In this tutorial, we’ll be putting together a variety of techniques from previous tutorials, including a 3D wireframe from our Liquid Explosion artwork tutorial, custom brushes from our Wild Effects with Custom Brushes tutorial, as well as some new techniques involving photographs, textures and fractals.  Combining techniques is one of the best ways to achieve varied and interesting results in your digital art, and it really helps with your experimentation and creative process when you can rely on a variety of techniques.

This tutorial is jam-packed with techniques and tips for you to apply, so let’s get to it!

Tools Used:

• Adobe Photoshop
• 3DS Max (not required)
• Fractal stocks, you can supplement your own

Final Image Preview:

Step 1: Background creation

Ok so to start off we need to create our document. You will need to base this off of your stock image size. I will be using a 2000*3000 size canvas, but you can use whatever you like. Once you have your document open fill it with black and create a new layer. Fill the new layer with black just as we did the first layer.

Now we need to apply a noise filter which will be the base for our stars. To do this go to “Filter”>”Noise”>”Add Noise” and set yours up as mine is in the below screen shot.

Your star field should look something like the below screenshot now.

Our next step is to edit the levels for our star field. Doing this will get rid of the grey stars and help open up some negative space so they don’t look so clustered and awful. So go ahead and press “CTRL L” on your keyboard to open up your level editor and set yours up as mine is in the below screenshot. The three triangles are in order of right to left, black level, gray level and the white level. I have moved the grey level over closer to the black level. This will result in the grays becoming whiter. The white level was then moved to closer to the grey level which means the white spots have become even whiter.

Your star field should now look something like mine in the below screenshot.

Go ahead and click the layer mask button on your layer tab, it should look like a square with a circle in the middle. Now we can apply another filter, this time one called “Difference clouds”. Basically it will render some cloud like blobs in black and white causing our stars to only be seen where the white clouds are on the layer mask. To apply this filter click “Filter”>”Render”>”Difference clouds”. Your results should look something like the below screenshot, however keep in mind that the difference cloud filter is randomly generated.



Now you can adjust the levels and play with other filters to get something that suits you. I used a small 3px hard brush with white and painted some brighter stars to go with my noise stars. The stars I painted are the same size as my noise stars so it’s just basically putting a random dot on your canvas if you wanted to do this.

Now we can create a new layer above the star layers. Once you have done that grab any brush you like (a standard 100px hard brush will work fine) and select two colors. I went with pink and blue as they work very well together. Once you have done this use this brush with these colors and draw all over the canvas as I have done in the below screenshot.

Now we can apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of 250 twice. Then set the layer opacity to 15%. Now we can repeat this step on another layer.

Now we will repeat the above process again, this time rather than leaving the layer mode as normal we will change it to screen or color dodge with an opacity ranging from 50-100% depending upon how many additional layers you create. This can be applied as many times as you like, I did mine about 2 more times and also incorporated yellow into the my two colors. Also when doing this be sure that your layers are above the previously created normal layers otherwise this will not work!

Step 2: Figure Incorporation

Alright we need to grab a stock image. You can use whatever image you like. The image I’m using is from shutterstock, you can see it in the below screenshot.

Once you have your figure it’s time to start the isolation process. Now when isolating your figure, it’s incredibly important that you get all of the background off the figure. If you fail to do this properly your image will look terrible no matter what effects you apply. So its imperative that you get this right. This is why I will not demonstrate my isolation, you need to isolate out your stock the way you are most accustomed to do. But, in case you’re curious, I used a layer mask and painted over my figure.

Next we can apply a dust and scratches filter. This is not required but it’s something I thought helped the image. By applying the dust and scratch filter it smooth’s out the skin and gives it almost a painted look. If you want to apply this filter it is located in the noise section of your filter drop down.

The filter gives a result like the screen shot below.

Step 3: Wire frame integration

Ok, so now it’s time to get some wireframes! You could, painstakingly draw out the lines yourself or you could reference a previous tutorial and change a few of the settings. So, we will be referencing. If you have not read our tutorial located at http://design.creativefan.com/create-a-stunning-3d-liquid-explosion-artwork/ then I suggest you go ahead and read up on it!

Once your figure is dropped into 3DS and you have applied a material, try to line it up with your stock image. It doesn’t have to be perfect (see below image) but as long as the basic pose is somewhat close you should be fine.

Now we have two new options. Render the scene using the scanline setting with forced wireframe turned ON or apply a new wireframe material.


I went with the force wireframe since it gives you more control over the wires themselves but you can do whatever you like.
Now just render the scene and save it as a png!
My render came out looking like the below image.

Now depending on your pose you will want to incorporate this in different ways. But below I will describe how I approached and finished the incorporation.

Start off by dropping your wireframe in and placing it so it covers the figure (size it using the free transform tool if needed). Once that is done erase everything but the shoulder/neck area.

Now that we have the shoulders dropped in we can throw some on the neck and in various other places. You can vary the opacity if you like but that’s really the only major adjustment you should have to do. Once you have finished that we can move on to our eye. The eye will become one of two epicenters or dynamic spots for the piece. To create the base for our epicenter on the eye we can drop in a section of the wireframe. I used a section of the top of the head, a piece of the nose and of course the eye. Drop in sections that you like and that fit your scene and then we can continue on, keep in mind that you may want to reduce the opacity of some of the sections so it doesn’t get too cluttered.

Step 4: Fractal implementation and coloring

Ok so now we need to head out to DA to grab two wonderful and free fractal packs. Both created by Greentunic, so much props to him for creating such a wonderful pack and allowing the community to use it.
Pack #2
http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/?q=fractal#/d1we1ib
Pack #3
http://greentunic.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d28h8ra

Once you have downloaded and extracted both packs it’s time to choose your first fractal. I went with a very nice one in pack #3 and would suggest you do the same.

Once you have opened up your fractal you can apply a quick auto color adjustment (CTRL + SHIFT + B) and place it on the eye. Set your blending mode to screen and then just erase anything you don’t like. I erased 90% of the original fractal, only leaving behind the cool hook looking shapes.

Next just grab a few of the curve like areas on the fractal and place them all over your image. I placed mine at the base of the neck and in her hair. Make sure that you don’t leave any hard edges when doing this thought!


Next we can go back to our eye and start building it up. Grab a splatter brush and drop in a few splats here and there in a color that you prefer, I went with yellow since it was so abundant on the eye and would meld well with the eye. Once you have applied the splat set this new layers opacity to 50% and the blending mode to overlay.

Next we can head over to CGtextures to grab a brush stroke. The brush stroke is located at: http://cgtextures.com/login.php?&texid=10476&destination=texview.php?id=10476&PHPSESSID=f33d4d18c63594dcdb4ca05c7dc1aef0
Once you have it go ahead and quickly make a brush out of it. If you don’t know how to do this you can reference a previous tutorial located at: http://design.creativefan.com/combining-custom-brushes-for-wild-effects-in-photoshop/

Once you have created your new brush you can apply one in blue and place it at the base of the eye. Then do it once more using yellow. Set this layer to overlay and we can continue on. Keep in mind you don’t have to use blue and yellow, you can choose whatever colors work best with your stock or colors you like the most.


Next we can another brush from a stock image at CGtextures, this time the stock link is: http://cgtextures.com/login.php?&texid=10916&destination=texview.php?id=10916&PHPSESSID=f33d4d18c63594dcdb4ca05c7dc1aef0

Once you have made a brush place it in black right underneath the eye. Then just grab a few of the far edges of the splatter to make your eyelashes for the opposite eye.

Next we can create a new layer and repeat the method we applied to color the BG to the eye in blue and yellow.
I then went on to use the 3px brush tool to paint in some details, for instance I connected the yellow fractal to the nose and painted a new eye. But these are not necessary.

Next we can create another new layer and grab our 3px brush (or larger if you like). Now you want to just to place a few random white dots where the wireframe intersects. Meaning, choose a few spots where the vertical lines hit horizontal lines and place a dot. You can do this as many times as you like but I would stay away from cluttering them together. This can (and should) be applied to the shoulder area as well as the neck.

Now we can move on to our additional coloring. To do this we will start off by choosing any color (I went with a darker blue) and painting over half of the canvas on a new layer, be sure not to cover the face though!

Next we can apply a Gaussian blur and set the layer to overlay, keep your opacity between 15-35% so it doesn’t appear oversaturated. Now we can create another new layer, use the same color and apply the effect to that side of the face. Why use two layers for this? Well really you could use one but using two allows you to control the opacity with much more ease. Say for instance at 20% opacity your BG looks great but the face is oversaturated, well this is why we use two layers!
I set my face overlays opacity to 20%.

Now do the same effect (on two layers) to the opposite side of the face using a new color. This time I went with a pinkish color, I really like the way pink and cyan complement one another, but you can use whatever color you like.

Step 5: Wireframe touchups and fractals continued

Now it’s time to start making pieces of our wireframe stand out more. To do this you could use the line tool/pen tool or the brush tool. The choice is up to you and what your more comfortable with. I went with the 3px brush as its easier for me then the pen tool. Once you have decided on your method go ahead and look at your wireframe. Look for shapes that sort of ‘pop out’, its more than likely going to look like squares or triangles. I went with the squares and lightly outlined these to make them more visible, this is exactly what you need to do. Just do it randomly all over. I started with the eye and then did the neck and shoulders.



Now go back over your shapes and brighten them up if you feel that they need to be brightened, you can use the shadows as a guideline here. Lines that are in the brighter areas of the face should obviously be much brighter then lines in the shadows. You can also add dots to your squares/triangles if you like now.

Now we can move on to the base of the neck, where I figure ends and space starts. This is where we will add in much more fractals. So open up your two packs and grab a few and start placing them around with a screen blending mode. I started off using two images from pack # 3.




Be sure to use a soft edged eraser when doing this so you don’t have any hard edges!
To finish off the neck I just added in a few more fractals with random color. Varying your color will bring a new dynamic to your piece and is something you should defiantly do.

Now we can grab a fractal from pack #2.

What you want to do here is grab a few of the glowing sparks that are not clustered. Once you have these selected with your marquee tool just copy and paste them all over your canvas. These will be the random super stars if you will. Be sure to vary their opacity as well thought!

Also double check that you have no hard edges!

Step 6: Constellation building and completion

Ok so now we can move on to our constellations. To create the constellations grab your line tool and set it up as mine is in the below screen shot.

