Effective manipulations - Extracting the background...

Here's an very effective little photoshop tutorial on how to remove the background and just have the main image remaining.

1. Start off with an image which you wish to remove the background from. Here in my example, you can see that I have used a horse from deviantart.com ( http://stockhorse.deviantart.com/art/Dunner-2-24921754 ).

2. Open a blank photoshop document the same size as your image. Create a new layer ( layer>new layer ) and then paste your image onto the new top layer ( edit>paste ).

3. Once you have it open and on a new layer then you're ready to start removing the background. Now, here you have to make a decision. If you want your main object (for me, the horse) to have a more 'dreamy', blending edge to it then you will need to use a soft brush. Whereas, if you want a very slick, crisp edge then go for a harder one. So, click on the normal eraser tool and then select the brush you wish to erase with. (Here's where you'll be picking a hard or soft brush). If you want a hard brush then go for something like this:

3. Now, I'm going to go for a soft brush since in my opinion, I believe it gives a nicer, more realistic finish. Make sure you don't pick an overly blurry brush though because it can go too far the other way.

So, once you're ready, you can start erasing out some of the background. Start by erasing out all of the background except for that directly next to the horse.

4. Now you have to concentrate on the slightly harder part. Erasing the detailed outline of the main object. So, choose a slightly harder brush now. Not completly hard but not as blurry and soft as earlier.

5. Zoom in to your image (extremly close) and carefully erase out the pixels which are not your main image (the background). Try to keep it as neat as possible since this means less cleaning up later.

6. Continue to do this until you end up with a main image that has no excess background left on it. It may be a little rough and untidy at this moment but don't worry. The neatness and 'quickness' will come with time. Leave the mane and tail until last. We'll tackle that in a slightly different way.

Now,you should have your image nearly cut out (just tricky areas suchas mane or tail left). I chose this picture as an example because human hair is also extremly tricky and it's best to have practise before you try this with people.

7. Now we'll tackle the hair. Make your eraser brush (one you were just using) 1px in size. (Refer to the picture above about changing the brush size).

Once you have an extremly small eraser brush, zoom in to your image so that you're very close. Then begin to carefully erase away between the strands.

8. Continue to do this with both the mane and the tail. Do not worry at all that it looks awful and pixely at the moment! There is a trick to getting this to keep it's detail and smooth it out.

9. This is when I will show you how (only on some of my work) you can use brushes to smoothen out areas like the mane and tail without using a smudge tool and loosing all of the detail. Now, you can see that the next image on here looks like a clump of fur. Well, copy and paste this fur image into a new photoshop document. (We'll go straight back to your main image in a few minutes so don't get rid of it).

10. Now, after you have the fur image in photoshop, go to edit > define brush and name it something like 'fur brush'. This is crucial for our next stage.

11. Switching back to our main image now. You may delete the new fur image if you wish. It has served it's purpose. Now, go to the clone brush (looks like a stamp and is above the eraser tool). Once selected, go to your brush choice again and scroll right to the bottom of all yourbrushes. You should see your 'fur brush'. Choose this one.

Make it a size that is just a bit smaller than the length of the mane. (very small). I'm putting mine at a 20 px size. My image is quite big so yours may be smaller.

12. Now, simply hold down alt on your keyboard and click at the base of the mane. (When you hole alt, your brush will temporarily change to a little 'target').

What the clone tool does is duplicates some part of the image somewhere else. So, say you click your target down on the horse's hoof, then let go of alt. (That told photoshop that you want to duplicate that hoof somewhere else on the picture). Then you come up to the neck and start drawing as normal (with the clone tool but not holding alt) then rather than drawing with a colour, it will start to paint the hoof back in on the horse's back. Sounds like a useless tool but when used properly, can be very effective.

Now, I know what you're thinking. What on earth does this have to do with my image? I don't want to duplicate anything! Well, here's where the clever part comes in, watch and see.

13. So, you should have clicked near the base of your mane, so, now all you need to do is hover over the straggly ends of the mane and click to start painting in the colours again.

This step is hard to explain and really you just need to play around with it until you're happy. All it's doing is creating the same colours as the mane and adding them to the straggly cut out ends so that they look less 'pixely'. Here I have very quickly attempted my mane. Obviously this was only a 2 second try so I didn't have the time to go into detail with mine. After practise, I'm sure yours will look much nicer.

