Oh…Brushes
So, yesterday I decided I wanted to learn how to make cool smoke curls in PS. Google, being my PS mentor, gave me this link to create some pretty smoke curls.
It took me quite some time to get these curls looking halfway decent. Thinking, there must be an easier way, I found quite a few links for smoke brushes, and I figured it was time to get working with brushes. In the blink of an eye I was making smoke curls like there was no tomorrow hehe. Most of the night yesterday was learning the manual technique, and finding an outfit, leaving little time to snap a very fast pick. Luckily the magical brushes got my lil wand all purdy like without much effort at all!
I said “oh…duh” in my head quite a bit yesterday, seeing how easy brushes are to use!
1. Creating Smoke Manually
– Create a image and fill the background with a dark contrasting colour
– Create a new layer and with the brush tool, create lighter lines, using a fairly large thickness, approx 60. Experiment with vertical lines and loopy swirls
– Now with your smoke layer, select Filter > Distort > Wave
– In the Wave gui, select the Randomize button
– Then select Edit > Fade Wave. In this gui, select an opacity of 50%
– Continue with the Wave and Fade wave until you get a smokey image you like
– Use liquify to shape your smoke as needed
2. Oh….Duh….Brushes
– You can find a lot of free and great brushes on the web…some links below
– Upload the .abr file to your computer. I store in one easy to find folder on my desktop
– To use a brush, select the brush tool in the tool menu
– On the top menu you will see a drop down select where you can change the size of the brush. You can expand this menu by selecting the arrow on the top right corner. Select Load Brushes
– Find the name of your file and select Load
– Now in the drop down menu, you will be able to find the brushes you loaded. Change the size and color as appropriate
– You can change additional brush presets by selecting F5, bringing up an additional gui
Here are some links I found for free brushes:
http://www.rykerbeck.com/rykers-faves/
http://best-photoshop-tutorials.blogspot.com/2008/10/25-most-wanted-swirl-and-curl-brushes.html
http://www.brushesdownload.com/gfile.asp?id=136
Managing Color and Fishy Strawberries
The physical act of opening my PS for Dummies book makes me sleepy. So decided today to work on an entry for the Fishy Strawberry Flickr contest!
I used this cool color scheme website that helped me plan the pic (loosely). I wanted to pic colors that matched the mood and style of Fishy Strawberry…something fun and lively!
Won’t go through all I did to make this pic, but a technique used is described below…
1. Replacing Colors in a Pic
– Use the select tool to make marching ants around the area you are working with in the pic
– Select Image > Adjustment > Replace Color
– You will get a eyedropper tool in the pic, use to select the color you want to replace
– In the bottom of the Replace Color gui, you can select the color you want to change to. In this pic, I wanted my selections to be black, so I just reduced the lightness
– You can replace more than one color in a pic by holding down the shift key while selecting the color you want to change with the eyedropper
Gritty Kitteh Pic
I found this tutorial on youtube.com on how to create a “gritty, high-contrast” pic and thought I would give it a try. To fit in with the theme, I decided to go Neko with my newly discovered Magika neko set (which distracted me and my linden wallet for quite some time during Sabina’s recent hunt, and ty Sabina!).
1. Make Image Mode Changes
– Select Image > Mode > Greyscale (select discard color)
– Select Image > Mode > Index Color
– Select Image > Mode > Color Table (choose black body)
2. Make a new layer (oh blessed keystrokes, you don’t scare me)
– Select ctrl+a (this selects everything….yay marching ants)
– Select ctrl+c (this copies everything)
– Select F12 (this brings back the original image)
– Select ctrl+v (this pastes what you copied into a new layer)
Add Luminosity
– In the far right of the layer menu box thingy (I will learn proper terms eventually), you can exand the menu by clicking on the 3 lines on the side of the top of the bar
– Select Blending Options
– In the Blending Options drop down menu, select Luminosity
3. Add Noise
– Select Filter > Noise > Add Noise
– Select a percentage, in this pic I used 3%
Some other things to add…
1. Fixing Horizon (I remember this from class many moons ago)
– Select Analysis > Ruler Tool
– Draw a path along the horizon you want to match, in this pic it was the back wall
– Select Image > Rotate Canvas > Arbitrary
– Crop as needed
2. Creating a border (another tutorialfrom Ryker Beck)
– Here I created another image and created the canvas to fit both pics and copied both pics as layers
– Fill the background, in this pic I used black
– In the background layer, select Blending Options and select Stroke
How to Create a Shadow in PS!
I learned this rad trick from Ryker’s tutorial (http://www.rykerbeck.com/tutorials/)…just now..as I write…
1. Create a Shadow Layer
– So from my pic here, I select the subject using the Magic Wand tool to get a marquee around the subject
– Hit ctrl-x to cut the background out
– Create a duplicate layer in the layer menu (bottom right) by dragging the current layer to the “duplicate layer” icon (second from the right)
2. Make the Shadow
– Make sure the shadow layer you made above is selected
– Modify you selection by going to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation
– Move the lightness slider to the far left. This should turn your image black
– Select the shadow layer in the layer menu and drag it below the image copied above. This moves the shadow to the background
– Use the move tool and drag the shadow layer out
3. To Soften the Shadow
– Make sure the shadow layer is highlighted
– Select Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur
– Adjust the blur as appropriate, in this pic I used 25
– In the layer menu, turn down Opacity. In this pic I used 50%
4. Other Shadow Tricks
– To change the angle of the shadow (to show diff angle light could hit the subject), select Show Transform Controls and rotate the shadow layer
Starting in PS
I realized my pattern….I get lots of ideas to start new things in PS, invest in tools to get myself started (see future posts on Poser, buying random plots, taking building classes…), start thinking about the next thing I should start doing in SL and let various tools gather dust. No more! Today I vowed to get my arse in gear and learn PS like a proper SL resident, something that I vowed exactly 1 year ago when I actually purchased the software (thats a lot of shoes!) and started taking classes in RL. I took a few pics, got all intimidated by my inability to remember keystrokes…here I am now and making the vow! Only now, decided to post my PS findings here to share with the world (and for me to remember).
So to start, I spent my day (don’t tell the RL boss) looking at online tutorials. I really liked Ryker Beck’s introduction tutorials here: http://www.rykerbeck.com/tutorials/. Clear and to the point and best off free! Need to send my compliments to her if and when I run into her in-world.
Also like this website: http://www.learnphotoshopnow.com/blog/. Not the book per se (writing as I eye that dusty unused PS for Dummy’s book on the desk), but some good hints and explainations.
So my start as a PS noob!
Helloooo!
I’m writing this at my RL job because I’ve already commented on flick and plurked enough to procrastinate starting this thing! This is gonna be my journal on the trials and tribulations of my second life. That sounds rather ominous. So rather, this blog is to capture my random thoughts of the things I learn and take away from my SL experience. I intend to document my continuous struggles with learning PS, some interesting tidbits I hear and experience in SL, general fashion crap that probably everyone is blogging at the same time as me but no matter because its my own thoughts and feelings :D, and well, anything that comes to mind that distracts me from spending too much money on outfits I wear once and hide in inventory.
Will probably write things that are meaningless to most, but this blog is for me mostly and whoever finds interest. Hope you likey :)
HPinSL 