Beginners 

144 creative works found

• 

  Soleil Vert
  by mr. teddybear

  Holga CFN / Portra VC / 400 ISO

• 

  Salt 'n' Pepper
  by Puffling

  We bought this salt and pepper set recently and I couldn’t resist playing around with them. Great fun!!! Taken with my compact digital Fujifilm Finepix A210 camera

• 

  Surfer Dude - Beginner
  by Brett Foster

  Well, he has all the moves, even if he doesn’t have a board yet! / —-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-——-

• Exposure - for beginners/ intermediate photographers.
  by Mark German

  I just answered a question in a certain group forum, and it occurs to me that it may be useful to others. Feel free to ask any questions….

  I just answered a question in a certain group forum, and it occurs to me that it may be useful to others. Feel free to ask any questions. So here goes: General rule-of-thumb: expose to the right. What that means, is – use your histogram and get your exposure to the right half without hitting the far right edge. Anything clipped (blown, over-exposed) will be data lost for good. The same goes for black clipping (under-exposed). The reason exposing to the right is better then to the left, is that recovering data/detail from dark areas creates noise – whereas the reverse does not. A little rule that may help you with exposure: / Sunny 16 Basically what this catchy-named rule means, is this: / Given a bright and sunny day outdoors, correct exposure for any scene will be f/16, 1/100 SS, ISO100 (also known as ASA) Working up and down with this you can adjust to suit. For example – a slightly overcast day: / f/11, 1/100, ISO100 (1-stop wider aperture) / or / f/16, 1/50, ISO100 (1-stop slower SS) / or / f/16, 1/100, ISO200 (1-stop more sensitive film/sensor) If you have a specific requirement with SS (stop motion, blur, etc), adjust the other parameters to compensate. To stop your hand motion blur, use the reciprocal of your focal length. Example: 100mm needs at least 1/100th SS. Crop bodies need to be multiplied by the crop. (ask if confused) / If your subject is moving, double SS. If you are also moving, triple it. / Of course using a tripod (and you should whenever feasible) changes this. With photography, each numerical value doubles. / ISO: 100/200/400/800/1600/3200 / SS: 25/60/125/250/500/1000/2000/4000/8000 Aperture can be remembered by using this system: / Use two numbers (f/1 & f/1.4) and double them as you go. f/1, f/2,f/4,f/8,f/16,f/32 / f/1.4,f/2.8,f/5.6,f/11,f/22 Now put them together and you have your full range of full-stop apertures :) Some cameras will list 1/2 or even 1/3 stops. f/1, f/1.4,f/2,f/2.8,f/4,f/5.6,f/8,f/11,f/16,f/22,f32,f/44 Aperture effects Depth of Field (DoF), which is the distance between the closest area in acceptable focus, and the furthest. Choose your aperture to suit your subject/scene. Adjust the other two parameters accordingly. A larger aperture number means a tighter aperture – which means less light. If you ever come up to a situation that has a very high dynamic range (DR) and can’t wait for better light – bracket your shots. That is, expose +/- from the above settings. You can then either decide what you like best, or even combine exposures. (ask how). Of course – if you are a street/candid/journalistic/wildlife style photographer, then you may only get one chance. Which is more the reason to learn the above. There are various filters available to help shoot skies and landscapes – or any scene that has defined high dynamic range. Circular polarisers, graduated neutral density filters – ask. Using additional lighting such as flash adds another element to the equation, and other rules apply. The above is a basic guide to correct exposure for everyday and natural conditions. Hope this helps some people. Feel comfortable in asking anything, or contributing.

• Casual Portraits - a few tips (beginners/intermediate)
  by Mark German

  I was recently asked for some advice regarding shooting portraits. Since it winded up being rather lengthy I thought I’d share, for those…

