Photoshop-Week I (June)

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.

Digital artist: Rado Javor

DeviantArt lets you discover numerous great artists. This is also where I discovered Rado Javor, and he’s really exceptional. For the most part, he draws big, old sail ships or futuristic, giant battle vehicles. Always on duty. Here I’d like to show you four examples of his work.

Photoshop/Print/Illustrator combination

Having enjoyed my first sweetened milk with coffee flavor for the day, I can offer you this beautiful combination of a preparation in Photoshop, a print of hand drawn shapes, a scan and some processing in Illustrator: Add Vector Flair to Model Shots.

Iron Man 2

The animation company Perception did some really good work on creating the interfaces, PDAs and presentations in Iron Man 2 (among many more little design elements). I bet it’s a lot of fun to produce designs for a film like this.

Disco Portrait

In the tutorial Paint this gorgeous Disco-inspired Portrait, the color palette alone is worth to be seen. The color frenzy continues when the hair is created using the brush jitter. Drawing the body and the face is more difficult. Especially the eyes and the mouth sell the picture and show a great love for detail.

Fire and smoke

The tutorial How to create a burning flower in Photoshop shows you how to let material go up in flames. A brush is equipped with a few layer styles and decorated with extracted fire pieces.

Instead of fire, the workshop Create Surreal Artwork via Simple Break Apart Effect and Smoke Texture in Photoshop only uses smoke to call attention to a lady in an interesting way.

Brain maze

The tutorial Maze in my Mind shows some brain matter of a very special kind. In this collage, a maze is combined with a person in such a way that it creates an illusion of looking inside this person’s head.

Photoshop Kazoo

So somebody sits down and creates a video for a well-known composition… in Photoshop. Layer for layer, it plays the video, which has come out really great – including extraction work and cloning. Photoshop is always good for a surprise…

Grunge effect on paper

I find the idea to the Worn Look Tutorial both simple and genius: Instead of using Photoshop to artificially make the image look old and torn, the type was printed, then treated with a scalpel and a fork, and then scanned again. Makes for a great result.

Design clothing

Now to design something completely different with Photoshop: Clothing. Going digital instead of using pen and paper to design something trendy to wear for the “next top model�. The tutorial Outline the clothes for young women shows an example. I rather like the style in which the design is presented.

Portfolio: Michael Muller

The names of the categories in Michael Muller’s portfolio alone are intriguing: Expedition, Entertainment, Portrait, Music, Sport or Advertising. Simply good and inspiring shots, which have been heavily seasoned with Photoshop.

Combinations and contrast

Contrast makes for an interesting composition. The article How to Create an Eye Catching Digital Illustration shows how to turn a cool source image into a combination with warm colors and light effects.

Instead of a flood of colors, Create a Dark and Surreal Poster Using Your Own Portrait uses a contrast with desaturated areas in combination with only one single color.

3D donut tutorial

I wonder what Homer Simpson would say? The article Create a 3D Donut Illustration Using Photoshop describes how to design one of those beloved hand-sized pastries. The author uses 3D Studio Max to build the basis. But Photoshop Extended would also do the job. Yum!

Examples of good image manipulations

In the collection 66 Mind Blowing Photo Manipulations Art on instantshift.com, the author collected a few really impressive image manipulations. Here are but two examples of the quality.

On a new background

The Photoshop mama shows in the video Bunch o’Stuff how to extract a lady (in an interesting position) using channels and paste her in front of a new background. As a little extra, the background is fitted with a circular pattern and it gives more information on what to pay attention to in regard to the shadows.

Melting face

The article Melting Girl in Photoshop combines the shot of a skull with that of a woman in such a way that the illusion of a melting face is created. It also makes use of a little chocolate sirup, albeit colorized appropriately.