Jeremy Saunders has 9 years worth of Key Art experience under his belt and I would like to take this opportunity to share some of them with all of you. But first what is “Key Art”?

A little bit of history

Movie posters have been and still is a big part of the industry since the earliest public exhibitions of films. What began as placards listing the programme of (short) films to be shown inside the hall or movie theater in the early 1900s evolved to featuring illustrations of scenes from each individual film or an array of overlaid images from several scenes. Other movie posters have used artistic interpretations of a scene or even the theme of the film, represented in a wide variety of artistic styles.

What is KEY ART?

Key art is a film poster used to advertise a film. It will be what the viewer remembers about the film long after the film’s original release date. There may also be several versions for one film, with variations in regards to size, content and country of production of the poster. It usually contains an image, or multiple images, composed to tell the story of the film. The titles are often designed to go with the artwork and often the names of the main actors are designed, as well. It might also include a tag line, billing block and contractual logos.

Key art can also be used to advertise a television show. Much of network advertising’s main artwork is known as key art and is used for advertising on web sites, billboards, magazines, city buses, bus shelters and banners. (Source – joseph-rey.com)

And now without further ado, here’s Johnny!

Burning Man

BURNING MAN is the reckless, sexy, funny, moving and ultimately life-affirming story of Tom, a British chef in a Bondi restaurant, who seems to have decided there are no longer any rules he needs to obey. Whatever Tom is up to, his actions seem to be tolerated by those around him.

As Tom descends into darkness, fragments of a different story begin to emerge. All the women in his world are trying in their own, very different ways to help put him back together.

Starring: Matthew Goode, Bojana Novakovic, Essie Davis, Kerry Fox, Rachel Griffiths (Source)

Che

Che is a two-part 2008 biopic about Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Benicio del Toro. Rather than follow a standard chronological order, the films offer an oblique series of interspersed moments along the overall timeline. Part One is entitled The Argentine and focuses on the Cuban revolution from the landing of Fidel Castro, Guevara, and other revolutionaries on Cuba to their successful toppling of the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista two years later. Part Two is entitled Guerrilla and focuses on Guevara’s attempt to bring revolution to Bolivia and his demise. Both parts are shot in a cinéma vérité style, but each has different approaches to linear narrative, camerawork, and the visual look. (Source)

We Don’t Live Here Anymore

We Don’t Live Here Anymore is a 2004 drama film directed by John Curran. It is based on the short stories We Don’t Live Here Anymore and Adultery by Andre Dubus. (Source)

Here I Am

Karen is a beautiful woman with a dark past, but she’s got potential and she knows it. Upon her release from prison she realises the hardest person to forgive is herself. (Source)

Animal Kingdom

ANIMAL KINGDOM is a powerful crime drama exploring the tense battle between a criminal family and the police, and the ordinary lives caught in the middle.

Starring BEN MENDELSOHN, JOEL EDGERTON and GUY PEARCE, LUKE FORD, JACKI WEAVER, SULLIVAN STAPLETON and introducing JAMES FRECHEVILLE. (Source)

Antichrist

A grieving couple retreat to ’Eden’, their isolated cabin in the woods, where they hope to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage. But nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse…

Starring: Willem Dafoe & Charlotte Gainsbourg (Source)

Beautiful

Searing and luscious, BEAUTIFUL tells the story of Daniel, a shy and introverted 14 year old boy residing in Sunshine Hills, a suburb living in the grip of fear following the rumoured abductions of three teenage girls. Daniel’s two main obsessions are photography and Suzy, a 17 year old Lolita, a dangerous combination of youth and sexuality. But what starts out as an innocent summer holiday becomes anything but, and they’re drawn into a web of seduction, murder and deceit, from childhood fantasy and into the harsh reality of the real world… (Source)

Lucky Country

1902….the Australian Federation is a year old. Twelve year-old Tom’s beloved father, Nat, has dragged him and his sister, Sarah, to an isolated farm at the edge of the woods. But Nat’s dream of living off the land has died and he is losing his grip on sanity. When three ex-soldiers arrive at their cabin one night Tom, like his father, believes they are providence. But their presence becomes more menacing when one of them reveals a secret: he’s found gold. As the lure of gold infects everyone around him the cabin becomes a psychological battleground in which Tom’s loyalty is put to the ultimate test. (Source)

The White Ribbon

A village in Protestant northern Germany. 1913-1914. On the eve of World War I. The story of the children and teenagers of the choir run by the village schoolteacher, and their families: the baron, the steward, the pastor, the doctor, the midwife, the tenant farmers. Strange accidents occur and gradually take on the character of a punishment ritual. Who is behind it all? (Source)

Candy

A poet named Dan (Heath Ledger) falls in love with an art student named Candy (Abbie Cornish) who gravitates to his bohemian lifestyle – and his love of heroin. Hooked as much on one another as they are on the drug, their relationship alternates between states of oblivion, self-destruction, and despair. (Source)

Suburban Mayhem

Katrina (Emily Barclay) is a 19-year-old single mum who’s planning to get away with murder. Katrina lives in a world of petty crime, fast cars, manicures and blow-jobs. A master manipulator of men living at home with her father in suburban Golden Grove, Katrina will stop at nothing to get what she wants – even murder. When her father threatens to contact social services and take away her child, Katrina sets in motion a plan to wreak suburban mayhem that will leave a community in shock and make Katrina infamous in a way even she never dreamed of. (Source)

Good Night, and Good Luck

Good Night, and Good Luck. is set in 1953, during the early days of television broadcast journalism. Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) and his dedicated staff—headed by his co-producer Fred Friendly (George Clooney) and reporter Joseph Wershba (Robert Downey, Jr.) in the CBS newsroom—defy corporate and sponsorship pressures, and discredit the tactics used by Joseph McCarthy during his crusade to root out Communist elements within the government. (Source)