  I was recently asked for some advice regarding shooting portraits. Since it winded up being rather lengthy I thought I’d share, for those that are interested – or would like to discuss it. / / Let me make it plain – I am not a professional portrait photographer and these points are more for casual portraits without the use of studios / backdrops / professional lighting equipment. / / Composition is extremely important when shooting portraits. It is essential to get the right framing and perspective happening, to display the person to the best that you can. That doesn’t mean they have to look beautiful – I am speaking technically. / / Perspective – / In general, there are three levels of plane that you can shoot from. Above, below, and straight on. They each produce a different effect to the viewer, and also depict the subject in a different aspect. From above – lends vulnerability. Can also impart a ‘questioning or questing’ mood. Emphasizes the cheek bones and eyes, which when looking at the camera, are wide open with pupils at the top. / / From below – imparts dominance. Gives greater power and impact to the face, while reducing the cheek bone lines. Emphasizes the bones around the eyes and chin and gives strength. Generally a more square look. / / Straight-on – An ‘honest’ portrait. ‘As-is’ feel. Great for illustrative/documentary shots, or when you want someone to look as natural as possible for a particular reason – for example, as part of a written piece about the character of a person. Also gives a simplified feeling, that can be great for humorous shots or anything that has an associated story other then the portrait itself. / / Of course, throw in angles, and you have a virtually unlimited range of choices to work within. / / Lighting - / _ / / As with perspective, different lighting gives a different feel and meaning to a portrait. Play around with side lighting, curtained windows, lampshades, off-shoe flashes, bounced and reflected light. Two semi-diffused hard lights from either side of a face with a soft central fill adds drama. Harsh light on one side with none on the other adds mystery. Soft all around diffused light looks glamorous (something people try and achieve by blurring their image – silly, really). / / Depending on the background, try and find a bit of back lighting. It brings out clarity in the hair and edges of the subject, delineating them. This is sometimes called ‘separation, and is used in videography also. / / Eyes are the shiniest thing on the human body. They are little mirrors. If you shoot a subject with their back to a window, you will have little to no light in the eyes. If they are facing a light source, you will get nice little _catch-lights that give life to the eyes. You can alter how these look by changing the angle of the subject’s head, moving your light source, or changing what the light source is. Or – you can play around with Photoshop, and not learn anything photographically ;) / / Composition - / The old rule is a strong and valid one. Give more room to the direction of the gaze. Not doing this asks more of a question, and needs to be substantiated in the subject’s attitude and/or expression to work well. Why are they looking off-frame? What’s out there? etc… / / Try not to amputate too many features – like ears. If you must, choose the frame line carefully. There are natural frames within frames – try a few crops/compositions and feel what works best. Personally, I try and spend a little time thinking about the subject, the environment – watching, trying to find the best angles to bring out the nature and character of the person. / / Group portraits - / Generally speaking, a good group portrait composition is one where the subjects’ faces are at different levels. Try it and see. Line ‘em all up – looks like a snap shot. Position the ‘family/group’ at different levels – voila! 100% improvement. / / If photographing a child, expect your best shots to be candids. Children have a short attention span and while you can amuse them for a while with sparky things and little jokes – I find the best shots wind up being those while the child is unaware. Burst mode helps a lot here, just as it does with pets ;) / / Choose a depth of field that either isolates a feature entirely, or brings the entire subject into focus. Don’t wing it. Winging it relies on luck. The more prepared and skilled you get – the luckier you get ;) There are DoF calculators around online if you search. Figure out what works well for a certain distance. / / Editing - / Ok, so you have discovered Photoshop, Gimp, PaintShop Pro – or whatever. I find there is an initial learning curve where everyone tries their hand at manipulation – from plastic skins, to glaring alien eyes, selective colouring, and so on. This may sound a little arrogant, but – leave your portraits as natural as you can. You do not do any favours to the subject by making them look inhuman. Seriously. My personal philosophy is, I edit anything that is transient. By this, I mean, a pimple /zit / love-bite/ wayward hair in the eye/etc. But I leave anything that is intrinsic to the subject – scars, eye colour, and yes, even double chins (and ladies – we all have them). If you position your subject (and choose your light and angles right) you will not need to do extensive editing. Saves a lot of time, faithfully portrays the subject and gives you a finer work. / / Any magazine portrait you see (unless it is one of those horrible before shots) has been manipulated for what the market now expects. Perfection. Perfection is not beauty. Perfection is unreal. There is no perfection. Repeat that. There is NO perfection. I do a lot of portraits. I see peoples’ skins magnified a hundred times very often. Our skins are not plastic. They are dynamic, breathing, living organs. I could carry on with this subject forever, but I hope this helps some.

