Erasing backgrounds in no time – Extraction plugins for Photoshop

By Dirk Metzmacher

Photoshop offers you a number of techniques for extracting elements from an image, but they all have one thing in common: They take a lot of time. Especially when it’s about hair or half-transparent objects like smoke or glass, plugins can be a valuable help and noticeably reduce work time. Read more »

No Comments / Published on März 30, 2010

Texture from nothing

By Dirk Metzmacher

This workshop will show you what power smart filters possess. Here you’ll conjure up a stone texture from nothing – or rather from a transparent layer – with a combination of filters. Combined with a few adjustment layers you’ll give the structure a fitting color and more contrast.

01. Clouds

Select File > New to open a new document with about 1100 x 800 pixels in RGB mode and a transparent background. Select Filter > Convert for Smart Filters and confirm the dialog with OK in order to prepare the layer. After pressing the D key on your keyboard to select Photoshop’s standard colors, apply Filter > Render > Clouds. Name this layer STONE TEXTURE.

02. The channel

Switch from the layer view to the channels palette and click the New Channel button at the bottom right. This creates the channel ALPHA 1. Change the name to DIFFERENCE CLOUDS by double-clicking ALPHA 1 and typing in the new name. To make the name fit the content, apply Filter > Render > Difference Clouds three times. Repeating this filter turns the black into a marble-like surface. Read more »

No Comments / Published on März 25, 2010

Ambigrams in Photoshop

By Dirk Metzmacher

Ambi means „all-sided“ – like the yin yang symbol. It’s perfectly symmetrical writing which can be turned or flipped and still looks exactly the same. They stand for perfect symmetry or even for signs full of wonder. This article shows you a technique how to do your own simple ambigram.

Signs full of wonder

„The corpse on the floor before Langdon was hideous. The late Leonardo lay on his back, stripped naked. Fighting a wave of nausea, Langdon let his eyes fall to the victim’s chest. The raised, broiled flesh was perfectly delineated… the symbol perfectly formed.“ This is what Dan Brown describes in his bestseller Angels & Demons. The symbol which the hero of that story admires here is an ambigram.

The test

If you turn your head a little, you’ll see the effect. Even better: Copy the image and open it in Photoshop. Use Image > Image Rotation to turn the workspace around 180 degrees. Nothing happens, of course. Nothing is meant to happen, because ambigrams are symmetrical. A true artist of „inversions“ is Scott Kim, by the way, who displays numerous examples on his website. Read more »

2 Comments / Published on März 24, 2010

Tutorial: Landscape painting

By Dirk Metzmacher

Landscape painting is the art of more or less realistically depicting sections of nature or habitats created by man. In this example we’ll be shaping a mountain scenery using the polygon lasso tool, fitting colors and the smudge tool.

Rocky landscape

1. In the background

Fill the background layer with Edit > Fill using the color #aabbcc (RGB 170, 187, 204), which you set as the foreground color first. Click on Layer > New > Layer, then use the rectangle selection tool to select a part of the area. Fill the selection with the color #eedd99 (RGB 238, 221, 153), then delete the selection with Select > Deselect. Read more »

No Comments / Published on März 23, 2010

Tutorial: Zombie

By Dirk Metzmacher

Zombies are described as soulless creatures with no will of their own. As the walking resurrected, they spread fear and terror, but they actually only want to play – Baseball, for example, as you can see here. You can easily breed a monster of your own.

Undead player

1. Skull

My zombie has been eaten up by worms in some parts, which is why I want a few bones to protrude from the body. I extracted a skull on a layer of its own, then adjusted its colors according to my objective using the settings under Image > Adjustments.

2. Flesh

The worms were nice enough to leave a bit of flesh. Use an actual photo of a piece of raw meat, which you position over the skull and apply a layer mask to. For the layer mask, click on the Add Layer Mask button in the layer palette or use Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All in the menu. Read more »

1 Comments / Published on März 22, 2010

Tutorial: Silhouette

By Dirk Metzmacher

Silhouette is a term used for photos with back lit objects, which show graphical structures due to a high contrast range. This effect can be simulated in a number of ways.

Skyline

1. Background with a gradient

Open a new document and fill the background with a gradient from #0088ff (RGB 0, 136, 255) to White. Since we’re planning to display a skyline later on – preferably in correct perspective – increase your work space in order to define a vanishing point.

To do that, click on Image > Canvas Size and change the Anchor so that the canvas can increase only upwards. It doesn’t matter if the new space is transparent or white, since we’ll trim it in the end.

2. Guidelines

Create a new layer with Layer > New > Layer and use the Pencil tool to mark the vanishing point with a black cross. Based on that point, use the Line tool with the Fill Pixels option activated and draw a few guidelines, which will provide the edges of the skyline later on. Read more »

2 Comments / Published on März 19, 2010