Once you have done that create a new layer and look at your stars. Look for any random shapes and then just draw the lines using the line tool to connect these stars!

Once you have drawn the lines right click and select stroke, once the dialog appears select ‘brush’.

Be sure when doing this you have your brush set up the way you want (I used the 3px)!
Now hit ok and the lines will appear!
Repeat this process all over your BG. Be sure not to cluster them up too much though. Once you have all your constellations drown out and stroked set the layers opacity to about 45%.


And now we are done! I added in a few painted details to finish mine and you can as well or you can add anything you think would look cool for that matter. My final image looks like the below screen shot.

I hope you enjoyed reading my tutorial and wound up with an image you like! Or came out with knowing a few new tricks! If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask.
Also, if you have any ideas for future tutorials please say so!

Combining abstract 3D elements with lighting effects is a great way to achieve great visual effects.  Several major art groups have released entire exhibitions on using similar techniques, using 3D Studio Max or Cinema4D in conjunction with Photoshop and Illustrator to create spectacular effects.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a pulsar star inspired digital abstract artwork using Cinema4D and Photoshop, although these techniques are easily applicable to any 3D program.

Let’s get started, and if you have any comments or suggestions, let us know in the comments!  Also, please help share this tutorial.

Tools Used:

• Photoshop
• Cinema 4D

Final Image Preview:

Today we will be creating a piece that I got inspired by a specific type of star, called a “Pulsar Star”.

Pulsars are highly magnetized, rotating neutron stars that emit a beam of electromagnetic radiation. The radiation can only be observed when the beam of emission is pointing towards Earth. This is called the Lighthouse effect and gives rise to the pulsed nature that gives pulsars their name. Because neutron stars are very dense objects, the rotation period and thus the interval between observed pulses is very regular.

In other words, Pulsars are just drums in space each having it’s own unique beat to it. Some musicans have even recorded the beats and composed music around them. Some Pulsars can rotate about 400 times a second.

Because this interested me greatly, I decided to compose an art piece around this information and model the figure after a Pulsar.

Step 1:

We are going to start off with a black canvas, to represent the depth of space. Choose two corresponding colors which will be your bases for the rest of the piece. Take one of your Soft Brushes, and press one time in the center of the canvas with your main color. Continue to press the brush in other places for your second color, adjusting the opacity of both to match your liking.

Step 2:

Take your smaller, Hard Brushes and press with the color white to places you’d think you’d need “stars”. Later, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussain Blur and blur to even out the lightness of all of them, making sure they are not too overpowering but still visable. Set the blur setting from around 1.3-3.

Step 3:

Continue to add more stars to fill up the canvas. You may also make shiny orbs in Cinema 4D, then import and adjust lighting in Photoshop. Remember to keep everything in your focal, so the piece doesn’t look jumbled together. When your happy with where your objects are, we’ll go in depth on how you make the simple cinema objects in Maxon Cinema 4D.

Step 4:

Begin with two spheres and add a Metaball action to the two shapes, spreading them apart to form your desired shape. Add any other details like explosion if you feel its necessary.

Step 5:

Now you can add any transparent material to your sphere and adjust your lighting to your desired product.

Keep these shapes for later when we add our main focal.

Step 6:

Now, we are going to make another object in Cinema. I chose to make it a light, circle-shaped figure which will blend nicely with the rest of the figures in the piece already.

Paste evenly through the focal.

Step 7:

Take your Elliptical Marquee Tool (M), and fill circles with your two colors around your focal. Change the opacity to around 50%

Step 8:

Go back to the step in which I explained how to make the shapes, and add the objects we made in Cinema, preferably one of the main colors you have chosen, and import to Photoshop.

Line up the objects so that the final look will resemble the Pulsar Star.

Step 9:

Your going to create a layer mask attatched to your main objects, and using your Soft Brush, put your second corresponding color to the place where you plan on having your light source. Do not over do it, the last thing we want is monotone. Spread the colors out evenly, and adjust opacity. Then, take your Soft Brush again and with white, we’re going to add our lightsource. This will be in the center of the figure.

Step 10:

Keep adding to the light source by adding more brushing to the figure, and add a Brightness and Contrast adjustment layer. We’re going to set the Brightness setting to 7.

Step 11:

Take a 1 px Hard Brush, and start brushing with the white outward in two directions. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussain Blur and and set the value to 3. This is going to represent the beams that Pulsars emit when spinning.

Step 12:

We are going to simulate a light glare, so in order to do that we are going to take the Elliptical Marqueet Tool (M), go to Edit > Stroke and change the color to white, and the Width to a value of 1 px. Go change your brush size to a 1 pix soft brush. Then, take your Pentool (P) and make four lines spreading out from the inner circle. Right click > Stroke Path and change the setting to “Brush”. Once your figure looks like the one below, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussain Blur and set it to about 3.

Place it right above your light source.

Step 13:

Take your 20 px Hard brush, and the color white. We are going to use the brush around the focal evenly. Then take your Eraser, with the same sized Soft Brush and erase most of the circle until there’ a sliver left. Adjust opacity to your liking.

Step 14:

You may now add and balance the rest of your composition. I chose to add yet another object I made in Cinema, and insert it around my focal.

Make the rest of your adjustments, like another Brightness and Contrast layer. I set my Brightness setting to 36.

Step 15:

We want to add more details to our piece so first up we’re going to create different shapes and going to arrange them around the focal. These layers are going to be set to Softlight.

Step 16:

Take you Pentool (P) and go around your piece with white and set the layer once again to Softlight.

Step 17:

Now we’re going to Click-Ctrl + Alt + Sift + E and it will automatically paste visible. Go to Filter > Distort > Twirl and set the opacity to a number where it’s still visable, but not overpowering.

Step 18:

We’re going to add more shapes and stars I talked about in earlier steps and add them in the negative spaces of the piece to even it out.

Step 19:

Let’s add another adjustment layer which will be a Brightness and Contrast layer and set it to 31.

Step 20:

Finally, we’re going to resize the piece to your desired size, and Click-Ctrl + Alt + Sift + E and it will automatically paste visible. Go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen and make the setting around 23, and your finished!

Geometric shapes have a natural affinity in design and can play very well off of each other as well as a main subject for the composition.  The familiarity of the human mind with various geometric shapes and the natural mathematical order that is inherent in geometry can make your designs more appealing.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create some geometry-based brushes and then apply them for a creative Nike shoe design.  You’ll see how to incorporate geometry into your own designs, and with these brush creation techniques, you’ll be able to create nearly any geometric-based design you desire.

Let’s get started!

Tools used:

• Adobe Photoshop
• A single stock image
• Geometric brushes

Final Image Preview:

Step 1: Document creation and setup

To start off we will need to create a new document. I went with a document size of 1000*1400 but you can use whatever you like.
Once your document has been created its time to create a background; choose two or 3 blues and make a quick gradient similar to mine below.

Now we can drop in our stock. Our Nike stock image is located at: http://www.exitrealworld.com/tools_v2/resources/9e55471ba84686ade677ffe595c45992/upload_images/Nike_Dunk_low_Blue_pink.png

The stock is actually a PNG with a transparent background, so all you need to do is save it and then open it in Photoshop! No isolation required! Once its dropped into your document just size and place it as I have done in the below screenshot.

Step 2: Beginning manipulation

So to start off we will go to the Layer drop down menu and go to Adjustment layers > Photo filters, once you have clicked this a new dialog box should appear with a few presets we can choose from as well as the opacity or Density of the layer. We will click the drop down menu and choose Cooling filter (82) with a density of 37%.


Next we can create a new hue and saturation layer. To do this select Layers>Adjustment layers>Hue and saturation, once you have done this just set yours up as mine is in the below screen shot.

Now set this layer as an overlay layer with an opacity of about 30-40%. This will increase the brightness of the whites as well as darkening the blues. However we don’t want it to apply to the entire image! So enable your brush tool and brush over the areas highlighted below to achieve the proper result.

Step 3: Geometric brush creation

Now its time to start creating our brushes which will be the foundation of the entire piece. So go ahead and create a new document (any size will do). Once you have created your new document use your circular marquee tool (while holding shift) to make a perfect sphere.

Once you have created your marquee right click inside of the marquee and select stroke.

A dialog will arise asking you about color, orientation and size just use the default settings and click ok.


Now hide this layer and we can continue on. Now we will do this again, but we will make a larger circle and set our stroke size to 3px.


Now we can hide this layer as well. Our next shape will be the square, again holding shift make a perfect square. Next right click and select fill, use the default settings and press ok.

If you like, you can make some other shapes (triangles and other polygons). For instance you can make a triangle rather quickly with the pen tool as seen below. Once you have created the shape you can right click and select fill or stroke just as we did with the marquee tool.

What you need to do now, is create about 15 circles/squares etc… and then we can start creating brushes for our pieces.
To create your brushes you will need to have a white canvas, with a black shape.

Next what you need to do is create a marquee selection around the shape. Once that is done you need to click Edit>Define brush preset.



Once you are satisfied with all of your brushes there is one more thing you will need and that is a sphere. I created my sphere by just making a sphere in 3DS and rendering it, however if you do not have any 3D software you can use the sphereize tool, use Illustrator or download one from a site such as deviantART.

Step 4: Incorporating our new creations

To start off we can place a few of our blue spheres all around the canvas at different sizes. Once that is done you can blur each one individually, the smaller the sphere the less the blur and vice versa. I blurred the largest spheres with a radius of 6.

Once you have done that create a new layer (set to overlay at about 15%) and throw down some of your shapes. I threw down a few circle stoke brushes (some blurred slightly and some not) and a few squares tilted so they appear like diamonds.


Continue with this until your satisfied with the way the background looks as of now. Next we can create a new layer at 100% and throw down a few more brushes. I used triangles and spheres for this but like the last step, you can use whatever you like.

Now we can start placing some larger circles on a new layer. You can (and I suggest you do) vary the opacity to create a bit of variety.



Now just continue on! Vary your size and opacity as much as possible to help the variance. At this time you can also add in slight pieces of red; adding red will help to make the piece a little more balanced which is obviously a good thing. Also vary it up, it’s a good idea to throw done some simple lines to connect the spheres and circle brushes, things like this will make the image much more intresting!



Now, if you haven’t already, you can start adding in some small dots where you circles meet.

