Advanced Photoshop (issue 18)

FREE CD! Project files, fonts, stock art, advice pages…

ISSUE 18

The definitive guide to CS2’s revolutionary feature

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S ES -REIMAGE’S H G HI OCKIS ISSU ST TH D

6-PAGE SPECIAL

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Master fantasy lighting Design distressed effects Get the most from Warp Create artwork using type

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HOW TO…

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ISSUE 18 ISSN 1748-7277

Robin Preston | A history of Photoshop | Design challenge | Create fantasy lighting effects

VANISHING POINT

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TURN PHOTOS INTO

Integrate photos, hand-drawn elements and vectors to create the ultimate digital masterpiece

A HISTORY OF PHOTOSHOP

Discover how Adobe has infiltrated our everyday lives

pages of professional tips & essential stepby-step tutorials

ISS UE 18

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Cover

Cover image This issue’s cover image comes from Australian-born artist Sarah Howell. Representative of her vivid and intricate collage-style creations, this piece fuses pencil and ink drawing with computer imagery using a photograph as a base for her work. The result is beautiful, captivating and reminiscent of John Stezaker, whom she cites as an inspiration. / For more stunning samples of Sarah’s work, turn to page 18

Imageer: SARAH HOWELL

I MADE A RULE THAT IF I COULDN’T DO IT IN PENCIL OR PAINT I WOULDN’T DO IT IN PHOTOSHOP 5

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nds mme Reco

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GIVE IT A GO

If you’d like to get your work in the next issue of Advanced Photoshop, why not give this springtime tutorial a go and send in your efforts?

ISSUE #18

inside...

7 10 24 LETTERS Our readers’ comments and feedback

Adobe’s right-hand man talks Wacom, Nikon and the future

INSIGHT

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News and showcases from around the globe All the latest events, exhibitions and awards Sarah Howell continues to wow her audience Musical graphics masters Asterik show all We check out Kerry Roper’s portfolio

HELPDESK

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

THE COVER

RESOURCES

If, like us, you were blown away by the creative talents of our cover illustrator, Sarah Howell, turn to page 18 where you’ll see some more of her beautiful work

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Vital assets to improve your Photoshop work QuarkXPress 7: The Preview Plug-ins Typographic sites Books

THIS MONTH’S CD

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B RI ge 76f C BSto pa £s ofce U S rn ave pri Tu d s ver an e co th

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

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Photoshop through the ages

Find out what ‘Goddess’ meant to our imageers

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

Master distressed effects with a punch!

FEATURES

TURN PHOTOS INTO DIGITAL ART Integrate hand-drawn elements into your images

INTERVIEW: ROBIN PRESTON

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LIGHTING EFFECTS

A HISTORY OF PHOTOSHOP

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DISTRESSED EFFECTS

THE AP CHALLENGE

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INSIDER INFO WARP

PEER PRESSURE

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MASTERING TYPE

ROUND UP: SCANNERS

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INSIDER INFO VANISHING POINT

The digital wonder and aspiring developer shares his secrets

How Adobe’s app has helped design a new world

Two designers, one brief

Thought-provoking images from your fellow readers

We take a tour of the best scanners to improve your art

PREVIEW: QUARKXPRESS 7 Can Quark really compete with Adobe’s InDesign?

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Master the art of fantasy lighting

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Learn how to use textures to create distressed effects

Think you’ve mastered it? Think again

Learn how to turn type into the ultimate art

The definitive guide to CS2’s revolutionary feature

INSIDER INFO LENS CORRECTION Discover the power of Lens Correction

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Letters

Mailbox Send your emails about the magazine to the editor at advancedpshop@ imagine-publishing.co.uk SUBJECT: Give my creations some exposure! FROM: Ryan Forshaw Well, my copy of Advanced Photoshop came through the door last week and I finally got around to reading through it and following a couple of the tutorials. I must say that the magazine’s content is very impressive, especially the masterclasses! I consider myself quite knowledgeable with Photoshop, but now I realise that there are still so many new techniques to learn. I have subscribed to many magazines over the years to learn new digital art techniques, but your magazine has to be the one that has taught me more in one issue than any other. Another reason for me writing was to recommend a great tutorial writer called Derek Lea – I’m sure that this name would ring a bell with some of your team? His tutorials have been featured in a number of magazines. I think his work is amazing and he is my source of inspiration. I would love to see some of his tutorials in the mag, as I’m sure other readers would. Would it also be possible to have some of my work featured in the exposure section? You can see

examples of my photo manipulations on my portfolio at www.ryuneo.com/manip.htm. Kind regards and keep up the great work! Editor replies: Glad you’re enjoying the magazine! Unfortunately Ryan didn’t send his images in, but if you turn to page 72 you’ll see showcases of other readers’ work. If you fancy being in the Photoshop spotlight, send your work in, along with a 200-word rubric explaining how you created your masterpiece to the e-mail above.

SUBJECT: Plug me in FROM: Rutger de Jong On page 93 of Advanced Photoshop 16 you mention the Invigorator 3D Plug-in. In your review it looks interesting, but the plug-in has already been discontinued for Photoshop, Illustrator and Freehand. Or did you have a preview of a newer version, as this plug-in was only available for OS 9, not for OS X? (The After Effects version is still available.) On another note I did like the interview with Charles Darby, so keep up the good work. If I might

“THIS TYPE OF MAGAZINE, WITH ALL ITS PHOTOSHOP TIPS, IS RIGHT UP MY STREET” request an article, is it possible to make a good comparison (with tutorials) between Photoshop and Corel Painter for drawing? Editor replies: Hi Rutger, thank you for your email. At the time of going to press on issue 16, the 3D Invigorator from Zaxwerks was still readily available. For more plug-in inspiration, check out Zaxwerks’ site (www.zaxwerks. com) or head to page 90 onwards where you’ll find plenty of help in your search for that perfect plug-in.

SUBJECT: Fellow Photoshoppers! FROM: Paul Cooke

PERFECT PLUG-INS: Take a look at the latest and greatest plug-ins from Zaxwerks on the website

I have decided I want to break free from the shackles of regular employment and the security of guaranteed income (!), and use my almost supernatural artistic skills to go it alone as a freelance designer/illustrator. I was wondering if you could give me any advice on the people I should contact or send samples of my work to. I would love to get into CD cover design but am not sure quite how to go about it. I am currently working on my website, which should be up and running soon and would like the right people to see it when it’s finished. Any advice on this matter would be gratefully received.

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SHOW GIRL:

Vault49 turned heads in the West End’s Coningsby Gallery with a carnival of some of the agency’s most incredible collaborations

Straight to

the point A foreign affair Subject: Hello from the United States From: Mary Lynch I just purchased issue 16 of your magazine from the bookstore and it is every Photoshop user’s dream. I purchased a subscription and would like to know how I can get all the back issues as soon as possible. Please let me know the cost, including shipping. Great magazine! Editor replies: Congratulations on taking that first step towards going solo, it’s often the hardest one. Hopefully you found last issue’s feature on starting your own design studio helpful, but if you need more advice check out this month’s interview in which Robin Preston gives tons of advice for anyone starting out.

SUBJECT: Commercial artist FROM: Ian Keltie Hey guys, just wanted to pat you lot on the back as I’ve just picked up issue 17 of your Advanced Photoshop magazine. I’m a commercial artist with clients such as The New York Times and Time Out, and this type of magazine, with all its Photoshop tips, is right up my street. I’m looking forward to the next magazine.

SUBJECT: Peer appreciation FROM: Den Cops Just a quick note to thank you for featuring my work in the Peer Pressure section of your magazine. Congratulations to the whole team for putting the magazine back on track.

GO PUBLIC: So, you think you’re good enough to get your work showcased? Check out the competition and send in your work to Peer Pressure for a chance to win some great gear

SUBJECT: Design dilemma FROM: Ben Cowan I picked up issue 16 of Advanced Photoshop and was wondering about the background behind all the workshops. Is there a specific reason that they have a beige background or is this purely for aesthetics? Most other magazines that I purchase have white backgrounds that I occasionally find difficult to read. Please could you let me know? Editor replies: It’s sometimes surprising how few of our creative readers comment on the design of the magazine compared to the editorial, so it’s always great to hear what you think. These backgrounds are used mainly to break up the magazine and you’ll find these pages are workshops in our techniques section. Just flip to page 56 or 64, where you’ll see two more great examples of our workshops in action.

SUBJECT: Best in show FROM: Jon White I just wanted to drop you all a quick line to thank you for recommending The Greatest Show On Earth in your last issue. I went along and am now a definite fan of the wondrous Vault49. They truly are at the top of their game.

“THANK YOU FOR RECOMMENDING THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH IN YOUR LAST ISSUE”

Subject: Early issues From: Magnus Westerlund Hello there, lifesavers! Well, I stumbled upon one of your truly amazing magazines a while back and I have been a subscriber ever since. What I really want right now is to buy the first issues as well, which I didn’t have a chance to buy. The first issue I bought would be the October 2005 issue, and I want every single one before that, no matter what the cost. Please, oh please help me out here! Subject: Subscriptions from Denmark From: Daniel Griffin Hi Advanced Photoshop team. I’ve bought your excellent magazine and would now like to subscribe to it. How would I go about doing that from where I live in Denmark? Subject: Out in the sticks From: Mark Forester Greetings Photoshoppers! I live in pretty rural part of Ireland, and the newsagent I usually go to to get my issues of Advanced Photoshop seems to have a pretty erratic supply, well, either that or I get there and he’s sold out of the few issues that he did have in! Is there a way to get the previous issues that I’m missing? Editor replies: Glad you’re enjoying the mag! For any queries regarding overseas or UK subscriptions and to ask about Advanced Photoshop back issues, please contact our Customer Interface by email at [email protected] or by phone +44 (0)870 428 3068.

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Keeping an eye on the latest trends in contemporary photography, art and design, Insight sets out to snapshot innovation in the making DESIGNED BY CHRIS CUNNINGHAM: Offering plenty of scope for Photoshop development, this cityscape at night lends some atmosphere to the Elements selection

DESIGNED BY PURE EVIL: Show off your wild side by incorporating this animal Element, which offers simple shapes yet savage undertones

Elemental, my dear readers If you’ve ever dreamed of collaborating with some of the biggest and best names in the creative industry, here’s your chance. Elements is the latest innovation from Noise and features, among others, Peter Saville, Stella Vine, Daniel Brown and Insect, as well as some of the top street artists around today. They have each designed a digital element that is available for you to download; in fact, you can download as many of the elements as you like. Once you’ve selected the images you want, use the different elements within your own work to create a new composition. Once your collaboration is complete, submit it for your chance to have your creation showcased in Noise publications and on the Elements gallery online. If it’s of outstanding quality you could be in with the chance of winning the Creative Suite software, which those kind people at Adobe are offering as a prize! You might never get a better chance to rub shoulders (or images) with the best of the best in the digital world.

DESIGNED BY PETE FOWLER: In striking black and white, Fowler’s groovy guitar player is another of the varied Elements with which you can play

www.noisefestival.com

DESIGNED BY INSECT: Created by the masters of illustration, Insect, Stagman demonstrates the design group’s admiration for all things dark and twisted

DESIGNED BY DANNY include Ch ris Cunningh BROWN: Other cont ributors am, CALMA Jeremy Fish , , Dreph, Pu re Evil, Kid Ac Pete Fowler, Inky, ne and Swoo n NYC

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06.06

SOFTWARE AS FURNITURE: Each project in My World presents its designer’s highly personalised vision of the world. Here, Daniel Brown questions our perceptions of brand values in digitally animated bedlinen and tableware. Design: Danny Brown

A new world On from 10 June to 10 September at the Design Museum in London is My World: The New Subjectivity In Design. Exploring the emergence of a new subjectivity in design, this exhibition features new work from British designers including Daniel Brown, Committee, Doshi Levien, Neutral, Peter Traag, Alison Willoughby and Wokmedia. Conceived as a touring exhibition – it will also appear in Lithuania, Slovenia, Portugal, Norway and Estonia – the event is aimed at the advanced design market. Looking into technology, entrepreneurship, localisation and transformation, My World is designed to create a platform for a series of interactive events designed to reawaken the fires of creativity. For more information, check out www.designmuseum.org.

The web winners

MATLO: D oshi shop inspire Levien probes cultu ral d production: by Indian markets. D identity in a prototyp es e Henry Wat son Potterie ign: Doshi Levien, s, photogra ph: John M oss

LUNUGANGA: Wokmedia tries to industrialise nature by creating shelves in the twisting forms of twigs and roots. Design: Wokmedia

Founded in 1996, the Webby Awards are the leading international honours for websites. Among this year’s nominees are Beck, BabyCenter, BoingBoing, Bloglines, and Bank of America. The nominees only had to wait until 9 May to find out who had won, but it’s on 12 June that the winners will be celebrating in style at a swanky 10th annual gala event in Wall Street, New York. Nominees were named in over 65 categories, ranging from fashion, politics, and social networking to banking and employment. New categories making their debut this year include political blog, business blog, podcast, and best use of video or moving image. “For a decade, the Webby Awards has honoured the new and groundbreaking websites that have changed the way we work and live,” said Tiffany Shlain, founder and ambassador of the Webby Awards. “This year’s nominees provide us with an inside look at where we’re going next.” The Webby Awards are presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences, a global organisation with over 500 members including David Bowie, Richard Branson, Anita Roddick, Matt Groening, Jamie Oliver, and fashion designer Max Azria. To check out all the winners of the 10th Annual Webby Awards, head across to www. webbyawards.com.

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insight FISH-EYE FOCUS: Seafood, designed by Faye Patrick, Cambridge School of Art, BA Illustration

The next generation Unearthing the next generation of imageers is New Designers, the foremost graduate showcase of Britain’s most talented artists. From 29 June to 2 July, and 6 July to 9 July, the exhibition will take over the Business Design Centre and will present more than 4,000 graduate designers from 20 creative disciplines to an anticipated audience of over 14,000 design-hungry visitors. However, it’s not the first time this event has been seen. “Celebrating 21 years makes us very proud. There are very few exhibitions or events that have stayed the test of time with such consistent quality and vibrancy. Much is due to the continued support of the design industry as sponsors who recognise the importance of encouraging young talent and, of course, the international reputation for innovation and excellence displayed by British design courses,” enthuses event director Isobel Dennis. Split into two halves, the first week is dedicated to contemporary applied arts, ceramics and glass, jewellery and precious metalwork and fashion, textiles and accessories, while the second week focuses on graphics, animation, multimedia and spatial design, alongside furniture and product innovation. As well as supporting up-and-coming designers through the event, the organisers have also launched www. newdesignersonline.co.uk, a dedicated design directory website to promote young professional designers. For more information on the event, go to www.newdesigners.com.

SNEAKER SP Shoe, design EAKER: ed by Timot Drake, Cam hy br Art, BA Illus idge School of tration

FOWL PLAY: Grandad And The Dead Bird, designed by Hannah Taylor, Cambridge School of Art, BA Illustration

SAYING SOMETHING: Mouth, designed by Jan Martin, University of West of England, MA Multidisciplinary printmaking

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06.06 Lending a helping hand If you’re in higher education and haven’t yet discovered the delights of Adobe’s Design and Film School Connection, check it out before your graduate show hits, as it offers a feast of inspiration and advice. Dedicated to helping students and their teachers find free resources for using Adobe software products in coursework, projects and career preparation, the site is a gold mine of information. As well as loads of free tips

and tutorials from Photoshop experts, you’ll also find a wealth of free downloads (including Comix, which allows you to create comic book art from photographs), new trends and upcoming design events. You’ll also find links to design-oriented forums and articles. All you need to do is log on to www.adobe.co.uk/ education/designschools and get downloading all the resources you need.

DIARY DATES TURNER PRIZE NOMINEES ANNOUNCED 16 May

www.tate.org.uk

ADOBE LIVE! 24-25 May

London

DESIGN AND NATURE 2006 24-26 May

The New Forest

BLACK BRITISH STYLE Until 29 May

Sunderland

GRAND DESIGNS LIVE 2-4 June

FREE EXCHANGE: The site also includes links to an online forum where you can exchange ideas, tips and resources with your fellow designers

London

ge Test your knowled

ho and find out w Anne Robinson all t m ge to fro e iz It’s tim ith a new qu oshop link is w ot Ph ls. st na ke sio ea es w of the otoshop Pr sociation of Ph ters fil n, io at nt the National As ie menus, or s, drop-down ns, this Covering layer g other questio on am h us Br ng ali hop ace He e and th you’re a Photos to see whether d ne e 20 sig th de er is sw quiz r less) to an g 20 minutes (o , er nn gi be or dunce. Takin you’re a is are “Thlts ll learn whetherD THE LAMBre: su questions, you’ THE WOLFusAN ce your started on er ed pieces, when I first gory, nc lier va ear ad my or of e e on iat is te ca ed nc intermed le. va sty s ad thi e th h to wit enthing roug l, iz. t therim geexp rt qu pefee extyle a rea thee-s ve tio haes in lag collated. If you I wantedte toqu nsl col it n ts out ofg nen r po he com ot the an owin if I had cut r your own gl you can answer almost as(e fograph. The mountains phtoto izezinexc orep prga e’s no a ma te that . cre w con w of w ce to Although ther pie a on acak,phsootogeoft tio, and the grae.ss beg aancras th or w l el pa w dg s nt le fro pride) it’ was lying in my d test your know to use all r.com/quiz an m my front yard. I try photoshopuse was taken fro graphy for textures and of my own photo

1001 INVENTIONS Until 4 June

Manchester

FOOTBALL FEVER 9 June - 10 July

Design Museum, London

10TH WEBBY AWARDS GALA 12 June

New York

V&A: MODERNISM 14-15 July

V&A Museum, London

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insight

SOUND AND VISION: “When I work with a photographic base – an image of a model – I gradually layer up elements to create a tapestry of collage on top. Collaborations like this are great fun as I get to work with some amazing photographers and there are loads of ideas bouncing around” INTERNATIONAL TEXTILES: “If I’m using a photographic base I also direct the shoot so that the image is perfect for the illustration”

pped sn’t sto ainly ha rt e c is in l, th lling . unusua s from ro n io s is m ch “I went to the University of NSW in the com g so mu en doin favourite Sydney and started a BA in Fine Art. y m “I’ve be t u b een my ial work rc e h However, I was kicked out in the m ct as b com y g proje in I’ve reall m o -c second year so never completed my the UK. in up-and n y io it m exhib ide of course.” Not the most conventional darker s first solo wing a o for me. h s ly d e re start for digital imageer Sarah Howell. enjoy art pu g n ti a nd was re dc Majoring in oil painting, Sarah always 4 April a 2 work an n o d on w starte s based knew she wanted to be a fine artist – ainting The sho p d n a ’.” Bees ollage that is, until she discovered Photoshop. and the full of c of ‘Birds e m e “When I came to London about nine the th t.com e b u t ar w w w.d years ago I realised that it was so hard

Sarah Howell

to do fine art and actually pay the rent so I briefly went to Central St Martins and learned how to use Photoshop. It was the first time I had even turned on a computer but I soon realised its potential. I’ve never learned how to use Photoshop properly so most designers would probably be horrified by the way I get to the finished image – too many layers and no masks.” Although her way of working might be a little

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BLOOM GIRL : “Because of my fine ar background, all of my work cont t ain elements of pa inting, drawing s and collage that I sca n in to keep th precious, intric ate feel of my wo e rk”

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SAD SKELETON: Although Sarah has only been using the editing app for a short time, she’s a dedicated fan. “I never use any other program”

BLUE TREES: “I like the sloppiness and imperfection of hand-finished work, it feels more real to me than filters and effects in Photoshop. I made a rule that if I couldn’t do it in pencil or paint I wouldn’t do it in Photoshop, so I never use graphic filters”

TANK MAG: “I’ve been working commercially for many years so I have had a chance to work on so many varied projects. Album covers are my favorite as you get to be slightly more odd and creative. And I love doing editorial because you can do whatever you want. My art is very closely linked to fashion so I love creating beautiful spreads that combine all of these things”

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insight Asterik Studio You only need to take a look at their site to see just how passionate the people behind Asterik Studio are about their work. “Let us start by saying we love what we do for a living. We love waking up in the morning and going to work. We do. We love design. We love art. We love music. We love life.” And it is this passion that has made them the best at what they do. Founded in 2000 by two brothers, Don and Ryan Clark, and friend Demetre Arges, Asterik found its home specialising in CD packaging, poster art, web design and everything in between. “We have been immersed in art as long as we can remember,” explains Don. “Our grandfather was an illustrator for NASA, so he was always a huge influence on us. Our styles are pretty diverse; we do a lot of illustration as well as a lot of highly conceptual photo-realism work.” Although they hire photographers to attain the basic concept, everything that can’t be done with a camera is entrusted to Photoshop: “We try to cover every detail of our concept with the photographer to ensure that our idea is perfectly achieved. Usually a great deal of post work is still needed, and that’s when Photoshop takes over.” The now six-strong team has an impressive client list, which reads like a Who’s Who of the creative industry: DreamWorks, Warner Brothers, The Strokes, The White Stripes and hundreds of others. Inspired by the likes of Paul Brown, Storm Thorgerson, Stefan Sagmeister, Dirk Rudolph and Vaughan Oliver (“They have all have had a profound effect on our CD package design”), Asterik currently offers over 80 limited-edition screen-printed posters for sale on the site. www.asterikstudio.com

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NORMA JEAN: Ryan Clark shows off his imageering skills with this piece, which was created for Solid State Records

ANBERLIN: This floral work was created by Ryan Clark in 2004. Photographed by Jeff Gros, the image was then finished in Photoshop to produce this masterpiece for Tooth & Nail Records

ATREYU: This image, created by Don Clark for Victory Records, shows the team’s attention to detail. The source picture was photographed by Dave Hill, and Photoshop was used to add convincing flame work

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06.06 THROWDOWN: The subtlety of Asterik’s Photoshop work adds to the shock factor – this was shot by Jeff Gros and given the creative touch by Ryan Clark

CHASING VICT ORY: Making th come out of the e torso was a chall drawer seem to enge for imagee Don Clark. With r a helping hand from photogra Jeff Gros and Cla pher rk’s favourite Ad obe app, the en result is flawles s d BLEEDING TH ROUGH: Made as part of a series within th e CD packaging for Bleeding Through’s The Truth album, th is im Trustkill Record s was created by age for Don Clark and photographed by Jeff Gros

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insight Kerry Roper “My work has always been image-focused, whether it’s using photography, collage or traditional illustration. Digital illustration was the obvious evolution for me, and, as my style is very layered, Photoshop with its layer option has been a great asset to my work,” explains Kerry Roper. A former student of graphic design and advertising at Buckingham College, Roper’s work is a favourite among Adidas, Snickers and the NFL, to name but a few former clients. Having been commissioned by various magazines and advertising agencies in the past, Roper’s style has interested a new and exciting avenue: “Recently I seem to be getting a lot of interest from music labels, which is something I aim to pursue more in the future.” Although all of his work is created on the computer he is a firm believer that the pieces should be spontaneous and organic, unlike many of today’s artificial and stale-looking computer-generated illustrations. Kerry achieves this by using a vast array of found textures, ranging from pieces of metal to old newspaper prints, which he then combines with his photography, typography and illustrations. “The majority of my work uses photography, which is then manipulated in Photoshop,” he says. “I always try to add various hand-drawn elements and have found that textures in my work help to make it as organic and spontaneous as possible. I always aim to make my work engaging.” www.wearebitch.com

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ure, mark, “Every text BIG ISSUE: oughly considered or th the ord is image or w ain objective is to take ch and its m rough ea th y ne ur jo e on a than viewer’s ey ece, and, more often in pi interpret it individual to er ad re ay.” g the their own w not, allowin

NATIVE WEAPON: “Ultimately my compositions aim to engage the viewer long enough to convey a relevant message or idea”

DEVIL’S GUN: By combining texture, photography and illustration, Roper’s work has a raw, edgy appeal

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06.06 MOTH & BADGES: “I have a variety of ongoing projects ranging from badge designs to new art pieces. There are a few album covers in the pipeline – these are probably my favourite projects to date” A GIRL CALLED CANDY: “I find it’s important for me to pursue my personal projects, because they allow me to develop and push the boundaries. Some of these projects do find themselves being incorporated into my commercial work”

STRIKING SNICKERS: “I have been commissioned by various magazines, record labels and advertising agencies. Possibly the biggest campaign to date was for BBDO NYC, which was for Snickers and the NFL. More recently I seem to be getting a lot of interest from music labels”

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Inter view TOTALLY DEVOTED Eighteen years ago, Photoshop was a mere glint in Adobe’s eye and Robin Preston was just starting his career. Almost two decades on, Preston and Photoshop could become the most potent pairing yet

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ighteen years is a long time for anyone to be in the digital arts. After all, Thomas Knoll had barely conceived Photoshop and nobody but techno-geeks talked about email or the Internet back then. However, out of the creative chasm came Robin Preston: “We had our first creative system in 1988; it cost around £850,000!” Although these days it seems as though every other person has a hankering for a career in Photoshop art, it hasn’t always been so. “I started working with Photoshop 2 in about 1993,” Robin explains. “At that time it wasn’t the professional software it is today, people didn’t want to work on it but preferred other software. Over the last few years it’s grown to be so professional and, because I’ve basically grown up with it, there isn’t anything I really can’t do with it.”

