Issue 05 08Photoshop Tips Magazine

7/28/2019 Issue 05 08Photoshop Tips Magazine

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lease understand this tutorial as an introduction toh e concepts and techniques of creating an image inh e style of the tutorial 's cover illustration . Don't justollow i t religiously bu t rather experiment with th eifferent steps presented here to achieve the resultou are looking for. The pixel-values that are statedhroughout the various steps may vary depending onh e resolution you work with and should be consideredxemplary values.

1 efore we start with the actual illustration we'll firsthave to prepare the bubble -brush . Create a newocument with a resolution of 800x600 pixels and set theackground color to #01181 b .

CREATING THE BUBBLE-BRUSH

Creating your own brushes is a great way~ - . .. . of gaining an unlimited arsenal of bits

and pieces to spice up your illustrationswith - and i t is easier than you might

think! Toth e lef t

you can see an exampleof what you could come up with using~ ~ " ' - " ' ! !only th e one brush we are about to

ate in th e ne xt few steps.

Let's start by creating the shape. . . . of the bubble: Change your fore

round colorto white, se lect youro:Ellipse- Tool (U) .. and draw thehape of your bubble. Hold the SHIFTey while dragging to create a perctly symmetrical ellipse.

Lower th e opacity to 70% and add~ a a Laye r-Ma sk to the shape layer.

LAYER MASKSEXPLAINEDhe concept of Laye r Masks is a powerl aid that allows you to modify

ecto r e leme nt s using pixel-based eding technique s. The idea of a Layer

Mask is that you can use i t to hid e orsplay parts of th e und e rlying e le

men t . All a reas th at a re painted overith black will disappear while areas

at are white remain visib l e.et your foreground color to black, . se lect a soft round. Brush (B),set it's Opacity to around 5% to 10% . anda rt working ou t th e shadow s of the bubble. Vary theiameter of the bru sh while doing th a t and rememberat a perfec tl y black spot will turn ou t to be a fullyansparent area in your final brush.nce you are sa t i sfied with your shadows, change yourrush co lo r to white and work ou t the highlights of theubble. To create a grad ually increasing highlight ,mply click severa l ti m es while no t moving your cursor .he li gh t er these areas get the more non-tr ansparentose spots will e nd up in the fini shed brush.

1> If you want to take a closer lo ok at what I camep with, refer to the e nclosed BubbleBrush_PSD.psd.

madPotato.de ..t4t

~ Now it's time to actually turn your bubble-shape~ into a brush: Right-click the la yer and chooseRasterize Layer from it's context menu to t rans formyour vector-shape into a bunch of pixels (brushescan only be defined from pixe l-based la ye rs).CTRL-click the layer (not it's Layer Mask) .. andselect Edit Define Brush Preset . .

r O th .rOyn. . . . . . . . o c :~ Iii = ~ ~ ; : : ; : ; ~ ~ : : ,rr-m@ it r F ~ ; px r F ~ ; p v

r w e i . E d9e s ~ ~ ~ A r . ; ~ l : ~r AWbrvsh i i R Q I . . I I " ' d n . ,s s :~P" Smoothing it Hardnen r - -

rP rol eci Tex iure it = = = = = = = =P"SpaocinQ ~

and a sense of randomness and complexity toyour brush . Open th e~ Brush Presets-dialogand modify your brushto f it the settings of the I . . .screenhots to your right or, better yet, just ex- ""'h"''"'' ' " ~ ~periment and tr y to get ''"'"''""'" '"""' 1 ffi ,,.,ma feel fo r the various ~ >c w w w w " " " " " " " ~' " r;;;--r s c.tt ..n d n on ~ l ~ r ; ; ; -an instrument of ere- ~ ; : .: . , ; " " " ' :, ."~' ' 1~ 0 1 1 = = : : : ~ ~ =ativity. The Pen Pres- r ' ' " " "" ' ~ " " " " " " = """""'=='= = : = = = "= '=sure control will allow r ,..,u, .. r , . . , , ~~

fo r smoother transitions , the Angle Ji t terand Scatter controlsadd a degre e of ran

domness and movementwhile the Count controlmakes sure that there isenough going on withyour brush . r 1'000 Iii'r w o t t E ~ Iii'

r AirbrW> Iii'P' S m o o t ~ Iii'r Prol d Tub .or ii'

Once your are satisfiedwith the outcome ofyour modifications savethis as a New Brush i= l = = = = = = = =~ ; ; ; ; ; r : : : : : = = = = =Preset... .Your brush is now al l setup and rea dy fo r action.

i 1> If you want to import the included br ush-preset,choose Edit .. Pres e t Manager. . . and locate the suppliedBubbleBrush_Preset.abr.