Continue adding in spheres until you are satisfied with the result.

Step 5: Logo creation

Next we need to create a new brush. So create a new canvas and then a new circle; this circle will be filled with black rather than being stroked.

Next use your marquee tool to create a smaller circle inside of this circle.

Now we need to fill it with a low opacity white. Set your fill settings as mine are in the below screenshot.


Turn this into a brush and we can continue on to the fun part!
Now use your brush to draw out the shape of the “swoosh”. It may be in your best interest to use the Nike logo, you can trace this out using your brush if it helps for you. A logo can be found at the below link http://www.logoinn.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Nike-Logo.jpg This process can be extremely time consuming but is very worthwhile. When doing this its best to vary the size of your brush as much as possible.


Once you have finished you “swoosh” you can duplicate the layer, invert it, apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of about 4 and then finally move it lower just a tad. This will create a darker blue shadow.

Now just do the same thing with the Nike text. This time I used the line tool to block in the letters a tad because I didn’t like the way it looked, but if you like yours, leave it as is!


My canvas now looks like the below screenshot.

The image is now complete! But if you want you can throw down a few more things, for instance I used the line tool and put some very small lines on the sides but you don’t have to.


My final image is displayed below.

I hope you enjoyed reading my tutorial and learned a thing or two! Or at least came out with an image you liked. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask!

Custom brushes can be an incredibly powerful way to add a touch of originality to your work.  By photographing or otherwise capturing given effects such as splatters, drips and watercolor textures, you can easily create your own custom brushes in Photoshop, and apply them to your own work right away to make it stand out.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create some custom brushes based on scans of different types, and then you’ll instantly put them to use to come up with a wild finished result.  You’ll see how simple custom brushes can make all the difference, and you’ll learn some great tips on how to get the best results.

Let’s get started.

Tools Used:

• Adobe Photoshop
• A scanner (not required but preferred)
• Stock Images

Final Image Preview:

Step 1: Document setup

We will start this pressing ‘CTRL N’ on your keyboard; this will bring up the new document dialog box. We will use this to setup the width and height for our new document. We will now set our document as 2000*3000 which is a great ratio for a piece like this. This is especially a good thing because once we are done we can size our document down to 800*1200 without any cropping.

Once our document is up we will head over to Deviant Art to grab a texture for our background. Since we are trying to create something between illustration and photo manipulation we will use a background that looks like a traditional texture. So go to http://bashcorpo.deviantart.com/art/Grungy-paper-texture-v-6-37649221 and copy the image and paste it into our document. If you have a texture you have made, found or purchased that you liked more than the above texture then by all means use it, I will be using one I made. Once you paste it into Photoshop make sure the top hits the top of the document and the sides are matching. Your document should look similar to mine below.

As you can see our background doesn’t fit all the way, there’s a big gap at the bottom. We can fix this with the clone stamp tool. The clone stamp tool simply grabs sections of an image and duplicates it where you tell it to. So press ‘S’ on your keyboard to select the clone stamp tool and right click on the document to bring up the brush settings as we have done before. We will be using a similar brush as before this time just a little bit smaller. Make sure you have your hardness set to 0%, this is very important otherwise your duplicated pieces will not blend together due to their hard edges.

Now holding the ‘ALT’ key on your keyboard click on the document around three quarters of the way up and all the way to the left; this is where we will be duplicating from, so any where we click it will duplicate from this area. However once you click the selection we will be copying from will move; this is very good since we don’t want to duplicate the same section over and over again. Once you have held the ‘ALT’ key and clicked we can now go to the left side of the white space and click and drag to the right. If you’re new to the clone stamp tool it might help to press ‘CTRL SHIFT N’ to create a new layer once you have selected your start point. That way anything you stamp can easily be done by deleting the layer.

Once you have dragged the mouse to the right you might need to grab a few more locations to just make sure everything blends well. Once you are satisfied with the end result yours should look similar to mine. Make sure you have copied over all of the white on the canvas before you continue though!

Now this should be fine for your document, but remember if you have one you like more then use it! I’m using a personal stock that looks like the below.

Step 2: Custom brush creation.

Alright so we will start off by creating our own custom brushes to use, if you have your own or a set you downloaded go ahead and use those; if not head ever to http://www.sxc.hu and grab this splatter: http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=download&id=524477 Do note that to download the stock images from Sxc you will need an account. They are free so if you don’t have one go ahead and set it up so you can follow along. Once you have downloaded or copied the image open up Photoshop and create a new document. Set the size for this new document to 4500*4500 as I have in the below screen shot.

Now this is one big document, but that’s ok, we will be working with different stocks at different resolutions so it’s nice to have some breathing room. Once you have created the document press ‘CRTL V’ on your keyboard, this will paste the image we have copied into our document. If you did not copy the image, just go to the file tab and find where you saved it at and drag it into our document.

Once the image is in our new document we can start isolating it so we can make a brush out of it. Since the background is white we don’t really have to isolate the image much at all. This will be more of less a cleanup procedure so we won’t have any issues using the brush later on in the image. Start off by pressing ‘M’ on your keyboard; this will equip the marquee tool. Be sure your marquee tool is set to the rectangle marquee and has no feather. Once you have the marquee tool set up properly we will grab the outer edges of our layer as I have, we don’t want any hard edges in the final image or any strange cut offs. Now that it is selected we can just press ‘DEL’ on the keyboard to clear this selection and move on to the next step!

Now press ‘CTRL SHIFT D’ to deselect the selection if it’s still up. Once that is done you can press ‘CTRL L’ on your keyboard, this will bring up the manual level editor. We will not be using the auto level tool for this because we want to keep the majority of the splat semi transparent. Using the auto leveler might cause the grays in our image to become absolute black which would not be good. So with your level editor up slide the middle triangle way over to the black triangle, not all the way though you want to stop at about ’1.44?. This will cause our image to become much brighter which is fine; it will also help if there are any strange grays around the edges that we cannot see to become pure white. And as I said before, we don’t want any strange edges.

Once you have hit the ok button we will start the final process. That is to remove any last remaining unwanted splats or grey lines that might linger around in the stock image. We will do this by pressing ‘E’ on our keyboard to bring out the eraser tool. Now right click on the screen and a new dialog box should appear; this dialog box will be how we adjust the settings for our eraser brush. Set your brush up as mine is below, don’t be to concerned about the size of the brush the document and image are both huge. Once your brush is set up as mine you can set the opacity to around 45% and eraser along the outer edges of the layer. Try not to erase anything to far to the center of the image, we just want to clean up the image, not destroy it!

We will now grab the marquee tool once again, which is ‘M’ on your keyboard. This time we will select everything we want to become our brush. Remember that everything that is white will become transparent and all that is black will be our brush. With all of that selected press ‘CTRL SHIFT U’, this will desaturate our selection so that our brush becomes black and white.

Go up to the edit tab, located between the file and image tabs, and select define brush preset. By clicking the define brush preset button we will be creating our brush. Everything that is black will be 100% opacity on our final brush, the grays will be around 50% opacity and the whites will not exist. The dialog should look something like mine does, once it comes up type in the name for your new brush and select ok.

Now you can browse through your brush dialog and see that your brush is ready to use!
Before we get all excited there are more brushes to be made. So we will go back to Sxc and grab this image: http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=download&id=277806 We will paste it into the document the same way we did with the other stock image. However this time since the white is so much brighter and there are no strange outlines our isolation will be much simpler.

We will press ‘CTRL SHIFT U’ the same way we did before just to make sure everything is black and white. Once that is done we will press ‘CTRL T’ this will bring up our free transform tool. Since the image is much larger than the previous stock image it must be sized down before Photoshop will allow us to define it as a brush. Once the free transform tool comes up select the chain link in between the width and height settings so that we do not skew our stock. Now we will just change the size settings as I have in the below screen shot.

Now that our stock has been sized down we can grab the marquee tool one last time by pressing ‘M’ on your keyboard. This time we will make a very tight selection, keeping the dashed lines as close to the stock as we can get them, this will ensure that our brush does not exceed the size limitations (2500px).

Once the selection has been made we will go back to the edit tab and define our selection as a brush preset.
If you really want to create a completely opaque brush you can just duplicate the splat layer twice and set both of the new duplicated layers as a multiply at 100%. This should make the image completely black.

Now we will just repeat this process many times over. If you don’t have a scanner I have provided links to images on Sxc that you can use the same way we have in the above steps. If you do have a scanner you can just throw some paint, ink, finger nail polish, dye or really anything that will dry and look the same way our stocks have. Once you have splatterd or brushed your chosen liquid onto the paper just wait for it to dry, scan it and manipulate it to create a brush the same way we have in the previous steps.
If you are without a scanner here is a large list of stocks, if you don’t want to fool with all of that there are plenty of splatter and brush stroke brush packs around on the net just go looking!
Stocks:

• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1083404
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/277790
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/626005
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/524461
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/524460
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/524478
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1192353
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/902891
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/826501
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1079392
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1058438
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/615813
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/826508
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/826507
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/886378
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/193172
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/277771
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/906249
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/277759
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/331123
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/277805

So by now you should have quite a bit of brushes. However you may want more. So go looking for stocks! Look on google images, stocks sites etc… the more you have the better your images will appear. Also if I was not clear, if you have a scanner spat some ink on some paper, scan it in and isolate it the same way we did the above stocks.

Step 3: Stock selection and manipulation

Stock selection for a piece such as this is very important. However you do have a wide variety of stock types you could choose from. Below is a list of tips you should keep in mind when looking for yours, also if your having trouble deciding you can always check out my gallery (www.soad2k.deviantart.com) I have quite a few pieces in this style.

• Size, go big. The bigger the stock the easier it will be later on when creating the crops and deciding where to start.
• Choose one that looks good! It’s a very popular trend to use a beautiful woman for this style of manipulation but you don’t have to! Just make sure your stock looks good!
• If you are not going to create a monotone piece like we are here then make sure you choose one with clear vibrant colors.
• Choose a image with a nice amount of contrast.
• Most importantly just choose a good stock image!

The below screen shot is the stock image I will be using.

Now that you have a stock image just follow along as I show you how I create the final image. From now on I will continue on as if you are using the same stock image I’m using, just to make things a bit easier.