New challenges As with many top Photoshop artists, it has been a busy year so far for Robin. As well as working on countless new projects, both commercial and

PUFFHAIR (ABOVE TOP):

Despite his obvious aptitude for the digital arts, Robin is reluctant to embrace some programs. “I don’t use 3D because it is still too technical for me. I always say it’s missing the last bit of dirt a real image has”

NISSAN HUNTING (ABOVE): “I’m trying to move

away from cars because I think that cars will all be created in 3D in the not-to-distant future. That’s the importance of Photoshop and what’s happening now”

AIRPORT (RIGHT): Robin achieves image perfection with ease. “What’s good for me is that because I come from this illustration background I can actually illustrate in Photoshop photographically”

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Robin Preston

I’M AN EFFERVESCENT IDEAS MAN, THEY JUST SORT OF BUBBLE OUT OF ME

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Inter view

NINTENDO TWIST: “The new filters and things in Photoshop are not really new to me. I was working with Warp 15 years ago. I’ve been waiting for it to come along. This image I created for Nintendo was created completely in Warp. A lot of people think it’s 3D but it’s not”

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Robin Preston

personal, Robin’s been dipping his fingers into a few new pies. “I’ve just spent the day at Adobe because I’m going to be doing lectures and things for them in the near future. I can’t give away too much at the moment as it’s still in the planning stages,” he divulges. “I’ve started to develop for Photoshop actual photographic brushes too. These brushes are 300dpi and they start out at 2,500 pixels – basically the biggest you can make. And because they’re photographic, anything you can do with a pixellated image you can do with these brushes.” Already a beta tester for the software giant, Robin’s dip into development doesn’t stop with Adobe. “I’m the senior – I always say senile – evangelist for Wacom. I don’t go to every trade show, but they usually use me for larger things. I was at Focus On Imaging earlier this year giving talks for Wacom, Adobe and also Nikon. I want to get into development. I want to push the boundaries. It’s only now that the industry is becoming interested in people like me and they’ve begun to realise they need to talk as professionals to professionals.” Just like the field within which he works, Robin has come a long way over the past two decades. After studying illustration at St Martins School of Art he started his professional life as an illustrator, where he fell into airbrushing and retouching. “Then, over the last four years or so, I’ve been forced into photography by my clients, which is why I call myself a digital

artist because now I’m doing everything.” Much has changed over those years, not least the work Robin now finds himself doing. “I’ve done work for Saatchi & Saatchi, Coca-Cola, Mercedes, Ford, Mazda, Nissan, basically every car company you can think of. I do quite a lot of work for Nissan in Germany and they come up with some quite funny ads and weird concepts, which is always fun.”

Working practice But it’s not just his clients that have evolved over the years. Robin was quick to jump aboard all the latest technological advances. “I’ve been using a Wacom tablet for 18 years now. I was one of first people to ever use a tablet and now I simply couldn’t produce the images I produce with a mouse. It would be impossible; I need the pressure sensitivity. I look upon the pen as a brush.” As well as his love of the tablet, Robin’s computer setup has become fairly impressive too. “I have five Macs, all networked. Two new iMacs, one with Intel, a 2.8 G5 double processor with four gigs of memory. I’ve also got two servers which are Mac minis – one for print and one images – three laptops and, for my clients, I have big servers in London, Germany and New York.

SOCKDOG (ABOVE LEFT):

An image from one of Robin’s more commercial moments, this can be viewed along with his other industry work at www.nw-5.com

STREET FOOTBALL (ABOVE RIGHT):

This image was comped from nine elements. Perfect perspective gives it a hyper-real appeal

These don’t belong to me but I hire 200 gigs of space as I believe strongly in working virtually.” However, it is not the technology that makes Robin’s work so eye-catching, it is his philosophy. “The way I create a lot of my images is by using a technique I call dirty concepts. What I do is get, say, 15 images I’ve been looking at, I’ll make JPEGs of them then chuck four or five layers at them, like doing a rough sketch, then put them aside. I might leave them for a week then go back to them and start working them, as you would in days gone by. When I was studying illustration my forte was watercolour. Before you did a watercolour you’d make a sketch. So I work to that principle of how artists used to work, because that’s what I believe we are. There are a lot of people who manipulate images and a lot that do what I’d call retouching but very few around that are actually trying to create art. A lot of my clients say they appreciate the kind of things I do because I’m always trying to take it one step further.”

Seeking inspiration Although producing 15 image ideas doesn’t daunt the digital artist, asked how he comes up with his concepts, he struggles for an answer. “I’ve got a weird head! One of my agents once

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Inter view

ATTIC FAIRY: “I mainly take the images myself, although I do occasionally use other photographers. In the last few years my clients have started to ask me to shoot everything as they trust me and I found it wasn’t as difficult as it looked”

TOW TRUCK:

Robin’s past car clients have included names like BMW, but much of this is now done in 3D

said to me I’m an effervescent ideas man, they just sort of bubble out of me.” However, one inspiration is clear when Robin starts talking about his passion for weird and wonderful artist Dali. “I like him because he painted photo realistically, so that’s the sort of direction I’ve gone in.” As with so many of his peers, Robin’s inspiration doesn’t come simply from the likes of Dali or his peers. “I’m a very visual person, I can no longer read a book and it can take two weeks just to read a newspaper. But visually I’ll watch a lot of television, in fact I often work with a television on at the same time. It helps me stop and take a break otherwise I’d keel over after ten hours straight in front of the computer!” When it comes to finding inspiration in his contemporaries, Robin is wary. “I try to keep away from everybody else. I buy your magazine, but

DIGITAL IMAGINING THESE DAYS IS LIKE SPORT

generally I try to keep away from looking at other people’s images. Not because I think they’re not good, because their images are fantastic, I just believe if you start looking at other people’s work too much then you start, even if you don’t want to, copying what they’re doing.” But as we all know, after 18 years it’s not just a matter of inspiration – motivation can begin to wane too. However, as he explains, Robin has a solution to keep him on track. “My work changes constantly. I always try to be on the edge of technology and try to be two years ahead of what’s going on. What I’m trying to do is go back to my roots as an artist and produce photographic art for my own satisfaction.”

The next gen Looking forward to both the direction of the world of Photoshop and those who would follow in his footsteps, Robin has some ideas on the changes we’re likely to see. “Our world is changing, and that’s why I think retouching studios will disappear in the next five years because a photographer, within the next five

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Robin Preston APOCALYPTIC SPRAYER: “A

lot of things that influence me come from TV. If I’m watching a news program I often find inspiration – one image was about what was happening in Paris with the youth”

AIRPLANE: Created from an image of the inside of an airplane, this carefully crafted Photoshop illusion needs a second look

ZEBRASTREIFEN ANDI (ABOVE TOP):

“Sometimes I might do something conventionally and make it photo-realistic in Photoshop”

years, will have to do everything themselves.” So what advice would he give someone about to step into this turbulent world? “Put the hours in. Every day,” he says simply. “I’ve been working digitally 18 years and I still sit every weekend for two or three hours, even if I haven’t got any work, trying things out. You have to be creative but you also need to put the hours in. Digital imagining these days is like sport. If you want to be ahead of the pack you have to be doing that every day for three or four hours. You have to be trying out new techniques every day, looking for new images, working out images in your head. I wake up at three in the morning thinking of an idea often.” And the future for him? “I’m working on a project on footballers at the moment, but it’s not going to be like anything people have seen revolving around footballers ever before. It’ll be one of my more far-out images.” 5

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MASTERCLASS

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Although many contemporary illustrations seem to be entirely computer-generated, remember that you can give your images a personal touch by introducing your own hand-drawn elements BY KEV SPECK

Turn photos into artwork ON THE DISC You’ll find all the elements you need to transform iStockphoto’s image number 755348 into a piece of vector artwork on this issue’s cover disc. Either head to iStockphoto to buy the same image or take a source photo of a friend.

OUR EXPERT

Kev Speck

A year after first stepping foot on the shores of illustration, Kev Speck has already achieved what many dream of, having worked for clients such as Peugeot, V2 and Toni and Guy.

Picking up models In this tutorial we’re using a stock image for the model. I wasn’t a huge fan of the stock library at the beginning, but recently my opinion has been swayed, because they are an amazing resource. Head to www.istockphoto.com to get the image used in this illustration, which you’ll find if you search for ‘755348’.

images

There is no substitute for going out there and capturing your own images, and there is a great satisfaction in working on your own photos. However, when the time comes and you need something that you can’t capture in your own home, like a penguin, then stock photography is the answer. The iStockphoto image used for this tutorial is file ‘istock_000000755348’. Make sure that you get the right copyright for the way in which you’re planning to use the image.

S

pring is here and, if you’re anything like me, you’ll be booking a summer holiday, digging out last season’s sunglasses and shopping on eBay for flip-flops. With the appearance of the sunshine, you may also be wondering whether or not to brave the move of using bold, bright colours in your illustrations. Well, the answer in my opinion is yes, you should be. It’s time to be confident, be bold, and turn up the saturation levels on that shy pale palette you’ve been using. As well as braving a new spectrum of colour, you will also be reminded of some of the options scanning in hand-drawn elements can bring to your work. It enables you to turn an ordinary vector illustration into your own personalised version. Anyone nowadays can create a silhouette, fill it with block colours and call it an illustration, but there are more stages than that if you look past the obvious, and creating depth and texture are great aspects to any illustration. Plus, we’ll discover a use for the Stamp filter! Who would have thought it…

Put spring in your steps

1

Sourcing your

2

Trace elements Open your own image or the iStockphoto image in Photoshop, and within that file trace around your figure to create a complete selection. Zoom right in to a range between 200-300% to get the best results. Sure, it takes a bit longer, but the results are far superior than if you were to trace at, say, 50%.

3

Reproducing layers Pick a suitable base layer for your model, and, using the Fill Tool, colour the selection you have just created. While at this stage, create a new layer, change the Fill Tool to the Gradient Tool and create some new gradient layers with the same colour. Make sure that your gradient selection is set to Colour To Opacity. Finish by copy and pasting the selected area of the original image to a new layer.

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MASTERCLASS 4

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Perfect placement Next, create a new Photoshop document. The size used for this image is 230x297mm, CMYK with a resolution of 300dpi. Now, from your iStock document, drag over all the layers you just created. Place in the photograph selection, and using the different layer options place the gradients and filled layers beneath and over the image as in the screenshot below.

Dress up Now refer back to your original model image. Again zoom in, and this time just trace around the model’s outfit. Once you’re finished, fill the area and drag it onto your illustration. Place it over the photograph then deselect the original photograph to show you what you’ve created so far.

Bring in some sky To give the image a bit of depth and background, we are going to create a stylised sky. Using the Elliptical Marquee Tool, create an ellipse at the top of the page. Using the Polygonal Lasso Tool from the furthest point of your ellipse, continue the shape you’re creating down to the bottom of the page. When satisfied with the effect, fill and repeat for the opposite side.

Out there! It’s time to inject your own artistic touch and do something to the image that breaks it up a bit. I’m going to drop onto the head of the model a kind of crown or hat shape in the same colour used for the layers earlier. As the image develops you can tweak and alter your earlier adjustments, but for now be bold and do something different and a little bit crazy.

Flip to Filter It’s time to use the Stamp Filter. You may or may not be aware that the majority of filters have been overused and so are rarely applied by today’s top illustrators. Using your original iStockphoto image (on a white background), select the Stamp option via the Filter>Sketch pull-down menu (make sure your image is set to RGB before you attempt this).

“IT’S TIME TO BE CONFIDENT, BE BOLD, AND TURN UP THE SATURATION LEVELS”

Build up the surroundings Using your new blue shapes, duplicate the layers and place them within each other and change the Layer Mode to Screen. Open the file ‘ksl01.psd’ from the CD and import the layer to add some colour to the bottom of the image. It was created by simply cutting out a texture and changing the Hue/Saturation to a suitable colour. Place it at the bottom to give a mountain feel.

Hair we go again… You are probably sick of tracing this woman by now, but this is the last time you’ll have to lasso anything for a while. Zoom in again and repeat step seven, this time with the hair. It’s a longer process; how long you choose to spend on it depends on how detailed you want the hair to look.

Stamping your model There isn’t too much to do here other than look at the selection the computer generates on your behalf and alter it slightly until you’re happy with the look. I opted to use the exact version it gave me without changing any of the settings, which are Light/Dark Balance: 23, Smoothness: 5.

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12

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“INJECT YOUR OWN ARTISTIC TOUCH. DO SOMETHING TO THE IMAGE THAT BREAKS IT UP A BIT”

Put down the mouse At this stage, put your mouse or tablet down. You now need to print your images so that you can create the layers that aren’t constructed on your computer. Print out your original photograph along with your new cut-out version.

Without a trace One at a time, place all the layers you just traced onto your image, and you’ll see it starting to flesh out. I’ve put my tracings onto the CD itself, so if you are having trouble recreating this tutorial because you lack a scanner or printer, you can use those.

17

Hand it to her If you not using your own photo, open the ‘hand.psd’ file, and place it onto your image. You will have to scale down the hand and place it accordingly. I also duplicated the hand and placed it underneath the original to give make it stand out more. Making it white adds to this.

Let’s get physical Using various pens, start tracing various parts of your photo, for example the outline of the clothing and detail of the model’s hair. Then, using your stamped image, trace the detail of the face and some shade of her arms (keep your pen strokes in the same direction). Once you’re happy with the amount that has been done, scan them all into your computer.

Give it expression At the moment, it’s simply a figure standing there not really doing much. I want to add some expression to the image, and I’m going to do this by changing what she’s doing with her arms. If possible, take a photograph of someone’s hands, and scan them in. Adding this will give the impression that the woman is releasing the season of spring into the image.

Alter your scans Now quickly alter all your scans. It’s a quick procedure that saves a lot of time in the long run. Open up your files, and change the Brightness and Contrast to a 20 and 10. Then go over with the Erase Tool and delete all the bits of dust and fluff that your scanner picked up (although that may just be my wagon of a scanner!).

Embrace the

organic

Don’t be scared to introduce hand-drawn elements. Tracing was always frowned upon when I was younger, but I see no crime in it as long as it is done properly. If you are talented in drawing, then embrace your skills into your computer-generated work, but if you’re like me, and can’t draw for a toffee, tracing paper is a wonderful thing.

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MASTERCLASS 18

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Scatter circles To add to the image and balance the slick with the handmade, create some simple circles and scatter them around the top of the head. As these shapes were from a piece I’d done previously, I was able to open a file and insert them straight in, just leaving the colours to change.

Spring into action Rather than insert symbols of spring, I’ve opted to use the tone and colour of the image to reflect the season. I just want to add some magic around the new hands we created earlier to emphasis the expression we are trying to make. Try adding shapes, graphics and vectors to stream from the model’s hands.

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Extra dimension It’s a little step this, but we just want to insert a block of colour at the front to give it a bit of dimension. It helps the image to look less flat. Use the shape you made earlier for the sky, duplicate it, move it up the layer ladder and change the colour to a solid green.

More hand-made elements At this stage of the tutorial, I felt that I needed to introduce some more handcrafted elements to the image to give it more substance. I cut out the arms of my original printout, and then scanned them in and inserted them on a multiply level towards the top end of the layer ladder. This makes an area of the image stand out that didn’t before.

Making progress To keep with the general flow of the image, insert some diagonal lines into your image. There doesn’t need to be any real strategy behind it, just have them set to different opacities and different layer modes to keep it interesting.

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Get fashionable You’ll find that as you make an illustration, you’ll experiment and change your mind and pretty much freestyle through some stages (usually the end ones). On playing around I inserted a flower onto the hat, which gave it a really nice feel, and then using that shape I cut away from the face of the model to give it a fashion-orientated feel (without giving any real thought to the clothing she is wearing).

And finally… A spring image wouldn’t be complete without adding some butterflies. Loosely place some butterflies around your image. Using different sizes will give the feeling of space and depth.

Layer

“IF YOU CAN’T DRAW FOR A TOFFEE, TRACING PAPER IS A WONDERFUL THING”

library Make sure you keep all your layers in a library folder on your computer. You never know – one day you may call upon a texture you created four months ago. Your creative world can get busy, so any time saved is valuable.

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Feature

a

Designing

new world

The powerful program we know today began life as a homemade app in the Eighties. Jason Arber looks at where it all went right for Adobe’s creative colossus BY JASON ARBER

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F

rom magazine covers to adverts to subversive photomontages, Adobe Photoshop is the de facto image editor for pixel-based images, and has seeped into every aspect of design, illustration and photography. It has even managed to infiltrate the wider world, becoming an alternative word for any kind of digital image manipulation. From its beginning, Photoshop has always been an application that’s been in the right place at the right time. Here we look back at its key developments and its dizzying rise in popularity. Adobe’s flagship product is so synonymous with digital art and retouching that Photoshop has become a verb among its users and adherents: almost any kind of image manipulation is described as Photoshopping. Adobe frowns on this practice, feeling that it undermines its trademark, but the company has the same uphill struggle to stop people using the term as experienced by one electrical manufacturer who tried to prevent people from saying they were “hoovering the carpet”. It’s a sign that Adobe Photoshop has not only become ingrained in the lives of designers, but that it has also started infiltrating the mainstream.

Home-grown talent Salon.com ran an article entitled ‘The Photoshopping Of The President’ about the rise of home-made satirical images of America’s chief executive. The feature quoted Henry Jenkins, director of the Comparative Media Studies program at MIT, who has tracked Photoshop’s role in critical commentary since the application’s debut. “It used to be that you saw something done in Photoshop and you’d immediately forward it for the sheer novelty of it,” says Jenkins.

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Feature Adobe licenses Thomas Knoll’s Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop 1.0 1988

1989

1990

Adobe Photoshop 2.0 Codename: Fast Eddy Gave us: Pen Tool, Duotones

Adobe Photoshop 2.5 Codename: Fast Eddy Gave us: The first Windows

and support for CMYK

edition (Brimstone)

1991

1992

“WE CHOSE PHOTOSHOP AS THE WORKING NAME, FULLY EXPECTING WHOMEVER WE SOLD THE PRODUCT TO WOULD DO MARKET RESEARCH AND CHOOSE A BETTER NAME” THE APP IN ACTION NOWWASHYOURHANDS www.nowwashyourhands.com

THOMAS KNOLL, PHOTOSHOP CREATOR “Now people are more discriminating. In the same way that we don’t cut out every political cartoon and stick it on our refrigerators, we no longer forward every Photoshop image we receive.” If Photoshop’s dominance both creatively and culturally is now an accepted fact, it was not always the case. In the late Eighties and early Nineties, heavy-duty image manipulation was an area that belonged to specialised hardware and software combinations such as Barco Creator, which ran on the Silicon Graphics Indigo 2 workstation. Professionals scoffed at Photoshop’s early capabilities, with digital manipulator Michel Tcherevkoff stating as late as 1997 that the difference between Creator running on SGI and a Mac or PC using Photoshop is like the difference between a street car and a racing car – both get you to McDonald’s, but one gets you there a lot faster.

A rough start

NOWWASHYOURHANDS produces a quarterly A1 newsletter featuring news and company information on one side and a poster image on the other. To coincide with the launch of its new NWYH Stock Images library, NOWWASHYOURHANDS wanted to create an iconic image that summed up the collection. The building was shot on medium-format film using a Mamiya RB67, while the figure was shot separately on the same day to match the lighting conditions at the top of some outside steps. Another image of the figure was shot in digital format with a Nikon D70 for the reflection in the window. High-resolution drum scans were then produced and the images were comped together using Photoshop CS2. The trick to creating a convincing image was to match the blur and film grain between the two images and to ensure that the colour balance between the figure and the building was as close as possible. The reflection in the window was the icing on the cake, and this convinced many people that the image was in fact real!

Photoshop began with two brothers, John and Thomas Knoll, whose father owned one of the first Apple II computers and was passionate about photography: two elements that were to have a profound impact on the brothers. In 1987, John Knoll was working at George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic visual effects company while Thomas was studying for his PhD in image processing. Frustrated by his Apple Mac Plus’ inability to display greyscale images, Thomas decided to write his own code to do it. Collaborating with his brother, he finally produced an application called Display, which with a few subsequent tweaks also managed colour images, adjusting their gamma, levels, balance, hue and saturation. After a quick name-change to ImagePro in 1988 the Knolls starting hawking their finished application around to software companies, but it was met with very little enthusiasm. Only Adobe and scanner manufacturer Barneyscan showed any interest (early versions of Photoshop were bundled with Barneyscan’s scanners under the name Barneyscan XP). Eventually finding a permanent home at Adobe, Photoshop 1.0

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Designing a new world “TOGETHER WITH QUARKXPRESS, PAGEMAKER, ILLUSTRATOR AND FREEHAND, PHOTOSHOP WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BIRTH OF DESKTOP PUBLISHING” Adobe Photoshop 3 Codename: Tiger Mountain Gave us: Layers! 1993

Adobe Photoshop 4.0 Codename: Big Electric Cat Gave us: Adjustment Layers and editable type 1994

was released in February 1990 for the Macintosh platform. Photoshop’s final name was almost an accident. In an interview for Photoshop Soup2Nuts 2006 – a conference that raises funds for digital imaging education and technical training for those who are economically limited – Thomas Knoll described the process. “We chose PhotoShop as the working name, fully expecting whomever we sold the product to would do market research and choose a better name. Adobe spent several months doing research on various names and eventually chose to call it Photoshop. The only change they ended up making was to make the ‘s’ in Photoshop lower case.”

