TerraRay for Mac gets a speedy update

I took a look at TerraRay recently, and found it a good, low priced 3D scenery generator. It didn’t have the features of the big boys like Vue or Bryce, but it is a fraction of the price. One of my biggest complaints in my review was that the rendering was slow.

Now the app has a free update to version 5 for current users, and a 50% off price of US $9.99 until September 26. You can find TerraRay at the Mac app store.

In my tests, rendering speed has increased about 3x over version 4.5. The app has also added a configurable preview window, support for Lion full screen mode, some built-in sample scenes to get you started and that you can modify, as well as improvements in texturing.

One thing I’d like to see is more control of the position of the sun. You can’t easily change the sun elevation. Instead, you have to drag the sun’s position around a bit to fiddle it into the place you want. I’d like to see the ability to just add numeric input for azimuth and elevation.

On the whole, this app is a solid, entry level renderer. If you’re not ready to spend hundreds of dollars for high end landscape creation, TerraRay is competent and now a lot faster. You can check out a video of the app here, and take a look at some screen shots from my sessions in the gallery below.

TerraRay for Mac gets a speedy update originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 19 Sep 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Graft Concepts Leverage protects your iPhone 4 with ease and style

Graft Concepts LeverageWe’ve seen a lot of iPhone 4 cases here at TUAW. Most thin polycarbonate or TPU cases are pretty much the same — brute force them on to cover the back and sides. Graft Concepts have taken the thin-polycarbonate case form factor and added something a little different with a top locking latch.

Thanks to the Graft Concepts team, we got our hands on a pre-production black and chrome version of their slick looking iPhone 4 case to put through its paces.

Design

The Leverage takes the form of a bumper-style case, which wraps around the side edges of the iPhone with cut outs for the ports and buttons. It is a single piece of rubberized polycarbonate that joins at the top, locked together by a fancy chrome latch with integrated power button push-through.

The latch design makes it easy to get your iPhone in and out of the case, while still holding the case firmly and securely on your iPhone. It looks great just as a bumper, but the Leverage comes with an optional backplate insert that you can combine with the bumper to form a full case with a single cut out for the camera and flash.

This modular design gives you the best of both worlds, and depending on your mood or how much protection you want to give your phone, it’s really quick and easy to remove or replace the backplate.

Protection

The combined case gives pretty good all round protection, covering all edges and the back. The case also covers the front edge of the phone meaning that you can place it flat on the screen and the case will keep the glass off the deck. The plastic construction will also offer some impact protection, but I wouldn’t fancy dropping it from too high as with most relatively thin cases.

The case adds about 1-2 mm thickness to your iPhone, so it’s not bulky by any stretch of the imagination. It’s also quite grippy to hold, but thankfully doesn’t suffer from too much pocket torsion when you’re trying to pull it out of your jeans pocket.

Verdict

Bearing in mind its pre-production nature, we like the chromed locking latch (that’s also available in a matte finish), which gives it something a bit different in the design stakes and functions well in practice. It provides decent protection and we like that you can swap between just a bumper and a full back case in about 5 seconds.

If you’re looking for a case for your iPhone 4 in either GSM or CDMA flavors, then the US$60 Leverage is just a little bit different. If the production case matches the quality of the version we tested, the Leverage will be a great choice.

Graft Concepts Leverage protects your iPhone 4 with ease and style originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Steve Jobs on Apple in 1996, prior to his return

In 1996, Steve Jobs sat down with PBS’ Wall $treet Week host Louis Rukeyser and discussed his current business ventures – Pixar and NeXT. He also touched briefly on his former project, Apple, which in 1996 was at an all-time low and considered to be “one of the failure stories of Wall Street.” You can almost feel a twinge of pain in his voice when he says the company that he helped create has failed to innovate and lost its 10-year lead on the computing industry. Little did everyone know, Jobs would soon return to Apple and restore the company to its former glory.

Steve Jobs on Apple in 1996, prior to his return originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

DimScreen simply dims your screen

Once upon a time, I had an application which would dim the screen of my Mac down to 0, and then exit. Somewhere along the way I seem to have lost the app and can no longer find it.

Yes, I know I could just hold F1 and do the same thing manually, but I liked having an app that just did it for me.

So I did what any self-respecting geek would do: I wrote a shell script.

Others did the heavy lifting

Let me be clear that my little shell script wrapped in Automator was only a tiny piece of this puzzle.

First I’m going to tell you who did all the heavy lifting, and then you can decide how you want to put the pieces together for yourself. (I highly recommend reading to the end before you do anything.)

Nicholas Riley wrote a C program called brightness which I found via Matt “Danger” West‘s website, which I found via Google.

Matt includes the source code on his page, or you can download the original ‘brightness.c’ here and then you can compile it (according to Matt’s instructions) using this line:

gcc -std=c99 -o brightness brightness.c -framework IOKit -framework ApplicationServices

Of course that assumes that you have Xcode installed. If you don’t, you can either download and install Xcode (warning: it’s 3 GB to download and I think it’s somewhere between 7-10 GB when installed). If all of that seems like a lot of hassle, Matt also made a pre-compiled binary available for you to download.

Here’s what I did

I wrote a shell script (dimscreen.zsh) which looks for brightness at $HOME/bin/brightness.

If it does not find it there, it will attempt to download it “automagically” from my personal website and then install it to $HOME/bin/brightness.

Once brightness is installed, it will dim the screen to 0 and then launch your screensaver.

Why does it launch your screensaver? Because otherwise when you went to use your Mac, you might have forgotten that you set the brightness to 0. If you move the mouse or type, you won’t see anything. However if the screensaver is on, one of two things will happen:

  1. If you have enabled the preference which requires a password to be entered after your screensaver is turned on, you will see that prompt. (Mac OS X is smart enough to automatically turn the screen brightness up a little for you to see that you need to enter your password.)

  2. If you do not require a password to be entered after your screensaver is turned on, my script will turn the brightness up as little as possible after the screensaver exits. That should keep you from getting blinded if you are working at night. Then you can adjust the brightness to whatever level you want.

I took dimscreen.zsh and made it into an app (“Dim Screen.app”) using Automator.

I put dimscreen.zsh and the ‘Dim Screen.app’ and the ‘brightness’ command (and the source code) all into one nice neat package and put it on my Dropbox as DimScreen.

“How do I use this?”

1) If you are the trusting type (or just impatient), download DimScreen, double click it to ‘unarchive’ it, and then move the ‘Dim Screen.app’ to /Applications/ (or wherever you keep your apps) and run it. The first time you run it, make sure that you are online so that it can download the brightness utility. (It will only do that once.)

2) If you are trusting to a point but don’t want the app to download anything automatically, make a directory called ‘bin’ in your home directory (that’s the one which has the ‘Desktop’ and ‘Documents’ and ‘Downloads’ directories in it).

Then double-click the DimScreen.tar.bz2 file, and move the ‘brightness’ file to the ~/bin directryory you just created.

3) If you pride yourself on your distrust, then by all means, download the source code from the links provided above, compile the ‘brightness’ command on your own, and move it to ~/bin/ (where ~ is your Home directory).

(If you are someone who likes the Terminal.app, you might want to put the dimscreen.zsh script into your $PATH as well, so you can launch it from the command line.)