So to start off we need to make a layer mask and then fill in the area of the face. You can use the pen tool for this or the brush tool. The way I did it was to apply a layer mask and then with a 3px small brush I drew in black on the mask to cover the face. Once the face was covered I just inverted the mask and ta da! I would suggest that you do this the same way or use the pen tool if your better with it.

As of now my canvas looks like the below screen shot.


Once you have isolated out your face so that only it is visible we can continue on to the brush work.
So this image is created by using a white brush on a layer mask. This means that everything that is white will become visible on the final image. This is why the transparency of your brushes is very important. But its also very important to keep in mind that if you ever mess up you can switch your color to black and use your splatter brushes as erasers. Also keep in mind that patience is the key here! Take your time.
So to start off you want to use any splatter brush you like and just lay down about 2 or 3 brushes coming off of one side of the face.

If your brushes are more opaque then you want (they should be about 70%) then just turn the opacity down to match what you are looking for. Also keep in mind that you don’t need to just throw spat brushes around you need to make them blend into your stock image and create a flow of sorts. Just have patience with the process and you shall be rewarded!
Next we just need attack the other side of the figures head. The below screen shot is what my image looks like as of now.

Now we need to create a new layer underneath the stock image. Once you have done this we need to grab one of our brushes and apply it underneath the head to create an abstract hair like effect. I applied 2 or 3 brushes to achieve the effect I wanted. The below screenshots are what my image looks like as of now.


Now our tutorial will take a change of sorts. The following screenshots will show the process of creating the flowing and dripping effect. I have found a stock that is extremely similar to the dripping lines that I used. To use this stock apply the layer as a multiply.



The stock can be found here : http://cgtextures.com/login.php?&texid=10302&destination=texview.php?id=10302&PHPSESSID=66254d7f423b0658bb4b2d23649b4ead

My canvas now looks like the below screenshot.

Now we need to create a layer above the stock image. Once you have done this grab one of your brushes and throw it down so it appears as if its black tears as I have done in the below screen shot.

Next, while on this layer we need to enable the standard 3px hard brush.

With this brush enabled just darken the area around the eye lightly. The trick here is to really darken the eye area while still keeping it realistic.

Now we can move over to the other eye.

I also took the opportunity to darken the lips with the 3px brush at this time. As well as to add a few more small details in the splats themselves.

My image now looks like the below screenshot.

Well we are done! My final image is displayed below. There’s more you could add, some small details here and there but for the most part we are finished with our tutorial! I hope you learned a bit about how this style of picture is made and have either came out with some new brushes you like, learned something or at least got an image you like. If you have any questions regarding this don’t hesitate to ask! Thanks for reading!

Sharpening images is one of the most fundamental elements of graphic design; however a lot of people struggle with this key process in their designs.  Without proper sharpening, an image can look flat, dull and uninteresting, but if oversharpened, artifacts and grains will be introduced that will detract from the design.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn what a sharp image should look like and the many ways of sharpening one of your designs to achieve the maximum visual appeal.

Let’s get started.

What is a sharp image? Well below are two screen shots of one of my older pieces. The first image is the sharpened version while the second one is the unsharpened version. See if you can spot the key differences.

The first thing you would notice is the first image, when compared to the second, seems very blurry. The second image has crisp details, strong bold edges and sharper well… everything. While the first images edges are flat and dull, they seem to smudge into one another.

What is too sharp?
There is no real standard for over sharpening but I think we can all agree that any time a image has any noise like artifacts due to sharpening its been over sharpened.

So how do you sharpen an image? Well there’s a ton of ways actually but first we need to discuss what to sharpen!

In the above images I have made some circles in red and blue to show what areas will take to sharpening and what areas will potentionally suffer. The blue areas like the background and skin are all very easy to sharpen. They have a tendency to take much more sharpening then other parts of an image. The red spots however are your trouble spots. They look wonderful sharpened but just a tad too much and they will get grainy in a second. Examples of other red spots to spot in your images would include:

• Any geometric pattern that’s tightly knit
• Scan lines
• Star fields
• Grass
• Hair
• Feathers
• Splatters
• Patterns
• Text
• Etc…

For example the below scan lines brush is over sharpened.

Whilst blue areas would be:

• Skin and other ‘Flat’ areas
• Water
• Gradient
• Dull textures
• Thick lines
• Or any other areas that has minimal disruption and appears as I stated above, ‘Flat’.

So as you can see 90% of our designs feature areas that could be sharpened more so than others. Or areas that are too sharp whilst other areas are under sharpened. How do we address this issue? By properly sharpening!

So how do we effectively sharpen our images? There are numerous ways such as the sharpen filter, high pass filter etc… But now it’s time we discuss each process and which ones best for you. Let’s start with the sharpen filter. The sharpen filter is great for some images, but for images that have a variety of different shapes/textures and designs in them then it might not work as well as some of our other options. Take for instance the below image. It is our unsharpened image from before, with a scan line on it and 2 sharpen filters applied. Take note of our red and blue areas from earlier and how they look now.

Without the scan line the image itself would be fine. But my point is, it won’t always be fine, there will be instances when you have something in your design such as the above scan line. So what should you do? Well we will discuss that later on.

Next up is the sharpen more filter; we will not discuss much about it since the name says it all. However it’s usually about 2 and a half sharpen filters. I have yet to use it and I doubt I ever will.

Now we can discuss the sharpen edges filter.

This is another filter that I have not found a use for as of yet. What does it do? Well it sharpens the edges! But why would you want just the edges of your design sharpened? I haven’t a clue, this filter like the last, is a filter you should just over look when sharpening your images.

Now let’s discuss the unsharpen mask. This tool is a tad bit more complex that then last few and has more uses! However with its increase in uses comes the decline in flexibility.

This filter consists of 3 slides. The first one is the most important it’s your amount setting. This is the % of sharpening your image will receive. The next setting is radius, this setting is a little bit odd. If increased the sharpness % goes down and it applies an overlay like effect. This could be very useful in some scenes but it seems far too limited. The last slide is the threshold slide I have tried to figure out what its purpose is but I cannot, from what I can tell it decreases the sharpness when the threshold level is increased. Which seems somewhat pointless when you already have an amount %. An example of the outcome is shown below.

This has potential but what if you had a large number of red sections (see above) and very little blue areas? By the time the blue areas are sharpened the red areas will be destroyed!

Our next sharpen technique is one of my favorites. It’s the high pass filter. The high pass filter is often used to create HDRI like effects; however one of the key elements in a HDRI image is sharp details!

So how do you use it? When you apply a high pass filter your only setting is “Radius” now the more you increase this the less defined the result will be. Higher radius are used to create the moody color tones in HDRI images. We will use a lower setting like the above to create just the amount of detail we want. Next we need to fade the result, I choose a soft light blending mode because it affects the outcome the least. Once this is done you apply your favorite sharpening method, I chose to apply a sharpen filter followed by manually sharpening the image. An example of the outcome is below, but keep in mind you don’t have to fade this; you could duplicate your image, apply the effect, set the blending mode on the layer and then merge it.

Finally we are left with the best choice and the choice I always use. Manually sharpening gives you the same bang for your buck that the filters do but provides flexibility that the others just don’t have. How to use it? Well it’s easy; it’s just like a normal brush. My set up is as follows.

If you have a tablet now is the time to use it! The set up I have above applies more sharpen % based off how hard you press with the pen but if you don’t have a pen this is no problem. Why the low %? well the sharpen tool works like the burn tool and dodge tool; meaning the longer you leave it over one area without releasing the mouse button the sharper it becomes. I prefer the larger feathered brush because this way we aren’t applying a sharpen to one set area, we are slowly and methodically applying the sharpen to the entire image. This way, if you take your time and carefully sharpen the red areas and then move to the blues you could have a perfectly sharpened image in no time!

But let’s say you sharpened your image and now it’s time to submit it or present it to the world and you need to size it down. What will happen? Well it’s safe to say that the image will not retain its sharpness, but if you play with the image interpolation algorithms this may not be the case!

Photoshop offers 5 different ways of sizing your images up and down. Bicubic is the most common because it’s the most effective. It works by selecting a pixel and then referencing it to all of the pixels that are on its sides, and since a pixel is a square this means it references all the pixels on all four sides of the pixel. Photoshop offers 3 Bicubic settings they are:

Standard Bicubic – just a standard size down
Bicubic smoother – Its sizes the image down and tries to smooth the pixels down to prevent any artifacts
Bicubic sharpener – This method does the opposite of the above, it sharpens the images pixels as it sizes them

What’s left?
Bilinear – This method is very similar to Bicubic except for the fact that it rather than addressing all of the side’s of a pixel it only address the pixels to the left and right of a corresponding pixel.

Nearest neighbor – It addresses the closest pixel to the original pixel and should only be used when enlarging an image. When used to shrink an image it will appear over sharpened.

So what does all of this mean? Well not much to the average designer such as you or me. My recommendation for large scale images that need to be sized down for easier viewing? And what method should you use to sharpen an image? Sharpen your image manually and then size it down using the Bicubic algorithm. Once that is done re-sharpen it manually. It’s the best way to sharpen an image.

I hope after reading this that you will take it upon yourself to look at the way you sharpen your images. Do they look sharp enough? Could certain areas be sharper? And in turn, I hope you find a way to sharpen your images to your liking; providing you with a crisp image every time. Have any questions or suggestions? Drop a comment and I’ll be happy to help!

A little while back, when CG.CreativeFan had just launched, we published a tutorial about modeling, texturing and rendering an iMac in Cinema4D that would be the basis for a product advertisement tutorial in the future.  Well, the wait is over, as here is the promised tutorial.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to take a 3D render of an iMac, and composite it into a scene.  You’ll then learn how to take a variety of 3D abstract elements, textures and images to create an incredible advertisement.  You’ll learn about composition, color usage and the use of abstract elements in design.

Hi everyone!  First of all, thanks for reading this tutorial and I hope you can learn something, not only how to create an artwork like this, but also to use in other artworks. During this tutorial I will explain some tips and effects that I think fit very well with any style. =)  You will learn how to create a high quality fictitious advertising with some cool effects and many details!  I think it’s an easy tutorial, but you need some understanding of composition, color and of course, good taste! So, let’s start!

