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! 

Digital Surrealism Artist Statement - Year 1 Culminating - Escape

  This piece is called "Escape". The point of this culminating is to get across an issue that is going on in this world or in this society nowadays, as well as make our whole picture surreal. I chose stress. I know that everywhere you look there is always someone who is stressed. Even if they are not breaking down openly, they probably are inside. I suffer with anxieties and stress all the time. And it's like I can't escape since school (or whatever is causing the stress) is always happening. This is what the title comes from. Inside the pupil, you can see that a girl is trying to escape. This is also showing the title. I am pretty sure every single person can relate to wanting to run away from their problems. The iris is a clock counting down. This is because time is always going, and we are scared we will run out of it. And lastly, the eye in general is to represent the person who is under stress. Any person. It is also to show that all you SEE is time passing by, and day by day ending. Stress really isn't a good feeling to have and I think many could agree with me.

   To put this art together, I had to start by figuring out which issue to focus on. Because stress is a big thing in my life, and I am still so young, I thought I should work on that. Once I decided on that, I had to do my "research". For my research I went around and asked my classmates on how they feel when they are stressed and under pressure. They answered back with "I feel like crying" or "I get frustrated and angry". This was interesting so I kept asking and got a few more ideas. Then after asking everyone, I made a mind map. I placed Stress as the word in the middle and wrote down what everyone had said. Next, I drew objects underneath that I could use in my photos to represent those feelings. Now I could finally capture my photos. I just needed to take two photos, and get one from the internet. I got one friend of mine to pretend like she is climbing out of something. I got another photo of another classmate's eye. Then, from the internet I got a photo, with no license, of a roman clock. This was later going to represent the time that passes by. Once the photos were uploaded from the camera and onto the computer, I started on Photoshop.

    On Photoshop, I didn't actually have to do as much as you would think. All I did was place the photo of the eye on a blank sheet with the resolution of 300 pixels/inch. My sheet size was 10x8 inches. All these features made it good for printing which is what I knew I would need to do in the end. Then I opened the photo of the clock in a separate page and used the Quick Selection tool to get rid of the black around the clock. Then I masked it and dragged it onto the iris in the good copy. I changed the opacity to make it a little bit see through. This would make it look a little bit more natural. Then I opened another copy of the photo of the eye and took just the pupil from it. I dragged it onto the good copy then, too, on top of the middle of the clock (where the pupil would usually be). Next, I opened the photo of my friend climbing out in another separate page and did the same thing as I did with the clock and pupil. Once that was done I dragged the photo of her on the final copy and adjusted her size to make her fit inside the pupil. I also changed her to be a little see through as well. After everything was in it's place, all I did was take the blurring and smudging tools to blend in the layers so it didn't look as much like stickers. That was it! Not too complicated. Overall, I am happy with what I did.

       Thanks for reading this all. I know it was long, but this is my last post of my first year CyberArts class. So thanks for following up:)
             Post again in a while.

Andre Breton Prezi

This is my presentation on Surrealism and Andre Breton. This presentation is apart of my culminating.

https://prezi.com/mq1dzfuagrks/andre-breton-surrealism/

Thanks!

3:6:9 Assignment

     Since before the break, CyberArts Year One has been working on the "3:6:9" Assignment. We each had partners, which I found helpful and made it more fun to work on. For our assignment (which we named Her Last Song) we had to film about 9, ten second videos. We had to choose three angles, and in each angle have three different kinds of shots. For example, we did a wide shot, mid-shot, and a close up or cut in shot). We had to have someone in our videos, doing something of our choice so my partner and I chose to have our friend playing violin. It was peaceful and we knew we could put a soft violin song with it as our 'soundtrack' in the background which would also suit our title. Speaking of soundtracks, we used the song "Lucy Meets Mr. Tumnas" from the first Narnia movie. After putting all the videos in iMovie when we were done shooting and cutting them down for a total time of 30 seconds, we added the song and made it work with the shots. Some shots have the girl's bow strokes in time with the music and we agreed that that was a good thing to have. Once music was lined up for the most part we made sure our transitions were fading because it added to the softness of the video. And lastly, once the videos (with transitions and credits) were cut down to thirty five seconds, we were done. Personally, I am happy with our work. I think everything works well. However, if the video could've been longer, my partner and I would have added longer transitions, or made each clip a bit longer so that the video had a better and smoother look to it. That is the only weakness in my opinion. Anyways, here it is! Watch it if you haven't yet and I hope you enjoy!

Post again soon with our culminatings!