Desktop drive Since 1990, Photoshop has grown into a mammoth application and generated hundreds of millions of dollars for Adobe. The incremental changes that the Knolls and the programmers at Adobe introduced, coupled with the increasing processing power of desktop computer systems, saw the application being adopted by more and more designers, supplanting specialist hardware solutions. Together with QuarkXPress, Aldus (later Adobe) PageMaker, Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Freehand, and technologies such as PostScript and scalable fonts, Photoshop was responsible for the birth of desktop publishing (DTP). This put pixel-specific control of design into the hands of designers for the first time and

1995

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led to a creative explosion in the visual arts. As a sign of its evolutionary nature, version 1.0 is clearly identifiable as Photoshop. It had a limited set of controls compared to its modern counterpart, but many of the key features that are still used today were already in place for the application’s launch. Perhaps the biggest limitation with the early versions of Photoshop was the lack of layers. Photomontages were possible, but it meant juggling multiple source files and saving temporary files. Once an image had been copy-and-pasted and then deselected, it permanently fused with the background image. Hardware was another important consideration. Although Photoshop was capable of manipulating colour images from the get-go, colour monitors were still extremely rare, and 16-bit calibrated monitors rarer still. It took a brave soul to try to colour-correct an image using a greyscale monitor, although it was possible in theory if you could visualise how adjusting the Levels might affect an image. Image selection was limited to the Marquee tools (or Channel Masks if you were clever) until version 2.0 came along and provided users with the Path Tool, Photoshop’s first blending of raster and vector information. Paths used Adobe Illustrator’s established Bézier control-point method of creating smooth curves, describing them as mathematical vectors that could be scaled up with no loss of quality. Best of all, Paths could be named and saved and any path could be nominated as the Clipping Path. Clipping Path information was retained when a file was saved as an EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) and could be used by a page layout application to create a cutout. Images were now no longer limited to being rectangles, but could be trimmed to any shape desired, allowing portraits or trees or a tin of beans to float above a different background

1997

THE APP IN ACTION

John McFaul www.mcfaul.net McFaul is a UK-based illustrator and co-founder of illustration supergroup Black Convoy. He has used Photoshop since version 1.0, but in the early days it was used only to colour-separate image files for screenprinting! McFaul was commissioned by Kinder to produce a press campaign for the Kinder Surprise chocolate eggs, and combined graphic elements with photography shot for the series. Much of the work is done in Adobe Illustrator before being brought into Photoshop. He says that much of his work “is so involved in ‘environment’ and ‘atmosphere’ that even subtle variations in gradients and blurs create feeling.” To create the effect he uses a large number of layers and layer blending modes, which impart “a strange reality as much as a surreal element to the imagery.” McFaul adds: “My work is so layered it scares me…”

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Feature

Adobe Photoshop 5.0 Codename: Strange Cargo Gave us: Multiple Undo

Adobe Photoshop 5.5 Codename: Strange Cargo Gave us: Bundled with

Adobe Photoshop 6.0 Codename: Venus In Furs Gave us: Layer styles and

(History palette) and enhanced Color Management

ImageReady, and including Extract and Vector Shapes

improved text handling with greater typographic control

1998

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THE APP IN ACTION

2000

James Chiang www.jameschiang.com James Chiang is a photographer and art director who grew up in China and Boston and is now settled in San Francisco with his wife Lana and greyhound Noi. His diverse clients include Adidas, Verve Records and various glossy magazines. Zulu is a gritty montage experiment for his print portfolio. Generally for his photography James just uses “a bit of sharpening, layer stacking, colour-correcting and increasing the contrast for punchiness”. This image required a bit more and included multiple scans of some of some of James’ paintings and artefacts, including a weathered Halliburton travel case! The elements were assembled “using the Multiply/Screen Tool liberally in layers, which is just fantastic fun.”

colour or image. Paths were brought into the editing app by Mark Hamburg, who became Photoshop’s second programmer to what had essentially been a one-man band. Other improvements in Photoshop 2.0 included support for CMYK colour (which was an important step in winning acceptance by the print industry), support for duotones and a rasterizer for Adobe Illustrator files. This converted Illustrator’s vector information into bitmaps that could be edited in Photoshop. By version 2.5, released in November 1992, Photoshop was establishing itself as the industry standard, beating competitors such as Letraset’s ColorStudio, and sales were going through the roof. Version 2.5 introduced support for 16-bit files and palettes, but is notable for being the first version of Photoshop available on the Windows platform. It wasn’t until version 3.0 (codenamed Tiger Mountain) arrived in 1994 that the next big change came. In September of that year, version 3.0 introduced

Adobe Photoshop 7.0 Codename: Liquid Sky

Gave us: Healing Brush and new painting engine

2001

2002

layers, giving digital artists new and exciting freedom to combine images. Many perceived Photoshop’s layers capability to be a direct response to Live Picture, an application that was excellent at handling massive images thanks to its IVUE file format, which stored an image as a series of tiles at different resolutions and used layers. In actual fact, Thomas Knoll had developed layers in parallel with LiveImage. LiveImage and Photoshop duked it out for several years until code optimisations and faster hardware closed the gap between the two applications, and LiveImage’s unique selling point – its handling of large image files – became moot. It was a notoriously unstable application, too, and an ill-advised move from Santa Cruz to Silicon Valley accelerated its demise. Similarly, ColorStudio fell by the wayside, and on the Windows platform other image editors struggled to carve themselves the same kind of market share.

Refreshing your screen Version 4.0 of the application introduced some radical changes care of Andrei Herasimchuk, Photoshop’s new interface designer. He began the process of unifying the look and feel of Adobe’s products and turning Photoshop into a modern application. Commands were reassigned and the toolbar expanded, rearranged and refreshed with new icons. Inevitably some users felt disorientated by the changes, but the inner logic eventually won most of them over. Aside from interface changes, the biggest new feature Photoshop 4.0 included was Adjustment Layers: the ability to apply non-destructive and completely editable changes to an image’s colour and tonal values. The next version of Photoshop, released in May 1998, continued to cause users headaches thanks to its fumbling of the colour management ball, a new feature

Plug-ins: pushing the boundaries One of the main reasons for Photoshop’s popularity is its extensible nature, which is thanks to a plug-ins architecture initially devised by John Knoll as a way of sneaking new features into the application. There now exists a cottage industry that produces a mindboggling array of plug-ins to add missing functionality, streamline steps or create special effects. Often these are created just for fun, and that’s part of the attraction. One of the most famous series of Photoshop plug-ins

was Kai’s Power Tools, created by German software artist and interface designer Kai Krause. The tools, which came in several volumes, were notable not only for their cool effects (such as KPT Goo, which turned images into viscous liquid that could be pushed around) but also for their innovative interfaces. Alien Skin’s Eye Candy series was a popular set of plug-ins that created chrome effects, perspective shadows, motion trails, drips, ripples, smoke and more.

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Designing a new world

Adobe Photoshop CS Codename: 8.0, Dark Matter Gave us: Camera RAW 2, Shadow/Highlight, Lens Blur and Real Time Histogram

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that was included in version 5.0. And while colour management has grown to be a crucial part of Photoshop, its introduction was not handled smoothly and caused many problems in established production workflows. To compensate, Photoshop shipped with a raft of new capabilities including Editable Type – previously, type was rasterized as soon as it was added – and Multiple Undo on steroids, better known as the History palette. The History palette allowed users to backtrack over their document changes and branch off in a new direction should they so choose.

The final tweaks Released a year later, Photoshop 5.5 addressed two things directly, application bloat and the world wide web, by bundling ImageReady with Photoshop for the first time. ImageReady was a cut-down version of Photoshop containing features specifically geared towards the production of graphics for the Internet. ImageReady made it easy to create GIF animations and compare the effect of different compression methods, but has never seemed to generate the same kind of user affection that Photoshop has. Rather than shoehorn every bit of raster functionality into Photoshop, ImageReady was seen as a way of avoiding feature creep and an example of a new Adobe policy of creating tightly focused applications. Adobe’s new Lightroom product, currently in public beta, is another example, this time expanding Photoshop CS’s excellent RAW tools into an application aimed at the prosumer photography market. Likewise, Photoshop Elements, which began life as Photoshop LE and launched to coincide with

Adobe Photoshop CS2 Codename: 9.0, Space Monkey Gave us: Camera Raw 3, Smart Objects, Warp, Spot Healing Brush, Red-Eye Tool, Lens Correction Filter, Smart Sharpen, Vanishing Point, and more

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“OTHER IMAGE EDITORS STRUGGLED TO CARVE THEMSELVES THE SAME KIND OF MARKET SHARE” the release of Photoshop 7.0 in March 2002, was aimed at the beginner or hobbyist. It has a simplified interface and a reduced feature set, removing some aspects of the application such as CMYK support. Photoshop Elements is often many users’ first experience of Photoshop, offering them an easy upgrade path to the full application, and is in part responsible for the application’s eventual acceptance into the mainstream. Adobe continued to add new features to Photoshop, such as the Healing Brush and the Liquify Filter, but it wasn’t until Photoshop 7.0.1, when Adobe introduced the Camera RAW plug-in to dovetail with the popularity of digital cameras, that the application had fresh show-stopper features. RAW files are the uncompressed image files produced by most prosumer cameras, and it is the format of choice for amateur snappers and professional photographers alike. By retaining the maximum amount of image data the RAW format is an ideal starting point for digital images, unlike lossy JPEGs. In actual fact, RAW is a blanket term for each camera manufacturer’s proprietary image format, and prior to Adobe’s Camera RAW solution, users had to make do with unsatisfactory third-party solutions simply to get the images inside Photoshop. But Adobe showed that it was listening to what users wanted, and has steadily upgraded its Camera RAW plug-in to cover most popular cameras and has added the ability to pre-process images, adjusting their white balance or exposure, for example. Camera RAW is an elegant solution to a tricky behind-the-

scenes problem, and shows that Adobe realises that digital photography is where the next battle will be won. Adobe’s advocation of its open-source Digital Negative initiative and its public battles with Nikon over the .NEF RAW format equally demonstrate how serious the company is. Perhaps stung into action over Apple’s slick digital camera workflow Aperture, Adobe has taken the unusual step of opening up its beta program for Lightroom to the public. Word from Adobe indicates that this process has been a huge success. It might be too much to hope that Adobe would do the same thing for Photoshop, but Bruce Chizen, if you’re reading, why not give it a go? 5

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MASTERCLASS

Fantasy lighting Add fantastical lighting to your compositions using Photoshop’s blending modes BY JAMES DAVIES

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ave you ever taken a photo that was composed exactly how you wanted save for one thing: the atmosphere? Whether you want to relight a photo, change the time of day or create a fantasy element within your images, Photoshop’s army of blending modes can breathe life into an otherwise flat-looking scene. Because not everyone has access to a studio setup that includes expensive lighting, we’re going to show you how to create atmosphere and fantasy lighting using blending modes. Not only that, but we’ll also be refining your techniques for painting light and shadow directly onto subjects to mimic natural lighting. So no matter what images you’ve got at hand they’re going to be perfect for this technique. Just load them up and let’s get started!

The light fantastic

ON THE DISC If you want to recreate our day-to-night scene, then get snapping on your digital camera to create the files you need to get started. We suggest taking a photograph of yourself and a friend to get some of that spotlight action!

OUR EXPERT

James Davies

As well as working on some of the industry’s most prestigious titles as art editor, our expert James, a 26-year-old graduate from the London College of Music and Media, is also co-founder of renegade t-shirt label www.dirtyvelvet.co.uk.

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“PHOTOSHOP’S ARMY OF BLENDING MODES CAN BREATHE LIFE INTO AN OTHERWISE FLAT-LOOKING SCENE”

Cutting it As a source, use a background image from your own photo collection or track down a shot from an online image library. From the Channels palette (F7), drag and copy the channel that has the highest contrast between subject and background; in this case copy the Yellow. Boost the contrast between the sky and land by using the Levels Adjust tool until the land is as dark and the sky as light as possible.

Total control To allow us full control of all the elements of a composition it’s best to put everything on its own layer. Repeat the cutting technique to separate the tree line from the poppy field. If you can’t find a clean channel to use in CMYK, try switching to RGB. In this case, the red channel layer is the easiest to work with.

Select in black and white You’ll need to make the land (which you are separating from the sky) totally black by painting on the yellow channel layer using a brush filled with black. When what you want to cut out is black, and the remainder is white, Apple/Ctrl+Click on the yellow channel layer icon to select all the black within the layer then copy and paste it to a new layer.

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MASTERCLASS 4

Depth of field To make a scene composition like the one we’re creating more interesting or hyper-real to fool the eye into thinking it’s real, try adding some foreground elements. By adding a tree or two to the foreground and blurring using the Gaussian Blur (it’s not as realistic as the lens blur but it’s good enough for this) at about 4.8 pixels you can give the image depth of field.

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Glow up We’ve added a simple moon image and cut this out using a path. Import this onto the canvas behind the tree. Select the moon layer and go to Layer>Layer styles>Outer Glow to bring up the layer style options. Alternatively, double-click on the layer icon in the Layers palette. Configure the glow as shown in the screenshot.

“PAINTING IN SHADOWS IS DIFFICULT TO GET RIGHT” 6 7 Full moon Duplicate the moon layer (with the Outer Glow adjustment) and set the Blending mode to Screen with an Opacity of around 50-60%. This will brighten up the moon enough to compensate for when we darken the sky and everything later to make it a night scene. Check our blending modes boxout on page 46 to learn more about the technique.

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Get the blues Duplicate the background layer (this should be the original untouched layer you opened) and go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation (or Apple/Ctrl+U). Configure it as shown in the screenshot below to create a blue layer. Set the blending mode to Multiply and the layer opacity to 60%.

What’s in a name? At this stage it’s good idea to ensure that you’ve named all the layers and, where appropriate, sorted them into nice organised folders. This will avoid a whole world of pain later on.

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Dark skies Duplicate the blue layer and set it to Multiply and 55% opacity. Now adjust the layer hierarchy so that the 60% blue layer sits below the poppy field and the 55% above it (see the screenshot for the order). This will darken the sky more – it needs the most adjustment.

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The mask Select the poppy layer and go to Layer>Layer mask>Reveal All. Select a black-to-white gradient and graduate black to white from bottom to top. This will allow more of the blue layer to show through the black part of the mask to give the impression that the poppy field gets darker as it moves further from the moon.

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Tree of darkness Duplicate the foreground layers and merge the duplicates onto one layer. Go to Image> Adjustments>Hue/Saturation, click the Colorize box and select a Hue of 218, Saturation of 57 and a Lightness of -33. Set the layer to Multiply and the layer opacity to 75%. Now to tackle our full-on flora.

Add the people Cut out the figures on the photo you’ve taken of yourself and a friend using your preferred technique. Place the figures within the scene and adjust their sizes until you’re happy with the perspective. There’s no specific rule on this one, although I find that it helps to use a real photograph for comparison.

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Fly by night I’ve used a butterfly to create the firefly; just log onto www. istockphoto.com to find a similar one or source your own. Apple/ Ctrl+click on the butterfly layer icon to select the pixels and using a white foreground colour hit shift+F5 to fill it. Apply a small Gaussian Blur (around 5-10 pixels) and using the layer styles apply an Outer Glow. Set the Layer Blending mode to Screen.

Doom and gloom The poppies seem a bit too vibrant still, so now we’ll tone them down a bit. Duplicate the layer by hitting Shift+Apple/Ctrl+U to desaturate it, and then set the blending mode to Saturation. Set the Opacity to around 20%, which will take around 20% of the red out and calm the colour down. The desaturated layer should sit above the colour layer in the layer hierarchy.

Appropriate lighting It’s a good idea to keep the figures above the blanket blue layers that colour the layers below, so repeat the steps needed to light them so they fit in the scene. As we’re going to create a light source in the girl’s hands, we need to throw a shadow onto the boy behind. Duplicate the girl layer, select the pixels and fill with a dark blue. Apply a Gaussian Blur at around 8-10 pixels. Nudge the blurred layer left as if it were a shadow thrown from a light in her hands. Now select the pixels from the boy layer (Apple/ Ctrl+click the layer icon) and hit Shift+Apple/Ctrl+I to Invert the selection and hit Delete. This should leave the shadow over the boy only. Knock the layer opacity down to around 40% and set it to Multiply.

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Fine-tuning an image While composing an image it can be a good idea to fine-tune the elements to make sure that they all work together. It’s probably best not to use destructive techniques if you’re likely to change your mind about something. Here we’ve added another 3.0 Gaussian Blur to the foreground trees. Turn the layer opacity on the poppies layer to 60% and just check that all the elements are working how you want them to work.

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grading If you’ve composed an image using a variety of different sources (photography taken at different times, stock imagery, etc) then you may notice that the colours, lighting and tonal range might be different throughout the elements, making your composition seem less real. If you’re striving for realism rather than creating a hyper-real image then you may want to ‘grade’ the image as a filmmaker might. I use two ways to achieve this. The first is to create a layer on top of your image and fill it with an appropriate colour – in this case we’ve gone for a 90% Cyan and 30% Magenta – then paint out the girl and the boy using the Eraser Tool set to a soft paint brush. This means you won’t reduce the warmth of the two figures. Finally, set the blending mode to colour and reduce the transparency down to a lowish percentage so as not to unnaturally colour the image. The result is that the blue has averaged out the colour temperature of the image as a whole and cooled it down as to mimic a night-time setting. The second way is to add noise to the image so it seems less digital. Adding noise to all the elements in the composition will give the impression that it was a photograph taken on film rather than digital means, this will fool the eye and make it seem more realistic.

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MASTERCLASS Know your

blending modes Normal: Renders each pixel on screen as you’d expect to see it. Darken: Selects the darker coloured pixels and displays these. Multiply: It multiplies the colour you’re blending by the colour underneath, making a darker colour. Multiplying any colour with black will produce black. Multiplying any colour with white makes no change. Color burn: Darkens the base colour using the blend colour for darker pixels only. Burning with white has no effect. Lighten: Selects the lighter pixels and displays these. Screen: This multiplies the inverse of the two blending colours, producing a lighter colour. Screening black will have no effect but screening with white will produce white. Overlay: A mixture of Multiply and Screen. It preserves the shadows and highlights of the colour below by mixing with the blending colour. It reflects the lightness and darkness of the original. Saturation: Takes the luminance and hue of the base colour and the saturation of the blending colour. If the blending colour has no saturation (greyscale) the resulting colour won’t either. Color: Takes the luminance of the base colour and the saturation and hue of the blending colour. This preserves any tonal variation while colouring greyscale images with flat colour.

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More light Repeat the process as above but creating a yellow instead of orange (around 100y 15m). This time, select a smaller soft brush to paint in the light where you think it would be thrown had the girl actually been holding a light. Also start to paint in any light that would be thrown onto the boy behind and the surrounding area, picking a smaller brush for the light closest to the source and a larger for the opposite.

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A warm glow Duplicate the butterfly four or five times and colour each one using Apple/Ctrl+U (Hue/Saturation). Play around so each one is a varying shade of yellow and orange. Blur each layer using Gaussian Blur between 30-60 pixels. Finally, adjust the blending mode of each layer to Color Burn and overlay, alternating between the two. Play around until you reach the desired effect of a glowing butterfly, as below.

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The beauty’s in the detail You should now have a blurry white butterfly shape with a bight orange/yellow glow. Place the original butterfly below your glowing shapes and hit Apple/Ctrl+L to adjust the levels. Pull the lowest input level higher and the highest one lower to bleach out most of the detail. Set the Layer Blending mode to screen and the opacity at 60%.

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Ambient light Create a new layer and select an orange colour (around 100y 50m) and Shift+5 to fill the layer. Go to Layer>Layer Mask>Hide All to make a layer mask and fill this with black. Set the layer blending mode to Overlay. Select a big soft paintbrush (around 200 pixels) loaded with white and then paint in the ambient glow.

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Into the shadows Create a layer directly above the figures. Select a dark colour, either a very dark brown or something close to black. Then, using a small soft-edged brush for harsh shadows and a larger brush for the softer shadows, paint over the layer.

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Detailing the shadows Painting in shadows is difficult to get right. Study plenty of photos to see how shadows and light are thrown when a light shines on different subjects. Then experiment with different sized soft-edged brushes and different brush opacity and flows.

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The girl in the mask To create finer shadow details, mask off patches of harsher shadows using the Lasso Tool, then feather the selection by one or two pixels using Alt+Apple/Ctrl+D and paint in the masked area. Hit Apple/Ctrl+H to hide the selection marquee. With the shadows complete, Apple/Ctrl+Click on the girl layer icon to select the pixels and invert the selection. With the shadow layer selected, hit delete to get rid of the excess shadows. When done, set the layer to Multiply.

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Artificial lighting Repeat this process using brushes loaded with 0c 0m 5y 0k. When finished, duplicate the layer and set them at both at 20% layer opacity. Set the blending modes to Overlay.

“IF YOU’RE STRIVING FOR REALISM THEN YOU MAY WANT TO ‘GRADE’ THE IMAGE AS A FILMMAKER MIGHT” 26 27

Lighting the boy Repeat the same process on the boy’s figure. Bear in mind that more of the boy would be cast into relative darkness and the light that is cast will be softer. Experiment with yellows and whites on the light until you get the desired temperature.

Good breeding Select your butterfly layers and, using the Move tool (V), hold Alt and drag the butterfly layers around on the canvas. Do this a few times and with each one, rotate and resize in different way. Apply slightly different motion blurs and radial blurs to each butterfly to create the illusion they’re all moving in different ways.

Everybody focus Select the poppies layer and using the Marquee Tool (M) select the area of the poppies closest to the bottom of the screen spanning the width of the canvas. Feather (Alt+Apple/Ctrl+D) the selection about 150 pixels and apply a slight Gaussian Blur to the layer. This will create depth of field.

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Finishing touches The composition should be finished save for a few things. To bring the elements closer together in terms of colour balance, create a new layer on top of the hierarchy, fill the layer with a darkish blue (around 80c 50m, although experiment) and set the blending mode to Color. Then set layer opacity to 20%. To add a film feel to the piece, apply an add Noise Filter set at about 5.89% with a uniform distribution.