2 his brush is not the only resource we're going tocreate in the course of this tutorial bu t we willget to those other resources in due time . Let us set upthe canvas fo r our illustr a tion now: C reate a ne wcanvas (CTRL+N) with a resolution of 2048x1536 pixels.. and crea te a ne w group - I i f " ' ~ ~ ~. = = = ~= = = = j lcalled i t Background but '"""Op:;: -m Roo-..th a t' s really up to you. Select " '" " ~ ' r ' " ' " '

your ro: Rectang le -Too l (U) and : ~ ::~ ~ ~ - h l ~draw a sha pe that is th e size Uof your canvas. Right -click " - " " "- - " " " ' " " " " "' = ' = ~ I T o O f ! O i o> : : : : : . : _ ___J th e shape- layer, .. se lec t l l l l ll.llll( aBlending Option s . .. .. and add to01f 1a # 0 1 141 ~th e Gradient Overlay that you La n - e_e_ a.--ov_e_._ _ : _ _ ~


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LLUSTRATINGTHE BACKGROUNDIt is time to put our new brush tosome creative use on th e canvas . Ifyou want to add an extendeddegree of detail I recommend youcreate some more brushes but forthe purpose of this tutorial th e onewill do just fine. To the left you can

what you are about to create in the next few steps.

Select your r7. Brush- Tool (B)-- and make sure the bubble

rush is th e currently active brush.elect white as your foregroundolor and start drawing bubbles .ary the brush size to graduallyork out th e areas with larger and

maller brushes . As the brush's setngs are distributing the bubblesuite randomly you may have toxperiment a bi t to get the resultou are looking for .nstead of using your mouse or

WACOM to paint on the canvas youan alternatively use your 1"0:Penool (P) to distribute the bubblesong a pre-defined path : Selecte Pen -Tool , .. make sure it is set

ll i Paths .. and draw the pathou want to distribute the bubblesong. Right -clic k th e path, selecttroke Path .. and make sure thea log-box says "Brush".

he Simulate ' 1"; ; -. " " ' - - - - - ~3

ressure- " sm . Ja te Pressureption will make your brushppear sm aller at the beginningnd end of the path.

To create the impres sion of a depth o f field-effect,~ use your P: Rectangular Marquee-Tool (M),.. select

n area of your bubble-layer that you want to alter .nd apply the Radial Blur-filter with an Amount ofound 2 (cp. illustration a bove).

To dramatize the color of the bubbles, duplicate the

yer, .. right -click it , .. chooselending Options .. from i t 's

onte xt menu .. and add anuter Glow. To th e right youn see the actual parameters Ied in the tutori a l's coveru st ration but feel free to

xperiment (I can ' t stress thisough)!

El . , . . .n h - - - - - - - - - ,

Q u ~ i t y- - - - - - - - - ,co n t Q I . I r : ~rAn t i-. , .d

R " q i ~ %ro--"

Le t's spice up th at depth of field-effect some more:,

Creat e a ne w layer and brush in some mor e bubbl es.pply the Radia l -Blur-Filter with an Amount of aro und-3 .. and lower th e layer's Opacity to 60%. Finally, plac ebelow th e other bubble -laye rs.

[madPotato .de ..t4t

~ The final step is to add a blue color overlay to~ merge your bubbles with the overall color schemeof the illustration: Create a new laye r (SHIFT+CTRL+N), .. choose #Od443f as your foreground color .. andpaint over the bubble laye rs. Don't worry too muchabout being accurate, that won ' t really matter . Onceyou're finished painting , change the layer's BlendMode to Color Dodge.

' I) Refer to the Coverlllustration.psd and it'sBackground-folder to see the different layers in actionand how they interact .

3 verything is set up so far - it ' s time for the thirddimension! This is where most other tuto rials utilizeexternal 3D-applications or -plugins but we are goingto pull this off using only Photoshop and it's built-intools. Transforming 2D-text into 3D-typography is reallyno big deal if you think about it : 3D-applications usethe concept of Extrusion to create an illusion of depth.

