PhotoShop Masters

Thank you for selecting the image Arctic Breeze and me into this Awesome Group! 1: Tell me something about your image ’ Arctic Breeze’ ? / Arctic Breeze was an idea of poet who asked me to create an image to best describe her dreams. She wrote the dream down and emailed it to me and this is what I came up with. 2: How did you create it? ( you don’t have to give away any secrets ), / Creating this image wasn’t so difficult, I started with collecting the images to use. Three cloud images, the horse, the model, the trees which are in infra red, and the background. I used several plugins for the layer masking including (OnOne) software. To make the hair of the horse blow in the wind I used a smudge brush in normal mode at a 35% strength. The girl took some time, I layered her face 6 times, which kept the details of only what was needed in the mask. Several layers consisted of multiply, overlay, softlight, and pinlight. I didn’t like her eyes which are originally brown, so I changed the left eye and replaced it with my wife’s eye (yep call me Frankenstein). I think the blue eye fit the image better, at least I left her other eye brown. To finish the image off I adjusted the variations to give the image a soft blue feel. 3: What version of PhotoShop did you use? / I use Photoshop CS3 but also feel CS2 is just as good. 4: Any tips or tricks you would like to Share? / Sure, never give up! And try everything, never limit yourself to specific software, I use many and mix them up in several images. Oh! I forgot that’s a secret! 5: How did you go about learning PhotoShop? / I totally learned on my own, and later learned to perfect it with the manual, Photoshop for Dummies, and DVD’s from Lynda.com.

1: Tell me something about your image Struggling Silence? ‘Struggling Silence’ is a very personal piece to me, and the only thing I feel comfortable saying is that it was made during a time in my life when I felt very isolated, dehumanized, and afraid of being judged. Sometimes it’s a struggle to speak out. 2: How did you create it? ( You don’t have to give away any secrets. ) A before and after version can be seen in the touch ups section of my website. Very little of it was done in post. Only the color, texture, some leveling, and the lightened irises. The color was added to the texture layer (which was a scanned-in watercolor wash) and then added to the original image using a blend mode, but I don’t remember which one. Oh, I also got rid of a bra strap and smoothed over the mouth and added the stitches (duh). 3: What version of PhotoShop did you use? Photoshop 7 4: Any tips or tricks you would like to Share? The dodge tool has been my best friend when editing eyes in portraits. Makes them really stand out. 5: How did you go about learning PhotoShop? Like most, I am predominantly self-taught in Photoshop, and have learned almost everything I know from simply playing around. I did take a couple classes when I got into college, though, which I would recommend to anyone who dabbles and wants to learn more!

1: Tell me something about the image? / / Guardians is a combination of three photographs – an image of Castell Coch, a fairytale style castle in Cardiff, South Wales, UK, provided by Susan Davies , a Cameroonian sky and a small rock face, which I took in a beach in South Wales, and a 3D rendered dragon which was kindly generated specifically for this composition by the very talented Rose Moxon. Thank you Susan and Rose. / / I wanted to create a fantasy image with a mysterious and powerful feel. 2: How did you create it? ( you don’t have to give away any secrets ), / / I used a variety of different photoshop tools, like erasing, cloning, transform, painting with fine brushes and different blending modes within layers. I also created a journal showing the whole process, which can be seen Here 3: What version of PhotoShop did you use? / / I used Photoshop CS2 4: Any tips or tricks you would like to Share? / / The best tip I can offer is to try it all out, if you dont know how to do something in photoshop – dont think, Well, I dont know it so I can’t do it – just get in there and have a good look around and try out everything you find [remember to work on copies though] – you will be suprised what you can find. Other ways to improve is to look through the Pixelations group – there are tutorials in the forums and also ask other members of the group – they are a great bunch of people and usually want to help. / / Finally – Get Photoshop Creative magazine, and Advanced Photoshop – they are awesome for helping you to improve your photoshopping skills. 5: How did you go about learning PhotoShop? / / I learned mainly by just trying things out, but also used all of the resources mentioned in 4 above. / / Interview by Randy Monteith

Many thanks Randy for inviting me to this fantastic group and …. Hi everyone !! 1: Tell me something about your image Aftermath? I took the image at a local Nature reserve, .... earlier on in the year the place was bursting with Sunflowers … look here but I paid a later visit and they had all died … hence the title .. 2: How did you create it? ( you don’t have to give away any secrets ), Basically, I converted it to B/W using channel mixer, added a couple of solid color layers with masks and changed the blending modes to my liking. 3: What version of PhotoShop did you use? CS2 4: Any tips or tricks you would like to Share? There are loads of T&T that I could put here, but I’m sure that everyone in this group, knows them already ….. 5: How did you go about learning PhotoShop? I subscribed to Photoshop Creative and Advanced Photoshop mags and I bought about half a dozen books and watched tutorial DVDs …... but mostly ….. by trial and error. / / Thanks again Randy and I hope this was entertaining everyone !! :))

First of all…..many apologies for taking an age to do this…...... 1: Tell me something about the image? I was out walking with friends and family in a local country park. There was this really old and amazingly textured oak door that I thought would make a really interesting study. I took several shots of varying elements of it and had particular results in mind for each part. This image was the result of a what if? and can I? type thinking process. I was pretty pleased with the result. The eye comes from a self portrait. 2: How did you create it? ( you don’t have to give away any secrets ), Colour fill layer (yellowish as I remember)....reduced the opacity way down. / dodged and burned to bring out the grain,rust and other textures. / Tinkered with saturation / Selected an area around the chain and eyehole…selected inverse…..pretty heavy feather. / tinkered with levels and did a gaussian blur / selected inverse to select chain hole and chain…..used curves to boost contrast. / Cut an eye out of a self-portrait and pasted it as a new layer, resized it and set the blend mode to colour burn. Re-positioned it in the chain hole est voila! Flattened the image…job done! 3: What version of PhotoShop did you use? Photoshop 7 4: Any tips or tricks you would like to Share? Play and have fun….google for tutorials…..read the tips and tricks in the camera mags in the newsagent…then put them back on the shelf and keep the money in your pocket. LOL 5: How did you go about learning PhotoShop? Playing….google…reading mags!

1: Tell me something about the image? / ’’music at funeral..must be the dying one’s music of life.. because there is always a melody attends us for a lifetime.. some runs circles, some goes faster, some are lyrical and some sad.. but the worst one stops suddenly.. which you cant understand if it ended or not.. thats the suicide.. mine was a little different than this.. cause love was a suicide from the beginning.. for that reason play a sad song at my funeral.. which is rainy.. which has rose smell.. which has no color, no taste inside.. and which ends suddenly.. this is the last time I commit suicide..’‘ / these words inspired me to make this artwork.. and I dont have anything to add :) just tried to translate a little part.. if i made a mistake please accept my apologize because of my bad english.. 2: How did you create it? ( you don’t have to give away any secrets ) / I have to tell that Im grateful to people who has stock accounts and share with us.. there is many layers, many photographs and just some handmade effects.. I used a few photograph for background and model.. drew the rose petals, fog, rain and handwritings.. and I used some premade brushes for hairs and textures.. 3: What version of PhotoShop did you use? / Photoshop CS2 and im still using it.. 4: Any tips or tricks you would like to Share? / I think I dont use so many tricks but the only thing that I can say to bring all layers in same color or same light effect is the most important part of make a finished artwork. 5: How did you go about learning PhotoShop? / just on my own and I have to be honest that I am very new at this.. Im still learning so many things.. Im trying to find some tutorials or tips about photoshop everytime and making samples.. is very good way to learn about photoshop..