PHOTOSHOPBASIC SKILLS

BY HAYLEY IP 11F

Tryin

g o

ut

wit

h t

uto

rials

Here is a link to a range of

tutorials for photoshop, I

picked a few in this link to

follow because I thought

they might be useful skills to

try out and look at the

effects before I actually

made my product:

Merg

ing p

hoto

s

The ability to merge photos would be quite useful for me because I can show overlap patterns onto an original photo and this helps me design my poster because it allows me to represent two different ideas at the same time would get across more information for people who are looking at the poster.

Dis

pla

cem

ent

eff

ect

s –

step b

y st

ep

Open a photo in photoshop. I used a Justin Bieber photo which you

can see on the screen before.Create a new layer and fill it with black transparent gradient from

bottom right to top left using the gradient tool. You can create a

new layer by clicking on the bottom right button (with a new page

symbol).This stage is optional, but the final outcome would look better

aesthetically (this stage doesn't have anything to do with

displacement) Add a new adjustment layer (the black and white

circle to the right of the new layer symbol at the bottom right of

the screen), after you clicked on the new adjustment layer, you

can choose different types of adjustment layers, pick the colour

balance and add more red, magenta and a bit of yellow for

warmth and colour in the photo.Open another photo in photoshop which you would like to displace

the original one with (for me, this would be the American flag) and

save it as a photoshop file. Copy and paste the photo onto the

original file (which is the justin bieber file for me)

At the moment, you can only see the new photo. Now, this is the

important bit. Go to Filter> Distort>Displace and set the horizotal

and vertical numbers to 10. Then click enter. There still wouldn't

be a change but now a window should pop up telling you to open a

file.You should open the file which you saved earlier on, the one you

want to displace the original photo with (in photoshop format)

Change the opacity of the layer to around 30% and you should see

the pattern on the original photo.Now, you can change the effects of the layer. There should be a

bar in the layers palette which says “normal”. You can change it to

different effects and see how they look. The next slide shows how

my image looked after I changed the settings of the top layer.

Hardmix

Overlay

Softlight

Addin

g

radia

l gra

die

nt

and s

potl

ights

behin

d t

he

obje

ct a

nd d

ele

ting t

he b

ack

gro

und

This is useful for my poster because this would highlight the cube in the middle of the poster, so using a spotlight effect might attract more attention. This makes a colour contrast so it allows images in the middle to stand out. Also if I know how to delete a background, it will be easier for me to arrange photos together.

Dele

ting t

he

back

gro

und im

ages

Ste

p b

y st

ep

If you are using a white background photo (like what I did), you

can skip this step. For people using a background photo which

is not white, you can use the magic wand tool. First, you need

to create another layer, to do that, double click on the original

photo layer, make sure the new layer is layer 0 and don't

change anything else. Then, go to the toolbox and choose the

magic wand tool. When you are in the magic wand tool, click

on the background that you want to delete. If it doesn't select

all of the background, hold onto the “shift” key and click on

the other areas in the background as well. Once you have

everything selected, go to your keyboard and press delete.

After you are done with cutting, go to the palette on the right

hand side of the screen. Make changes to the brightness and

contrast of the layer so the figure stands out.You can then add a background by creating a radial gradient.

To do that, go to layer on the top bar on the screen, click on

new fill layer and then click on gradient. A box should pop up

afterwards and you should change the gradient options, for the

style you should use radial, and then click reverse, so that the

lighter bit is on the inside and the darker areas are further

away from the image. You can pick different colours for the

background, but I urge you to pick a darker tone, for me I used

a dark murky purple kind of colour.To get a spotlight from the middle, add a layer mask. You can

do this by clicking onto the half black and white circle at the

bottom right of the screen and you can play around with the

brightness of the layer.Then select a large soft brush with an opacity of 30% - 40%

and use white. Then shade on the sides of the figure, so it

seems like there is a light shining behind the figure.

Clo

uds

Tool

(Fanta

sy A

rt)

There are a couple of things that I learnt in this tutorial which might be useful for me in my poster, one is adding a outer glow to a shape. This would help me in my poster design because I wanted to add a neon ring around my image or a glow to make the cube stand out. The use of clouds allows me to produce a similar effect to the glow of the image in the “researching for the poster powerpoint” I’ve made earlier.

Ste

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Open a photoshop file and use the gradient tool, from the top, draw a

vertical line to the bottom and set the gradient colour as dark blue.

Open an image with a figure (for me, it is Nina Dobrev's image) on

another photoshop file. Use the magic wand tool and delete the

background so only the figure is left. Then copy and paste the figure onto

the first photoshop file.Then add an outer glow to the person's body by going to layer>layer

styles>outer glow and apply a light blue colour glow with opacity of 40%,

technique = softer, spread = 10%. It will now look like that she has a

glow ring around her body.Then make a new layer and go to filter>render>clouds. At the moment,

you can't see the image of the person you had but try change the opacity

to 30%.

Then press control T for free transform and then right click the mouse

and press scew. Try make the clouds cover half of her body diagonally.

