For those that are new to the graphic design gig, welcome.  Let this tutorial be your tour guide to one of the most gruesome (yet rewarding) professions ever and you will find your stay slightly more pleasant. For the newbies out there, Adobe Illustrator is a vector-based drawing program that is often used for graphic design. Utilizing the program will help you create complicated patterns and designs faster and more efficiently than one normally could on pencil and paper or other traditional methods.

Let start with the program basics.?

Feel free to let my know if I’ve left anything out of my brief introduction of Adobe Illustrator. If you wish to learn more about the program it maybe best to pick up a book or find the many reliable resources online.

Keyboard shortcuts

Adobe actually has a really comprehensive library of ‘keyboard shortcuts‘ for all their programs. However I’ve made a small list of the more useful keyboard shortcuts that you will find useful on your journey as a designer.

• SHIFT – holding shift while moving and object will ensure that it moves in a straight line
• Command G – Also know as Ctrl G for PC users, this command is for grouping objects.
• O – to flip and object
• R – to rotate an object
• Alt Shift ] or [ – to move an object to the front or back
• Command 2 – to lock an object

It’s also possible to set your own keyboard shortcuts or import a custom set that others have set up and optimized for your designing experience.

Making Basic Shapes in Adobe Illustrator

Up in the depth of your tool palette is the shape tool.

If you hold down the mouse key on the shape tool button then a menu will appear with a list of shapes (or shape menu) for you to choose from like so.

Clicking on the arrow to the side of the shape menu allows the shape menu to pop out in a separate window.

Now you’re ready to make your first shape!

You’ll notice that when you select a shape and click on your new document that the shape is stamped onto your page. However if you hold down the click and drag the mouse you can adjust the size of the shape. You may have also noticed that you can rotate the shape if you you drag it in circles.

Holding down the shift button as you drag your shape will ensure your shape stays proportional as you change the size of the shape. When you hold down Alt, it centers your shape in its position while you decide on the size and rotational angle of your shape. Holding down control will give the shape a similar effect as hold down alt except it lets you position and angle the shape from the left side of the shape rather than from the center. Don’t worry about getting your shape perfect. You can always change the aspects of your shape later by clicking on it with the Selection tool (located at the top left corner of your tool palette) and dragging the corners of the selection box.

It is also possible for you to change the number of points your shape normally has by clicking on it with the Shape tool and adjusting the points section in the menu that pops up. This is how you create freak-of-nature-shapes such as the 110-point star.

So now we have a shape. It’s not quite as beautiful as we would like is it? Luckily, Illustrator has plenty of tools that will assist you in pimping out your custom shape.

Let’s start with the Fill and Stroke tools located here.

The fill color will always default to white however if you double click on the tool then a color menu opens up for you to choose your own custom color. After you choose a new color and click OK, your shape will automatically be filled with the color of your choosing like so.

The stroke of the shape can be treated the same way however if you decide not to have a stroke then just simply click the tiny red striped square below the Stroke tool to cancel out the stroke.

The Pathfinder palette is a key tool to creating shapes and most designers find themselves hugging the palette when they go to sleep at night. The palette lets you create new shapes from overlapping objects. Just select the objects you would like to combine with the Selection tool and click on the effect that you want in the Pathfinder palette.

The palette provides four different effects for shapes. You can either combine two or multiple shapes into a one unique shape like so.

You can also minus the object(s) that are in front.

You can also intersect two of the objects or exclude the space in-between them.

Most objects and graphics in Illustrator can be created by combining and transforming shapes creating enough possibilities to make Picasso jealous.

Drawing with the Pencil tool in Adobe Illustrator

Drawing in Illustrator doesn’t have to feel like it’s constrained to the five shapes that the program gives you. You can easily design your own custom shapes with the pencil tool by click on the pencil tool in your tool palette.

Click and drag the tool to create your own custom drawing like a real pencil.

If you accidentally leave an important component out of your custom drawing, you can easily add a new path or line to the one you’ve already made. First, select the path that you’ve already made and position the end of the pencil icon on the endpoint of the path to add an additional path like so.

Of course if you made a mistake in drawing a line, the pencil tool also lets you redraw parts of a path by selecting the path and just redrawing the part you wish to change. The program will automatically change the closest part of the path to match your new drawing.

The possibilities of the Pencil tool makes your shape repertoire even more endless however if you’re unhappy with the quality or texture of the paths that the Pencil tool creates then simply double click on the pencil tool in your tool palette to open up the Pencil tool options. From there you can change the fidelity or smoothness of the path.

The fidelity of the tool determines the frequency and distance of the anchor points on your path. The less anchor points there are then the smoother the path. The smoothness option lets you determines the amount of detail applied to your path. The lower the value the more you’ll see the irregularities in the line as well as the number of anchor points.

You can also smooth out parts of your line by holding down the Pencil tool button and selecting the Smooth tool in the new pop-up menu. Use the smooth tool to smooth out the part of the line that needs smoothing.

If switching to the smooth tool is way too inconvenient then a quick way to smooth out your lines is to hold ALT while using the Pencil tool to temporarily switch to the Smooth tool.

Drawing with the Pen Tool in Adobe Illustrator

Speaking of anchor points, the pen tool lets you draw more precise lines by plotting anchor points and adjusting the path between anchor points. However the pen tool is one of the trickiest tools to use in all of the Creative Suite but if mastered, can prove to be one of the most useful.

The easiest shapes you can draw with the pen tool are the ones that consist only of straight lines. Click on the Pen tool in your tool palette and just simply drop anchor points where two straight lines should intersect in your shape like so.

You can adjust the position and size of your new shape with the selection tool as well as the placement of the lines with the Direct Selection tool (located to the right of the Selection tool in your tool palette).

Now that you’ve mastered the art of making polygons with the pen tool you can now tackle making curves with the pen tool.

The most essential snippet of information you need to know about using the pen tool is that the determining factor in getting the shape you want is placing the anchor points in the correct position. When you create a curve you want to place the actor points where the curve changes direction.

To create a curved line simply place an actor point and then a second one to create a line. While still clicking on the second anchor point, draw it to create a curved line. You can adjust the curve of the line by holding Command (or CTRL if you’re a PC) and pulling the handles or the path to the position you want.

You can also delete anchor points that you are having second thoughts about by hovering over those points until the – symbol shows up next to your Pen and click on the anchor point to remove it. You can also go back and change curved anchor points into straight ones by holding ALT and clicking the point you want to change.

The Pen tool is a tool that spans across the whole Adobe universe and can be really useful once one learns the fine art of mastering it. A good way to practice with the tool is to trace objects with it or cut out an object in a photo with the tool.

Using Brushes

Brushes can add a certain style to your shapes and can imitate crayon, calligraphy brushes, or other hand drawn mediums and patterns. There are four types of brushes in Illustrator: Calligraphic, Scatter, Art, and Pattern.

Your selection of brushes can be found in the Brushes Palette on the right hand side of the screen. If you can’t find it then simply open it by going to Window>Brushes or hit F5. Your brushes palette should come with a few selected brushes on display however you can find more options by clicking the menu button in the bottom left corner of the palette.

Once you select the type of brush you would like, a second palette will open up with more brush options for you.

To apply the brush, just simply select the path or shape you wish to apply it to and click on the brush you would like to use. The path or shape will instantly change to the style you desire.

Working with Typography in Adobe Illustrator

Many designers find that the Character Palette is their best (and sometimes only) friend. The palette does everything you need when it comes to typography and will adjust every little crevice of a word. However first it is important to learn how to place a word. Click on the Text tool in your tool palette located here.

Click and drag on your page to create a text box and click within the text box to start typing. You can always adjust the size of the text box by holding down Command (or CTRL in PC) and adjusting the corners.

You can also make a vertical text box by holding shift when you begin creating a new text box.

On your character palette you can adjust nearly anything when it comes to type. You can adjust the width and height of the letters or the width and height of the spacing between the letters.

You can adjust the font and font size as well as bold, italics, and such. You can even rotate the letters to your desired degree for those who love reading sideways.

The Align Palette is useful when using typography as well as creating shapes because the palette will automatically align your text or shape to a selection of your choice. Whether you want to align the object to the side or on top is up to your keen designer eye.

Creating effective advertisements is one of the biggest jobs for a graphic designer.  The advertising industry is one of the largest employers of graphic designers, but creating advertisements requires a mastery of many different skills.  From photomanipulation, digital painting, 3D, and vector graphics, graphic designers need to have strong skillsets in order to be able to work on a given project.

In this graphic design tutorial, we’ll cover the essential advertising workflow.  By following along with this Photoshop ad tutorial, you’ll see how to take just a simple stock image and build a pixel perfect artwork around it, while also communicating valuable information about the brand to viewers.

If you liked this Photoshop poster tutorial, check out our other graphic design tutorials:

• Harnessing the Power of Geometry for a Creative Nike Shoe Design
• Create a Vibrant and Eye-Catching Drink Composition using Photoshop
• Design and Photomanipulate a Gorgeous Outdoor Cadillac Car Advertisement
• Composite an iMac Render into an Incredible Apple Advertisement
• Combine 3D Geometric Shapes and Flowing Lines for a Sleek iPhone Ad
• Design an Out of this World Laptop Advertisement
• Create a Vibrant Colorful Alcohol Product Ad in Photoshop
• Create an Eco-Friendly Nature Themed Composition

Hope you find this Photoshop tutorial informative!

