What we will be making

Setting up the stage

Create a new file and name it “cork” give it a 500 x 500 pixel dimensions.

Now go to your color palette and set the Foreground color to a nice warm brown color like #af7749 then a darker brown hue for the Background color something like #77451d should be fine. Fill the stage (Layer 1) with the background color using the paint bucket tool or the much simpler approach Ctrl + Backspace. (Note: Alt + Backspace fills your stage with the Foreground color)

Although were still just working on the background that would hold our featured button let me show you a few tricks to jazz it up a bit. First let’s give it some Noise, go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise, and give it the following adjustments Amount 5% | Distribution: Gaussian, tick on Monochromatic

What we are trying to achieve is a nice wood finish, let’s add some Motion Blur, Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. Set Angle to 90° and Distance to 15px. We could add some imperfections in the wood finish, like swirls and waves using the Filter > Liquify tool to make it more realistic but you can do that on your own if you want.

Let’s continue and start adding some lighting effect with the Blending Options, Right Click on your “Layer 1″ then click on Blending Options… add a Gradient Overlay. Then give it the following settings Blend Mode to Overlay, Opacity: 75% then tweak the gradient color (Note: By Default the gradient is set in Black, White) we need to replace Black with “White” and the White with our dark brown background color #77451d. Then change the following- Style: Radial | Angle: 90°. That’s it!

Time to cork it

Create a new layer and rename this layer “cork-texture”, then go to Filter > Render > Clouds. You should have something like this.

Now we will add some fiber effect, Filter > Render > Fiber, give it some Variance: 20 and Strength: 4.0 so your clouds will turn into something like this.

Then finally here’s the “Pièce de résistance” we just need to add the last filter, this time go to Filter > Distort > Glass, make the following adjustments. Distortion: 15 | Smoothness: 1 | Texture: Frosted | Scaling: 100%.

Now take the Rounded Rectangle from your Shapes Palette, make sure it’s set to Shape layers, with Radius: 20px and drag a nice rectangle Width: 350px and make the Height: 140px. We have just created a new layer which we can rename and call “outline”.

Keep it centered with the Horizontal and Vertical Align tools. Then turn it into a selection (Ctrl + Click). Make sure the “cork-texture” layer is selected then go to the layers panel options and Add Layer Mask. You can now hide the “outline” layer by poking the eye next to it.

Details

With the “cork-texture” layer still selected right click on it to bring up Blending Options… menu. You can just follow my settings.

Let’s add another layer this time below the “cork-texture” layer and rename it “shadow”, turn the “outline” layer into a selection and fill it with #000000. (Note: You don’t have to turn it on to create the selection from it just hold Ctrl + Click the layer.)

Apply a gaussian blur filter, Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, set the Radius: 2.0px click OK then reduce the layer Opacity: 50%.

Content

Select the “cork-texture” layer then grab the Rounded Rectangle from your Shapes Palette again, drag it inside the “cork-texture” layer while holding the Shift key, this would help you create a new layer that’s a perfect square with rounded corners on top of the cork. Then give it the following Blending Options… settings. And don’t forget to rename this layer “button”.

Well be including a “down arrow” shape and place it inside the “button” layer. You can use any arrow shape you want but in case you’re interested I got mine from Shapes4FREE’s – 120 Arrows Photoshop Shapes. Just drag the arrow shape and make the size fit inside our “button” layer, rename this new layer “down-arrow”, keep it horizontally and vertically centered.

Turn this “down-arrow” layer into a selection. Then make sure the “button” layer is selected now Add Layer Mask. You can now just hide the “down-arrow” layer as we are done with it.

Finally we can add some content. Use your judgement to position them inside our “cork-texture” layer. Right + Click the “button” layer and choose Copy Layer Style, now Right + Click on your “Text” layers and Paste Layer Style.

And were DONE!

What we will be making

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Step 1 – Setting the stage

Open Photoshop and create a new document with a 500×500 pixel dimensions let’s name this file “glassy-orb”.

