Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Glossy Button

Step 1: Make a new document at 250px by 75px, fill it with any color... I chose black

Step 2: Ok now on a new layer take your Rectangular Marquee Tool and make a selection in the middle of your document. Fill it with white for now. You should have this so far.

image 1

Step 3: Now go to your blending option of your white rectangle and fill in these settings. (Stroke, Inner Glow, and Gradient Overlay) *!Only Edit the Settings I show you!*

image 2

image 3

!* Leave the gradient overlay at default but change the color *!

image 4

image 5

Step 4: Now make a new layer. And now we can add some detail to our button, take out your Rectangular Marquee Tool and make a selection from the top to half way through, fill that with white. Like below, then with that layer selected Ctrl+Click on the button layer and say select inverse then delete. After that lower the opacity to about 10%.

image 6

image 7

Step 5: Ok now just add some text and a little details and you are finished.

Glossy Button Tutorial: Final Result

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Black & White

Step 1

Load up your car image and select the "pen tool", draw around your car but not selecting your windows, grills, lights etc... so basically your just left with a shell. "copy and paste" to a new layer.

image 1

Step 2

With your newly pasted layer selected goto "image > adjustments > desaturate" then goto "image > adjustments > variations" use the settings below.

image 2

Step 3

To make a black car click "darker" about 2 times also marked in red on the image above. (to make your car even darker just click some more times) should have something like below.

image 3

As you can see it doesn't look very good so if we goto "image > adjustments > brightness/contrast" and adjust the lightness and contrast, the more you up your contrast the more shiny your paint becomes.

image 4

image 5

Step 4

To make a white car open up your variations panel again but click original in the top right corner to reset your layer as it was, then click "lighter" you only need to click this once.

image 6

Now goto "image > adjustments > brightness/contrast" and increase the brightness to about +20, you shouldn't need to touch the contrast unless you want to make it more shiney.

That's it.

Make a Picture more Clearly

First, Select the picture that you want to make more clearly.

This is my picture, It's not good :

image 1

1. Before do anything, for safe, we create other layer by Press CTR + j to Duplicate Layer .

2. Use Filter -> Sharpen -> Unsharp Mask. In this step, we make a picture more clear.

With parameters:

Amount : 75 %
Radius: 1.5 pixels
Threshold: 0 levels

3. Next, we use Filter -> Blur -> Surface Blur. As follow:

Radius: 10 pixels
Threshold: 10 levels

We have result of 3 steps above:

image 2

Then, we will use 4 tools of Image -> Adjustment: Brightness/Contrast , Color Balance , Levels and Curves.

4. Brightness/Contrast: with parameters

Brightness: -5
Contrast: +5

5. Color Balance:

Check Preserve Luminosity (if it is unchecked)

Select Shadows and set parameters into Color Levels: -25 -5 -7
Select Midtones and set parameters into Color Levels: -15 +11 -31
Select Highlights and set parameters into Color Levels: -5 +5 +5

6. Levels (or CTR + L)

Channels : RGB
Input Levels: 6 0.88 235
Out Levels: 0 255

7. Continue with Levels:

Channels : RGB
Input Levels: 0 1.00 255
Out Levels: 0 245

8. Curves: You set as figure :

First, with Channel: RGB

image 3

Channel: Red

image 4

Channel : Green

image 5

Channel : Blue

image 6

9. Final, we have a new picture

Make a Picture more Clearly Tutorial: Final Result

Coloring a Photo

At first, open the prepared photo. Convert it to PSD (Adobe Photoshop's format).

Coloring a Photo image 1

Divide the photo to layers. I divided it to: hair, clothes, eyes and (the most important!) skin. Read below how to do this.

Hair - go to 'Select-Color range' and click on the hair. Set Fuzziness to 100% and click OK.
Deselect the parts that do not belong to the hair and then Layer via Copy.

Clothes - Select it with the Polygonal Lasso Tool and then Layer via Copy.

Eyes - Choose the Lasso Tool and select it (Feather 0 px). Layer via Copy.

Skin - Carefully select it with the Pen tool. Layer via Copy, certainly.

Ok, you have done with the selections. Now let's proceed to the coloring part (the most interesting).