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Feature

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Going head to head: Goddess

Going headtohe ad

Jeremy Pra sa vs Teis Alb tik ers

Goddess What do you get if you give two artists the same one-word brief? We try out our Photoshop experiment on designer guinea pigs Jeremy Prasatik and Teis Albers

There’s never only one way to approach a design brief. With so many possible ways of creating an image in Photoshop, the results of a brief from a commissioner can be as random as locking up Yoko Ono and telling her to write a song – you might end up with a masterpiece that will form a staple part of a portfolio, or you might end up with a catastrophe that you’d rather sweep under the carpet and ignore. There’s an awful lot of trust placed on an artist, especially if a brief is quite flexible. It can be just as stressful for the designer, too. The most important part of any artist’s career is establishing their own style and method of working. If you’re a really successful digital imageer you will have the confidence to go with the flow and have faith in what you produce, rather than copycat the style of another artist. Have you ever looked at a piece of art and wondered what the same idea would have looked like if a completely different designer had got their hands on it? So many different factors affect how a design is pieced together. Here at Advanced Photoshop we’re pretty nosey and love taking a look at what our commissioned artists come up with. We hunted high and low for two designers that had not only caught our eye with snazzy designs, but who also had very different artistic styles. Our chosen artists, Teis Albers and Jeremy Prasatik, just so happened to be situated on either side of the pond, from the Netherlands and the USA respectively. Not only was this to be a designers’ duel, it was also to be a clash of the continents. With only a one-word brief of ‘Goddess’ and no other restrictions we let our artists loose on the project, being careful not to reveal the other’s name so they couldn’t carry out any sneaky research on the web. Here’s what they came up with…

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Feature

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Big it up First up, open a new document. Most of the time I start off at A3 300dpi, as this gives me the option to use the image in the future at the highest quality possible. I tend to recycle and remix work at least two times to create new pieces!

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Flower clippings To keep with the natural atmosphere theme I made some clipping paths around the flowers and then pasted these into my composition. After mirroring these I kept all of them as they were except one, which I blended with the Soft Light layer mode to keep the shape at the top of the wings.

Teis Albers Teis is a freelance graphic and multimedia designer whose office is based in his apartment in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, in the Netherlands. “I also live with my girlfriend, who, by the way, makes a mean spaghetti.” He was educated at the Graphic

OUR EXPERT

Teis Albers

Age: 24 Place of birth: Heusden, the Netherlands Now lives: ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands Works for: MTV, Chemistry, Reload, Code, Stationery Team, Lucky Strike, N-Store, Growing Concepts, Dzone, MINT, SPCL Magazine, Mavis Media, Lava Studied: The Graphic Design School, Eindhoven First commission: Teis was paid to design a new website for a local contractor Describes his style as: “Colourful, bold, fresh and shiny mixed media” Heroes: Batman, Spider-Man, family and girlfriend, Lennon, Dylan, Anton Corbijn, Thomas Schostok, Joost Korngold Last commission: Twelve individual zodiac illustrations for a new magazine Future projects: “I’m working on four big illustrations that will be printed on tiles for an office in Groningen. I’m also commissioned to do another 200-page Hip Hop Journal and some more spreads for Reload magazine” His message to Jeremy: “Do what feels good – life’s too short to do something you don’t like”

Design School in Eindhoven and later set up his own company, Graphik. His first commission was for a local company designing websites, brochures and advertisements, while in the evenings he would experiment with freestyle work without boundaries. “I learned a lot that way and I also designed posters for a youth club on a regular basis. This let me loose on some strange typographics and illustrations, and allowed me to use different kinds of paper and copying techniques.” Teis’ first major opportunity came when he contacted Reload magazine. “They let me design a cover and printed an interview with me, enabling me to present my work to a larger public. That really worked out well for me as I had a whole load of new clients calling me to design new projects – the phone never stopped ringing.” Teis intends to approach the brief of Goddess by setting his mind to zero and working on the project on autopilot. “To me this is divine, as I can create free work without boundaries. I love to combine shapes, colour and photographic elements and mix this into a composition.” To see more of his work, visit www.hypnoteis.nl.

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Bling bling! Add some more stars to your image using the Linear Dodge mode, and rotate and scale them randomly to make sure your image doesn’t look too regimented. This gives your artwork a bling effect that a lot of people like and gives it an added dimension, almost as if it is shining out of the paper.

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Going head to head: Goddess

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Go for the grunge Grunge up the canvas a little by overlaying some scanned material like torn, filthy or nicely textured paper. Use different percentages of transparency and the Color Burn and Multiply layer blendings. Brush away the parts that don’t blend well and use some colour corrections like Levels and Hue/Saturation.

All the animals It’s time to introduce some of our animal friends. Over time I have collected lots of images of animals from sites like Stock.xchng (www.sxc.hu). For this composition I chose a butterfly. This seems appropriate because of its symmetry and the complementary angle at the tops of the wings at both sides.

Adding vectors I added some vector lines created in Illustrator. These blended well into the composition as they were, so I just copied and pasted them straight in. Another adjustment layer was added to give these newly important graphics an appealing colour using the Hue/Saturation command.

Weave in watercolour I scanned in some watercolour strokes and splashes at 600dpi, selecting parts with a good form to paste into my composition. The blue watercolour looked like a mountain so I blended some photos of real mountains over it using Overlay and set the transparency to 60%. I also added some colour strokes, which I blurred with Gaussian Blur, colour-corrected with Hue/Saturation and switched the layer blend to Exclusion.

Dip into dingbats I found a great site (www.houseoflime.com) that has a huge collection of dingbats. I decompile them and mix them to make other compositions. I added some of these to the bottom and the centre of the composition. I also added a heart and some stars – which actually come from an export after using an effects plug-in called Trapcode Particular (www.trapcode.com) – using the Linear Dodge layer mode.

Know when to stop The Goddess illustration is now finished, and adding more would simply ruin the composition. The final step was to save it. For printing, the best result is to keep the resolution at 300dpi. If you intend to publish your work on the web you may need to adjust your image size to 72dpi. There are some tricks you can use to enhance your image.

Wing it I scored a nice image of a wing from the site www. sxc.hu and made a path with the Pen Tool, cut it out and pasted it into the composition. I then duplicated and mirrored it to place them under the watercolour layer on both sides. An image of a waterfall blended well at the bottom of the wing and I used the Eraser to blend this and give it a softness. I also blended a vector of a rainbow using the Vivid Light layer mode.

Colour tweaks Add two adjustment layers, one for Color Balance and one for Hue/Saturation. Give it a little yellow, lots of red and a touch of magenta. Reduce the saturation to -27 and increase the hue to +12. Using the Gradient Tool set to Rainbow Colors, make a 45-degree line and fill the canvas. Set the layer mode to Soft Light and the transparency to 50%. Don’t boost it too much or it will start to look cheap.

Sharpening up The image was flattened and resized to 500x707 pixels at 72dpi. The Sharpen filter was used to boost the details and then the layer was duplicated and given a Gaussian Blur of two pixels. A Blending mode was set to Color Burn at 26% and flattened. It was given another sharpen and a Color Balance adjustment layer used to add yellow and red.

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Feature

Jeremy Prasatik Jeremy grew up in Missouri City, Texas, and didn’t initially set out to be so caught up in the design world. “I’m not sure why I got into design. I used to draw as a kid, but quit doing that at a pretty early age and took to playing outside most of the time back then. One of my classes at college had some basic web stuff and that kind of got me back into things a little. One of our projects was to build a simple website, but it quickly became this huge challenge to me. I wanted to make the site as cool as I possibly could. Looking back, it turned into the single most hideous creation ever known to the Internet, but to me it was a beginning of all sorts.” Jeremy grew from a web designer into someone with a real passion for print and apparel. “I still feel very new to the design world and that inner desire to create new things is very much alive within me. I can throw my headphones on, sit down at the computer and be fully engaged for hours and hours at a time.” For this Goddess challenge Jeremy will start off by sitting down with a pencil and paper and write down some ideas. “I tend to jot down keywords and things that first spring to mind when I’m given a brief.” See more at www.jp33.com.

OUR EXPERT

Jeremy Prasatik

Age: 27 Place of birth: Houston, Texas Now lives: Dallas, Texas Works for: norwal InterChange by day and www.jp33.com by night Studied: Bachelor’s degree in Management Information Systems First commission: “Probably a band logo and poster I did for a local band here in Dallas. I’ve got the file still on an old computer. I recall it being pretty bad as well. It might be fun to go back and look at some of that stuff one day when I’m in a really good mood” Describes his style as: “All over the place depending on what mood I’m in, what I’m listening to, what season it is. I read an interview Mike Young did and he just said he ‘made stuff’. I’ve always liked that and I’ve adopted that form of thinking” Heroes: “My parents and my wife – it’s great to have people in your life who only want what’s best for you” Last commission: A few album covers for Flicker Records Future projects: “I’m doing a website for an up-and-coming country music artist and doing a number of different print projects that you guys might see featured around the Internet and in a few magazines. I’ve also got a few personal prints that I’m going to release soon and I’ll probably sell online. Hopefully someone out there will like them and buy a couple. I’m also involved in a new business venture, Oddica.com, the very first T-shirt company to give the designer/artist a share in the company. Go check it out at www.oddica.com” His message to Teis: “Dude, whoever you are, you can’t hold me. I’ll cross your design up and spit it out like an Allen Iverson crossover. I’ll shoot holes in your ideas like a Dirk Nowitzki jumper”

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Back to black Open a new canvas. First of all change the background colour swatch in your Tools Palette to black and then select this in your new canvas dialog by changing the Background Contents drop-down menu to black. Keep the resolution of your page at 300dpi.

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Line art Colour was added to the image using the Rectangular Marquee Tool to add some bars of different shades to the design. Any colour scheme could have been chosen for this, although I decided to go for something that was light and fun. It is important not to include any gaps on these bars.

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Light luminosity Drag these layers to below the coloured bars and set their blending modes to Luminosity. Create a layer mask on each layer and brush away what you feel looks right. I brushed almost all of them away for a subtle look. Lower the opacity so as not to overpower the image. Repeat this process with other shapes, such as curves lines and large circles.

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Going head to head: Goddess

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Original imagery For this image I have selected a photograph taken by a friend of mine, Erin Trieb. You can look at more of her work by logging onto her website at www.erintrieb. com. The photograph I chose was dragged onto the canvas in a new layer and positioned in the appropriate place using the Move Tool.

Layer effects A Gaussian Blur effect is used to soften the lines up and set the layer blending mode to Color. Copy a few of the coloured layers and repeat, applying different layer blending modes and making sure that you mask out certain areas for different effects. Here I have used six different layers with varying placements.

3D abstracts I wanted to bring in some more dynamic shapes into the goddess image and so imported a file from a 3D program to use for added texture in the background. It was important to choose an image with the same colour background as the goddess art so that it blended well without too much alteration to colour.

Give it wings I needed to add wings to make her a little more goddess-like. You can either draw some wings, or select a pair from a photo to manipulate. The wings will look more effective if you add two different sets. Drag the image onto the canvas and resize accordingly using Free Transform. I inverted the image and added some contrast to get the right look.

Brush away Make a copy of the original photograph layer and drag it onto the top of all the layers, as we don’t want the goddess having a bunch of colours on her. Then, add a layer mask to this layer and use the Eraser Tool to brush away the unwanted areas of colour.

Screen test Drag the image below the layers created in step nine and play with the layer blending mode, trying for a unique look. I’ve used Screen and masked some of the image away to make the effect more subtle. If this doesn’t quite look right, repeat this process as necessary.

Lady in white I then set the layer blending mode to Screen and moved and resized the image to fit. A layer mask was created to brush away the unwanted area. Using multiple layers a Gaussian Blur effect was used and the blend modes experimented with until the image had a nice, goddess-white look to it. This step was repeated for the other set of wings.

Work up the background Use the Pen Tool to draw a few different abstract shapes so we can add some texture to the background. I started with a few big curves. Use the bright colours here – it won’t matter as much as we’re going to blend them into the background using layer blending modes.

Finishing touches We’re pretty much done with the main image. What you can do now is select different elements to drop into the image. I’ve used a number of trees and some other floral designs to polish off the image. Use some in the foreground and drop some into the background to get a nice blend.

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DISTRESSED EFFECTS 7

PEER PRESSURE

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Everyone likes an powerful, gritty piece in their portfolio to show future commissioners that you can be made of the hard stuff if needs be. This issue Sam Gilbey takes us on a rough-and-ready ride with his distressed-look tutorial. If you fancy trying out the techniques for yourself then you’ll find all necessary files on your free CD.

A chance to see what your fellow Advanced Photoshop readers have been getting up to. Seek inspiration, pilfer their concepts or just check out the competition by turning to this month’s gallery. If you think you’re up to the challenge, start creating and then get your compositions seen by sending them in! There could be some fantastic prizes up for grabs; just ask this issue’s winner, Simon Rudd, who has won a top-notch EPSON scanner.

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INSIDER INFO 1

WARP

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Inject some warp factor into your images as we explain this distortion technique and how you can bend it your way

INSIDER INFO 2

VANISHING POINTS

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Perfect perspective in your work with CS2’s nifty Vanishing Point tool, giving images depth and realism

INSIDER INFO 3

LENS CORRECTION

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Are your photography skills up to scratch? Give your images a professional touch with our guide to faking the perfect shot

APPLYING TEXT TO ART 7

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Keep Illustrator closed and instead explore the unexpected talents of Photoshop in this issue’s final workshop. Discover how you can apply a myriad of font effects to your artwork using type techniques within Photoshop, as we create an aged postcard effect to give your creations a little timeless glamour.

HELPDESK

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Don’t throw your monitor out the window in sheer frustration just yet. If you’re het up about any Photoshop dilemmas our resident expert is here to help!

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DISTRESSED EFFECTS It’s time to get your hands dirty as we explore the skills behind creating texture and giving your images that urban edge

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BY SAM GILBEY

ON THE DISC You’ll need ‘texture_1.jpg’ to get started, but you’ll also find all the other files you need on your 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.

e all know that Photoshop can be great for creating a sleek, clean and glossy look, and sometimes that is exactly what’s required. Indeed, a couple of years ago it seemed that everything had to look like this. Don’t get us wrong, but too much of anything can be a bad thing! Thankfully, the influence of illustrators has brought texture and depth back to the fore, and here we’re going to show you techniques to help make your work look nice and gritty. It’s all about freeing up your work so that it’s got a bit more life to it. All the classic rules of colour and composition still apply, so you still need to think carefully about what you’re trying to achieve. It’s

just that on the way you can experiment more. We’ve supplied all the textures used here on the cover disc, but don’t feel like you have to stick to them. No doubt within five minutes’ walk from your house there are textures galore for you to shoot. Your first step may actually be to dust off the digital camera and get snapping. When you’re done, the principles for incorporating the textures are the same. Creating a distressed image is all about bending the source imagery to your own ends. As well as taking snaps of the real world, you could also scan in painted textures. Perhaps you could even put some dirt on the scanner. Just don’t forget to clean it off afterwards!

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“CREATING A DISTRESSED IMAGE IS ABOUT BENDING THE SOURCE IMAGERY TO YOUR OWN ENDS” 1 Making moves Open Photoshop and create a new file that’s 250mm by 180mm at 300dpi. Duplicate the background layer, and go to Layer>Layer Style> Gradient Overlay. Create a vertical gradient that fades downwards from a bright pink through to a petrol blue down to black.

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Texture that arm Select the whole JPEG, then go back to the main canvas. Duplicate the layer with the masked arm, then delete the content from the layer, leaving only the mask to work with. Paste the texture JPEG onto the top, then click the small arrow to the right of the Layers palette. Select Merge Down, and, when prompted, click to preserve the Layer Mask. Set the blending mode to Overlay, and also desaturate the texture and increase the brightness and contrast. Use the Clone Stamp (with a large soft-edged brush) to apply the texture across the whole arm.

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First texture Open the file from cover disc called ‘texture_1.jpg’. Go to Image>Adjustments> Brightness/Contrast. Increase the brightness to 37 and the contrast to 49. Go to Image>Adjustments >Invert. Copy and paste the whole texture on to the main canvas. Set the layer ‘blending mode’ to Screen (via the drop-down menu at the top of the Layers palette).

Mostly armless Open the file from the cover disc called ‘arm_1.jpg’. Use the Polygonal Lasso to crudely cut around the arm, then copy and paste this onto the new canvas. Click the Magic Wand outside the arm, then go to Select>Inverse. Now go to Layer>Layer Mask>Reveal Selection. Use a black brush with a hard edge to mask the parts you want to hide. If you make a mistake, use a white brush to reveal it again. This isn’t the only way to make a cut-out of course, so feel free to use your own preferred method.

So many ways to cut it

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Recycled texture Duplicate the layer and invert this version of the texture back again. Go to Edit>Transform >Rotate 180°. We’ve now created the basis of the background for our distressed image, as you can see in this screenshot. Set that to one side, as we’re going to work on the foreground elements in another file first. So, create a new file that’s 5,000 pixels by 5,000 pixels, set at 300dpi. Create a large black circle in the centre that’s approximately half the width of the entire canvas.

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Black, white, and shades of grey Select Desaturate from the Image> Adjustments menu. Now select Brightness/ Contrast from the same menu. Increase the brightness to +22 and the contrast to +72. Now we want to add some texture to the arm, to give a distressed effect. Open the file from the cover disc called ‘texture_2.jpg’.

We’ve used Layer Masks to cut out the objects in this tutorial, but there are many other ways in which you can create cut-outs. Masks are good to use where possible of course, because you can hide part of an image without actually erasing it. This makes the technique perfect for being able to edit things later on. But, you could also just use the Polygonal Lasso, or perhaps the Magnetic Lasso. Alternatively, try creating a detailed overlaying shape with the Pen Tool, manipulating the Bézier curves and so on, and then use the Paths palette to turn it into a selection.

Choose an area Go back to ‘texture_2.jpg’. As you can see, it’s a puddle. We’re going to use part of it to make a unique brush. Use the rectangular marquee to select an area of the image where a dark shape is surrounded by a lighter area. Go to Image>Crop to cut the image down.

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A unique brush Desaturate the image, and adjust the brightness and contrast so that outside the ‘blob’ it’s as light as possible, and the blob itself is nice and dark, although not totally black. We want some texture in the brush, so variations in tones are what we want. When you’re happy with the levels, go to Edit>Define Brush Preset. Give the brush a description that you’ll be able to remember later, then click OK.

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“SMART OBJECTS ARE USEFUL WHEN YOU WANT TO SCALE DOWN WORK WITHOUT LOSING QUALITY” 9 Applying brush dynamics Go back to the canvas with the arm on and save it if you haven’t done so already. Select the Brush Tool. Next to the ‘footprint’ of the current brush, there’s a small arrow. Click on it, then scroll down the current set of brushes until you find your custom one. Click the Brushes tab towards the right of the Options bar. Turn on Shape Dynamics and set the Size Jitter to 67%, the Angle Jitter to 46% and the Roundness Jitter to 51%.

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More dynamics Now turn on Scattering too, and set the Scatter to 52% and the Count to 3. Also check the Other Dynamics box and set the Opacity Jitter to 38% and the Flow Jitter to 7%. Select the main arm layer, making sure you’ve got the mask selected. Set the brush to black so you can cut into the shape with the textured brush. Dab with the brush, rather than holding down for long periods. Try doing the same thing to the mask on the layer above so the texture is broken up a little too.

No shortage of texture

We’ve supplied several textures for you on the cover disc, but really the fun can start when you go out there and start taking your own photos. It’s through textures that you can create imagery that’s literally never been created before. Don’t fall into the habit of letting Photoshop do the work for you just because it’s got lots of options. These options are available to everyone who uses it. But the splatter of paint down your road has never been incorporated into artwork before, so you can be the first!

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Once for luck When arm number two is complete, again make it a Smart Object and scale it down behind the black circle. This time though, rotate it clockwise so that the arms are starting to make a border around the shape. Now open the files called ‘arm_3.jpg’ and ‘texture_4.jpg’ from the cover disc. Once you’ve desaturated this texture and increased the brightness and contrast, try inverting it before you use it. Don’t forget to make another brush to distress the mask, but this time try to find one from this latest texture. When complete, create a Smart Object, and rotate and scale again.

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Smart Objects Smart Objects are so useful for something like this, where you want to scale down your work, but don’t want to lose the high quality in case you need to edit later. Merge the arm and texture layers together. Then click the small arrow to the right of the Layers palette again, and select Group into new Smart Object. Send this layer behind the black circle, and adjust the size so it’s sticking out from it at roughly the shown size.

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Full circle Select the layers with the three Smart Objects, and click the small arrow to the right of the Layers palette. Select the New Group From Layers option. Duplicate the group a few times, rotating each one until the whole circle is surrounded by the karate arms. Yes, it already looks cool, but we’re not stopping there – it’s time to get down to the dirt.

Different arm, different texture Open the files from the cover disc called ‘arm_2. jpg’ and ‘texture_3.jpg’. Basically you’re repeating the same process again now. Cut the arm out and create a mask. Duplicate the layer and replace the arm with the texture on this new layer. With this new texture though, you may find that Linear Burn is a better blending mode to use. Make sure that you desaturate it of course, and increase the brightness and contrast as before. Try creating a different brush from the same texture you made one from before to distress the mask.

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Increasing the mask Now change the brush to white, and repeat the process, but in fewer places. This time, of course, you’re making the mask bigger, so paint at the edges so that the texture expands out a little. Duplicate the two layers, and then hide the lower versions.

Distressed army To enhance the pattern, duplicate the layer with the circle on it. Select it with the Move Tool, and go to Edit>Free Transform. In the options bar, check the link icon between the width and height boxes, and reduce the new circle to 90% of its current size. Do this a few times, changing the tone and varying the scale each time, to create a set of concentric rings. Rasterize the layers and use your custom brushes to distress their edges.

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Soften the distress You can also set dynamic brushes to your eraser. Select the eraser and choose one of your custom brushes. Add some shape, scattering and opacity jitter as you did before, but set the main brush opacity down to around 25%. Now work into the texture you’ve added to the concentric rings. Also add a subtle Inner Shadow layer style for an interesting depth effect.

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Mask the edges As you did before, add a Layer Mask so you can hide everything outside the edge of the arm in the photo without removing it for good. When that’s ready, duplicate the layer and delete the contents, just leaving the mask. Open the file called ‘texture_5. jpg’ and create a spiky new brush from one of the flakes of paint.

Groups within groups Select the groups of arms and in turn convert those to a new group. Duplicate the group, and then on the lower version merge it together (from the menu that appears when you click the arrow to the right of the Layers palette). Rotate it clockwise so the arms can be seen behind, and apply a Gradient Overlay layer style that fades from a bright pink to an equally strong green.

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Here’s one we prepared earlier Now that we’ve completed our pattern, select all the layers that combine to create it and create a new group from the layers. Drag the group to the top left corner of the background image you prepared way back in step three. Apply a Color Overlay to the layer that already had a gradient overlay. Choose a deep blue and set the blending mode to Darken.

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A radial blur adds depth Duplicate the gradient shaded arms then select the lower version and rotate them by the same amount you did before. Go to Filter>Blur> Radial Blur and apply a relatively small blur to this lower layer. When it’s rendered, go to Edit>Fade Radial Blur, and reduce the opacity to around 50%. Click OK. Set the opacity of this layer to 80% then make three additional copies of the layer. Rotate each one, and set the layer opacity lower and lower as you go.

23 See how others do it

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Punch your way out Duplicate the group you’ve just dragged onto the canvas and scale it down so that the whole shape can be seen on the right of the image. Depending on the power of your machine, it may help to merge this group so that Photoshop isn’t trying to manipulate quite so much data at once. Open the cover disc file called ‘hand_1.jpg’. Crudely cut the arm out and place it so that it looks to be coming out of the disc. Go to Edit>Transform>Warp and distort the shape so that the arm become narrower towards the bottom and the fist is wider.