Step 2 – Background

First thing we will do as create a nice looking background, make your “Foreground #badff7″ and the “Background #02578e” then with the Gradient Tool (G) selected set the gradient to Foreground to Background and style to Radial Gradient.

Now go to the center of our work area and drag it diagonally going towards the bottom right. Rename this layer as “main-bg”.

You should have something like this.

Add some noise to give it more character, go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise adjust the following settings Amount: 2%, Distribution: Gaussian, tick Monochromatic.

Step 3 – the Orb

Create a New Layer and rename it “orb” then grab your “Ellipse Tool (U)” from your shapes pallete and drag it across our work area while holding the Shift key to keep it proportion to make a nice circle. Fill it with the foreground color. Keep it centered on your work area by making a selection of the outline (Ctrl + A) and using Align vertical center and Align horizontal center buttons.

Right click the “orb” layer and go to Blending Options to access Layer Styles then give it an Inner Glow with the following settings, Color #01a8fe

Add a Gradient Overlay and choose the default black and white. But replace the black with #00506d and the white to #152128.

You should now have something like this.

Step 4 – Details

Turn the “orb” layer into a selection Ctrl + click on the layer, then create a New Layer and name it “bottom-glow”. Use the foreground color #01a8fe and with your Gradient Tool (G) selected set the gradient effect to Foreground to Transparent and style should be Radial Gradient hold the Shift key and drag your gradient from the bottom going up, stop before you get to the top of the orb. Repeat this step on a new layer and rename it “bottom-glow-2” exactly the same settings except for the gradient style which should be Linear Gradient.

Add another layer and rename it “top-gloss” turn the “orb” into a selection again Ctrl + click on the layer then make the foreground color #ffffff keep the last gradient settings except for the color and drag it, this time from the top going down. Then use the Transform Tool (T) and pinch it a bit on the sides. You may need to pinch it vertically as well just use your judgement here.

Then align it to top and keep it horizontally centered. Turn down the Opacity to 50% and give it a little Gaussian Blur 1-2% Radius should be enough.

Finishing touches

After that you can incorporate any logo or object you want but for me I used the Facebook logo I found on hdicon.com I used the dark Facebook blue for the color, flipped it vertically to create a subtle reflection and added a hint of shadow with the marquee tool. Remember to insert all of these below the “top-gloss” layer.

Finally with the Elliptical Marquee Tool (M) selected again I created a New Layer on top of the “main-bg” layer and called it “shadow”. Just drag it across to create a nice elongated shape, fill it with black and center it to your stage, make sure it clears the orb. Then give it a nice Gaussian Blur with a radius of 5% then a Motion Blur Angle 0 deg, and Distance 50.

And you’re done

What we will be making

Setting up the stage

Open Photoshop and create a new file, Ctrl + N and make the dimension a nice large square of 600 pixels x 600 pixels name it “lady-bug”. Fill it with white and name that layer “bg”.

Step 1 – the body

For the body we will use our Ellipse Tool, but first set your Foreground Color to #497e59 and make sure the Ellipse Tool (U) is set to Shape layers. Now drag your mouse on your work area and create a nice vertical ellipse. Like a nice egg shape around 265px width and height 340px. Rename this layer “body”. If your Ellipse Tool (U) has been properly set to Shape Layers then you should have something like this. Align your layer Vertical Center and make sure we have enough room on top for the head.

You can also just turn your path into a selection Ctrl + Enter and fill it with our foreground color if you find it easier.

Add some detail on the body by creating a new layer and rename it “abdomen”, change your Foreground Color to a darker shade of green like #092a13.

Now go to your shapes pallete again but this time use the Custom Shape option, then in your custom shape menu navigate to the Symbols pallete and pick World shape. Drag it across the work stage, we need it elliptical like our “body” layer but make sure it would fit snugly inside the body so make it a few pixels smaller and properly centered.

We will have to reduce the thickness as well so turn this layer into a selection Ctrl + click (with your mouse) then go to Select > Modify > Contract > Contract by: 5 then apply a layer mask. Don’t worry if the lines are not proportion just give it a light blur Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur set the Radius to 1 and reduce the Opacity to 45%.

