Adobe Photoshop - Tutorial

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It all starts with a concept sketch Before we started this tutorial, Jayan made a basic sketch keeping in mind what we’d like to cover in this tutorial.

The only reason we’ve placed the concept sketch here is because we liked seeing our concept sketch along with its finished version and we thought you’d like that too.

Photoshop CS: Making Magic with Basics! hotoshop is Photoshop and any graphics designer worth his salt will readily put his money where his Photoshop is.

Through the years, with every new release, the guys at Adobe have pushed the limits, each time adding new functionality to this colossus. In fact, we ourselves have often wondered about what life was like before Photoshop. How did people ever manage to get those pictures look so good?

Regardless however of all the newer features that have been added to Photoshop over the years, this software has a few basic tools and functionalities that can make even the most simple of images look out of this world.

When I heard we were to get Photoshop CS for review, I immediately suggested a workshop on Photoshop with its basic functionalities. At least it’d give me reason to officially goof around the software I love… Sadly, that was not to be! Jayan, our head of design jumped into the fray and offered to create the tutorial himself. I was vetoed. But I still managed to get a piece of the pie. Jayan compromised and let me work on this story as well.

In the next few pages you will see how we went about creating the image we have here on the left. To make things easier, all the images and sundry graphical elements that we’ve used have been provided on our Tools CD under the Photoshop Tutorial directory.

This tutorial is a step-by-step guide to creating the visual and we hope that you will enjoy creating with Photoshop as much as we did.

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| Jayan K. Narayanan and Savio D’Souza

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Making Magic with Photoshop

STEP 1. Open the image Figure.psd from the Photoshop Tutorial folder in your CHIP Tools CD. Now zoom in to the lips of the model using the ‘Zoom’ tool and select the lips using the ‘Lasso’ tool as shown in the figure.

STEP 4. Open the Props.psd file from the Photoshop Tutorial folder. In this file, find the layer labeled ‘PS_005’, and using the ‘Move’ tool from the floating toolbar, drag and drop that layer into Figure.psd as shown in the screenshot.

on ‘Inverse’. This selects the rest of the image excluding the portion you selected in step 1. Now click on ‘Select’ again and then click on ‘Feather’. In the ‘Feather Selection’ dialog box that appears, enter 35 as the value for the feather radius.

STEP 3. Click on ‘Image | Adjustments | Hue/Saturation’. This will bring up the ‘Hue/Saturation’ dialog box. Move the ‘Hue’ slider to the left till you get the value of -7, and move the ‘Saturation’ slider till you get -25; click ‘OK’. This will change the hue and saturation of the selection, leaving the portion selected in step 1 richer in contrast.

STEP 5. Now click on ‘Edit | Free Transform’. Enter the values as specified: X = 1147, Y = 1524, W = 54, H = 65 and Rotate (denoted by an angle) = -5. You will notice that the dimensions and the location of PS_005 have changed and look like in the figure.

STEP 6. Keeping the ‘PS_005’ layer selected, press the [CTRL] key and click on that layer in the ‘Layers’ palette. You will notice that the hardware image that was imported in step 5 gets selected. Now go to ‘Select | Modify | Expand’ and enter 25 as the value in the ‘Expand Selection’ dialog box. The selection will then expand by 25 pixels.

STEP 8. From the dropdown menu in the ‘Layers’ palette, change the blending mode to ‘Soft Light’. Notice that the area surrounding the hardware has turned darker.

STEP 9. Once again, keeping the ‘PS_005’ layer selected, click on that layer in the ‘Layers’ palette, keeping the [CTRL] key pressed. Go to ‘Select | Modify | Expand’ and enter 4 as the value in the ‘Expand Selection’ dialog box. Once again, click on ‘Select | Feather’. In the ‘Feather Selection’ dialog box, enter 2 as the value for the feather radius.

STEP 2. Go to the ‘Select’ menu and click

STEP 7. Next, click on ‘Select | Feather’. In the ‘Feather Selection’ dialog box, enter 13 as the value for the feather radius. Moving back to the ‘Layers’ palette, select the ‘Light’ layer and copy it by pressing [CTRL] + [C].