The Motorcycle Diaries

In 1952, a semester before Ernesto “Fuser” Guevara is due to complete his medical degree, he and his older friend Alberto Granado, a biochemist, leave Buenos Aires in order to travel across South America. While there is a goal at the end of their journey – they intend to work in a leper colony in Peru – the main purpose is initially fun and adventure. They desire to see as much of Latin America as they can, more than 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) in just four and a half months, while Granado’s purpose is also to court as many women as will fall for his pick-up lines. Their initial method of transport is Granado’s dilapidated Norton 500 motorcycle christened La Poderosa (“The Mighty One”). (Source)

Related readings:

Key Art – The Art of The Process

50 Beautiful Movie Posters

Movie Poster Gallery

Key Art Designs

Where to find Jeremy Saunders on the web

Website: jeremysaunders.com

Blog: Jeremy’s Blog

Social Networks: Twitter, Facebook

He was cool enough to sit down with Prodigal Concepts over digital coffee and it’s a treat I’m sharing with all of you a short Q&A with Jirka Väätäinen.

Q: Can you give us a brief bio of how you got into design?

Ever since I was a little kid, I have always done a lot of arts related stuff. Being creative and designing is what I am most passionate about, so it was a natural choice for me to get a higher education degree in design and turn my interests into a career.

Q: And who were your inspirations if you have any? People you look up to for inspiration?

There are so many talented people, and so much inspiring stuff out there that I don’t think I can just name a few people! Different people have inspired me at different times.

Snow White – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Q: Aside from your creative imagination where do you go to or what do use to stimulate creativity?

I draw inspiration from all areas of design and visual culture, whether it is movies, fashion, photography, graphic design or so on. So give me anything visual really, and I am good to go!

Princess Aurora – The Sleeping Beauty

Cinderella

Ariel – The Little Mermaid

Q: What was your creative design process while working on the Disney characters?

The design process has been very casual, since the project was self-initiated and it was just something I explored for fun. Being familiar with all the characters and having a clear idea on what I was looking to portray, the process has simply involved finding appropriate inspiration from real life people and photos, and then just working towards achieving my vision in photoshop!

Ursula the Sea Witch – The Little Mermaid

Belle – Beauty and the Beast

Megara (Meg) – Hercules

Q: Can you share with us (*aspiring creatives) some words of wisdom on how we could harness our creativity and standout from the multitudes of creatives out there?

I would just suggest everyone to have fun and find out what the things are that you genuinely enjoy doing – since after all, standing out will require you to do your own thing!

Jasmine – Aladdin

Esmeralda – The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Pocahontas

Mulan

Rapunzel – Tangled

Tiana – Princess and the Frog

I hope you guys enjoyed this post as I have enjoyed working on it, be sure to share it with your friends. And I would like to thank Mr. Jirka Väätäinen who has been generous enough to share his time and his work with us today.

Where to find Jirka Väätäinen on the web

Portfolio: @Behance.net

Blog: Jirka’s Blog

Social Networks: Twitter, LinkedIn

That being said let’s get down to business.

What we will be making

What we need for this project:

• Castle from imageafter.com
• Hot air balloon from pixmac.com
• RA2 Kirov from cncguild.net StoneDragon.jpg from EA forums
• Elephant from pixmac.com
• PSD file from the skyscape tutorial

“Previously on Prodigal Concepts” we found and used this landscape stock image that we got from pixmac.com

and with the help of Photoshop we duplicated, flipped and cloned parts of the image to make it look like one single shot that would fit nicely in our 2560px work area so that we could finally have this

after that we populated the heavens with stars, planets, clouds and colorful gasses.

So finally we are almost at the end of our journey and moving on to the last stages of our composition. But before we continue make sure you group the previous layers accordingly “landscape” and “skyscape” you can do this by selecting the layers you want to group together then drag them to the folder looking icon at the bottom of the layers panel.

Update the water reflection

Now check out the reflection of the sky and mountain on our body of water. It’s not the same sky right? So first thing we will do is take care of that problem.

If you have your “Ninth Planet” .PSD file open. Create a new layer at the very top of the layers panel and rename it “reflection-sky” then simply Select All or Ctrl + A and make a copy of the entire file or merged layers Ctrl + Shift + C then paste it Ctrl + V to the “reflection-sky” layer we’ve just created, this will be the first layer on the third group which we will call “realm”.

Flip the “reflection-sky” layer image vertically Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical, then reduce the Opacity to around 50% or less so we can see through the image. Start moving it downwards Shift + Down Arrow until the mountain edges of the reflections align, it’s not going to be perfect so just try the closest you can get.

Now let’s add a layer mask to “reflection-sky” layer and with a soft brush tool, brush off all the excess areas that is not part of the water reflection. Use the Blending Mode “Stroke” to help you trim the edges, like what we did for the sky of the original background in the “skyscape” tutorial. Don’t hesitate to zoom in if you need to. Turn Opacity back to 100% when you’re done masking.

Apply Filter Effects

Our “reflection-sky” layer desperately needs some texture. To give it that ripples effect, like there’s a very light breeze running over it. We will add some “Smart Filters” to create this effect, Smart Filters is a non destructive way to add a filter to your images. It will help us preserve the quality of the original image and will give us the option to make adjustments to the filter settings later when we need to. So while the “reflection-sky” layer is still selected go to Filter > Convert for Smart Filters, then click OK. Our layer is now converted to a “Smart Object”.