Note: Group this layers together and rename it “body” (simply select both layers and drag them to the folder icon at the bottom of the layers pallete).

Step 2 – the wing

Create a new layer and name it “wings-outline” (change your foreground to any red color to make it stand out from the body) then with your Ellipse Tool (U) make a nice circle by holding the Shift Key while dragging, make it around 320 pixels or just make sure it’s smaller than the body by 10 pixels more or less. Keep it Vertical Center and Top Align to the body then turn it into a selection.

Create a new layer name it “wing-gradient” then choose a light red color for your foreground #fd0d18 and a darker shade of red for your background #950101 then select the Gradient Tool (G) make sure it’s set to Foreground to Background and the style should be Radial Gradient. Drag it lightly from the top left going down to the bottom right of your selection.

Step 3 – wing detail

Hide the “wings-outline” layer for now, just poke the eye of this layer while we add some details to our wings.

We need to separate the left and right wing, for this we will use some guides, so get your rulers out Ctrl + R the Vertical guide should be centered to our wing while the Horizontal guide should be a quarter from the top of the wing.

Time to practice with the Pen Tool (P), start from the intersection of our guides then make a diagonal line going to the bottom left of the wing, give it a nice curve and make your way to the other side of the guide just try and match the curve. Turn it into a selection Ctrl + Enter and invert your selection Ctrl + Shift + I now make sure you have “wing-gradient” layer selected then add a layer mask.

Ctrl + N a new layer below the “wing-gradient” layer and call it “shadow” then Ctrl + click the “wing-gradient” layer (thumbnail) and fill it with black #000000, don’t forget to duplicate the layer mask as well Ctrl + click the “wing-gradient” layer (thumbnail mask) to turn it into a selection and add a layer mask to the “shadow” layer. Finally give it a gaussian blur, Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur > Radius: 5px.

Start adding random black dots all over the wing area with the Ellipse Tool (U) make sure you create these above the “wing-gradient” layer.

Now add a new layer on the very top of the black dots and call it “gloss”, turn the outline of the wing into a selection make your foreground color white #ffffff. Select the Gradient Tool (G) and set it to Foreground to Transparent style should be Linear Gradient. Drag it from the top going down, it may look better if you start from outside of the body so we get a nice soft gradient.

Transform this layer Ctrl + T highlight the width first, bring it down 80%, then the height to 70%. Align it Vertically and to the top of the “wing-gradient” layer.

Add another layer and call it “glow” repeat the steps we’ve done for the “gloss” effect but the gradient style here should be set to Radial Gradient and then drag it starting from the bottom going up. Clean up using a layer mask to replicate the space between the wings.

Note: Group them together and call it “wings”.

Step 4 – the head

Remember the “wings-outline” layer we turned off earlier? Duplicate that and place it between your “wings” group and your “body” group, turn on the copy and rename it “head”.

Move “head” into position at the top of the work stage then transform it Ctrl + T, select Maintain aspect ratio it’s the chain “link” looking button between the width and height then highlight the width and use Shift + Arrow Key Down to bring its size to around 40%. Deselect the option Maintain aspect ratio and then highlight height and this time just with the Down Arrow Key bring the height to at least 35%.

We will repeat the steps we used to create the “wing-gradient” layer. First turn your path into a selection Ctrl + Enter. Then choose a nice gray color for your foreground #484748 and black for your background #000000 then select the Gradient Tool (G) make sure it’s set to Foreground to Background and the style should be Radial Gradient. Drag it lightly from the top left going down to the bottom right of your selection.

(Note: if in doubt refer to the “wing-gradient” images)

Then give a “gloss” effect similar to what we have also done for the wing.

All that’s left now is the antennae.

Step 5 – the antennae

Create a layer below the “head” and call this new layer “antennae-left”, then with your brush tool selected, I will be using a Hard Round brush around 10px, create a dot anywhere on our stage we will position it later. Then reduce the diameter of your brush to around 7px using the left bracket [ key you can just stroke a curve line freehand if you like, but I will use the pen tool to create mine, starting from the dot going straight down then curve. Now go to the Path Tab and right click on the path we just created, choose Stroke Path make sure Simulate Pressure is not ticked, then click OK.

Right click the layer and go to Blending Options > Bevel and Emboss > Inner Bevel set Angle 90° and Altitude 45°. Now position this on the “head” use Transform Ctrl + T to rotate it to an angle that would look good. Duplicate this layer and rename it “antennae-right” and move it to the opposite side.

And that’s all I have to say about that

Hmmmn, how about some shadows? and a background?

For the shadow just group all the files in one folder and call that “main”, duplicate it then Right Click and Merge Group, then turn it into a selection. Ctrl click the layer and fill with black #000000 bring it below the “main” group then Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, Radius: 7px and bring it down a bit with the Arrow keys.

As for the background I’m leaving it all up to you and your creativity! Enjoy!

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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

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A Happy New Year to all the readers and visitors of Prodigal Concepts. I wish you all the best this coming year as we are ushered into the year of the Dragon – 2012.

The holidays are blurring out, (but the holiday weight seems to be staying longer than necessary) and before we all move on to the challenges of the coming year let us go with a bang and celebrate one last time with an out of this world wallpaper tutorial.

What we will be making

What we need

Font
Federation Font from Legacy of Defeat

Textures

Stainless from Photo Bucket

Concrete from deviantart.com

Grunge tile from Lost and Taken

Optic flares

The genius behind psdbox.com came up with some out of this world optic flares that you may find really useful in your future projects get it here.

Nebula
For the second time we will be calling on the Nebula which we are borrowing again from the uber awesome tutorial of Patrick Monkel Making a Superhero Movie Teaser Poster from wegraphics.net. Last used here on A photo manipulation tutorial, skyscape – The Ninth Planet

Set the stage

Open Photoshop and create a new document Ctrl + Shift + (N), make it 1280 x 800 pixels. Name it whatever you like, I’m going to call mine “2012 wallpaper”

Create the mood

Start with a new layer Ctrl + (N) and call it “background”, then set your foreground color to #797978 and your background color to #1a1a1a. Take your Gradient Tool (G) and from the gradient picker choose Foreground to Background and set style to Radial Gradient.

Drag your mouse from the center going diagonal to the lower right hand corner.

Create another layer Ctrl + (N) and call it “gradient-light”, set your foreground color to #c6c05c and the background color to #05394e. Keep the rest as it is and drag your mouse like before. Change the Blending Mode to Overlay.

Mystify the background

Ctrl + (N) a new layer and call it “cloud”, set your foreground color to #835d2c and the background color to #261501. Go to Filter > Render > Clouds, set Blending Mode to Overlay. You should get something like this.

Make another layer call it “gradient-blue” and set your foreground color to #698aab and the background color to #1a5c9f. Get your Gradient Tool (G) and set style to Linear Gradient. Drag it across your stage from top left diagonally to your bottom right. Set Blending Mode to Multiply.

Time to get our “bw-nebula” image out, just go to File > Place (navigate to the location of the bw-nebula image) then click Place. Make sure it’s centered, now we will Edit > Transform > Rotate 180° and change the Blending Mode to Screen.

Add another layer and name it “4gradients”, then get your Gradient Tool (G) from the Tools Palette and click on the gradient picker, the gradient editor window should pop up. Choose a 4 colored gradient then replace each color from left to right with something like Blue (or Cyan), Green, Yellow, Red.

Now starting from the top left drag it across diagonally to the bottom right. And set the Blending Mode to Overlay.

And on the 7th layer we almost rested… but not, because we will make one final layer for the background and call it “light-effects” fill this layer with #ffffff, then go to Filter > Render > Light Effects. Change style to RGB Lights, and set Intensity to 60 and Focus to 96 click OK. Go back to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur give it a Radius of 100% then set the Blending Mode to Overlay and reduce the Opacity to 75%.

Type treatment

Take your Type Tool and set the font family to the Federation font we downloaded from “Legacy of Defeat”. Set your font size to 130px and font tracking to 100.

Since it’s just a couple of days till the year ends why don’t we welcome the coming year by typing

Turn this into a selection, Ctrl + click on the type layer, then go to Select > Modify > Expand (Expand by: 5px). Now create a layer below the type and name it “outline” fill your selection with white. Temporarily hide the type layer by poking the eye on the left of the layer.

Go to Blending Options and set the following settings:

Drop Shadow > Blend Mode: Multiply, Opacity: 75%, Angle: 45°, Distance: 20px, Size: 10px

Inner Glow > Blend Mode: Screen, Color: White

Bevel and Emboss > Style: Inner Bevel, Technique: Smooth, Depth: 100%, Size: 25px, Soften: 10px, Angle: 45°,

Color Overlay > Blend Mode: Screen, Color: #3f464d

Stroke > Size: 1px, Position: Outside, Color: #dddddd

Place the Grunge tile texture above the “outline” layer and make sure the entire selection is covered now clip it to the outline by using Alt + click between the two layers. Add an Adjustment Layer – Brightness and Contrast then clip this to the Grunge tile texture and give it a -75 Brightness and -24 Contrast.

Unhide the type layer, and set the following

Blending Options > Drop Shadow > Distance: 21px, Size: 21px, Angle: 45°

Then place the Stainless texture above this type layer and clip it.

Blending Options > Color Overlay > Blend Mode: Soft Light, Color:#001d29

Do the same for the Concrete texture after placing it above the Stainless texture, clip it then set the Blend Mode to Overlay.

Group this set and call it “content”.

Give it some POW!

On a new layer with your Elliptical Marquee Tool (M) draw a very thin ellipse, I made mine around 206 x 19 pixels, deselect then go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur Set Angle to 0° and Distance to 90px click OK. Duplicate this layer then Edit > Transform > Rotate 90°, duplicate this layer then rotate 45° to the left.

Shrink the last copy to around 40% and the first copy to 60%. Group them together and name the group “glint” now duplicate this group 6 times (or more) and place them randomly on our content somewhere around the edges of the type layer.

And finally, place some of psdbox.com‘s Optic Flare effects, I will be using Optical-4b and Optical-8c. Just set the flares Blending Mode to Screen and drag it to where you feel it could give the optimum effect. Play with it until you are satisfied.

That’s it I hope you guys enjoyed this tutorial and be sure to share it.

A very Happy New Year to everyone!

May this coming year bring us all closer to our dreams, woot, woot, woot.

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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

Which brings me to (LOL) “10 Photoshop keyboard shortcuts Saturday” issue #1. Starting today I will post 10 Photoshop keyboard shortcuts that I know of every Saturday. It will benefit those who likes to dabble on some personal Photoshop projects over the weekend. This will help you guys reduce the time it takes you to navigate through Photoshop. Be warned that it takes some getting use to if you’ve been smitten by “the mouse”, but if you learn this it will immensely help you in the long run, especially on large projects.

I’m not sure how to effectively categorize the list because I know we all have different ways of filing things by importance. I suggest you make a soft copy file cheat sheet that you can save somewhere for reference as I post them here.

(Disclaimer: As I’m using CS3 there could be some slight difference with other Photoshop versions reactions, also I’m on a PC so MAC users just change some of the combo keys on your side. ex. Ctrl on a PC = Cmd on a MAC etc…)

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A very special “thank you” to freevector.com for the Photoshop tool icons we will be using in this guide.

Starting alphabetically:

A

This will open your

Path tool

Direct Selection Tool

Shift + A

By holding the Shift key you can switch between Path tool and Direction tool as you click on A.

Ctrl + A

Will Select All, when activated is usually represented by marching ants around the canvass.

Alt + Shift + A

Applies the Blending Mode Linear Burn

B

Opens your trusty and very useful,

Brush tool

Pencil tool

Shift + B

By holding the Shift key you can switch between Brush tool and Pencil tool as you click on B.

Ctrl + B

Opens your Color Balance option screen

Ctrl + Alt + B

This will show your Color Balance last settings

Ctrl + Shift + B

Applies Auto Color to your image.

Ctrl + Alt + Shift + B

Will open your Black & White control options.

*Bonus

Alt + Shift + B

Applies the Blending Mode Color Burn

Well there you go, 10 + 1 Photoshop keyboard shortcuts, I hope this would help you minimize the time you spend on your projects. See you again next Saturday for another set of 10 Photoshop keyboard shortcuts. And remember “it’s all about the end result”.

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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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For the first part of the year 2011, I would like to thank each and everyone of my friends and regular readers who drop by here every now and then to check out what’s new at prodigalconcepts.com and I wish you all good things this year and please continue to support my site and help me spread the word by sharing the articles you find interesting with your friends!

Today we will be creating a very cool “Pin Wheel” in Photoshop with the help of the Pen Tool. And to make it easy for us we will borrow this image of a pinwheel from the NewarkLibrary blog or download it here!

Final Image

Difficulty: Beginner – Intermediate

Duration: 45 mins (plus or minus)

Basics

Open your pinwheel image in Photoshop. Then create a new layer above it and rename it “Outline” now grab your Pen tool from your tools pallete or just hit (P) on your keyboard.

Try to zoom in (Ctrl +) to see the edge of the “Pin Wheel” clearly, now start tracing the outline of the “Blade” or the “Leaf” (I have no idea what it’s called). Start wherever it’s comfortable for you, I’m going to start from the top left going down. Just click on a point in the outer part of the Pin Wheel “Blade” (I decided to call it Blade for duration of this tutorial) and trace the edges point to point (if it’s a straight line).

If it’s a curve,try to get a wide area from your outline and without releasing your mouse drag its handles out to match your images curve.

To continue working on your path, hold Alt key and Click on your original point to cut a corner, (while holding Alt key hover your mouse to the last point you created it should show ^ symbol, click on the point.) Your drag handle will disappear so you can now continue tracing your outline.

Once you have outlined the entire “Blade” you can close your path by joining your last point with your original anchor point, you should see a small circle, like a degree symbol ° this means your are about to close your path.

If you are satisfied with the outline of your shape, turn your path into a selection (Ctrl + Enter). Turn off your Pin Wheel “Background” layer image by poking the eye next to it and you should have something like this.

Then make sure you have your “Outline” layer selected, fill this selection with a nice Pastel Green like #9ffc71.

Next we will trace the outline of the part of the blade I’m calling Flap (for lack of any other word for it). I see 2 ways we can do this, the Hard way is to retrace the part of the flap using the Pen Tool the same way we did the “Outline” which is a good exercise. Then there is the easy way which will cut corners and save us some time, since I’ve already shown you how to trace the entire outline I’m cutting corners for the “Flap” and take the easy way.

First duplicate your “Outline” layer and rename it “Flap” bring down its Opacity to around 50%, then turn off your “Outline” layer and then turn on the Pin Wheel “Background” layer.

Get your Pen Tool out, and use the Pin Wheel “Background” layer image for reference, trace the inside curve of the Flap. We are only after the curve, so here it’s OK to go outside the “Flap” layer and once you have cleared the image just circle around the rest of your image to close off your path.

Then turn it into a selection, we only need the part of the image inside our selection and discard the rest. So you can do two things add a layer mask to hide the unselected part or use Select > Inverse (Ctrl +Shift + I) and delete the part we wont need.

Now we can bring the Opacity back to 100% for our “Flap” image layer. And begin adding details. Use a nice light color to make a background of our work area so we can better see what were doing while adding details. Mine will be #fefdfd for the Foreground and #cefbb8 for the Background then apply it with a Radial gradient effect starting from the middle going out. Something like this.

Colors and shades

So we are ready, first lets give our “Outline” layer a bit of light and shade. To do this, create a new layer on top of the “Outline” layer and rename it “Outline-light” make a selection with your “Outline” layer by (Ctrl + click) your image from the Layers panel you will see the running ants will start marching.

Make your Foreground color a light shade of green like #d7fbc6, then set your Gradient tool to Linear gradient and your gradient picker is set to Linear to Transparent. Start outside the selection from the lower right of the image in a diagonal motion going in. This will give your image a nice 2 tone green.

We need to add some shadows, create a new layer on top of the “Light” layer and rename it “Shadow”. Then make a selection with your “Outline” layer again by (Ctrl + click) your image from the Layers panel one more time. This time set your Foreground color to Black #000000, and with the same Gradient tool settings as the light (except for the color) apply the gradient starting from the opposite direction, upper left diagonal motion going down. Then bring down your “Shadow” layers opacity to around 75%.

Time to give the “Flap” layer a light effect too by repeating the steps we made for the “Outline-light”, create a new layer on top of the “Flap” layer and name it “Flap-light” add the same gradient effect but from the opposite direction by starting from the upper left going down in a diagonal slice.

One piece of the puzzle is complete, time to group all your layers except for the “Background” layer that we made, you can also discard the original Pin Wheel image, it has served its purpose. Select all the layers thats part of the “Blade” by selecting the top most layer then while holding the Shift key click on the last bottom layer. Now that all your layers are high-lighted drag them down to the Folder looking button below your layers panel. This will group all the “Blade” layers into one folder, rename this group “Blade-green”.

Grouping

Take the group folder “Blade-green” and duplicate it, rename the copy “Blade-blue”, while this group is still selected go to Edit > Transform > Rotate 90° CW. Move this group and use your judgement to position it as the second blade. We will need to change this groups color scheme. Expand the “Blade-blue” folder and locate the layer “Outline copy” while this layer is selected go to Blending options and apply a color overlay use #71fcbf, then copy this layer style to your “Flap copy” layer. Do the same Blending option adjustment for the “Outline-light copy” layer but you should give it a lighter shade of blue like #bcf7fb, then copy this layer style to the “Flap-light copy” image layer.

Here’s a neat trick, read carefully moving forward because this might start to get confusing as we go back and forth the two folder groups. As you can see the two “Blades” are missing a shadow where they are joined together so do this, first create a new layer above the “Shadow” layer of the group “Blade-green” and rename this “Shadow2″ then make a selection using the “Outline copy” layer from the group “Blade-blue” fill this with Black #000000 apply a Gaussian blur with 50px Radius bring down the Opacity to 50% while “Shadow2″ layer is still selected turn the layer “Outline” from the group “Blade-green” into a selection and then invert the selection hit Del you should now have a nice shadow between the 2 “Blades”.

Now repeat this steps a few more times starting from (Grouping) until you have 4 multi colored “Blades” like this.

We will now add a Pin to our image to complete our Pin-Wheel project, create a new layer on top of all the grouped layers and name it “Pin”. Take the Ellipse tool from the Shapes pallette and make a nice little circle and turn it into a selection. Make your Foreground color #cbfab9, and your Background color #3399ff, set your Gradient tool to Radial and the gradient picker to Foreground to Background, apply the gradient starting from the center going out. Next lets give it a shadow effect, (Ctrl + click) your “Pin” image and create a new layer below it, rename this “Shadow” fill it with Black #000000, then go to your Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and make the Radius: 10px then change the opacity to 75%.

Last but not the least is the nice looking handle. Create a new layer below all the grouped layers and rename it “Handle”. Get your Rectangular marquee tool and create a long vertical rectangle. Fill this with #3399ff, create a new layer and name it “hilite” (Ctrl + click) your “Handle” to make a selection, then fill it with White #ffffff, reduce it’s width to around 50% or less. Give it a Gaussian blur with a Radius of 5px, keep it a little to the left.

Time to admire your work

I hope you all like this and put it to good use, share it with your friends and if you happen to use it in one of your projects give me a shout out and I will include it here. Thank you all very much. PEACE!

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