We’ve used texture throughout this piece to show you the various ways in which you can use distressed effects. But don’t forget they can be used as sparingly as you need for your own work. Sometimes it helps to just add a little something to your piece, and it can be easy to do too much. As ever, the best advice is to take a look at what’s out there, so visit sites such as www.pixelsurgeon. com, http:// linkdup.com and www.k10k.net. What’s interesting is how textured and distressed effects straddle the illustration and design worlds. See www.stolen.la for a great example of this.

Hard-edged texture Set the blending mode of the layer with the fist mask to Overlay and apply some dynamics to your new brush. Using various tones of grey, paint some sharp, aggressive shapes onto the arm. Don’t worry if the overall effect looks a little too harsh or obvious here – we’ll look at ways of toning it down next.

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Soften the look Now let’s do something about that harsh effect. Duplicate the layer with the fist, and move the copy above the texture. Set the layer opacity down to about 50%, but then increase the saturation to about +25 and reduce the hue to about -14 through the Image>Adjustments> Hue/Saturation menu.

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Master dynamics

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Additional shards Where the arm is breaking out, on a new layer use the same angular brush you’ve created with dynamics to paint some black shards around the base.

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Scratchy outlines On a layer behind the first arm, use the Polygonal Lasso to create a shape that crudely outlines the photo with a chunky, angular outline. Fill it with black, then go to Layer>Layer Styles>Stroke. Set the stroke to 9 or 10 pixels outside the layer, but set the fill to Gradient. Have the stroke fade from green at the top, through pink, down to black. Use one of the simple round brushes to ‘scratch into’ this shape with crosshatching, giving a hand-drawn distressed effect.

Dynamic brushes, as you’ve seen, offer an extremely powerful way to give a unique look to your artwork. But there are other options to look at which we’ve not had chance to explore here. You can control the brush tip, combine two brushes together (dual brush), and most exciting of all, apply colour dynamics. You can randomize the hue and saturation as you paint, making it perfect for building up texture that varies in colour, not just in angle and opacity. Again, multiply your new unique brush by the amount of options available, and you’ve got no excuse for not creating something that’s never been seen before!

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Another fist There’s another file on the disc called ‘hand_2.jpg’. Use this to create another, smaller object in between the two discs, overlapping the bottom of the canvas slightly. Incorporate the same techniques from steps 21 to 27.

More adjustments At this point it’s time to play some more with the colours of the piece. We’ve brought in ‘texture_5.jpg’ at this stage, and have set the blending mode to Luminosity and the opacity to 60%. We also applied a Gaussian Blur to soften this texture. Try adding additional layers of flat colours or gradients in between the textures, then adjusting the blending modes for different effects. Sometimes you can enhance the texture, other times you want to reduce its impact, but don’t forget that we’re going for a distressed look here.

“WHY NOT COMBINE THESE IDEAS WITH YOUR OWN PHOTOGRAPHIC TEXTURES?” 30 Final touch Finally, to enhance the martial arts theme we’ve brought in the image called ‘belt_fist.jpg’. The blending mode was set to Overlay, so we’ve picked up all the detail beneath but also left the lovely texture from the old belt showing. We’ve grouped the two fists, and duplicated them to fill in some of the gaps. Why not combine these ideas with some of your own photographic textures? 5

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Dip into details On the top fist layer, apply a Color Overlay. Choose a yellowy ochre, and set the blending mode to Color. Create a new layer on top, and use a soft white brush to add speckled highlights around the fist. Apply a motion blur to them to generate some movement. Make an additional copy of the fist, set the blending mode to Hard Light, and apply a motion blur to the layer.

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INSIDER INFO

Get Smart with Image Warp

What do you get when you cross Photoshop CS2’s new Warp command with Smart Objects?

Additional resources For ideas of how to use the Warp command, check out these excellent videos: ● Image Warp and Photoshop CS2 Russell Brown’s Tips & Techniques at www.russellbrown.com/tips_tech.html. ● Image Warp Deke McClelland’s Total Training hosted by PhotoshopSupport.com at www.photoshopsupport.com/tutorials/tt-cs2/image-warp.html.

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he Warp command allows you to bend, stretch, and curl images around almost any surface. It’s ideal for wrapping labels around cans and bottles, applying a page curl effect to your images, adding photos onto the pages of books and magazines (allowing you to match perspective and curvature), and so on. As Warp is an extension of the Transform command, accessed via Edit>Transform> Warp, or by clicking on the Warp button on the Options bar when performing a transformation (which toggles between Warp and Free Transform). Once selected, a 3x3 mesh appears over the artwork. To OUR EXPERT Trevor Morris deform the artwork, drag the control Trevor Morris is an official Photoshop beta tester points, the mesh itself (including the and amateur digital photographer with more than a bounding box), or an area in the mesh. dozen years’ design experience. He works as a senior For greater flexibility, it’s a good idea graphic designer for a Canadian web design company and also maintains the Photoshop-centric to convert your artwork into a Smart website GFX™ (http://user.fundy.net/morris). Object prior to applying a Warp. This has two advantages: first, the integrity of the artwork is maintained, even for repeated deformations; second, the Warp settings are remembered once applied.

Worldwide Warp

FIGURE 1 – WARPING WITH SMART OBJECTS: Smart Objects allow you to apply non-destructive and re-editable Image Warps to your artwork. This means that your artwork can be deformed any number of times with no degradation at all and, on top of that, all warp and transformation settings are remembered

Shortcuts ● Press Apple/Ctrl+H (View>Extras) to show or hide the Warp mesh and control points. ● Press Apple/Ctrl+Z (Edit>Undo) to undo the last Warp adjustment. ● Press Return/Enter to accept the transformation. ● Press Esc to cancel the warp.

We created a 3D globe (Fig 2) using a simple shape layer, and the Warp command applied to a Smart Object containing a map of the world (from www.istockphoto.com). First, a black Solid Fill layer was added as a background. Above that, a circular Gradient Fill shape layer was created and the following layer effects applied (where unspecified values are assumed to be left at their defaults): ● Outer Glow: For the atmosphere (Opacity: 40%, Color: #ccb273, Size: 100px, Range: 45%) ● Inner Glow: For edge shading (Blend Mode: Soft Light, Opacity: 100%, Noise: 10%, Color: black, Size: 30px, Range: 100%) ● Bevel & Emboss: For highlighting (Size: 150px, Angle: 135°, Highlight Mode: Color Dodge, Opacity: 10%, Shadow Mode: Multiply, Opacity: 0%) ● Gradient Overlay: For shape/volume (Blend Mode: Overlay, Opacity: 50%,

“THE WARP ALLOWS YOU TO BEND, STRETCH AND CURL IMAGES”

FIGURE 2 – EDIT WITH EASE: Another benefit of using Smart Objects for warping is that you can transform, edit, or even replace the contents of the Smart Object, and the results will be automatically updated. For example, the world map in the above image can be repositioned to simulate a spinning globe – perfect for creating a three-dimensional style of animation! Gradient: Black to White, Reverse: on, Style: Radial, Scale: 150%) The File>Place command was used to place the antique map as a Smart Object, after which it was resized to fit the height of the sphere. The blending mode for the map was set to Overlay, and the opacity was changed to 60%. The map was ‘applied’ to the sphere as a clipping mask (Layer>Create Clipping Mask, or Apple/Ctrl+Opt/Alt+G). At this stage, the globe doesn’t look too bad, but it’s flat and lacks dimension. Before applying a Warp, we opened the Smart Object and used the Canvas Size command to match the width of the map to its height (Figure 1). (Note that Canvas Size was used to avoid physically deleting the cropped edges, but you

could accomplish this using the Crop tool with Cropped Area set to Hide.) With the map square, applying the Warp is easier and more realistic. As a bonus, it’s also possible to ‘rotate’ the map around the globe by repositioning it inside the Smart Object (Figure 2). Next, we chose Edit>Transform>Warp, selected Fisheye from the Warp effects drop-down, and changed the Bend to 80%. Custom was then selected from the drop-down so that the Warp could be refined. We dragged each corner node to the perimeter of the sphere then did the same for each side of the bounding box (Figure 1). To increase the contrast, we added a default Curves adjustment layer and changed the layer blending mode to Overlay (Opt/Alt+Shift+O). 5

Save your settings When you choose Edit>Transform>Warp, the Options bar is updated to include a pop-up list of Warp effects (similar to those available for Type Warps). Use these presets as a starting point, or just choose Custom to start from scratch. ● Change the orientation of Warp effects by clicking the Change Warp Orientation button. ● Change the reference point that’s being used by clicking a square on the Reference point locator. ● Specify the amount of warp by entering numeric values in the Bend, H (horizontal distortion), and V (vertical distortion) fields. To reset all values to their defaults, choose None from the Warp effects drop-down.

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APPLYING TEXT TO ART

The Text Tool doesn’t have to mean crass, blocky fonts. Learn how to apply typography with subtle results BY EMMA CAKE

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hotoshop isn’t the first software program that springs to mind when you think about typography. If you’re using fonts in your design then you’ll probably opt for Illustrator, as the opportunity to create words with strong lines using punchy vector techniques lets you design clear, editorial styles. However, if you just stick with this program then you’re missing out on some great opportunities for more subtle typography effects. Sure, you may not have as much flexibility to work with larger font sizes and will have to restrict yourself to using rasterized type, but this is a small price to pay when you can work the text into your original image using the familiar tools of Photoshop. In this step-by-step you’re going to master how you can use the Text Tool to apply typography to an image. Subtlety is the name of the game here, so we won’t be settling for plain, uninspiring text. First of all you will find out how you can expand your font selection using some invaluable freeware font downloads. Most importantly, you will learn how to apply blending, opacity, warp and masking effects to blend your typography so that it becomes one with the background layer, creating an etched effect.

ON THE DISC We’ve used a stock photo as the base of our design. Image ‘422.jpg’ can be purchased for a reasonable price at www. istockphoto.com. However, you can use any of your own photos or images you may have lying around. You can find the files ‘dodgywall.tif’ and ‘stamp.psd’ on this month’s CD.

“SUBTLETY IS THE NAME OF THE GAME HERE, SO WE WON’T BE SETTLING FOR UNINSPIRING TEXT”

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Age the original Open up your base image, then the ‘dodgywall.tif’ file from this month’s disc. Rotate the cracked wall shot by 90 degrees counterclockwise and then select the shot using the Rectangular Marquee Tool and Apple/Ctrl+C. Add a new layer called ‘Cracks’ and paste this over the background layer. Press Apple/Ctrl+T to use the Free Transform Tool to stretch this overlaid image over the canvas.

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Font finesse Click on the Text Tool and expand the Set Font Family tab. If the font has installed properly you should see it appear in the list. However, you may have to save the image you have created so far as a .psd file and then restart to be able initialize this newly downloaded font. Don’t forget to select the Layers button so you don’t flatten all your hard work.

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Cracking up Lower the Fill of the Cracks layer to 30% so that you can see the background layer underneath. Once you’ve done this you can move the layer so that the obvious crack falls well onto the photograph. You may need to use the Free Transform again to make sure it stretches over the canvas. When you’re happy, click Apply.

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Turn your handwriting into a font You don’t have to stumble around the Internet trying to find the ideal handwriting-style font to apply to your artwork. There are several website services that will transform your scrawl into a custom font which you can install into your Font Library. Our favourite is www. fontifier.com, which will create your font for the bargain price of US$9 (around £5). All you need to do is log onto the site, print out the template sheet and write out your characters. Then, scan the written template and send it into Fontifier. You can preview and then buy your font using either a credit card or via PayPal.

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Twist the text Highlight the text again and wave your cursor around the edge of the bounding box. Expand this until you’re happy with the paragraph formation. Rotate the text anti-clockwise to approximately minus 30 degrees. You can check this angle by displaying your Info palette (shortcut key F8).

First paragraph Select the Text Tool and drag it out over the image to create a text entry box. Don’t worry about adding a new layer as this will happen automatically. Make sure Pushkin, Regular is selected and type out an appropriate paragraph for your image. We’ve imagined that this is taken from a postcard excerpt, so our written story fits in with the image and the font to conjure up a mythical day during a Californian holiday.

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Keep it casual Move your text bounding box to the upper left-hand area of the image. Don’t worry if this text falls off the edge of the image. The less regimented the text is on the image, the more authentic the finished piece will look (even if some parts are unreadable). Click on the Move Tool to apply the change.

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Download a font Now to get your typeface. Log onto www. abstractfonts.com, an excellent source of cool typefaces, and in the top search box type in ‘Pushkin, Regular’. This font has a good scrawl quality that will look like genuine handwriting once applied to the image. Click on the Download: Zip option to the left of the font. Once this is on your desktop press Install Font.

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Text effects Highlight the text by clicking and dragging over the whole lot with the Text Tool. Then, open up the drop-down menu to change the Anti-Alias to Smooth. This is a quick and easy way to radically alter the appearance of your font. Press the Move Tool in the tools Palette to apply the changes to your paragraph.

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Step-by-step

Workshop

9

Rasterizing

Layer Masking With the text layer still highlighted, create a Layer Mask. Pick the Eraser Tool from the tools Palette and choose a suitable brush from the drop-down menu. Remember, you can always alter the opacity of the Eraser. Spend some time fading out the text in the upper right-hand corner. Don’t worry about keeping this even. Heavy erasing in some parts of the text will help to blend it into the photograph.

12

Warp text At the moment this newly added line of text looks a bit rigid. As we’re trying to create the impression that the text applied to the art is natural handwriting, it will look better if the line isn’t so straight. Get around this by clicking Edit>Transform>Warp. Use the grid that appears over the text to give it a slight distortion.

10

Back up and rasterize Write another line of text using the Text Tool. We’re going to rasterize the layer, but this will mean that you’re committed to alterations. Make a backup of the type by duplicating the layer, but then hide it from view. With the upper layer selected, rasterize it by clicking on Layer>Rasterize>Type. You’ll see the layer type alter within the Layers Palette.

13

Texas type We want to add another text element to the image to look like correspondence, so we need another writing style. Log back on to www. abstractfonts.com and run a search for the font called ‘Texas, Hero’. Download the zip file and install onto your Hard Drive as you did before.

11

Gradient overlay With this new rasterized layer selected, click on Add Layer Style and open up the Blending Options. Apply a Gradient Overlay and Satin effect. Lower the Opacity down to 40%. Keep the Fill Opacity at 100% and the Blend Mode on Normal. You’ll notice that the text has now been blended into the image, with subtle variations in tone.

14

Creating paragraphs Add some new text, keeping with the postcard/letter theme. Making sure it’s quite lengthy so it fills the whole length of the image. Once you’re done, select the Move Tool and then convert the text to Paragraph Text by clicking on the menu command Layer>Type>Convert to Paragraph Text. Make sure your text hasn’t been highlighted or this option won’t be available.

Rasterizing allows you to convert text from being a vectorbased object to one formed of pixels. It’s worth remembering that once you’ve applied a rasterization effect you won’t be able to alter scale without degrading the quality of your text. It’s also very easy to distort fonts and make them look sloppy if you drag the corners of the bounding box and stretch it unevenly. A good procedure to get into the habit of doing is to duplicate your text layer and then hide it, so you always have a backup you can fall back on. If you keep this layer hidden, once you come to flatten your artwork, Photoshop will ask you if you want to automatically discard these layers. Once you’ve rasterized an object in Photoshop you have more freedom to experiment with colour tones and adjustments.

15

Text alignments Open up the Character palette (Windows>Character) and click on the Paragraph tab. As you have converted your type to Paragraph text you have the flexibility to alter the alignments of your type. We’re trying to keep the text looking as subtle as possible so you can get rid of the strong left-hand alignment by selecting the centred text symbol.

16

Invert it Make a duplicate of this new text layer for back up but make the lower version invisible. Rasterize the other layer version of the text and then invert the colour of the font by selecting Image>Adjustments>Invert. Because we’re working in monochrome the black font will turn to white, but this is more elaborate if you’re working with colour or gradients.

17

Softer fading Alternatively, if you find the Invert option a bit too strong for your design, try using the Fade Invert command by selecting Apple/ Ctrl+Shift+F. For this design we’ve taken the Invert down to around 50%. Change the layer mode to Exclusion to alter the aesthetics of your font and then move the text to the appropriate area on the design, using rotation as necessary.

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Turning text Select the Bank Gothic size 10 font from the Font Family drop-down and type in your origin postmark. Then, press the Create Warped Text icon at the top of the tools palette. Choose the Arc option from the drop-down menu and change the bend to 60%. With the Move Tool, place it in the upper half of the postmark.

18

Layer erase Add a Layer Mask to this image and select the Eraser Tool. Choose the Brush option and lower the opacity. Use the mask to get rid of the text around the face to make sure it doesn’t spoil any details. If you want to get some erased areas back, click on the mask layer and alter your brush to white then stroke over the areas you want to restore.

21

Destination: London Add another text line as the mock destination of your postmark and select this text again. Open the Warp Text feature and, with the Horizontal option still selected, change the Bend to -30%. Move this to fill the lower half of the postmark. If it doesn’t fit, try altering the percentage of the bend or lowering the font size.

22 19

Flight plan Start up this month’s cover disc and locate the file ‘stamp.psd’ within the tutorial section. Alternatively, you can make up your own stamp in Illustrator. If you are creating your own and saving it in an .eps format you will need to rasterize the image in order to apply adjustments. Add the stamp into a new layer and position it on your artwork in the corner.

Merge layers Once you’re happy with the layout and overall design of this postmark merge these layers together. The shortcut is Apple/Ctrl+E, although you can also do this by selecting Layer>Merge Down and work your way down from Los Angeles to London and finally, Stamp.

Installing fonts Installing fonts in Windows XP: 1. Press the Start menu, click on Control Panel and select Appearances and Themes. 2. Select Fonts from the See Also panel. 3. Click on File>Install New Font and locate the drive and folder that you want to add (when you download your font, save it onto your desktop for ease). Installing fonts on a Mac with OS X: 1. Double-click on the font icon and the font system folder will open 2. Press Install.

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Natural stamp Change the layer style of the postmark to Overlay. You can adjust the Fill of this layer to reveal more detail of the image underneath, so experiment until you get an effect with which you’re pleased. Once you’re happy with the position and the general appearance, apply a Layer Mask to the Stamp layer.

24

Vein mask Select the Veining Feather Eraser Brush 75, which you’ll find in the Faux Finish brush palette, and spend some time scruffing up the stamp’s Layer Mask. Use an Opacity level of around 50%. When you’re finished and are happy with your design, flatten the image.

25

Colour adjustments Now that we have the flattened layer, add a Curves Adjustment Layer. Adjust the contrast (you may have to change the Color Mode to CMYK to do this), then select the separate yellow channel and tweak the curve so that the photograph has a sepia tinge to it. Finally, flatten your image again and save. 5

“KEEPING THE OPACITY LOWER WILL HELP YOU TO CREATE SUBTLER MASKING EFFECTS” 67

Advanced Photoshop

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INSIDER INFO

Insider

Info

Vanishing Point

OUR EXPERT

Vanishing Point was probably the most venerated of Photoshop CS2’s new features, but there’s a lot more to this amazing filter than just painting in perspective

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).

V

VANISHING POINT FOR RENOVATIONS: I’ve seen some unique and creative uses for Vanishing Point, including one person who took digital photos of several paint chips, worktop samples, and cupboard doors, and then used Vanishing Point to apply them to a photo of his kitchen in order to make renovation decisions RGB RESTRICTIONS: The Vanishing Point filter works in both 8-bit and 16bit modes, but only for RGB documents. So, if you wish to use Vanishing Point on a Grayscale or CMYK image, you’ll have to first convert it to RGB mode (Image>Mode>RGB Color)

anishing Point is a new filter plug-in that, among other things, allows you to paint, clone, and transform objects in perspective. Traditionally, all of your edits were confined to a flat plane (which was represented by your monitor). However, with the introduction of Vanishing Point, your edits can now be extended into the third dimension. Vanishing Point is definitely one of those features that’s better demonstrated than discussed, so let’s get started.

Things to consider To prepare your document for editing in Vanishing Point, first consider each of the following options: ● To have the filter results appear on their own layer, first create a new layer. This provides additional flexibility later on, should you wish to change the opacity or blending mode, add a layer mask, apply a style, or change your creation in some way. ● In order to paste patterns, text and so on into Vanishing Point, you must first copy them to the clipboard. ● To paint/clone beyond the canvas boundaries, you need to increase the canvas size. Once you’re finished in Vanishing Point, you can always re-crop the canvas if desired. ● You can confine Vanishing Point edits to specific regions of your image by first creating a selection.

Vanishing Point videos Be sure to check out these excellent Vanishing Point video tutorials. To play the videos, make sure that you’ve got Apple’s free QuickTime Player (found at www.apple.com/quicktime): ● Russell Brown’s Tips & Techniques website: www.russellbrown.com. ● Matt Kloskowski’s Photoshop Killer Tips website, covering Vanishing Point Perspective (www.photoshopkillertips.com/archives/66) and Using Text & Logos in Vanishing Point (www.photoshopkillertips.com/archives/67).

FIGURE 1: GO AHEAD AND TRY THIS AT HOME We’ll use the new Vanishing Point filter to quickly remove the brush and hose from this sample image. To follow along, open ‘Vanishing Point.psd’, located in your Adobe Photoshop CS2\Samples folder We’ll begin with a simple example using one of the sample images, appropriately named ‘Vanishing Point.psd’ (Figure 1), installed by default in the Adobe Photoshop CS2\Samples\ folder. Add a new, empty layer, and then choose Filter>Vanishing Point (Apple/ Ctrl+Opt/Alt+V). When the filter dialog appears, you’ll notice a blue grid over the image representing the plane of perspective (saved with the image by someone at Adobe). Instead of using the default plane, let’s delete it and create one from scratch. Select the Create Plane tool (C), and press the Delete key to delete the plane. Using the boards as a reference, place the four nodes required to define the plane surface. To make precise node placement easier, hold down the X key to temporarily activate a 2x zoom (Figure 2) then, release the X key to return to your previous zoom level. Upon placing the fourth node, the perspective grid appears: a blue grid indicates a good quality plane, while red or yellow indicates a geometrically

FIGURE 2: ZOOM, ZOOM Hold down the X key to temporarily activate a 2x zoom. Release the X key to return to your previous zoom level impossible plane. Use the Edit Plane tool (V) to resize, move, or reshape the plane as necessary. Take the time to ensure the accuracy of the plane, as your results depend entirely on how well the plane aligns with the image perspective. Zoom out (Apple/Ctrl+Minus) and use the Edit Plane tool to extend the plane, so that it encompasses the area of interest. With the plane defined, we can now use the complete arsenal of tools to clean up this image.

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“YOUR EDITS CAN NOW BE EXTENDED INTO THE THIRD DIMENSION” FIGURE 3: BRUSH BE GONE! Vanishing Point’s healing option allows you to instantly remove objects by simply Apple/Ctrl-dragging them onto other areas of the image (such as the floorboards in this photo). It’s easy when you know how!