Now go to Filter > Brush Strokes > Sprayed Strokes and make the following adjustments.

Next lets give it some “Plastic Wrap” filter, go to Filter > Artistic > Plastic Wrap and use the following settings.

For an extra touch add Filter > Blur > Motion Blur, set Angle: 0 and Distance: 2

You should have something similar to this.

Adding details

Now for the fun part, placing the last elements that would finally complete this project. If you guys haven’t done so, you may begin downloading the required stock photos and extract the images from their backgrounds I suggest starting with the “Castle” photo.

Castle

Place the isolated copy of “Castle” photo on our working file, make sure it’s at the top most layer rename the layer “Castle”. Reduce it’s size a bit, I suggest 18% – 20%, and place it on the right hand side just by the edge of our lake.

Lets tweak it a bit, click on the “Create new fill or adjustment layer” button, select “Curves…” click OK then clip it to the “Castle” layer (hold ALT then click on the line between the two layers) open “Curves…” again (double click on the adjustment layer) and try to match these settings.

It doesn’t have to perfect. Your monitor might show a different result anyway so use your judgement here. Click OK. What we are trying to achieve is to make it blend with our background’s exposure.

OK now zoom in near the bottom of the “Castle”, notice the way I cut it out of the background left it with some really sharp edges that doesn’t look nice. For this grab your Smudge Tool (R), but if you placed your “Castle” image the same way I did which is File > Place… (location of the image) chances are your “Castle” layer is in “Smart Object” state. Right click on it first and then select Rasterize Layer now it’s just a regular image and ready for our Smudge Tool (R).

By the way before you click on Smudge Tool (R) make sure your Brush (B) tip is set to Soft Round use the Brackets [ ] keys to increase or decrease the brush tip whenever necessary.

Start smudging, try to stay close to the edge and smudge away. Maintain random strokes and spaces. Spot the difference? After smudging the bottom edge looks more blended to the ground.

Duplicate the “Castle” layer (don’t forget to include the curve adjustment layer.) Select both layer copies “Castle-copy” and “adjustment layer-copy” then Right Click > Merge Layers rename it “Castle-ref” and drag it below the original “Castle” layer.

Now flip it vertically, Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical and move it down, Shift + Down Arrow right before a gap shows between your two images.

Then repeat the steps we made in “Apply Filter Effects”. Add a Layer-Mask so we can Brush off excess of the reflection that’s not touching the water. Like the left part of the “Castle-ref”.

Do the same for the rest of our images. Unless they’re not supposed to be seen from the reflection on our “Lake”.

I will be placing a couple of elephants on the field, I will give some shadows with the help of brushes and the elephants outline selection.

The hot air balloons will be on the top left hand side. I gave it a dash of clouds from the “cloud” brush pack by JavierZhX, we’ve downloaded from deviantart that we used on the second part of this tutorial.

The rest is just some last minute changes, I went back to the “skyscape” group and using a large soft brush I dabbed on the top most left hand side. Using yellow, purple and green respectively. Gave it a Blending Mode: Overlay, and Opacity: 90%.

After my new year wallpaper tutorial I’ve decided to give this final piece some Optic Flare effects for extra character, that you can get from psdbox.com’s optic flares. Since I’m still in the “skyscape” group folder anyway I figure it’s a good time to include these effects.

And finally we’re done

Finishing touches: Ctrl + (N) a new layer, then get your “Gradient Tool” and set the Foreground color to #5e758c and the Background color to #165a9e now drag it across diagonally starting from the bottom right ending at the top left corner. Set the Blending Mode: Soft Light to give it a more dreamy feel.

Concluded: Part 3 of 3

Visit other prodigalconcepts.com tutorials…

The Ideal Beauty of the Human Body in Art

The idea of the perfect human body is a result of culture: religious functions, economy, advertisement and other factors.

The definition of beauty is not an immanent and objective quality of things, since every age, place and social class formed its own ideal of it, ideal beauty is corresponding with the aesthetic feeling of people of a respecting period.

“History of art” as a relatively young science earlier was called subjectively “aesthetics”. Art was supposed to evoke religious contemplation and/or sensuos and mental delight., as the ancient poet Heliodor postulated.

However according to the great historian Ranke the task of an historian is plainly “to tell as it really was..”, and not his own opinions or feelings.

Actually nowadays we are not any more allowed to call something objectively beautiful, only “to me it is beautiful” or “I like it”, especially since art expresse the disorder and confusion of mankind.

It seem, that there is no more ideals and “anything goes”…

- A Short Introduction to European History of Culture

I have always been fascinated by the “Death’s-head Hawkmoth” used in the “Silence of the Lambs” poster ever since the movie came out way back when. For those who are not familiar with it, these moths are easily distinguishable by the vaguely human skull-shaped pattern of markings on the thorax. But if you look closer, the image used in the movie poster incorporated an original sketch by Salvador Dali which he later collaborated with Philippe Halsman called In Voluptas Mors (1951) where he used actual women to form a large skull.

It is by some creative chance that I’ve stumbled upon a similar imaginative individual who celebrates the human body in all it’s glory, manipulating stock images to create a totally new concept. Let me introduce you to the dreamlike but artistically talented works of…

Cecelia Webber

Our featured artist for today once questioned why we are made to feel so ashamed of the human body especially in the Western culture and so much of the rest of the world? “Isn’t the body a beautiful, wonderful thing, deserving nothing less than to be celebrated?” Cecelia alighted upon a petal in her mind, a new-found platform from which she could quietly challenge the status quo: she created a digital image of a flower constructed entirely from photographs of the naked human body.