Tools Used

• Photoshop
• iMac Render from CG.CreativeFan tutorial: http://cg.creativefan.com/model-texture-and-render-an-imac-in-cinema4d/

Resources

• 3D Renders – iMac, Spheres, Particles… (by K3nzuS) http://k3nzus.deviantart.com/art/Some-Stuff-2-169562709?q=1&qo=1
• Carbon Pattern (DeviantART) http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&global=1&q=carbon+pattern
• Texture – Old Paper (DevianART) http://ofruin-stock.deviantart.com/art/Old-paper-33-stock-72496013?q=boost%3Apopular+old+paper&qo=9
• Splatter / Paint Tossing (Media Militia) http://mediamilitia.com/paint-tossing/

Final Image Preview

Create a new document on Photoshop and set the size that you prefer, for this job I used 800 x 1200 pixels, 72dpi and 8bits/channel, because I did this artwork just for viewing on the Internet.
So, add a Linear Gradient with the following settings:

Add an Old Paper Texture, desaturate it (Shift + Ctrl + I) and change the blend mode to Multiply and Opacity: 30-50%.

After that, change the Levels settings to something like the following image. So, the texture will become softer.

Add your iMac render (you can use the render that you did, or if you prefer, you can download my render pack). I placed one big render in the middle and smaller ones around, forming a triangle, because the composition fits better.

So, we will do some adjustments on the renders. Select a Soft Round Brush, Opacity: 10-20% and start doing some clicks on the corners. Try some blend modes like Normal, Soft Light and Overlay, you can obtain some interesting results.

Here are more examples:

Now, we will make the shadow of the main iMac. Create a white circle shape (this is the “spot light” that illuminates the floor) and go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and choose Radius: 2-3 pixels.

Create a black circle shape, smaller than the first one (this is the twilight/soft shadow) and go to Gaussian Blur again.

Create another black circle shape, smaller than the others and go to Gaussian Blur, but now, choose the Radius: 1-2 pixels.

Now, we will add some abstracts in our scene. Select these “aqua renders” and place them behind the iMac renders. To fit better and improve the composition, try to rotate and resize these renders.

Instead of using only purple renders, you can use white ones too. Copy some of them and desaturate (Shift + Ctrl + U). After that, add a Levels layer and change its settings to something like the image. And you can obtain a result like this:

Now, select these “black spheres” and add them in your artwork. And again, change its color to something more interesting. Create a new layer, fill it with pink or purple and create a Clipping Mask (Ctrl + Alt + G). So, change the blend mode to Screen.

After that, select these “green abstracts”, desaturate it and add a Levels layer with this config:

So, you will obtain something like this:

And again, to improve the composition, rotate and resize these renders. Here are some examples:

Follow this same sequence with these “spirals”:
Desaturate > Create a clipping mask > Change the blend mode to Screen.

Now, select the Brush Tool and choose a Hard Round Brush, Opacity: 15-25%. The size, choose according the composition. Here are some colors that I think fit very well.

It’s pretty hard to see, but here are some examples. Ranging in size and color, you can get something like this:

Now, select those “green abstracts” again (after that treatment) and change the Opacity: 10-15%. So, place them behind the iMac renders. You can use this effect too with those “black spheres”.

After that, we will do some pen lines. First, select the Brush Tool and choose a Hard Round Brush with Size: 1 pixel and Opacity: 100%. So, select the Pen Tool and clink on the second icon “Paths” like the image:

Then, make a curve, click with the right button and choose Stroke Path option. On the Stroke Path window, choose Brush and click Ok. And now, you have a cool line which fits very well with the composition. Moreover, this type of line is used to join separate elements.

Here are more examples:

Create more white lines and go to the Blending Options properties. Go to the Stroke tab and change its settings like the following image.

So, a neon light will be created. Here is an example:

Now, select these “particles”, desaturate them and change the Opacity: 40%. Place them behind the iMac renders.

After that, select some of these “splatter/paint tossing” images.

Place them behind the other elements and change the Blend Mode to Screen or Overlay.

Here are more examples:

Create a new layer and fill it with any color. Go to the Blending Options properties. On the Pattern Overlay tab, select one carbon fiber pattern.

Place it behind the iMac like a floor. Then, create a new layer, select both and merge them (Ctrl + E).

Now, you can erase some parts, like an infinite floor. And change the Blend Mode to Soft Light and Opacity: 60%.

And finally, we will do the typography. In this case I chose Arial Rounded, 25pt, Crisp. Go to the Blending Options and on the Stroke tab change some values.

Choose a cool slogan that fits with the image and place the Apple logo.

So, I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and learned something. I also hope to do more tutorials of my work and thanks for reading! =)

Alcohol is one of the most commonly advertised products on the planet.  During major sporting events such as the Superbowl, the World Cup and the Olympics, companies spend millions on TV advertisements, and also product advertisements in banner and billboard format at the sporting venue itself.  However, because alcohol is a liquid, it can be very difficult to design around since liquid stock images require significant more attention during isolation and blending in order to appear realistic.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a vibrant, colorful alcoholic product advertisement in Adobe Photoshop, using some easy techniques and quality stock images.  You’ll learn how to deal with liquid stock images, how to take a brand image and create elements to match, and how to work with colors and composition for a brilliant result.

As a disclaimer, this tutorial is in no way an endorsement of Kai Vodka, or any other alcoholic beverage brand, and the product is used merely in an illustrative fashion.

Tools Used

• Adobe Photoshop

Final Image Preview

To start off you will need to create a new Photoshop document and set the dimensions up as mine are in the below screenshot.  To create a new document simply press ‘CTRL N’ on your keyboard or go to the file tab and select new.

Next we can head over and grab our liquor bottle stock; for this quick manipulation we will be using a shot of a Kai vodka bottle. Our stock can be found here : http://intoxicologist.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/kai-vodka-bottle-shot-dark.jpg

Once you have the stock just drop it into your new document; once its in your new document just simply move the stock around until its in the center of your canvas. The move tool is the ‘V’ key on your keyboard.

Next we will be adding in some color to our bottle. To add in the color we need to make a new layer which is ‘CTRL SHIFT N’ on your keyboard, so that we don’t mess up our stock.  Once your new layer has been created we can grab the brush tool by pressing ‘B’ on your keyboard and right click. Once you right click a brush settings dialog should open; set your brush up as mine is in the below screenshot.

Now that our brush is set up we can go ahead and draw on top of our bottle. You don’t need to make any major shapes or anything just follow the outside lines of the bottle. And remember to stick mainly to red with a few quick dabs of yellow and orange. My brush layer looks like the below screenshot :

Now we can apply a Gaussian blur to feather everything up nicely, it will also help to blend the orange and yellow blobs to the red. So once you are satisfied with your doodles go to your filter drop down, select blur and finally Gaussian blur. Once you have done this we can apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of about 55-59.

After you apply your Gaussian blur your image should appear feathered and the blobs should have almost a gradient quality about them. Don’t worry if the blobs go off the sides of the bottle since our layer styles wont affect pure black. My Gaussian blurred result came out looking like the below screenshot.

Now we can set this layers blending mode to color at 100%. This should add some color to the midtones of our bottle, do note that this will not color the 1005 whites in the scene though. Once I applied the Gaussian blur and changed the layer style my result came out looking like the below screenshot.

And now we can duplicate this layer and set the duplicates blending mode as ‘Soft Light’. This should create a stronger contrast between your hues and help the over all saturation of the color. My result came out looking like the below screenshot.

Now if you like the way your bottle looks you can stop here, however I didn’t so I went ahead and duplicated these layers and moved them around to the other side of the bottle like in the below screenshot. To enable the move tool just simply press ‘V’ on your keyboard and then click and drag the layer of your choosing.

Now we need to start adding in some water splashes to give it a more dynamic feel. So we can head over to Sxc.hu and get this stock http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=download&id=1180590

Once you have copied this stock into your canvas we need to desaturate and auto level the stock. To do this press ‘CTRL SHIFT U’ followed by ’CTRL SHIFT L’ on your keyboard. This will turn our image into a black and white image and then adjust the levels automatically (the white %,black % and midtone %).

Now we can set this layers blending mode to screen. This will cause only the white and greys in the image to become visible, everything that was once black will now be invisible.

Now we need to move the stock (the move tool is ‘V’ on your keyboard) so that it appears as if the splash on the far right hand side is wrapping around our bottle. Once you have that done your canvas should look similar to mine in the below screenshot.

Now we need to clean our stock up. So go ahead and press ‘E’ on your keyboard to enable the eraser tool. Once you have enabled the eraser tool we need to right click on the canvas and set our brush up as  we did previously with the brush tool. However this time we will be creating a large semi hard brush like the below screenshot.

Now just erase everything on the left hand side of the bottle as well as everything beneath the bottle leaving nothing but the far right splash.

Now we can add some color to our water by pressing ‘CTRL U’ on our keyboards this will bring up the hue editor.With the hue editor open we can set up the hue editor like it is in the below screenshot.

Your canvas should now look something like mine in the below screenshot.

Now we need to add something to the document to fill it up some; I will be using a martini glass. I got my martini glass off of iStock (hence it’s not provided here), however you can find them easily all over the web, primarily sxc.hu, deviantart.com and Google images.

Since my martini was shot with a black background I can just drag it into my document and set it up as a screen like we did with the water layer. However if your martini glass (or whatever you choose to use) Is not on a black back drop you can simply use the magic wand tool and a layer mask to remove all of the white.

Now you need to add more splashes to your bottle and background.  I have compiled a small list of splash stocks that you can use to finish your ad below. This time however vary your hue setup to create some nice color contrasts.

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/884261

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1042507

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1042509

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1104884

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1131843

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1104885

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/706828

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/660705

My splash progression is shown below in the following screenshots:

This step is essential to creating an atmosphere for your piece as well as setting the tone for the final piece. I choose to create the bulk of mine in red/blue and pink. But you can choose any color combos you like for this as long as they don’t cause to much contrast amongst one another.

Next we will add a cherry; you can find the cherry stock at: http://files.wla.org/igs/wale/conf07/Picts/Cherry.jpg

Once you have dropped the stock into your document just go ahead and press ‘W’ on your keyboard to enable the magic wand tool. With the magic wand tool enabled just click the white that surrounds the cherry and press delete on your keyboard. This should remove all the white that surrounds your cherry, however if it does not then just grab your eraser tool (which is ‘E’ on your keyboard) and clear out any remnants that were left.

Now that your cherry is isolated we can go ahead and duplicate this layer and set its blending mode as ‘Overlay’. This will make our blacks darker, add contrast and just enhance the lighting over all for our cherry.