FIGURE 4: VANISHING POINT ROCKS! Vanishing Point makes it easy to wrap textures, patterns and type around even the most complex geometric surfaces

Now you see ‘em…

size, rotate and reposition the text layer, I used the Transform tool (T). Note that you can hold the Shift key to snap rotations to 15-degree increments. Once I was satisfied with the first label, I dragged the selection to the next side while holding down the Opt/Alt (to duplicate) and Shift keys (to constrain movement horizontally/vertically). This was repeated for the two remaining sides, completing the first box.

For the purposes of demonstration, let’s use a ‘healing selection’ (sort of like Photoshop’s Patch tool) to remove the brush, and then we’ll use the Stamp Tool (also in healing mode) to remove the hose from the image. Select the Marquee tool (M) and establish the following settings: Feather: 5, Opacity: 100, Heal: On, Move Mode: Destination. As you position the pointer over the grid, a heavy blue outline indicates that the plane is active. Draw a selection that encompasses the entire brush, including its shadow – note that the selection is drawn in perspective! Now Apple/Ctrl-drag the selection to a part of the image containing only floorboards; be sure to align the boards correctly. And just like that the brush is gone, as you can see in Figure 3! Pretty cool, huh? Next, select the Stamp tool (S) with the following settings: Diameter: 250, Hardness: 0, Opacity: 100, Heal: On, Aligned: On (checked). Opt/Alt-click to define the source – just like you would with Photoshop’s Clone Stamp tool – then position the brush over the hose, in alignment with the floorboards, and slowly begin painting it away. (Notice how the brush’s shape and size are dynamically resized relative to its position on the plane!) Once you’re satisfied with the results, press the OK button to apply the results to the empty layer created at the beginning. (Pressing OK also embeds the defined plane(s) into the current

document, making them available for subsequent Vanishing Point sessions – provided you save the document, of course.) To see the image before and after, simply toggle the visibility of the active layer.

Endless possibilities Now let’s look at a more complex example of what’s possible with Vanishing Point. Figure 4 above shows some square shelves that were photographed, desaturated, and rotated 90° CCW. Vanishing Point was then used to add text to each side (both inside and out) of each shelf. First, three separate type layers were added to the image, one for each box. Then, the first type layer was copied to the clipboard, and the selection was dropped so as not to limit my edits to the selection area once inside Vanishing Point. An empty layer was also added for the rendered output. Inside Vanishing Point, I carefully created the first plane (per the instructions above) using the bottom side of the lower box as the source. Following that, I used the Apple/Ctrl key to pull off a perpendicular plane for the right side of the box. I continued creating perpendicular planes (resizing each as required) until I’d wrapped each side of each box (24 planes in all!). The first type layer was then pasted and positioned over the desired plane – again, it’s interesting to note that the text (and selection) respect the perspective defined by active plane. To

GRIDS AS GUIDES: The Grid Size option (available with the Edit and Create Plane tools) can be useful when trying to align the perspective plane with image elements, such as flooring, windows, bricks and other patterns

Finishing touches A click of OK was all it took to commit the changes, and back in Photoshop the document was saved. A layer mask was used to conceal the areas in which the text overlapped the inside corners, and for additional realism the layer blending mode was changed to Overlay (Opt/ Alt+Shift+O) and the opacity to 80%. To complete the image, the above procedure was simply repeated for the remaining two boxes (each placed on their own output layer, for better control over the final results). 5

Tips & techniques ● Apple/Ctrl-drag an edge node to ‘tear off’ a perpendicular plane. ● Press Apple/Ctrl+H to hide the selection marquee (marching ants) and perspective planes. ● Press Apple/Ctrl+Shift+T to repeat the last transformation. ● Hold down the Opt/Alt key and press the OK button to export the perspective grid as pixels. ● To flip a selection horizontally, select the Transform tool (T) and enable the Flip option; choose Flop to ‘flop’ the selection vertically.

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INSIDER INFO

Insider

Info

Vanishing Point: The shortcuts

We all know how long it can take to find your way around a new program. To help you speed up we’ve compiled Vanishing Point’s keyboard quickies

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/).

THE MAGIC OF VANISH: Vanishing Point can help you to align planes to create the perfect perspective, making the added elements in your work look even more convincing

Tool

Key

Description of feature

Tool

Key

Description of feature

Edit Plane

V

Select, edit, move and resize planes

Zoom in

Temporarily access zoom-in

Edit Plane

Ctrl+V

Create new plane perpendicular to the current plane. Select a plane under another selected plane

Ctrl Spacebar

Zoom Out

Ctrl+Minus

Zoom out

Zoom Out

Alt Spacebar

Temporarily access zoom-out

Zoom 2 x

X

Toggle temporary 2x zoom

Fit in view

Ctrl+O

Zoom to fit image in view area

Actual Pixels

Ctrl+Alt+O

Zoom to actual pixels (100% view)

Undo

Ctrl+Z

Undo last operation (step backward in History)

Redo

Ctrl+Shift+Z

Redo last operation (step forward in History)

Hide

Ctrl+H

Toggle Show Edges (ie, hide/show selections and planes)

Deselect

Ctrl+D

Deselect (ie, drop current selection)

Copy

Ctrl+C

Copy current selection to clipboard

Paste

Ctrl+V

Paste contents of clipboard (or reselect previous selection)

Create Plane

Click the four corners of a perspective plane or object in the image to create an editing plane. Tear off perpendicular planes from the stretch nodes of existing planes. Double-click to make a full-canvas plane, square to the camera

Marquee

M

Click+drag in a plane to select an area on that plane. Double-click to expand the marquee to fill the editing plane

Marquee

Ctrl+M

Apple/Ctrl+drag a selection to fill the area with the source image

Marquee

Alt+M

Opt/Alt+drag a selection to copy an area to a new destination

Marquee

Shift+M

Constrain to 90° (vertical and horizontal) movement along/across planes

Brush options

Key

Description of feature

Marquee

Ctrl+Alt+M

Apple/Ctrl+Opt/Alt+drag to create a duplicate of a floating selection

Brush Diameter

[

Decrease brush diameter (for Stamp and Brush tools)

Stamp

S

Once source point is set, click+drag to paint or clone

Brush Diameter

]

Increase brush diameter (for Stamp and Brush tools)

Stamp

Alt+S

Opt/Alt+click in a plane to set a source point for the clone

Brush Hardness

Shift [

Decrease brush hardness (for Stamp and Brush tools)

Stamp

Shift+S

Shift+click to extend the stroke to last click

Brush Hardness

Shift ]

Increase brush hardness (for Stamp and Brush tools)

Brush

B

Click+drag in a plane to paint. Select Heal Luminance to adapt paint to shadows or texture

Nudge selection

Key

Description of feature

Nudge Selection

Arrows

Nudge current selection by 1 pixel

Nudge Selection

Shift Arrows

Nudge current selection by 10 pixels

Brush

“WE’VE COMPILED VANISHING POINT’S KEYBOARD QUICKIES”

C

Shift+B

Shift+click to extend the stroke to last click

Transform

T

Click+drag to rotate the floating selection

Dialog options

Key

Description of feature

Transform

Shift+T

Constrain rotations to 15° increments

Commit Changes

Enter

Accept/apply changes and exit Vanishing Point

Transform repeat

Ctrl+Shift+T

Repeat the last duplicate and move operation

Cancel

Esc

Cancel changes and exit Vanishing Point

Floating Selection

Ctrl+Alt+T

Create a floating selection

Render Plane Grids

Alt+OK

Choose to render plane grids

Eyedropper

I

Click to select a colour for painting. Click on the colour swatch to open the Color Picker

Reset

Alt Cancel

Opt/Alt+click Cancel button to reset current Vanishing Point session

Default

Ctrl Cancel

Apple/Ctrl+click Cancel button to save current settings as defaults for future Vanishing Point sessions

Miscellaneous

Key

Description of feature

Exit Plane Creation

Ctrl+Period

Cancel creation of current plane and delete all points

Delete point/ selection

Backspace

Delete the last point set with the Plane Creation tool. Delete floating selection

Hand

H

Click+drag to scroll the image in the preview window. Double-click to fit image in view area

Hand

Spacebar

Temporarily access the Hand tool

Zoom

Z

Click to zoom-in on the image in the preview window. Click+drag to zoom in on an area. Double-click to view actual pixels (100% view)

Zoom

Alt+Z

Opt/Alt+click to zoom out

Zoom in

Ctrl +Z

Zoom in

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For amateur and pro photographers alike, Photoshop CS2 was a goldmine of tools and features such as the new Lens Correction filter, an all-in-one filter for correcting all sorts of optical distortion

ens Correction (Filter>Distort>Lens Correction) is an intuitive, full-featured filter that makes it easy to remove such lens aberrations as barrel and pincushion distortion, chromatic aberration, and vignetting, as well as correct for horizontal and vertical perspective and rotation.

● The most obvious forms of lens distortion are pincushion distortion, which makes images appear pushed in toward the centre (concave), and barrel distortion, making images seem pushed outward from the centre (convex). ● To correct for pincushion distortion, select the Remove Distortion Tool (D) and drag away from the centre (toward the edge of the image), or move the Remove Distortion slider to the left. To correct for barrel distortion, drag towards the centre of the image, or move the slider across to the right. (Personally, I find the slider and corresponding numeric field easier to use and more precise than the Remove Distortion Tool.) ● Chromatic aberration, or ‘fringing’ as it’s sometimes called, appears as a purple fuzz along high-contrast edges. This phenomenon is more typical in cheaper lenses, and occurs when the lens focuses different colours (frequencies) of light onto different focal planes. For best results, it’s recommended that you zoom in and then use the Fix Red/Cyan Fringe and Fix Blue/Yellow Fringe sliders to correct your image accordingly. ● Vignetting is a darkening of the edges and corners of an image, typically caused by lens defects or improper use of a lens hood. Move the Amount slider to the right to remove a vignette – or move the slider to the left to add one for artistic intent. Use the Midpoint slider to adjust the diameter of area affected by the Amount slider (where higher numbers increase the diameter, restricting the effect to the corners/ edges of the image). ● The Transform section of the filter dialog allows you to correct for vertical and horizontal perspective, as well as rotation caused by camera tilt –

Te ch n Take a shortcut

Lens correction

L

iqu es

INSIDER INFO

The following is a list of keyboard shortcuts available in the Lens Correction filter dialog: D Remove Distortion Tool A Straighten Tool M Move Grid Tool H (Space) Hand Tool Z Zoom Tool W (Apple/Ctrl H) Toggle Grid P Toggle Preview Apple/Ctrl+0 Fit View Apple/Ctrl+Opt/Alt+0 View Actual Pixels Apple/Ctrl+Plus (Apple/Ctrl+click) Zoom In Apple/Ctrl+Minus (Opt/Alt+click) Zoom Out Return/Enter Accept changes and return to Photoshop Esc Discard changes and return to Photoshop Opt/Alt-click Cancel button Reset all values to their defaults Use ‘accelerator keys’ (underlined letters) to highlight the fields (eg, V for Remove Distortion) and then use the Up/Down Arrow keys to increment/decrement values.

especially useful for architectural photography. You can also use the Straighten Tool (A) to draw a line along an edge that’s supposed to be vertical or horizontal (such as the horizon, the edge of a building, or a telephone pole). ● The grid overlay makes adjustments easier and more accurate by providing a reference for image alignment. To toggle the grid on/off, check the Show Grid checkbox (bottom of the filter dialog), or press Apple/Ctrl+H. To customize the alignment grid, enter a value in the Size field, change its colour via the colour swatch, and use the Move Grid Tool (M) to reposition the grid. ● One of the inevitable side-effects of using Lens Correction is that it changes the size and shape of the image, resulting in empty areas surrounding the image. The Edge drop-down menu allows you to specify whether these areas should be left transparent (the

default), filled with the background colour, or filled by extending the edge pixels. Use the Scale slider to downsample the image, to fit the canvas, or interpolate up to crop the image. (Note that in either case the original image dimensions are preserved.) 5

CORRECTIONS DONE QUICK ‘N’ EASY: As a consequence of being photographed from below, this stained-glass window suffers from many forms of distortion. However, the Lens Correction filter made it easy to correct the obvious vertical perspective distortion, as well as a slight barrel distortion, horizontal perspective, and rotation (using the alignment grid as a reference). Zooming in revealed a red fringe along high-contrast edges (chromatic aberration), which was easily removed using the Fix Red/Cyan Fringe slider

Lens defaults and presets If the image you’re editing contains EXIF metadata describing the camera, lens, focal length and f-stop used, you can use the Set Lens Default To button to save your settings as a Lens Default. The next time you open an image created under the same conditions, the Lens Default option becomes available from the Settings drop-down. The Previous Correction option applies the settings used the last time you ran Lens Correction. Settings can be saved as presets by

selecting Save Settings from the Manage Settings button. Presets appear at the bottom of the Settings drop-down, provided they’re saved in the following location: Mac: /Users/ <user name>/Library/ LensCorrection/Settings PC: C:\Documents and Settings\ <user name>\Application Data\ Adobe\LensCorrection\Settings Load Settings can be used to locate and open settings on your system.

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Rusty Feet NAME: Ivo Van Der Ent

Eye-catching imagery that inspires and challenges

H

ere’s your chance to see just what your fellow Advanced Photoshop readers have been up to with their finely tuned Photoshop skills. These next few pages show off the weird, the wonderful and the eye-catching. Sending in your images for inclusion in Peer Pressure is an ideal way to get your name out there. It’s also the opportunity to kick-start your career and maybe even see your image on the cover. If you’d like to see your own work on these pages, please send us low-res JPEG versions at advancedpshop@ imagine-publishing.co.uk and we’ll get back to you for more information and a higher resolution copy if we want to print them. Alternatively, please check out our forum website at www.advancedphotoshop.co.uk and scroll down to Peer Pressure in the Creative Projects section to post a link to your image samples.

For this image, Ivo Van Der Ent from the Netherlands started off with a high-contrast, clean image of two feet and a textural image of metal from which paint was hanging. “In order to blend these two images together I dragged the image of the rusty plate on top of the image of the feet. I then set the transparency of the rust layer to 50% in order to see both layers at the same time. This image was moved around and scaled using the Free Transform tool in order to get the interesting details in the image of the rusty plate to fit the areas of the feet. When I was happy with the placement I tried several layer blend modes for the rust layer. The Overlay mode had the desired blending effect, as the dark shadow and textures of the rust were kept.” Ivo erased the parts of the rust layer that weren’t necessary because they were outside of the feet. “I found the colours of the image were a bit too extreme so I turned the transparency of the rust layer up in order to tune down the greenish-yellow slightly. I lost some detail information while doing this, so I made a copy of the rust layer, desaturated it and set its mode to Overlay too. This new monochrome layer gave me full control of highlight and shadows by turning the transparency up or down. A level adjustment on this layer brought out the details I was looking for, while the original rust layer gave me full control over the colours. After fiddling around with the transparency of both layers, this was the result.”

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 of JPEGs (RGB or CMYK), 300dpi minimum, and can be printed at 15cmx15cm minimum. Don’t forget to include a short text file detailing how you created your work, too.

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iqu es Te ch n Pulp Idol NAME: Jan Olihoek Jan is a 28-year-old biologist from Leiden in the Netherlands, and is currently working for an international pharmaceutical company. “Most of my free time is spent on improving my Photoshop skills in the hope of being able to turn my hobby into a profession at some point in the future. The goal for this image was to make an obvious forgery of a famous painting. When I saw Caravaggio’s Supper At Emmaus I immediately got the idea of turning it into a Tarantinoesque scene. What would happen if Quentin Tarantino made a movie of the Bible?” If you look carefully at the image you’ll see that Jan has placed a gun in Jesus’ hand and replaced a piece of bread on the table with a soft drink.

Cathedral Light NAME: Derek Jackson EMAIL: [email protected] After studying for a degree in Computer Science (focusing on the graphics side) at the UEA, Derek started working in the graphics department of LSI Architects in Norwich. “After purchasing a new digital camera I wanted to test it out by producing a series of studies of Norwich Cathedral.” After cropping, cleaning up and preparing the photo, Derek duplicated the layer and applied levels to both layers to create ‘light’ and ‘dark’ versions of the image. He then drew an initial path to plan the route of the light beam. “Using this as a rough guide I then selectively exposed the lighter version over the darker version using a Layer Mask, focusing on the areas where the light would hit the walls, floor and ceiling. I also exposed some of the exterior areas to create a contrast between the covered cloisters and the exposed grass area.” Derek then created a light beam and stroked a white pen along the path on several layers using various thicknesses. “I then blended between these using a Layer Mask again to create a sense of perspective. Once this was done blurring, blending modes and transparency tweaks were used to achieve a glow effect. Finally, I used Gaussian Blur to create a depth-of-field effect at the end of the corridor.”

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Discover the thinking behind the art

Robotics NAME: Joan Charmant SOURCE: Original photo from www.istockphoto.com (by Svetlana Larina) EMAIL: [email protected] This piece was created by Joan Charmant, a software programmer from France. The aim was to create an image with a robotic theme. “The concept of this project was to produce an image of a fragile child relying upon a machine.” Joan used the father’s hand in the original photograph as a guide for the robotic hand. She then constructed the fingers using images of various mechanical parts from a car engine, while the upper part of the hand originated from a photo of a robot’s hand. To finish off the image the background was tweaked to a green colour for a “more apocalyptic feel”. Joan then gave a burnt look to the image using the Overlay blending mode.

Beware By submitting images to Advanced Photoshop’s Peer Pressure, you hereby grant Imagine and, if relevant, clients to whom the relevant work has been provided, an irrevocable, perpetual, royalty-free licence to use intellectual property in relation to work similar or equivalent to the work. This includes the right to showcase work on multimedia formats.

NAME: Marty Cooper EMAIL: [email protected] Marty Cooper is a student studying Illustration and Animation at San José State University in California. “For this image, which I’ve titled Beware, my intentions were to create an image that literally jumped out at the viewer. I wanted to maintain a clean composition.” Marty used six different sources to gradually build up the image using Layer Mask techniques. These included a sky, fence, dog, house, ‘beware of the dog’ sign and a paw.

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iqu es Te ch n Shock horror NAME: Simon Rudd WEB: www.pompeysworst.co.uk EMAIL: [email protected] SOURCE: Original images from http://resurgere.deviantart.com, www.imageafter.com and www.sxc.hu Simon first became interested in image manipulation after he started visiting websites such as www.b3ta.com and www.tattyworld.org. “Most of my early efforts are best left forgotten, but as I started to learn more I started to mix my interest with horror and fantasy. My early horror art involved its fair share of very basic textures such as dry riverbeds or cracks blended over unmanipulated faces. Thankfully, I’ve come on a bit since then.” Simon is a self-employed photographic artist and manipulator and has been experimenting with Photoshop for around three years. “So far I haven’t worked on any big projects, but I’m hopeful that this will happen soon and I can begin to earn a living from something I love doing.

BE IN ST SH Sim EPoSn isOnow the prO W oud o This m N V o 70 wner of a enth del is and f usiasts anthe ideal s 0 sc n Systeatures E d advanc canner f anne To fi em com PSON’s u ed amate or image r

n u n telepd out more bined witique Dualr photogra or v hone 08 about the h DIGITALens phers, isit w 702 V700 L ICE ww.e 4169 . pson 00 .co.u k

Most of my work is a mix of blending modes, masking and textures. I spend a lot of time looking through stock images trying to find the right picture to work with. Luckily, there is a huge community of stock artists who provide great images for us to work from.” FACTORY BIO: “I was asked to create an album cover, with the brief being a biomechanical zombie. I found an old factory picture from Stock.xchng, while the zombie was a source pic given to me by the guy who wanted the picture. I removed his mouth using the Clone Stamp Tool and the arm using Masking. I added the light beams coming in through the windows using the Lasso Tool, filling them with white and then using Gaussian Blur.”

THIN SKIN: “Here I removed half

of her face using a layer mask and placed a picture of a skull into the hole. Using the Free Transform Tool to manoeuvre it into the right place, I then used the Burn tool on a low exposure to blend the skin and skull together. I finally added some meat over the skull to look like flesh.”

BLOODY HELL: “This was an attempt to make a skeletal rotting corpse that still had some flesh on it. I made this by placing a skull picture underneath the face and used a soft edge brush to mask part of the face. When I was happy with the effect I added a number of skin and meat textures from http://resurgere. deviantart.com. Finally, the image was darkened using a Brightness/ Contrast adjustment layer.”

WHITE ROOM: “I found a brilliant white room on Stock.xchng, I felt this would look really good if it were made to look as if it had been left in a post-murder state, with blood on the floor and the wall. I added blood using a soft-edged brush and the Smudge Tool set on a low strength. When this was complete, it felt too empty so I included the girl with the gun and scrawled on the wall. I added a red and white cloud filter to the top layer and set the blending mode to Overlay.”

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Helpdesk If you’re having trouble creating an imaging masterpiece, send in your woes and we’ll show you how to perfect those pixels BÉZIER NIGHTMARE I hate the Pen Tool! Seriously, I just can’t seem to work out what the hell I’m doing with it. I keep hearing you guys saying how great it is at making accurate selections, but I just can’t get it right. It would be really cool if you could give me some basic tips on how to use it before I start getting really frustrated. Jinkly, via email You’re not the first person to find the Pen Tool a bit of a nightmare, and you certainly won’t be the last. For most people, their first encounter with Bézier curves does not end well, with erratic, curvy lines usually flicking all over the place. But there are a few secrets to getting great results pretty easily. First, you’ve got to take your time, because the Pen Tool requires a bit of finesse if you’re going to get precise lines. Second, you need to know how to properly place a point and create a curve. Click on the Pen Tool, then hit the Paths button on the Options bar and proceed to click two points that mark the beginning and end points of the first curve. When you click the second point, hold the mouse button down and you’ll find that you can manipulate a direction handle to move the level of curvature. The secret is to always leave the handle facing the direction of the next point you’re going to place in order to create an accurate, smooth curve. If you need to move the handle after you’ve placed a point, just hold down the Alt /Cmd key and make the adjustment.

THINK BIG

PENMANSHIP: There’s only one way to get to grips with the Pen Tool, and that’s practise, practise, practise…

I’m a web designer who likes to dabble in digital art, and I frequently use Photoshop CS2 when building artistic elements for my websites. However, as the items I’m working on can be quite small, I sometimes make my Photoshop canvas sizes too small at the start of the design process and find that I have to mess about resizing them when my design is already under way. So far I’ve been doing this using the Resize Canvas command, but I hate having to faff around with working out exactly how many pixels I need to add to get that little extra slice of canvas I need to finish off my illustration. Is there a quicker and easier way to do this without having to mess about with maths? Robert Leicester, Hants

THINKING BIG: Although the Crop Tool is commonly used to cut sections out of a canvas and make the document dimensions smaller, you can use it to add more pixels to the edges of your canvas too

Photoshop offers a number of ways to resize a canvas, and we actually covered one of them in detail in last issue’s Helpdesk. However, it sounds to us like you require a technique that enables you to size the canvas visually, rather than numerically. If that’s the case, the best bet is to do it using the good old Crop Tool. To do it, ensure that you can see the grey background border around the outside of your image in Photoshop, then grab the Crop Tool from the Toolbox. Drag a selection around the entire image and release the mouse button. Now, to enlarge the canvas an arbitrary amount, all you need to do is to grab one of the bounding box handles at the edges and drag it out to the required size. Hit Return and voilà, the canvas has been enlarged.