Once you have it installed, launch it via whatever app launcher you prefer. If you want to make it a “one click launch” you might consider Apptivate, a handy little launcher I reviewed previously. There are other ways to do it, of course, but Apptivate is still my preferred “I want to press this key (or “this key sequence”) to run this Application/Script/etc” solution.

P.S. Yes, I know about Control + Shift + Eject

I am sure that some Mac keyboard aficionado will not have been able to wait until the end of the article, and is already writing a comment to tell me that if I press Control + Shift + Eject, then the Mac’s screen will turn off.

I know. The problem is, I never remember if it’s Control or Command, and do I have to hold down the fn key or not. Plus it’s really not the same thing, I don’t just want it off, I want it dimmed all the way down.

I still wanted an (even) easier way. I’m used to triggering all sorts of actions via LaunchBar and wanted to be able to dim my screen that way too. When I read on Apple Stack Exchange about someone who couldn’t get that keyboard shortcut to work, I went looking for that old app (mentioned at the beginning of this article) and when I couldn’t find it, I decided to just roll my own.

Are there other ways of doing this? You bet. If you have a preferred solution, feel free to let us know in the comments.

DimScreen simply dims your screen originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 19 Sep 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

A Look At Hollywood’s Biggest VFX – Part 1

This is a brief introduction of some of the most unbelievable Visual Effects in Hollywood’s biggest movies. This “Part 1″ will describe the making of movies: 2012, Avatar, Alice in Wonderland and The Lord of the Rings.


2012 (2009)


VFX Team

  • Marc Weigert
  • Volker Engel
  • Mike Vezina
  • Ryo Sacaguchi
  • David Stephens

Development of the Visual Effects

New Technology

The real stars in this movie are the Visual Effects, what 2012 has done has never been done before in terms of disaster films . This movie shows everything from the overthrow the Vatican and the White House being destroyed by a seaquake to a flood taking over the Himalaya.

What we’ve done on 2012 wouldn’t have been possible about five years ago – Marc Weigert

Blowing Up Models Out

The development of computer hardware and software plays a huge role. The miniatures in this movie were so few that it only took about two days of shooting. The reason is because the CG models are cheaper than the miniatures, the second thing is the physical limitations. 2012 shows Los Angeles being destroyed by an 10.5 earthquake and there are a hundred houses in these shots. To do this with miniatures would be far more difficult and expensive.

The only thing real in there is our actors inside the limousine – Volker Engel

Challenges in this movie

Many of the VFX scenes were left to their imagination. In the scene of the L.A. Earthquake, it was in the script as only four lines that said they drive through Los Angeles to Santa Monica’s Airport while the city is being destroyed. This entire scene was done on computer.. this means the entire residential neighborhood, a business district… In the computers you don’t have limitations for example when a parking structure starts to collapse and the limousine pass through it, that’s a great scene.

Flood the Himalayas by a gigantic wave was a real challenge because isn’t simple like flood a street, they work with 600 computers everyone making a part of the scene and rendered frame by frame to then composite it into live action

It’s not just, you know, ‘water rushes through the street’… we’re flooding the highest mountain ranges of the whole planet! – Marc Weigert


VFX Breakdown Video

This video will show you the amazing VFX Scenes and how they do some of the compositing.


Alice in Wonderland (2010)


VFX Team

  • David Schaub
  • Sean Phillips
  • Ken Ralston
  • Carey Villegas

Development of the Visual Effects

Hybrid Characters

Hybrid characters are digitally generated characters that incorporate photographic elements of the real actors as they were filmed on set. For Alice in Wonderland, this was not only a great technique for making the characters look realistic, but also imaginative and fantastic, as illustrated by the Tweedles and Stayne. The most interesting thing about this technique is that it is not merely a likeness, but the real face of the actor which retains their brilliant facial performance.

Chroma Keying

This is one of the most famous techniques used in films; it involves the removal of a color in order to add backgrounds that are entirely constructed using computer-generated imagery. Alice in Wonderland presents a fantastic world with imaginative characters. So when Alice is in this world, nothing is real—everything is filmed on a green screen. This includes not only the environment, but also the people—the technicians, the mechanical effects crew, and anyone else who was visible in frame were all in green too.

The green-screen color is effective for compositing, but visually and psychologically exhausting to be surrounded by it for extended periods of time – Ken Ralston

Challenges in this movie

Creating a world in Wonderland, where Alice (who was human) and other curious inhabitants, such as the Red Queen, the Tweedles, the Mad Hatter, and the various environments could co-exist believably, was one of the many challenges.

For the Red Queen, the first challenge was to nearly double the size of her head for the entire film. To do this, the Red Queen was photographed with a high-resolution 4K camera on a green screen. The 4K image was then reduced to HD for her body, allowing the full 4K image of her head to be composited onto her HD body.

The environment of the final battle is completely computer generated (CG). It was challenging to shoot Alice battling a monster that was not on the set, and this scene was choreographed many times before it was captured perfectly.


VFX Breakdown Video

This video will show you the amazing VFX Scenes, how they do that and some scenes of compositing.


Avatar (2009)


VFX Team

  • Stephen Rosembaun
  • Joe Letteri
  • Richard Baneham
  • Andrew R. Jones

Development of the Visual Effects

Creating the Na’vi

The Characters were created as realistically as possible. To do this, several key departments needed to be firing on all cylinders, from facial and body rigging, to animation and motion capture, to rendering; all these departments worked well as a team to bring these performances to the screen.

A lot of photographs and scans of the actors were used in order to incorporate their details into the digital characters, for both the Na’vi and humans.

There are some characters, such as Jake, where there’s both an Avatar double and a digital double. There was a huge amount of data captured through digital scanning and light-stage capture. Also, a lot of extra texture and shade work was done in order to make sure that all the details went into the final renders.

Facial Capture and Motion Capture

For the Na’vi to be believable, realistic animation was really important. The team used a variety of techniques to get the facial animation to higher level of realism. The most important of these was facial motion capture. With the use of a high-definition video camera attached to the faces of the actors and markers all over their faces, the software was able to map out which muscles in the face were firing, and bring all this information into the digital characters.

The facial rigs are by far the most advanced I have ever worked with – Andy Jones

Stereo 3D

The environments were enhanced by one of the other major features of the film—the fact that it was conceived from the very beginning to be shown in stereoscopic 3D. The live action for the movie was filmed using the Fusion 3D camera system created by James Cameron and Vance Pace, and the stereo shots were composited with a customized version of Shake.

The 3D nature of the movie compromised the used of 2D elements. Matte paintings were a subject of a lot of discussion about finding the most efficient and most realistic ways of creating the environments.

Realistic environments

The world of Pandora is a jungle, and many of the visual effects shots feature the jungle in some way. The team built many of the plants using procedural foliage software of their own, but some of them were modeled by hand. Most of them were built at an extremely high resolution; the biggest trees had up to 1.2 million polygons. Any single frame might have had hundreds of thousands of plants rendered in the scene. Efficiency was really important, so the team also built less detailed versions of the plants. This way, the highly detailed plants were close to the camera, and the less detailed ones further away.

James Cameron and his team spent a lot of time designing the horticulture of the environment – Dan Lemmo


VFX Breakdown Video

This video will show you the amazing VFX Scenes, how they do that and some scenes of compositing.