• 

  young hunter
  by plastique

  young husky dog practicing its hunting skills in snow

• 

  Self Promotion Challenge
  by shanmclean

  The challenge was to design a poster that promotes your work. This will probably be tweaked a million times :) but here it is at the moment. / Why is it always harder to think of something for yourself? Thanks for looking! A poster version of this (since moved to my design bubble) was Featured in the ‘Art Students and Beginners’ Group, Aug 2008

• 

  Portrait of Ali
  by jansnow

  My first and only portrait I’ve painted. This is a portrait of my daughter, Alissa Marie. This was painted when she was about 10 years old. Oil on canvas by Jan C. Snow

• 

  NZ Panorama
  by kalaryder

  First effort of stitching together three pictures of the waters near Lyttelton Harbour in NZ The photos were taken with hand held camera and had a large overlap. The edges of the pictures have been smoothed away with eraser and the whole has been carried out in CS3. I then used the trim button to get rid of unwanted white canvas and then after saving used the normal trim to get rid of the uneven top. I tried using the opacity feature but the pictures became quite fuzzy, possibly because of the large overlap. It might have been better to have cut them first.

• 

  Road to Jensen's Cabin
  by jansnow

  Painting by Jan Snow, oil on canvas. This was painted outdoors on site.

• 

  crustacea for beginners
  by elsh

  an intimate journey into the shady and sometimes dangerous lifestyle of this large group of arthropods. from the humble barnacle to the surly whale-lice this lavish volume brings understanding to a largely misunderstood creature. with simple explanations and detailed illustrations, ‘crustacea for beginners’ is a must for any discerning crustacea connaisseur.

• 

  nOOb
  by mobii

  nOOb!

• 

  Tiled Heart
  by KazM

  This was a drawing done / with a white painter’s pen on Winsor & Newton Black Paper (140gsm). Would make a great card to say “I love you” or for Valentine’s Day or any other day. Then it was processed with Photoshop Elements. I have been doing some mosaicing and this led me to treat the drawing to imitate my tile work. Instead of two colours it now has about 50 colours or shades. The heart is no longer just drawn but neither is it digitally created. Thanks to Bits & Pieces for featuring this work, / I much appreciate the encouragement. A heart should be soft / but many are hard as rock A heart should be giving / But many don’t seem to be living A heart should be loving / Not hardened against emoting

• Texturing an Image in Photoshop for Absolute Beginners
  by Rosemary Scott

  Quite a few people have asked me how I do my textured work. / To be honest, everyone does it their own way, but it helps to have someone s…

  Quite a few people have asked me how I do my textured work. / To be honest, everyone does it their own way, but it helps to have someone show you how to get started. / Nicole Goggins taught me, & I believe Mel Brackstone taught her. (apologies if I got that wrong) / Of course there’s always an alternative way of doing the steps, I’ve certainly changed my technique quite a bit since I wrote this, but this is as good a place to start as any. / So here’s the walkthrough that I’ve passed on to those who’ve asked. LETS GET STARTED : I use PhotoShop CS3, but this’ll work with any version. / If you’re not using PS, I’m confident you’ll be able to find your way through it in whatever program you’re using. I’d suggest printing this so you can follow it step by step. 1) Start by opening the image that you want to add a texture to. 2) In the layers palette on the right, (R) click on the background layer & select “Duplicate layer”. This layer will be called “Background copy”, & will sit immediately above the “background” layer. (This is to preserve your original copy) 3) Do whatever adjustments you would usually do until you’re happy with the image as it is. ( ie – levels, curves, hue/sat, curves etc ) 4) Flatten the image - / To do this, go to the Layers palette® click on a layer, & select “Flatten image”. 5)Now it’s time to apply the texture image. / First, you need to make sure that your texture image is the same size as your background image. / To do this :- / Go to your top toolbar & look for the “Image” tab, & click on it. / Then click on “Image Size”. / You’ll need to write down the following details : Pixel dimensions – Width & Height , & Resolution. / Click OK or Cancel to close that window. 6) Now go to your top tool bar, click on “File” & “Open” your texture image. 7)Now that you’re in your texture image, go to “Image”, “Image Size” again, & make sure “Resample Image” is checked, & “Constrain Proportions” is unchecked.. / In that same window, change the resolution & Pixel dimensions – Width & Height to the same details that you wrote down earlier. / Click “OK”. / Now your texture image is the same as your background image. 8) Minimize the texture image. Do not close it, just minimize it. / Now you should see your background image workspace again. 9) In your background again, go to your layers palette & create a “Background copy” like we did in step (2). 10) Go to the little toolbar on the bottom of the “Layers Palette” & look for the little icon that looks like a square with the bottom left corner turning up. / This is the “Create new layer” button. / Click on this & create a new layer, which you can rename to “texture”. / Make sure this layer is active. ( it’ll be highlighted in grey) 11) Go to “Image”, then “Apply Image”. / Now you’ll see a window with a dropdown box named “Source” at the top. / Look for your texture image in the dropdown box , select it, & click “OK”. / You’ll see the texture appear in the “texture” layer that you created in step (10). Now it’s time to get creative….. 12) In the layers palette double click on the little thumbnail image of your texture. / You’ll get a window called “Layer Style”. / Under “Blending Options”, “General blending” you’ll see that the current blend mode is “normal”. / Click on this dropbox & start experimenting with the different blend modes. / I usually use “overlay”, “soft light”, or “hard light”. / This whole “Layer style” window is one you can experiment with as much as you like until you come up with the look you want. / Click “OK” when you’re done. 13) You can change the blend mode of your background copy also. / At this stage you just need to be doing whatever you want to achieve the look you like. 14) For a bit more depth to your texturing, you can try duplicating each layer, & then alternate their order on the palette by dragging them up & down. / eg :- texture copy / background copy 2 / texture / background copy / background (this one is locked, so will always remain on the bottom) 15) In the Layers palette you can adjust the “opacity” of each layer for more or less of the effect. 16) Don’t forget to save as you go. / I like to save all my layers as a psd (Photoshop document) so that I can make changes to it at any time in the future. / When you have a final image that you like, flatten the image ( as in step 4), & “save as” a jpeg. (or your preferred format) 17) Upload to redbubble so that we can all see how well you’ve done!!!! And that’s it! Just remember that there’s no “rules” for this….. a lot of it is just experimenting as you go. What works for one image might look horrid on another, so trust your instincts! [ One last point : I put a lot of time & effort into creating these tutorials. Please don’t disrespect me by claiming them as your own.]