Caterpillars and Butterflies

Traveler

Reach

Chrysalis

Cerulean

Monarch

Fuchsia

Vivid

Flowers

White Dandelion

Sunflower

Sunflower (blown)

Blue Bell

Blue Lilac

Cherry Blossom

Jungle Pink

Dragon Flower

Note: Cecelia also dabbles in paintings as a medium, you can get a taste of her works of surreal cityscapes in black and white by heading over and viewing them all from her updated website.

Where to find Cecelia Webber on the web

Website: ceceliawebber.com

Blog: Cecelia Webber’s thoughts (NA)

Social Networks: Twitter, Facebook

Visit other prodigalconcepts.com features…

What we will be making

What we need for this project:

• The “landscape” we made from the previous tutorial.
• Planets (image pack) by Obsidiandawn
• Clouds by JavierZhX from devianart.com
• Grunge Tile texture from unsigneddesign.com
• Brick Tile texture from premiumpixels.com
• Nebula which we are borrowing from the awesome tutorial of Patrick Monkel Making a Superhero Movie Teaser Poster from wegraphics.net.

It’s time to re-open our “Ninth Planet” .PSD file. First create a new layer below our “landscape” layer and then place the downloaded “bw-nebula” image we borrowed from Patrick Monkel’s tutorial by going to File > Place > (image file location) luckily for us its dimension fits our working canvas so we don’t have to work on it much, in addition the layer is converted to a “Smart Object”. Rename this new layer “nebula”.

Flip our “nebula” image using Transform > Flip Vertical, then nudge it upward. Do this while holding down the Shift key then with the Up Arrow key nudge it up 20 times.

With the help of a nice soft brush, we will mask the “landscape” layer’s sky a bit. To do this make sure you have your “landscape” layer selected and then click the button that resembles a Japanese flag to Add a layer mask to it.

Get your Soft Brush and make its diameter around 300px. Set your foreground color to #000000. Start brushing away some of the sky. Follow the curves of the mountain as close as you can. To make sure you don’t miss any stray pixels use the Blending Options and add a Stroke.

Clean up the stray pixels then remove the Stroke, Right Click on the layer Clear layer style.

Our sky needs a thin atmosphere, so create a new layer above the “nebula” layer and rename it “atmosphere” set your Foreground color to #a0c7fe and with the Gradient Tool set to Foreground to Transparent, drag it vertically starting from the bottom going up.

The skyscape feels a bit dull, it needs more tint or color. Let’s give it a nice gradient map. Set your Foreground color to #4a94f9 and the Background color to #32445c. And make sure the “nebula” layer is selected, simply click on the “Create fill or adjustment layer” button below the layers palette, it’s the one that looks a bit like a Yin / Yang symbol next to the “Add layer mask” button.

Choose Gradient Map…, this will create an adjustment layer using the foreground and background colors we have set on top of the nebula image. And since we only need this for the nebula layer we have to clip it.

To do this hold down Alt key and hover your mouse over to the line between the “Gradient Map” adjustment layer and the “nebula” layer, the cursor will change to a black arrow with two small circles over lapping each other, click your mouse. The “Gradient Map” adjustment layer will now have an arrow pointing down. This means that it’s clipped to our “nebula” layer.

It’s still feels a bit weird let’s add another “adjustment layer”, repeat the previous step this time using “Hue/Saturation”. First tick on the Colorize box then set

Hue: 215
Saturation: 45
Lightness: +5

To finish it off, add another “adjustment layer” this time a “Curve”, give it an

Output of 150 and an
Input of 120. Don’t forget to clip it.

I think we got it now, time to add some clouds using the cloud brush pack by JavierZhX that we have found on deviantart.com.

Create a new layer at the very top, and rename it “clouds”, now I will leave you guys the option which cloud style to use just make sure you cover the entire width of our work area. Start brushing the clouds above the mountain range, you can use more than one style (mix it up) don’t worry if it overlaps the mountains. We can clean it up inside a mask with a brush afterwards.

I would like to add a mystical effect behind the clouds, first duplicate the “clouds” layer and rename it “aurora” place it behind the clouds layer then go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur and set the following;

Angle to 45° and the
Distance to 250, click OK.

Now open your Blending Options… for “aurora” and give it a Gradient Overlay, use these settings;

Blend Mode: Exclusion, and set gradient to
Rainbow to Transparent
Style: Linear
un-check Align with Layer
Angle to -45°

You should have something like this.

We are now ready to add some planets, initially I was all set up to use Obsidian Dawn’s image pack (Planets) but when I placed the Mars2 image which was what I used with the original “Ninth Planet” photo manipulation it was dwarfed in comparison simply because the canvas of this tutorial is four times the size of the original piece. What a predicament!

Let’s improvise and make our own! Open the Grunge Tile texture in Photoshop. Turn this into a Selection (Ctrl + A) to see the dimension on your Info Palette, it shows that we have 3264 X 2448. So while the image is still selected Copy (Ctrl + C) it then Create a new file (Ctrl + N) and make the dimension 2448 X 2448 (square) and Paste (Ctrl + V) our texture here.

We have to center our image so turn it into a Selection (Ctrl + A) then make sure you have your Move Tool (V) selected hit Align horizontal centers button located at the top of the staging area.

Next we will squeeze our texture image to fit our square canvas, go to Transform (Ctrl + T) then highlight the Width option and start squeezing using the Down Arrow keys up to around 75%.

Next go to Filter > Distort > Spherize, with the following settings;

Amount: 100%
Mode: Normal

Hit Ctrl + F to do it one more time. To extract our sphere from the rest of our image, we will use the Ellipse Tool, just drag it across our canvas while holding the Shift key starting from the top left corner. It doesn’t have to be perfect but try to get as much of the sphere as you can. Use “Vertical and Horizontal align centers” to keep it centered, Ctrl + Enter to turn the ellipse into a selection. Select the texture layer and Add layer mask to isolate the sphere.