The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)


VFX Team

  • Jym Rygiel
  • Joe Letteri
  • Randall William Cook
  • Alex Funke

Development of the Visual Effects

Miniature Models

Most of the sets used for The Return of the King were constructed from composite models and matte paintings, which were then combined with CG Imagery. The crew had to use different kinds of computer graphics techniques and computer-controlled cameras to perfectly mesh the miniature model photography with live actors and scenes.

Creatures Animation

Lots of creatures, such as the Trolls, the Shelob, the Mûmakil and others, were created entirely within a computer. The creators spent months on the designs of sketches, and the sculpting and painting of five-foot maquettes that were scanned into a computer. The animators would then rig skeletons and muscles before animation began. The team also created realistic digital doubles from scans of the actors, and then animated them with motion-capture suites. Making Gollum into a perfectly believable creature, and using sub-surface scattering for skin lighting in order to achieve the proper realism, turned out to be really tricky.

Like as if you were there

The camera movements in various shots were used for different effects. The objective was to provide two kinds of realism. If you’re in the a battle, you want to feel like you’re in there. The way to do that is to make you feel like you’re on a horse; so you want to give the camera a little bit of that movement as if you’re moving forward with it. The other movement effect was used for the Mûmakil. The idea was to shake the camera so as to feel the weight of each of their stomps. Whenever the Mûmakil touched the ground, there would be a camera shake—the closer they were to the camera, the bigger the shake would be.


VFX Breakdown Video

This video will show you the amazing VFX Scenes, how they do that and some scenes of compositing.

Sources of the videos:

Alice in Wonderland 1
Alice in Wonderland 2

2012 1
2012 2

Avatar

The Lord of the Rings


{excerpt}
Read More

Quick Tip: How to Create a Delicious Chocolate Text Effect


For all the chocolate lovers out there, here is how to create a delicious chocolate bar text effect in Illustrator. You will use the Blend Tool, effects like Roughen and Chrome, different Blending modes and also the 3D Extrude & Bevel effect to create perfect chocolate squares. Enjoy!

Continue reading “Quick Tip: How to Create a Delicious Chocolate Text Effect”

Create a Splash of Colorful Paint with Illustrator and Mesh Tormentor


Today, I can assure you that Gradient Mesh has become absolutely manageable, it became possible thanks to Mesh Tormentor, which was developed by a great programmer Yemz. This plugin has features that make your work with Gradient Mesh enjoyable and can save you a lot of time.

In this tutorial we will take a look at its basic commands: removal of unnecessary knots of the gradient mesh, the creation of the Art Brush of the Gradient Mesh, joining of two or more Gradient Meshes, Gradient Mesh color cloning, and mastering a lot of interesting techniques. It is quite a gift for those who work with Gradient Mesh, because Mesh Tormentor is an absolutely free plugin.

Continue reading “Create a Splash of Colorful Paint with Illustrator and Mesh Tormentor”

How To Use Dynamics Processors As Creative Effects – Audio Premium

It’s quite likely that most of you have read plenty of tutorials on dynamics processing. Most them tell us that we can use dynamics processors to tame our mixes and create a more balanced sound. Although this is true, if we push things a little we can also use them as creative effects.

In this tutorial we’ll take a look at using various dynamics processors as effects and how we can transform these everyday workhorses into interesting creative tools.

To learn more about what you get as part of Audio Premium, read this. To take a peek inside this tutorial, hit the jump!


Tutorial Contents

  • Step 1 – Super Heavy Compression
  • Step 2 – Pushing Your Transient Designer
  • Step 3 – Getting Clever With Your Gates
  • Step 4 – Multi-Band Magic
  • Step 5 – Super Hot Limiters
  • Step 6 – Using Parallel Processing

Effect Examples

Here are a few examples of the type of effects covered in the tutorial:

Super Hot Limiters:

Download audio file (5.mp3)

Getting Clever With Your Gates:

Download audio file (3b.mp3)

Existing Premium members can log-in and download. Not a Plus member? Join now.


{excerpt}
Read More

Workshop #212: Acid Break Glitch by dJcybersonique

This track has been submitted for your friendly, constructive criticism. What useful feedback can you give the artist? The floor is yours to talk about the track and how they can fix problems in and improve upon the mix and the song.

Download audio file (AcidBreakGlitch.mp3)

Description of the track:

Here’s something I knocked up real quick whilst riffing live in Ableton Live playing with a softsynth via the controller keyboard, triggering/stopping drums/stutter effects on the computer keyboard. No real melodies per se. Just programmed arps, reworked live drums/drumloops.

Artist’s website: cybersonique.org

Terms of Use: Users can stream the track for the purposes of giving feedback but cannot download or redistribute it.

Have a listen to the track and offer your constructive criticism for this Workshop in the comments section.

  • Do you enjoy the song or track itself? Does it have potential?
  • Can the arrangement be improved?
  • How did you find the mix? What would you do differently?
  • What do you enjoy about the rhythm track? What can be done to improve it?
  • Is the choice of instruments relevant and effective for the style/song?
  • Are the lyrics (if any) effective? Does the style, arrangement and genre of the song suit them?
  • Can you suggest any specific techniques that might improve the track?
  • Do you have any other constructive feedback?

Need constructive criticism on your own tracks? Submit them for a workshop using this form. Most but not all submissions are published. There may be a wait of up to two months.


{excerpt}
Read More

Create Animal Textured Typography

In this tutorial we are going to create fun, realistic, animal textured, 3D typography in Photoshop using CS5′s Repousse tool. Let’s get started!


Tutorial Assets

The following assets were used during the production of this tutorial.


Step 1 – Document Setup

Open a new Photoshop file that should be 17 inches width and 11 inches high with a resolution of 300 pixel/inch.


Step 2 – Background

First we a re going to create a simple background. I want the final background to be really bright so I can show off the letters properly but it would make it a little bit hard to work on, so I’m just going to put a subtle gradient that we can take out later.

Unlock the background layer by clicking twice on it and open the layer style menu. Select the "Gradient Overlay" option and select a gradient that goes from Black to White to an angle of 39° approximately and reduce the opacity to 70%.

Create a new layer on top of that and using the Bucket tool (G) set your foreground color to black and fill the layer. Then go to the menu Filter > Noise > Add Noise and use an amount of 20% with Distribution on Uniform and the Monochromatic option checked.

Go to Image > Adjustments > Invert (Command/Ctrl + I) and set the layer blending mode to multiply.

Your background is set and should look something like this:


Step 3 – Text rendering

Select the text tool (T) and write the first letter of your text. We will be doing this letter by letter so we can give a different perspective to each one once we render them with the Repoussé tool. The font I’ll be using for this tutorial is called Hobo Std with the size of about 380 pt (Change the size depending on the document size you are working on).


Step 4

Once you have positioned your text layer, go to menu 3D > Repoussé > Text layer. Make sure you select the "extrude" shape preset and rotate your 3D letter to a nice perspective using the rotate text mesh tool. We are going to leave all the other options to their default settings. All the 3D letters will be the base of our work so take your time while positioning them and rendering.

Basically we are going to do the same for each letter in your word. Each time changing a little bit the perspective of the letter. You don’t have to worry about light sources right now, we are going to fix that once we start wrapping our textures around the letters.

