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• Tutorial: Layer Masks and Transparency Gradients for "The Heart"
  by Cain Doherty

  I have an improved and better formatted version of this tutorial in my wordpress blog....

  I have an improved and better formatted version of this tutorial in my wordpress blog. This tutorial will cover digital blending in Photoshop CS3 using layer masks and transparency gradients. It is aimed at those who are interested in seeking alternatives to HDR (High Dynamic Range) processing. I would consider the usage of these techniques as digital graduated neutral density filters and although it can take some time to implement, I find the benefits to be: Preservation of intended colour and tone Complete control over contrast gradients Elimination of halo effects Elimination of fringing I will use one of my photographs, The Heart, to illustrate the method. 1. Download this zipped folder containing the two images to be used for blending and open IMG_1166 in Photoshop. 2. Press Ctrl+Shift+N and click OK to add a new layer. To place IMG_1164 on this layer go to File > Place and find where you saved it. Click the tick to commit the transform. 3. To create a mask, click the New Layer Mask (grey square with white circle inside) button in the Layers palette. To create a transparency gradient on this mask, first hit G to bring up the gradient toolbar and select a linear gradient. Then click and drag as shown in the following picture. 4. The next layer will be a photo filter so click Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Photo Filter and hit OK. Push the density slider to 100% and select a custom colour with properties as shown in the following picture. 5. Now apply another layer mask and gradient, as done previously, to restrict the photo filter to the sky. Change the blend mode to Linear Burn and opacity to 70% for the following picture. The Linear Burn blend mode is similar to Color Burn, but instead of increasing contrast, it decreases brightness to darken the base color and reflect the blend color. Now add curves layers to the foreground and then the sky. 6. Click Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves and hit OK. Then modify each of the RGB channels to reflect something like the following picture. 7. Change the blend mode to soft light and add a layer mask and gradient (this time in reverse) to restrict the curves layer to the foreground. This will produce the following result. The curves layer that targets the sky looks like this. 8. Change the blend mode again to soft light, opacity to 75% and create a layer mask and gradient to achieve the following result. 9. The final step involves adding a levels layer and changing its blend mode to ‘screen’ to boost the lighter areas. An opacity of 90% will achieve the picture shown below. 10. Straightening the horizon and correcting the barrel distortion yields The Heart. If you’ve found this useful please let me know. Feedback and discussion is welcome. If you haven’t done so already, please check out one of my other tutorials Photographing the Milky Way with a standard DSLR camera Cain Doherty

• Layers and Blend Modes
  by Alison Johnston

  Practically all users of Photoshop and other image editing software will be aware of Layers and Blend Modes, and how useful they can be. ...

  Practically all users of Photoshop and other image editing software will be aware of Layers and Blend Modes, and how useful they can be. Some of the most useful blend modes from a photographic point of view are screen, multiply, soft light, overlay, luminosity and hard light. The problem with blend modes is that you have to add a second layer into the mix for them to work – even if you unlock your b/ground layer blend modes are not available to you. So we’re stuck with large file sizes from duplicating layers, slow performance and the chance of a computer crash ….. or are we :-) I do some image restoration and I can tell you that more often than not, the files can start to get rather large if there is a lot of work that needs to be done. Enter Katrin Eismann, a photoshop guru and one of the most well known people in image restoration. She has a little trick that I’m going to show you here that will keep your file sizes within a manageable range, whilst applying all the blend modes that you want. My start image is a 800×600 72dpi file, which you will recognise from the creating rain tutorial. What I want you to notice in the image below, is that after applying 6 adjustment layers my file size has only doubled. So lets get started. Open your image, duplicate the image and close the original. Or use THIS What I want you to do now is go to the bottom of the layers palette and click on the adjustment layer icon and select a curves adjustment layer and when the dialogue box opens click ok without making any adjustments. Go to the top of the layers palette and change the blend mode to screen. You will notice that the image has lightened, but we are only looking for the foreground to be lighter in this case. Make sure the layer mask is selected and choose your gradient tool. With your f/ground, b/ground set to the default black and white, go to the gradient picker in the top menu bar and select black to transparent. Bearing in mind that black will conceal, I want you to start at the top of the image, hold down your left mouse button, drag down to the bottom hold down your shift key if you want a straight line, then release. The sky should have stayed the same as the original, and the f/ground will now be lighter. Go to the adjustment layer icon again and pick a levels adjustment layer this time. When the dialogue opens click ok and change the blend mode of the layer to multiply. Do exactly the same as you did above except reverse the starting point for your gradient because we want to keep the dark sky. See image below for the effect so far. You’ll notice that it didn’t make any difference whether we used a curves or levels adjustment layer because we didn’t make any changes. I’ve gone on and used 2 more adjustment layers with this image, both with the blend mode changed to screen, both with inverted masks – ctrl i on the keyboard to invert the mask (f/ground colour to white, select brush tool), and then I’ve painted back in over the trees on the first mask, and the foreground on the second mask. You can see in the image below that the revealed part of the mask is white i.e the part I wanted to stay lighter. Start Image first, adjusted image second. / Remember that you can take down the opacity of any of the adjustment layers if you feel the effect is too strong.