There you go, instant planet! We can now use this in our project.

Place the planet image below the “atmosphere” layer and rename it “planet-x”, position it to the far right and make adjustments as you see fit. I wanted the bottom left to be seen with what looks like craters so I rotated my “planet-x”. Now we will add Blending Options.

Outer Glow
Blend Mode: Screen
Color: #FFFFFF
Size: 60px

Inner Glow
Blend Mode: Overlay
Color: #FFFFFF
Size: 250px

Almost there, set the Foreground color to #3399ff and the Background to #a0c7fe create a new layer and rename it “x-atmosphere” then go to Filter > Render > Clouds and clip it to our “planet-x” layer, use Multiply for the Blend Mode.

To give it a dark side (of the moon-ish effect), add another layer above the “x-atmosphere” layer then select the outline of our planet (inside the mask) and turn it into a Selection (Ctrl + click), now set your Foreground color to #0e1722 and your Gradient Tool to Foreground to Transparent. Drag a gradient starting from somewhere in the middle of the selection going diagonally up and left, use your judgment here. Add Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, Radius: 25px, then clip it.

Now that we have an imposing planet I think it’s safe to use our stock planet images from Obsidiandawn I will be using Mars2 and Saturn3. So start isolating your planets. If you’re not sure how to do this check out my article on How to extract an image from its background in Photoshop.

Once you have isolated the planets, start incorporating them to our work stage. Make sure you place them below the “atmosphere” layer. I’m going to start with Mars and place it off center near the left hand side. I think we need to add some color to Mars by giving it an “adjustment layer”,

Hue/Saturation
Colorize tick it on
Hue: 360
Saturation: 23
Lightness: 0

You may want to give it the same treatments as “planet-x” from this point on, the settings would vary but basically we will use the same glow elements. Do the same for “Saturn3″. You can add more planets using other textures like what we have done for “planet-x”.

Final result

Click the image for a closer inspection and enjoy.

To be continued: Part 3 – A photo manipulation tutorial, realm – The Ninth Planet

The Ninth Planet

We will be recreating it here step by step, but with a bit of a twist, using my trusted laptop and all its 1280×800 resolution we will make a 2560×1600 version (everyone goes whoa!). So if you guys are ready for this trip start your engines and let’s get crack’n.

I’ve decided that I will post this tutorial in parts so we could focus on the task details before moving on to the different stages needed to complete the scene. So for today we will start with the background particularly the landscape.

What we will be making

What we need for this project:

Stock photo of a landscape from pixmac.com

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Open Photoshop and create a new file with 2560×1600 dimensions and rename it “ninth planet”. Now open your landscape stock image and copy it to our “ninth planet” file.

The landscape

As you can see, our Landscape stock image in all it’s 1920×1200 is too small for our work area. Stretching the image is not an option here because it will not look good.

What we will do is position our landscape on the right bottom part of our work area by selecting all Ctrl + A then with your Move tool (V) selected go to your Alignment options and choose Align bottom edges and Align right edges. (Note: Icons highlighted in blue)

To make the landscape fill the empty space duplicate your Landscape layer. Then with your Landscape layer copy selected go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal. Now move it to the left with the left arrow key or Shift + left arrow key until the edge of your Copy layer touches the end of your original Landscape layer. Merge the two layers and rename it “Landscape”.

Now we have a full width landscape. Weird looking yeah, but we can take care of that easy. Grab your Lasso tool (L) then set your Feather radius to around 35px, anti alias ticked and round up a small part of river bank where your two landscape images were joined.

Copy this selection, Ctrl + C, and paste it on a new layer Ctrl + V then move it to the left. Just use your judgment to align it to the direction of the river bank of your right side image (arrow keys Up, Down, Left, Right), better Zoom in to clearly see your work.

Duplicate it Ctrl + J (3 to 4) times or as many times as you need to make it reach the edge of the work canvas something like this.

The next problem we have is that patch of water remaining from our original Landscape image. It’s time to merge our layers so we don’t have to go back and forth from layer to layer. Then make sure you have a soft round brush selected. This time we need to call upon the services of our Clone stamp tool (S). Pick a nice spot of dry grass the thicker the better. That area where we joined our two landscapes looks promising. Zoom in close to that area then just click anywhere while you hold down the Alt key and release. You can start brushing away the patch of water. Feel free to increase or decrease your brush size to optimize the effect.

Now that’s done check out this screenshot…

We need to fix the areas circled in blue, we don’t really need those houses, and the mountain where we merged the two landscapes look unnatural. So with the same technique we used to fix the patch of water previously we will repeat here using the trees to reforest these areas.

And that’s it, time to admire your work, we will leave the top half as it is for now, save your work and next time we will continue working on our projects Stratosphere with “Skyscape”.

To be continued: Part 2 – A photo manipulation tutorial, skyscape – The Ninth Planet

What are the best images to use for this type of project?

1. All Hi-Res (High Resolution) images are great for extraction projects because you really need to get in there when you are cropping out subjects from a background and zooming-in works best with Hi-Res images.

2. Images on a white background are uber awesome, although obtaining the right image would be difficult because there is only so much resource you can find out there on a white background. Patience is the key as well as the right stock image provider. Combine white background with Hi-Res and we have a definite winner. You won’t miss a pixel of your subjects outline.

What images are bad for this type of projects?

1. The opposite of Hi-Res, but as you get better with Photoshop you will be able to work with Medium-Res and if you’re desperate enough even Low-Res photos.