Then press [CTRL] + [V] to paste that selection onto a new layer. Name that new layer Skin_1.

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STEP 10. In the ‘Layers’ palette, select the layer titled ‘Skin_1’. Click on ‘Image | Adjustments | Brightness/Contrast’. In the ‘Brightness/Contrast’ dialog box that appears, enter -35 as the brightness value and 40 as the contrast value.

STEP 11. One more time, keeping the ‘PS_005’ layer selected, click on that layer in the ‘Layers’ palette while pressing the [CTRL] key at the same time. Go to ‘Select | Modify | Expand’ and enter 10 as the value in the ‘Expand Selection’ dialog box. Now click on ‘Select | Modify | Border’. In the ‘Border Selection’ dialog box that appears, enter 7 as the value. If you’ve got this step right, you will notice your image surrounded by concentric ellipses (see inset).

STEP 12. Click on ‘Select | Feather’. In the ‘Feather Selection’ dialog box, enter 3 as the value for the feather radius. Now select the layer ‘light’ in your ‘Layers’ palette. Press [CTRL] + [C] to copy the selection from the ‘light’ layer and then [CTRL] + [V] to paste that selection onto a new layer. Name the new layer ‘Skin_2’. Move the new layer in the ‘Layers’ palette so that it lies above the ‘Skin_1’ layer.

STEP 13. Using the dropdown menu in the ‘Layers’ palette, change the blending mode (of layer Skin_2) to ‘Screen’. You will notice, as in the screenshot, that the area around the hardware now appears as a bump.

STEP 14. Now to boost the bump a bit, we will need to create a duplicate layer of layer ‘Skin_2’. To do this, go to ‘Layer | Duplicate Layer’. Now select that duplicate layer and change its blending mode to ‘Color Dodge’.

STEP 15. Select layer ‘PS_005’. Then go to ‘Image | Adjustments | Desaturate’ to give that hardware image a silvery look (see inset).

STEP 17. Now select the ‘Elliptical Marquee’ tool from your floating toolbar and mark a selection over the nugget as shown in the figure. Press [DELETE] to delete the selected portion (see inset).

STEP 18. Select layer ‘PS_005’ from the ‘Layers’ palette and make a copy by keeping the [ALT] key pressed while dragging that layer using the ‘Move’ tool. Place the copy on the arm of the model as shown in the figure. Release the [ALT] key once you have the layer in the position you want.

STEP 16. Go back to the file Props.psd.

Select layer ‘PS_028’ and drag that layer— using the move tool—into our working image. Now, click on ‘Edit | Free Transform’ and add the values in the same way as you did in Step 5. X = 1156, Y = 1522, W = 42, H = 40 and Rotate = 173. Then right-click on the layer image and select ‘Flip Horizontal’ from the context menu. Notice the placement of the new element (see inset).

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Making Magic with Photoshop (cont’d)

STEP 19. We now need to add the bumps in the skin as we did earlier. To do this, follow the procedure explained in steps 6 to 14. Your image should now appear as shown in the figure—you will notice the change when you compare it with the previous figure.

STEP 22. Select the ‘Lasso’ tool and make a selection as shown in the figure above.

Then, go to ‘Select | Feather’ and enter the value 15 in the dialog box. Now go to ‘Edit | Copy Merged’. This will copy all the visible layers that come within the selection.

STEP 20. Staying in the same layer, click on the ‘Lasso’ tool from the floating toolbar and make a selection as shown in the figure above. Now go to ‘Select | Feather’ and enter the value 15 in the dialog box that appears.

STEP 21. In the ‘Layers’ palette, select the ‘light’ layer-copy the selection and paste it using [CTRL] + [C] and [CTRL] + [V]. Change the new layer’s blending mode, using the dropdown menu in the ‘Layers’ palette, to ‘Screen’. Now duplicate that new layer and change the newest layer’s blending mode to ‘Hard Light’. Displace the newest layer till you see something like the screenshot.

STEP 23. Now paste this selection in various places on the model’s body as shown in the figure above—rotating, flipping horizontally and sizing accordingly, till you are pleased with your results.