Final Image Preview

Step 1

First, we need to isolate the photo of Mercedes and put it on a white background.  This will give us the base of our advertisement and a focal point to build around.  The pen tool or magic wand will work best for this extraction.

Then we start to make the shadows with soft round brush.  You can just paint below the extracted car layer on a new layer, based upon where you will place your light source.

Step 2

Invert the background layer using ctrl+i and make a new layer, with soft round brush paint some blue areas behind the car.  Alternately you can create your own fill layer with a different color.

After that, we use a smoke brush and add a little mist on the left.

Step 3

To make it more realistic, I decided to add a clouds texture (http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=24208522) on the background.

With the layer mask on, we erase the areas on the bottom right corner.

Next, I took a green grass texture and desaturated it using hue/saturation (ctrl+u) or ctrl+shift+u.

Step 4

I think it is a little bit too dark, so we use the adjustment layer – curves and brighten it up.

On new layer, make the left corner a little dark, the light is not going there so strong, that is why we make it darker.  You can paint it with a dark brush and set to Overlay or Soft Light.

I want to make it all in one colour pallete, so we need to use a hue/saturation, colorized check.

Step 5

On the top of the layers we start to adding the trees (http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-1204409-bonsai-tree.php?st=996a73c).

As you see, every tree is blended, so use the curves to make it darker or brighter, and hue/saturation to make it desaturated or more colorful. Don’t forget about the shadows, paint it with a soft round brush just like we did for the car shadows.

Once you’ve added some stock photos, now you can paint the rest with a small brush, use the same colours like the tree and start to paint your wooden root.

Step 6

Now, it is time to make the base. We have a dark and relatively ugly looking grass texture. So we need to search a stock photo, on www.sxc.hu and start to blend the green grass.

Use the layer mask, and erase some areas to fit the texture more.

I found some stock photos of the stones and put it on the bottom of the project, also add one more wooden root on the left.

The same stones I put on the left background, that give as an effect, like the car is staying on rocks.

Step 7

We add the rocks on the background from a mountain texture (http://www.sxc.hu/photo/916133). As you see they don’t fit to the image in terms of color.  To fix this, we use the hue/saturation adjustment layer.

I also paint some mist with soft round brush.

The final touch is the flying birds. This is always a good thing, because birds show you the scale of the illustration… the same is with the people on the images.  The human eye understands certain sizes for things, such as people, or birds, so they help establish a scale for the eye.

Step 8

Now it its almost done, but the adjustment layers will bring it on the next level. :) First a little more contrast with brightness/contrast and new color pallete with a channel mixer.

Final Image

Vintage and ornamental typography can yield some truly impressive effects for graphic designers, and have applications in everything from poster design to logo design.  Vintage typography can involve ornamental or floral elements, vectors, as well as some vibrant colors contrasted against the background.

Today, we have a great vintage typography tutorial for you to follow along with.  You’ll see how to use a scanned image as the basis for ornamental text, and then how to work with stock images and Photoshop to create a vintage typography artwork.

If you like this vintage typography tutorial, check out our other great text effect tutorials:

• Create Colorful Ornamental Text Photoshop Tutorial
• Colorful Candy 3D Text Effect Tutorial
• Awesome 3D Text Effect in Photoshop Only Tutorial
• Dynamic Shattering Text Effect Tutorial
• Beautiful Nature 3D Text Composition Tutorial

In this tutorial we will look at the process of creating interesting work “Vintage Typography”, based on the photo-manipulation and collage. The idea to create such work came to me after I reviewed the old photo of the “Ex-Libris”, I really liked the concept of the picture and I decided to revive this work, add bright paints, etc. So, to repeat the effect created in this tutorial, you will need: page image of the “Ex-Libris”, some brushes, some vectors, Topaz Labs filter, the patience, cup of the coffee and about 3 hours of working.

Vintage Typography Tutorial Preview:

Vintage Typography Tutorial – Tools Used:

• Adobe Photoshop
• Stock images
• Topaz Clean filter

Vintage Typography Tutorial – Links & resources:

• “Ex-Libris” ornament: http://i53.tinypic.com/2d76eeh.jpg
• Topaz Clean: http://www.topazlabs.com/downloads/index.php
• Background texture: http://bashcorpo.deviantart.com/art/Grungy-paper-texture-v-5-22966998
• Background brush: http://www.premiumpixels.com/freebies/28-high-resolution-watercolour-brushes/
• Ornament brushes: http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/applications/psbrushes/?qh=&section=&q=ornaments
• Victorian Let Plain font: http://www.azfonts.net/load_font/victorian_let_plain-1_0.html

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 1

Let’s to begin! To begin, create a new document size of 700-860px. And using “Extras” tool (Ctrl + H), create a vertical line of the center, it will help us to centering the work in the future.

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 2

The first thing to do we’ll create the background. This is a simple combination of paper-stock and brushes in the form of paint. Paste the texture of the paper as shown below.

Then create a new layer (Shift + Ctrl + N), select the paint brush, adjust the color to #abad90 and apply some brushing; then change the layer’s blending mode to “Screen” and adjust the opacity at 75%. You should get some like this:

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 3

To make the background is more colorful I added contrast and tint of green. To do this, go to “Layer – New Adjustment Layer – Brightness/Contrast” and adjust the contrast to + 63.

In the same way, make a new mask for Hue/Saturation; settings you can see below:

Here’s what we have at the moment:

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 4

Now, time to build our actual artwork. Import the image of “Ex Libris”.

Now we should cut the main element of the image. For this I’ll use “Pen-Tool”, you can also use any other suitable method for you. So, let’s go!

Red mask shows the element that we need to cut from the image:

We should get a similar result:

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 5

At the moment our ornament has a very poor quality, so we will use the “Topaz Clean” filter. Settings are shown below:

Now our ornament should look more smooth and qualitatively!

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 6

Now make a stroke at the ornament using the layer style. It will make the ornament is more expressive. Also smudge the pieces of the book using the “Smudge Tool”.

PS. at this stage, you can remove the “Extras”, simply press “Ctrl + H”.

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 7

Okay, now create a new layer on the top. Again choose “Smudge Tool” and tick the “Sample All Layers”, configure a soft brush to 4px. and smudge the “EX LIBRIS” inscription.

As a result, we get:

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 8

Now select any font that you like, personally, I chose “Rockwell” and write on the clear place “Vintage”. Right-click on the text-layer and click “Rasterize Type”, this is helping us to easily edit the text in the future. Then press “Ctrl + T” and use a deformation. Edit the text to effect of wave.

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 9

Okay, now again, using the “Type Tool” write the text “Vintage Typography” at the bottom of the ornament. For the text I used the font “VictorianLetPlain”.

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 10

PS. using the same method as the early, I reduced the saturation a bit and added a more brightness.

At this stage, our layers must look something like this:

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 11

Now we need to make the letter “A”. For this I have not used any fonts, and just drew it myself. You can use any font you chosen. I used the standart lines and “Pen-Tool”, that’s what I got:

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 12

Now when we have a letter, edit his style of this layer like this:

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 13

Now is the time to decorate our ornament. For this I used the brushes of different sets. I don’t want you to follow the pattern, so show your imagination at this stage and use any Brushes you liked/Custom Shapes you like. So, create a new layer on top of the “BG Brush” and draw the ornament like this:

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 14

Now the most basic and creative part of the work: we need to paint our ornament! Here you can fully demonstrate their imagination based on my steps. So let’s go to experimentation!

To easily focus on the parts of the ornament, I’ll create separate groups (Ctrl + G). All we need is: “Pen-Tool” and “Pin Light” blending mode.

So create a new group on top of all layers. It also create a new layer and put a “Pin Light” blending mode, now select the area you want using “Pen-Tool” and fill it by colour. By following the steps:

Layers should look something like this:

PS. To the each of layers I added the adjustment-mask to changing hues.

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 15

In the same way create the other parts.

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 16

Using “Pen-Tool” I painted a small detail in the form of ribbons on the letter “A” for efficiency.

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 17

To make work is more smooth I used “Topaz Clean” filter with the same settings as the early. But above all create the layers into one layer, and then copy the image, and then return back all layers using “Ctrl + Alt + Z” and paste it on top of other layers. Here’s how it looks:

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 18

Okay, now just apply the filter “Topaz Clean” as we did earlier.

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 19

For the efficiency we are creating a new editing layer “Layer – New Adjustment Layer – Brightness/Contrast” with these settings:

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 20

Now we need to make ornament is larger and make it more colorful. To do this, repeat step 17 to get a new layer with the image on top.

Select the “Dodge Tool” (O) and taking all of this modes of this instrument make a beautiful glare.

Here is our job “Before” and “After”.

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 21

To make the image prettier and bigger repeat step 17. Click “Image-Adjustments-Black/White” and adjust the settings as shown below.