2. Images with inner shadows on a dark background are the worst; you won’t be able to tell where you’re subjects outline starts or where the background ends. It’s almost unusable unless you only need to get part of your image, then it’s cool.

So now that image selection is done it’s time to open your Photoshop. There are numerous ways and tools to extract an image in Photoshop, each one unique and effective in their own way.

So let’s begin, I have here an image of an old style brougham on a white background (Download the image here or click on the stock photo below). It’s available for free at pixmac.com check them out for your future stock image needs.

Open your copy of old style brougham image in Photoshop, our image has a width of 1633 x height of 1225 this will do for our purpose today but take note that the bigger the file dimension size the better.

By default Photoshop opens image files fitted to your screen, (duplicate your image so we can go back to the original if something goes wrong, then turn off the original image layer and work on the copy) select your Zoom Tool from the Tools Palette or hit Z from your keyboard. Then click on your image or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + + maybe 3 – 4 times until you are zoomed in up to 300% at this level you can see the pixels of your image’s outline. Zoom in some more until you are in a comfortable level to see your image outlines.

Our image at 500% Zoom

Lasso Tool (L)

One of the basic Photoshop Path selection tool is the Lasso Tool (L). We need to create a path of our image outline to turn into a selection so we can remove the background. The Lasso Tool has 3 options the Lasso, Polygonal and Magnetic Tool.

How to use it

Lasso Tool: It can be tricky as it requires a good command of the mouse since this is how you will trace your image’s outline.

Polygonal Tool: Is more like the game connect the dots or can be compared to using a needle and a thread you can lay out your paths from point to point, I suggest Zooming in and place your points as close to each other as possible especially for curved Paths.

Magnetic Tool: This one would seem like the perfect choice as it literally hugs your outlines to create a path, all you need to do is hover over your images outline as close as you can and it will stick a path to it.

Once you have selected your path (I suggest go around your image piece by piece) hit delete to remove the background or use Ctrl + Shift + I and apply a Layer Mask to hide your background then for the rest of the pieces just fill em with black after selection.

Conclusion

A very good tool to use when starting out, great for images isolated on a white background like the one we have. Needs some practice to master, useless tool for extraction with regular images on a busy background.

Magic Wand (W)

This is great for beginners too (not the best tool to use though) but it can get the job done to a certain degree. Its brother the Quick Selection Tool can be used together with the Magic Wand when necessary.

How to use it

Zoom out a bit up to 100% and click anywhere in your white area. You will notice that your image outline is selected. Now use Ctrl + Shift + I to invert this selection then go to your layers option and apply Add Layer Mask. The selected background is now hidden behind the layer mask.

Continue selecting the smaller parts of the background and fill it with black inside your Layer Mask, until you have all the white background hidden inside the mask. You need to Zoom in closer for the smaller parts try to get help from the Quick Selection Tool in tight corners.

Conclusion

The result is not 100% clean try to create a new layer behind it and fill it with black to see the edges. And remember as long as there is a clear contrast between your image and its background the Magic Wand will do the trick. But this tool won’t be advisable, in fact it would just be plain useless if you have a busy background.

Extract Filter (Ctrl + Alt + X)

I believe this is no longer available in CS4+ but you can add it back in as an optional plugin. This one is a cool extracting tool best used for images that are difficult to trace ex. Fuzzy hair styles. Just go to Filter > Extract or use the shortcut Ctrl + Alt + X it will open your image on the Extract Tool work area.

How to use it

For this example let’s just take one of the wheels, the right front wheel would do great. Inside the Extract Filter work area get your Edge Highlighter Tool (B) and cover the outline of the wheel, make sure you don’t have any gaps in your highlight. Use the Eraser Tool to remove unnecessary highlights. Zoom in closer to get a better view of your work. Once you have the entire outline covered, get your Fill Tool and fill the rest of our target image.

It will come out a bit destroyed, but don’t you worry the History Brush (Y) will help you fix it. Use a nice sized brush and brush over the destroyed image. Take note to brush only the parts you want to recover.

Additional resources

Extract an object from its background

Conclusion

So you see although the Filter > Extract is a cool tool to remove an image from its background, it’s a bit complicated to use and takes a lot of practice to make it look pretty. But this will come really handy for extracting images with furry or fuzzy edges.

Layer Mask using Brush

A bit unconventional, but this could help you in sticky situations, say you used the previously mentioned tools and you have a few strays then you can use this to clean up your image.

How to use it

Simply add a Layer Mask to your image and make sure you have Black as your foreground color then with the brush tool start tracing the edge of your image, kind of like the reverse of what we did for the Filter > Extract option where we traced the image and left the rest out.

Conclusion

You can definitely use this to help you clean up an image, and if you have a good control of your mouse even extract an image.

Pen Tool (P)

This tool should be your best friend in Photoshop you can create a lot of neat things with it, and one of the things it can do is help you create a path, straight, curved, corner or whatever this is your Swiss knife of tracing.

Learn or rather master the Pen Tool from the resource links we have here and you will be able to extract any subject from any background no matter how busy, and even if it’s a low-res image. (I wouldn’t advise it, but it can be done.)

Related articles

Improve your grip on PEN TOOL a short but good tutorial

Pen Tool TUT Part 2

Conclusion

The Pen Tool is your best friend learn it, master it. It’s all in the wrist.

After the extraction

I placed my extracted image in another background, Red Square from pixmac.com and gave it a bit of texture, some shadows, light effects and presto!

So there you go tools to help you create artistic renditions to extract a subject from a stock photo then combine multiple images to come up with a new and exciting concepts, I hope you like it.