Feel free to play around with the position of each letter. As you can see here, I put the "L" in front of the "I" and "D" to give more variation and depth.

I suggest you save each word letters in different groups to keep things organized.


Step 5

Do the same thing for the second word. Remember to keep rotating and playing around with the positions of the layers so they don’t look all the same. Create a new group for every word you make.

After you are done with each word, they should be separated in different groups to keep things organized for the next step. Your image with the rendered letters should now look something like this:


Step 6

Copy the folders of your 3D letters and rasterize each one of them by right clicking next to the thumb of the layer and selection the option "Rasterize 3D", this will make it easier to work with them. If you wish, you can keep the original 3D words so you can go back to them in case you need to.


Step 7

We will be using many clip masked layers and adjustment layers so I highly recommend you put each letter in its own group.


Step 8 – Preparing the letters

For this effect to work, first we need to isolate every side of the letter so we can wrap the textures according to the letters perspective. This process might be a little boring at first but in the end we will get a cool realistic animal texture effect.

We are going to start with the letter "W". There are many ways we can isolate the sides of each letters. Right now we are going to use two methods. Using the Magic Wand tool (W) and the Pen tool (P).

Select the Magic Wand tool (W) and click on one side of the letter. Once the selection is made, create a new layer and fill the shape with color white (ALT + BACKSPACE). Rename the new layer with whatever side of the letter you selected. In this case the "Front, "then we’ll go with the "Side" the "Back" and so on.

De – select the shape (Command/Ctrl + D) and go back to the "W" layer then select a new side with the magic wand tool, create a new layer and fill it with white. Repeat this same process for each side.

You might need to change the "Tolerance" value of the magic wand tool depending on how the selection is made. If the tool does a smaller selection than you wanted, select a tolerance value higher to the one you have set until you eventually make a selection of the whole shape.

It’s best if we fill all the sides with color white, that way we can quickly see if we missed texturing any spots on the letter.

Once you have all the sides of the letter isolated, you can turn off the layer visibility of the original 3D shape.


Step 9 – Texture Wrapping

Download the
Leopard fur texture and drag it to your document. We are going to duplicate it several times to wrap on each shape of the letter and we are going to link each of the texture layers with clipping masks. Drag the texture layer on top of the shape. While holding ALT and click between the two layers to create a clipping mask.

Now, using the transformation tools change the texture to match the perspective and position of the letter.

One of the best tools to wrap the text is the "Warp" option. Duplicate the text layer and clip mask one to each of the shapes and transform it accordingly.

It may take you some time to get the perspective right but it’ll get easier as you do it.

Once you’ve got all sides with the texture clip masked to each shape, your layers and 3D letter should look something like this:


Step 10 – Shading

No we are going to apply shading to each side of the letter to add depth and realism. Create a new layer on top of the texture layer set its blending mode to "Multiply" and clip mask it.

Grab the Brush tool (B) with a basic circular tip of 0% hardness and about 150 pixel width with the brush opacity set to 30%, set your foreground color to black. Chose your light source (in this case I decided the light would come from the center part of the canvas on the upper side) and soft brush shades and shadows according to your light source.

Brush as many times necessary on each side of the letter.

Your layers and shading should now look something like this:


Step 11 – Lightning

Now that the shading on the letter is done, we need to enhance the parts where the light hits our shape. To do this, clip mask a new layer on top of the shading layer of the shape you want to add light.

In this case I’m just adding light to the front part of the letter. Set the layer’s blending mode to "Overlay" and using the same soft brush we used for the shading, now we are going to start painting with white.


Step 12 – Hair

The hair or
"fur" is very important for making this look realistical and overall add depth to the typography. Create a new layer on top of all the layers in your group. You don’t need to clip mask this one.

Grab the brush tool and select a hard round brush of about 3 pixels wide and 100% opacity. We need this to be really thing to get as much detail as possible. On the brushes menu make sure to check the "Shape Dynamics" option and set the Size Jitter Control to "Pen pressure."

As you can see on the brush stroke preview, setting the control to pen pressure will make the stroke fade at the beginning and the end. I am using a graphics tablet to do this so the pressure dynamic will be better. In case you don’t have a graphics tablet, you can always use the Pen tool to draw tiny paths, then stroking them and duplicating them so you can fill the entire silhouette of the letter with hair easier.

Start by holding ALT + Click on a color of the texture to enter a "quick eyedropper" mode and sample it (I suggest you start with the darker tones first) start doing quick short strokes around the edges of the letter following the direction of the hair in the texture.

As you progress, keep sampling colors in regular basis (from the darkest to the lightest) taking in mind the colors on the texture to make a nice blending.

Take your time while doing this step. The more detail and variation of color you make the more realistic it will be.

Once you have all the edges covered with the painted hair, change the size of the brush to 1 pixel. Select a medium tone color and scribble some lines randomly around it.

Keep working the hair until the edges are completely filled.


Step 13

Now we are going to add some contrast to the image. When you are happy with the result of the previous steps, you can duplicate the "W" group and then Merge it (Command/Ctrl + E) to apply the next contrast settings:


Step 14 – Tail

Little details like putting tails and eyes in this kind of manipulation really makes it pop and gives it a very organic look.

On the original texture image, Using the Pen tool or the Polygonal Lasso tool (L) draw a swirly shape and copy it into a new layer.

Now we need to give volume and shading to the tail. Go to the layer style menu, check on the Bevel and Emboss option and apply the next settings:

These settings will apply some shading and lights to the tail and give it some volume. Additionally you can clip mask a new layer and paint some more shadows and highlights like we did in the previous steps.

We also need to paint some hair. Use the same technique as we did with the letter edges.

You can also put the tail layers into a different group. This should be below our letter so the tail hides behind it.


Step 15 – Letter "I"

Just like we did before with the letter "W" we need to isolate both sides of the letter "I".

Drag the Zebras stock image to your document. Using the pen tool or the polygonal lasso, draw a big selection of the zebra skin and copy it to a new layer. This will be the texture we’ll be using for this letter.

Using clip mask again, wrap the texture around the shapes. Be careful not to modify this one too much because we want to keep the zebra pattern as recognizable as possible.

Once you have the texture, its time to do the shading and paint highlights. Create a new layer, clip mask it to the texture and shade accordingly.

We also need to paint some hair around the edges. The difference is that this time, we need to paint the hair a little bit shorter than with the leopard letter. Use a hard round brush of about 2 pixels wide and sample the colors from the texture.

Since the texture looks a little bit flat the way it is right now. We need to paint also some hair details inside the letter. Use a 1 pixel and 2 pixel brush for this.


Step 16

For the detailing of this letter, go back to your original stock image and do a selection of the back hair of the Zebra. Use a feather radius of 3 pixels for the selection, and copy the hair into a new layer.

Place it behind the letter and paint some hair on it like on the step before. It should look something like this:


Step 17 – Zebra Tail

On the Zebra texture layer, draw a selection of another swirly shape (try to make each different from the other ones) and copy it to a new layer. Put this layer on top of the letter layers.

Clip mask a new layer and add shadings and highlights using a soft round brush.

Open the layer style menu and use the next Bevel and Emboss settings to give volume to the tail. (Experiment with this values for different results)

On a new layer, paint some hair to finish it off. Also mask or erase with a soft brush, a bit of the tail where it meets the back hair so it gives the appearance of the tail coming from behind to the top.


