top of the window, while F6 will show just the image

uploaded 50 collections into Lightroom. Finding the required shot might be an arduous task if you have to trudge through stack of images, but once keywords have been applied you can immediately display appropriate shots by entering words into the Search panel. One of the most impressive things about Adobe Lightroom is the ease with which you can adjust the layout of the program to suit your image control. There’s no need to browse through numerous thumbnails if you are only interested in a few selected files. Grid view can be used like a standard file browser and gives you a basic overview of all the files within a collection. You can select specific images with a simple click of the mouse and then select Loupe to see a larger version, or scroll through different thumbnail options using the left or right arrow keys. The real nifty feature comes into play when you select numerous thumbnails with a Shift-click (for batch groups) or Command-click (for several different thumbnails) and press the Compare option. The speed at which these images appear within the main area of the interface is pretty impressive and it’s a great tool if you quickly want to show off a number of different options to a

client or colleague. The Library isn’t just a glorified File Browser; you can also use it to look at your image in detail. Double-click on any image within the Loupe view and your image will be magnified within the main window and also within a smaller image-map window. You can use this to quickly spot any obvious imperfections and take a look to make sure your shot is of prime quality. Underneath the image map, an image histogram will give you the chance to spot any obvious exposure problems and present shooting information.

Image manipulation Once you start exploring the other options within Lightroom outside of the Library it becomes more apparent just how useful the program can be for quick fixes. The Develop area is perfect for odd jobs, so you don’t need to spend an exhaustive amount of time tweaking in Photoshop. With the thumbnail selected in the browser selection you can work on individual images at a time. Basic alterations can do wonders for your shot and will help you to improve essential colour features such as white balance, range and tone. If you want to spend a bit more time improving

88

Advanced Photoshop

086-089_APM17_lightroom.indd 88

27/3/06 10:58:21

resources

Shortcuts ➟

Display Loupe view: e Toggle through images in Loupe: Display Grid view: g Display Compare mode: c

/➟

Toggle between view modes: Return/Spacebar Lights dim: l Lights out: l+l

FLOWER SHOW: You don’t need to get bogged down in Flash coding to make an impressive slideshow. Lightroom makes light work of essential presentations

INTEGRAL TRANSFER: There’s no need to install a separate FTP client with Lightroom. You can upload immediately to your own or your client’s FTP server internally using the Export function

your shots, scroll down a little and you can make more thorough tweaks to highlights, midtones and shadows with the Tone Curve palette. Of course, you won’t want to cut out your Photoshop work altogether, but it’s a handy option if you have to make a quick presentation with very little time to spare.

Making slideshows The slideshow option is perfect if you want to present your images professionally. You can access all of the images that have been imported to Lightroom using the Slideshow function. You can add images to your slideshow by Commandclicking your selection. Another advantage is that don’t have to spend a huge amount of time making a presentation, and quick alterations can be made using the Template Browser. Once you’ve picked your selection you can make personal alterations to the appearance of a slide using the Image Settings, Slide Layout Tools, Overlay, Backdrop and Playback settings, and even add a musical soundtrack if you really want to go the whole hog. Of course, you’re not going to want to go to all this trouble just for your own sake. There are some impressive export functions

within the Slideshow environment allowing you to alter the format to HTML, PDF or Flash formats. If you want to cut down on file size, you can adjust the quality of the show, adjust sizes and tweak names and showcase rate. That’s bound to save you huge amounts of time if you want to put together a portfolio or a slideshow for your website.

Print perfect For any artist, the ability to be able to print images accurately is a must. Adobe Lightroom has a great Print facility that not only allows you to preview your images as they will appear on the page but also gives you the opportunity to lay out contact sheets. You can quickly select a predesigned template from the Template Browser and add shots to the sheet by pressing Command-click. The emphasis is on accuracy with the Print option

and it’s possible to make very minor adjustments to your layout using the slider controls. You can specify Print Job settings here too and alter colour profiles, print resolutions or Draft Modes. Adobe Lightroom manages high-res images very well and it doesn’t struggle with large shots, easily converting them to draft versions. It’s very important to remember that Adobe Lightroom is still a program that’s in progress, and so the features will no doubt be enhanced and develop before the final program is available. But for now, this is a fantastic insight into the possibilities for managing your images with a highly flexible, intuitive and invaluable file management program. The latest public beta version of Adobe Lightroom is now available to download. Visit http://labs.macromedia.com/technologies/ lightroom to install your copy now. 5

“ADOBE LIGHTROOM IS STILL A PROGRAM THAT’S IN PROGRESS, SO THE FEATURES WILL DEVELOP” 89

Advanced Photoshop

086-089_APM17_lightroom.indd 89

27/3/06 10:58:43

resources

books

Seek inspiration for creative work and tweak your technique to perfection with these top titles

