Tutorial: Head work

By Dirk Metzmacher

It’s amazing that even with very little artistic talent you can create realistic images in Photoshop. As an example, I’ll show you the creation of a woman whose hair, skin, eyes, nose and mouth were drawn. Read more »

No Comments / Published on Mai 20, 2010

Image made of text

By Dirk Metzmacher

Every day we’re surrounded by written words. Be it the daily morning newspaper, documents at the workplace or texts on the internet – type is part of our everyday life. So in order to set a counterpoint to all that, we’ve created the „image made of text“ effect, in which the content is supported by the shape, which in turn forms a face.

Basis

For example, an article about „anxiety and panic attacks“ could be visually emphasized with the following image. This stresses the message even more. There are only very few necessary prerequisites to putting this effect into practice. The image element that dictates the text’s shape should be in front of a white background. If that’s not possible, you should extract the element and then fit it with a white background.

It’s also favorable to have a rather bright image element. Such an element doesn’t have to be a portrait, because with this technique the text can follow any shape you like.

Conversion to black & white

If you want to create a black & white image from a color photo, you could simply click on Image > Adjustments > Desaturate. But this makes the image flat and low in contrast. There’s a reason for that. Different colors with the same brightness are very similar as shades of gray, which is why you can’t differentiate the single tones anymore. Read more »

No Comments / Published on April 16, 2010

Web design – small but nice

By Dirk Metzmacher

When little information must be presented very quickly on a website, such as preview information for a site prelaunch or a portfolio demonstrating skills, miniature websites that show only the most necessary content in very little space are the way to go. Read more »

No Comments / Published on April 14, 2010

Achromatic colors

By Dirk Metzmacher

Black & white images have their own special appeal that manifests itself in seriousness and objectivity. These are reasons which make the achromatic variant often preferred in nude photography. Photoshop offers numerous ways to achieve the same goal, but the results differ greatly in terms of quality. Read more »

No Comments / Published on April 9, 2010

Tutorial: Merging

By Dirk Metzmacher

The combination or fusion of words makes for interesting type creations that are quickly created and have multiple uses. You can also create bonds between single letters with this method.

Middle part

1. Basis

First off, use white color to write these two big words. The middle is meant to hold a smaller word, which is why you should leave enough space. The S of Speed lends itself to being elongated, so on the one hand you’ll get a basis for the short word and on the other hand a link is created between the two big words.

Rasterize the text with Layer > Rasterize > Type and select a part of the S, then duplicate it with Layer > New > Layer via Copy, and elongate it with Layer > Transform > Scale.

2. Stroke

Write the small word in the middle and reduce all text layers to a collective layer. To do that, hold the Ctrl key and click the layers in the layer palette, but not the thumbnail icons, because that would load a selection. Use Layer > Merge Layers to reduce them to a single text layer, then give it the Layer Style > Stroke with the options Size 4 pixels and color Black. Read more »

No Comments / Published on April 5, 2010

Tutorial: Gloss & Glow

By Dirk Metzmacher

Very smooth surfaces reflect their surroundings slightly, very hot elements glow or even emit light. With the layer style Outer Glow and the blending mode Overlay, text effects like this become a walk in the park.

28 Hours

1. Custom Font

You could just as well use a fitting font in this case, but it’s relatively simple to create the bar for the digital display on a layer of its own in order to assemble the digits by hand. To do that, click on Layer > New > Layer and select the shape with the polygon lasso, then fill it with #dd6611 (RGB 221, 102, 17).

Make some copies of the shape, then position them appropriately and rotate them via Edit > Transform. Read more »

2 Comments / Published on April 1, 2010