14. Do the same with the tail and you should be ready to get a background in there now.

15. Adding a background is easy. Search for an image that you wish to use as the background and right click > copy it. I used this image for mine: http://jsunsstock.deviantart.com/art/Magic-Forrest-103083391 It's just the first one that I could find. Try to pick a background image that will nicely contrast with your main cut out.

16. Paste it into the ocument we have been working off. Go to edit > paste. It should automatically paste on it's own layer. Now, don't panic if you can't see your cut-out since it will be below your background image (shown in the screen shot below). Your background will probably not be the correct size. You want your background to fit onto your document. At the moment, forget your cut out size because this will be resized as well. Just make sure the background fits nicely in the square. (It can overhang the square if you wish as long as the area you want as your background is in there). So, to resize it, go to edit > free transform. This will allow you to simply resize your background.

17. Once the background is resized and ready, simply grab your 'layer 1' (layer with your cut out on it and drag it above your background layer in the layers window. All this means is that your cut out will now be shown above your background. This may now be very big for your background, so to resize it, again go to edit > free transform and play with it as you wish.

18. Now, you should have your completed image!! =]

As simple as that,

Sam

Article - Photoshop layers explained

At first, I can see how photoshop may seem a little overwhelming with all it's fancy tools etc. but please do not be put off at all! These tools actually are all necessary and are all easy to use once you see how.

In this article, I'll talk to you a bit photoshop layers.

Layers

Layers in my opinion are key to doing anything at all in photoshop. I always use layers with my work since it makes the image SO much easier to edit. Now, if you have never heard of layers and have no idea what they do then don't worry. All will be revealed.

I'll start by explaining to you what the layers are. Layers able the image to be split up and placed (layered) on top of one another. Imagine that you have a piece of paper that is painted red. You then get a clear piece of celophaine and paint a yellow circle in the middle of it. (this would represent the second layer). Then get a third piece of celophaine and paint a little blue square on it. Lie it ontop of your yellow circle (which would represent the top layer). So, you now have three layers yes?

As simple as that,

Sam

Article - Is photoshop really worth it?

Heck yes!!!

If you are looking to buy a nice photo editing software then photoshop is the ideal product. Offering a wide range of tools, effects and designing styles makes photoshop deffinatly worth the money.

As you can see from this tutorial site, and many others, that there is such a wide range of possibilities with it that you can never really have done it all! Poeple are constantly finding new ways to add realistic effects, create manipulations and even just enhancing photos.

In literally a couple of seconds photoshop can turn this:

...into this:

Once you have got the hang of it, it really is simple to use and it targets all kinds of audiences. People who want to have a little play around with it and scratch the surface of tools and filters etc. and then a more professional audience who might use for pro photography edits. It's so versetile and really does offer the works when it comes to photo editing/graphic design.

Obviously you can tell that I love the software and so many other people who I have spoken to have said the same thing. It is a really worth while piece of kit. Trust me, you won't be dissapointed.

As simple as that,

Sam

Effective manipulations - Light placement

Here's an extremly effective little photoshop tutorial on how to add some clever lighting effects to your photos.




When creating a manip, it's important to think about lighting and shadows as well as the simple composition.



Find a background image that you wish to use that has some nice lighting. As you can see, I have chosen a forest with the light coming from behind. Then pick a nice object/image to be added in there. Now, I've chosen a horse to go in my forest as you can see. http://oldpost.deviantart.com/art/Horse-stock-71219768 http://greenleaf-stock.deviantart.com/art/forest-01-98586843



1. First we need to make the horse in-proportion with the forest.






2. Next, we need to remove the background from the horse. (Please refer to my tutorial on how to remove a background if you are unsure).



3. As you can see, it looks like the horse has just been shoved in there.






4. To make the horse fit in with the picture then the light would have to be coming from behind the horse (like it is in the background forest). So, for starters, we can put a small outer glow around the horse since the light is coming from behind. Go to layer > layer style >outer glow





5. Now, the major thing here is that the horse has no shadow. I would usually use a drop shadow however, I think in this case, I'll make my own shadow. I will start by duplicating the horse layer. (right-click on the layer and select 'duplicate layer') Now, flip the top horse layer vertically. go to edit > transform > flip vertically






6. Move the top layer so that the horse looks like it's reflected. Like this:






7. Now, we need to lock the transparent pixels on the top layer. To do this, click on the lock transparent layer tool.






8. Next, simply get a large paintbrush and colour over the horse on the top layer. It will only allow you to paint in the horse picture so don't worry about going over the edge. Like this:




9. The shadow now is extremly strong since it's solid black. We need to soften it. So, unlock your layer by clicking the same transparent layer tool as earlier. Now, to soften it all you need to do is right click on the top layer and select 'blending options'. I used a 60% blend since it seemed to fit with my backing forest picture the best.