Further reading

Photoshop Cosmetic Surgery

Surreal Digital Photography: The Photographer’s Digital Trickery Handbook

Authors: Barry Jackson Publisher: Ilex Price: £19.99 ISBN: 1904705820 Web: www.ilex.com

Author: Barry Huggins, Ian Probert Publisher: Ilex Price: £17.95 ISBN: 1904705413 Web: www.ilex.com

T

he ability to retouch portraits and transform bodies is a very useful skill for a digital artist to have. It gives you the chance to get in on big commercial opportunities. If you have no idea where to start, the ‘Doctor’ Barry Jackson takes you through a selection of handy transformation techniques without a scalpel in sight. As you work through the book, the tutorials included can be split into two different groups: those that will prove to be invaluable for professional work (including tips on perfecting a soft-focus effect, creating glowing and blemish-free skin tones and eyelash extensions), and the slightly more bizarre. Turning each page takes you onto a completely different topic, so in an instant you can go from carrying on a breast lift to creating a quite frankly disturbing cat woman. If you get a bit queasy when watching film footage of a real cosmetic operation then be warned – some of the results in this

Recom mends book may have a similar effect. But don’t get us wrong, there are some great tutorials to be found. Worth the £19.99 asking price for shock value alone. 5 Rating:

5/5

Rating:

2/5

Creating Photomontages With Photoshop: A Designer’s Notebook Author: William Rodarmor Publisher: William Rodarmor Price: £14.95 ISBN: 596008589 Web: www.oreilly.com

3D Game Textures: Create Professional Game Art Using Photoshop

Seek inspiration for photomontages with this showcase of work dedicated to Photoshop from French digital artists. There are plenty of exciting, contemporary designs from which to take inspiration, and this is far more than just a coffee-table book; it takes the reader from the creation process through the entire working process, from the initial concepts through to the practical techniques involved. Rather than being a heavy technicalbased publication, this book is perfect for those who want to inspire their creative side. 5

Authors: Luke Ahearn Publisher: Focal Press Price: £29.99 ISBN: 0240807685 Web: www.focalpress.com

C

reating art for the games industry is big business. Take a look at any videogame on the market at the moment and you’ll see that each scene is full of intricate details that can be pieced together in Photoshop. 3D Game Textures is a fairly weighty book that teaches you how to craft these creative textures, with tips and techniques from award-winning expert Luke Ahearn. Discover how to design bullet holes, flames, windows and walls – all the effects that are an essential for today’s videogame – with easy-to-follow tutorials. There are a variety of different game themes explored throughout this book, covering anything from urban street scenes to the fantasy genre. Each tutorial takes you right from the beginning processes through to the intricate final details and professional touches. As well as the design angle of creating artwork for games, this book also tackles the business side of creating artwork for commercial purposes, making it a wonderful insight into the world of the professional games artist. After reading this you’ll have a far better understanding of what it takes to become successful in

The editing, colouring and layering capabilities of Adobe Photoshop CS2 make it an ideal software program for practising with experimental artwork. With such a versatile package there’s no need to put limits on your creations, making it perfect for surreal imagery. This book is packed with tutorials ranging from photo-editing tricks to digital montages, but be prepared to be taken aback by some of the more obscure end results. They’re not really pieces of art that you’d want to aspire to creating, but the techniques involved are explained in a clear and precise manner. This can be a fun way of getting to grips with some design concepts that wouldn’t normally spring to mind, but the level may be too basic for those who are accustomed to Photoshop. 5

Rating:

4/5

Complete Photoshop CS2 For Digital Photographers Author: Colin Smith Publisher: Charles River Media Price: £25.99 ISBN: 1584504625 Web: www.charlesriver.com

the games world, and it will give you the opportunity to begin building a stunning portfolio. 5 Rating:

5/5

This tome is dedicated to photographers who rely on Photoshop to edit and enhance their images. It’s a technical workbook for those who want to learn all the tricks of the trade for their digital darkroom. All of the basics are covered, including a rundown of the uses and benefits of cataloguing images using Adobe Bridge and processing RAW files through to enhancing images through practical tutorials and project workshops. 5 Rating:

5/5

90

Advanced Photoshop

091-094_APM17_resources.indd 90

27/3/06 11:04:29

The Dodo And Mauritius Island: Imaginary Encounters

Camera Raw With Adobe Photoshop CS2

Recom mends

Author: Harry Kallio Publisher: Dewi Lewis Publishing Price: £25 ISBN: 1904587135 Web: www.dewilewispublishing.com