This basically means moving the object (in our case thetext) along a certain path and axis while d u p l i c ~ t i n git . lRepeating this process manually woul d be a ted10us andtime-consuming task though - this is where Photoshop'sActions (and the supplied set of 8 rea dy -t o -use 3Dextrusion actions) enter the stage. Here is a simpleexample of what the outcome of those actions canlook like :

Extrude_ Top ef t Extrude _To p Ext rude _ TopRig ht

' I) To import the supplied actions, open your Actionspalette, .. select Load Actions .... and locate th e filecalled 30-Extrusion_Actions. atn.

f t In case you are not familiar -- with Photoshop-Actions , findto your right a brief summary ofthe mo st important functions thatare ava ilable to you. Actions arelittle macro s that record all ofyour editing-steps and allow youabstract repetetive tasks into aform of preset. For quicker acces you can also assignfunction keys to your most valued Actions - open yourAction Options .. -di alog and look for the Function Keydropdown box.

~ Let 's recreate the Ext rude_Top Left-a ct ion: Create a !' new text e le me nt using your If : Typ e -Tool (T) andtype in " 3D". Note th at the text-layer is now alsocalled 30. The action that we are about to cr eate wi llidentify the layer that it is supposed to work with by

it 's nam e. That is why you should r e nam e your t extlayer to something mo re unive rsal li ke "text". Onceyou have r e named your laye r, open your r"'"'"'xl ActionsPalette. Creat e a .....u n e w ac t io n , call i t Ext ru d e_ TopLe ft a nd no t e th at th e re reco rding -button is imm e diate ly act ivat ed.


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s means that Photoshop is now listening to your everyve, recording i t for later p l a y b a c k. : - = = = = = == - ~ke sure y o u r~ Move- Tool (V) isive, .. select your text-layer ..

d duplicate (CTRL+J) it . Use th eow keys of your keyboard tove the duplicated layer 1 px to

top and 1px to the left. Repeat' - - - - - - , - - - - - _ _ j

s process as many times as you want, alwaysplicating the layer you duplicated last.u can now e i t h e r~ stop the recording or do what I didh the set of pre-defined actions: Select al l of theplicated layers , .. move them below th e original texter, .. Rasterize the type .. and finally merge the layers .s has some drawbacks as fo r some reason Photoshopps insisting that "The command 'Rasterize' isrrently not available" when running the action -ting the "Continue"-button per suades i t to do ityway though. It may also happen that Photoshop goeser the top and merges all of the document's layers - Iommend creating your individual 3D-typo-layers inew document and importing them into your

stration afterwards if you don ' t want to end upeaming at your computer (who's -as always- no t really

one to blame).

USING 3D-EXTRUSION-ACTIONS

e ac tions are a ll set up , let's look at a simple examplehow to use th e m t o create a 3D-typographic e leme nt:

Create a new docum e nt (CTRL+N) with a resolution of 800x

00 and se lect white as your ba ck

round color. Use your If : Type -ToolT) and type in the characters

D"- change th e type 's color to 3Dack. This is important : Rename your text-layer toext" (or whatever name your original text-layer

ad when you first recorded th e action).

Open your [A


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\ If you don't want to work ou t7

the shading of your extrusionyer using the Dodge-/Burn-tool,mply apply a Gradient Overlay

your layer's Blending Options .low you can find the original,ite simple gradient I used.

~ C h a n g ethe gradient's anglee to fit the perspective of your

la9 #ffm} character.= = -- - - - - - - - - - - - ~

tt,. We'll finally add a shadow layer to set th e overlappingaracters apart from each otherd to accentuate the illusion ofpth: Duplicate your extrusionyer, .. change i t 's color to blackTRL-click th e layer, .. hi t DELand fill the selection with black) .. and position i tlow th e other text-layers . Choose Fil ter Blur

aussian Blur. . . and apply a value of around 20px. Use

ur fB: fraser-tool (E) with a soft, round brush or aLayer-Mask to remove the unwanted parts of youradow-layer.

5Vector swirls are visually appealing and easily createdelements that I person a ll y appreciate a lo t as th eyllow me to add additional details and elements to myllustration s. As we are usin g Photoshop , the e nd result

will not be a true vector shape but we are going to usene of Photoshop's most p owe rful and versatile vector ools to create the swirls: The 1\f Pen Tool (P).

ILLUSTRATINGVECTOR-SWIRLS

In case you are not familiar with th e PenTool and th e principles of Bezier-curves,I highly recommend you read up on th esubject. On ce you realize the potentialof working with the Pen Tool and get agrip on i t you will wonder how you couldhave ever lived without it .

Select your l\ f Pen- Tool (P) and--- make sure

i tis se t to

fllf

Path s.Draw a path that tangents yourharacter(s) a couple of times. In caseou want to a lter the p a th , use your

D i r e c tSelection Tool (A).