STEP 24. If you notice, you will find that the shadows on the right hand of the model are not quite right. To rectify this, right-click on the shadow and select the top-most layer name that appears in the context menu. This will automatically select the hardware image layer along with its shadows in the ‘Layers’ palette.

STEP 26. If you look at our opening visual, STEP 25. Now change the blending mode for that layer to ‘Pin Light’. Repeat these steps for all of the hardware connectors till you see something like this figure.

you will notice that we have quite a few transparent pipes. It’s now time to create these. To do this, select the ‘Pen’ tool from the floating toolbar. Using the tool, draw a pipe-like shape as we have in the figure above.

STEP 27. Before you go any further, click on the ‘Path’ tab that’s in the same floating palette as the layers. Here, rename the path you see to ‘Path 1’. Press [CTRL] + [ENTER] to make a selection. Once again click on the ‘Layers’ tab and create a new layer by clicking on ‘Layer | New Layer’. In the dialog box that appears, rename the layer to ‘Pipe’.

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STEP 28. Fill the selection that you created with the color white. Now, click on ‘Select | Modify | Contract’. In the ‘Contract Selection’ dialog box that appears, enter 7.

Next, click on ‘Select | Feather’. In the ‘Feather Selection’ dialog box, enter 7.

Repeat the feathering procedure two more time with values of 3 and 1, respectively.

STEP 31. Create a new layer in the ‘Layer’ menu and call it ‘Pipe 1’. Keeping this layer selected, go to ‘Edit | Stroke’. In the ‘Stroke’ dialog box that appears, enter the width as 2 and change the color to white. The layer with the stroke applied should look like the inset image.

STEP 34. Lets add some color to our tubes.

To do this, first select the ‘Lasso’ tool from the floating toolbar. Then, make a selection like in the screenshot. Now go to ‘Select | Feather’ and enter 150 as the value in the ‘Feather Selection’ dialog box. Pick a shade of blue using the color palette and click on ‘OK’. Now press [ALT] + [SHIFT] + [DELETE] in that order. Our tube now gets a hue of blue (see inset).

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STEP 29. Then, click on [DELETE] twice. You should now see something like what we have in the figure above.

STEP 30. Getting back to the ‘Path’ tab, click on our ‘Path 1’ layer while holding down the [CTRL] key. This selects the path that we had specified earlier. Now move the selection as shown in the figure above.

STEP 32. Click on ‘Filter | Blur | Gaussian Blur’. In the dialog box that appears, enter 2 as the value for the Radius. You will see something like what we have displayed above.

STEP 33. Now go back to the ‘Path’ tab and click on the ‘Path 1’ layer while holding the [CTRL] key. You will now find that a selection has been created, just like before. Then, go to ‘Select | Inverse’ and press [DELETE]. Your finished tube should look something like this.

STEP 35. First, ensure that layer ‘Pipe 1’ is above layer ‘Pipe’. Then, select layer Pipe 1 and merge the two by pressing [CTRL] + [E].

Now, keeping the [ALT] key pressed, drag the merged layer and place it over the second connector, like in the figure.

STEP 36. Using the Lasso tool once again, make a selection as shown. Once again, go to ‘Select | Feather’ and enter 35 as the value in the dialog box. Now delete the portion of all pipes that come within the selection by choosing each of their layers one by one. This will make the tubes fade gradually into nothingness.

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Making Magic with Photoshop (cont’d)

STEP 37. Select the ‘Pipe 1’ layer from the ‘Layers’ palette. Then, click on the ‘Move’ tool and keeping the [ALT] key pressed, drag the pipe down to the arm of the model. Flip and rotate the pipe and adjust its placing so as to get the figure we have in this screenshot. (Note: We’ve used black for the background to increase the visibility of the tubes.)

STEP 38. Open the file 025.jpg from the Textures folder on the CHIP Tools CD. Desaturate the image using the procedure explained in step 15. Now drag and drop this image into our working PSD file just above our ‘light’ layer. As soon as you have done so, change its blending mode to ‘Hard Light’. It is now time to rotate and resize the image so that it matches the one in the figure.