Download here the file with coloring settings (don't install it yet).
Select the layer named 'Skin'. Go to Image-Adjustments-Variations, click on the 'Load' button and load the file you've downloaded. Click on OK.

Coloring a Photo image 2

Select the layer with the hair. Go to Image-Adjustments-Hue/Saturation. Tick the 'Colorize' cell. I suggest you to use these settings: Hue 40, Saturation 21. After that, you can try to make it brighter using Variations.

Set the color of eyes, but don't overcolor. Desaturate the white using Sponge Tool.

Desaturate the eyebrows using Sponge Tool. Set the flow to 25%. Desaturate the nostrils.
Desaturate a little bit the beard and the moustache. Sharp all these using Sharpen Tool.

Now, we will change a little bit the skin.
Go to Hue/Saturation and set the following parameters: Hue: -2, Saturation: -18
Go to Variations and give the skin more saturation and yellow color (in Midtones section). Remember not to overcolor.

Yes, there are still some orange and brown areas. Let's reduce it. Go to 'Select-Color Range' and hit the chin shadows. Set Fuzziness to 70. (Don't select the lips). Slightly desaturate these areas using Variations or Hue/Saturation.

Select the lips and go to Variations - Midtones. Feather 1/6. One click on Red, Magenta and Cyan.

That's all.

Coloring a Photo Tutorial: Final Result

P.S. See here how not to color your photo. Avoid these styles.

Effect Colorful (Video Tutorial)

Friday, December 12, 2008

Professional Software Box

Open a new document 500x500 pixels with a white background

Then create a new layer. ( Press Shift+Ctrl+N )

Select Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) and make a selection like mine:

image 1

Now set the foreground color to #345581 and background color to #18293d

image 2

Select the Gradient tool and draw a line from bottom to top ( keep the Shift key pressed while you draw the line )

Then press Ctrl+D to deselect

image 3

Now duplicate this layer and place it under this first one.

To duplicate the layer you have to drag the layer to: Create new layer button:

image 4

Then With the arrows keys place this new layer under the old one:

image 5

Now we have to create the software box. Please follow my measurements carefully. In case you make some mistakes please undo and change your values appropriate with mine. i have tried a lot of time to create this values for you.

Create a new layer ( Press Shift+Ctrl+N )

Then select Rectangular Marquee Tool and set this values :

image 6

Press one time on your document.

Then choose Paint Bucket Tool (G) and fill your selection with grey . i have used #636363

I will use 2 different colors so i can explain better on which one we will work.

After you have filled the document with grey press Ctrl+D to deselect.

Now go to Edit > Transform > Perspective.

Then with the Move Tool selected drag the bottom left corner of the grey shape to the top. be sure you have this value :

image 7

Note: First you have to drag the bottom left corner of your document , and after that you can change the value to -19.0 or maybe -19,3

Do not forget to press enter !

Now let's create the second part of the box.

Create a new layer ( Press Shift+Ctrl+N )

Then select Rectangular Marquee Tool and set this values :

image 8

The same as above set the color to white ( or something close to white #eaeaea ) and with the Paint Bucket Tool press one time inside your selection.

Then press Ctrl+D to deselect

Select move tool and go to Edit > Transform > Perspective

In the next photo you will see how to drag the second part of the box ( the white part )

image 9

When you drag the right bottom of the white shape you can use this values:

image 10

Then after your are happy press enter.

We are almost done. we have to add only the mirror of the software box.

To create the mirror select the grey shape and duplicate the grey layer and place the duplicate layer with the down arrow key like in the following image.

image 11

Then go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal .

Next step is to reduce the opacity to 50 %

image 12

Now you can do the same with the white part of the box software. i assume you know how to do this. Follow the steps above.

You should have something like me:

image 13

You can see that the mirror is to sharp. we will fix this in one moment.

Press D ( to change the colors to white and black )

Select the Grey bottom part of the box - the grey mirror of the box )

Press on Add Layer Mask

Select Gradient Tool and draw a line on the bottom grey part ( do not forget to keep the Shift key pressed while you draw the line )

Do the same with the white part.

Here is my final image:

image 14

Of course you can add more details on this software box.

You can see what i have done in 5 minutes:

Professional Software Box Tutorial: Final Result