• Blend Modes and Type
  by Alison Johnston

  What a great effect this one is, I first saw it done by Corey Barker. Just a couple of points that may come in handy before we get on …

  What a great effect this one is, I first saw it done by Corey Barker. Just a couple of points that may come in handy before we get on with the tutorial. I’ve created a car shape for you to practise on, if you would like to make your own shape there are a couple of things you need to know – after you have created your shape, you are going to have to be able to lock the transparency of that layer at some point – here’s how you can make that happen. Right click on the shape layer and choose Rasterize from the menu. Making sure the shape layer is active, hold down your Ctrl (Cmmd) key on the keyboard and click on the New Layer Icon at the bottom of the layers palette (this will force the new layer below the shape layer). Click back on the shape layer to make it active, right click on the layer and from the menu choose Merge Down. You will now be able to Lock the Transparency of that layer later on. When you get to do the type part of the tutorial, you can add your own text – I’ve been lazy and gone to the Lorem Ipsum site and used the text generator to randomly generate some copy. You can find the site HERE The last thing you will need to know is this – If you want to add some additional type after you have done the type effect you will find that every time you click on the image with theType Tool selected it will put the Type on the Type Layer you already have there, which you may want to happen, but if you want to do some FX’s on the additional Type it will affect all of the Type. Two ways you can get around this – in CS3 you can right click on the Type Layer and choose Convert to Smart Object. If you have earlier editions of Photoshop hold down the Shift click before clicking on the file and it will force the Type onto a new Type Layer. With all that said, let us get on with the tutorial. Create a new file 800×600@72dpi with a white background. Save the image below, then open it in Photoshop. The first thing you will have to do with the car image is go to Image>Mode and change the file from ‘indexed’ to ‘RGB’ now grab your move tool and holding down your shift key, drag the car image onto the other file you have there. Holding down the shift key will centre the image for you. Click through for the larger image You should have something like this. Go to the Lorem Ipsum site and generate some copy then copy it to the clipboard. Go back to Photoshop and with your Type Tool selected draw a selection around the image. Then go and ahead and paste the text. You may have to adjust the text a little bit – Double click on the thumbnail, then go ahead and pick the font and size from the top menu bar. You can also click inside and get rid of the paragraphs if you like. You may end up with something similar to the image below. I’ve left the type a little bit bigger in my version so you can see what is going on – and I’ve used the transform tool to spread the type toward the edges a little bit more. That’s not anything special …. wouldn’t it be really nice if we could get the text to be white when it goes over the car instead of black ….... lets go and do that now. Drag the type layer below the car layer – or drag the car layer above the type layer … whichever suits :-) Click on the car layer to make it active and then lock the transparency of that layer by clicking on the ‘Lock Transparent Pixels’ icon at the top of the layers palette … see image below. Make sure the car layer is active, and the transparency is locked, then go ahead and fill the car with white – you should end up with something that looks terrible :-) Go ahead now and change the blend mode of the car layer to Difference …. and boom! you’re type is now white where the car is ….. what a simple and cool effect. You can go ahead and fade the type if you like by taking the opacity of that layer down. Fill the car with some different colours to see what effects you can come up with. Try the type and car in the same colour (not black). In the image below, both the type and car have been changed to the same colour R 13 G 105 B 143, I’ve also added a layer above the background layer and given it a gradient. I added another type layer (remember what I said about that at the beginning of the tutorial) and then I used the transform tool on the original type layer.

