Photoshop Tutorial: Using a clipping mask & blending mode to create new clothes texture
Posted by Jennifer Farley | January 8, 2008 | Leave A Comment
In this short tutorial, I’m going to take a look at using a clipping mask in Photoshop, to constrain the visibility of one layer to that of the area of the layer underneath it, and how to use a layer blending mode to add extra realism.
- I’ve opened up an image of a woman with a check style dress on.
Using the quick mask, I made a selection of just the dress.
- Copy the selection onto a new layer by pressing Ctrl + J (windows) or Cmd + J (Mac). The layers palette looks like this:
- I picked up a few textures from Image After (a great website for free images of textures) and I pasted this one - http://www.imageafter.com/image.php?image=b19metals050.jpg into my Photoshop file, so that the red garage door covered all of the dress.
- To create a clipping mask, press Ctrl + Alt + G (windows) or Cmd + Option + G (Mac). This uses the dress layer as a clipping mask for the red garage door layer at the top.
- Now, to make it a little more interesting and authentic have a play around with some of the blending modes on the Layers palette.
I liked how the linear burn looked best for this example, but it’s a good idea to run through all the blending modes as they can give very different results depending on the images used.
Photoshop Tutorial : Using the Crop tool to increase canvas size
Posted by Jennifer Farley | December 18, 2007 | 3 Comments
This is actually a Photoshop tutorial that I covered before in writing, but as I have this video “in stock”, I thought some of you might find it handy.
The trick is, instead of using the Crop tool to decrease the size of an image or canvas, you can drag the handles out so that you create a larger canvas around your existing image.
Photoshop Tutorial : How to create a torn edge effect
Posted by Jennifer Farley | December 13, 2007 | 6 Comments
I had a very special request for information on how to create a torn edge effect in Photoshop, so here’s one way to do it
1. Open up an image or photography that you want to rip a chunk out of. (*This picture is copyright Joe Stocks through Pitwork.net)
2. Usually when you open an image in Photoshop, the background layer is locked. To unlock the Background layer and change it into a normal layer, Double-click Background in the Layers palette, or choose Layer > New > Layer From Background. Choose OK. Now you can move this layer around.
3. Add a new layer underneath your image by holding down Ctrl (PC) or Cmd (Mac) and clicking on the new layer button.
4. Click on the bottom layer and fill it with white (or whatever colour you would like your background to be. This colour will be revealed when you rip your image.
5. Select the Lasso tool and make a very rough or jagged selection to create the torn part. Do this quickly so that it doesn’t look too designed.
6. Back on the main image layer (at the top), press Delete to delete this part of image. Press Ctrl + D (windows) or Cmd + D (pc) to deselect.
So now we’ll make is look a bit more realistic.
7. With the top layer still selected in the layers palette, choose Outer Glow from the Add a Layer Style pop-up menu at the bottom of the Layers palette.
On the dialog box, change the Blend Mode to Normal (it’s Screen by default), then change the colour swatch to Black by clicking on it and then selecting Black with the colour picker.
Increase the Size to 20 and leave Spread at 0. This produces a nice soft, dark glow. Click OK to apply this.
8. The final step is to draw another selection just a teeny tiny bit bigger than the first selection you made. Again, do it quickly and loosely.
9. Choose Image > Adjustments > Levels to open up the Levels dialog box. Click on the Output Levels slider and drag it to the right until your selection looks almost white. This will add a bit more realism to your torn paper. Click OK to close the Levels dialog box.
10. Finally, deselect by pressing Ctrl + D or Cmd + D (mac) and voila! There’s your torn paper.
If you want to rough it up a bit more, then you could use an eraser and a rough edge brush, such as a chalk brush, and dab away a little bit more of the edge.
Busy, Busy, Busy
Posted by Jennifer Farley | December 11, 2007 | Leave A Comment
Like most of you, I’ve been up to my eyeballs in work - both teaching and designing and feel like I’m neglecting this blog a little bit. I get a real kick out of comments and emails that I receive from you and it’s nice to know that people are getting something out of the tutorials. Apologies to anyone who has emailed me with Photoshop questions that I haven’t responded to, but I will try to get back to you ASAP. I’m going to try and set a schedule of posts, say one tutorial, one design-related and one for the Photoshop Friday showcase. This is really just for me to get things straight in my head and get organised.
In the meantime, here’s a few websites that I’ve finished up in the last couple of weeks and have been keeping me off the streets.
Dara McKeon - a young basketball player based here in Dublin. He plays Basketball for Ireland under 18.
I.T. Zone - this is a simple one page site for an Internet Cafe.
CCAS - this is a clean six page site for an Accounting Business.
Photoshop Tutorial : Creating A Duotone Image
Posted by Jennifer Farley | December 4, 2007 | 2 Comments
In today’s video tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a duotone image in Photoshop. Duotone is the generic name for multitone printing, which can be done with two, three or four inks. You see this effect most often with a warm yellow-brown colour applied to a photograph to achieve a sepia effect. However, you’re not limited to just sepia, you can choose any colour you like. As well as being a very nice effect, duotones can save you or your clients money if you need to get some professional printing done. The fewer colours you use for printing, the cheaper it will be. So Duotones can help you stay within a smaller budget while having some lovely images in your work. Even if you’re not printing, the effect still looks great!
The steps to create a Duotone in Photoshop are very straightforward: Firstly convert your colour image to greyscale, then convert to duotone and choose the colours you want to work with. In the video, I explain how to use the Duotone dialog box and adjust the curves associated with each colour and also how you can also choose to use some of the preset duotones that come with Photoshop.
Photoshop Tutorial: Adding a motion blur and using a layer mask
Posted by Jennifer Farley | November 28, 2007 | 6 Comments
In today’s short video tutorial, I’m going to run through how to create the effect of a motion blur in Photoshop. This is pretty easy to do using filters such as the, ahem, “motion blur” filter. If you apply the motion blur to the whole image, then the whole lot looks blurry so for that reason I’m using a layer mask to reveal only the parts of the image that should be blurred. This gives a more realistic appearance to the blur. There is nearly always two ways to do things in Photoshop, so what you see here before you is one method. All comments and suggestions are welcome!
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About
Hi, my name is Jennifer Farley and I am a designer and design instructor based in Ireland. Read more about Laughing Lion Design .
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