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iqu es Te ch n COLOUR ME BAD

PIXEL ART ALIAS

I’ve recently started studying graphic design at college, and part of my course requires me to learn how to choose colours that are complementary in my work. One of my favourite methods for picking a palette for a project is to open up an existing image in Photoshop that has a similar look to what I’m after, and then use the Eyedropper Tool to sample colours from the image and save them in the Swatches palette ready for me to use in my design. But sometimes I find that I want to grab a colour from something that I can’t open in Photoshop, like a website flash logo in my browser. Is there a way that I can get around this problem?

After seeing some great examples of pixel art on various digital art websites over the past few months, I decided to take a stab at it myself. However, as soon as I tried to draw a straight line with a brush size of one pixel, Photoshop immediately started aliasing it, which makes it look a mess. Do you have any idea how to turn this automatic aliasing off? It’s driving me crazy! Richard Bosche, Somerset Aliasing is indeed the scourge of every pixel artist. Although it helps to soften lines and blend in brush strokes in most other kinds of digital illustration, it’s the quickest way to ruin your work when you require marks of pixel-perfect precision. Thankfully, you can easily turn aliasing off in Photoshop. All you need to do is to head to Edit>Preferences>General to call up the program’s main settings dialog window then alter the method of Image Interpolation. By default it’s set to Bicubic, but to make sure that Photoshop stops blending in all your strokes you need to flick it over to Nearest Neighbor then hit OK.

Sally Goodman, Aberystwyth There are actually two ways you can get around your problem of nabbing colours from other program windows. You could install a screen-grabbing app like HyperSnap DX (www.hyperionics.com) and use it to capture a JPEG of the screen you’d like to import into Photoshop. Alternatively, you can use this nifty trick: load Photoshop, open a new canvas and shrink the program window so that you can see the part of the web browser from which you’d like to lift a colour behind it. Now, select the Eyedropper Tool then click and hold the mouse button somewhere within the Photoshop window. Now, with the button still held down, you can move the Tool to any visible space on your computer desktop – including the open browser window – and the colour will be sampled in Photoshop. Just release the button when you’ve landed on the colour you desire and you’re done.

ROUND TRIP: Use the horizon line as a guide when straightening up images with the Measure Tool

BUILDING BLOCK I take a lot of digital photos of architecture and I regularly need to rotate them in Photoshop in order to ensure that the edges of the buildings all look square. When I started doing this, I was using the Rotate window to enter an estimated amount in the Arbitrary field but I soon found that it took too long to get the value right. Now I’m using the Transform Tools to manually rotate the photos, but I’m still not getting them exactly how I want them. Could you recommend a better solution?

SOFTEN UP: Anti-aliasing is the process of adding transitional pixels along edges to soften the appearance of curves and diagonal lines

Phillip Grey, London

BE INSPIRED: Taking inspiration from the colour choices of other artists is a great way of discovering complementary hues, and it’s a tried and trusted method for many an artist – although some would never admit it!

There’s actually a really quick and easy way to accurately rotate photos in Photoshop, and it even eliminates all of the guesswork involved in doing things manually. First, open up the photo and then grab the Measure Tool from the Toolbox (you’ll find it grouped with the Eyedropper Tool, just click and hold the mouse button on the pipette icon to see the fly-out menu). Now, draw a straight line along the edge of the building that you’d like to use as either a horizon line or vertical reference. With the Measure line in place, click on Image>Rotate Canvas>Arbitrary and you’ll find an angle has magically appeared in the dialog window. Just hit OK, and you’ll find that your photo will be instantly straightened up as desired.

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

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SMART SCANNERS Steve Jenkins give you an insight to a dozen scanners that cater for the complete spectrum of users

T

he principle occupation of a scanner lies very much in its name. Simply put, it scans documents, photos, text, artwork and even textural objects such as leaves and material, converting the information into a digital document. Once the transformation is complete there is a host of formats, purposes and treatments that can be applied to a scan. The popular use for scanners has long been the ability to transform the standard snap into a document that can be manipulated, renovated and ultimately altered. The arrival of the digital camera stole a little of the scanner’s glory, but photographers, digital artists, Photoshop enthusiasts and the home user still owe a debt of gratitude. All are especially indebted to the device’s reproduction qualities, which can often provide the basis for artistic work. Any item small enough can be slipped through a scanner to produce creative inspiration and individuality: big and bright backgrounds, simple line art, small intricate patterns or interesting textures. In principle, scanners all perform the same task, but different types of scanners perform specific roles in the scanning process. There is a diversity of scanner types on the market, ranging from budget models aimed at the home user right through to the professional class for Photoshoppers, designers and artists. All scanners fall into a category such as flatbed, sheet-fed and film – and some combine more than one. For this roundup we have filtered the types into five categories.

All-in-one The all-in-one or multifunctional device, as the name suggests, does more than scan. It generally incorporates a scanner with the ability to fax, copy

and print. The quality, resolution and extras on offer depend very much on how much you are willing to spend. Low-end all-in-ones start at around £100 but generally offer functionality rather than outstanding quality. Moving up the scale, as you would expect, offers improved CCDs, greater bit depth and higher resolutions, all leading to better quality output.

Budget Scanners at the lower end of the price scale are generally flatbed scanners with the home user in mind. Due to the monetary constraints placed on the manufacturer the resolution is set at a useful everyday level. They will enable up to A4 scanning and allow for scanning of multiple documents in one pass.

Resolution

ROUND UP

scan ners

revealed In strict terms the higher the scanner resolution the better the scan, but other factors come into play so this does not always prove to be true. But as a basis for what you can expect from a scanner it is a realistic guideline. Most manufacturers relay the optical resolution as the number to note, ie, 1200dpi. A scanner with an optical resolution of 1200 x 2400dpi will offer a whopping 2,880,000 dots per square inch. Many scanners with a 1200dpi optical resolution claim higher resolutions. This is known as the interpolated resolution, which is created using software after the scanner has taken the original scan at the optical resolution. The interpolated resolution does not necessarily offer a sharper image, because the software calculates an intermediate value and places between two known values. When shopping for a scanner, look for the best optical resolution you can get.

Mid-range The mid-range scanner takes a step up from the basic flatbed and will give greater resolution and an improved feature set. It is at this point that more specialised type of scanners start making an appearance. Alongside the standard A4 flatbed you are likely to find the sheet-fed scanner ideal for unattended scanning.

Professional The top end of the market is where larger scanners such as A3 and beyond make an appearance. These offer greatly improved resolutions, high-quality CCDs and much-

improved software packages. DIGITAL ICE, an image-correction technology that removes dust and scratches and improves contrast and colour, is popular with the professional scanner models.

Film scanners These are task-specific and will adhere to the one function only. Unlike flatbed scanners, which can scan any number of items, film scanners concentrate on slides and negatives, mainly of the 35mm kind. The units provide better scans because they are scanning the original picture and not a copy, such as a print.

ANY ITEM CAN BE SLIPPED THROUGH A SCANNER TO PRODUCE CREATIVE INSPIRATION AND INDIVIDUALITY

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Hardware

Lexmark P6350 SRP: £75 Optical scanning resolution: 1200 x 2400dpi Hardware scanning resolution: n/a Enhanced scanning resolution: up to 19200 x 19200dpi Bit depth: 48-bit Scan speed stat: n/a Connectivity: USB 2.0 Dimensions: 178 x 435 x 335mm Weight: 4.8kg Website: www.lexmark.co.uk Contact: 0870 444 0044

EPSON Stylus Photo RX700 SRP: £252 Optical scanning resolution: 3200 x 6400dpi Hardware scanning resolution: 3200 x 6400dpi Enhanced scanning resolution: 12800dpi Bit depth: 48-bit Scan speed stat: 35mm neg 3200dpi, 123 secs/ line art 300dpi (A4), 13 secs Connectivity: USB 2.0 Dimensions: 450 x 418 x 236mm Weight: 12.9kg Website: www.epson.co.uk Contact: 0870 2416 900

Budget

This multifunctional device from Lexmark offers photo printing as its principle function, with the added bonus of being able to print without a assistance of a PC. The front panel of this reasonably pretty all-rounder boasts a 6cm colour LCD screen, which provides guidance throughout the whole printing process. Users can quickly view, edit (crop, rotate, resize, remove red-eye) and print photos direct from a digital camera memory card. The P6350 has an integrated card reader that supports a whole host of formats including CompactFlash, Memory Stick, MMC, SD, Mini Secure Digital (Mini SD), SmartMedia, Microdrive and xD cards. Alternatively, if a memory card is not the weapon of choice a USB Flash drive can be directly plugged into the supplied USB port. Digital camera users are catered for with a PictBridge-certified port. In addition to printing any scanned images, the P6350 provides the option to directly attach a scan to an email.

The RX700 is multifunctional device described by EPSON as an “advanced photo all-in-one with uncompromising quality and functionality”. The unit provides a 2.5-inch PhotoFine colour LCD that gives the user the option to assess the quality of an image before printing. The six individual ink cartridges help provide a clear and clean photo with a 1.5pl (picolitre) minimum ink droplet size. The selection of functions include direct prints from negatives and the option to perform the PC-less print. Insert a memory card to view images or connect a compatible camera. The RX700’s scanning capabilities mean that it can scan images at the 3200 x 6400dpi resolution. This in turn allows users to enlarge images from 35mm film to A4 print size while still retaining the detail. In addition, the restoration capability removes dust from negatives and restores faded photos during the scanning process.

25 Canon CanoScan LiDE

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All-in-one

ROUND UP

Xerox 4800 SRP: £53 Optical scanning resolution: 1200 x 4800dpi Hardware scanning resolution: 4800dpi Enhanced scanning resolution: 4800dpi Bit depth: 48-bit Scan speed stat: n/a Connectivity: USB 2.0 Dimensions: 432 x 302 x 66mm Weight: 2.32kg Website: www.xerox.co.uk Contact: 0870 873 3873

The Xerox 4800 is the ideal option for small office/home office users, providing quick, simple and intuitive scanning. The scanner has five One Touch buttons, four of which are pre-configured, allowing you to send scanned images straight to PaperPort for editing, email, OCR for editing text, or a printer. The fifth button can be customised to send scanned images to virtually any text or image-editing application. The unit adds speed to its armoury with the ability to scan up to 5.5 times faster than USB 1.1 scanners and up to 2.9 times faster than other USB 2.0 scanners. The 4800 includes FlashBack technology: the scanner moves one way to preview the image area quickly, automatically crops to the edges of the photo then reverses direction and performs the final high-res scan on the return trip.

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Professional

Mid-range

scan ners HP Scanjet 7650 SRP: £428 Optical scanning resolution: 2400dpi Hardware scanning resolution: 2400 x 2400dpi Enhanced scanning resolution: up to 999,999dpi Bit depth: 48-bit Scan speed stat: 4x6 colour photo in less than 24 secs Connectivity: USB 2.0 Dimensions: 488 x 340 x 162mm Weight: 5.73kg Website: www.hp.com Contact: 0845 270 4142

Aimed at the small- to medium-sized business, the HP Scanjet 7650 Document Flatbed Scanner offers fast unattended scanning with its built-in 50-sheet duplexing automatic document feeder. It loads documents and with its duplex capabilities can scan both sides of a document simultaneously. A fast warm-up prevents any unnecessary dead time, with documents ready to be previewed in approximately six seconds. An adjustable lid gives the option to squeeze in big books, large files and awkward originals. The 7650 includes a 35mm slide and negative adapter to ensure that film lovers are catered for. To increase productivity with completed scans, HP includes a range of software covering all bases. Efficient document management can be achieved with ScanSoft PaperPort and NewSoft PageManager. These provide the opportunity to edit, organise and archive digital document files.

EPSON Expression 10000XL Pro SRP: £2,167 Optical scanning resolution: 2400 x 4800dpi Hardware scanning resolution: 2400 x 4800dpi Enhanced scanning resolution: 2400dpi Bit depth: 48-bit Scan speed stat: Full-colour A3 reflective 300dpi, 31.9 secs Connectivity: USB 2.0 plus FireWire Dimensions: 656 x 458 x 158mm Weight: 14.5kg Website: www.epson.co.uk Contact: 0870 2416 900

The Expression 10000XL, according to EPSON, has been designed to meet the needs of the most demanding graphic arts professionals. The XL is an A3+ graphic arts scanner offering a resolution of 2400dpi and an optical density of 3.8DMax. To improve scan speeds a newly designed MatrixCCD has been optimised for A3 scanning, while the Xenon start lamp ensures that the scanner is an always-ready solution. Image quality is optimised with an auto-focus feature, enabling the user to achieve pinpoint focus within a range of up to 6mm above the original glass window. The auto focus optics system automatically adjusts and focuses for clearer sharper scans and also has a full manual facility. The XL uses an all-in-one moving carriage, which in turn gives higher reliability, better protection from dust and ease of maintenance. For maximum productivity, the scanner can be directly connected to a network using an optional EPSON Network Image Express Card.

Fujitsu ScanSnap FI-5110 EOX2 SRP: £284 Optical scanning resolution: 600dpi Hardware scanning resolutio n: n/a Enhanced scanning resolutio n: n/a Bit depth: n/a Scan speed stat: (Simplex) 15 x 150dpi pages per minute Connectivity: USB 2.0 Dimensions: 150 x 284 x 146m m Weight: 2.7kg Website: http://scansnap.fujitsu.c om Contact: 0800 004 003

The ScanSnap 5110 describes itself as a ‘paper manager’ and offers simple one-scanner button convers ion from colour/mono multi-p age doubledsided documents into digital PDF files which can be filed, organised, shared or sent via email. The ScanSna p software automatically crea tes Adobe PDF files, which is ideal for docume nt exchange as it ensures that the end user gets to see the document exac tly as it should be. The include d Scan2PDF function ensures that convert ed documents are fully searcha ble in turn, creating a powerful archive with easy-to recover documents. The ScanSnap Manager software provides plen ty of PDF power offering con tinuous scanning to easily create PDF s greater than the ADF capacit y, the option to password-protect PDF files, and A3 scanning using the carrier sheets. Accompanying software incl udes ScanSnap Organiser, used for browsing scanned documents without the need to open them in Acro bat.

Microtek ArtixScan 2500F SRP: £2,482 Optical scanning resolution: 2500dpi (high-res area) 1250dpi (entire scan bed) Hardware scanning resolution: n/a Enhanced scanning resolution: 5000 x 5000dpi Bit depth: 42-bit Scan speed stat: n/a Connectivity: FireWire and SCSI-2 Dimensions: 655 x 436 x 231mm Weight: 20.99kg Website: www.microtek.com Contact: 0870 906 3308

The Microtek ArtixScan 2500F is a pre-press quality flatbed scanner that incorporates two scanning beds. It has one for photos and one for film, both using Microtek’s patented Emulsion Direct Imaging Technology (EDIT) for sharp transparency scanning. The 2500F uses a 10000-element CCD for high-resolution clarity and up to an extremely high 4.4DMax. With the imaging technology there is no glass between the scanning lens, film, or light source; this means that distortion and Newton rings that can occur with traditional transparency adapters are eliminated. Of all the scanners in the round-up the ArtixScan is the only model to abandon the USB option and plump for the faster FireWire and SCSI-2 connections. The Microtek package does include a PCI FireWire card for Windows plus a PCI SCSI card for both Macintosh and Windows, all with necessary cables. Finally, a new adjustable film holder gives full support for all 6cm film from 6x4.5cm up to 6x9cm.

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Hardware

Canon CanoScan LiDE 500F SRP: £86 Optical scanning resolution: 2400 x 4800dpi Hardware scanning resolution: n/a Enhanced scanning resolution: n/a Bit depth: 48-bit Scan speed stat: 10.38msec/line (1200dpi), 20.7msec/line (2400dpi) Connectivity: USB 2.0 Dimensions: 280 x 396.5 x 34.9mm Weight: 2kg Website: www.canon.co.uk Contact: 0870 514 3723

Much like its budget brother, the LiDE 25 the CanoScan LiDE 500 offers slim and stylish scanning with the added bonus of improved resolution. The unit enjoys a plug-free existence, drawing all its power from its USB 2.0 connection and an integrated stand allows for upright scanning. When the scanner is upright, a double hinge lid allows ‘drop-in’ scanning. With the stand folded away, the lid can be opened completely to scan oversize objects such as maps or posters. The lid also opens on a parallel to accept bulky items such as books. The 500F features a compact Film Adapter Unit (FAU) for scanning strips of 35mm film using the Canon’s FARE Level 3 for film correction. This works with the assistance of an infra-red light that detects the location of dust and scratches. In addition faded colour, excessive graininess and poor exposure can also be corrected. A Scan To PDF function scans documents straight to the PDF format.

Plustek OpticFilm 7200i SRP: £230 Optical scanning resolution: n/a Hardware scanning resolution: 7200 x 7200dpi Enhanced scanning resolution: n/a Bit depth: 48-bit Scan speed stat: approx. 36 sec (3600dpi)/ 68 sec (7200dpi) Connectivity: USB 2.0 Dimensions: 272 x 120 x 119mm Weight: 1.5kg Website: www.plustek.com Contact: Via website

The OpticFilm 7200i is a 7200dpi film scanner that offers 35mm slide and negative scanning capabilities. The OpticFilm is aimed at small office/ workshop users, offering a variety of possibilities including high-quality images for magazines and other printed material, photo enlargements, brochures, digitising slides/negatives, web pages, as well as images to share. The package comes with SilverFast 6 Ai iSRD (Infrared Smart Removal of Defect), an award-winning scanning software. The newly introduced iSRD feature provides productive defect removing solutions, eliminates dust and scratches automatically. In automatic mode the iSRD operates completely on its own, applying corrected results to the entire scan frame. In manual mode, the user can select certain areas to work on and leave the rest untouched. With defects removed, the iSRD does not soften or blur the scanned file, providing dedicated imageers with an enhanced genuine image with which to work.

Nikon COOLSCAN LS 9000 SRP: £1,760 Optical scanning resolution: 4000dpi Hardware scanning resolution: n/a Enhanced scanning resolution: n/a Bit depth: n/a Scan speed stat: 35mm slide film, 40 seconds Connectivity: IEEE 1394 (FireWire) Dimensions: 249 x 498.5 x 202mm Weight: 9kg Website: www.nikon.co.uk Contact: 0870 770 0233

The COOLSCAN LS 9000 from Nikon is strictly aimed at imaging professionals, and to this end supports a host of film formats. It offers scanning for 120/220, 35mm, 6x7, 6x9 positives, 16mm, electron microscope and other film formats. For enhanced image quality with faster scanning speeds Nikon has updated the unit’s three-line CCD image sensor. The majority of scanners use halogen or fluorescent lamps as light sources, but not the COOLSCAN 9000. This uses LEDs as its source of light, giving users a stable precise light source requiring neither maintenance nor warm-up time. The use of LEDs also ensures that there is no risk of film suffering from heat-related damage. The Nikon Colour Management System (CMS) allows for the manipulation of colours in the calibrated RGB colour spaces before the data is transferred to the host application. Profiles detailing the colour characteristics and the output device (monitor or printer) ensure that the 9000 gives high colour-accuracy.

Film scanners

ROUNDUP

EPSON V750-M Pro SRP: £549 Optical scanning resolutio n: 4800 x 9600dpi for reflective and film within the film area guide/6400 x 9600dpi for film using the film holders Hardware scanning reso lution: 4800 x 9600dpi Enhanced scanning reso lution: 12800dpi Bit depth: 48-bit Scan speed stat: Negative 2400dpi 35mm, 35 secs; Line Art 300dpi A4, 11 secs Connectivity: USB 2.0 and FireWire Dimensions: 503 x 308 x 150m m Weight: 7kg Website: www.epson.co.uk Contact: 0870 2416 900

The EPSON V750 is a new addition to the already esta blished V range, superseding the V700. The flatbed incorporates 6400dp i resolution and unique fluid mount capabil ities for photo studio app lications. The improved resolution ensures that colo ur and detail in all scans is consistent, precise and true to the original. EPS ON’s Dual Lens System opt imises each scan, automatically selecting a lens to suit the scan resoluti on. The Digital ICE Technologies assist with the automatic removal of scra tches and dust from film, and many surface def ects from prints. An option al fluid mount accessory for wet mount film scanning takes the con cept one step further, giving you additional scra tch removal and grain red uction capabilities for black-and-white film. The included film holder allows users to batch-scan multiple slides and negativ es for increased productivit y.

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Let us do the searching

Develop your Photoshop skills and abilities with these essential editing resources

mends Recom

86

software

Hot from IPEX 2006, we take a look at what QuarkXPress 7 is bringing to DTP

RE OF ADE R Adva FE 20%nced PhotoshR rev of op readers postaiewed this f all can g e visit and pacissue. All oIlex b receive f k w f a e or te ww.il ging. Fo rs incluooks leph ex-pr r mor de fr e e one 0127ess.com informateio 3 40 /apm n 3124 .

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plug-ins

Expand Photoshop’s capabilities with these handy downloads

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typography Be a master of fonts using these valuable typography sites

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books

CHIC TO CHIC: Pick up inspiring summer reads PAGE 94

We review the latest design publications to hit the shelves

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f you have access to the Internet, the possibilities for expanding Photoshop are pretty endless with the use of plug-ins. The different effects, the quality of the results and the price of purchase vary from plug-in to plug-in, and it can be a time-consuming process to trudge through the multitude of options. We’ve spared you the search, tracking down a huge selection of downloads that you can try out. Ranging from freeware versions to the more expensive extensions for the most committed image-editors, we have them all. If you regularly use text within your artwork, or need to consider different styles of fonts for editorial purposes, take a look through our run-through of some of the best typography download websites online at the moment. Finally, we all love a good book, whether it is as inspiration for new design concepts or just to keep on the desk-side as a trusty image-editing aide. Leaf through our round-up of the new publications available over on page 94 and we’ll give you our honest opinion.

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QuarkXPress 7

Quark answers back to InDesign with the latest version of its flagship page-layout program

With Adobe’s app stealing the editing thunder, Quark’s latest creation needs to be ready to go a few rounds. So is version seven a knockout? We take a closer look System requirements Mac OS X v.10.4 (Tiger) or later Minimum 128MB total RAM 768MB RAM 230MB available Hard Disk space Microsoft Windows XP Minimum 128MB total RAM 768MB RAM 190MB available Hard Disk space Further info: www.quark.com

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efore there was InDesign, there was QuarkXPress. With the advent of Adobe Creative Suite 2, we’ve seen a massive migration in the professional desktop publishing industry from a software program that dominated the industry hands-down to Adobe’s fresh-faced alternative. InDesign seems the more obvious choice for those who wanted a complete Adobe package, if not only for the fact that the program layout and window structure isn’t such a culture shock for those already accustomed to Photoshop CS2. Big boys don’t like to be second best for long and so

it’s so surprise that we see a new development in the Quark series, QuarkXPress 7. So just what can this program do for you? Is it worth forking out an upgrade price of £45 for the privilege of being able to make use of the new features? We take a look at the new beta version and find out.

