Photoshop Blog by Chris

Final - Magazine Cover

2010-05-22T21:12:00.000-07:00

I used a layered composition for this cover. The background is a great photo I took at Yosemite. I didn't think it needed any adjustments at all. The "trekker" photo I used on the right is one I took of my husband while hiking in New Zealand. I masked everything to his left and set him on a different rock in Yosemite. A few text effects like a red drop shadow, bevel and glow helped the masthead text to "pop" from the page and hopefully grab the viewer. I used only the Trajan Pro font (it comes only in caps) for a clean consistent look.

Lesson 14 - Last of Groovy Photoshop Techniques

2010-05-22T21:00:00.001-07:00

Pop Dots

Using Text as a Clipping Mask

I found a couple of nice surreal images at creative.ly. In the first one I applied a few effects such as bevelling and changing the color. In the second one I warped the text and moved it to another area of the image.

Lesson 13

2010-05-22T20:06:00.000-07:00

Part 1: Masks, Knockouts, and Luminance Blending

Here's my result from following the tutorial:

Part 2: Depth of Field with Layer Mask

This photo from creative.ly is of the Petronas Towers taken by A. Cassini. This effect works well with looking up at something very tall.

Lesson 12 - Introduction to Masks

2010-05-16T22:10:00.000-07:00

I found a T Rex that was perfect for this background:

This masking technique worked well with this image:

Lesson 11 - Plugins

2010-05-01T17:23:00.000-07:00

I found plugins to be quite impressive once I got past the initial frustration of getting them to show up under filters. Here is one from Harry's filters using pattern and random art.

This plugin from Filter Forge distorts an image. It really changed how a face looks, creating different people from the original Shakespeare:

Original then plugin using distort/noise and distort/noise/large angle:

Another nice effect is using the distort with bumpy glass:

This plugin from Redfield converts an image from http://creative.ly/ into a sketch:

These plugins create a Rain Blur and Dawning using another photo from http://creative.ly/ . They are from The Plug in Site:

Lesson 10 Surreal Image

2010-04-25T21:40:00.000-07:00

I came across this photo of Philippe Starck holding up a mirror at:

http://www.fabrikmagazine.com/.

The shape of the mirror reminded me of the head in the painting "The Scream". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream)

What I did in the final product was use the pen tool to cut out the head from "The Scream" and place it in the mirror. Then I took Philippe Starck from the waist up and put him on top of the figure in the painting. He now is wearing a sweatshirt and his hands are open.

I found the pen tool quite precise and easy to use. Just had to cut out the places between the hands and shoulders with the magic wand to finish it.

Lesson 6 - Editing Tools

2010-04-18T22:57:00.000-07:00

Here is the edited version of the Hannah photo. I didn't saturate as much as in the book because I thought it look too suntanned.

This is the photo I chose to use for the healing brush tool. It was torn then pieced together and scanned.

Here's the final version after extensive use of the healing brush and also the burn tool and clone stamp. It still could use a bit more work. I softened the crease on the right (his left side) to balance better with the opposite side which was somewhat lost in the healing process.

Midterm Montage of Claude Monet

2010-04-11T21:25:00.001-07:00

Monet wrote of his growing frustration with his deteriorating vision, describing how he was forced to memorize where the colors were placed on his palate. In 1914 he wrote in his correspondence that colors no longer had the same intensity. “Reds had begun to look muddy,’’ he wrote. “My painting was getting more and more darkened.” He was forced to rely on the labels on the tubes of paint in place of his own vision.

The photo used is one I took on a trip to Giverny (Monet’s home in France) many years ago. The image was too bright and too yellow so I adjusted brightness and curves. Midtones were left unchanged while hue and saturation were increased.

I have always wanted to create an impressionist look from a photograph and came across the process to do this Photoshop here: http://www.bmcphotoart.com/impressionisttutorial.html Texture and color are emphasized at the expense of detail.

I then used a cooling filter to change pinks to violets. The photo was reversed to bring out the water lilies on the right and to set Monet’s portrait against the lavender background of foliage.

The quote by Monet uses the “Monet” font. The background is a hand sketch of water lilies by Monet.

Week 7: Typography

2010-03-20T12:55:00.000-07:00

This image had a fairly large black area at the top so is perfect for text. I chose a font called Bleeding Cowboys and warped it to curve over the moon. Yellow was the obvious choice against the black.

Here's the lesson in the book. I used Times New Roman so the result looks a bit different.

Week 5: Masks

2010-03-11T16:43:00.000-08:00

The Pink Umbrella

I created a mask of the girl and placed her on the background with the pink umbrella. I found the images at: http://creative.ly/. It was quite difficult to create a mask for the image because the background was a light grey that was very close to the color of her arm.

A mask was made of the elephant then set in a field of flowers>