Now just free transform your cherry (to enable the free transform tool press ‘CTRL T’ on your keyboard) to a appropriate size and place it!  I think its best to place your cherry about halfway down in your layer stack. This way it will be beneath some of your splashes but not all of them, thus creating a sense of depth and this will add to the illusion that the berry is flying in the water.

Once you decide on placement and you have sized it down, we can apply a drop shadow. To apply a drop shadow click the small ‘F’ on your layer platelet. Once you have clicked the small F, simply click drop shadow and set yours up as mine is in the below screenshot.

Now we can duplicate this layer and move the newly created cherries around on our canvas. Again I tried to keep some of mine in the water and others out of the water for this.

Next we will head over to SXC once again, this time however we will be grabbing some chile stocks. You can find the chile stocks at : http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=download&id=1002105

Once you have grabbed the chile stocks grab them and paste them into your canvas the same way we did all of the other stocks.

Now that its in our document we can go ahead and isolate these the same way we isolated our cherries. We will also place a chile (or more if you like) in the exact same way. My result came out looking like the below screenshot.

Next we will head out and grab a strawberry and repeat the isolation/placement technique from the last few stocks. Our strawberry stock can be found at http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/strawberry.jpg

And finally for the last bit of stock we will head out yet again but this time we will grab a paper lantern stock. Our paper lantern stock can be found at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Paper_lantern.jpg

Isolation for the paper lantern stock is essentially the same as before, however this time it will be more complex; In my version I removed the caps to my lantern to make things look better and to ease my workflow, but this is not required.

Once you have the lantern isolated you can duplicate it a few times and make a row as if the were hanging horizontally/vertically or you can just use one and leave it as is. I decided to duplicate mine twice and draw a thin white line (I used the standard 3px brush for this) connecting all of them, I then just placed them like all of our other stocks to finish off this piece.

My result came out looking like the below screenshot, but if yours looks different it is no big deal as long as you had fun and learned a thing or two!  Also just because I’m happy with the way the image looks now dosen’t mean you will be, if you want you can add in much much more to this to create a more dynamic and full ad, remember with a piece like this or any piece really experimenting is the key to creating unique results!

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Abstract artworks often combine renders, stock photos and simple techniques in Photoshop to create professional results.  However, understanding symmetry, composition, lighting and the tools in Photoshop can take awhile to learn, and practice is required.

In this tutorial, we are going to extract the ability of Photoshop tools to make an epic piece of digital art.  We’ll look at how to manipulate a pre-made render into the composition, as well as how to utilize blending modes, gradients and the liquify tool to achieve a brilliant abstract result.

You’ll learn a variety of techniques and useful tips to use in your own compositions, so let’s get started!

Tools Required:

• Adobe Photoshop

Final Image Preview:

Step 1:

To start, create new canvas sized at 994×1312 pixels, and fill it with black.  Next, create a new layer, and go to Filter->Render->Clouds.  Duplicate this layer, and then merge the two layers.  Set your blending options to Luminosity and reduce the opacity to 21% and the fill to 13%.

Next, we need our subject.  For this piece, I’ll be using this mask, located here: http://lured2stock.deviantart.com/art/Mask-1-2777188
Extract it from the background, in this case I just rendered it with the pen tool.  Paste it into your document and arrange it where you want.  There are a few rough edges, so I decided to do some enhancements to make it look better.

First, I applied smart blur to the mask.  Go to Filter->Blur-> Smart Blur, and apply the following settings: Radius: 3, Threshold 34.7, Quality: Medium, Mode: Normal.

After applying this blur, I also adjusted the brightness and contrast.  To do this, go to Layers->New Adjustment Layer, and apply the following settings: Brightness: 61, Contrast: -28
Resize it and erase the upper part using soft brush, to create a fading effect (see before and after below).

Here you can see the before and after, and how our effects helped bring out the image.

So, now you should have what I have below:

Step 2:

The ‘hair’ part of this mask is a render from Cinema4D.  I only used one C4D for this tutorial, and manipulated it to get the result.  You can get it here. Grab the rendered C4D and put it in to our canvas.

Next, I desaturated the render.

After desaturating the c4d, I applied some technique to make it flow around.  To do this, I used the liquify tool.  Open the liquify shortcut command (ctrl+shift+x) or go to Filter>Liquify.
In applying liquify, first you must have concept of what are going to make. Just play around  liquify preset.  I only used the forward warp tool, set the brush size to 150 and leave all the rest to default.


I came up with this and I’m comfortable of this outcome.  So I duplicated and flip it horizontally for a symmetric effect.


I decided to add more hair volume, so grab the render again and open again the liquify preset.  Just be creative and be patient, be willing to undo your changes if you don’t like the result.  Erase some unwanted parts according to your liking.  Resize it to be a bit smaller, which will help with the effect.   Again, just experiment.



To add some more visual impact again, I used the same process but this time I didn’t apply desaturate to the C4D.  This allowed the image to be colorful. I put the colored C4D layers in the middle, under the smaller render.

Step 3:

We are on to the coloring process, so first I used a nebula stock shown below:

Grab the nebula stock to our canvas, and set the blending option to ‘linear dodge’.

After I erased the unwanted parts, I just duplicated it and flipped horizontally to place it on the other side.


Now, we will add soft lights.  Create a new layer under the colored c4d layers.  Fill it with black and set the blending options to linear dodge.  With the soft brush 400px size, I chose three colors to blend. ( #ff9c00)( #00e4ff)( #ff00fc)  Next, I blurred it, by going to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur with a radius to 10px.  Be sure to follow this process to make it like mine.

Step 4:

Create new layer again under the c4d layers. Fill it with black and set the blending options to linear dodge again.  Grab the rectangular marquee tool put some gradient on it of color ( #00fff6) to transparent.  Duplicate it and place it diagonally, erasing the hard edges using soft brush.  Follow the image below to duplicate it and place it on the other side.


Using pen tool we will draw an illustration then stroke it with simulated pressure with 3px brush. Just like what we did before,  again the rectangular marquee tool follow the same process but we will using this color ( #fc00ff).  After that duplicate again and flip it horizontally.

Step 5:

We will add more lights. Create new layer again, fill it with black and set it to linear dodge. Using the rectangular marquee tool again we will make a selection like this:

Grab the gradient tool and set to this color (# 0000ff) to transparent.


After that, erase some parts using a soft brush, duplicate it, resize and place it to the desired position.  I also added a pen tool stroke below it.


Add more effects, this time using elliptical marquee tool and gradients, just like our previous layers set it to linear dodge.

After erasing erase some parts and after adding more by duplicating and resizing it, make some small particles using a brush, and use an Outer Glow blending mode to give it a nice glow.  Duplicate it and flip it to the other side to continue the symmetrical appearance.

Step 6:

We are almost finished. We will add small particles splashing around.  To do that, we’ll use a nebula stock, which you can get from http://resurgere.deviantart.com/ or http://hameed.deviantart.com/gallery/?3949421#Stock

Paste it onto our canvas and set the blending mode to linear dodge.  Just play around in placing the stock.


I added some of this color ( #ff7200) to make it more dramatic.  Create new layer, fill with black and set to linear dodge and paint the color using a soft brush.

Conclusion:

Try to check your layer arrangements, as it is important in order to make it more realistic.  When making light effects, the blending option linear dodge is our main weapon here as well as the stock photos.  The symmetrical appearance helps the visual appeal, and creativity and patience leads to a successful artwork.  After a few minor adjustments, I came up with this.  Thanks for reading and drop some comments below.  Hope you learned something new in this tutorial.

Lighting effects can make or break any digital artwork.  When done properly, lighting can add visual impact, draw the viewer’s eye, convey depth and emotion, and tie together all the elements of the piece for a quality finished result.  However, achieving brilliant lighting is not always an easy task, particularly for newer digital artists.  Perfecting contrast, color variation, sharpness and depth will help make your digital art more enticing.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn the essential process of achieving brilliant lighting effects in Photoshop.  Using default brushes, blending options and a few stock images, you’ll learn step by step a variety of techniques that you can use in your own digital artworks to achieve professional results.

This is tutorial is jam packed with tips, shortcuts and techniques, and each detail is explained to allow beginning users to follow along.  But even if you’re an advanced user, you’ll be inspired and take away some useful new ideas for your artwork.  Let’s get started!

Tools Required

• Adobe Photoshop CS2 (or higher)

Final Image Preview

Step 1 – The Background:

Start by creating a new canvas, sized 1970×1320 pixels.  Then, grab this custom background that I made (click the image for the full size):

Next, we’re going to combine this with another background, so click the image below or visit the following link and download this background: http://jakezdaniel.deviantart.com/art/Texture-3B-108044404

Next, reduce the ‘Fill’ option of this second background to 79% (see screenshot below):

Step 2 – The Foreground:

Now, we need our foreground subject image.  We’re going to use this little rocker boy.  You can use the following image that I used: http://tonya-tjphotography.deviantart.com/art/Rocker-6-86012281 or you can use any of your own images that you desire.  One thing you’ll notice about this image is the hair, which will be a bit difficult to extract.  Software such as Vertus Fluid Mask can easily extract these images, but for this tutorial, I will be extracting it manually using the pen tool and I will apply some cutting techniques.

Using your pen tool, slowly trace around the subject, then go to the “Paths” tab and then right click the path you made, make selection, and then you have your foreground subject.  If you’re a bit unfamiliar with extraction techniques, read this article on Types of Extraction in Photoshop.

Notice that there are still some white edges left in the hair, so again you can use the pen tool to cut it off.  You could manually try to remove only the white area, but I found it quicker and more effective to give him a haircut.  And for finishing I used a soft brushed eraser and Layer>Matting>Defringe (width 1) and resized it to fit the document.


Now we will make some shadow for the boy, which will help create depth for our image. For the shadow I used a soft brush, 200px using black color to  brush the perspective shadow (see below screenshot or use your judgment).  Then, go to Filter>Gaussian Blur>30px to give it a more natural feel.  Reduce the opacity if necessary, erase some overlapping black parts caused by the gausian blurr, and you should have a result like mine:


Now, we need to make the boy seem less ‘pasted’ onto our background.  To do this, we’ll burn the edges of the boy a little bit, using the burn tool with the settings of 100px, Range: midtones, Exposure: 50 and then go to Layer>Adjustments>Brightness/Contrast.  Check the use layer clipping mask and apply the following settings:

Add some crack to the walls to have more details and add visual impact.  You can use a stock image, or the following brush: Download.