• I just found some really stunning work
  by MKWhite

  And I encourage those of you that read this to go take a look for yourselves. The artist’s name is Brent Pearson...

  And I encourage those of you that read this to go take a look for yourselves. The artist’s name is Brent Pearson he uses a technique he calls shutter blending. The results are mind boggling and just absolutely amazing. Here’s an example of his work.

• How To Photoshop: Blending Images
  by Brittany Kinney

  Below are the steps on how to blend images: 1. Open one image. (Control + O) / 2. To the right of the screen, there should be a “Layers…

  Below are the steps on how to blend images: 1. Open one image. (Control + O) / 2. To the right of the screen, there should be a “Layers” box. In it, there should be a thumbnail of the image you have open and it should say, “Background”. You’ll want to make this a regular layer so, on your keyboard, hold the “Alt” key and double click on the layer name. It should now say “Layer 0”. / 3. Now, open a second image in a DIFFERENT canvas than the first image. (Control +O) / 4. With the “Move Tool”, move the second image onto the first image. Place it where ever you’d like the images to meet. / 5. Add a Layer Mask to the layer now titled, “Layer 1”. (Layer>Add Layer Mask>Reveal All) / 6. Select the Gradient Tool (on the toolbar on left. If you still don’t know what this is, then just hit “G” on your keyboard and it will select it.) / 7. Make sure you have the black to white gradient selected. Then hold the “Shift” and drag the mouse over the image; over the part that you want people to see still. And that’s it! You can tweak it a little using the Eraser (E) tool if you’d like. Hope this helped! / -Brittany

• Dedication from Lois!
  by Sandra Sigfusson

  I just have to send out a quick mega pixel thank you to Lois Bryan for her sweet dedication of an image she masterfully created in Photos…

  I just have to send out a quick mega pixel thank you to Lois Bryan for her sweet dedication of an image she masterfully created in Photoshop. I can’t tell you how great it is to have someone dedicate an image to you until it’s been done, so if there were ever a use for the word Supercalifragalisticexpialidocious, then this would be it!!! (especially since Lois hails from Califragalistic, USA)! Go here to check it out!!!! Thanks so much Hon!!!! Hugs, Sandra.

• MetaCreative Radio Presents - Indie Playlist Episode 8 - Hot Rock Blend
  by Mystikka

  MetaCreative Radio Presents – Indie Playlist Episode 8 – Hot Rock Blend Blend of Alternative, Progressive and Folk Rock This playli…

  MetaCreative Radio Presents – Indie Playlist Episode 8 – Hot Rock Blend Blend of Alternative, Progressive and Folk Rock This playlist episode includes the following tunes: _____ Track 1: A Little Love / Artist: Another Cynthia http://anothercynthia.com / http://www.myspace.com/anothercynthia _____ Track 2: Beautiful World / Track 3:Say My Name / Artist: The Mary Dream http://themarydream.com / http://myspace.com/themarydream / _____ Track 4: Over / Track 5: Excuses / Artist: Out From Underneath http://myspace.com/outfromunderneath ______ Track 6: Autumn Song / Track 7: Cold Winter Sky / Artist: Evergreen File / Label: Treacle Records http://evergreenfile.com / http://www.myspace.com/evergreenfile _____ To listen to this episode of MetaCreative Radio, or to subscribe to the podcast, please visit: http://metacreativeradio.com / or http://mystikka.com/radio.html