Authors: Bruce Fraser Publisher: Peachpit Press Price: £28.99 ISBN: 0321334094 Web: www.peachpit.com

This fantastic coffee table-style book features a whole host of skilled illustrations. Harry Kallio has created a stunning series of reconstructions of the past. Using his photographic and imaging skills, Kallio constructs the illusion that Dodos are alive and in their original environment. For those who are keen to read up on the history of the Dodo, there’s plenty of historical information, eyewitness accounts, pictorial sources and evidence from museums and libraries around the world. A beautiful and carefully crafted book. 5 Rating:

5/5

Implementing A Digital Asset Management Systems Department

resources

Further reading

RE OF ADER Adva FE 20%nced PhotoshR of op readers c revi postaewed this f all I an re visit ge and pacisksue. All oflex bo ceive f e w a r or te ww.ile ging. For s includ oks e fr x-p mo lep hone ress re infor ee 0127 .com/ mation 3 40 apm 3124 .

I

f you’re a serious digital artist then chances are at some stage or another it will be essential to take your own photographs. During these early processes it’s important to start off with the highest quality imagery possible. Those who are accustomed to using a digital camera to create artwork may be familiar with the concept of working in the RAW format. The Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in gives you the opportunity to control image quality using settings such as white balance, curves, colour space, contrast and saturation. This book takes you through the process of enhancing images in a clear manner, showing you the techniques behind tweaking your RAW files using contrast, saturations, noise and tint techniques. It’s not however, the meatiest of books, making the asking price a bit steep in our opinion. Those who are already accustomed to other RAW management software will find the transition to Camera Raw very simple, so a dedicated book is unlikely to be a necessity. If you’re new to the RAW format, however, this could be worth a look. 5 Rating:

4/5

Author: Jens Jacobsen, Tilman Schlenker, Lisa Edwards Publisher: Focal Press Price: £34.99 ISBN: 0240806654 Web: www.focalpress.com

Written by the team that created a Digital Asset Management System for the team on Monsters Inc and the computer game Medal Of Honor, this book couldn’t show off any more hints and tips from those in the know. It’s certainly a challenging read, but one that’s worth spending some brain power on if you’re keen to create a successful computer-based production company. Getting into such a competitive market means doing some research, and for aspiring imageers this is a great first step. The book includes information on improving workflows, digital content security, speed-to-market and profit margins for projects of all sizes. 5 Rating:

4/5

Aphrodisia: Art Of The Female Form Author: Craig Elliot Publisher: Aristata Publishing Price: £16.17 ISBN: 0975491229 Web: www.aristatapublishing.com

This is a provocative look at a selection of art celebrating the aesthetics and variety of the female form. This book features a showcase of work that includes a great deal of digitally created art. On page after page, Aphrodisia depicts women of all sizes, races and ages, and in all manner of backdrop settings. There are plenty of different digital techniques used to create arresting images, ranging from the mystical and menacing to the sexual and innocent. Rating:

Color Management For Photographers I Authors: Andrew Rodney Publisher: Focal Press Price: £29.99 ISBN: 0240806492 Web: www.focalpress.com

f you’ve spent days, weeks or even months creating a Photoshop masterpiece then it’s a shame to let all your hard work fall victim to the wrath of poor colour management. Getting tones and colours just right can be a minefield, even for the most accomplished Photoshop artworker. One wrong move and your image’s quality, which looked oh-so-perfect on your monitor, can look flat, uninspiring or just plain horrific on return from the printers. Trying to master the techniques of colour management is a daunting prospect, so a good-quality book is always useful. Color Management For Photographers includes all the information you will need to make sure your colour profiles are accurate. It’s not going to do anything to make the process any less painful for those who want an easy ride, but will be perfect for professional imageers who want precise, technical information. This book shows you how to create desired results, with easy step-by-steps guaranteed to help you produce successful print material. Andrew Rodney also takes some time to explain the principles behind managing the colour of documents ready for prepress or print. 5 Rating:

5/5

5/5

91

Advanced Photoshop

091-094_APM17_resources.indd 91

27/3/06 11:04:50

resources

plug-ins

Increase the creative potential of Photoshop with these invaluable plug-in features

Aurora 2.1

Genuine Fractals 4.1

ds men m o Rec

Developer: Digital Element Price: $179.99 (£103.61) Web: www.digi-element.com/aurora/downloads.htm