Step 3 – Adding Abstract Elements:

I used a rendered C4d.  There are packs of C4D renders all over the internet, deviantART is a great place to start.

Resize it and use desaturate (CTRL-SHIFT-U) to make it pure grayscale.  Next, move it into your desired position, for this image, I wanted to make it seem as though it was the boy’s wings.

Next, erase some areas that you don’t want in your image.  It should match the foreground subject and the shadowing we created already, in order to allow the perspective to remain.  You can use the selection of your foreground subject to remove areas and make it seem like the render is wrapped around the subject.

Duplicate the C4d layer, then bring back the duplicated one to the bottom of the layer’s boy.  By doing this, you can add a backup of unwanted erased parts, and you can make the render feel more solid.

Next, we use the same C4D render, desaturating it and resizing it.  Slowly we can add more elements, varying the size to achieve our desired effect.  Erase any unwanted areas, and try to build your render around the boy.

Step 4:

In making the light effects, I only used default tools in Photoshop.  Using the pen tool for illustration, you can draw some paths and stroke them.  Create a new layer, then set your brush to white, 7px, soft (hardness set to 0%).  Next, draw paths along the subject where you want light to appear.  While the pentool is active, right click on the surface, choose stroke path, and check the ‘simulate pressure’ option.

Open the blending options, and apply the following settings to your layer.

Duplicate the line layer twice, and then blur the duplicated one.  Filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur at 10px.  Duplicate it again, and make a new group and then set the blending option to linear dodge (see below screenshot).  Linear dodge is one of the most powerful layer modes in achieving quality lighting effects.

Next, make a new layer and then fill it with black and set the blending options to linear dodge.  Grab the brush tool, and brush a little bit of red in his shoulder and use this command CTRL+F three times (to blur it again).  This will enhance the glow effect from the lighting.

Repeat this process and try to make some brush adjusments make it bigger or smaller.  Try making it 10px,5px,3px, whatever you want.  Try to put some it to the bottom layer of the boy.  Here’s how it looks after my illustrations and repeating the process of previous grouped layers.  Just experiment use soft eraser to fade it some parts nicely.  I used motion blur to achieve some movement in the piece.  Overall, I had 7 groups for the lighting effects.

Step 5 – Extra Effects:

Add some small particles, like it’s splashing away from the boy.  In this step, I used a nebula stock.  There are many available through http://resurgere.deviantart.com/ or http://hameed.deviantart.com/gallery/?3949421#Stock:

Place it on canvas and change the blending option to Linear Dodge, then desaturate it to make it black and white.  This will add some extra contrast to our image, apart from just the red.  Now that it is desaturated, you can duplicate and place it anywhere you want, just play around to see what gives a good result.  I suggest putting some of it behind the boy, to create a nice illusion and enhance the depth.  Erase any unwanted parts using a soft eraser.

Step 6 – Smoke:

I added some smoke, for the original work I used a stock image of smoke.  Unfortunately, I was unable to find the same image I used, but I will still show you the erased parts of the smoke.  There’s plenty of free stock images of smoke (check http://sxc.hu for example) and see what works for you.  If you want the same image that I used, it is available below:

Simply paste this smoke image into the document, move it over the boy and set the blending mode to ‘Screen’ or ‘Linear Dodge’ depending on your desired result.  You can adjust your layer order to achieve the appearance of the smoke behind or in front of the lighting effects.

Step 7 – More Effects:

Next, we can add awesome lighting effects to dramatically increase the visual impact of the piece.  First create a new layer (CTRL-SHIFT-N) . Fill it with black and change
the blending option to ‘Linear Dodge’.  Grab the rectangular marquee tool, and use your gradient tool (from white to transparent), then erase the sides a little to make it softer.

Step 8 – Final Lighting Adjustments:

We are almost done.  Now we will add some more red lights to incorporate the extra color into the piece.  We’ll be using a soft brush, paint bucket and blending options here.  Create a new layer, fill it with black, change the blending option to ‘Linear Dodge’.  Use the brush, and then refer to the screenshot below:

We’re essentially done now, but we should make some adjustments to achieve better depth and sharpness.  Create a new layer, and ‘Apply Image’ (CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-E).  Next, go to Filter->Sharpen->Sharpen.  Then, apply a curves layer by going to Layer->New Adjustment Layer->Curves.  Apply the following settings:

After applying the curves, add a layer mask (Layer->New Layer Mask) and erase some of the curves layer (particularly around the head of the boy.  Reduce the opacity to 42%, and then you can add your own gradient maps and adjustments if you so choose.  Here’s my result after adjustments:

Conclusion

You can add any more effects you want, but for now I’m satisfied with the result, and hopefully you are too.  Remember to keep experimenting, as small changes can have incredibly different results and you never know what may end up looking incredible.  Hopefully you learned something from this tutorial, and thanks for reading!

Custom brushes can often be utilized on top of existing stock images to create a matte dispersion effect, where the vibrancy of the original stock is enhanced, while adding artistic flair and visual interest using dispersion.  It helps take standard stock images and can be used to create melting effects, shattering effects, and even disappearing effects.

In this tutorial, you’ll be taken through, step by step, the creation of some custom brushes, and application of them to a stock image to create a matte dispersion effect.  You’ll learn how to create and save brushes, utilize complementary colors, and manipulate stock images for a visually stunning final result.

Hopefully you like the tutorial, and as always, show us your results in the comments, ask us questions, or even suggest a tutorial.  We’re here to help you grow as a designer however we can.

Tools used:

• Photoshop
• Stocks
• Scanner (If you have one, works for custom brushes, not required.)

Final Image Preview:

Step 1: Creating custom brushes

Alright so we will start off by creating our own custom brushes to use, if you have your own or a set you downloaded go ahead and use those; if not head ever to http://www.sxc.hu and grab this splatter: http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=download&id=524477 Do note that to download the stock images from Sxc you will need an account. They are free so if you don’t have one go ahead and set it up so you can follow along. Once you have downloaded or copied the image open up Photoshop and create a new document. Set the size for this new document to 4500*4500 as I have in the below screen shot.

Now this is one big document, but that’s ok, we will be working with different stocks at different resolutions so it’s nice to have some breathing room. Once you have created the document press ‘CRTL V’ on your keyboard, this will paste the image we have copied into our document. If you did not copy the image, just go to the file tab and find where you saved it at and drag it into our document.

Once the image is in our new document we can start isolating it so we can make a brush out of it. Since the background is white we don’t really have to isolate the image much at all. This will be more of less a cleanup procedure so we won’t have any issues using the brush later on in the image. Start off by pressing ‘M’ on your keyboard; this will equip the marquee tool. Be sure your marquee tool is set to the rectangle marquee and has no feather. Once you have the marquee tool set up properly we will grab the outer edges of our layer as I have, we don’t want any hard edges in the final image or any strange cut offs. Now that it is selected we can just press ‘DEL’ on the keyboard to clear this selection and move on to the next step!

Now press ‘CTRL SHIFT D’ to deselect the selection if it’s still up. Once that is done you can press ‘CTRL L’ on your keyboard, this will bring up the manual level editor. We will not be using the auto level tool for this because we want to keep the majority of the splat semi transparent. Using the auto leveler might cause the grays in our image to become absolute black which would not be good. So with your level editor up slide the middle triangle way over to the black triangle, not all the way though you want to stop at about ’1.44′. This will cause our image to become much brighter which is fine; it will also help if there are any strange grays around the edges that we cannot see to become pure white. And as I said before, we don’t want any strange edges.

Once you have hit the ok button we will start the final process. That is to remove any last remaining unwanted splats or grey lines that might linger around in the stock image. We will do this by pressing ‘E’ on our keyboard to bring out the eraser tool. Now right click on the screen and a new dialog box should appear; this dialog box will be how we adjust the settings for our eraser brush. Set your brush up as mine is below, don’t be to concerned about the size of the brush the document and image are both huge. Once your brush is set up as mine you can set the opacity to around 45% and eraser along the outer edges of the layer. Try not to erase anything to far to the center of the image, we just want to clean up the image, not destroy it!

We will now grab the marquee tool once again, which is ‘M’ on your keyboard. This time we will select everything we want to become our brush. Remember that everything that is white will become transparent and all that is black will be our brush. With all of that selected press ‘CTRL SHIFT U’, this will desaturate our selection so that our brush becomes black and white.

Go up to the edit tab, located between the file and image tabs, and select define brush preset. By clicking the define brush preset button we will be creating our brush. Everything that is black will be 100% opacity on our final brush, the grays will be around 50% opacity and the whites will not exist. The dialog should look something like mine does, once it comes up type in the name for your new brush and select ok.

Now we can press ‘B’ on our keyboard and select our brush!

Before we get all excited there are more brushes to be made. So we will go back to Sxc and grab this image: http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=download&id=277806 We will paste it into the document the same way we did with the other stock image. However this time since the white is so much brighter and there are no strange outlines our isolation will be much simpiler.

We will press ‘CTRL SHIFT U’ the same way we did before just to make sure everything is black and white. Once that is done we will press ‘CTRL T’ this will bring up our free transform tool. Since the image is much larger than the previous stock image it must be sized down before photoshop will allow us to define it as a brush. Once the free transform tool comes up select the chain link in between the width and height settings so that we do not skew our stock. Now we will just change the size settings as I have in the below screen shot.

Now that our stock has been sized down we can grab the marquee tool one last time by pressing ‘M’ on your keyboard. This time we will make a very tight selection, keeping the dashed lines as close to the stock as we can get them, this will ensure that our brush does not exceed the size limitations (2500px).

Once the selection has been made we will go back to the edit tab and define our selection as a brush preset.

If you really want to create a completely opaque brush you can just duplicate the splat layer twice and set both of the new duplicated layers as a multiply at 100%. This should make the image completely black.

Now we will just repeat this process many times over. If you don’t have a scanner I have provided links to images on Sxc that you can use the same way we have in the above steps. If you do have a scanner you can just throw some paint, ink, finger nail polish, dye or really anything that will dry and look the same way our stocks have. Once you have splatterd or brushed your chosen liquid onto the paper just wait for it to dry, scan it and manipulate it to create a brush the same way we have in the previous steps.