Step 18

Create a new layer between the "I" and "W" groups. Here we are going to paint the shadow that falls on the "W" by the letter "I". Grab a soft round brush of about 200 pixels wide with an opacity of about 30% and brush over the letter
"W" where the shadow should be:


Step 19 – Letter "L"

Start off by isolating each side of the letter into separate shapes. Then drag to your document the Snake skin texture, do a selection on the skin like before and copy it into a new layer.

While clip masking the texture to the shapes, try following the texture patterns ans shapes. Experiment with different positions to see what would fit best. As you can see on the example below, I tried to make the pattern flow along the letter instead of just clipping the texture randomly:

With a texture like this it can easily look very flat if you don’t transform the texture according to the perspective of the shapes in the letter.

Add the Shading and lights like we did with the letters before:


Step 20 – Snake eye

Take the Reptile Eye stock image and drag it to your document. Using the pen tool, extract the eye from the image. Flip it horizontally, transform it to match the perspective of the letter and place it on top of the front shape layer.

Now we are going to Dodge and Burn (O) it to match the light of the shape. Grab the Burn tool and select a soft round brush of about 30 pixels wide with the range of the Burn tool set to midtones and the Exposure to 25%. Brush around the darker areas to create some shading on the eye.

Now select the Dodge tool and do the same to create highlights.


Step 21 – Detailing

Now we are going to add some detailing to the letter, to enhance further it’s animalistic reptile – like look.

Select a hard round brush of about 10 pixels wide and opacity set to 100%. Select the layer of the shape we clipped masked the textures on. Paint little bumps around the edges following the pattern of the scales. You’ll see the texture also acting on this new painted bits. If at any moment there are uncovered spots by the texture you can always transform it a bit more to cover everything up.


Step 22 – Shadows

Since this letter is positioned in front of other two letters we need to paint the shadows that fall over them. Create a new layer below the "L" group and use a soft round brush with color black and low opacity to paint the shadows on the letters just like we did back on Step 18.

Here is a look at the layers panel so far.


Step 23 – Letter "D"

Star by extracting each side of the letter in it’s own layer. In this case as well as on some other letters, using the magic wand tool might not work well. In this cases use the pen tool to draw a path along the shape and the filling it.

You might need to do this in letters that have a lot of shadows and curves.


Step 24 – Texturing

Take the Elephant texture stock image and apply the next Brightness and Contrast settings:

Just like we did on the previous steps, start clip duplicating and clip masking the texture layer to each of the sides of the letter.

Be careful and take your time to morph the texture especially on the round areas.

While doing the shading on the textures, take as a reference your first 3D shape, that way you can apply lights and shadows in a more accurate way.


Step 25 – Elephant Trunk

Drag the Elephant head Stock to your document, flip it horizontally and using the pen tool extract the trunk of the animal.

The image is a bit saturated at the moment and it will not blend with the rest of the textured layer properly. Go to the Hue and Saturation menu (Command/Ctrl + U) and desaturate the image.

Now that the saturation is fixed, we need to cover up the little parts grass on the trunk, to do this, we are going to use the Clone stamp tool. Select it (S) and choose a soft round brush; while holding the key ALT, sample a part of the trunk that’s similar to the part we want to patch, once sampled, brush slowly over the grass bit, sampling from a different source every time you need it.

Using the dodge and burn tools, enhance the lights and shadows on the image. Place the trunk layer on top of the textured letter, we are going to start working on the blending of the trunk.

Add a layer mask to the trunk layer and using a soft brush, mask the edges of the trunk so it fades with the body of the letter.

Using the Clone stamp tool with a soft brush, clone parts of the trunk into the body of the letter to get a better blending effect.


Step 26 – Detailing

Using the same technique as in Step 21, place yourself on any of the main shapes, and using a brush, paint along the edges with a hard brush following the pattern of the texture. Do this on the edges of every shape layer.


Step 27 – Hat

Take the Hat stock image and drag it to your document. Extract it then from its background then apply the next Brightness and contrast settings:

Place it on top the elephant textured letter. Create new layers and clip mask them to it to paint some shadows and highlights respectively. (You can also use the Burn and Dodge tools).


This is how your text should look like now after finishing the first word:

Now you are ready to create the next set of letters using the same techniques described in the previous steps. From now on, I´m only going to mention how to create the specific details for each of the new set of letter and skip the steps of isolating each part of the letter, shading and texturing since they’re the same for each letter.


Step 28 – Letter "L"

In this letter we will be using a Cat image stock as texture.

The painting of the fur and wrapping of the texture will be somewhat similar to what we did with the letter "W".

When you start painting the fur on this one, make sure you give it longer strokes, to match the length of the fur on the cat. Start the strokes almost at the middle of the texture, this will also help with the blending. Also keep in mind the variation of the colors.

Don’t forget to add little details on your letters, for instance, the cat tail. (Same process as step 14).


Step 29 – Letter "I"

This letter will be similar to what we did on the first letter "I" but In this case we are not going to paint any hair on it since the
Horse stock image already had a very nice texture.

For the tail, I selected a part of the hair from the horse stock and placed it on top of the letter.

Then paint some hair with large strokes to improve the blending with the shape.


Step 30 – Letter "F"

The next to letters might be the most difficult ones to texture mainly because of the large numbers of sides they have. Remember to use the original 3D letter as reference for the shading and lightning. Since we are using a Tiger stock image as texture, we’ll make this layer like we did with the letter "W" and the second "L" with the cat fur texture.

Create new layers between the letter groups to paint the shadows cast on the shapes.


Step 31 – Letter "E"

This letter will be very similar to the snake textured one since we are using a Frog image.

This will be perhaps the most difficult letter to texture because of the number of sides and curved shapes, so take your time to morph the texture carefully.

Paint also over the main layers to make scales around the edges of the letter just like in step 21.


Step 32 – Tongue Detail

Grab the pen tool and draw a path in a new layer like the example below the fill it with a bright color red.

Clip mask a layer to this shape and paint over with a soft round brush some shading and highlights. Below, paint a shadow that’s going to help blend with the Letter:

Using the Polygonal Lasso tool, draw a swirly selection on top of the tongue shape. With a soft round brush at low opacity (about 20%) and color white, brush gently inside the selection. Just paint softly over the edges to make a saliva effect on the tongue.


Step 33 – Shadows

Create a new layer between the "F" and "E" layers and paint the shadow that falls on the letter.


The second word of your typography should look now something like this, with all the texturing and shading applied:


Step 34

At this point you can take out the gradient layer we put in step 2 to help us have some contrast between the background and the shapes we were working on, leaving an almost white background with noise.


Step 35 – Text shadow

Create a new layer on top of the noise layer of your background and using a soft round brush with color black set to about 20% opacity, Paint shadows under the text based on your light source:


Step 36 – Final Adjustments

To finish things off, we are going to add a Brightness and contrast adjustment layers to enhance highlights, shadows and color saturation. Go to Layer > New Adjustment layer > Brightness and contrast and set the next values: (this layer should be on top of all the layers).

Your text should now look something like this with the new adjustment layer:


Final Image


{excerpt}
Read More

Interview With John Mark Herskind

Designer John Mark Herskind has done quite a lot in the 4 years that he has been doing graphic design. John is responsible for creating Designers Against Child Slavery as well as being part of the impressive S3 Collective. From that we can see that John has a bright future ahead of him in the design world so make sure to check out this great interview.