Developer: onOne Software Price: £199 Web: www.ononesoftware.com

I

f you’re working to commission, then everyone’s bugbear can be resolution and file size, especially if you’re working to print. Genuine Fractals enables you to create enlargements from your images, without resorting to archiving hefty image files for easy archiving and file transfers. Genuine Fractals aims to increase the quality of an image using a patented re-scaling and interpolation method. Larger images can be produced using this software with reinforced edge detail and preserved quality. Genuine Fractals can also be purchased as part of onOne Software’s complete Photoshop Plug-In Suite, which includes Mask Pro 3, PhotoFrame 2.5 and Intellihance Pro 4.1 for £270.19. A 30-day trial can be downloaded before purchase on the onOne Software website. It’s a steep asking price, but you may find the plug-in indispensable if large, commercial file sizes are your prime concern. 5 Rating:

R

ecreating natural aesthetics in your Photoshop work can be particularly tricky. Not only because it’s time-consuming, but also because one false move can spoil an otherwise great image. Aurora 2.1 tackles this problem head on, offering an easy plug-in that will allow you to create even the most complex of natural phenomena such as reflective water, stormy clouds or night-time skies. In fact, it’s worth looking at if you rely on any sort of natural or cityscape work, as Aurora 2.1 can add help you add atmosphere and drama to the most mundane-looking situations. For your hard-earned cash, you’ll be rewarded with a decent black-andwhite filter that improves on Photoshop’s native Greyscale tool, a desaturation gradient, a particularly effective Sepia filter and much more besides. Definitely one for photographers, this set is well worth investigating when you’ve got a few minutes to spare, and there are plenty of examples on the site. 5

4/5

Rating:

5/5

TypeCaster

Deep Paint 3D F

ar too much time can be taken up recreating paint effects with the Brush Tool. Finding the right balance between shadows and tones can be tricky. Deep Paint 3D aims to make lighter work out of capturing the realism of traditional and contemporary painting techniques. The plug-in comes with a dynamic range of preset natural media and artist’s brushes that respond in an authentic manner, but it is possible to modify and customise these brushes for your personal needs. Deep Paint 3D makes it easier to clone and brush photographs or other images into your current artwork. Deep Paint 3D can also be used as a standalone program as well as a plug-in. The real fun comes if a Wacom tablet is used, as the pressure sensitivity will ensure that the pen strokes are delicate and precise. For those with earlier versions of Deep Paint3D, an upgrade can be downloaded for around £28. 5 Rating:

5/5

Ripples Magic Developer: Red Field Plug-ins Price: $19.90 (£11.46 Web: www.redfieldplugins.com

The Ripples Magic filter allows you to create complex 3D surfaces from Recom mends your artwork including cosmic curves and melted metal. The results can look eye-catching as long as the procedures are kept subtle. It’s a perfect option if you want to create highly original objects such as flowers. Check out some gallery samples by logging onto www.redfieldplugins. com/SamplesTutorials.htm. 5 Rating:

T

ypography is an essential part of any commercial design, but often the font selection with Photoshop can be restrictive and may require you to spend out on extra resources. Even when you have access to a great number of fonts it can be difficult to add in 3D elements. TypeCaster gives you the resources to turn ordinary type into print-quality 3D titles, not only giving you the power to alter depth and shading but to also add texture and contours. The program issues 30 built-in preset custom looks but you can also create your own font by adjusting colour, texture, shape, bevel and light source shading. Animatable type transitions can also be applied to Adobe Premiere and After Effects suites. Our only suggestion is that you use the program with subtle application to avoid results that look too gaudy. 5 Rating:

3/5

5/5

LensDoc 1.3 Developer: Andromeda Software Price:$98.99 (£57) Web: www.andromeda.com

The LensDoc 1.3 third-party Photoshop plug-in is the perfect addition for any artists who capture their own digital images. Taking shots with a wide-angle lens can sometimes result in image distortion such as barrelling and pincushion. This will solve those issues without you having to result to using imprecise pinch and bloat techniques. The LensDoc plug-in does this without spoiling image quality for a professional finish. It’s also possible to create and use your own correction curves for custom fixing. 5 Rating:

Developer: Xaos Tools Price: $99 (£57) Web: http://store.yahoo.com/xaostools/typmac.html

Developer: Right Hemisphere Price: $249.99 (£143.77) Web: www.righthemisphere.com

Plug yourself in

4/5

Light! Developer: Digital Film Tools Price: Free Web: www.digitalfilmtools.com

Light! is a freeware plug-in that allows you to add lights to a scene, just as if you were adding a light at the time of shooting using a gobo (a plate that produces a patterned light effect in traditional photography). The plug-in can also be used to simulate glass and camera filters such as Mist and Fog. You can try out a Light!3.0 demo for Windows, OS X and OS 9 by following the link above. 5 Rating:

2/5

DreamSuite Gel Developer: Auto FX Software Price: $99 (£57) Web: www.autofx.com

Recom mends DreamSuite Gel is a fun special effects suite that allows you to add vibrant, translucent depth effects to your artwork. The results achieved with DreamSuite Gel are varied and of high quality and can be used to reflect your individual style. It will allow you to recreate complex see-through styles. Check out an artist gallery to see how the effect is applied by visiting www.autofx.com/ dreamsuite/gel/gel_gallery.html. 5 Rating:

4/5

92 Advanced Photoshop 091-094_APM17_resources.indd 92

27/3/06 11:05:19

resources

portfolio sites

Get your work out there with these top showcase URLs

AOI

Get seen online

Web: www.theaoi.com

T

he Association of Illustrators is a non-profit organisation dedicated to protecting illustrator’s rights and encouraging professional standards. Members are entitled to a free annual consultation with the association’s portfolio expert and advice is given on portfolio presentation, content and suitable illustration markets and agents. Membership to the AOI is £144 for full members (students £66). The price of a portfolio submission varies between £58£71.70 and allows you to upload, replace and edit up to 20 images, giving you a personalised domain name option. You can write your own captions with as much information as you like. Although it’s initially expensive, the AOI is normally the first port of call for most professionals looking to commission. 5 Rating:

WorldArtPortfolio Web: www.worldartportfolio.com

WorldArtPortfolio is an independent portfolio site dedicated to the work of designers, digital artists, mixed-media workers and photographers. It also allows you access museum and gallery sites as well as discussion forums. The submission for artists’ portfolios is completed on rotation according to specialist field, so it’s worth logging on to check the current situation. It’s not the most intuitive of portfolio sites but it does have great resources for looking up current employment vacancies and internships, as well as exhibitions that you might want to wing yourself along to. 5

5/5

Rating:

2/5

ArtWanted.com

D&AD Talentpool

Web: www.artwanted.com

Web: http://talentpool.dandad.co.uk

O

riginally launched as the D&AD Bloodbank, the Talentpool is a searchable portfolio site for emerging creative practitioners in advertising, new media and communications. Individuals must be an award-winner in their own specialist field. Every month, five selected members are included with a ‘spotlight’ section, showcasing their work and including background information and an interview. To submit your images for inclusion on the D&AD Talentpool website, contact the team by emailing [email protected] or telephoning 0207 8401111. Check out one of the portfolio artists, Chintu Shah, in our Young Designers feature on page 50. 5 Rating:

4/5

E

Rating:

5/5

Artshole.co.uk

Portfolios.com Web: www.portfolios.com

Joining this site is absolutely free and you can start building your online portfolio straight away. You can also sign up for a Premium account for only $5 (£2.85) a month. You can use the site to advertise an existing URL and bring more attention to your work, rather than just relying on a search engine. There’s an accurate and fast-working search facility if you’re looking for other artists’ portfolios, allowing you to search by speciality as well as artist name. There’s even a chance your images can end up on someone else’s wall if you put your images up for sale. Art contests and discussions, tutorials and tips are also available if you click on the Forum option at the top of the web screen. ArtWanted. com is currently accepting artwork submissions for its 2007 calendar – log on to the site for more details. A sleek-looking site that’s easy to navigate, with plenty of scope. 5

Web: www.artshole.co.uk

Recom mends

stablished in 1995, Portfolios.com is a fully searchable site, allowing clients to find the right talent for the job through a simple and easily browsed portfolio selection. There are three portfolio types that you can purchase, starting with the Vinyl portfolio (ten images with no agent fees and a personalized URL) at $9.95/£6 a month (or $99.50/£57 a year). The Leather portfolio offers all the Vinyl features but with 20 images for $21.99/£13) a month (or $199.50/£115 a year). The Titanium option includes all of these features but with 77 layout options, the ability to upload five different file types and even some marketing tools. 5 Rating:

5/5

Artshole.co.uk is an online source for creative talent, not only giving you a chance to promote your work, but also check out jobs and directories, exhibitions and arts competitions. Artshole.co.uk is completely free but does rely on donation. Simply send in ten images and an artist’s statement and Artshole.co.uk will do the rest. Galleries can include a direct email link, a link to a URL and a mixture of images, Flash animations and video. Don’t be put off by the home page, which in our opinion is a little messy and off-putting. If you get past this initial problematic step and find the essential links that will help you navigate there are lots of options to enhance and develop your creative side and boost your design potential. If you’re looking to get out and about and look the part in a gallery, there are plenty of listings available on the site too. Rating:

4/5

94

Advanced Photoshop

091-094_APM17_resources.indd 94

27/3/06 11:05:35