After that, duplicate the clouds layer and go to edit>transform>flip

horizontal.Then, select the girl's layer (with only her figure) and pull it to the top, so

it is above all the other layers. You can do this in the layers bar.Open a image that you want to set a background on another photoshop

file. Copy and paste the photo onto a layer that is behind the image.

Then drag the layers of the clouds on top of the image. You should still be

able to see the image because the opacity is 30% for the clouds.Use the Elliptical Marquee tool to draw an oval on top of the girl. Right

click in the circles, go to prospective>distort. You should try make the

circles flow around the figure. Then Right click the mouse and select

stroke. Set the width to 5px and the colour to blue.Do this for several times so you have a few ovals overlapping each other.

On the same layer, you should go to layer>layer style>outer glow and

apply 85% for opacity, technique = softer, size = 7px.Put on some finishing touches by erasing the sides of the figure using a

30% opacity soft brush, so it would seem like the figure is emerging from

the background.

Lighti

ng e

ffect

s 1

(Spark

les,

Glo

w li

nes

– fa

nta

sy a

rt)

This would help me when I am producing my poster because I would want to alter the colours of the cube image slightly and make it a bit darker as I’ve said in my researching powerpoint, then add a glow around the cube. After finishing this tutorial/course, I not only learnt how to add sparkles, I also learnt how to add a transparent rainbow gradient and I learnt how to use the lens flare tool.

Ste

p b

y Ste

p (

1)

This part is optional, but if you want the glow and lighting effect to

stand out more, then you should do this. So first, import the image into

photoshop. Then duplicate the background layer (ctrl J) and set the

blending mode to difference with 35% opacity. Duplicate the layer again

but use multiply with 45% of opacity. Finally, duplicate the layer one

last time but set opacity to 100% and the blending mode to overlay.

This would make the image darker so there would be a bigger contrast

with the lighting effects.To make the image look more mysterious and fantasy like, duplicate the

layer again and put the layer on top of all the other layers. Go to

filter>render>clouds and click ok. Afterwards, go to

filter>render>difference clouds. Set the opacity of that layer to 20%.

Add an adjustment layer with gradient, and make the gradient fill the

spectrum. Make the angle 140 degrees. At this moment, you should

only be able to see the spectrum but change the opacity of the

adjustment layer to 10% and now you should be able to see all the

layers.Switch to the pen tool and draw a line on the image which will be the

glow path. Then use the eraser tool and erase some bits you think will

be behind the image.Use the brush tool (colour: white) and set the brush to the settings

below, so the brush would make sparkles and not a line:

Ste

p b

y st

ep (

2)

Then set the blending options for this layer with the numbers below:

Using the soft brush, draw on areas near the line that is supposed to glow and it should seem like there are sparkles flying off the line.Create a new layer and using a soft brush with yellow and red, paint some near the lines (don't over do this). Change the blending mode of this layer to soft light and go to Filter > Blur > Gausian Blur with Radius about 20 pixels. This should make people think that the line is giving out glows.Finally, go to filter>render>lens flare and drag the glowing circle where you want it to be on the image. For me, I dragged it to the top, so it looked like a sun shining down.

Lighti

ng e

ffect

s 2(

Obje

ct g

ivin

g o

ff g

lo

ws

)

I think that after this tutorial, I learnt how to add some glows to a particular figure and not the whole of the canvas (this is what I did in lighting effects 1). This might be useful for me because if I wanted an object to stand out with neon colours in my poster, I can do it by using what I learnt in this tutorial.

Ste

p b

y st

ep

Open a file in photoshop and using the radial gradient tool

with black and grey, make it seem like there's a white bulb

glowing at the bottom (height) middle (width) of the

canvas.Using the magic wand tool, crop an image of a figure or an

object out and paste it onto the canvas.

This stage is optional: you can add some patterns behind

the object and in front of the background if you want to by

once again using the magic wand tool and cropping the

patterns out of an image and pasting it onto the canvas.

Add a new layer behind the figure or object. Draw an oval

using the Elliptical Marquee tool behind the figure or where

you want the glow to be. Go to Select > Modify > Feather

with 30px. Set the foreground colour to #D200FF or

something glowy, press “Ctrl” and “Del” at the same time,

this should fill the oval. Change the blending mode of this

layer to screen and set the opacity to 40%.

Repeat step 4 twice with different colours but on the same

layer, what I used was #F6FF00 and #F6FF00. This time,

set the blending mode to overlay and the opacity to 60%.

The ovals should overlap each other so there would be a

wider range of colours.Create a new layer and draw a white rectangle using the

rectangle tool. Then go to filter>liquify and just make the

rectangle wavy.Use the smudge tool (click on the water drop and select

the smudge tool) and smudge off the white shape so it

would have a glowing effect.

Concl

usi

on

Although I know that I

won’t be able to use all of

these skills when I am

producing my logo, but I

wanted to do a few tutorials

before I started making my

logo because I would get

use to photoshop more and

I will be able to draw ideas

together from the basic

knowledge I’ve learnt from

doing these tutorials and

the new skills I will learn

when making my logo.