Transparency features The development of QuarkXPress 7 looks very familiar on start-up, with the window structure being based heavily on previous versions. So what’s new and what’s relevant to an Adobe Photoshop CS2 user? Well, the biggest change

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GO WITH THE FLOW: There’s plenty of scope for sharing workflows in the latest version comes with the way that the program handles synchronizing text and pictures. QuarkXPress 7 can handle opacity on a colour basis rather than a object basis. You can now control the opacity of text, pictures, blends, boxes, frames, lines and tables (in short, anything to which a colour can be assigned) and then adjust the opacity in 0.1% increments from transparent 0% to opaque 100%. It’s also possible to create blends from solid to transparent, so that items appear to fade gradually into the background. Individual and grouped items in a layout can also be adjusted to show opacity against a background as well as each other. Quark heralds these new features as being far more flexible than alternatives in Adobe InDesign, where users must apply transparency to an entire object at once (including the frame, background, and any item that is part of the object). It’s true that lots of time is saved by using these transparency options and it does give you more scope for creating more intricate and professional-looking documents, but in all honestly, how often will you want to make use of this feature in all of your projects? Most importantly for us, there’s more support in QuarkXPress 7 for native Adobe Photoshop files and channels, and there are more runaround options including handy runaround drop shadows rather than parent object drop shadows. There’s a new support for alpha channels too, so it’s possible to use custom masks that have been applied in Photoshop CS2 to realistically blend objects with page elements in the background. A digital master is maintained so that you can non-destructively soften alpha channels and experiment with the layer transparency settings of PSD and layered TIFF files. InDesign users need to edit alpha channels in Photoshop and then update the image inside InDesign to see the changed results. There’s quite a breakthrough with QuarkXPress 7 in that you can use the alpha channels to blend the images with the page elements in-software. There’s also a built-in imaging engine that allows you to make basic adjustments to your image’s

DO YOUR HOMEWORK: Check out the new QuarkXPress 7 tutorial at www.quark.com

“CONTROL THE OPACITY OF TEXT, PICTURES, BLENDS, BOXES, FRAMES, LINES AND TABLES” brightness, contrast, levels, scaling and rotation without having to to-and-fro between Photoshop and the DTP program.

Colour & layout In version 6.5, Quark showed off the ability to support .PSD files. QuarkXPress 7 lets you map spot colours and alpha channels in an important PDS file to the colours within the host layout to allow scope for bump plates, varnishes and embosses. It’s also possible to control the layers, channels and paths of this imported Photoshop file. If you’ve spent a considerable amount of time working on the colour quality of the images in your layout then you don’t want them to falter at ON THE FLY: The Layout Evaluation tool is QuarkXPress 7’s pre-flight checker, and this can be customised to suit the way you work

the export stage. This new version features several colour management improvements. You can now preview a document as it will appear on various output devices with specific settings, by clicking on the menu command View>Proof Output. For example, this will allow you to see how RGB images and page elements will look once they’re printed to a CMYK device. If that isn’t enough to get you excited then the main interface feature that has been enhanced is the Measurements Palette (a floating palette found under the menu command Windows> Measurements). There’s a tab bar added, so when you select a tab or bring it up using a keyboard shortcut it displays a new set of features. This saves hunting down modification settings, and you can ensure that the location and function of tools are familiar, consistent, and always on hand.

Is it worth it? In our option, or those who are accustomed to the layout and style of an Adobe product, the development of QuarkXPress 7 isn’t really enough to justify a brand new purchase. The lack of familiarity alone casts a shadow over the newly developed features. However, for those who already rely on previous versions of Quark, the cheap upgrade price is a bargain. 5

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Adobe Stock Photos A handy resource for sourcing the perfect image from the comfort of Bridge

Imagine browsing over half a million shots from one interface. That’s what Adobe Stock Photos aims to deliver, so could this be the image-editor’s new best friend? Web Further info: Find out more about Adobe Stock Photos by logging onto www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/ adobestockphotos/main.htm

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uperb original imagery is an essential starting point if you’re really serious about your Photoshop creations. You may end up making drastic alterations to an image, rendering it unrecognisable from its initial state, but if you find a great shot from which you can draft up a masterpiece your first-draft nightmares can be a far smoother process. Finding the perfect image can be quite a long-winded process and may mean having to search through all of the top stock library sites one after another, with no guarantee of success at the end of it. With the advent of Adobe Bridge has come a far easier way of searching for sites from

this central hub of Creative Suite 2. You can start your Adobe Stock Photos searching simply by starting up Adobe Bridge, clicking on the Favorites tab to the left of the screen and selecting the Adobe Stock Photos icon, which will transport you to the main welcome screen. By far the best feature of Adobe Stock Photos is the ability to search multiple collections in one go. From just a few keyword searches, this program finds the most appropriate matches from over 575,000 images. It couldn’t be simpler to carry out a search; all you have to do is enter specific terms into the keyword entry box at the top of the page and hit Return or press the Start Search button.

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Web Adobe Stock Photos trawls the databases of the following image libraries: ● Photodisc ● Itstockfree ● Stockbyte ● Blend ● Amana ● Imagesource ● Imageshop ● Creatas ● Brand X Pictures ● Digital Vision ● BananaStock ● Goodshoot ● Thinkstock ● Comstock ● IPN Relay ● Masterfile

STOCK UP: Searching for images with Adobe Stock Photos couldn’t be easier – simply enter your keyword at the top of the page and you’ll be furnished with a selection of matching shots

“THIS PROGRAM FINDS THE MOST APPROPRIATE MATCHES FROM OVER 575,000 IMAGES” For every search you carry out, the program will automatically store the found thumbnails into a dedicated folder in the Previous Searches section.

Handy features There’s nothing worse than trying out your designs using an image you have in mind with only the tiniest of thumbnails to help you along your way, or, even worse, an image with watermarks scrawled all over it. A handy feature of Adobe Stock Photos is that you can try out your designs using a watermark-free, low-resolution sample of your search results. To access this function, simply double-click on the thumbnail you’re interested in when it’s displayed in the main JUST BROWSING: If you’d rather explore galleries than search by keyword you can look through the categories in the Browse section

window and the image will load into Photoshop CS2. You can also use this feature if you want your image to be displayed in Adobe Illustrator, InDesign or GoLive.

File information Each image that’s purchased through Stock Photos is embedded with important metadata that stays with the image no matter how many times it’s edited in Photoshop. This information WATER BONUS: Want to check out how an image will fit into a design without spending? You can open up a free watermark-less sample

includes important administration data such as the filename, keyword and the date it was created, as well as more specific properties such as dimensions and resolution. The metadata can be found to the left-hand side of the Adobe Stock Photos interface, displayed underneath the Preview thumbnail. Or, if you have your image open in Photoshop, you can access the metadata just as you would with camera EXIF data by selecting the menu command File>File Info.

Purchasing imagery Images can be purchased directly from within the document containing the Comp version of your image or from the thumbnail contact sheet that opens up when you search for a keyword in the Adobe Stock Photos interface, while images from multiple providers can be purchased all at once using the one-licence agreement. When you first select images to be placed in your shopping cart the program will ask you to state the country you are based in so that any monetary values are displayed in the appropriate currency. Once the images are displayed in your shopping cart you have the option to by various size versions depending on price. Shots that you’ve bought will then be found under the Purchased Images icon so you can always access it via Adobe Bridge. 5

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plug-ins

Unleash even more creative Photoshop potential with these plug-ins available for download

SuperBladePro

More plug-ins

Developer: Flaming Pear Price: Free demo, Site licence US$150 (£84) Web: www.flamingpear.com/blade.html

Paint Alchemy

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uperBladePro is a plug-in that’s available as a free demo or a pay-for licence. With it you can combine textures with bevels and mirror-like reflections to create an instant three-dimensional look. Features include water stains, moss, abrasions, spotlighting, dust, grit and embossing. You can also create custom textures, zoomable presets and make use of the randomizer for naturallooking designs. The plug-in is available as a free demo, but you can extend the use by purchasing a site licence. Check out a gallery of designs that have made use of the SuperBladePro site by logging onto www.flamingpear.com/bladex4.html. 5 Rating:

3/5

Harmony

Developer: Xaos Tools Price: US$99 (£56) Web: www.xaostools.com/products/ pamain.html

If you’re looking to apply paint effects to your images then Paint Alchemy could be just for you. This plug-in lets you transform your art with 75 built-in brushstroke effects and 36 brush styles. It’s also possible to create your own brushes from any black-and-white PICT file. There are already paint filters within Photoshop but, generally, this plug-in will give you a little more control over the finer details, and offer you the chance to experiment with effects such as Pastel or Impressionist. The interface of the program itself is intuitive enough, if a little basic-looking. An online web download is available for Apple Mac users only for US$89.95 (£50). 5 Rating:

3/5

Photo/Graphic Edges 6

Developer: Hot Door Price: US$79 (£44) Web: www.hotdoor.com

Developer: Auto FX Price: US$179 (£100) Web: www.autofx.com

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armony is an intelligent plug-in that allows you to access thousands of colour combinations using an interactive RYB colour wheel. Once it has loaded you can adjust the wheel’s tints, shades or tones, and edit colour swatches before copying, saving or exporting the swatches to Photoshop as well as Illustrator and PageMaker. Handier and more fluid than using the program’s own colour picker, the plug-in will let you preview sample swatches together and let you glimpse colours in Mac, Windows or web-safe tones. Our gripe is that it only concerns colour schemes for Photoshop 4, 5 and 6 on the Mac. 5 Rating:

2/5

This new version of Photo/Graphic Edges offers 14 different photographic effects plus a selection of 10,000 edges, 1,000 matte textures, 175 frames, 230 effect brushes and 210 light tiles. There are dozens of new features included, and if you already own a version of the program an upgrade is only US$79 (£44). You can use Photo/Graphic Edges 6 to work on separate layers within the plug-in, ensuring that you build up your effects carefully, piece by piece. If you need to get rid of any unwanted changes you can delete layers by clicking on the Trash Can icon, just as you would in Adobe Photoshop CS2, so the operation is easy enough and will be familiar to Advanced Photoshop readers. This plug-in can also work as a standalone product. 5 Rating:

3D Dizzy 1.0

3/5

Brightness Editor Developer: Power Retouche Price: Free with demo Web: http://powerretouche.com

Developer: Vertigo 3D Software Price: US$49 (£27) Web: www.vertigo3d.com/dizzy/index.html

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astering 3D effects in Photoshop can be tricky. Vertigo 3D Dizzy helps you to import detailed 3D models into Photoshop and lets you move them into any position, perfect master effects and control your camera view, choosing from a number of rendering effects. You can use over 500 included 3D models, navigating around them using a fully operable camera control mode. In order for 3D Dizzy to run effectively you must also have QuickDraw (a component of QuickTime) installed. The Dizzy demo will allow you to experience all of these features, but will restrict you to a limited number of models. 5 Rating:

4/5

Brightness Editor is a plug-in that is designed to aid you with brightness shifts in your images without having to worry about loss of colour or leaving your shots looking washed out. Normally this would entail some expert Curve tweaking, but this plug-in will automatically shift the contrast slider to ensure that images maintain good colour quality. It’s a good little extra to have in your editing kit, and although the controls are simple the Brightness Editor gets the job done quickly and with the minimum of hassle. The Brightness Editor plug-in will work with the following image modes; Windows and Mac 8/16-bit, RGB, Grayscale and CMYK. 5 Rating:

3/5

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Developer: Phototune Price: US$69.95 (£39) Web: www.phototune.com/skintune_intro.html

Glass Developer: The Plugin Site Price: Freeware Web: www.thepluginsite.com

This freeware plug-in allows you to apply glass effects to your images using different slider controls. Some of the results are a little wacky, although it’s more about creating quite radical pieces of art than producing subtle effects. With Glass you can create bubbles, horizontal and vertical waves, tiles and rippled effects. This is handy if you want to completely transform your images and use it for distortion effects, but it wouldn’t have much regular use. It could come in useful for the odd effect, but because the results are so restricted and so very extreme you won’t find a role for it in many of your pieces. Worth a look for novelty value, though. 5 Rating:

2/5

Xenofex 2 Developer: Alien Skin Software Price: US$129 (£72) Web: www.alienskin.com/xx2/index.html

Xenofex 2 is a creative plug-in that allows you to simulate natural phenomena such as lighting and clouds. You can also use the plug-in to create distortion effects such as Television (which makes images look as though they are displayed on a monitor), Flag and Rip Open. Xenofex 2 is also capable of transforming your photographs into jigsaw puzzles, constellations and mosaic effects. The results from this aren’t that great for finely tuned and intricate images as you can guess, but great if you want some more wacky effects. Some of the plug-ins offerings, such as Crumple and Burnt Edges, might find a use in editorial work, but we think that even these would need some refining. 5 Rating:

Recom mends

Mystical Lighting is a dedicated plug-in that allows you to drastically alter the atmosphere of an image. You can apply up to 16 different visual effects and over 400 presets. It’s also possible to use layers, unlimited undo features, visual presets, masking and even effect controls. The results of Mystical Lighting can be incredibly subtle, so it’s perfect as an extra addition to a carefully crafted piece of art. Lighting effects include the softly diffused Ethereal, Fairy Dust, Shadow Play and Surface Light. Mystical Lighting offers both practical effects, such as Spotlight, alongside the more surreal fairy styles already mentioned. 5 Rating:

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f you regularly doctor portraits within Photoshop you’ll know that skin tones are one of the most difficult techniques to master. SkinTune is a plug-in that’s dedicated to accurately correcting delicate skin tones, regardless of the type. To use SkinTune effectively you need to open up an image in Photoshop and then select the SkinTune filter. After two clicks of the mouse, SkinTune will instantly find the nearest acceptable skin colour from the selected library and will automatically correct your image. You can then use the same tools to adjust hue, brightness and saturation. 5 Rating:

4/5

Primatte Chromakey 2.0 Developer: Digital Anarchy Price: US$299 (£168) Web: www.digitalanarchy.com

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esigned for those who are keen to make use of blue/ green screen work, Primatte Chromakey is a compositing plug-in that takes a foreground image shot against a single colour and replaces it with a transparent background, allowing you to alter the colour. It will remove traces of the original colour and define areas such as wisps of hair, glass, smoke and water. You can also use Chromakey 2.0 to tweak colour correction and remove casts that may be caused by a dominating background. This is expensive for something that has a specific use, but will be valuable for those who have to replace backgrounds on a regular basis. 5 Rating:

3/5

3/5

Mystical Lighting Developer: Auto FX Software Price: US$179 (£100) Web: www.autofx.com/ mystical_lighting/mystical_ lighting.html

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SkinTune

More plug-ins

5/5

Filters Unlimited Developer: IC NET Graphics Software Price: £27.56 Web: www.icnet.de/filters_unlimited/index.html

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ilters are always a valuable way of completely transforming an image. Although some filter styles don’t really have their place in the professional’s scheme of things, it’s always handy to have plenty of different options. Filters Unlimited offers a great stack of filter resources for a very acceptable price, letting you have access to 350 effects in one single plug-in. However, you can also add more than 2,000 extra filters using the website resource link. The range of filter styles is impressive for the price. You also have the ability to develop your own filters using the build function within the plug-in. 5 Rating:

4/5

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resources

Typography

Say it in style with a top-notch typeface from our selection

Dafont.com

Further fonts

Web: www.dafont.com

MoreFonts.net

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veryone loves a freebie. You might think that the quality and variety of fonts on a free download site would be poor, but think again. Dafont.com offers a whole host of original fonts, with a vast variety of different type styles to browse. Navigation on the site is easy with a whole list of fonts separated into different categories on the home page consisting of Fancy, Foreign Look, Techno, Bitmap, Gothic, Basic, Script, Dingbats and Holiday. Custom searches are available and it’s possible to view a custom preview before you commit to a download. Fonts are suitable for both Windows and Mac OS X systems. Many of the fonts are totally free, while some are free for personal use only and some are shareware. 5 Rating:

5/5

Web: www.morefonts.net

mends Recom

This sleek and searchable site lets you quickly look through lists of fonts in alphabetical order. Each font is displayed with a clear sample, and alongside this is a link to download the font zip file directly onto your Hard Drive. Fonts are available in both Windows and Mac versions. This is probably one of the more fuss-free typography sites out there, making it an ideal stop if you’re new to applying typography from the web. Having said that, don’t be put off by the site’s simplicity – click around the alphabetised fonts and you’ll find type to tempt even seasoned Photoshop users. This site would benefit from some organisation of fonts into styles, though. 5 Rating:

Typodermic

4/5

Abstractfonts. com Web: www.abstractfonts.com

Web: www.typodermic.com

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f you’re really serious about including original fonts into your artwork you’ll do well to log onto Typodermic. This sleek and professional-looking site reflects the style of the fonts, which are edgy and well-crafted throughout. You can quickly glance at new designs or browse through a selection of artwork that has used Typodermic fonts in the catalogue, giving you some idea of how the typefaces could fit into your creations. When you’re ready to buy, a link will take you to the relevant page in MyFonts for pricing details. If you can’t see what you want, the Typodermic text gurus are available to create custom fonts. Simply get in touch and let the team know how you’d like your sample font to look and the specifics and they’ll magic it up for a competitive rate. 5 Rating:

5/5

mends Recom

If you’re stuck for inspiration then www. abstractfonts.com has a great random search facility, throwing three Abstractfonts into the limelight. As well as an A-Z list you can also hunt for fonts using Category and Designer menus. Once you’ve chosen your selection, it’s easy to install your fonts onto your Hard Drive using a simple link next to the sample. Popular search terms are listed to the right so that you can see in which direction fellow imageers are headed (and that old favourite Myriad seems to always make an appearance!). This is a great place to start if you’re struggling and need to be inspired, and there’s even a forum in which you can post those typographical teasers. 5 Rating:

5/5

Bluevinyl

HighFonts.com

Web: www.bvfonts.com

Web: www.highfonts.com

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t’s great to be able to find the right font quickly and easily, without having to trudge through stacks of jumbled text and advertising. Highfonts.com manages to carry this off successfully, letting you browse through either free fonts or pay-for fonts. You can also do your own keyword search if you prefer. The quality and the variation of the typography throughout this site is superb and you can quickly see a selection of the Top 100 Downloaded if you’re not too sure what’s going to take your fancy. For inspiration, you can click on the keywords of recent successful searches or roam the interesting sidebar links. Fonts on this site are for PC users but you can download the font converter to allow you to use them on a Mac. 5 Rating:

4/5

Featuring the work of designer Jess Latham, mends Bluevinyl features both Recom freeware and pay fonts of high standard. There are also some free icons on this site too. Samples are sleek, modern and show plenty of punch, and there are quite a few versatile little stunners in there too. Each font comes with a ‘look book’ showing examples of how it can be applied to artwork. You must adhere to the terms of use if you are looking to apply a Bluevinyl font to your artwork and Latham asks that if you’re using the font for commercial reasons that you pay for the typography – that’s a fair game! Once you have paid for a font, Latham puts you on his customer list and you get to use the freeware range in your work forever at no extra cost. A gorgeous site that’s a pleasure to browse. 5 Rating:

5/5

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resources

books

Indulge in some serious coffee table decoration with an inspiring yet practical new title

New Fashion Illustration

Further reading Secrets Of Adobe Bridge: Making The Most Of Adobe Creative Suite

Authors: Martin Dawber Publisher: Anover Books - Batsford Price: £17.99 ISBN: 0713489618 Web: www.batsford.com

Author: Terry White Publisher: Adobe Press Price: £17.49 ISBN: 0321392272 Web: www.adobe.co.uk

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his book showcases the work of some of the best illustrators from Europe, Asia and North and South America, with chapters dedicating coverage to different regions. Although the book is dictated by the theme of fashion, the concepts and techniques are extremely valuable to all imageers interested in the concepts of experimental illustration. Alongside each design, the illustrator is given the chance to share their inspirations and reveal the work processes behind their creations. This is a perfect volume for those who are interested in picking up ideas and techniques for their own works of art, especially if you enjoy staying at the cutting edge. There are a few fashion references for those who are interested in building a portfolio for fashion career purposes, although these do not detract from the book’s flickability. One of the most interesting things about New Fashion Illustration is the variation of illustrations – styles vary from heavily sketched illustrations to advanced vector images. Although obviously aimed at the fashion creative niche, many of

the styles introduced by such trendsetters quickly break through to more commercial artwork such as CD covers, so it’s worth keeping an eye on up-and-coming illustrative trends. And whether you explore the creative catwalk for business needs of you’re simply window-shopping, New Fashion Illustration makes for a diverting and stimulating read. 5 Rating:

4/5

If you’ve recently upgraded to CS2, you’ll know that Bridge is the new and exciting intelligent file browser (based on the File Browser found in Adobe Photoshop 7), which acts as the hub of the Creative Suite 2. Getting to know the ins and outs of this valuable software program will not only speed up your image-editing workflow but also give you the power to archive and categorise your digital images. This book shows you how to organise and share your images using the power of Bridge. It also takes some time to explore the advantages of becoming accustomed to Adobe Stock Photos. 5 Rating:

Maggie Taylor’s Landscape Of Dreams Author: Amy Standen Publisher: Adobe Press Price: £28.99 ISBN: 0321306147 Web: www.adobe.co.uk

This book explores the work of artist Maggie Taylor and her unique brand of digital art, with comments and quips from those who have worked with Taylor or are fans of her work. It’s a wonderful insight into the working process of Taylor, who takes aged photographs and objects and uses them to create her own piece of work. Page after page of the publication shows off the glorious images, which are shown from the very beginning stages through to the final works of art. It’s quite an expensive book for a paperback, but you’d no doubt dip into its pages time and time again. 5

Photoshop Fine Art Cookbook For Digital Photographers Authors: John Beardsworth Publisher: Ilex Price: £17.99 ISBN: 190470574X Web: www.ilex-press.com

Rating:

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ome of the best pieces of digital art are based on effects that originate from styles of famous artists who worked in the time when a mouse was something to scream at and a monitor was someone who dished out the milk at break-time. Just because our techniques and technology have moved on a since then, it doesn’t mean that the styles can’t give an extra boost to your artwork. Here, John Beardsworth takes you on a tour through the ages, with each spread in the book dedicated to a different art trend. Topics range from abstract landscapes to the works of Gustav Klimt and the Art Nouveau movement, offering a grounding not only in the styles of each of the eras but also showing you how you can appropriate the look within your Photoshop creations. If we have a slight grumble it’s that the book is a little bit of a slow starter, spending too long on the basics for the likes of Advanced Photoshop readers. If you class yourself as an advanced imageer then there’s probably little to be learned here, and

4/5

3/5

Digital Illustration – A Masterclass In Creative Image-making Author: Lawrence Zeegen Publisher: RotoVision Price: £20 ISBN: 2880467977 Web: www.rotovision.com

many of the artistic styles will already be familiar. However, it’s a good book to explore if you’re stuck for inspiration. The final results leave something to be desired, but Beardsworth does explain the processes clearly and accurately. 5 Rating:

2/5

Recom mends

Digital Illustration deals with the idea of combining traditional handcrafting skills with digital technology. There’s a huge amount of useful information packed into this paperback book, including easy step-by-step tutorials, practical advice on creating a great portfolio and setting up a studio. It’s a great book if you also need inspiration for different styles and design concepts. A beautifully crafted book with a huge amount of material at a great asking price. 5 Rating:

5/5

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