• 

  Yoga for beginners!
  by MissIllustrator

  image produced using ink and coloured in photoshop.

• 

  Delivery 2
  by halftone

  Canon 5D Mk II, 24-105mm at 24mm, f/4.5, 1/13”, ISO 200

• 

  Friend of Appalachia
  by JRobin Whitley

  This is my current pastel which is pretty much finished now. I can see that my strings are off. Who would have thought drawing a fiddle could be so hard? We were working with complementary colors on this piece. The quilt is a Friendship pattern handmade by a friend for me. The instrument behind the fiddle is a Tennessee Music box, close cousin to the dulcimer. The dulcimer and music boxes were originally played using a feather as the plectrum. There was mint in the old Irish teapot. The Appalachian Mountains first belonged to the Cherokee then the Scots-Irish moved in around the 17th or 18th century.

• 

  The chair
  by Mel Brackstone

  I’m at work, just showing the students how to do textures and layers and stuff, after shooting out in the park. We carry a chair everywhere….lol Texture from Cameron Gray SEASCAPES / NEW ZEALAND / PEOPLE / LANDSCAPES

• 

  Flower Drops
  by Jodie Bennett

  Using a spray I put the water drops on the flower. Camera: Canon EOS 1000D / Shutter: 1/60 / Aperture: f/5.6 / Focal length: 46mm / ISO: 400

• 

  Flower
  by Jodie Bennett

  Taken at night. Using Iphoto I change the level. Camera: Canon EOS 1000D / Shutter: 1/60 / Aperture: f/5.0 / Focal length: 38mm / ISO: 400

• 10 promo ideas for beginners
  by selling

  If you’re not used to promoting your own work, writing articles or showing off your talents, there are some simple things you can do to t…

  If you’re not used to promoting your own work, writing articles or showing off your talents, there are some simple things you can do to test the waters and build confidence. Self promotion needn’t always be about saying ‘here, look at my art’. Your expertise, experiences and knowledge are just as good advertisements for you as an artist: Write a journal about an art event, gallery opening or exhibition you’ve attended. Sell someone else. Tell us about another artist you’ve spotted. Interview them. Give us a behind the scenes look at how you work. Show us pictures. Share hints and tips or write up a tutorial or ‘how to’ about the techniques you use. Share some great resources you’ve found online. Let us know about a big exhibition or show that’s coming to your town. Collaborate on a work with another artist then write about the experience. Tell us the story behind one of your works. Where it happened or what it means to you. Teach yourself a new technique or skill and write about what you learnt. Test drive (borrow) new camera equipment or computer software and write a review. / Once you’ve done these things, make sure you take the opportunity to get them out to the wider world. If social networking is your thing, post it as a note on Facebook, tweet about it on Twitter with a link back to the article and use relevant keywords so others may find it in Twitter search. Drop an email to a local paper or press if you’ve written about a local event. If you’ve written a great tutorial or review, think about bloggers that may be interested in sharing it with their readers. / / The key to getting started is to find something related to your art or your work that you’re confident in sharing or writing about. Don’t just focus on RedBubble as an audience, think about how you can get that extra bit of mileage out of what you’ve written about and who else might be interested. Above all, don’t underestimate your own knowledge or expertise, or assume people won’t be interested or they’ll already know about it. Writing the Community posts has revealed time and time again that this usually isn’t the case and for every 10 people who are familiar with the topic, there are 10 more who really gain some insight from what you’ve written. Nat

