10e20 Blog

This easy to do technique is based off of the previous post about ‘Halftone and Bitmap Effects’. I use basically the same steps to achieve a Halftone Glow, the only addition here is a Gaussian Blur step. This can be useful for printed work as well as giving that ‘print’ feel to on screen graphics or illustrations.

Step 1. Choose the image you will be apply the glow to. This illustration, graphic or photo should be silhouetted out and removed from any background. I am using the 10e20 ‘e’ icon and I have it on its own layer.

Step 2. Create a new document from current state. On the History Palette there is an icon on the lower left of the palette that will create a New Document. Click this, now you have a copy of the PSD.

Here is a simple way to use Photoshops filters and a few other steps to create Pixelated Borders or Textured Frames. You can see an example of this effect in use over at Iconfactory. They use it in a nice subtle way to frame or gutter the content.

Step 1. Create a black filled shape with the Rectangle Tool on half of your document.

Step 2. Select a quarter of that shape with the Marquee Tool. Make sure that your color swatches are the default Black/White settings with Black on top and go to Filter/Distort/Ocean Ripple and work with a setting you like.

Step 3. Go to Filter/Pixelate/Mosaic and experiment with the settings, try using a small cell size.

Step 4. Next adjust the Levels by going to Image/Adjustment/Levels. Play with the sliders and make it they way you feel looks best.

Making your photos pop from the background by creating an illusion of a decrease in depth of field is covered in this tutorial.

When a lens focuses on a subject at a distance, all subjects at that distance are sharply focused. Subjects that are not at the same distance are out of focus and theoretically are not sharp. The zone of acceptable sharpness is referred to as the depth of field.

Check out some of these Flickr pool photos that showcase some depth of field.

OK, lets put some ‘fake’ depth of field into an image that otherwise has a some what large depth of field. The image is fine, but if we make these adjustments the subject in the photo would pop and call that much more attention to itself as you can see with the final comparison above. The original image is on the left and the new depth of field added image is to the right.

With all the stock-exchange sites available today you have a plethora of images to sift through and use to add some cool multifaceted texture effects to an image.

In this tutorial you’ll be taken through a variety of ways in which to use combinations of multiple Adjustment Layers to enhance and balance your composition’s well as a few simple techniques that will help you to quickly create an assortment of Colour Variations of your final image.

You can use any variation of images for this tutorial. These are the images I am working from:

Step 1. Open the images and select the image that will be the base for the whole piece. I am using the portrait of the woman.

Sometimes it is fine to use a soft edged eraser to fade one image into another, but what if you are no longer happy with what you’ve done and want to scrap it all together?

Yeah, sure you can go back a few steps in the history palette, but better than that just apply a layer mask to an image and go back and reveal whatever you want by painting white in the mask. That is just one of the advantages to using a layer mask when blending images.

In this tutorial you can learn a quick way to use layer masks effectively to blend various images together in a collage like technique. I use layer masks a lot now, and am always discovering cool things that they can do. When using layer masks just use this mantra, “white reveals and black conceals”.

In this tutorial you can learn how to replace some elements from one image with any elements from another image, a general cut and paste mash-up. I will be focusing on replacing a woman’s eyes with a cats in this example. This works best if the images are similar in head position and lighting.

We will cover the basics of cutting and pasting with various tools, as well as selective burning and dodging of the images tone and color. Rotation and scaling will be used to match the right angle.

These are the images used:

Step 1. Make a selection of the cats eye with either the pen tool or the polygon lasso. Be sure to select everything you want and it may be a good idea to make a larger selection and later on erase what you don’t need. Copy the cats eye and paste it onto the document you will be merging it with, the face.

Selective colorization can be a useful and effective technique to isolate certain elements within a photograph or give your work that artistic effect similar to a silkscreen.

The most basic way to do this is by duplicating a color image. Then desaturate one of the layers and increase the contrast- white whites and black blacks! Then make shapes of the elements you would like to colorize, like the eyes, lips and hair, and finally make a layer mask and paint out the areas.

Andy Warhol is the most obvious art icon that comes to mind when playing with this “silkscreen-like” technique. Check out some of his silkscreen paintings for inspiration. Warhol didn’t bother to clean up the imperfections of the print: those slips of the screen, uneven inkings of the roller, and general graininess. What they suggested was not the humanizing touch of the hand but the pervasiveness of routine error or chaos.

With this simple tutorial you will be able to create a basis for some interesting artwork, or images that stand well enough on their own, by just using some of your fonts in Photoshop. This is a great experiment for any skill level, and can help you think of various ways to use the tools you have. Without further ado…

Step 1. Choose a font and type away. I created a 500 pixel square document and used the font ‘Haettenschweiler‘ to make a wide ‘y‘ shape. This letter will be the base for the flower, or circular shape, that will be next.

Step 2. Duplicate the ‘y’ layer and rotate it using constrain proportions by holding shift. You can specify the rotation point by moving the marker in the middle of the shape when you select rotate. I dragged my point to the top right of the ‘y‘. Using keyboard shortcuts is very helpful here. Merge the layers when the shape is complete. Duplicate this layer and scale up/down the dups to create some larger shapes and adjust the colors.

Last week, I wrote about how you can check the format of your website through a variety of browsers. Today, I want to focus on how you can generate a screenshot of your own, especially if you are seeing something that cannot be reproduced on another computer.

Depending on whether you’re using a Windows PC or a Macintosh, different steps need to be taken.

On a Windows PC (95 and up):

• Press the PrintScreen button on your keyboard (often this key is abbreviated as PrtSc or PrntScr and is located by the Delete key)
• Open Paint. (Start > Programs > Accessories > Paint.
• Press Ctrl+V or go to the Edit menu and select Paste.
• Your screenshot will now be pasted to the screen. Save this file (File > Save as) — give it a desired filename and make sure to save it as a compressed image (or else it will take a considerable amount of time to upload). The preferred filetypes are *.GIF or *.JPG (Save as Type > GIF or JPEG)