Q Welcome to Psdtuts+, please introduce yourself. Could you tell us where you’re from and how you got started in the field?

Hey Guys, My name is John Mark Herskind. I’m an 18-year-old graphic artist from the United States. I’m the founder of Designers Against Child Slavery. I’m also on staff at SlashTHREE. I’m a self-taught artist. I started in the field when I was 14, after interning under someone in the film industry. He taught me Photoshop and I’ve been hooked since then.

Q Did you study graphic design in school or are you a self-taught artist? And in your opinion what are the pro’s and con’s of each.

As I said earlier I’m a self-taught artist. I do not study at a design school currently, but I have plans to attend the Savannah College of Art and Design next year. I’ve taken a few design classes in high school but they honestly didn’t teach me much. I feel like design school can teach you a lot about design theory and how to perform in the industry itself. But as far as technical skills and a creative eye goes, I feel like that’s something you are born with. Either you have it or you don’t.

Q Some of the more recent illustrations in your portfolio follow the trend of using very dark colors and even being completely void of vibrant colors, what made you pursue this style?

I’m a huge fan of 3 things. Minimalism, surrealism and retro design. The reason I pursued that style is because I’ve always wanted to implement those 3 things into my art. In both “Solidarity” and “Reclamation” I used low saturation and minimal flashes of color. I really just like the atmosphere it brings. I’m constantly on a pursuit to find my own style, and I feel like my most recent work best illustrates the path my style is taking.

Q What are some of your personal favorite pieces of art, either modern or classical and why?

Obviously since I’m a fan of surrealism, I love the work of Salvador Dali. Dali’s piece, “Corpus Hypercubus” is probably one of my all time favorite pieces of art. I’m also a huge fan of Anton Semenov, an artist at SlashTHREE. His work is incredibly detailed and extremely moving.

Q “Solidarity” is a very simple and unique illustration that carries a bit of meaning with it, could you walk us through how you created this piece and what the intended meaning behind it is.

Well as boring and generic as this sounds, Solidarity honestly just “happened”. There wasn’t any real technique that I used. It just kind of came out of me! Starting out, I did want to give the feeling of unity and peacefulness in some way. The piece was somewhat inspired by reading up on Solidarity in Poland and its peaceful resistance to advance social change.

Q Since you are a member of SlashTHREE tell us a bit about the pros and cons of being part of a successful design collective.

Design collectives are great. If you are looking for a place to make contacts and grow as an artist art collectives are the place to do it. I’m currently part of the SlashTHREE collective, but I’ve been part of Evoke and Intrinsic Nature in the past so I have a lot of experience seeing how collectives run. For me there are two big pros to art collectives. One is that you grow as an artist. I can’t tell you how far I’ve come as an artist because of art groups. You can’t help but grow when your in an environment full of talented creative people, constantly giving you feed back on your work.

For me, the second biggest pro to being in a collective is the sense of community. Working on an exhibition together for 5-6 months really brings a sense of family into the equation, its almost as if your on a mission together. Not to mention you get a lot of exposure from being in collectives. Three days after I joined staff at SlashTHREE, I had almost 2,000 new website hits, and 75 new twitter followers and the numbers continue to grow.

As for cons, I cant think of many. I will say that in order for you to get the best experience out of a collective, you have to be willing to put a lot into it. You will only get out what you put in. Meaning, if you don’t spend much time around the group, and rarely talk to people, you wont see those to pros that I talked about come into play… And with out those pros then there isn’t much of a point to being in the group.

Q What can we look forward to from you in the future? What projects will you be working on?

In the coming months I will be releasing 2 album covers that I did for two different bands, along with some poster designs for shows and what not. I’ve got a lot of client work that I haven’t released for a few months, which will probably come along with those two album covers. Right now I’m working on a piece for SlashTHREE’s next exhibition as well as a piece for Designers Against Child Slavery’s next exhibition, which will show in New York City, Miami and possibly Houston. I also plan on submitting a piece to the UU Theory’s contest this year. As I continue to explore different styles and forms of illustration, expect to see a lot of different experimental pieces from me.

Q Thanks again for providing Psdtuts+ with this opportunity to interview you. Any final thoughts for our readers?

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the opportunity to be interviewed on PSDTuts+. Thanks the support and willingness to have me here.


Where to find John on the Web


{excerpt}
Read More

How to Turn Humdrum Photos Into Cinematic Portraits

There are a plethora of ways to treat a portrait, for a myriad of uses, but that is for another feature. Let’s tackle adding drama or a cinematic quality to a regular, humdrum portrait. Let’s even throw in a little bit of faking HDR. That way if you work on a project that requires a stunning shot without the stunning photography, you’ll be able to cobble something together using your mad skillz!

Update: This tutorial was originally published on Psdtuts in April 2009.


Video Tutorial

Our video editor Gavin Steele has created this video tutorial to compliment this text + image tutorial.


Asset Preparation

The images I’ve used are: The man, the cloud, the water drops 1, and water drops 2. As always feel free to use your own images, however you may need to tweak the settings of any of the steps to get the right effect with different assets.


Step 1

Open the man image from iStockphoto and separate him from the background. Use whichever method you’re comfortable with, I would usually use the Pen Tool, but I’ll be honest, as he’s got no hair to worry about and the background is white I kinda cheated. I used the, ahem, Magic Wand Tool to select the white. I then Feathered the selection by 1 pixel (Select > Feather), expanded it by 2 pixels (Select > Modify > Expand) and hit delete 2-3 times until the white halo disappeared. Call this layer “MAN.” Select the Dodge Tool, set the Range to Highlights and the Exposure to 15% and run it over the Iris a couple of times. This should bring the eyes out a bit.


Step 2

Open up the cloud image from sxc.hu and import it into the document underneath the “MAN” layer. Resize it to about 130% and drag (Use the Select Tool, hold Alt and simply drag the cloud around the canvas) three duplicates. Overlap them as in the image below. Then select the eraser, set as a large soft-edged brush, and run it along the hard-edges where the cloud layers meet.


Step 3

Finally, select the Clone Tool, set it to a large (around 400 pixels) soft-edged (0% hardness) brush and clone out the obvious pattern repetitions. Choose multiple source points to avoid more obvious patterns.


Step 4

These next few steps are a lot easier if you have access to a graphics tablet, however you can still do it with a mouse. Create a Curves Adjustment Layer just above the “MAN” layer and check the box that’s marked Use Previous Layer to Create a Clipping Mask. Set it up as shown and call it “CURVES_DARK.” Select the “CURVES_DARK” layer mask and fill it with black, this should hide the effects of the Curves.

Select the Paintbrush Tool and set it to 0% Hardness, 15% Opacity and 65% Flow. Change the Brush size to suit the part of the image you’re treating. Obviously the bigger the brush, the smoother the transition. Set the Foreground Color to White and begin painting directly on the Layer Mask. Some areas require more work than others so don’t be scared of going over some patches several times.

Check the image below for approximate brush sizes to use. Cover both the skin and clothing. There is no exact science to this, it’s a lot of trial and error.

To get the finer details you’ll need to reduce the brush size right down. The eyelashes as an example required a 3 pixel brush, but I increased the opacity to around 40 percent. I did the same with the wrinkles and other hard-edges.