• Working with layers - The Basics
  by Rosemary Scott

  I was recently asked to explain how I use layers. So while trying to put my thoughts together, I decided I might as well share it with ev…

  I was recently asked to explain how I use layers. So while trying to put my thoughts together, I decided I might as well share it with everyone who’s interested. I’ll show how to do very basic adjustments so you get a feel for how layers work. Once you’re comfortable with that you can move on to using layers to create art effects. Please keep in mind that I’m a Photoshop user... I’m in no way an expert! / This is just my way of working with layers. There are many different ways, & they all work. Why use layers ? : / Our reasons for using layers are many & varied. We might be doing vector-like illustrations, Or composing an intricate fantasy photomanipulation. / It may be a simple matter of applying text over an image. / You may just want to do basic tone & colour adjustments of your photographs. / Whatever your reason, using layers is almost essential. / I say this for one very important reason. If you apply adjustments of any type to your original image, you will be altering it permanently. There’s no going back. Pixels get moved around & destroyed, every brush or keystroke seriously alters the quality of your image. / However, working in layers is non-destructive. The original image sits at the bottom of your stack, untouched, unaltered, safe from damage. / All of your edits are stacked on top of the original, & then “flattened”, usually upon completion, or when you’re ready to move on to the next stage of editing. I’ll use this image of a bunch of people looking a Trojan warplane, to demonstrate the basics of using layers. / I’m using PS CS3, & I’m not sure how similar the layout of PS Elements is, so this will either be helpful to you, or just confusing…. it should be fairly similar though. Let’s get started : 1) Open your image in Photoshop, & save it straight away as a psd (Photoshop file format) I’ve decided to call this one “enter the trojan”. / 2) Now have a good look at the image & decide what needs doing. / Does it needs cropping? Some people choose to crop at the start, but for some strange reason I’ll often wait until I’m somewhere through my editing process. I like to wait to see how the image is evolving…. Does anything need cloning out? / This image has a rather annoying person disappearing out of the left side of the frame, so Ill be getting rid of him, as well as cleaning up a few distracting white spots on the airfield in the background. 3) Look to the right of your screen & you’ll see your layers palette. / At the top right of that you’ll see 3 little horizontal lines stacked on top of each other with an arrow next to them. Left click on this & you’ll get a drop-down box. this is your most important box for using layers. Click on duplicate layer, & rename it as you wish. / I’m calling it “clone”. / / You’ll see the duplicate layer appear above the background layer in your layers palette. / / Make sure the clone layer is selected (it’ll be highlighted in grey), & you’re ready to work on that layer. / Now select your clone tool & go to work. All done? If you’re happy with your work make sure you save. Now, remembering what I said about your background (original) layer remaining untouched, here’s a little demo. / Do you see that little eye beside your “clone” layer? / Click on it…. Hello!! Your cloning has gone! Click on it again….. it’s back!!! / OK, we could have fun with this all day, but do you see how the background image is unchanged? Cool huh? Let’s move on…. I’ve got blown out highlights in my clouds which are a problem & the mid-tones are a bit too dark. / I’ll deal with the clouds first by using a curves adjustment layer. 