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The picture details are so vivid that I wondered how it’s even possible to capture an image with that quality. So I crawled around Google and discovered that HDR or High Dynamic Range images are composed of multiple layers of the same image merged into one.

High-dynamic-range photographs are generally achieved by capturing multiple standard photographs, often using exposure bracketing, and then merging them into an HDR image. Digital photographs are often encoded in a camera’s raw image format, because 8 bit JPEG encoding doesn’t offer enough values to allow fine transitions (and also introduces undesirable effects due to the lossy compression). – Wikipedia

OK let’s try to understand this in layman’s terms, our vision can only focus on a set of details in a particular scene, we can’t see every detail with one look but we have our memory to remember the elements of what we see and we can combine it in our mind. This is the same with a camera lens, a camera can only focus on a set of details, not the whole scene. Which is why in photography we focus on a subject to make it stand out from it’s environment.

With the help of software apps we can create a detailed version of an image taken with a digital camera and combine them together to show all the details in one image.

To simplify here’s an example, let’s pretend we are shooting outdoors, we have the sky, clouds, water, buildings, statues, lots of textures and colors are everywhere. For this we need a tripod or any stable platform you can rest your camera on. Take a shot of the scene setting the exposure and focus for the sky + clouds, next shot exact same scene focus this time on clouds + water, then water + buildings and statues. So you will end up with at least 5 images of the same scene with different points of focus and exposure.

Then you need to blend all this together with the help of a software like Photoshop and Lightroom another software you can use for this is Photomatix. It’s not easy but with practice and a little investment on software applications needed to merge these, one can achieve a good quality HDR image in no time.

Helpful readings on “How to achieve HDR images”

HDR Tutorial – Everything you need to know about HDR photography

8 Easy Steps to Fake an HDR Look in Photoshop

Easy HDR Technique by Cristian Iancu

If everything I said sounds complicated (coz, it is) and if you feel that HDR photography is just for professionals, maybe, but then again that line of thought is totally wrong! Anyone (including you) who can use a 1. digital camera (even point and shoot), a 2. computer and tweak around with 3. Photoshop can create High Dynamic Range images with the help of an amazing Photoshop plugin called Topaz Adjust by Topaz Labs, you can even have mind blowing pictures using only one photograph.

I know a lot of purists will be shaking their heads just about now, and say in their big voice, “What? Use a plugin to make HDR images? That’s preposterous! An abomination! Get the torches and the forks, gather the women and children, assemble at the town hall!”

Well, we can’t all go back to the stone age can we? At least not until Sir Richard Branson pays for the development of a commercially available “Time Machine”. Anyway the more hardcore of purist still thinks post processing is not professional, they say that Photoshop is the work of the devil and pictures that were processed after being taken by the “Photographer” is not photography. Duh!

Moving on Topaz Labs came out with a wide array of software products you can use with Photoshop to make your pictures stand out. One of them is Topaz Adjust which I had the pleasure to test drive for a month and I just have to say “if it was a car it handles really well”. It’s fairly simple to use, its user interface is sleek and straight forward you will be able to navigate through the controls without a hitch and the result is just brilliant. Plus with the price that’s less than $50 I think we have a winner here (a 30 day trial version is available for you to wet your lips on).

Let me introduce you to Topaz Labs – Topaz Adjust 4

What does it do? Simply put it makes your photos pop in less time it takes a purist and a hardcore purist to say Photoshop Photography Post Processing. Adjust can optimize image exposure, it’s color, and detail strength for stunning image results. Topaz Adjust makes this process simple, fun, even highly rewarding.

Let’s have a short walk through on how to use Topaz Adjust. What you will need:

1. A nice image you want to play with preferably an outdoor scene with lots of textures and colors
2. A copy of Photoshop
3. and of course Topaz Adjust (use the 30 day trial version just for kicks)

Get your copy of Topaz Adjust here

Assuming you already have Photoshop installed (I’m using CS3 for this exercise) Run the setup file of Topaz Adjust and install it to your machine.

Here is our sample image

Immediately you will notice that our sample image is overexposed, and whatever details and drama the photographer saw when this picture was taken is now lost in all the brightness of the background.

When Topaz Adjust setup is complete open your image in Photoshop and create a duplicate image of your original layer, this way if something goes wrong you still have your original image. (You are welcome to use my image for this walk through).

Then simply go to Filter > Topaz Labs > Topaz Adjust it will take you to the Topaz Adjust interface.

As you can see it’s very self explanatory…

Left side panel

On the left side panel, from the Top you have your Preview options for the main image at the center of your screen. With it you can go back and forth from your original image to the modified image and vice versa.

The thumb preview screen is a cool feature, it allows you to see image changes as you hover over the preset menu. Only when you click on the Preset of your choice will it be applied on your image. It takes a lot of computer memory to generate a modified image especially if it’s a very large file (DSLR output). So this thumb preview screen will give you an idea how your image would look before you apply the changes.

Then you have the Preset menu options this is where the magic happens, each preset will give you an awesome photograph effect, from the simple Exposure Correction to the more artistic Psychedelic results and of course two settings for HDR that will make your ordinary photographs become extraordinary.

The Other Options buttons will allow you to add and delete presets, you can create your own preset using the manual sliders on the right side and save it in your Preset menu for future use.

Right side panel

On the right side panel you have your Information thumb screen, much like Photoshop’s information thumb panel it allows you to see which part of the main image you are working on if you are zoomed in.

Then you have your viewing options if you really want to get in there and see your main image up close or from a distance this buttons will let you specify your viewing preference.

Then you have undo, redo buttons we don’t have to go there.