Ultimately, your Layer Mask should resemble this (press Alt and click on the Layer Mask to see where you’ve painted on the mask). I didn’t quite do enough on the Mask and there are three ways to rectify this. Option 1 is to double-click on the Layer Thumbnail (this is represented, in this case, by a circle that’s half black and half grey). Adjust the Curves to produce a darker result. Option 2 is to continue painting on the Layer Mask, but you risk messing up your good work. Option 3 is to duplicate the Curves Adjustment Layer, then you can scale back the effect by tweaking the Layer Opacity.


Step 5

Again, all you peeps with a graphics tablet are going to find this a lot easier. Create another Curves Adjustment Layer above “MAN” and “CURVES_DARK” on the layer palette. Check the box that’s marked Use Previous Layer to Create a Clipping Mask and call it “CURVES_LIGHT.” Pull the upper part of the line upwards to lighten the image. Note: How much you manipulate the Curves layers (including “CURVES_DARK”) affects how much you’ll need to draw on the Layer Mask and how much you’ll need to tweak the overall exposure later on.

Fill the “CURVES_LIGHT” Layer Mask with black and Draw directly onto it with a soft-edged brush loaded with white. Again pick the brush size and opacity to match the area you’re treating. If you overdo an area, load your brush with black and go over the problem area.

You’re looking to paint over all the areas where there are highlights. To strengthen things like the wrinkles, you should paint light next to the dark but not over it. Paint up to hard-edges with a small brush and then away from it with a large brush to diffuse the transition.

Alt-click on your Layer Mask thumbnail to see where you’ve painted on it. It should resemble the image below. Note the Layers palette as well, all my layers are currently on Normal at 100% Opacity and Fill. The little arrow next to the Layer thumbnail signifies that it’s using the lower layer as a clipping mask.

If yours don’t, then select the “CURVES” layer and go to Layer > Create clipping mask. To mask off any areas you require a hard-edge such as the bottom of the nose, simply draw around it using the Pen Tool, turn the path into a selection and paint onto the appropriate Layer Mask.


Step 6

Create a Gradient Map Adjustment Layer above “MAN,” “CURVES_DARK” and “CURVES_LIGHT.” Use the underlying layers as a Clipping Mask. Set the Gradient Map as shown below and then change the Layer Blending Mode to Soft Light and the Opacity to 75%. Now you could tweak the hue/saturation, play with the channel mixer and add a nice studio-esque background and stop there for now. But let’s carry on and add some real drama to this.


Step 7

Add a Gradient Map Adjustment Layer below “MAN” and above “CLOUD.” Input the darker color as #164370 (a darkish blue) and the lighter color as #e2dc9a (a muddy yellow). OK this, then set the Layer Blending Mode as Soft Light and change the Layer Opacity to 68%. Add a Curves Adjustment Layer directly below the Gradient Map. Adjust as shown and then change the Layer Opacity to 60%. Your Layers palette should that shown below.


Step 8

Add a new layer directly above “CLOUD” and fill it with 60% black. Set the Blending Mode to Overlay (it should disappear). Select the Burn Tool and set to a big brush (917 diameter, 0% hardness), set the Range to Midtones and the Exposure to around 15%. Then burn around the corners to create a vignette. Call the layer “VIGNETTE” and adjust the Opacity to suit. Mine ended up at 77%.


Step 9

Create a new layer directly above “MAN” (using “MAN” as a Clipping Path) and another directly below the “CLOUD_CURVES” and “GRADIENTMAP” layers. Call the new layers “WHITEGLOW.” Select the Paintbrush Tool, load it with white and work on the layers as shown below. Create a soft, white glow below the man to lift him from the background. Then create a white glow above to bleed light from the background over the subject. Follow the pink path as shown, then go over a second time.


Step 10

This next step is a stylistic choice as we’re going for a stylized look. However, if you want a more naturalistic finish you can skip this part. Select all the layers currently linked with “MAN.”

Then go to Filter > Stylize > Glowing Edges and set up as shown.

We want to knock out the midtones on this so go to Image > Adjustments > Levels and set up as shown.

Then change the Layer Blending Mode to Screen and drop the Opacity down to around 34%. Duplicate this layer and set the duplicate Blending Mode to Overlay, change the Opacity to around 13%. I also masked off areas around the chin on the original Glowing Edges Layer (Screen, 34%).


Step 11

Duplicate the “CLOUD” layer and drag it above the “GLOW_EDGES” layers. Apply a 2-3 pixel Gaussian Blur, then set the Layer Blending Mode to Screen and the Opacity to 50%. Take a soft-edged Eraser and delete all parts of the cloud that spill over the face and details. Duplicate the layer and drag it until you get a fairly even coverage of mist at the bottom of the image. Call these layers “CLOUD_BLURRED.”


Step 12

Download the water drops 1 image from sxc.hu and open it. Go to Image > Rotate Canvas > 180 degrees. Erase the bigger ball of water and the broken balloon part.

Then select the Burn Tool, set it to Shadows with an Exposure of 35% and run it along where you’ve erased. This should give a more realistic blend.

Paste it into your document directly above the “CLOUD_BLURRED” layers and set the Blending Mode to Screen. Position on the shoulder so that the condensed drips line up with the mans shoulder. You will need to rotate it to fit. Then drag a duplicate of this layer along the shoulder, rotate and fit. Call these layers “DROPS_RIGHT.”

Duplicate both “DROPS_RIGHT” layers and with the duplicates selected go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal. Rotate them to fit the line of the shoulder and rename them both “DROPS_LEFT.”

Download and open the water drops 2 image from sxc.hu. We only want the drops here so delete the Balloon and the denser part of the water (Eraser and then Burn Tool). Paste into the Working document, change Blending Mode to Screen. To get smaller bits of spray simply resize to make them smaller.

To get drops of rain, drag a duplicate and resize bigger. Make several copies until you get a good spread. Use the Clone Tool to get a more precise covering. Then group the layers, select the group and go to Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal all. Use this Mask to soften the impact of the rain, remove any drops covering detail and give it an overall clean up.


Step 13

Create a new layer directly above the “WATER_DROPS” group (the rain and stuff) and call it “STARBURST.” Fill it with 60% black and go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and set up as shown below.

Then go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur. Apply a Zoom blur as shown. The Blur center should be just on the mans shoulder. If you don’t hit that, then just reposition the layer and resize it so it fills the entire canvas.

Finally, adjust the Levels as in the image below and set the Layer Blending Mode to Overlay. As 60% is pretty much an overlay neutral color, and the levels are well balanced out, it shouldn’t affect the whole image. Add a Layer Mask to mask out any areas that you don’t want rays. I masked out parts of the face and shirt.


Step 14

Create a new layer directly above “STARBURST” and call it “FAKE_RAIN.” Fill it with 60% black, add noise (as you did for “STARBURST”) and then resize it.

Then go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur.

Bring up the blending options (click the f symbol in the black circle at the bottom of layers palette) and pull the black Layer Slider across to 130.

Apply a Small Gaussian Blur.

And a Smart Sharpen filter.

Finally, tweak the Levels and set the Layer Blending Mode to Hard Light.


