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

Workshop: Color systems

By Dirk Metzmacher

You know RGB, CMYK and LAB, but only few designers know about the long history of very different systems that came before the ones we know today, a history that includes well-known names like Newton, da Vinci and Goethe, all of whom developed their own color theories.

Color theory

Everyone has heard terms like primary colors, subtractive or additive color mixing and color hexagon at some point. We encounter them every day, be it on a monitor or when using a printer. Let me just say CMYK and RGB. Read more »

No Comments / Published on März 18, 2010

Photoshop-Week II (March)

By Dirk Metzmacher

In this series I have a look at the most current Photoshop tutorials. Sometimes there could also be classics among them. I’m sure you’ll always find great techniques and inspiration.

Arial Font is Bullshit

The very amusing video Arial Font is Bullshit shows how much typography nerds can concern themselves with fonts. And speaking of fonts: Jessica Hische did a great job with her evolutionary diagram of font taste (taste as in sense of design, not the other kind of sense).

40 sources of great design and Photoshop tutorials

Today I’m giving away some of my sources. Forty of them, to be precise, in the article 40 sources of great design and Photoshop tutorials. Next to direct links to weblogs and magazines you’ll find two current examples for each of them, as well. This way you can measure the site’s quality at a glance. Read more »

No Comments / Published on März 18, 2010