4) All the way down at the bottom of your layers palette, you’ll see a toolbar. look for the circle that’s half black & half white. / This is the “create new fill or adjustment layer” button. / Click on it & select “curves”. / 5) Grab the little white dot on the line in the top right corner. Now drag it a smidgen down to the right. That should take care of the blown out clouds. / Click OK. / / Do you see you now have a curves layer? / (Because I use CS3, it automatically gives me a layer mask box on this layer. It’s that white box in your curves layer. But we’re not going to get into masks today) Now to fix the mid-tones. For this I’m going to add a Levels layer. / 6) Just like in step 4), click on the “create new fill or adjustment layer” button & this time select “Levels”. / 7) This will open a box with a levels histogram in it. / To lighten your mid-tones slide the grey arrow in the middle of the histogram to the left until you’re happy. / Click OK, & you’ll see your levels layer sitting above the curves layer. Now, what if you wanted to do some dodge & burn? / There’s a number of ways to dodge & burn, so I’ll show you one that I use quite often. 8) Remember those 3 little horizontal lines that you clicked on to duplicate the layer? (step 3) / Click on that again, & this time select “New Layer”. / 9) In the dialogue box, change the name to “dodge & burn”, / click on the “mode” dropdown box, & select “overlay”, / then check the box “Fill with overlay-neutral color (50% gray) / it should look something like this : / / Then click OK. You’ll now see a layer called “dodge & burn” in your layers palette. It should be on the top of the pile. If it isn’t, simply drag it to the top. / Any work you do to the top layer will be carried over to all the layers below. 10) Select your burn tool, set your range to Shadows, & Exposure around 20 (this will depend completely upon the type of image you’re working on), then get to work burning out the areas that you feel need deepening. 11) Then take your dodge tool, set your Exposure to around 20 & work over the areas that you think need a little more highlighting. I’ve decided this image needs a bit more saturation. 12) Go back to the black/white circle (as mentioned in step 4), & this time look for Hue/Saturation. / / Adjust your sliders as you see fit, then click OK. / At this stage I’m happy with my basic adjustments. It’s now at the stage where it’s ready for me to use it as a background image for something a little more creative. 13) If you haven’t been saving until now, you really must do it now. 14) Now we’re going to Flatten the file. / Go to those 3 little horizontal lines with the arrow again (step 3), & this time look for “Flatten Image”. / / Click on it. You’ll see that all your layers have been “flattened into just one layer, & it’s now become your new background layer. If you’re planning to print this, you’ll need to give it some sharpening. / There are so many ways to sharpen, but at the moment I’m a bit partial to using the “high pass” filter. 15) To do this you’ll need to use a duplicate layer (remember step 3?) / I’m re-naming it “High Pass Sharpening”. / 16) Go to your “filter” drop down box on your top tool bar, & select, “other”, “high pass”. / 17) Adjust your radius slider until you see a good amount of line detail while keeping the tones in gray. Click OK. / You’re probably wondering what’s happened to your image. We’ll fix that right now. 18) Look above your “high pass” layer, & you’ll see Opacity set at 100%, to the left of that the word “normal” in a drop-down box. / Click on that drop-down box & select “overlay”. / / Presto! You’ve got your image back, & it’s been sharpened. / Toggle the “eye” off & on to see the effect. 19) If it’s too sharpened for your taste, you can adjust the opacity of that layer. / Find the “opacity” slider above the layer, & adjust it as you like. / I’m setting this one to 50%. / 20) Save this as a new psd file ( I’m calling this one “enter the trojan HP sharp”), & flatten it as before. / 21) Now all you need to do is save it in the Format of choice. / I routinely save all my images as TIFF files, & then save again as JPEG. / Remember to do all you backups now so you don’t forget later. All finished! Now you have an image that is fine as is, or ready for you to get a little creative & do further editing. / The final image : / You might also want to look at Texturing an Image in Photoshop for Absolute Beginners for further editing ideas. [ One last point : I put a lot of time & effort into creating these tutorials. Please don’t disrespect me by claiming them as your own.]