Step 15

Duplicate “FAKE_RAIN,” call it “FAKE_RAIN_BGROUND” and move it below the “VIGNETTE” layer on the layers palette. Rotate it 10 degrees or so and change the Layer Opacity to 75%.


Step 16

Create a new Gradient Map Adjustment Layer directly above “FAKE_RAIN.” Set the darker color as #075053 and the lighter color as white. Then set the Layer Blending Mode to Color with an Opacity of 55%. Add a Layer Mask (Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All), grab a large soft-edged brush, load it with black, reduce brush Opacity to 20% and paint over the face area a couple of times.


Step 17

Add a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer directly above the Gradient Map you just created. Pull the Saturation slider down to -68% and OK it. At this staged I added a Layer Mask and masked off some of the red tie using the a soft-edged brush at 25% Opacity.


Step 18

Add a Curves Adjustment Layer above that and set up as shown below. It’s looking pretty moody now, time to add the finishers on this.


Step 19

Create a new layer above the three new Adjustment Layers and call it “OVERLAY_DODGE/BURN.” Fill it with 60% black and change the Layer Blending Mode to Overlay. Using the Dodge and Burn Tools we’re going to further boost some highlights and a couple of shadows.

Here’s how it looks with the changes.

Here’s roughly what your “OVERLAY_DODGE/BURN” layer should look like on Normal Blending Mode. Notice that some areas are whiter than others, those areas have been painted on more times than the darker parts. Layering it up is the key to a smooth and natural transition.


Step 20

As a little salad garnish I’ve added a lens flare. Fill a new layer with black. Go to Filter > Render > Lens Flare and pick 105mm prime. The default settings should be fine. Set the lens flare Layer Blending Mode to Screen and position it above the shoulder. It’s worth mentioning that I also applied a small amount of noise, followed by a Gaussian Blur (around 4 pixels) and then a smart sharpen (around 150 at 7 pixels).


Step 21

Select all of your layers and duplicate them. Merge all the duplicated layers into one, making sure you leave the originals untouched. Duplicate the merged layer and name one “HIGH_PASS” and one “INVERTED.” Select “HIGH_PASS” and go to Filter > Other > High Pass. OK a 2 pixel pass and then set the Layer to Overlay. Mask off any sections you feel are too strong, I did the starburst area a little.


Step 22

Select the “INVERTED” layer and desaturate it (Command + Shift + U). Then invert it (Command + I), apply a 40 pixel Gaussian Blur and then set the Layer Blending Mode to Overlay. It’s a little much so drop the Layer Opacity to around 45% or whatever you’re comfortable with.


Conclusion

You should be left with a highly editable image. Adjust Layer Opacities, fine-tune Layer Masks, play with Adjustment Layers or even turn visibility of some of the layers off. Even without the rain and the clouds and whatnot, what you’re left with is a way to make portraits punchier. View the final image below or a larger version here.

Final

Subscribe to the Psdtuts+ RSS Feed for the best Photoshop tuts and articles on the web.


{excerpt}
Read More

Learn How to Place an Object on a White Background

Sometimes we need to place an object with a colored background on a white background and this photoshop tutorial shows you how you can do that.

Final Image Preview

Learn How to Place an Object on a White Background

Resources


Step 1

Start this tutorial by downloading and opening photo on Photoshop.

Learn How to Place an Object on a White Background 1

Step 2

We need to separate robot from background area. Select Polygonal Lasso Tool to create selection. Hold Shift button to add or Alt to subtract to selection.

Learn How to Place an Object on a White Background 2

Step 3

Press Ctrl+J to duplicate selected area to new layer. Select all background layer content and press Del to delete. With Paint Bucket Tool selected fill layer with white color.

Learn How to Place an Object on a White Background 3

Step 4

It seems this tutorial is finished but not by any chance. We need to integrate robot into new environment by adding glare and reflexions for example. Select robot layer and apply Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation.

Learn How to Place an Object on a White Background 4
Learn How to Place an Object on a White Background 5

Step 5

Apply Layer > Layer Style > Inner Glow to robot layer.

Learn How to Place an Object on a White Background 6
Learn How to Place an Object on a White Background 7

Step 6

Create a new layer and merge it with robot layer to get all layer effects into one layer. Now we are going to increase shining of glares on robot edges. Select Brush Tool (soft round brush with 20px), create a new layer on top of robot layer and draw white highlights on the edges of the robot on new layer.

Learn How to Place an Object on a White Background 8

Step 7

Create robot selection (Ctrl+click on robot thumbnail on layers palette). After that select new layer, invert selection with Ctrl+Shift+I and press Delete to clear selected area. Remove selection with Ctrl+D and change layer mode to Soft Light for this layer.

Learn How to Place an Object on a White Background 9

Step 8

Add some glares at the bends of the body with the Brush Tool to show the three-dimensional robot. To do that create new layer, apply Brush Tool as on previous step. When you have finished applying Brush Tool update layer mode to Soft Light.

Learn How to Place an Object on a White Background 10

Step 9

Select Eraser Tool (Soft Brush) to clean a bit your glares so they become more realistic.

Learn How to Place an Object on a White Background 11

Step 10

Now we are going to create robot shadow. Select robot layer and apply Layer > Layer Style > Drop Shadow.

Learn How to Place an Object on a White Background 12

Go to Layer > Layer Style > Create Layer so that we can separate shadow from robot. We now have a new layer under robot layer. With shadow layer selected go to Edit > Free Transform and transform it like i did.

Learn How to Place an Object on a White Background 13

Apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur to shadow layer.

Learn How to Place an Object on a White Background 14

Update shadow layer opacity to 40% and now this tutorial is complete.


Final Image

Learn How to Place an Object on a White Background

Android Essentials: Working with Strings and String Arrays

One poor coding practice that really gets our blood boiling is when developers include raw string content inline in code. Sure, there are occasionally good reasons to do this, especially when writing debug code, but generally speaking, if your Android application relies on string content that is displayed on the screen, this data belongs in […]

{excerpt}
Read More

Daily iPhone App: DragonVale

DragonVale is the newest game from Backflip Studios, a company we’ve covered in detail here on the site before. It represents kind of a new direction for the company, too — so far, CEO Julian Farrior and his team have gone after mostly ad views, selling cheap or even free apps to lots and lots of people, and then using ads to monetize them. And Farrior has always said that he’s open to monetizing apps in all kinds of ways, so here’s another: DragonVale is Backflip’s take on the popular freemium model going around lately.

The idea is that you’re raising a farm of dragons, more or less, and all of the standard “Farmville” style rules apply: hatch dragons into habitats which earn you money, enabling you to build more dragons and habitats all the way up the chain. And DragonVale isn’t a bad example of this game — it builds up nicely, the art is colorful and fun (Backflip actually hired a former Insomniac Games artist who previously worked on the Ratchet and Clank series), and everything runs quite smoothly. If you’re a fan of the genre (or want an easy and comfortable way to see what it’s all about), DragonVale is worth checking out.

It’ll be interesting to see how this goes for Backflip as well — as I said, generally the company has depended on larger audiences to support its games, and a title like this definitely could use a big audience, but even moreso requires that dedicated group of players willing to commit a few bucks (or more) to buying the in-game currency. If this all goes well for Backflip, we might see lots more of this from them in the future.

Daily iPhone App: DragonVale originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 19 Sep 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments