Articles by Al Ward - Page 2 | Planet Photoshop

Fun With Layer Warp

It seems my Photoshop work of late has been geared more toward photography than it was in the past, but occasionally I just like to open the program and play. There are some cool new tools in Photoshop CS2 that I've had a blast experimenting with, and I'd like to demonstrate a quick-but-fun experiment I did on the fly this evening.

The ability to warp layers in CS2 had me thinking of the good ol' days of creating something from a blank slate... when most of the books on the market were cookie-cutter effects manuals (mine included). This tutorial is a fallback to those days, yet using a new tool to complete it.

To start, I've created a document with a white background and a new layer. I've generated a rectangular selection in the new layer and simply filled it with a gradient.

Next I use the Polygonal Lasso tool to create jagged selections on the left and right, then delete those selections to give a torn feel.

Using Dodge and Burn, I've added a few dark and light streaks in varying areas of the shape. This will aid in the shadows and highlights for the end effect.

Here comes the fun part (not that dodging and burning is boring... I love 'em!). Go to Edit>Transform>Warp. A grid will appear with handles that allow you to twist, reshape and otherwise alter the layer.

By moving the center handles, I can bloat the top and bottom portions, making the shape appear rounded.

By grabbing the corner handles and moving them to their opposite corner (Top Left to Bottom Left and so forth), the layer becomes twisted, similar to what you would see in the real world in a wrapped piece of candy.

The doge and burn have added shadows and reflections to the wrapper, and some stroked and warped text completes this simple creation.

Some additional time would add to the realism, but you can see what I mean.

Until next time, have a great week!
Al Ward, http://actionfx.com

June 20th, 2006 | Al Ward | Effects, Tutorials | Comments (1)

Text Stenciling

I've been doing a lot of Photo-effect and alteration tutorials for www.photoshopuser.com lately, and occasionally it feels good to get back to where it all began for me... type effects.

Ok, so this tutorial isn't strictly type-effect related... it does have a photo involved.

For this tutorial I want to demonstrate how you can add additional text to the stenciled wall, and even make it appear worn.

First I'll add a Type layer with my new message. I have experimented with a few fonts to get a fair match, although this one is quite a bit bolder than the original paint.

By manipulating the Character settings (width, height, etc) I can come up with a pretty fair match to the original stencil.

Once satisfied, I'll rasterize the Type layer before continuing.

To get the text to appear chipped and to see the mortared cracks appear through the text, we can use Blend If in the Layer Styles Blending Options. Note my settings below.

You can separate the sliders and limit the amount of pixel invisibility by holding down the Alt/Option key and click/dragging one half of a slider. Keep an eye on your text while doing this to ensure not too much of the type is disappearing.

Note how the paint and mortar appears through the text.

Let's take a look at the entire photo. How did things match up?

Blend If is a very powerful tool, and is excellent for creating wear and tear. I hope you have enjoyed this little experiment. If you enjoy type effect, please come see me at ActionFx.com. Until next time, take care!

http://actionfx.com

June 20th, 2006 | Al Ward | Effects, Tutorials | Comments (1)

Quick Painting

This week I'll show you a quick way to turn your photos into a line art drawing. This effect is fairly popular, but I've not seen many tutorials on how to get from point A to point F (i.e. finished image). So without further ado...

Open your Photo.

Duplicate the Background Layer.

Go to Image>Adjust>Hue/Saturation. Reduce the saturation of the Background Copy layer.

Duplicate the Background Copy Layer.

Go to Filter>Stylize>Find Edges and apply it to the newly created, topmost layer.

That is really a bit overbearing, so lets see if we can't make the line art a bit more subtle. Set the top layer blending mode to 'Screen.

Click the 'Add a Mask' icon on the bottom of the Layers Palette. Make sure the foreground Color is set to Black. Click on the Paint Brush Tool, select Airbrush and get a large, soft brush. Start lightly painting areas of the image where you would like some color to spill through, such as the cheeks, the background, and so forth.

As an added touch, there is a quick way to 'age' the painting using a pattern fill. For instance, here is a pattern I created last night. I've created a new layer above the face layers, and filled it with my pattern.

Not I'll just set the Blending Mode for the top layer to 'Soft Light' and here's the image:

Just a quick note- I'm just finishing up dozens of add-ons specifically for Photoshop 7, so please stop back Action Fx. Take care!

http://actionfx.com

June 20th, 2006 | Al Ward | Effects, Tutorials | Comments (2)

Fun With Faces

Even though I'm 'into' crazy effects, for a long time I considered the liquify tool to be pretty useless. Some times it just takes awhile for things to sink in. After some work with the tool, I've revised that opinion and now love to liquify.

Let's run through a quick, cool effect we can do with the tool. Heck, I'll even work on an actual photo this week, I love this so much.

Let's start with a lovely lass.

1) Duplicate the photo layer.
2) In Photoshop 7, the Liquify Command is found under the filters menu. Photoshop 6 has it nested in the Edit Menu. Go ahead and open up Liquify.

3) When you first open the Liquify dialogue box, chances are it will take up the entire screen, which is a bugger if you want to see all the layers and not simply the one you are working on. That won't trouble us much for this tutorial, but just for your sake we can grab the edges of the window and drag them in, reducing the size to see the image behind it.

4) I love messing with the eyes, so let's start there. Along the left-hand side, select the Bloat Tool.

5) Now on the right hand side, find the Tool Options section and adjust the brush size. We want to go a bit larger than the eye, but not so large that portions of the face are distorted.

6) Now run the mouse over an eye and click. The eye area will gradually expand. Be sure to keep the iris centered... if you are slightly off the eye will become horribly distorted. Adjust each eye evenly, and if you want to go larger just increase the brush size and reapply until you are happy with the size and symmetry. I'm also bloating the lower lip a bit in this example, as caricatures tend to be experiments in exaggeration.

7) Switch to the Pucker Tool (just above the Bloat Tool) and tweak the rest of the face. We want to reduce other areas (cheekbones, nose, etc) to make our bloated areas more prominent.

After a bit of playing and coloring, we have a cat lady in short order.

I hope you enjoyed this! Please come see me at http://actionfx.com, and I'll see you here next week!

http://actionfx.com

June 20th, 2006 | Al Ward | Effects, Tutorials | Comments (6)

Photoshop 7 Alchemy: Apply Image

Photoshop 7 has a few new commands and blending modes that I've been playing with, and as I already told my buddy Colin Smith about it, I thought I'd better write on the subject before he beat me to it!

Photoshop 7 has a very cool feature (heavy on the C-Double O- L) that has blown my socks off. Literally… I can't find my socks. The command is called Apply Image, which let's you take a layer and channel from one image and blend it into another. Why is that cool? We shall see. You need a source image and destination image open in Photoshop with the same dimensions; once this is set up it is time to fire up the test tubes and start mixing chemicals. Today's little experiment will let us take a human skull and turn it into solid gold!

First, allow me to introduce my images. I have a sheet metal image and a human skull photo just waiting to be grafted together.

Both images are set to 4 inches wide, 5 inches high, and 72 DPI.
Before we get to the gold, let's first look at using the sheet metal as our destination image, and the skull as the source.

First, create a copy of both images in new layers respectively. This just helps us delete any less than par effects quickly and easily, leaving us with the original image.

By selecting the steel image, I'm effectively telling Photoshop that this is my destination image as this is the one the effects will be applied to. The source image is that which we will borrow from.

With the destination image selected, we borrow from the source by going to Image>Apply Image.

We can now choose exactly what image we want to use to affect our destination image, as well as which channel, the blending mode that should be applied, opacity, and we can even tell it to work on a mask. Here is where playing with the Blending modes comes into play, as these are what give fire to the hearth.

To apply the skull to the image, just select the skull photo as your source. I want it to effect the background copy only, so I set that up in the Layer Box. For now I am content to effect all of the Channels, so RGB is fine. We'll take a look at 'Invert' in a second… for now I'll leave it unchecked.

When we apply the skull image to the destination image in Normal Blending Mode set to 100%, we effectively replace the layer information with the skull image. This isn't really what we want. But when we start stepping through the various layer blending modes, the newly blended image comes to life. Here are a few examples:

Lighten

Overlay

Pin Light

Overlay with Invert Selected

A lot of you may be going 'so?' but for those of you into creating collages or hi-tech image blends, this new feature takes away hours of time with just a few clicks.

Let's change gears a little bit. I told you I'd turn that skull into gold, so let's get to it! I've set up my images again, but this time I want to set my Skull image as the destination so I'll make that active.

In order to pull this off, we need to apply the source image to the destination image twice, both times affecting a different area (darks/shadows first, lights/reflections second).

For the first Apply Image, my settings are thus:

Here is the result:

We have effectively cast a color burn on the darkened areas of the skull, using the source image to draw out the dark areas with a metallic cast.

Now I'll go to Apply Image again, using the exact same settings but un-checking Invert so that only the lightened areas of the skull are effected.

Now we can adjust the Hue/Saturation to add a bit of red to the color-

-and a small curve adjustment to add to the metallic cast-

- and we are left with a human skull made entirely of 14 Karat wallet-stuffing love!

There is a lot of power in this little command, and I'll cover it more as I become familiar with it.

Come see me at http://actionfx.com, and I'll see you here next week. Take care!

http://actionfx.com

June 20th, 2006 | Al Ward | Effects, Tutorials | Comments (0)

The Channel-Bevel Trick

You know me - I love styles. Unfortunately I talk about them so much these days that it may seem I rely on them for nearly everything, but that isn't the case at all. Believe it or not, I do delve into channels for some effects, and to be truthful Channels still offer greater control when trying to pull that extra something out of a reflection or a bevel.

Let's take a look at using channels to help with an effect. Here we go!

To begin with, create a new image and enter some type or drop a shape on it's own layer.

Command/CTRL+Click the layer to create a selection. Go to the Channels Palette and create a new Alpha Channel. Fill the selection with White, then duplicate the Alpha Channel.

If you were to apply Lighting Effects using one of these Alpha Channels, you would get a smidge of depth and lighting, but it doesn't really make the type/shape stand out from the page.

I'm going to show you a couple trick that people use for beveling with channels.

In the Channels Palette, select the Alpha 1 Copy channel. Make sure your selection is active. We are going to start blurring the contents of our selection in varying degrees.

Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Start with a setting of 15 (maybe less depending on the size of your selection). The point is to blur the edges of the selection while gradually getting lighter toward the center.

Repeat the blur 3 more times, with gradually decreasing blur settings: 9, 4, and 2.

Deselect the type/shape, and Gausian Blur once more with a setting of .5.

Now when you apply Lighting Effects to your layer, you actually get some depth:

Let's re-apply lighting effects to the same layer, only this time from a different angle with alternate colors:

Now lets work on some reflections. Go back to your alpha 1 channel and again make your shape selection active. Create a new channel and move your selection to the right 10 and down 10. Fill it with white. Again, move the selection down and to the right, this time by 5 each. Fill the selection with black.

Go to Filter>Gaussian Blur, and apply a setting of 2.

Bring up your Levels (Command>CTRL+L) and move the sliders together until you get a nice, well defined but rounded effect:

Command+CTRL+Click the Channel to bring up the selection for the highlights. Go back to the Layers Palette, create a new layer, and feather your selection by 1. You may need to reposition the selection to better match the shape position. Fill the Selection with White, set the layer mode to Overlay, and duplicate the layer.

This gives a pretty solid foundation to build on. Now when we play with the layer styles, we get an effect that is much richer than if we had used styles solo.