10. Now, the shadow still looks odd since it's very crisp compared with the softer shadows of the trees. You should always make sure that you get your shadows as close to the original shadows as possible. So, we need to soften it. The best way to do this is by using a simple Gaussian blur. Go to filter > blur > Gaussian blur and choose a setting which best suits your picture.






11. As you can see, already the horse looks much better. There's still something making it look out of place though. Can you see what it is? It's the outer glow we added earlier. Look at the picture below and I have circled the areas which shouldn't have a glow since the trees would be blocking out the light.








12. To be able to arase certain sections of the outer glow, we need to set the outer glow into a normal layer (so we can easily just rub out the areas of light that we don't want). So, add a new layer and place it between the forest background and the horse layer. Like this:





13. Now, select the layer with your horse on it (one above your new blank layer) and hit Ctrl + E to merge it down. This will merge it with your blank layer and make you now able to simply erase the areas of light which you don't want. So, get a soft round eraser and begin to lightly erase the areas of access light that don't belong there.







14. Finish off your light erasing and now you can see that it nearly looks complete.






15. The only thing that needs changing now is the the brightness of the horse. Since the trees are dark with the light behind them, the horse needs to be too. So, go to image > adjustments > brightness/contrast and edit the brightness so it's a lot lower.






As simple as that,



Sam

Quick Effects - Marble Effect

Here's a nice, easy little tip / tutorial on how to make your picture into a jigsaw using photoshop in minutes.

1. First, open a blank canvas in photoshop and (by pressing the letter 'D' on your keyboard) set the colours to default black & white. Go to Filter > render > clouds

2. Then, (on the same layer) go Filter > render > different clouds so that you get a marble-like texture.

3. Next, go to image > adjustments > equalize

4. Go to image > adjustments > colour balance and simply adjust the colour to suite you.

As simple as that,

Sam

Abstract Texture - Swirling Lightspeed

Here's an extremly effective little photoshop tutorial on how to create a lightspeed looking texture completly from scratch.

1. Firstly, open a new photoshop document any size and hit 'D' on your keyboard so your colours revert to the default settings of black and white.

2. Create a new layer (layer > new layer) and on this new layer we will filter some clouds (filter > render > clouds).

3. Then, go to filter > pixelate > mezzotint making sure that the type is set to short strokes.

4. Next, select filter > blur > radial blur and choose the following settings: Amount= 100 Blur Method= zoom Quality= best

5. Simply hit Ctrl + F to repeat the radial blur again.

Now you should have something like this:

6. Then go to filter > distort > twirl (again copying the following settings): Angle= 105%

Now you should have something like this:

7. Now, right-click on your swirly layer and select 'duplicate layer'. This will make another layer identical to the swirl.

8. Now, click on the top layer (one you just made) and go to edit > transform > flip horizontal.

9. Once you have done that, select the layer style (for the top layer again) to lighten rather than normal.

Now, you should have something that looks like this:

10. Hit Ctrl + E on your keyboard to merge the two layers together.

11. Filter > distort > twirl (add another twirl filter again) same twirl settings as before.

Now you should have something that looks like this:

12. Next, get the lasso tool and draw a rough oval/circle around the centre of your pattern

13. Feather the selection by going to Select > Modify > Feather (or using Shift+F6) and change the feather radius to 150pixels. This will not look any different at this stage. Select the inverse by simply choosing Select > Inverse (Ctrl+Shift+I).

14. Next, with this selection, go to layer > new adjustment layer. (if a little popup window opens then just select 'group with previous layer' and hit ok) This should then bring you to a window similar to the picture below. Copy those settings.

15. Now, if you're happy with how it looks, select the adjustment layer and hit Ctrl + E to merge it down so we just have one easy layer again.

16. Go to image > adjustments > hue/saturation and select these settings

17. I’m going move the centre of the swirl off centre using the Transform tool, make sure you have selected the Swirl Layer, then Transform (Ctrl+T), enlarge the image so that you can move the centre, I’m going to move it towards the bottom right, you should end out with something similar to this:

18. Now, all that's left to do is sharpen it up a little. Go to filter > sharpen > unsharp mask and select the following settings. *9i*

19. You're all done. You should end up with something like this. Why not experiment with different colours, sizes and adding extra outer glows etc. to really bring it to life.

As simple as that,

Sam