STEP 39. Make a selection as shown in the screen above. Inverse the selection by following the instructions mentioned in step 2 and apply a feather of 15. Then, press [DELETE]. This will clear all the portions that we do not require.

STEP 40. Now to clear the texture from the hair, make another selection on the same layer, as shown in the figure. Give it a feather of 35 and press [DELETE].

designer brushes. Click on the ‘Brush’ tool from the floating toolbar and then rightclick in the working area of the image. This will bring up a dialog box. Click the arrow on the top right corner of the dialog box and select ‘Load Brushes’ from the resulting menu. Browse to the brushes on the CD under the Materials folder. Click ‘OK’. The brushes have now been loaded.

STEP 42. Select brush number 289 and pick the color with values of R = 89, G = 40, B = 41. Now size the brush, and create a new layer just above the model layer. Apply the brush in this new layer, near the neck portion as shown in our image. Then, change its blending mode to ‘Multiply’. This adds a nice element of rust. Experiment with various brushes and colors to give your model a look similar to ours. There! The girl is done!

STEP 43. Create a new file with a size of 26.5x27.5 cm. Now choose the color wherein R = 28, G = 51 and B = 82. Fill the background with this color using the ‘Paint Bucket’ tool from the floating toolbar. Now, from our Props.psd, place ‘PS_040’ into this file. Next, click on ‘Edit | Free Transform’ and stretch the image to look like this.

STEP 44. Change this layer’s blending mode to ‘Luminosity’. Now make a selection like we have shown and then click on ‘Filter | Blur | Radial Blur’. In the resulting dialog box, fill 50 as the blur amount and select ‘Zoom’ as the blur method. Give the complete layer a Gaussian Blur with a Radius value of 7.5. See inset

STEP 45. Now make a copy of the lens layer and give it a Gaussian Blur with a Radius value of 15. Resize the lens to fit into the image as shown. Then make a selection as shown in the screenshot, give it a feather of 250 and press [DELETE] twice.

STEP 41. It’s now time to load some

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STEP 46. Once again from Props.psd, place images PS_035, PS_044 and PS_047 into our background file. Now resize PS_047 as shown in the figure. Then duplicate, rotate and place PS_035 in the four places as shown in our arrangement. Do the same for PS_044, placing them at the ends of PS_035.

STEP 49. Now give the layer a Gaussian Blur of Radius value 10. Then make a selection as shown in the figure. Give it a feather of 200 and press [DELETE] twice.

Repeat the same step for the other spring on the right-hand side, whose end is visible.

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STEP 47. Now we need to merge all the elements of the arrangement we created in step 46. To do this, in the ‘Layers’ palette, first select the layer in which you placed PS_047. Then, click in the blank boxes that are besides the eye icon for each of the other layers that we want to merge. You will see that the boxes get filled with a link icon. Now, go to ‘Layer | Merge Linked’.

STEP 48. Now click on ‘Image | Adjustments | Hue/Saturation’. Here enter the value 150 for Hue and -75 for Saturation. Then duplicate the layer and using ‘Free Transform’, rotate it 45 degrees before increasing its size so that it resembles our screenshot. Also, make sure you have placed it similarly.

STEP 50. Change the blending mode of both our duplicate (hardware) layers to ‘Screen’. On doing so, your background image will look just like our screenshot. Our background is now complete. It’s now time to bring in the girl.

STEP 51. Getting back to our Figure.psd, blind the background white layer by clicking on the eye icon beside it. Then, go to ‘Layer | Merge Visible’. All the layers will now be merged. Copy the entire selection, flip horizontally and place it in your background as shown. You have now successfully completed the visual!

Alternatives Since we had so much fun creating this tutorial, we also created a few alternatives. As is evident, all we did was change a few hues, feather a few things, rotate certain others, try a few brushes and add a few props. Our CD contains a sizeable collection of props and brushes besides the ones we’ve used. So go ahead, experiment and have fun. We’d be more than happy to see some of your versions. Do send ‘em in.

It’ll make us really happy. ■

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