Create a n ew layer (SHIFT+CTRL+~ N), .. select your " 'Brush-Tool

nd cho ose a hard brush wit h aiameter of around 20px (any otherameter will of course do just as

well). Now, se lec t your 1\f Pen- To o l

gain , .. right -click the path and ..d'Brush 3 c::K:J choos e Stroke Pat h .. -makeSir


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Another method Iilluse frequently totimize th e finalmpositon includesing a blurred c opy ofe illustration with anernate Blend Moded inverted I modifiedlors. As you can see I

eated an alternatersion of th eustration withfferent colors andpied th e whole thingo a new layer (Select

l and hi t SHIFT +CTRLC to copy all lay e rs) .en, I employed the

aussian Blur-filter. The strength depends on the effectu want to achieve, the rule of thumb is: The more youur your layer the more dramatic th e e ffect will be.ut i f you ove rdo i t you will lose a lo t of detail so i t 'sally a matter of trial and error to find the perfect

mount of blur. I finally set the Blend Mode of theurred lay e r to Soft Light but feel free to ex periment -ch Blend Mode has it up- and do wnsides.

If you want to alter th e overall colorheme of theustrati on and/or wantcreate differe ntriations of yourustrati on , add aradient Mapadju stment l aye r on

p of al l other lay e rs and expe rime nt with i t 's Blendode. In this case I added a pink gradient and set theend Mode to Co lo r Burn .

0 The origin a l cover illustration contains th r eeff e rent (hidden) Gradient Map -adju st me nt lay e rs -ke a look at the AlternativeColorSchemes-group. Twoye rs say "Hide Laye r 29 " , which you should do i f youant to recreate th e o riginal co lor-va riation s Ileased .

ha t ' s i t - i f you had th e s tam ina to follow th e tutori a lp t o this point you should now b e eq uipp ed with aultitud e o f approaches , techniques and id eas to co me

p with a vas t amount of differen t 3D-typogr ap hicu str at ions. All th e best a nd I hope to see you nextonth!

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-+ ACKNOWLEDGEMENT,& FURTHER READING

An up-to-date version of this tuto rial and anyprevi ously published versio ns can be found at myportfolio o ver at http: / /www .madpotato.de

The tutorial's cover illustrat ion was originallyinspired by th e beauti ful "W ERE"-i llus tra t ion which

you can check out here: http: ! l www.clor.net/?p=55 If you want to learn more about the creat ion and

use of the Smudge-brush portra ye d in step 6,download issue 02-08 , " Digita l Illustration WithAdobe Photoshop": htt p: I /www .madPotato.de / Tuto rials

The overall design of this tuto ria l has been heavil yinspired by computerArts' large co llect ion ofextremely informative tutorials- i f you' ve enjoyedthis tutorial you're going to love th e irs :http: I I computera rts.co. uk

http: I /www.madpotato.dePatrik Hubner - digita l illust rat or and webdesignerA print-ready, high resolution version of th is tutoria l is available upon request .You are very welcome to spread this tutorial but please include a link back tomy website for other people to ge t their hands on my images , tutor ials andresou rces as well. Issue 08/05 - 1st ed it ion- J une 1st 2008

C-:\ creative~ c o m m o n s

Release d under a Creat ive Commons Attribution-Noncommerc ial licensehttp: I Icreativecommons.org / licenses / by-nc / 3.0 /

Issue 08 / 04Create A Se xy Smar t Pho neIllustration Fro m Scratch

Issue 08 / 03Vectors W it h A Lac ing Of 30

' I> Coverlllustration .psdThe original, layere d illu stration.

' I> BubbleBrush _Preset .abrOriginal bubble -brush-prese t

' I> BubbleBrush _PSD.psdOriginal bubble -brush vector file

' I> 3D-Extrusion _Actions.atn8 ready-to-use 3D-extrusion ac t ions

' 0 SmdugeBrush _ Preset.abrOriginal brush for use with th e Smud getool

All fi les were crea t ed using Adobe Photoshop CS3 and ma y notwork wi t h older vers io ns of this app licatio n. Released "AS IS" -by openi ng I using any of t he supp lied files you accept t hat

you do so at your ow n risk. The aut hor ca n un de r nocircum sta nces be he ld re liable for any in t e llec tual or physicalloss that may re sul t from using t he supplied resou rces.

All file s are lice nsed for no n-comme rcial use according to t hespe cified cre at ive common s- license. Commercia l use: Contactin fo@madPotato .d e for deta ils a nd pricing .

Issue 05 08Photoshop Tips Magazine

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