If you are without a scanner here is a large list of stocks, if you don’t want to fool with all of that there are plenty of splatter and brush stroke brush packs around on the net just go looking!
Stocks:

• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1083404
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/277790
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/626005
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/524461
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/524460
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/524478
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1192353
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/902891
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/826501
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1079392
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1058438
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/615813
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/826508
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/826507
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/886378
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/193172
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/277771
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/906249
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/277759
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/331123
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/277805

Step 2: Document setup

Now that we have a whole arrangement of custom made or downloaded brushes we can continue on to the setup for our actual piece. We will start this by pressing ‘CTRL N’ on your keyboard; this will bring up the new document dialog box. We will use this to setup the width and height for our new document. We will now set our document as 2000*3000 which is a great ratio for a piece like this. This is especially a good thing because once we are done we can size our document down to 800*1200 without any cropping.

Once our document is up we will head over to Deviant Art to grab a texture for our background. Since we are trying to create something between illustration and photo manipulation we will use a background that looks like a traditional texture. So go to http://bashcorpo.deviantart.com/art/Grungy-paper-texture-v-6-37649221 and copy the image the same we have before and paste it into our document. If you have a texture you have made, found or purchased that you liked more than the above texture then by all means use it, I will be using one I made. Once you paste it into Photoshop make sure the top hits the top of the document and the sides are matching. Your document should look similar to mine below.

As you can see our background doesn’t fit all the way, there’s a big gap at the bottom. We can fix this with the clone stamp tool. The clone stamp tool simply grabs sections of an image and duplicates it where you tell it to. So press ‘S’ on your keyboard to select the clone stamp tool and right click on the document to bring up the brush settings as we have done before. We will be using a similar brush as before this time just a little bit smaller. Make sure you have your hardness set to 0%, this is very important otherwise your duplicated pieces will not blend together due to their hard edges.

Now holding the ‘ALT’ key on your keyboard click on the document around three quarters of the way up and all the way to the left; this is where we will be duplicating from, so any where we click it will duplicate from this area. However once you click the selection we will be copying from will move; this is very good since we don’t want to duplicate the same section over and over again. Once you have held the ‘ALT’ key and clicked we can now go to the left side of the white space and click and drag to the right. If you’re new to the clone stamp tool it might help to press ‘CTRL SHIFT N’ to create a new layer once you have selected your start point. That way anything you stamp can easily be done by deleting the layer.

Once you have dragged the mouse to the right you might need to grab a few more locations to just make sure everything blends well. Once you are satisfied with the end result yours should look similar to mine. Make sure you have copied over all of the white on the canvas before you continue though!

Step 3: Stock selection and isolation

During this tutorial I will be using a stock I purchased from ShutterStock, you can by all means go ahead and get it from there site to follow along but if you don’t want to purchase one below is a list of stocks that would be fine to use for this type of illustration.
Stocks:

• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/773565
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/646027
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/767518
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/767509
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1003531
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1036109
• http://www.birdlife.org/images/raw/82_blue-throated_macaw_2.jpg
• http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs43/f/2009/159/d/8/Macaw_Stock_02_by_x_Boo.jpg
• http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs48/f/2009/159/f/b/Macaw_Stock_01_by_x_Boo.jpg

Keep in mind that there are plenty of other stocks out on the net; this was just a short list to help you out. Also remember that this tutorial is not about the stock you use, rather the techniques that the tutorial covers.
Now that you have found a stock we can continue. Depending on your stock selection the isolation process will be different; however I will show you how I isolated my stock and give a few pointers on how you can go about isolation out yours.

Step 3 Continued: Stock isolation

In the below screenshot you will see my macaw (slightly tilted) without any isolation effects.

Now I used the magic wand tool with a tolerance of 32 (‘W’ on your keyboard) and selected the white that surrounded my macaw.

In my next step I created a layer mask based off of my selection. To do this all you need to do is click the icon in your layer toolbar that looks like a square with a circle inside it while you have your current object selected. After the layer mask was applied I inverted the canvas (‘CTRL SHIFT I’ on your keyboard) so only the macaw and his branch were visible. I then used a small black brush around 15px with no hardness to clean off any strange areas on the macaw (The brush tool is ‘B’ on your keyboard.). Then I duplicated the layer and removed everything but the branch and placed it beneath my original layer so the branch is now long enough to reach the left hand side of the canvas.

Isolation tips
There is no wrong or right way to isolate an image out. But there are a few things that you should keep in mind when doing it to make the entire process a little simpler.

• Remain isolating the way you always have been, if it works for you then there is no reason to start changing your approach now.
• The magic wand tool/layer masks are there for a reason! Don’t overlook some of the simpler tools Photoshop has to offer just because you think you have surpassed that skill level.
• Stray away from attempting to isolate stocks with severe depth of field! DOF stock photos are great looking, however if your attempting to isolate a stock of a partially blurred macaw, frog or person it will be a thousand times harder than a non DOF stock.
• Back it up! If you are against using a layer mask or the pen tool then you really need to create a history maker during isolation; this way if you make a mistake and don’t catch it in time you will not have to start from scratch.
• Take your time. There is no reason to rush such an important step in the design. I know its cumbersome and quite frankly just irritating most of the time. However getting a great design done but noticing your isolation ruins the piece is an even more irritating process to overcome.

Step 4: Introduction to using custom brushes and creating a matte effect

Whenever I do a piece similar to this I always start by choosing my colors (all of them) and painting them on a new layer similar to what a traditional artist does with his color platelet. So start off by creating a new layer; you can do this by pressing ‘CTRL SHIFT N’ on your keyboard. Once your new layer is up just doodle a little bit with each color you will be using (‘b’ on your keyboard will bring up the brush tool) and you know have a platelet!

Now we can start using all of those wonderful brushes we created before! I like to start with the largest section of my subject, in this case the blue wing of the macaw. So we will create a new layer by pressing ‘CTRL SHIFT N’ on the keyboard and then enable our brush tool by pressing ‘B’ on the keyboard. Once your brush tool is up select which brush you want to use and just paint atop of the major section of your subject! It’s a good idea to keep your opacity of the brush down to about 50-75% opacity because we want to leave some aspects of the subject visible. My result with a 50% opacity brush looks like the screen shot below.

Now we can continue this process a little more. However now we will use just use one or two brushes and try and make it appear as if the splat/stroke or abstract shape is coming off the subject onto our canvas.

Now things are going to get a little bit more creative, we will be trying to achieve a sketch/matte effect. To do this we need to create a new layer by pressing ‘CTRL SHIFT N’ on your keyboard and then we will grab our brush tool (‘b’ on your keyboard); however unlike last time this time we will use the standard 3px hard brush or if its easier for you the 5px hard brush.

Once you have your new layer created and grabbed your preferred brush we will begin. This step will depend on what subject you’re doing, a frog, bird, person or even an inanimate object such as a car. Even thought this step depends on your subject the steps are all essentially the same; we are trying to apply the details back that we took away when we used our brushes.
When reapplying the lost details its always a good idea to try and create realistic lines. For instance if your doing a frog don’t sketch wings on.
For my macaw I began sketching where I felt the feathers would be along with some shadows/highlights. I used a dark blue for shadows, a light blue for highlights and a purple just for an added bit of color.

Once I fealt that it looked good as is, I went ahead and repeated the same effect on the tail of my macaw.
BEFORE:

AFTER:

Once that is done we can go back with our small brush (3px or 5px) and matte some more parts of the body. I went ahead and did my macaws head but you can choose another part of your subject.
BEFORE:

AFTER:

My bird as a whole now looks like the below screenshot.

Matte effect tips:

• Use the smallest brush you can when doing this step, Its important to capture the detail but you want it to look more like a sketch then a speed paint.
• Try different effects with your sketching. For example try doing some crosshatching or stippling.
• Don’t just add details also enhance the natural shadows/highlights of your subject.
• Follow the contours of your subject!
• Use similar or color that will complement one another. You don’t want to use a bright green on a brown surface or a neon pink on a green surface!
• Take your time, even though we are going for a sketch look we still want it to look like we tried! You don’t want some strange box shapes on the subject!

Step 5: Continuing matte and brush techniques

Now that we have started our brushing and matting we just need to continue on. We can start off by adding more brushes below the subject on a new layer, creating the effect that it’s coming off our subject.

I also added some to the opposite side of the macaw around his belly area.

Next we will do something different with our matte effect, this time we will fill in a shadowed area with a color. I choose purple and did the dark feathers on the back of my macaw. The main thing here is to make it still appear as if it were a sketch and not a fill layer. You can tell when looking at my below screenshots that they are not 100% opaque or 100% filled in.
BEFORE:

AFTER:

Next we will use a large splatter brush and paint it atop our figure. Be sure to use a similar color for this so it blends well with your subject. For instance I used a dark blue that would blend with the bulk of my macaw. You will also want to keep this layer at 100% opacity.

After this was done I went ahead and added some more details with my small brush to some of the missed areas, mostly the belly of my macaw along with parts of his neck/head. It’s a good idea to do this because you may have missed certain spots or may think of something that could be changed or added that you didn’t think about before.

Step 6: Extra bits

You can add whatever you want to at this point to brighten up or add more dynamics to your image; for instance if you were doing a frog you could add a fly or another type of insect to your scene. I added in some leafs to add a little bit of extra detail to the branch as well as help add in some needed color. But make sure whatever you add makes sense, don’t add a car to a macaw scene!

My image now looks like the below screenshot.

Now we just need to repeat all of our above steps of matting as well as applying new brushes until we are satisfied with the outcome. I added more matting as well as a lot more brushes underneath my macaw, specifically splatters.

Step 7: Drips and closing

This step is not mandatory however I feel it adds a little something extra to the finished piece.
To start this you will need to grab your 3px brush once again and then just draw some drips!

No real secret or new technique to learn in this step, just doodle away! My only real technique here is to start wide and end thin just like a real drip, I applied the drips all over my macaw to create a more interesting final image. The below screenshots will show you what my result looks like.

Now we are done! You can size this anyway you want but my closing goes like this; merge the document (‘CTRL SHIFT E’ on your keyboard), apply two sharpen filters, decrease the image size down to 800*1200 and then apply one last sharpen filter. My final result looks like the below screenshot.

Well I hope you enjoyed the tutorial and learned a thing or two about how to create something similar to my dispersion technique and maybe came out with a final piece that you liked!