• The EASIEST WAY TO MAKE RAYS OF LIGHT: A Photoshop tutorial for beginners
  by Anna Shaw

  THE EASIEST WAYS TO MAKE RAYS OF LIGHT A Photoshop Tutorial for beginners I have used Photoshop CS4 but it will work in earlier v…

  THE EASIEST WAYS TO MAKE RAYS OF LIGHT A Photoshop Tutorial for beginners I have used Photoshop CS4 but it will work in earlier versions. This tutorial is an adaptation of ‘Creating An Underwater Scene’ by the truly wonderful Mark Monciardini —-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—— / As with anything in Photoshop, there are many ways to achieve the same end.Making rays of light is no exception. There are many ways to make these.This is the easiest and most effective way that I have found to do this. Essentially it is only four main steps to achieve this result… Steppleland Stock from Deviantart has kindly given permission to use the lovely start image. If you click on this LINK you can download the image. Make sure that you download the full size image and not just the thumbnail or the technique that you will be learning will not work properly. To do this click on the download button, and when the full size image shows, right click and use ‘save image as’. Please make sure that you tick the Add to Favourites button before you download, as a way of saying ‘Thanks’ for the use of the stock. Step 1 / Open the image and immediately create a new layer by clicking on the new layer icon at the bottom of your layers palate. Name this layer ‘Light Rays” / See below… / Step 2 Set colour palate to the default White foreground, Black background / Go to the menu bar and select Filter/Render /Clouds and hit ‘Enter’. / Your layer should now look like this… / Step 3 Go to your menu bar and select Image/Adjustment/Threshold and hit the ‘OK’ button in the little box that comes up. / Your layer will now look like this.. Step 4 Go to / Filter/Blur/Radial Blur When the box pops up, set Amount = 84 / Blur Method = Zoom / Quality = Good The arrow here shows you where the zoom will radiate from. You need to place the blur centre over your light source ie the sun or the moon, or where the strongest light is in the sky. In this image, we need to have the Blur Centre it in the top left hand corner. So, with your mouse, slide the zoom centre to the top left of the square box. / The dialogue box should look like this… Hit the OK button. Your image will now look like this. You are nearly there now! Step 5 Now set the blending mode of this layer to Soft Light (See image below) / Reduce the opacity to 77% / Reduce the Fill to 94% / (The reduction in opacity and fill is a personal preference. Just adjust them until you are happy with the effect.) / Step 6 Now add a layer mask to this layer by clicking on the layer mask icon at the bottom of your layers palate. (See image below) Now set your foreground colour to Black. / Set the background colour to White. Select a soft round brush 200px. / / With the layer mask selected, paint over the areas you want to hide with the black brush. Here I have painted out the rays over the tree trunk, to give the impression that the light is falling behind it. I also painted out the front foreground to set the rays further back in the image. If you go too far, change the foreground colour to White and that will bring the rays back. And that’s it!! How simple was that? / / Special thanks go to my dear friends LorraineCreagh &Francis / for their kindness and help in learning how to upload and post this tutorial. / xx /

• CHANGING SKIES IN COMPLEX LANDSCAPES: A Photoshop Tutorial
  by Anna Shaw

  CHANGING SKIES IN COMPLEX LANDSCAPES: A Photoshop Tutorial I have written this tutorial in Photoshop CS4, but it will work in earlier…

