Photo Realism Presentation

Advanced Photoshop Technique

Tutorial For A Smoke Effect on Photoshop CS6

    In this tutorial you learn how to add a smoke effect onto your project in Photoshop CS6. It creates a look that seems hard to achieve, but really is not. All you need to do is place a photo into Photoshop, and place a mask on it. This time you don't want the usual white mask, you want a black mask and white paintbrush. Then, you go into all of the brush options on the top left corner of the program, and scroll until you find the kind that looks like smoke. Click it, and make sure that your brush is coloured white so that you can bring forward parts of the real image underneath the black mask. Then just start! You can choose what angle the smoke is on and where you place it. Once you have done it all, you're done! 

    The video is pretty good at explaining the basics, but for me I find it hard for anyone to explain. I had to actually make one on my Photoshop at home to fully understand. 

    This effect would be cool to use on a more serious poster, or just to make movie advertisement. You could also do it just for fun at home to create cool projects.

That's all :)

Until next time!

Quick Photoshop Masking Assignment

     In this quick assignment, our goal was to get used to using masks again on Photoshop CS6. After refreshing myself with a tutorial online, I threw this together. 

     For this piece, I found an image of one of my favourite artists, Kari Jobe, and also found a photo of a nice grass-y surrounding. I placed the grass image in my Photoshop tab and then placed the Kari Jobe image on after. Then, I placed a white mask on the image of my artist. This allows me to paint with the black brush. The black brush allows me to see whats underneath the photo. So after placing the image of Kari Jobe down in the place I wanted, I took the brush tool with the black colour, and painted just around her body. This showed the grass that was underneath the photo, therefore blending the two together slightly. To blend some more and get a little bit of a better effect, I used Curves in the adjustments bar. This allowed me to play with the colour a little bit more, and so I made sure that the light on her face was a little bit brighter because realistically, the sun would be on her face if she were to be looking in that direction.

     Masks are good because you can make things look like they are there, when they actually weren't there in the first place. It is also nice to use masks because it is a separate layer in which the actual image won't be damaged. There are many ways you can use masks, and this is just one. If I had more time, I would move Kari Jobe to the right a bit because of where the original image was cut. That would make the fact that she wasn't actually there, less obvious.

That's all!

Bye for now :)

Pixel Portrait

GIF

PNG

   For this assignment, each student had to choose an image of themselves and remake it as a small icon. However, it wasn't just a simple outline and colour in job. It was a pixel by pixel task.

   Above, two versions of the same assignment is shown. One is saved as a 'gif' and the other is as a 'png'. At first it seems like there is no difference between the two, but when you take a closer look you can see that the 'png' is just in the slightest bit lighter than the 'gif' (this may just be my screen, but hopefully you see it too). In terms of quality, they are both okay. If I had to choose which one was actually better I think I would choose the 'png' one. Because it is slightly lighter, the colours seem to blend more. When it is darker, each pixel is more defined, and obvious. So having the whole image a little bit lighter, takes away some of the edge but not the whole pixel effect that was supposed to be achieved. But if you want better and bolder colours, then the 'gif' would also be good quality. 

  While trying to complete this assignment, I tried to get the shadows from the hair on the left in the original picture, onto the face. That would be why half of my face is not the same colour as the other. But as I tried to accomplish this, I realized it didn't look that good. That is where my weak point was in this. When choosing colours, I tried to choose ones that were close to my skin tone. But if you think about it, all of your skin is not ONE colour. It is multiple mixed together, and so as you can see, I put many together in order to achieve that effect.

   So the actual process of making this icon was kind of long. It wasn't long in the number of days, because that was only two days. However, because this assignment is basically pixel by pixel, each part of the picture was time consuming. First, I chose the photo I wanted to remake. Then, I placed it in Photoshop to work with it. My white background is 100 x 150 pixels, with 72 pixels/inch. I made sure that the picture was on a separate layer, first, and then created another layer for each part I began to remake (eyes, hair, skin, etc). Then, I grabbed the pencil tool, chose a colour, and started remaking it with the picture underneath. I kept changing colours, and by using the eyedropper tool I was able to get the colours closest to my skin tone and the actual colours of my hair, etc. Honestly, that is it! I just kept colouring each section little by little, until it was complete. Then I saved it, and am posting it.

I hope you enjoyed looking at this art piece, and thanks for reading :)

Bye for now! 

Chinese Watercolour Painting

       Chinese Watercolour painting was a very popular type of art that was done in China thousands of years ago. There are multiple categories of paintings that were done. One category is Flower and Bird painting. This used many bright colours and different kinds of lines. Paintings of orchids, blossoms with birds and bamboo fall under this category. Below is an example of a piece of art done in Flower and Bird style.

        This painting was probably done on a thicker piece of paper, due to the need of absorbing the water and colour from the strokes. Usually the paper was made of bark and pulp or rice. The strokes used and the colours that are used are supposed to enhance the characteristics of the object being drawn. This painting has a simple and clear background, making the art look not too crowded. Having negative space was/is just as important as the positive space. It also allows the viewer to follow the lines of the branch leading to the bird, the main subject. When Chinese watercolour paintings are done, the brush is held with three fingers. It is as if you are making the peace sign and adding our thumb. Lastly, the seal going down the side adds a touch of beauty. The artist puts a lot of thought into where they are going to sign their name and seal it with a fiery red colour. 

That is it for my first post in Year 2!