I take an eraser to erase unnecessary parts:

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 22

To smooth the edges of the ornament and make the colors more saturated repeat step 17. Apply the filter “Blur – Gaussian Blur”. Adjust the layer’s blending mode to “Overlay” and make the opacity to 30%.

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 23

Create a new “Layer – New Adjustment Layer – Hue/Saturation” and make the background with blue accent.

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 24

The same method, create a new layer “Layer – New Adjustment Layer to” Brightness/Contrast “and add the brightness in the center of the image, and then decrease the brightness on the sides. This step will focus our attention on the ornament.

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 25

I always consider the best options, so in the end, I decided to completely change the colors of the ornament. To do this, I just created a new “Layer – New Adjustment Layer Hue/Saturation” – with these settings:

And once again with the same settings:

Here’s what we have at the moment:

Vintage Typography Tutorial Step 26

This is the final step. I just added a little light, some highlights and corrected a couple of details, plus added a white frame. In the end, we have a finished work.

I hope you liked my tutorial, and you found it something interesting for you.

On CreativeFan awhile back, we published a series of Inspirational, Dark and Moody Black Swan Movie Posters, which all were notable for using a variety of design techniques that we’ve covered here, including photomanipulation, texture overlay, and digital painting of makeup.

In this tutorial, we’ll look at how to create a Black Swan inspired movie poster.  You’ll see how to manipulate some stock images into a seamless design, add in elements for depth of field, and finish it all off.

If you’re interested in more Photoshop design tutorials, check out these tutorials:

• Manipulate a Dancer Illustration in Photoshop
• Create a Dynamic Dance Wallpaper in Photoshop and Illustrator
• Create Custom Shapes for an Asian Inspired Composition
• Create a Natural Flowery Peace and Harmony Composition
• Having Fun with Vectors, Custom Brushes and Stock Images

Hope you find this tutorial informative!

Tools used:

• Adobe Photoshop
• Stock images
• Wacom Tablet

Final Image Preview:

Step 1: Background creation and main stock implementation

Alright so to start off we need to create our new document. I went with (as always) a 2000*3000 canvas. However having said that, if you are using a smaller stock image than me or don’t like working on higher resolution canvas you can use a smaller size. Once you have created your new document we need to create the background. This will be a basic grey to semi grey (almost white) gradient.

Next we need to create a sort of white… aura that will later be behind our figure. To do this grab a large soft brush with an opacity of about 45%. Once you have your brush just go ahead and paint a nice elliptical area in the center of the canvas on a new layer, adjust the opacity if need be. Now we can create another new layer and switch our color over to black, once that is done we can paint over one side of the canvas in the black. Set the newly created black layer to softlight again, vary your opacity if you think its too much.

Now its time to grab our base stock, my female stock is from Stockexpert, however they no longer host/sell stock images so I no longer have a link. You should be able to find similar stock images at Shutterstock, Istock, Fotolia or Deviantart if you look hard enough! Once you have your stock female you want to go ahead and isolate her out using the pen tool. Once that is done free transform the stock image down so it fits nicely in the new canvas.

Step 2: Over painting

Now its time to start over painting our stock image. We will not be adding in some new dramatic details, but rather adding more contrast, highlights and adjustments. So for tutorial’s sake lets take a look at my figure as she is now one last time.

Next let’s set up our brush, we want something small (this is relative to canvas size) and soft with a low opacity (I used 50% again).

To start off we will attack the gloves. As of now the gloves are kind of… blue. Which is fine, but I want them to be black. So create a new layer and paint over all of the gloves, set this layer to color. Then duplicate the layer and set it to softlight at about 50%.

Next up, while on the soft light layer we just created, we can add some highlights to the gloves. This can be done with the same brush just swap your color over to white and paint over the highlights. This will make them bolder in appearance.

Now lets go down to the stomach, which on my image is kind of dull and grey. So to fix this lets create a new layer and grab a skin tone from the stomach that we like, then using our brush we just simply paint over the grayer sections of the stomach, for me this is the right hand side (her left).

Once the stomach has been cleaned up its time to do a quick overhaul of our shadows/highlights and help bring them more to life. To do this create a new overlay layer and switch back to your black and white colors. Paint over all of the highlighted sections with white and the shadows/darker side with black. Remember that we are using a low opacity brush, so you can go back over sections or do a little white and a little black on a section if need be.

Now that we have done our ‘overhaul’ its time to focus in on the eyes of our figure.  Specifically we want to create a sort of… sunken in malnourished appearance. To do this we can start off by painting (with black) around the surrounding area of the eye. Then slowly feathering it out lightly, this is to say that the part of the eye socket closest to the eye should be the darkest and it fades away or feathers as it goes outward. You may want to drop your brush opacity down even more when doing this.

I also went ahead and painted over my eye brows to make them darker as well.

Step 3: Swans

Now its time to add in our swans, or rather our feather tentacle things that will later encompass our figure. To do this we can use a stock image of a black swan located at Fotolia http://us.fotolia.com/id/3976641 . Once you have the stock image go ahead and crop out one of the swans for isolation. Once its been cropped out just isolate it out using the pen tool just like you would any other stock image.

Once it is isolated go ahead and pen tool out the head as well, we will not need this section.

Now grab the top right hand side of our swan and feather out one end with a large soft eraser.

Once you have done that grab a large sized section of the feathers and feather out its hard edge, once this edge has been feathered out with a large soft eraser all you need to do is free transform it down and place it over the previously feathered section, please note that you probably will not be able to do a symmetrical transformation.

Our newly completed swan tentacle!

Now its time to burn it, if you are familiar with our past tutorials you will recognize the poorly drawn light/shadow diagram seen below. So basically (on my canvas) the light is coming from my left, so we need to burn the right hand side. Now if we want to dodge (I don’t suggest it) the blue line represents where this can be done. However as I have said, I would not suggest that you use the blue line as a reference point to how far your burn should ‘feather out’. For the burning I used the same brush we have been using as my burn brush and had it set to burn mid tones at 15%.

Now just drop it over your stock and erase away a section coming off the figure, this way it appears as if it is coming from behind.

Next we can duplicate this layer, free transform it (squish it and make it skinnier) and then drop it completely behind the female layer. Once that is done apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of about 7px.

You can repeat this on the opposing side if you like.

Now its time to create yet another tentacle. This time a tentacle that’s a tiny bit thinner. So to do this I took the original isolated swan neck segment and liquefied it. By using the liquefy tool along with the forward warp tool (a brush in the liqufy tool) I pushed the neck into a thin line. Once it became a thin line I push on either side to create an S shape. For those of you familiar with our past tutorials this will seem very familiar to how we created our stilts in the previous surreal tutorials.

Once that is done we can duplicate the new thin line and feather out the ends of both. Why feather out the ends of both layers? Well so we can merge them into one big’o loop!

Now that our large thin loop has been created we can merge the two layers together and drop them into our canvas. Place this above your female and erase away the section that leaves the figure as well as the section that goes over the arm. This way it appears as if it is coming from behind and going under her arm. Once that is done create a new layer and use our good old trusty brush to paint a nice simple shadow.

Now we need to continue this thin line. I mean it does not just disappear under her arm right?! So to do this we will once again grab our hoop section, this time grab a small section of it located towards the end of one of the longer sections (not the hoop). Then just drop it in over your figure, have it coming up her belly, behind the first tentacle and the arm. Once that is done just draw out another shadow!

Finally I added in one last tentacle beneath her, this time just another duplicated hoop layer un-blurred.

As of now our canvas looks something like the below image.

Step 4: Feathers

Now we can add in the last little bit to our piece, that is of course, the feathers. The stock image of feathers can be found here on SXC http://www.sxc.hu/pic/l/w/wo/wonsak/690554_60916502.jpg

Just drop your stock images into a new canvas and proceed to marquee out each one (one at a time) and create a brush out of it. Don’t know how to create a brush? Its easy, just make a selection around a feather and go to your edit tab > define brush preset>OK and your done!

Once your brushes have been created its time to grab a feather and get to work! So choose one of the many feathers and set your brush settings up as mine are in the below screenshot.

Now create a new layer above everything else and randomly throw down some black feathers. Once you have done this go ahead and apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of about 3 or 4 px.

Now create another new layer and start adding in the feathers that will not be blurred.

Now we can add in the final DOF feather. To do this create a new layer and drop in one feather at full size. Once you have done this go ahead and free transform it to about 200% and then apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of about 5 or 6.

And now we are done! I finished off my piece by adding in some feathers in a circular pattern under all the layers but this is not necessary.  My final image looks like the below screen shot.

I hope you enjoyed reading this tutorial and it has helped you understand a few concepts or at least showed you some techniques you did not know. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask! Or if you have any tut suggestions please drop a comment, we are always looking for new concepts!

When working as a graphic designer, one of the primary fields you can work in is advertising.  Creating high quality print advertisements takes creativity, mastery of your tools such as Photosohop, ability to find and manipulate stock images, and ability to work within the constraints or theme that is presented.

In this Photoshop tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a Wacom tablet product advertisement.  You’ll see how to take a product image and create a theme for an advertisement, and then how to execute it with a variety of subtle touches.

If you liked this tutorial, you’ll also love these other product ad design tutorials:

• Harnessing the Power of Geometry for a Creative Nike Shoe Design
• Create a Vibrant and Eye-Catching Drink Composition using Photoshop
• Design and Photomanipulate a Gorgeous Outdoor Cadillac Car Advertisement
• Composite an iMac Render into an Incredible Apple Advertisement
• Combine 3D Geometric Shapes and Flowing Lines for a Sleek iPhone Ad
• Design an Out of this World Laptop Advertisement
• Create a Vibrant Colorful Alcohol Product Ad in Photoshop
• Create an Eco-Friendly Nature Themed Composition

Enjoy!

Tools Used:

• Adobe Photoshop
• Stock Images
• Wacom Tablet

Final Image Preview:

Step 1: Scene Setup and Panda Integration

Ok so to start off we will need our base wacom tablet stock image. This stock image can be located here:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/6/3/d6386816-25e3-430e-ad99-337f081922aa/Wacom_Graphire4_Classic.JPG

Once you have your stock image just go ahead and isolate it out using your pen tool, then drop it into a horizontal canvas of your choosing (I went with 3000*2000).

Once that is done grab your elliptical marquee tool (m on your keyboard) and make a giant circular selection on a new layer. Fill this with red and drop the opacity down to about 8%. Once that is done grab a nice big soft eraser (0% hardness, 300px should work fine) and feather the bottom so it fades away.

Now we have our rising sun!

Once the ‘sun’ has been created its time to move over and start dropping our pandas in. I used pandas from shutterstock but you can use whatever you can find. In fact if you wanted to you could use something else, apes maybe? The below screenshots show what my pandas look like. Once you have your pandas (or animal of choice) you just want to pen tool all of them out and then just drop them all over the tablet as I have done below.

Now lets take a look at one of the pandas. Whilst they are cute and all… they look a tad bit dull, to fix this we can quickly pant over them using a small hard brush. Keep in mind that we are not trying to paint over the entirety of the panda, we are just trying to bring life to the panda!

My panda looks like the below screen shot.

Now grab a hard small brush similar to mine in the below screenshot and paint away. Keep in mind that the pandas are not solid blocks of white and black, they are hairy! So make strokes that blend together and that interweave.

Now my panda looks like the below screenshot.

Once we have painted over our pandas its time to add a tiny bit of shadow beneath him. I say tiny because when looking at the pen which is laying on the tablet there is virtually no shadow.  So set your brush up as mine is in the below screen shot with an opacity of about 20% and paint a shadow beneath the panda on a new layer.

Now its time to create the reflection for our panda, however this will be a tad different than our last tutorial demonstrating reflections. To begin duplicate your panda and flip it vertically, then apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of about 8, finally using the eraser we used prior feather out the edges of the panda. Once all of this is done, drop the opacity to about 20% and erase away any sections that go off the tablet.

Now we can repeat this process with the remainder of our pandas!

Step 2: Vegetation!

Now its time to start painting our grass in, this will be similar to the last time we painted grass but with a few differences here and there. To start off grab the same brush that we used prior and choose a semi dark green. Do a few ‘starter’ strokes to define the area you wish to encompass with your grass. Next switch over to a lighter green and fill this area in with some smaller strokes and then switch back to the previous green and add some smaller strokes with this as well. Now continue doing this (on a much smaller scale) so it looks like the small strands are bunched together and the larger strands are sticking out amongst the fray.

Finally you can add a very low opacity reflection on the tablet from the grass in the same manner that we did the pandas.

Now repeat this process everywhere you want to add a little vegetation to the scene.

Next up its time to add some larger foliage, a tree or two to be exact! So grab a tree stock that you like, I used a banzai from shutterstock, isolate it out and drop it in behind your grass. Once that is done give it a nice large reflection just like we have drone prior.

And then if you want, do it again as I have done.

My scene now looks like the below screen shot, minus the cropped rising sun.

Now its time to add some bamboo, this is a wacom bamboo mock advert isn’t it? You can find bamboo stocks all over the net on Deviantart, sxc and various other sites. Mine are from Shutterstock and look like the below screenshots.

Now we can repeat the tree process using our bamboo, just isolate them out, place them behind the grass and add a reflection.

Now we can add in some large scale bamboo tops, that is to say, the leafy part. You of course don’t have to use bamboo for this if you do not want to. I choose to do so just due to a mistake partly. My stock is from shutterstock and looks like the below screenshot. You just want to isolate this out and drop it under your tablet.

Step 3: Various stock implementations, extra details and finishing touches

To start off our miscellaneous section we will begin by dropping in a building. My building (like the other stocks) is from shutterstock and looks like the below screenshot. You can find a very similar building on Sxc or DA. Isolate your building out and plop it under one of the trees you put in earlier. Like everything else this will need a reflection!

Now lets add some color to the tablet! To do this grab the same small brush and create a new layer with an opacity of 45%. Using the red that you used for the sun just fill in some areas on the tablet, like the Wacom logo and some small lines on the pen.

Now after looking at it for a bit, I think the canvas is just to plain. So to bump things up a bit create a semi-grey to white gradient as the background. This will help to break up the blandness of the canvas and make the entire thing that much better.

Now we can grab some birds and isolate them out and drop them in around our trees.

Once that is done we can grab the wacom logo from: http://www.carbonation.com/wacom/images/wacom_logo_newK.gif and the bamboo logo from http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1171/533782044_4a0df43d30.jpg (the text only) and drop them both into our document. Set both layers up as a multiply and place the wacom text above the bamboo text to create our mock up logo.

And now we are done! I added in some kanji work around the logo to finish mine off and you can too, or you can leave it as is. My finished image looks like the below screenshot.

I hope you enjoyed reading this tutorial and it has helped you understand a few concepts or at least showed you some techniques you did not know. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask! Or if you have any tut suggestions please drop a comment, we are always looking for new concepts!

One of the most popular subjects for photomanipulation is creating apocalyptic, destructive scenes.  The narrative for such scenes is often easier to create using images, and the themes for apocalyptic art have been well established, while still retaining the freedom to explore and expand the style.

In this Photoshop tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a surreal photomanipulation, and then add a touch of apocalyptic destruction to it.  You’ll see how to balance colors, integrate stock images, and also how to create realistic looking smoke trails.

If you want more Photoshop photomanipulation tutorials, check out these posts:

• Create an Incredible Story Coming Alive Fantasy Photomanipulation
• Incredible Horror Photomanipulation Photoshop Tutorial
• Create an Intricate Mythological Statue Photomanipulation
• Create an Amazing Surreal Heart Abstract Tutorial
• Create a Fantastic Environmental Awareness Composition
• Create a Falling Fantasy Photomanipulation using Painting Techniques
• Creating a Science Fiction Combat Scene Photoshop Tutorial

Enjoy!

Tools used :

• Adobe photoshop
• Various stock images
• Wacom Tablet

Final Image Preview:

Step one: Background setup

To start off we need the background, a nice cloud scene is preferred but you can use whatever you like. An example is the below image.

Once you have your stock image its time to identify the light source. My light source comes from the left side of the screen. So to enhance this I created a black to white gradient and set it to overlay at 35%. Yours might not come from the left thought, so take a peak at your scene and decided which direction your gradient should be emerging from and then create!

Now we need to adjust the colors for our scene. To do this we will create a color balance layer, I prefer using color balance layers like this because of their ease to adjust. You will find the color balance layer style under Layers > new> Adjustment layers> Color Balance. Once you have created the layer you will get the same old color balance dialog you are so used to seeing. So, set yours up as mine is in the next few screen shots or adjust it to better fit your scene.

My clouds now look like the below screen shot.

Now we need to add even more color! So create a new layer and fill it with a light purple. Set this new layer up as an overlay at 50%. Keep in mind that these are the percentages and color balance adjustments for my background, if you are using another one you may need to play around with the colors a bit!

Now continuing on with the theme lets make another color balance layer, this time however we will just adjust the shadows. Once that is done we can create a photo filter layer, which like the color balance layers, are hidden away in the adjustment layers drop down. Set both of these up as mine are in the below screen shot.

My scene now looks like the below screenshot.

Now lets make another photo filter layer! This time set the layer up as an color layer at 45% opacity.

Step 2: Making Orbs

Now its time to get started on the creation of our orbs, for those of you who are fimilar with past tutorials this will be very simple. To create the orbs you will need a base texture, any old stone or concrete texture will do.  I got mine from CGtextures and suggest you start your search there as well. Once you have your texture making a perfect circle using your elliptical marquee and erase everything outside of the circle. Once that is done just burn one side up nice so it appears as If its shadowed.

Next make a selection around your orb and apply a sphererize filter, which can be found under filters > distort. Leave it at 100% both vertical and horizontal.  Next just drop it into your scene directly above the background layer, so it is under all the color adjustment layers.

Now using a soft eraser  (300px soft edged) with an opacity of about 35% erase the bottom of your orb slightly so it appears as if its in the clouds. You could also apply a layer mask and do this if you like.

Now just repeat the process and create a few more orbs. Place them all over the place, be sure to blur the distant orbs and reduce their opacity so it appears as if they are in the horizon amongst the clouds.

Step 3: People

Now lets add in some people, to do this is very simple but it might take a few tweaks to get them to look right.

So to start off with find yourself a nice picture of someone sitting, I went with one from shutter stock but you can get them from Deviantart and Sxc alike.

Now you want to isolate out your figure, and drop it in to your scene right on top of the orb.  You may need to burn/dodge the sides of your figure to match the lighting of your scene, if you do, remember to make a backup of the isolated stock! You don’t want to have to go isolating all over again!

Once you have dropped them in you may also need to apply some quick color corrections as I did, if you do remember to create a color balance layer and mask out everything but the figure! Also keep in mind that the below color balances are for my figures and my scene, yours more than likely will need to be tweaked slightly but don’t worry experimentation is key to success!

Now we will stop working on the figures for a slight second, the scene whilst being wonderful, slightly bothers me. To correct this I created a new layer and drew some big lines of color. Blue for the highest point, pink for the middle section and yellow for the bottom. Once this was done I applied a Gaussian blur with a radius of 250px twice and set the layer up as overlay at %. This is not required but it was bothering me and why not just give it a try, you might like the end result!

Now back on to our figures, they look great but there is something wrong with them as they are… They need a shadow! So create a new layer under the figures but over the orb and draw some shadows on with your feathered brush of choice. My brush setup was : 25px, 0% hardness and opacity of 40%.

Now its time to add in some more figures for our distant orbs, so keep doing the above process with new stock images from sites like sxc and deviantart. Keep in mind when doing this, if the orb is at 40% opacity and blurred, then the figure needs to be as well! You could also just paint these since they will be blurred and have a reduced opacity, I painted about half of mine.

My scene now looks like the below screen shot.

Step 4: God’s Wrath?

Now its time to create the next focal point for our piece, that is of course the meteors. To start off we will need a base rock, I got mine from shutter stock and it looks like the below screen shot, however you can find rocks ALL OVER the net and if you don’t find one you like you can always whip one up in 3ds, vue, Bryce etc…

Next we need a base smoke trail, something that as is, looks like a smoke trail. What’s better than an actual smoke trail? So if you cant find yourself a smoke trail like the below image from shutter stock, you can use the cloud brush we used in our previous tutorials to paint one or you can use a combination of clouds and smoke stock images.

In the case of my base, I inverted it and placed it into the scene along with my rock.

Now its time to get to the nitty gritty part. So lets start off by grabbing a nice soft brush on a new layer, leave your brush’s opacity low, something like 40/50% should work great.

Now paint some highlight clouds and darker clouds as I have done in the below screenshot, keep in mind that you want them to flow and wave as if they are real clouds. If you are having trouble with this step a cloud stock image or the cloud brush we created previously should work just fine.

Next with our brush still transparent we can switch to a grungy brush, something that can help aid in the creation of particles flying about.

Now drop a few of these brush strokes down in random spots so it seems as if they are breaking away from the meteor. You can also blur these (or smudge them as I did) for a more dramatic result.

Now using the same brush you can swap between white and black and part debris over the previously created clouds. Once you have done that use your smudge brush (200px 0% hardness pressure of 15%) and smudge these along the cloud/smoke trail.

Now for final touches. This is where you can blend everything together, add in more depth (shadows and highlights) and make the entire thing seem to flow in to one cohesive segment. Sadly there is no rhyme or reason to this step, it depends upon your skill level and your meteor. Just keep playing with it until you achieve something you like. The below image shows my approach to it, the orange being the darkened areas, blue being highlights and black being where I blurred to achieve a feathered result.

Now this is where we take our meteors to the next level! So we start off by grabbing a stock image of an explosion, like the below image from shutter stock. And then dropping it into our scene, masking out the section we want (the part covering the asteroid and about 15% of our tail) and then setting the blending mode to screen.

Now lets repeat the entire process but this time lets make it something closer to the screen, the piece needs some depth anyway. So start off with the smoke trail, be sure to blur it! I blurred my close trail using the Gaussian blur filter with a radius of about 9px.

Now we drop in our explosion, mask it out and set it up.

Be sure to blur this with the same blur you used for the trail!

Now taking a closer look I felt like the closer meteor needed some umph, so to help this I created a new layer above the screen layer and painted with a dull red/black combination using the soft brush we used previously. All I really did here was darken up certain sections and adding in slight contrast. You don’t have to do this step but I would suggest it if you are not satisfied with the way the piece looks as of now.

Now we can do this a few more times and put these out in the distance, which means, like our orbs they need to have a low opacity. Keep in mind when doing this that if your smoke/asteroid combo has an opacity of 40% then your screen layer should be the same!

And now we are done! My scene now looks like the below screenshot, I finished the piece off by creating a few layers above everything and painting over certain aspects to get them the way I really wanted them to look. You could do the same, leave it as is or even add in more dynamic elements like a aircraft exploding!

I hope you enjoyed reading my tutorial and learned a thing or two! Don’t hesitate to drop a question or comment below!

Desktopography is a yearly desktop wallpaper collection that contains contributions from some of the best digital artists in the world. The innovation, techniques, concepts and skill in each wallpaper is always spectacular, but there are very few tutorials in existence that cover the extensive techniques and workflow for a good digital art wallpaper.

In this tutorial, Joe Moore will walk you through the creation of an incredible surreal nature desktop wallpaper.  Jam packed with information, this Photoshop tutorial will teach you various stock image manipulation skills, how to transform and liquify for good effects, paint reflections and shadows, and create an awesome finished result.

If you are looking for more photomanipulation tutorials, check out these posts:

• Create an Incredible Story Coming Alive Fantasy Photomanipulation
• Incredible Horror Photomanipulation Photoshop Tutorial
• Create an Intricate Mythological Statue Photomanipulation
• Create an Amazing Surreal Heart Abstract Tutorial
• Create a Fantastic Environmental Awareness Composition
• Create a Falling Fantasy Photomanipulation using Painting Techniques
• Creating a Science Fiction Combat Scene Photoshop Tutorial

Let us know what you think in the comments!

Tools Used:

• Adobe Photoshop
• Various Stock images
• Tablet (not required)

Final Image Preview:

Step 1: Scene setup, Whale implementation

To start off we will need our base stock image, something vibrant and beautiful. You can use whatever you like, I would suggest looking on Sxc for this, mine is from shutterstock but as I said, you can find wonderful stock on Sxc. Once you have your background chosen and dropped into Photoshop its time to start tweaking it into what we want it to look like. We can do this with the use of various layer type.  So go to your layer drop down and select new > adjustment layer > photo filter and set yours up as mine is in the below screen shot. Then set the opacity to around 15%.

Next create a new layer (CTRL SHIFT N) and fill it with yellow, set this layer to overlay at about 10-15%. Once you have created the yellow layer we can do the final adjustment, that is to duplicate your original stock image, grey scale it, apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of 255px and then set it to overlay at about 15%. Once

Now we can apply the grey scaled overlay.

Once all of this has been done its time to get our whale, mine is from Shutterstock but you can use anything you like here. A dolphin, whale, turtle etc… I choose the whale because I liked it but choose whatever you like and that your able to find, again Sxc is a great place to start looking. Once you have your stock you will need to isolate it out with your pen tool and drop it under all of your adjustment layers but above the original background layer. Once that is done position it as if it were floating in the sky.

Now its time to start tweaking our whale and adding onto him. We will start off slowly by adding on the smaller details and adjusting his color. So to begin use your circular marquee to remove a section of the whale ( I did the fin), cut this section out and then paste it back in. You can do this more than once (as you can see below I did it twice). Be sure to leave ample room between the sections when doing this!

And now with the section pasted back in, remember I did it twice.

Once your sections are pasted back in to the scene its time to create some string so it looks like they are being held afloat. To do this we can start off by using the line tool to create a thin 1px line in a semi grey color. Once you have created the line position it onto your section. Now we can switch over to a small brush (3px hard) and paint a little bow/loop so it looks like the string is tied around the fin. Be careful when doing this! The best method is to paint as if the string is continuing and then wrapping around the fin and coming back up (unseen) to form a bow.

Our brush should be something like this, granted if your on a very large canvas you might want to bump the size up.

Now we can repeat the above step on any other sections we have created.

If you look at our above fins you will notice that where we cut them they seem… fake. The scene will be abstract or surreal if you will, but we don’t want it to look sloppy. To fix this grab the same brush (still with the semi grey) and paint the holes/gaps so they appear 3D. I know its not that easy to spot but just because you might not see it at first doesn’t mean that someone else wont! So take your time and make it clean!

Now its time to make another photo filter layer, this time specifically for the whale which in my opinion seems far to… dull. So to fix this we can create a new photo filter and set it up as mine is in the below screenshot. Since the photo filter layers have layer masks you can isolate out your whale so it’s the only affected section. Once this is done set the layer to overlay with an opacity of about 40-50%.

Step 2: Buildings and vegetation

Ok now its time to start adding elements to our scene, to give it more life! To do this we can start off by adding some buildings from SXC the first of which can be found here http://www.sxc.hu/photo/90320 you can find plenty more if you do a little digging. Once you have a few just isolate them out and place them under the whale layer sticking up from behind him.

Now its time to add in some grass, this will help the illusion that the buildings are not simply behind the whale. So create a new layer and place it above the whale and his blue photo filter layer. Once this is done grab the same 3px brush this time with a hardness of about 50% and set your colors up as mine are in the below screen shot.

Now using your brush paint the grass strokes along the back of the whale. Make your brush stokes go from the back of the whale a bit of the ways up the building, doing this will create the illusion as if the building is sitting on something rather than just behind the whale. Take your time with this step swapping between the darker and lighter green, if you like you can add some other colors in as well such as yellow or brown.

Now it’s time to grab some trees from Sxc to place under the grass and on top of our whale. So head over and do a quick search or use the below links to grab some trees, then isolate them out with your pen tool. Once they are isolated just place them above the blue photo filter layer but under the grass.

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1113494

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/739385

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1161714

My scene now looks like the below screenshot.

Step 3: Curved lines/3D lines

Once our vegetation is complete we can begin on making all of those fancy lines. So to start off create a new document about twice the size of your original piece. Why do it this way? Well I find it much easier to do this on a large canvas, and these lines always look so much better once they are sized down, so why not create them large and size them down to the size you want?

Once your new canvas has been made start off by making a simple bar (10px horizontal line). Once this has been done make a selection around it and move the selection so it only touches the top section of the line. Once you have done this right click and choose feather, feather your selection to about 6px and hit ok. Now with the selection still active create a new layer with an opacity of 20% and a blending mode of overlay. Once this is done fill the selection on your new layer with black, move it down to the opposing side and fill it with white.

If your line is huge (in height) bumping up the feather would be a good idea, you want it distributed throughout like a gradient.

And now that both are applied our line looks like the below image.

Once you have applied both the white and the black erase anything on your overlay layer that is not on the line. Once that is done merge it down and finish the shadow/highlight with the dodge and burn tool. Why finish it with the dodge and burn tool rather than setting the overlay layers opacity higher? Well I like to do it this way, you get more control over individual points/sections.

Now its time to make that line look cool! We can do this by using the liquefy filter as we have done in previous tutorials. But before doing this if I were you I would make a few duplicates of the line you just created, that way you don’t have to do that over and over again, I mean we are going to want a ton of lines!

Ok so now its time to liquefy but how should we go about it? Well I like to make an S! but you can also do large C’s or S like shapes with multiple loops.  Anything that you like really, just use your warp forward tool and have fun!

An example of the S like shape can be seen here :

Once you have one made drop it into your scene so it appears as if its wrapping around your whale.

Continue on doing this until you feel like you have made enough curved lines.

Once all your lines are created (or during the creation process) you will want to create some shadows. They way I like to do this to create a new layer beneath all of the lines and grab a soft brush something like 15px with 0% hardnes then just paint them in. Once they are all painted just drop the opacity down so it appears as if it’s a real shadow.

Now lets take another line, in the simple S shape and lets give it some perspective. To do this grab a new line and then go to edit>transform>distort. Once the box appears around your shape its time to distort its perspective! To distort the shape simply move the outer boxes around as I have done so it appears as if one side is further away.  Now just drop it into your document behind your whale and your done!

Well not entirely but close. What we need to do now is to blur the line closest to the screen to give it depth. To do this simply grab your marquee tool and feather a selection around the shape, then apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of about 8. Make sure you are using a large feather, something like 100px!

Now just do this a few more times, as you can see I also added one to the water which was not blurred.

Now we can add in some stilts to hold our whale up, I will be using the stilts from one of our previous surreal tutorials located here : http://design.creativefan.com/create-an-unbelievable-surreal-abstract-artwork-with-photoshop/

If you haven’t read it I suggest you do so! It will describe the creation process of the stilts.

I made two that hold up my whale along with the perspective water line.

Step 4: Creating reflections

Now we need to make our reflections, because as is, it looks ridiculous. To create the reflections we need to duplicate one of the shapes that touches the water, I started with a stilt. Once it has been duplicated flip it vertically and then feather the end (use a large soft eraser and remove it, something like 300px with 0% hardness). Once that is done switch over to the original hard 3px brush along with your smudge tool (set to about 50%) and smudge it from left to right in small horizontal strokes following the waves. If your water has no waves or they aren’t that visible don’t worry, it will look good anyway. Once you have smudged the stilt apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of about 4px and feather anything else you like away. I feathered the sides down a tad as well as reduced the height of it after the blur was applied.

Now create a new layer above the stilt and the duplicate, on this layer we will pain some waves/reflective patches. To do this grab that same old 3px brush and just paint thin horizontal lines were the original stilt hits the reflection.

Now just repeat to the other objects that hit the water!

Step 5: Stock implementation

Now its time to start really adding in some stocks, specifically we will start with planes. So head over to sxc and grab yourself a few planes/blimps etc… once you have a few begin isolating them out and placing them about in the sky.

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/143714

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1094062

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1094058

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1178347

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/472505

Now lets add in some little fun things, for example I have a tower on my whales back, what if we put someone bungee jumping off of it? To do this we need a stock of someone falling like the one below.

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/325843

Now we need to isolate our figure out, place him in the scene and draw a line that goes from him to the tower. I used the same grey that we used earlier for the fins and used black to attach it to him.

As of now our scenes starting to take shape, but I think the water needs more. So we can head back over to Sxc, grab the below sign, isolate it out and apply the same reflection techniques we used earlier. This should give the water a bit more action rather than just being blank.

http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=download&id=200979

Now lets add some more to the water. To start off we can head over to sxc and grab this piece of wood, once you have the wood isolate out one of the sides, size it down and place it in the scene without a reflection, we will do that later.

http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=download&id=968433

Once the boards in the scene isolate out the below house and place it on the board so it resembles something similar to a bird house. Once the bird house has been isolated and placed atop the board we can merge these two layers together and proceed to make the reflection.

http://www.sxc.hu/pic/l/m/mo/mordoc/658838_82642337.jpg

Now lets add in some balloons! To create balloons in the scene just go to Sxc (link below) and grab stock. Once you have the stock, isolate it out and draw yourself a string just as we have done previously. I placed the first one down by our sign and ‘tied’ it to said sign. If you place your balloon be sure to add a reflection as well!

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1011246

Now just continue adding in balloons! I added in about 3 more and placed them randomly about, be sure when doing this that you vary their colors!

Now if you wanted to, you could grab one of the clown fish from our Iphone tutorial (http://design.creativefan.com/design-a-tropical-iphone-advertisement/ ) and attach him using the same method we did the jumper. I did this but its not a requirement by any means, it just adds a little more light heartedness to the piece.

Now its time to add in a little bit more vegetation. So grab the below stock (which is pre isolated) and go ahead and use your liquefy filter to create S like shapes from the tips of the leafs. Once you have done this place it behind your buildings so it is popping out the back.

http://wammyp.deviantart.com/gallery/24427238#/d10jfvl

Step 6 : Extra tid-bits and closing

Now we can use the 3px hard brush (again) on our new layer to paint in all kind of little do-dads. For example I created some bubbles, some drips and some drool. I would cover how to go over this but we have done it in many tutorials previously, for example :

http://design.creativefan.com/create-story-coming-alive-fantasy-photomanipulation/

http://design.creativefan.com/colorful-candy-3d-text-effect-in-photoshop-and-3d-studio-max-tutorial/

http://design.creativefan.com/create-a-fantastic-environmental-awareness-composition/

Next I added in the 3D shapes we created in our Iphone tutorial, this is not a requirement but I liked the way it looked. Don’t know how to go about making them? Check out the tutorial!

http://design.creativefan.com/combine-3d-geometric-shapes-and-flowing-lines-for-a-sleek-iphone-ad/

And well that’s it! I painted in a few more doo-dads like ladders and doors but none of this is a requirement for making the piece what it is. You can by all means add in tons of more and make the piece into what you imagine it should look like. My final image looks like the below screenshot.

I hope you enjoyed reading this tutorial and maybe learned a thing or two! If you have any questions regarding a technique don’t be afraid to post a message and ask!

Creating awesome science fiction art may seem like an incredible challenge, with all the intricate elements and gadgets, neon lighting, buildings, advanced weapons and other aspects, but luckily, it’s not as hard as you might think.  While there are people who can digitally paint any scene that comes into their mind, most of us aren’t at that artistic level, so it’s easier to photomanipulate things.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a science fiction photomanipulation in Photoshop.  First, we’ll start by creating a futuristic style city, followed by adding in our main character, and then lastly, we’ll add some combat elements to it.

If you want more of the best photomanipulation tutorials on the web, check out these posts:

• Create an Incredible Story Coming Alive Fantasy Photomanipulation
• Incredible Horror Photomanipulation Photoshop Tutorial
• Create an Intricate Mythological Statue Photomanipulation
• Create an Amazing Surreal Heart Abstract Tutorial
• Create a Fantastic Environmental Awareness Composition
• Create a Falling Fantasy Photomanipulation using Painting Techniques

Enjoy!

Tools Used:

• Adobe Photoshop
• Stock Images
• A Tablet

Final Image Preview:

Step one: Collecting and isolating stocks

Ok so to start off with we will need a night time cityscape something with a lot of vibrant lights. You can get these all over the net so just go searching around and you will find one fairly easy enough. I got mine from shutter stock and it looks like the below screenshot. Once you have your stock image just drop it into your canvas and crop it as you see fit.

Next we will need our main stock image, the model/figure. I got mine from the great MJ-Ranum on deviantart but you can use whatever you like. If you want to use the same one I did it is located at: http://mjranum-stock.deviantart.com/gallery/1854632#/d2mzgyx

Once you have your model just isolate it out and plop it into your canvas.

Now its time to grab up a wall stock or something similar. Again I will be using one from shutterstock but you can find these all over the net. My stock was taken from the below screenshot, clone stamped and then dropped into the scene.

Step 2: Basic Background Building

Now its time to make the background pop a little bit more and look more like a window rather than some strange stock montage. So to start off grab your background city stock and apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of about 7 or 8 depending upon how ‘blurred’ you want the buildings to look. Once you have done that duplicate the blurred layer and set it to Multiply, this will darken everything but the lights giving it more of a night time feel, don’t bother duplicating the city if you feel that yours is dark enough. Finnally we can then create a new layer and fill it with Cyan, this layer should be set to overlay at about 50%.

Remember you don’t have to duplicate the city, this is just by choice!

Now lets add some texture, because as we know, windows really aren’t always 100% clean and smudge free!  So to start off head over to CG textures and grab this stock http://cgtextures.com/texview.php?id=58685&PHPSESSID=1434932907f6c8b121a97617234e8e27

Just clone stamp the black bar out of the middle and set it to overlay at about 15-10% we don’t want anything to obstruct the view of our blurred city, rather just to enhance/give the window like effect.

Next we will do the same thing with this stock http://cgtextures.com/texview.php?id=39570&PHPSESSID=1434932907f6c8b121a97617234e8e27

I also duplicated the original city and blurred it again with a radius of 255px and set it to overlay at 25% opacity but you don’t have to do this, I thought it helped to meld everything thus far but its not required.

Remember you really don’t have to blur the city a final time unless you think it looks better. Also keep in mind that the blurred city can and should be placed above your figure if you like it.

After doing the above you can see that there is some (however faint) texture in the cityscape now.

Step 3: Cracks and bullet holes

So now its time to add some cracks/bullet holes, rather than displaying a huge list of the bullet holes I used  I will just to give you the link to the CG textures page so you can grab the ones you want! The bullet holes can be found here : http://cgtextures.com/textures.php?t=browse&q=33638

So when you look at the bullet holes you will notice that they are almost entirely black and white. Why is that important? Well since all we want is the white (broken looking sections) we can simply apply these as screen and ta-da!

So grab a few and lets get started. You will want to grab a handful of smaller holes and place them all around the figure, then start dropping one or two large ones in. Place the larger ones as if they are coming in from the corners/behind the figure.

Now grab a few of the longer splinters and place them from one bullet hole to another. This will give a more realistic effect, if you shot a glass window enough the splinters would join together and eventually the plate of glass would shatter. This in my opinion is the most important part of the glass. You can place as many as you like whilst doing this as well.

For a better example of what I mean by connecting take a look at the two below screenshots. Also if your having issues with your splinters ending in a hard manner just feather them with a large soft edged brush, something like a 300px 0% hard eraser should do the trick!

Step 4: Coloring, Over painting and doodles!

Ok so now we have our glass done for the most part but I figure still seems very out of place. To correct this create a new layer above the figure and grab a soft edged brush. Once you have done that choose the same cyan that you used for the background and simply stroke all the way around your figure, basically just drawing an outline all around your figure. Depending on how rough you do this you may want to apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of about 3px. Once that is done drop the opacity down to about 45%.

Now let’s head up to the helmet, this is my favorite part of the piece, its where we will add some finer details and some doodles. To start off with lets add some tech stuff to our visor, to do this I used a brush from the wonderful Z-Design on deviantart, but you can just draw this out as well. The brush pack can be found here:

http://z-design.deviantart.com/gallery/?catpath=/resources/#/d1pre4n

Just choose one you like and drop it in, I used a purple color for this to counteract all the blue going on but you can keep it white if you like. Once you brush has been placed you should feather the end that is fading into the darker parts of her visor as I have done in the below screenshot.

Next just start drawing all over your helmet with the previously used soft edged brush. You can do whatever you like, words, faces, symbols or just whatever comes to mind. I also painted over the helmet a tad during this process just to darken up spots, I also removed the big red star by just painting over it in black. But you can do whatever you like here. Just have fun with it!

You can also take this opportunity to paint obscure things on other parts, for example the gun belt and gun.

My scene now looks like the below screen shot.

Step five: Laser sights and smoke

Ok so now lets add in some laser sights! This is actually very simple to do but adds a very cool effect to the overall image. First grab your line tool and set it up as I have (with red as the line color) and then draw a straight line.

Now using your perspective tool just add some perspective so it appears as if its coming from outside the scene and pointing at your figure. Once you have done that apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of about 3px to kind of fluff the laser up some.

Once we have done that we want to apply a layer mask and paint some darker sections in to give the appearance that the laser is reflecting more in certain areas, as if theres some smoke in the room or dust etc… to do this we can grab out cloud brush from one of our previous tutorials (http://design.creativefan.com/create-story-coming-alive-fantasy-photomanipulation/ ) and just use the brush on the  layer mask.

Next just draw a circular dot on your canvas and your laser sight is done!

Now just add in a few more as you see fit! After adding in the new laser sights I went ahead and created a white to black gradient and set it to softlight at 45% over everything but this is not required, I just thought it helped with the mood.

Finally to finish the piece off we can grab a smoke stock off of Cg textures and drop it in to our scene, again this can just be set to screen! I placed the smoke coming off the tip of the barrel and then duplicated it, placed it behind the gun and flipped it horizontally to give it a better smoking gun like effect.

And now we are done! I finished the piece off by painting over a good bit more of the scene and then just sharpened it up, my final image looks like the below screenshot.

I hope you enjoyed reading this tutorial and it has helped you understand a few concepts or at least showed you some techniques you did not know. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask! Or if you have any tut suggestions please drop a comment, we are always looking for new concepts!

There are talented artists all around the globe, each influenced by their own surroundings, friends, colleagues and life experiences.  While some of us picked up art only recently, others have been working with it all their lives.  Some people have had a dream since birth to work in the digital art field, and Jose Paulo Amorim Reis is one of them.

In this interview, Jose will share some of his inspirational work, influences and advice.  Enjoy.

• Your Name: José Paulo Amorim Reis
• Your Age: 32
• Location (City or Country): Oporto (Portugal)
• Your website or portfolio: www.zepaulocreation.blogspot.com
• Software you use: Photoshop (95 %) Illustrator or freehand (5%)

Thanks for taking the time to interview with us. First off, could you tell us a little about yourself?

I’m a digital artist with 4 years of experience.  I’m passionate about fashion photography, creativity, advertising, photomanipulation and digital art. I’m working currently as a digital artist in Lalaland Studios (fashion photography).  I love fashion and beauty photography and everything related with digital art.  I’m devoted to Photoshop, and everyday I’m trying to improve my skills.

How did you get started with digital art?

I’ve always loved digital art. The manipulated images have always fascinated me. When I was young I had a dream that one day I would be able to do what I want with any image I choose and work with full freedom to modify and create truly inspirational images. I think that actually my work is the mirror of my dream.

The Lost Planet

What are your major influences? Any artists in particular who influenced you a lot, or other media such as music and movies?

My main source of inspiration is the work of some amazing artists that I had the pleasure come across with in the web.  Some names like Michaelo, Zach Bush, Peter Jaworowski, Jerico Santander, Pete Harrison, Javier Alvarado and some other amazing artists in the world.  These artists gave me the light I needed to explore my world and to create my own images.

From a creative standpoint, is it easier to work on personal work or client work?

No doubt it’s much better to do personal work.  Here there are no limitations!  The only limits are the ones that I impose, because the freedom of my ideas are the inspiration for a job well done. When I’m working for a client, it is much harder because I have to limit myself to his/her ideas, when many times could change the work quite a different way and better, but I can not do because it is the customer who decides.

Does your heritage, ethnicity or current residency location affect your art? If so, how?

I don’t think so. Today the influence comes from many great artists worldwide.  The Internet gives us the possibility to see other great works with which we identify ourselves and allows us to realize the inspiration for new works

How would you describe your style, in a sentence or two?

I have very different styles. I explore many techniques as I can. Photomanipulations and digital painting mixed in one gives the result I need.  I explore when I need a realistic style and often surreal images almost always converge with nature and feminine beauty.

Just Appreciate

Can you describe your typical workflow when you’re working on a project, whether it be personal or for a client?

When I work for a client, they gave me the briefing and the elements (sketches) I need to build the image. After that I develop the image with all orientations.  When I am developing a personal work usually do not draw, but I will build the image I have in my mind. It’s a long process that includes insertion and removal of manyelements to reach the final image.

Do you have a favorite work that you’ve done, or something you’re especially proud of? Why that work especially?

I do not have one that I like more.  Most of the work I do for me are those that make me proud. Of course there are some which have more critical acclaim from the general public of which I can highlight one:

The Last World

This piece was a personal project in order to draw attention to global warming of our planet. This is a warning to the planet we live and we should protect it against this very real threat. The planet is sinking and so it is vital to save it!

What draws you to the style of art that you make?

My style reflects to me the most realistic way to expose my work to a real or surreal world!  Do something different in an image or picture that often is impossible for most people ever see this image into reality.

What program do you do the majority of your work in, and why?

Photoshop is the key! Illustrator and freehand are complements that I use if necessary.

Do you use any external hardware such as a drawing tablet? How do you use it in your workflow?

Yes… I use a draw tablet. From the moment I start to use my tablet my work improve a lot. I can’t work this time without my tablet.

Island Paradise

Do you have any advice for beginning artists out there?

Never give up your dreams to achieve your goals.  Hard work and dedication are the secret words to anyone who wants to be a digital artist.

Where do you see yourself in the future, and how do you feel that you will be growing as an artist?

My goal for the future will always improve the quality of my work. While I was inPortugal or elsewhere. The important thing is to do what I like, I can now consider myself a lucky person because that’s what I do. Currently working on a fantasticphotographic studio in Porto (Lalaland Studios) with a fashion photographer of themost reputable in Portugal called Frederico Martins (www.fredericomartins.net). Has published work in fashion magazines such as Vogue, GQ, Maxima, ELLE. In this studio you presently intend to explore and improve my work every day. I give workshops on advanced Photoshop and here I can tell my students that Photoshop is a fantastic program that allows us to expose all our imagination into a work of art.

Inspiration is Nothing

Anything else you’d like to say? Any projects you’re working on that you want to draw attention to, or closing thoughts for the readers?

I’m working everyday in new projects! At this moment we are developing some fashion and Advertisement work at the Studio, but If I have any available time at night I try to explore my mind and my imagination in a new digital art work.

Thanks to all who appreciate my work, because those are people who every day give me the strength to continue to improve my work!

One of the most popular design styles of the past few years is to create interesting effects around a stock photo of a dancer or a person in motion.  The motion offers a unique base around which to build creative elements.

In this Photoshop tutorial, you’ll see how to manipulate a single stock image in Photoshop to create a dance illustration.

If you are looking for more of the best Photoshop tutorials, check out these posts:

• Create a Dynamic Dance Wallpaper in Photoshop and Illustrator
• Create Custom Shapes for an Asian Inspired Composition
• Create a Natural Flowery Peace and Harmony Composition
• Having Fun with Vectors, Custom Brushes and Stock Images

If you have any questions or suggestions, let us know in the comments!

Tools Used:

• Adobe Photoshop
• A stock image

Final Image Preview

Step 1: Scene Setup

Ok so to start off, we need to create our background and our new document. Now like almost all of my tutorials the resolution is up to you, however I still suggest something large (I will be using 3000*2000) and now we need to make the background. To create the background choose a light grey and make a grey to white gradient, I went with the circular gradient with white in the center expanding into grey but whatever you like should work just fine for this.

Now we need our stock image! You can use any kind of model you like, I went with a dancer picture which can be seen below. Once you have your stock you will need to isolate it out using your pen tool and drop it into your scene.

Step 2: Simple Background Aesthetics

Now to start building our scene up with some easy tricks. The first of which will be to help lessen the negative space in the scene by creating something for the background. So create a new layer under your model and make a large colored circle (I went with pink). You can do this by using the circular marquee tool and then just filling it. Once you have made your circle turn the layers opacity down to about 20%.

Now we can create another new layer under the figure for our shadow. To create the shadow grab any old brush and just draw it out. Once you have loosely (very loose in my case) drawn the shadow just apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of about 15 depending on how large your shadow area is going to be and how condensed you want it to be.

Once you shadow is done we can make a duplicate of our figure and turn the opacity to 0%. Once you have done this go to the F on the layer toolbar and select ‘stroke’. Once you have done that set your stroke dialog up as mine is in the below screenshot, then just decrease the opacity and move it around a tad to the left or right.

Step 3: Figure Aesthetics

Ok now its time to start my favorite part! The sketching! So at this point you will want to grab your 3px hard brush and get started!

So basically what you want to do hear is to just trace, doodle and shade in random sections with different colors. I used black, white, pink, cyan and green for my colors. Starting with green and white then moving on to the other colors but your color selections can be whatever you like, just make sure they complement one another. And remember we are going for a traditional doodle/sketch look so don’t worry if yours looks rough!

You can also play around with other filters/tools while doing this. For example I smudged my green lines in the below screenshot.

Ok so now that you have sketched all over your stock its time to move on to the next step which may not be necessary or viable on your piece but we will go over it regardless just for the sake of learning!

So what we are going to do is duplicate the cross on my figures necklace. So to do this in a cool way we will, isolate out the cross, drop it on a new layer and set it as an overlay layer at 100% and then under this layer on a new layer we will just fill in the cross. This way the solid cross that we just filled will have the shadows and highlights from the overlay cross and it will allow us to manipulate the colors much easier than with the standard hue adjustments.

You can also see where I drew (poorly) little loops to connect these new crosses to the original necklace, which you can add to yours if your doing something similar.

Now lets add some more color like effects. To do this just create a new layer above your figure and draw a bit patch on it in a color that fits with your piece (I went with blue). Then just apply a large Gaussian blur and set the layer up as a screen layer.

My document now looks like the below screen shot.

Now lets add some more to our figure! So grab one of your splat/brush stroke brushes ( see our tut on these here : http://design.creativefan.com/combining-custom-brushes-for-wild-effects-in-photoshop/ ) and throw down to in two different colors (I used dark purple and blue) then set them up as an overlay layer.

Now using some of the brushes just throw a few brush strokes on a new layer under your figure and some on top of your figure.

Step 4: Custom shapes

Once your brush strokes are all laid down we can move on to the next section, that being creating the dynamic swirly shapes! To do this start off by making a new document (you don’t have to but I find it easier) and then just using your pen tool make a quick random loop like shape. Then once you have your shape fill it with your desired color!

Now unlike our previous tutorials where we tried to create a light setup that related to the background this time we can just go all random. Just burn/dodge what you think looks good. Because in the end if you think it looks good, what else matters? If your having trouble at this step, or don’t know what im referring to I suggest you take a look at one of our tutorials that covers this in full, which can be found at: http://design.creativefan.com/create-colorful-ornamental-text-photoshop-tutorial/

Now we can create a new hue adjustment layer. This can be found in the layer drop down under adjustment layers -> hue and saturation. Once you have create a new adjustment layer and set it up to your desired color then just edit it like you would any mask! For example erasing a line would create a line in a different color and painting a line would do vice-versa. I used the pen tool to create my color swirls but you can just marquee them out or just paint them on, whatever is easier for you!

Now just drop it into your dance picture. The idea here being that part loops behind the figure whilst another part stays on top of the figure creating a 3D like illusion. As you can see in the below screen shot, I put a ton!

Now we can repeat the process of making our swirly shape but this time just make a sphere which is a thousand times easier. Just lasso out a sphere, fill, burn, dodge and color! If your sphere looks a tad flat you can spherize it with the spherize filter located in the deformation drop down in your filter tab. But if you do this be sure that you have it set to 100% on both axis’!

Once the shapes are in lets do some more fine tuning. So head over to your layer tab and choose create new layer > Fill layer > Pattern layer and then just grab a scan line pattern. Once you have done this just make some random selections or random brush strokes etc… which will be your scan lines. You can use your polygon lasso here to make various weird shapes or some brushes you have lying about its up to you. I used a splatter brush as well as the poly lasso.

But don’t be afraid of just using one type of pattern! For example below you can see I used another pattern, a black halftone to be exact.

Next grab your poly lasso and just make a few rectangles and triangles in various shapes all over your figure. Then just copy and paste these sections of your figure on to a new layer. Once you have done that just move them around to create some abstract dispersion. Also if you wanted you could use the displacement filter for this, however keep in mind that doing it that way gives you a thousand times less control!

To finish off our piece we will need to add in something more, something to help bring everything together. That will be light stocks! So we will head over to SXC and grab this stock and drop it into our document.  http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1114780

Once you have dropped the light stock into your document apply it as a screen beneath the figure. Then duplicate it and place it above the figure. Erase out the parts you don’t like that are on top of the figure and ta-da!

Now we are done! I finished my piece off with a bit more drawing and some graffiti work and my final image looks like the below screen shot.

I hope you enjoyed reading this tutorial and maybe learned a thing or two! If you have any questions regarding a technique don’t be afraid to post a message and ask!