  CHANGING SKIES IN COMPLEX LANDSCAPES: A Photoshop Tutorial I have written this tutorial in Photoshop CS4, but it will work in earlier versions too. How many times have you been out with your camera, found a beautiful landscape, but the sky was uniform, dull or flat? It has happened to me more times than I can remember! As with everything in Photoshop, there are so many different ways to remove skies from a landscape. It is very simple to do this in Landscapes which have straight edges into the sky, like cutting around buildings etc. But it is much harder to cut out skies when there is a lot of foliage around. The normal lasso tools, the quick select tools and the ‘magic’ tools do not work too well. But there is an easy way. The length of time it will take will depend on how many colours are in your existing sky. This tutorial will show the steps needed to go from this image… to this… Lets get going! You can download the lovely start image from Dangerous Stock / You can download the great sky from Hatestock / Do remember to use the download button so that you get the hi res versions and to click on the ‘Add To Favourites’ button. This is courtesy for being able to use the image. Also, if you publish your work do please remember to credit the artists who have given their stock. Step 1: * With the start image open, *double click on the background layer so that it then becomes Layer 0. Re-label this layer as ‘Background’ by double clicking in the box that says Layer0. This sounds silly, but now we have changed the start image into a layer, it will enable us to move the layer around later. Click onto the New Layer Icon. This will place a transparent layer above Layer 0 . / It is now labeled as Layer 1. You can leave this as it is. / Slide your background layer above Layer 1. / This is what it will look like… Step 2 The next step is to select the area containing all the blue sky that you want to replace. You can use a variety of tools to do this, but the easiest one for this image is the Polygon Lasso tool. / All you are doing with this selection is making sure that you do not cut any pixels out of the image that you do not want to loose. This is particularly important where you have pixels in the foreground, which are the same colour as the sky. In this image there is lots of blue in the barn, which we do not want to cut. So, click onto your Background layer and start to make your selection. I have highlighted my selection in red, so that you can easily see it, but yours will look like a dotted line. You can see that I have gone just below the trees where sky shows through. You now need to SAVE this selection. Go to the menu bar and to Select/Save selection and save it as ‘1’. Step 3 Now you have saved your selection, go to the menu bar and choose Select/Colour Range. / A dialogue box will pop up. Select ‘Sampled Colours’ / Tick ‘Localised Color Clusters / Fuzziness = 104 (You can increase or decrease this depending on the colours in your image, but for this image 104 works well. / Select the Image button. You will see your image behind the dialogue box. / Now, with the little eyedropper tool, click onto an area of blue in the sky. / You will see a selection created of that particular colour. Go to the menu bar and select Edit/Cut. Now just repeat this process as many times as you need to, to get rid of all the shades of blue in the sky. / DO REMEMBER TO LOAD YOUR SELECTION EACH TIME. / To do this, go to *Select/Load Selection and scroll down until you come to ‘1’ / Then once again, Select/Colour Range…. Edit Cut. I took about 6 cuts to end up with an image like this Step 4 Whilst you have a transparent layer under your background image, it is sometimes hard to see if you have cut out all the unwanted pixels. So to do a ‘safety check’ you will need to fill Layer 1 with a white fill. To do this go to the Paint Bucket tool, and with white as your foreground colour, click on that layer and it will fill with white. / If you have any hazy blue areas showing, just go to your History Palate and dump the white fill into the dustbin. Then go back to your select colour range and cut out some more. Step 4 Now you need to choose a new sky. I have found a beauty, which you can download. Just click on the image. / / Again, if you download it please do remember to favourite it out of courtesy. You can choose any sky you like, but it should have the horizon roughly where the horizon is in your original image. The most important thing to remember is that when you choose your sky, you will need to ensure that the strongest light source in the sky fits with the brightest part of your start image. In the sky I have chosen, the strongest light source comes from the top left hand side of the sky. This fits with the brightest part of the start image – the highlights on the roof of the barn, so immediately the image is credible. If this sky were flipped horizontally, so that the light source was on the opposite side, it would not work at all. Step 5 / / You can skip this step if you wish Because the sky is so dramatic, and because the start image is lovely, I want to extend the canvas in order to balance out the different elements in the image. So to do this, simply highlight your bottom layer – Layer 1. / Go to the menu Bar and select Image/Canvas Size. / In the dialogue box, scroll down the width and height settings and change this to Percent. / In the Height box, alter the percent to 140. / Click OK. This will have transformed the size of your image. Go back to your background layer, and with the move tool, slide the image to the bottom of the canvas. Step 6 Open up your sky image, and go to Select/Select All / Then to / Edit/Copy / Go to your barn image now and select Layer 1 – the bottom transparent layer. / Go to Edit/Paste You will see that the sky you have imported is larger than the original image, so you will need to make it smaller. / On the sky layer, go to Edit/Free Transform and from corner of the image, shrink it to fit. Step 6 You will see now that there are a few annoying bluish leaves hanging around on the start image. So select the start image layer and create a layer mask. (see image below) With your foreground colour set as black, choose a soft round brush and on the layer mask, just paint them out. Do this until you are happy with the end result. If you paint out something by mistake, just set your foreground colour to white to paint it back in. Step 7 Just to unify the two parts of this image, select the background layer and on the menu bar, select Image/Adjustments/Colour Balance. Slide the Yellow/Blue slider towards blue. You can see what I have done here. Also, I felt the need to slightly darken the start image to fit better with the sky, so go to / Image/Adjustments/Levels and slide the middle slider slightly towards the right. You can see what I have done here. Step 8 This is the really clever bit, and it something I do whenever I merge any images together. You can use this technique in many photomontages to achieve a unified colour scheme. Create a new layer above the start image. / Select the Paint Bucket tool. / Click onto the foreground colour and when the dialogue box comes up type in 336633in the hash box. Like this… Then, with the paint bucket tool, pour this into the new layer. / Select Color Blending Mode and reduce the opacity to 20% (see below) Step 9 Repeat this process. Create a new layer and fill with color 333366 / Set blending mode to color and reduce opacity to 20% Step 10 Repeat this process on a new layer and fill with cc9966 / Set blending mode to Overlay and reduce opacity to 21% / Your screen should look like this… / This will have unified all the colors in the image. One final step… / Go to Select/Select All ... then….. / Edit/Copy Merged... then…... / File/New (no need to change any sizes here) .... then….. / Edit/Paste That will give you your final image. You can then save this as a .jpg file. / Your original .psd File with all its layers is the preserved, so that if you wish to go back and change any bits at a later stage – you can do so. I hope that you have enjoyed this tutorial. If you have, please let me know. Also – if you have found any bits too difficult, or which do not work please let me know too. I would love to see your final images too. If you want to show me, or ask any advice, but do not want to load your image for other to see, just upload it as normal, but tick the box ‘Hide From Public View’. You can then send it to me by Bmail, using the normal codes – !! either side of the url when you copy image location. / xx / Anna