Photoshop Journal #028

Finnally, a water color tutorial that worked out well for me! I guess a third time is a charm! (Remember Journal #003 & Journal #023?) This winning tutorial came from psy-dude.com. I must say, I'm pleased with the results!

Photoshop Journal #027

Here is another Boston photo of mine, this time with a tilt shift look to it thanks to photoshopessentials.com's tutorial. This was actually a lot of fun and simple to do. It reminds me of my friend Justin's photo of San Francisco!

Photoshop Journal #026

This arial photo of Boston I took is made more interesting with the infrared glow technique from photoshopessentials.com. I learned some ways to adjust black and white images from this tutorial, which will help me further down the road for sure. So while this tutorial may have been simple, it has been a very helpful lesson.

Photoshop Journal #025

Here is another comic tutorial, from sulfar. The tutorial leaves a lot of room for personal choices, which is why maybe my photo didn't come out quite like the sample. However, I still think my photo came out really interesting. I'm going to have to use some of the techniques in this tutorial again.

Photoshop Journal #024

This filmstrip tutorial from psd-dude.com was super frustrating. It may look simple, but it requires making a vector image in Photoshop. I will never understand people who use Photoshop for vector images, and Illustrator for rastor images. It can be done, but the tools are not designed for it and that made making the filmstrip and the holes super annoying. If I were to do this again without following the tutorial, I would make the filmstrip in illustrator and just import the touched up photo in there and call it a day.

Photoshop Journal #023

Well, I'm just not doing very well with watercolor tutorials. As you might recall, my Journal #003 was also a watercolor, and it didn't turn out so well. I decided to try a different watercolor tutorial, this time from kailoon.com, and it also didn't turn out too well. I mean, I like the final result, but it doesn't look too much like water color. Perhaps I needed more color in my image?

Photoshop Journal #022

This pop art tutorial from pinkzap.com is pretty clever. I'm going to have to use this nifty little trick again!

Photoshop Journal #021

This bubble tutorial from goscreative was easy to follow. My bubble however didn't turn out quite like the sample, but I believe that to be a cause of the photograph and not the technique. Overall, it's a fun way to add some whimsy to a photo.

Photoshop Journal #020

I'm not super happy with psd.tutsplus.com's "Super Slick Dusky Lighting Effects" tutorial. I think my image looks a bit silly, and I couldn't work it to make it pop like the sample photo. 

Photoshop Journal #019

This was a really simple tutorial, but it is a good introduction to lighting effects. It's by photoshopessentials.com.

Photoshop Journal #018

My pup Dacchi gets his own photo mosaic like treatment with photoshopessentials.com's tutorial. I filled Dachhi with little Dacchis!

Photoshop Journal #017

Ebin's tutorial on how to make your photo look like a movie was successful. This photo I took on Muni's F line looks like an old movie.

Photoshop Journal #016

This was a fun comic book tutorial from photoshoproadmap.com. I took this picture of a drag queen and thought she would make the perfect model to turn in to a comic book character. I think my results were pretty good.

Photoshop Journal #015

My original photo is from my trip to New Orleans. The pyramid is suppose to be Nicholas Cage's tomb (for when he dies.) I used psd.tutsplus.com's Dynamic Lighting tutorial to give Nick's tomb a bit more pizzaz. Instead of using clouds, I used the Northern Lights.

Photoshop Journal #014

Oliver is again my model for the next tutorial, Devil's Eyes by worth1000.com. I think for this tutorial, my image came out better than the tutorial's sample image. 

Photoshop Journal #013

I found a cgshelf.com's tutorial on how to change hair color. Since I didn't really have a person to work this tutorial on, I decided to use my kitty, Oliver. This tutorial is a bit out of date. One important instruction is to use Image>Adjustment>Variations. Apparently, CS6 no longer has this function. Why Adobe would take something like this out is beyond me. I made the look still work by colorizing a hue/saturation layer for the hair. Now Oliver has a little fascia faux hawk. 

Photoshop Journal #012

psd.tutsplus.com's Rocking Silhouette tutorial shows a guitar playing dude. I didn't have any musical photographs handy, so I used this picture of my mom and stepdad at their wedding reception.

Photoshop Journal #011

Digital-Photography-School.com's lomo tutorial helps you create a lomo look with digital photography, and explains what a lomo photograph is. There is some issues in the tutorial with their images loading, but I was able to work it out with just the descriptions  The end result is pretty neat, but not as subtle as their example.

Photoshop Journal #010

I took this picture while in New Orleans. It was a bit of an overcast day, so I've used Photoshopessentials.com's rainbow tutorial to add some color to this church. 

Photoshop Journal #009

This was a fun and simple tutorial from theshockzone.com. It gives my rattler a littler bit more danger.

Photoshop Journal #008

Today's entry is a bit of a deviation from my Photoshop Journal's original intent. I'm taking a copywrite free photo instead of my own photo and modifying it for my Interaction & Screen Design class. Here is Photoshopessentials.com's the Tutorial on how to make this puzzle image. Heads up, I had to download the texture presets for Photoshop because my copy of CS6 didn't come with them preinstalled.

Photoshop Journal #007

This tattoo tutorial is an easy way to put some punk into someone's image. You can find the tutorial at worth1000.com. 

Photoshop Journal #006

Today I decided to do my own foray into Photoshop without a tutorial to see if I could put to use some of the skills I learned. Browsing my Google+ profile I realized that I haven't really updated my cover photo, so I decided to use my skills for that. I found a helpful website, evaddesign.com,  that went over the dimensions for the cover photo and included a handy Photoshop template to use. Here is what I did to turn the photo below into the photo above.

1. Placed my T-Rex photo into the template and resized it so the skull was just the right size.
2. Flipped my photo so the skull was facing the left instead of the right.
3. I copied my photo into a new layer, selected the transparent space on both sides and filled it with content-aware. I filled it three times to create a more abstract pattern.
4. I then traced the T-Rex bones out and copied that portion to a new layer and turned it off. I didn't do anything with the original layer, but I thought it a good idea to keep it unaltered in case I needed it later.
5. On the complete layer I made two more additional copies so I had three layers with the same full image.
6. On the bottom layer I used the Cutout filter.
7. On the middle layer, I used the Halftone Patter filter in the circle pattern.
8. On the top layer, I used the Poster Edges filter and set the layer blend mode to Overlay.
9. On the bottom layer where I used the Cutout filter I selected the T-Rex and copied him to a new layer at the top of the layer palet.
10. On this new Cutout T-Rex layer that has just the T-Rex, I used a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to colorize the T-Rex. On this adjustment layer I held down Option when I selected the adjustment layer and this brought up a dialogue box that let me check "Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask". This is important because I wanted the adjustment to only affect the layer I was working on and not all the layers below it.
11. Then, I took the layer with my original T-Rex on it and moved it to the top of the layers palet. I gave it an Emboss and an Outer Glow style. For the Outer Glow I used a wide spread and set the blend to Dissolve. This gives it a particle effect which with the circle halftones made it look like the T-Rex was breaking through glass or something.
12. Finally I set the T-Rex layer to Overlay in the layer blend mode.

And there you have it, my own tutorial... Kind of.

Photoshop Journal #005

This surreal Underwater scene is a tutorial from psd-dude.com. It is a lengthy tutorial and became complicated in some parts. I was using my own images instead of the stock images, save the underwater textures, so I made some adjustments that were different than the tutorial. Overall I'm pleased with my results, although I would like to work the lighting just a bit more if I were to spend more time on it. As it is, this image probably took me an hour and a half to complete.