Another juicy part of this interface is the Manual sliders, if you want to go without the presets and go old school using your gifted sight to achieve great results then this is your guy. You have sliders for “Exposure”, “Details”, “Color” and “Noise” to play around with. You can even save your settings to the Preset menu using the other option buttons on the left panel. And if your feeling adventurous you can even pick a preset and start your manual adjustments from there.

When you’re satisfied with your changes, just click “OK” and it will take you back to Photoshop, you can now save your new and improve photo as you wish or use it in a project while your still in Photoshop.

Check out what happened to the sample image after modifying it in Topaz Adjust using some of the “Presets” options:

Sample

Our sample is an overexposed snapshot where almost all the details were lost.

Spicify

Psychedelic

HDR

These are just 3 of the presets I like to use, I didn’t even touch the manual sliders to get these results but as you can see the output is amazing compared to the original photo. Test it yourself, I’m sure you will enjoy it as much as I did.

“If you use Topaz Adjust to modify your photographs share your work here at the comment section, just leave the URL for us to enjoy. Thanks”

Acknowledgements:

My wife Grace for taking that sample image, she has full rights to it but she’s generous enough to lend it to us for this exercise.

Of course Topaz Labs for the Topaz Adjust test drive.

And all the readers and friends who stopped by and shared this article.

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Enter the young up and comer Ian Jasper Reyes from Tarlac City, Philippines. Fresh out of college, he pursued his love of challenges for creating surreal photo manipulations with very impressive results. His humble beginnings started out by playing around with small scale TAGS and SIGS just for his personal amusement. He eventually started joining contests which helped secure his confidence with his work while he gradually pushed the envelop for a larger work canvas. Ian Jasper *slash Vinc found inspiration from the works of other artists on deviantart.com and wowmagz.com to name a few.

Currently focusing his artistry on his brand new passion for large dimension digital canvasses he proved time and time again that he can overcome it’s downside, like how frustrating it can sometime gets to fill it up with elements that would mesh nicely together. But Vinc seems to be doing this pretty well. And we are featuring him here at prodigalconcepts.com because we acknowledge that skills and talent knows no age, and if you happen to have found your calling early you will just keep getting better and better. Ian Jasper or Vinc clearly proves this to be true.

Enjoy “the Vinc’s” imaginative renditions

Wandering

Somewhat

Sky High II

Replace

In the Air

Mountaincold

Habitat

The Floating Idea

Approaching

Derived

Clouds

Close Enough

Where to find Ian Jasper Reyes on the web

Website: vincgfx

Social Network: facebook

Affiliations: DistortedPixel, pinoyrepublic.org

Ian Jasper Reyes also works as a design and technical freelancer if you find yourself in need of his services you may get in touch with him directly at his website. Thank you!

Annie’s style of lighting combined with the use of bold colors and poses in the 80′s got her a position with “Vanity Fair” where she photographed celebrities for the American Express ad campaign that won her a Clio Award which is given to reward individuals for creative excellence in advertising and design. We all could learn a lot from Ms. Leibovitz’s style of photography or just be inspired by what she has already done. In this post I would like to share some of her work from 2007 when the Walt Disney Company hired her to do a series of photographs with celebrities in various roles and scenes for Disney Parks “Year of a Million Dreams” campaign.

So drop everything for awhile and let’s bring out the inner child in all of us, during the time when anything seems possible and worries are a million miles away. Let’s all just sit back and find inspiration in the photos of Annie Leibovitz.

Alladin

Jennifer Lopez as Princess Jasmin and real life hubby Marc Anthony as Alladin, this is obviously “A whole new world”.

Whoopi Goldberg as the playful Genie, is there still time for my three wishes Genie? There is? Whoppi! Hehehe, I couldn’t help it!

Alice in Wonderland

We have here Beyonce as Alice, then Grammy winner country crooner Lyle Lovett as the March Hare then last but not the least Mr. Oliver Platt as the Mad Hatter.

Cinderella

Scarlett Johansson accidentally left a glass slipper or is it a shoe in Cinderella.

King Arthur

Roger Federer traded his tennis racket for a sharper “Excalibur” as King Arthur.

The Little Mermaid

Julianne Moore dreams of feet as Princess Ariel while Michael Phelps practices his Olympic lungs in Disney’s The Little Mermaid.

Peter Pan

Mikhail Baryshnikov the Russian dancer daintily flies into the room as Peter Pan, while Gisele Bündchen looks ravishing as Wendy, and although she’s too small to be recognized at first glance Tina Fey spreads some magic dust as Tinkerbell.

Pinocchio

Julie Andrews poses as the Blue Fairy while looking at Abigail Breslin “Little Miss Sunshine” herself as the apprentice fairy in Pinocchio

Pocahontas

Run Forrest ruuuun, seriously it’s Jessica Biel and her obviously strong legs running through the forrest as Pocahontas.

Snow White

Rachel Weisz rolls around with some forest critters as Snow White.

And of course Snow White’s friend Princess Aurora better known as Sleeping Beauty wouldn’t be awake if it wasn’t for Prince Charming *slash Prince Phillip and who better to pose as a prince than David Becham.

And they lived happily ever after…

I hope you’ve all enjoyed this post, now I want to share with you my first wish to the Genie, I wish that if people likes this article that they share it with their friends using the social bookmark buttons and leave comments. Does that count as 2 wishes already?

Find Annie Leibovitz on the web

Vanity Fair Profile: Annie Leibovitz

PBS Photo Gallery: American Masters

Andrew Smith Gallery: American Music

A very Special Thanks goes to thedisneyblog.com and milliondreamphotos blog for the hi-res images I used in this post, you guys are awesome!