Catch you next time!

http://actionfx.com

June 20th, 2006 | Al Ward | Effects, Tutorials | Comments (1)

Inner Shading for Great Glass

This week I want to cover a nifty little trick for bringing out depth in glass and plastic. I'm sure you've seen the inner shadow effect applied throughout the web. It is the primary tool for making text or an image appear 'behind' the foreground, as though a portion of the background were cut out to reveal the image beneath or make type appear as a hole in the page.

It occurs to me that not all of you may be familiar with how to apply that effect in Photoshop 6. This isn't your fault... we all have to start somewhere. Here's how to apply the inner shadow:

1) Open an image or create a new image.
2) Create a text layer and enter your type. Keep the type layer selected.
3) Open the Layer Styles dialogue box. You can do this by either double-clicking the layer in the layers palette or click the "Add a Layer Style" icon on the bottom left of the layers palette. Select 'Inner Shadow' from the menu.

4) Choose your inner shadow settings. The icon to the right of the dialogue box will show the depth of the shadow being applied if, because of the HUGENESS of the dialogue box you cannot see the text. I certainly hope the correct that problem for the next revision!
5) Click 'OK' to apply the shadow to your text.

Pretty simple... basically the same thing as a drop shadow, but applied inside the contents of the layer.

The combination of a bevel with an inner shadow gives a wonderful illusion of transparency, such as you may find in glass or plastic. Taking the image used before, I'm now going to apply a bevel:

Here's the result:

Now to dress things up a little...

That's about it for this time around... until next week, see you at Action Fx!

June 20th, 2006 | Al Ward | Effects, Tutorials | Comments (0)

Photoshop 7 Alchemy: Apply Image

Photoshop 7 has a few new commands and blending modes that I've been playing with, and as I already told my buddy Colin Smith about it, I thought I'd better write on the subject before he beat me to it!

Photoshop 7 has a very cool feature (heavy on the C-Double O- L) that has blown my socks off. Literally… I can't find my socks. The command is called Apply Image, which let's you take a layer and channel from one image and blend it into another. Why is that cool? We shall see. You need a source image and destination image open in Photoshop with the same dimensions; once this is set up it is time to fire up the test tubes and start mixing chemicals. Today's little experiment will let us take a human skull and turn it into solid gold!

First, allow me to introduce my images. I have a sheet metal image and a human skull photo just waiting to be grafted together.

Both images are set to 4 inches wide, 5 inches high, and 72 DPI.
Before we get to the gold, let's first look at using the sheet metal as our destination image, and the skull as the source.

First, create a copy of both images in new layers respectively. This just helps us delete any less than par effects quickly and easily, leaving us with the original image.

By selecting the steel image, I'm effectively telling Photoshop that this is my destination image as this is the one the effects will be applied to. The source image is that which we will borrow from.

With the destination image selected, we borrow from the source by going to Image>Apply Image.

We can now choose exactly what image we want to use to affect our destination image, as well as which channel, the blending mode that should be applied, opacity, and we can even tell it to work on a mask. Here is where playing with the Blending modes comes into play, as these are what give fire to the hearth.

To apply the skull to the image, just select the skull photo as your source. I want it to effect the background copy only, so I set that up in the Layer Box. For now I am content to effect all of the Channels, so RGB is fine. We'll take a look at 'Invert' in a second… for now I'll leave it unchecked.

When we apply the skull image to the destination image in Normal Blending Mode set to 100%, we effectively replace the layer information with the skull image. This isn't really what we want. But when we start stepping through the various layer blending modes, the newly blended image comes to life. Here are a few examples:

Lighten

Overlay

Pin Light

Overlay with Invert Selected

A lot of you may be going 'so?' but for those of you into creating collages or hi-tech image blends, this new feature takes away hours of time with just a few clicks.

Let's change gears a little bit. I told you I'd turn that skull into gold, so let's get to it! I've set up my images again, but this time I want to set my Skull image as the destination so I'll make that active.

In order to pull this off, we need to apply the source image to the destination image twice, both times affecting a different area (darks/shadows first, lights/reflections second).

For the first Apply Image, my settings are thus: