Intro

In this Photoshop tutorial I am going to show you how to combine different photos to create an Urban Wasteland composition. We will do some background removal by masking images and then composite them together into our scene. We will use adjustment layers to manipulate the colors and hues of our image to achieve the dark and grungy final result. These techniques are essential for photo effects and photo manipulation when using Adobe Photoshop.

Final Result

Tutorial Details

Program: Adobe Photoshop CS5

Difficulty: Beginners, Intermediate.

Estimated Completion Time: 1 hour

Resources

• Apocalyptic Sky by MattTheSamurai
• Coquina Fort, 16th Century by PaintressEye
• Autumn Road 6 by F3rd4
• Cityscape Stock by VampyricCadenceStock
• Marysville Ghost Town 2 by Falln-Stock

Download the PSD

Step 1

Create a new document. I chose 1000 x 707 px for this design. First download Autumn Road 6 and bring it into your newly created document. Re-size and position it.

Step 2

On this photo, the sky is ok, however I prefer Apocalyptic Sky. So let’s change it. First we want to mask out the sky. Choose the Autumn Road layer, click layer mask and start painting out the unwanted parts with black. The key to successful masking is to first use a large brush with 100% hardness to erase large areas, then use a smaller brush with zero hardness to erase the detailed parts. Here is the final result after masking.

Step 3

We are ready to add our new sky. Download Apocalyptic Sky, bring it out to Photoshop in a new layer placed under our road photo layer. Re-size and position our new sky.

Step 4

I prefer to adjust the colors and lighting after laying out the composition. Download Cityscape Stock, bring it to our composition and place it between the road layer and sky layer. As usual re-size and position it. Finally mask out the unwanted parts using a layer mask.

Step 5

Next we have our wrecked car. Download Marysville Ghost Town 2, and bring it into our Photoshop file. Place it on top of the layer stack, position and re-size it as usual. Finally, mask out unwanted parts.

Step 6

Now we are going to bring in the bunker. Download Coquina Fort and import it into our Photoshop composition on top of the layer stack. Re-size and position the bunker, then mask out the unwanted parts.

Our composition elements are now in place, and your image should look like this:

Step 7

First of all congratulations! There will be no masking (I know sometimes it gets really boring) after step 6. We will start adjusting the colors, lighting, shadows etc. to give our image a dark and grungy look. First add a levels adjustment layer to road layer with the following settings, making sure to clip it to the road layer):

Step 8

Now let’s add a curves adjustment layer to our road, and again clip it to the road layer. Here are the settings:

Step 9

Now it’s time to play with the sky. First let’s change the color balance. Add a color balance adjustment layer to sky and apply these settings.

And here is the final result after adjustment:

Step 10

Next let’s differentiate the color balance. Select the layer mask of the Color Balance adjustment layer. Choose Filter –> Render –> Difference Clouds. This will ease the effect of color balance adjustment layer. Here is what I get after applying filter:

Step 11

Our last step for the sky is to apply a curves adjustment layer and clip it to the sky layer. Here are the settings:

Step 12

Now it’s time to make adjustments to the Cityscape layer. First of all it’s too bright. To change it, apply levels adjustment layer to this layer with the following settings (clip this to the Cityscape layer):

Step 13

Now apply a curves adjustment layer to the Cityscape with the following settings (clip this to the Cityscape layer):

Step 14

Now we will make some adjustments to the bunker. Start with adding a curves adjustment layer (clip to bunker layer). Here are the settings:

Step 15

Now apply a levels adjustment layer (clip to bunker layer) with the following settings:

Step 16

Now it’s time to play with our rusty car. It’s way too bright for our composition. Therefore we will start by adding a brightness/contrast adjustment layer to it (clip this to the car layer). Here are the settings:

Step 17

Next apply a levels adjustment layer and clip it to our beloved car layer:

Step 18

Lastly add a curves adjustment layer and clip it to our car layer, here are the settings;

Conclusion

And we are done. I generally add a gradient map or a warming filters to my manipulations, however for this one i like it better as-is. You can try and achieve different results by experimenting with the adjustment layer settings.

I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial and would love to hear your feedback on the techniques and outcome. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask.

In this tutorial I will show you how to draw a very simple but awesome twitter bird vector. I’ve used photoshop to create this but you could just as easily use illustrator as we’re mainly using the pen tool.

This is a fairly basic tutorial and all you’ll need is a very basic knowledge of the pen tool. Have fun!

Step 1: Base

Create a new document, I’ve created mine 575 x 680, but it doesn’t really matter what size it is, you can resize later if need be as it is a vector we are creating. Now select the pen tool and begin to draw the basic body shape of the bird, I based mine on a sketch I had drawn previously. You can copy the shape from a photo or drawing or you can just use your imagination.

When drawing with the pen tool I usually will turn off visibility of the layer in the layers menu so I can see what I am doing better. Once you’ve finished drawing you can turn it back on.

Now we have the basic shape of the body, I used #33ccff as the color, but again you can choose whatever you like. Next I added a slight gradient to the shape just to add a bit of depth.

Step 2: Features

Now we have the basic bird shape, the next step is to add the birds features (eye, beak, legs). The beak is a faily simple triangle-ish shape and is coloured #0f0f0f, again drawn with the pen tool, and with a slight gradient added to give it depth.

The eye is just layers of different coloured circles ontop of eachother to create a ‘beady’ looking eye.

Now the legs. First we need to create the thigh shape, this layer needs to be underneath the body layer and I coloured it with #DBDBDB. This way any overlap will be hidden underneath the body layer. The actual legs again are underneath the thigh and body layers and are positioned to look like they are gripping something and I used #0F0F0F.

Step 3: Shading

The final step is to add a bit of detail and shading, I have kept it fairly simple but you could really go for it and add as much shading as you like. I started by adding a lighter area (#7AD6F5) covering the breast of the bird.

Instead of drawing a whole new shape, I duplicated the body shape layer and adjusted it to how I wanted it, this way the edges will match the body shape.
Then I added the darker areas (#2AB7E6), again by duplicating the body shape and adjusting it by deleting a couple of vertices and adjusting others.

Conclusion

The final result is a fairly simple, but good looking twitteresque bird. Hopefully your will have had fun following this tutorial and will have learnt something along the way. The pen tool is a great tool to know how to use, so practice with it as much as you can as it can be trick at first, but once you know what your doing you can do alot with it.

Download the Twitter Bird Photoshop PSD File:

In case you want to compare your results or just tweak my design, here is the finished PSD file of the twitter bird: twitterbird.psd

Hey everyone! I’m back with the second half of this two part series about using Photoshop as a means of extracting a subject from its background, and am very sorry that it took this long to get it done. In Part 1, we undertook a basic review of what channels are, and how they work. If you haven’t read that article already, I suggest that you review it before proceeding here.

Part 2 is (as promised) going to be more of a tutorial type article, in which I am going to guide you step by step through the process of extracting a lovely model from a photograph, and placing her into a relatively simple design. There are quite a few screenshots, but it’s really nothing to worry about.

Before getting started, I would like to thank my 2 awesome sisters-in-law for allowing me to use this awesome photograph as my working example.

The model is of my sister in law. The photographer is another one of my sisters in law. They are both awesome and crazy, and I love them to death. So, thanks ladies for being willing to be a part of this tutorial!

Now, let’s get started with the extraction.

Step 1

First, it’s important to note that our image is in RGB mode, and that we will be sticking in this mode throughout the course of this tutorial. If you read Part 1 of this series (or if you are already familiar with channel basics), you will recall that every RGB image contains a Red, Green and Blue channel. Let’s start by analyzing the 3 channels to determine which one will provide the best starting point for extracting the model from the photograph. Here are the greyscale representations of each channel.

Since the hair is going to be the most challenging part of the extraction, what we are really looking for is the channel where we have the best contrast between the hair and the background. The red channel would probably work, but it’s a bit lighter than is really ideal, so we’ll scratch that one.

The blue and the green channels are pretty similar in terms of the contrast between the hair and the background, so either of those would probably work. However, I think that the green channel is probably the better option, so let’s go ahead and duplicate it. You can do this by either right-clicking and selecting Duplicate Channel from the menu, or by dragging the green channel down to the new icon in the layers palette.

Step 2

Now, with our duplicate green channel selected, we are going to adjust the brightness and contrast. Select Image » Adjustments » Brightness/Contrast from the menu. For this image, I set the brightness to 16 and the contrast to 48.

These numbers will vary drastically from photograph to photograph, but the basic idea is to adjust these values to the point where the background is white and most of the hair is black. The thin strands, however, should retain a certain amount of grey, as you can see in the screenshot above. Also, try to increase the contrast to the necessary minimum, since too much contrast can cause some of the finer details to vanish, and for some of the softer edges to become jagged and rasterized.

Now, while we’ve adjusted our contrast sufficiently on the left side of the woman’s face, the contrast above her head and to the right is not quite good enough. To fix this, use the Rectangle Marquee tool to make a selection around the area in question, and adjust the brightness and contrast again.

Doing so will only apply the adjustment to the selected part of the channel. This may look a bit odd, as it breaks the continuity of the image, but that’s fine. You’ll see why in a bit.

Step 3

In this step, we want to turn the RGB channel back on so that we can see everything in full colour again. Now, with the the main image layer active, select the Pen Tool from the Toolbox. Use this tool to begin tracing the rest of the model’s jacket. I would recommend starting at the bottom left of the image, as shown here:

Then, just trace the rest of the shape. Later, we will use this shape to establish the layer mask that we will use to extract the woman from the background. If you get to a part of clothing that is a bit softer, like this woolen collar, you can draw your line back a bit and then return later to blend it all together.

In this image, we also have a break in the model’s arm, which we will want to account for.

We want to make sure that we draw in the shapes for any enclosed areas, like these two spaces between her arm and her body.

If you forget to trace this part, the background here will not get extracted. While it’s possible to go back and fix this kind of mistake, it’s always better to take care of it the first time. Also, you can actually create this extra shape right within the same path object, so there’s no need to create two separate path objects!

Step 4

Next, select the Brush Tool from the toolbox, along with a medium sized, soft brush. What we want to do now is start brushing away all the darker spots in the background, and even some of the edges of the woman herself (but not her hair). This screenshot shows the first stages of this process:

This next shot shows that I have painted away all the darker areas on the top part of the canvas, including the defining lines around her jacket.

Repeat this same process on the bottom half of the image. Again, you can see exactly what I mean in this screenshot, in which I have made the entire background white, and also painted over the edges of the model.

It may seem counter productive to be painting away these edges, but it will actually help us to get a nice, crisp extraction in the next step.

Step 5

Now, open the Paths Palette. There should only be one path there – the one you created when you traced the woman with the Pen Tool. Command-Click (PC: Ctrl-Click) the preview of that path to create a selection.

Next, making sure that you are still working on the duplicated green channel, fill the selection with black. This will give us back the basic shape of the woman that we brushed away (I told you we’d get it back easily).

Select the Brush Tool again, this time with a slightly smaller size. Set the foreground colour to black, and start painting over the parts of the model’s face that are still visible.

Reduce the brush size, and very carefully start filling in the highlights on her hair, being sure not to paint away any of the finer details around the edges.

Step 6

Now it’s extraction time. Your duplicated green channel should now look something like this:

The parts of the image that we want to keep (the model) are in black. The parts that we want to discard are in white. Start by revealing the RGB channel again to get all of the original colour back. With the channels palette still open, Command-Click (PC: Ctrl-Click) on the duplicated green channel. This will create a selection based on all of the work we have done so far. Choose Select » Modify » Feather from the menu, and when the dialogue box comes up, set the feather radius to 2px.

This will soften the edges just a little. Next, press Shift-Command-I (PC: Shift-Ctrl-I) to invert the selection. Lastly, with the model layer selected, create a new Layer Mask. You can do this by simply pressing the Layer Mask button at the bottom of the Layers palette (ignoring that it says Add vector mask – trust me this will add a layer mask – the vector mask option appears after you have already added the layer mask, and is an entirely different topic all on its own):

Once you add the layer mask, the model will be completely extracted from the background.

Step 7

From this point on, the steps are all about taking the extracted figure and placing her into the the context of a simple design. First, we’re going to start by adding some texture into the background. For this, I am going to be using one of my own watercolour textures, which you can find here.

Open up the image file and immediately select Image » Image Size from the menu, to determine the exact dimensions of the texture.

As it turns out, our working document is actually a bit larger than this, so flip back to it and select Image » Image Size again, and resample the image so that the entire watercolour texture will fit into the background.

In this case, that means setting the height to 3450 pixels. The width should automatically shrink down to 2249 (narrower than our texture), as long as you have the Constrain Proportions option selected.

Switch back to the texture document. Press Command-A (PC: Ctrl-A) to select the entire image. Copy it to the clipboard, flip back to our working document and paste the texture in as a new layer. Finally, drag this layer behind the model. The document should look something like this:

Step 8

Let’s work on the background just a little bit more here. To start, we’ll add another layer of texture. If you want to use the exact one that I will be using, head out and pick up my Mega Texture Pack and open this image:

Alternatively, you can use any similar grunge texture that you might have in your repertoire. Copy and paste the texture, just like we did before, and place it at the back of the document (the grunge texture I am using is larger than our working document, so no resizing is necessary). Then, set the blending mode of the watercolour texture to Soft Light.

This gives some extra roughness to the background, which I really like, but ends up muting the colours from the watercolours. To fix this, duplicate the watercolour layer, move the duplicate above the original, set the blending mode to Overlay and the opacity to 50%:

This will bring some of the colour back into the design.

Step 9

This step is really quick. Select the extracted woman layer and add a choose Layer » Layer Style » Outer Glow. In the dialogue box, select a medium grey colour, set the blend mode to multiply, the opacity to 55%, the spread to 0 and the size to 125.

This will create a nice, soft shadow around the model, adding just a bit of visual interest to the composition and helping to blend her with the background.

Step 10

Now, the original image had some subtle shadows in it. Unfortunately, when we extracted the model, we also extracted the shadows. We could probably have tried to do some subtle work to extract the shadow too, but I prefer to just add it back in after the fact. This also has the added benefit of keeping the shadow and the model on separate layers.

Let’s start by duplicating the model layer, dragging it above the original, and deleting the layer mask. Then, set the blending mode to Multiply. This will now be our shadow layer.

Next, head back to the Channels Palette, and create the same selection that we did before, by Command-Clicking (PC: Ctrl-Click) the channel preview. This time, chose Select » Modify » Contract from the menu, and set the number of pixels to 2.

Return to the Layers Palette, and select the new shadow layer, then apply a new Layer Mask based on the current selection (which we have not inverted). This will knock out all of the shadow on the woman herself, leaving it only on the background.

Now the shadows look a little too dark, so reduce the opacity of the shadow layer. I found that 65% worked well for this image.

Step 11

We just have a little bit more to do to the model herself. First, start by duplicating her layer again, and drag this one to above both the original, but beneath the shadow layer. Temporarily disable the layer mask by Shift-Clicking on it. Now, add a new Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Check the Colorize option, then set the hue to 335 and the saturation to 13.

You will also want to create a clipping mask, so that the adjustment will only be applied to a single layer. To make sure that the Hue/Saturation layer is directly above this duplicated model layer, right click on the adjustment layer and select Create Clipping Mask from the contextual menu.

Next, add a basic Gradient Overlay layer style. Use a plain, black and white gradient reducing the opacity to about 44% and setting the blending mode to Multiply. Also, set the angle to 128.

This will add a soft, simulated shadow effect, which will darken the areas toward the bottom right of the image, as you can see here:

Finally, turn the layer mask back on (Shift-Click again), so that the Hue/Saturation is only applied to the model. Set the blending mode to Overlay, and reduce the opacity down to 55%. Altogether, this should give you an image that looks something like this:

Conclusion

That pretty much wraps up this tutorial! Of course, you would probably add a bit more to the design to round it out a little – maybe some simple boxes and text to create a poster kind of like this:

Still, the 11 steps above pretty much cover everything you need to know to extract the woman from her background and build up a simple but interesting design around her. That being said, I want to note that every extraction is somewhat different. This tutorial should help you with a fair number of your complex extraction projects, but the techniques outlined here may not be appropriate for every instance that you need to perform an extraction.

You’ll really have to weight it on a project-by-project basis.

I hope that this article (and Part 1) was valuable to you, and that you learned a thing or two about extracting with channels! And again, thanks to my one sister in law for providing the photo, and to the other for letting me use her face for thus tutorial!

we can start by using any one of a number of different extraction methods (in this case, I used channels, which is another article all on its own).

This is that article. Actually, it’s the first of two articles. It seems that there was quite a bit of interest in knowing more about channels and how I used them to extract the woman from the background in that previous article. Well, I’m more than happy to comply with that request. In this first article, we are going to cover some of the basic concepts behind channels. The follow-up article will be more of a tutorial-like piece, in which I will work through a channels-based extraction.

So let’s get started. For the purposes of this discussion, we’re going be using this simple image of an apple, which can be downloaded for free over at Dreamstime.

Channel Basics

Now, we’ll start with some of the true fundamentals. First, you can access your channels by opening up the Channels Palette (Window » Channels from in the menu). This is where we will be doing most of our work, both in this article and in the follow up tutorial.

In this case, we can see four channels – RGB, Red, Green and Blue. By the way they are laid out in the palette, they actually look a lot like layers. Don’t be confused, though. That is strictly a matter of interface. Channels and Layers are entirely different entities.

You may also notice that the channels seem to reflect the current colour mode of the document – which is RGB. This is indeed true, and leads us to another important point. The Channels Palette will change based on the colour mode of the document. This is because each colour mode uses a different method for defining colour, and at their most basic level channels are simply a programatic way of displaying the interaction of basic primary colours, which combine to create a much larger range of full colour.

The Big Two: RGB and CMYK

I’m sure that many of you are familiar with basic concepts of how colours are mixed, but since this is one of the fundamental building blocks of how channels work, let’s quickly review our two basic colour structures.

First, we have RGB, which is the colour mode of all things like your monitor, television and various handheld devises. RGB makes use of concepts of additive colour, combining tiny bits of red, green and blue lights in varying degrees in order to create a full and rich colour gamut.

On the other hand, we have CMYK, which is what is used for print. With this kind of colour, a printer or press lays down tiny dots of cyan, magenta, yellow and black inks, which blend together to create the illusion of colour. While pixels on a monitor actually emit coloured light, the tiny dots on a page absorb coloured lights, reflecting only the colour that you see. As more ink is mixed together, more light is absorbed. That’s why it is called subtractive colour – because less and less gets reflected as you add more ink.

I should also note that when you’re working in CMYK your screen is still displaying in RGB – Photoshop is simply approximating CMYK colour for display. If you want to learn a bit more of the science, read about additive colour and subtractive colour on Wikipedia.

For our purposes, the important thing to know is that each of these colour models require different sets of colour information, which are reflected in their types of channels. Let’s examine this a bit more closely.

First, open up the image and then pop open the Channels palette. When downloaded from the internet, the image should be in RGB mode by default, so you should see four different channels. Actually, there are three channels (Red, Green and Blue), and then an automatic, and uneditable channel (called RGB). Each channel visualizes the three different streams of colours that compose the document, which we can see by taking another look at our previous screenshot:

The Photoshop default is for each channel is actually represented by a simple greyscale image (though we’ll look at how to change that). For example, here is the red channel for our apple:

It may seem odd that the apple itself actually seems washed out, rather than strong and vibrant, which you might expect given that the fruit itself is also red. There is a good reason for this. Within an RGB channel, any white pixel will be at its maximum brightness for that colour – red in this case. In other words, it will emit the maximum amount of red light. Conversely, wherever it is black, the pixel will not emit any light of that colour. So, because the apple is red, pixels that make up that part of the image are actually quite light.

Conversely, if we convert the apple image to CMYK, we will see something quite different. We now have five channels, one for cyan, magenta, yellow and black, as well as the automatic combined channel.

In this case the channels work somewhat differently, because we are working in a colour space that is intended to mimic the workings of ink on paper. As such, you will find that wherever a pixel is white, it is meant to represent blank, unprinted paper. Wherever a pixel is black, it is meant to represent an area where the paper is covered with the maximum saturation for that particular colour.

Let’s look at the magenta channel as an example. To create red with ink, we can actually combine magenta with yellow. So, if we printed our apple image, we would expect there to be a lot of magenta ink used. This is accurately reflected in the magenta channel.

Notice that the areas of the deepest red are the most saturated with black, whereas areas that contain relatively little red (such as the reflections and the yellow area near the top of the apple) remain much whiter.

That’s really the basics of what channels are. They are simply a way of splitting apart the different colour information in a document, giving you the ability to make tweaks and adjustments on a colour by colour basis. A quick word of warning, though: using channels to make extensive colour modifications on a heavily layered document can be a bit tricky. Making a change in a channel will still only effect the current layer, so I would recommend doing some experimenting.

In fact, I always recommend experimenting! I’ve found that it’s the absolute best way to learn.

Seeing Channels in Colour

Personally, I prefer working with the default greyscale rendering of the channels. However, if you’re finding it difficult to wrap your head around how the colours are actually working, Photoshop has a little interface option to help make it easier for you. Select Photoshop » Preferences » Interface from the menu (PC: Edit » Preferences » Interface). In the dialogue box you should see a little check box with the option “Show Channels In Colour”. By default this is turned off, but try turning it on. In RGB mode, the channels palette and red channel should look something like this:

In CMYK mode, the channels palette and magenta channel should look something like this:

This little trick can be super helpful when it comes to visualizing the colour behind unique channels. However, when it comes to using them for extractions, it can make things a little bit more difficult. So, in the next article, I will have this option turned off again

The Other Colour Modes

While RGB and CMYK are the two most common colour modes in my experience, they are certainly not the only ones, and the other colour modes also change the way the channels work. The following is a brief summary of how some of the other colour modes affect channels.

Lab Mode

This colour space is significantly different from either RGB or CMYK because it is not device dependent. In other words, it is not designed to mix colours, either of ink or light. Instead, it is designed more to emulate human perception of colour, by actually separating the lightness values from the colour values.

There are basically three channels. The first is the Lightness channel, which controls the relative lightness or darkness of a particular pixel. The other two channels (called a and b) contain actual colour information, by determining the relative saturation.

By far the most complex of all the colour modes (at least in my opinion), trying to explain the entire Lab colour model would be an entire article onto itself! It might even take several articles. For the most part, though, it appears to be used primarily for post-production work in photography, so it could be helpful in terms of establishing a proper colour balance. In terms of actual extraction, though, it’s probably not going to be all that useful.

Multi-Channel

As the name would suggest, this one definitely makes use of channels. Basically, though, it amounts to an unmanaged CMYK. Sort of. If you convert to multi-channel right out of RGB, the channels will be converted into CMY, with no black (K). However, if you convert out of CMYK, you will keep all four channels.

The primary difference, though, is that you can actually change the colour of a channel. So, instead of having a cyan channel, you could have a channel dedicated to a unique Pantone colour. This can make for some interesting effects and can be beneficial when preparing a Photoshop design for printing with alternate colours.

From an extraction perspective, it doesn’t really offer anything that is not already available in CMYK mode.

Indexed

An index image is basically just that, an index of colours which are defined across a grid, which represents the canvas itself. Each pixel is essentially given a simple and static colour value from the index of 256 colours. This is the kind of technology that is used in image formats such as GIF.

It is useful for maintaining small file sizes, but makes no real use of channels. If you look in the Channels Palette, all you will see is the actual index itself. This means that indexed mode is completely useless when it comes to channel based extractions.

Greyscale

This colour mode is exactly what it sounds like, and really isn’t a colour mode at all, since it contains no colour. In this mode, the image is basically reduced to values of lighness and darkness, as represented by white, black and a full range of greys.

It can be useful in some circumstances, such as preparing a design for simple one colour print, but is not really all that useful for extraction purposes.

Bitmap

This is the most basic of all colour modes, and is comprised entirely of black or white pixels. There is not even any shades of grey. Again, it has only uses a single black and white channel and has no real use for running extractions.

Duo Tone

Duotone (and the related tritone and quadtone) is kind of like a fake colour mode, insofar as the main image remains primary a greyscale, with highlights, midtones and shadows. You set a colour for each “tone” you choose and then adjust that colour’s levels to dictate how you want it to effect the various tones in your image.

It’s a very different way of working with colour, and is primarily used for adding interesting colour treatments to a black and white photograph – such as creating a customized sepia effect. Since it only has a single greyscale channel, it really isn’t much good when it comes to extractions.

Command-Clicking Channels

Well that’s a basic run down of channels. There’s a lot more we could talk about, but that should cover most of the basics that you will need to know for creating extractions. We’ll get into the nitty gritty in the Part 2 tutorial!

For those of you who just can’t wait though, here’s a little preview. To create a selection from a channel, all you have to do is Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) on the preview for any given channel. A selection will be made based on the black, white and grey pixels for that channel (with white being fully selected and black being unselected).

Pretty simple right? Well yes – and no. It would be incredibly rare for a default colour channel to be ready for a perfect extraction. It usually takes a bit of tweaking and modifying, and that’s exactly what we’ll get into in Part 2. Be sure to subscribe so that you don’t miss it!

I know that a lot of people find the clipping mask to be something of a mindscrew, but I’m going to try to make this as simple and as painless as possible. So let’s get to it.

About Masks

First, let’s establish a working definition of what a mask is. Basically, a mask is an entity which controls the behavior of a collection of pixels. Generally speaking, this control centers around the relative transparency, or opacity of a given layer or collection of layers. Wherever a mask is active or “on”, a pixel becomes transparent. Where a mask is inactive or “off”, a pixel remains opaque. Moreover, a mask can be either active or inactive to varying degrees, allowing for a wide range of partial transparencies.

When combined with Photoshop’s ability to stack different layers, masks become an incredibly powerful tool, which helps grant a designer or digital artist with extremely precise control over the interaction between the different layers. For example, let’s take this beautiful image that I picked up at Dreamstime.

Now suppose we want to extract the woman from the background. To accomplish this, we can start by using any one of a number of different extraction methods (in this case, I used channels, which is another article all on its own). However, instead of destructively and wantonly deleting the unwanted pixels, I simply hid them with a mask.

The missing pixels aren’t actually gone. I’ve just made them invisible. Now, I can actually place the woman onto a completely different background, which I created using textures from a couple of my own texture packs, which you can check out here and here.

So that’s the basic concept behind masks. Now let’s take a look at the Layer Mask and Clipping Mask and how they each accomplish this same basic premise.

The Layer Mask

A Layer Mask is a one-to-one masking technique, by that I mean that a single mask is applied to a single layer. It’s possible to replicate a layer mask and apply copies to other layers, but each layer ultimately still has its own mask.

Layer masks also exist strictly as masks, and serve no other explicit purpose. They are a way to control the transparency and opacity of a single layer, but they don’t do much beyond that.

To create a Layer Mask, open up the layers palette and select the layer that you want to work on. Then, click on the mask button to create a new, blank mask. If you do this with an active selection, the selected pixels will be set to visible while the unselected pixels will be set to transparent. Any partially selected pixels will become transparent in direct relation to the degree of their selection.

In our previous example – extracting the woman from the dark background – I used a layer mask. Here is a screen shot of my layers palette.

Notice how the black and white layer mask thumbnail appears beside the layer thumbnail (or icon, if you have your palette set to display icons). This is an excellent visual representation of how the Layer Mask is actually attached directly to the layer itself.

This preview also gives you some useful functionality, which I thought I might let you in on while we’re on the subject. Try Command-clicking (PC: Ctrl-click) it to create a new selection based on the mask, similar to the way you would create a selection from a channel. You can also Shift-click the preview to quickly turn the mask on or off and Option-click (PC: Alt-click) to toggle between preview mode and the mask mode, in which you can actually see and edit the mask itself rather than the layer it’s applied to.

The Clipping Mask

The Clipping Mask, on the other hand, is an entirely different sort of beast. Where we can think of the Layer Mask as functioning as a one-to-one type entity, the Clipping mask functions more as a one-to-many type entity, in that it can actually effect multiple layers at the same time.

A clipping mask is also, by its very nature, multi-purposed. While a Layer Mask exists as a modification to a layer, a clipping mask actually is a layer, which interacts with one or more of the layers directly above it. This has some interesting “stacking” implications, which we will get to in a bit.

Personally, I still find creating a clipping mask kind of counter-intuitive. First, select the layer that you want to have masked. If you want to have multiple layers masked, select the desired layers (they must all be in direct sequence). Right click and select Create Clipping Mask from the contextual menu, and watch what happens.

The selected layers all appear indented and are masked by the first layer immediately beneath them. Maybe it’s just me, but this seems awfully quirky. I always want to create the mask by clicking on the layer that I want to become the mask (which is the first layer beneath the indents), even though I understand why that would be programatically problematic. Still, I have gotten used to the functionality over time.

Here’s a practical example. Suppose we want to “insert” the full photograph into a vector frame. The easiest way to do this in Photoshop is to fake it, using a clipping mask! First, open up your vector file and import it into Photoshop. There are a number of ways of doing this, but I usually choose to import it as a Smart Object. Since we are here on MyInkBlog, I chose to use an ink splatter vector shape. I combined several different shapes from Franz Ghori’s Spray Paints, (which I downloaded from Vecteezy) to create this splatter.

With this shape inside of the document, I can simply activate my photograph and drag it directly above my new shape layer. Then, I simply right click and create a clipping mask. Immediately, my photograph is cropped to the masking shape!

It really is that easy. Now, if I wanted to, I could select and move either the photograph itself or the clipping shape, and the mask would be update immediately. In fact you can actually see the masking change as you make alterations to either of these two layers.

Pixel Controls

One of the key differences that I want to focus on is the way that the masks actually work, by which I essentially mean the way in which they they control the transparency of the masked pixels. It’s important to understand the difference here, since it will have an impact on the way that you create your masks.

The Layer Mask is based entirely on a greyscale image. In a sense, the Layer Mask is a greyscale image, which is superimposed over the actual pixels of the layer itself, and used to calculate the effects of the mask. The relative blackness or whiteness is what controls the behaviour of the pixels. Wherever a pixel in the mask is black the corresponding pixel in the layer is set to transparent. Conversely, wherever a pixel in the mask is white, the corresponding pixel is set to opaque (or solid).

Here is the greyscale mask that I used to extract the woman from the background:

Clipping masks, on the other hand, work more upon an inheritance model. All of the layers effected by the Clipping Mask actually inherit the transparency values of the clipping layer itself. This means that a completely white layer and a completely black layer would have the same effect if used as clipping masks.

So, let’s assume that we want our ink splatter woman to be about 75% transparency. With a layer mask we could do this by using a lighter grey colour. To achieve this with our clipping mask, we can just adjust the transparency of our shape. If we take it down to 75%, our masked image automatically inherits the same properties.

The Layer Stack

There’s probably some sort of official and technical term that I am unaware of, but one of the other differences between Layer Masks and Clipping masks is something I like to call “stacking”, or the way in which the layers fall on top of each other. We’ve already discussed the way the Layer Mask works almost as part of the layer, and how the Clipping Mask is actually a layer which works to mask one or more of the layers directly above it, but what does this mean, in practical terms? Well, think of it this way – because the Layer Mask is actually attached to the layer itself, it exists outside of the layer stack (in other words, the order of the layers). When you move a layer, the mask moves with it, just as you might expect.

Not so with a Clipping Mask. In fact, this tool is actually dependant on the stack, because it involves one layer directly effecting another in direct proximity. Changing the order of the layers in the stack not only effects their interactions through transparencies and blending modes, it can actually have a significant effect on the Clipping Mask – adding to it, subtracting from it, or in some cases completely undoing it.

For example, it’s important to be aware that, if you duplicate the layer that is doing the clipping, the mask will actually be dissolved. It’s not really a huge deal, since a clipping mask can just be reestablished, but it can be a bit starling and annoying if it happens when you’re not expecting it.

Combining Them

It’s also important to note that clipping masks and layer masks don’t have an either/or kind of relationship, in which you would have to choose one or the other. They are perfectly capable of playing very nicely together, which can allow you to achieve some really great effects!

To illustrate this, let’s try combining the two different examples that we have been looking at throughout this article. Let’s suppose we still want our woman to be framed in our ink splatter, but that we also want to remove the dark background from the photograph and replace it with a nice, rich pink colour to match the thick streaks in her hair.

The first step is to use a layer mask to extract the woman, just as we’ve already discussed. Once we have the background removed, add in a new colour fill layer, and sample the colour from her hair. I perfer working with fill layers, rather than just using the paint bucket to just fill a normal layer with colour. This way, I can always go back and easily change the colour.

Next, we need to position our ink splatter under our other two layers. Then, with the photo layer and fill layer selected, we just right click and create a clipping mask. Both layers will be clipped by the shape and, after adding in our textured background, we have something like this:

Both the clipping mask and layer mask are integral to achieving this effect, each performing a different role. This just goes to show how easy it is to make them work together! Now, just for fun, we’ll just refine the design with a bit of extra work in Photoshop.

Conclusion

Well, I hope that this article has been of use to you, and that you’ve learned a thing or two about clipping and layers masks, and the differences (or similarities) in how they work. Both are powerful tools, and I guarantee that if you use Photoshop for anything beyond simple photographic touch ups, mastering these will make your life so much easier!

Blogging, as we all know is much more than writing an article. In most posts, you need to take screen captures, edit, copy, paste, format, etc.. Basically, there is much more to it than meets the eye. Any decent article will take at least an hour to write and may take several. Here I am going to show you how to set up a simple action that can streamline your blogging by creating the main post image or “title image” for you.

Often times a blog will use the same exact style for each and every title image, or something relatively similar. This is a guide on how you can create an action to do this for you dynamically. You can also find a link to download this action, at the end of this post.

Step 1

Open up your image of any size. Just make sure it’s the size that you’d like your blog title images to appear. Ours is 550px by 350px.

Step 2

In your Action Pane, click the folder icon. This will prompt you for a name, which will be for your new Action Set. Name this “Blog Actions”, as this is where you can store all of the actions that you will regularly use on your blog.

Step 3

Click the folded page icon in your Actions Pane, which will prompt you for a name for your new action. You can also assign an action a function key, which will simply make it easier to access this action in the future. Once you press record, your every completed move is being logged by your action. You can hit the stop button at any time to stop recording. Just remember to press record again or you will end up with a half completed action and have to repeat your steps all over again.

Step 4

Once you’ve hit record, create a new layer and draw a rectangular marquee across the lower-middle of your layer. Fill this with black(#000000) and lower the opacity to somewhere between 70-80%.

Step 5

Grab your Type Tool with a relatively large and bold Slab Serif or Sans Serif font, and create your main title. Rename this layer “Title”.

Step 6

Press the Stop button in your actions pane and click the actions menu button in the upper right hand corner. Select Insert Stop… This will insert a stopping point in your action to give you or anyone else a chance to change something. In this case, it would be the actual text of the title font you just got done inserting. For things of this nature, where a change must be made by the user to successfully complete the rest of the action, make sure that the Allow Continue radio button is not checked and give a description of what the user needs to do before pressing play again.

Step 7

Press the Record button in your Actions Pane to resume your action. Right click your type layer and go to Blending Options. Change your Blend Mode to Soft Light.

Step 8

Click on Inner Shadow and give it a small sharp shadow, like the settings shown below.

Step 9

Depending on your background image, you may need a little brighter type for your title. If so, just duplicate the layer you just made. Change it’s Blend Mode to Normal and give it an Opacity of 50%.

As you can see, you have a nice little pressed lettering look for your title. Now we can move on to the next step.

Step 10

Create a new type layer. This time with a much smaller bold type. Something easy to read like a basic sans serif font. Lower the opacity on this layer to around 80%.

Step 11

Stop your action once again, and create another stop point to allow you, or someone else to edit the small description text.

Step 12

You can again hit record if there are other things would like to do with your action, but for this guide our action is completed. Now any user can easily create a title image from just a single graphic. The action will do the rest of the work for them. Remember that for any action you create for you or yourself to not merge layer or flatten your image. Unless of course you don’t want to be able to change anything after the action is played.

Here is what our action panel looks like at this point:

Here is our completed title image:

Grab This Action

The possibilities for improving your workflow with actions are abundant. We have made this particular action available for download if you’d like to use it in your own projects.

Introduction

3D text effects are a growing and awesome design trend. They can add angles, lighting and interest that many 2D text effects can’t bring. Here is an awesome Showcase of 3D Typography that was put together a little while back by Angie Bowen. I’ve also been seen and been inspired by tutorials like 3D Text on Fire and this Fresh Text Effect.

After some experimenting with what can be accomplished using Illustrator’s 3D capabilities and Photoshop’s texturing I came up with the design for this tutorial. In the steps that follow you will learn some pretty helpful techniques and tricks all while designing your own slick 3D ice text effect. Let’s get started.

The Preview & PSD

• Preview the final result
• Grab the PSD file to follow along

Step 1

Fire up Illustrator and type in your word(s) at the size you are designing for. I used Diavlo bold for my font of choice. Be sure to change the font color to a mid-tone gray. It’s not important to choose a specific color yet, but we do need something that will have a strong enough contrast to stand out when we transform the text into 3D.

Step 2

Now it’s time to utilize Illustrator’s simple, but awesome 3D capabilities. With your text selected choose Effect->3D->Extrude & Bevel. Make sure to tick on the preview option so that you can view your results as you go along (be warned this 3D effect with preview turned on is a huge memory hog — slower computers beware). Then manipulate the text into the angle that you desire. Bear in mind, perspective is the trickiest and most important part of a 3D text effect, so take your time here. The cube in the top left is a great visual tool. Simply click and drag on different parts to manipulate the x, y and z axis. Or if you prefer the cliff notes, just alter the settings to what is referenced below.

Step 3

Now it’s time to move our project over to Photoshop. Open up a new document in Photoshop, then click back to Illustrator and put the two documents side by side. Grab the move tool in Illustrator and drag the 3D text from Illustrator into the Photoshop document. Then in Photoshop select the background layer and fill it with black.

Step 4

Filters offer a huge range of possibilities, but they can lead to some pretty horrific results when they are overdone or used inproperly. In our case, we are going to add a couple of minor tweaks, to start the illusion of highlights and shadows on raised ice.

The Filter Gallery is a very handy interface that you can use to add and combine various filters. To get started click Filter->Filter Gallery. First, add ‘Accented Edges’. Play around with the settings until you have some simple, but not blown out highlights on the edges of your 3D text. Below are the settings that I used. Now, click to add a second filter (using the small ‘Add Filter’ button in the bottom right), choose ‘Plastic Wrap’ and select settings similar to what is referenced below. Then click ok.

Step 5

Our filters gave us some nice highlights on the edges of the 3D text, but I think we could do a little better yet. Let’s take advantage of some of the things layer styles have to offer. Double click on the 3D text layer to bring up the layer styles box. Add a bevel and emboss, and a drop shadow to our text. The drop shadow will be rather unnoticeable against our black background, but it will look good when we set up the ice background. Use settings that are similar to those shown below.

Step 6

That’s starting to look cool, but we could definitely use some more contrast. To add some, click Image->Adjustments->Shadows/Highlights. There are a ton of sliders to play around with in here, and quite honestly moving them around and experimenting is the best way to learn what they do. It’s also good to note, that since we brought over this text from Illustrator it should be a smart object. Which means that these filters are non-destructive and can be easily tweaked at a later point.

Step 7

In this step we are going to start working on the background ice. We need an interesting ice texture with some bright colors (even though we’ll be altering them later). I found this really cool ice texture on Flickr. Download that one or something similar and place it on a layer below the text layer and above the black background. Add a layer mask to your new layer by clicking Layer->Vector Mask->Reveal All. We want to gradually fade our design out to the black background, so add a radial gradient to that layer mask that goes from black on the outside to white on the inside. Touch up some of the mask with a soft brush with low opacity if necessary. Lastly, drop the opacity of this layer to about 90%.

Step 8

The background is starting to look interesting, but the texture could definitely be simplified and smoothed out a bit. I personally like to make those kinds of changes on a smart object so that I can adjust them later if I change my mind. So, right click on the layer and choose ‘Covert to Smart Object’. Then click Filter->Blur->Surface Blur. Use this blur to soften the texture and contrast some. Then add a bit of simple noise back in by clicking Filter->Noise->Add Noise. The settings I used are shown below as a reference.

Step 9

Let’s add some of this same texture to the text to help with realism and consistency. Duplicate the ice background layer and place it at the top of the layers palette. Add a layer mask to this layer just like you did before. Fill the layer mask with all black. Then select the shape of the ice text by ‘cmd + click’ on the thumbnail in the layers palette as circled below. Fill the shape that you just selected on the layer mask with white. This will reveal the texture only on the ice text. Now, change the layer mode to Overlay and the opacity to about 85%. Lastly, you can unlink the mask and the layer to move the texture independent of the mask. This give you great flexibility to change the texture on the text to something you find visually striking.

Step 10

In the next two steps I want to work on the coloring. Add a new layer to the top of your layers palette. Then grab the gradient tool and make a colorful gradient that begins and ends with the same color and goes to two other colors toward the middle. This gives our illustration a nice smooth base color to work from. Drag out a linear gradient horizontally across your canvas. Change the blend mode for this layer to overlay.

Step 11

Create a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer by clicking on the icon at the bottom of the layers palette (referenced below). Adjust the sliders until you have a nice cool colored gradient.

Step 12

Since our subject is ice and we have some cool lighting effects going on we definitely need to add a nice reflection. This can be a tad tricky with 3D objects, as the extra dimension can play tricks on your eyes. Because the refection on the ice is really only 2D I found the best and simplest way to add that is to create a new flat text layer that mimics the size and perspective of the 3D text. Make a new text layer and retype ‘ice’ or whatever the word you choose to use was in the same font. Then click ‘cmd + t’ to bring up the free transform tool. Click and drag downward from the top middle anchor to reflect the text. Next rotate it by hovering over a corner point to get the rotate cursor. Then adjust the corners while holding down ‘cmd’ to skew the text. Get it to the point that it fits pretty well over the 3D text, like the image below, bear in mind that it doesn’t need to be perfect.

Step 13

Now drag the refection into place and move the reflection layer below the 3D text layer. Change the blend mode to overlay and the opacity to 45%. Rasterize the layer by right clicking and choosing ‘Rasterize Layer. Then click Filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur and blur the shadow a bit. Lastly, add a layer mask and fade it out toward the bottom of the reflection.

Step 14

We’re almost done here, but a lot of times it’s the finishing touches that can take a design from good to great. I went on the look out for some cool brushes and found this awesome set. Go ahead and download them or something similar. Add a new layer and use the same masking technique that you used in step 9, so that the brush you use will only show on the 3D text. Then grab a star brush, use white for your color and dab on some interesting texture. Change your blend mode to overlay and drop your opacity to about half.

Step 15

Lastly add a couple more layers and utilize a couple of the star brushes to make some sparkle highlights. Be careful not to overdo this step. It’s also a good idea to put each one on a different layer, so that you can experiment with where the sparkle looks best and vary the brightness by lowering the opacity a bit.

Final Thoughts

There are so many creative directions you can take these techniques. The main thing I wanted to get across was the simplicity of 3D text in Illustrator and the power of combining Illustrator and Photoshop.

What do you think of this effect? If you come up with a cool variation, please showcase it at MyInkBlog Flickr group.

You read the advice on virtually every design blog populating the cyberspace landscape, and if you haven’t, you don’t read enough design blogs. Kidding, but seriously, people say it all the time, ‘If you want to be taken seriously as a designer, you cannot use the Bevel or Drop Shadow tools in Photoshop’. What most of these advice givers really mean to say, is that you should not use the default settings for these tools. Here I am going to show you a side-by-side comparison of the default settings and some custom settings after taking you through the tutorials to achieve the desired effects.

I will start each section with some basic definitions taken from the Photoshop help files, to provide you with a better understanding of exactly what each setting does when you manipulate it. From there I will move on using an image to walk you through how to tweak the default settings to get a more natural and subtle effect for your images.

Bevel

Styles

• Inner Bevel creates a bevel on the inside edges of the layer contents;
• Outer Bevel creates a bevel on the outside edges of the layer contents;
• Emboss simulates the effect of embossing the layer contents against the underlying layers;
• Pillow Emboss simulates the effect of stamping the edges of the layer contents into the underlying layers

Techniques

• Smooth blurs the edges of a matte slightly and is useful for all types of mattes, whether their edges are soft or hard. It does not preserve detailed features at larger sizes.
• Chisel Hard uses a distance measurement technique and is primarily useful on hard-edged mattes from anti-aliased shapes such as type. It preserves detailed features better than the Smooth technique.
• Chisel Soft uses a modified distance measurement technique and, although not as accurate as Chisel Hard, is more useful on a larger range of mattes. It preserves features better than the Smooth technique.
• Depth specifies the depth of the bevel. The higher the level, the deeper and more pronounced the bevel will be.
• Size specifies the amount of blur or the size of the shadow.
• Soften blurs the results of shading to reduce unwanted artifacts.
• Angle determines the lighting angle at which the effect is applied to the layer
• Altitude sets the height of the light source. A setting of 0 is equivalent to ground level, 90 is directly above the layer.
• The Use Global Light setting allows you to set one “master” lighting angle that is then available in all the layer effects that use shading: Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow, and Bevel and Emboss. In any of these effects, if Use Global Light is selected and you set a lighting angle, that angle becomes the global lighting angle. Any other effect that has Use Global Light selected automatically inherits the same angle setting. If Use Global Light is deselected, the lighting angle you set is “local” and applies only to that effect. You can also set the global lighting angle by choosing Layer Style > Global Light.
• Highlight Mode is where you set the Blend Mode, color and opacity for the bevel highlights.
• Shadow Mode is where you set the Blend Mode, color and opacity for the bevel shadows.

Inner Bevel Example

For the first example, I am going to go over use of the Inner Bevel tool. This will add a 3D, button type effect to an object.

Here you can take a look at the default settings followed by the image they are applied to. Notice how amateurish and unnatural this image looks. Point at the mediocre image and berate it with scornful laughter…sorry, I lost track of where I was going with that. Oh yes, the default settings making the image look poorly put together.

The first thing I am going to do is change the shadow color from the default black, and the highlight color from the default white, to shades that better match the object. Then I will bring the shadow opacity down to 40 to make it a bit less harsh. In the image below, you can already see a big improvement. But we are not quite there yet.

Next, adjust the depth, size and soften settings until you have the natural look you want. Finally, you will want to make sure that you adjust the shading angle to match the light source in your image.

You can see the settings I decided on below, followed by the final image. Always remember that you will want to adjust all settings specifically for the image you are working with.

Now let us take a look at the images side-by-side. You can see a huge difference just from the few adjustments we made. There is no arguing that the final image looks much better.

Drop Shadow

• Blend Mode determines how the layer style blends with the underlying layers. You can get detailed information about the different blend modes in An Explanation of Photoshop Blend Modes
• Opacity sets the opacity / transparency of the layer effect.
• Angle determines the lighting angle at which the effect is applied to the layer.
• Distance specifies the offset distance for the shadow.
• Spread expands the boundaries of the matte prior to blurring.
• Size specifies the amount of blur or the size of the shadow.
• Anti-alias blends the edge pixels of a contour or gloss contour. This option is most useful on shadows with a small size and complicated contour.
• Layer Knocks Out Drop Shadow controls the drop shadow’s visibility in a semitransparent layer.

Drop Shadow Example

Once again, we begin with a peek at the default settings along with their result on the default image.

This time when we change the shadow color, it will be dependent on the color of the background rather than the color of the object we are working with. Since our background is white, the black shadow is way too much. Instead we want to make it a nice soft gray.

Next adjust the distance, spread and size until you get the subtle shadow that matches what your light source would cast. Then adjust the opacity until it looks natural and adjust the angle to make sure it matches the direction of your light source.

You can see the settings I decided on below along with the final image. Once again, remember that all settings will vary depending on the image you are working with.

And once again, the side-by-side to show you the drastic difference just a bit of tweaking can achieve.

Wrap Up

You can see in the two comparison images above how much of a difference a day makes, wait, that’s not right… how much of a difference is made with just a little bit of extra work. The conclusion I have come to after all of this, is I would change that pearl of advice that is often uttered to simply say, never use the default settings for effects in Photoshop. They all need to be customized to better fit and blend with your image.

The definitions used here are from the Photoshop help files, with a few bits of added explanation where I saw fit to add them.

The Blend Modes specified in the options bar control how pixels in two separate layers interact with and effect each other. It’s helpful to think in terms of the following colors when visualizing a blending mode’s effect:

• The base color is the original color in the bottom layer.
• The blend color is the color being applied by the upper layer.
• The result color is the color resulting from the blend.

I decided to use two different examples for this demonstration. The first gives you an example of a simple photo with a complex and colorful texture while the second gives you a complex photo with a simple texture. This should give you a better visual of exactly what each mode does.

Remember that to get better results you can also adjust the opacity of the upper layer.

Download Texture | Download Image

Download Texture | Download Image

Basic Modes

Normal

Normal edits or paints each pixel to make it the result color. Basically, we aren’t getting any kind of effect here since both of our images are fully opaque. We’re just seeing the image on the upper layer. This is the default mode for every new layer.

Dissolve

Dissolve edits or paints each pixel to make it the result color. However, the result color is a random replacement of the pixels with the base color or the blend color, depending on the opacity at any pixel location. Dissolve only effects images with semi-transparent pixels, if the entire layer is opaque (as our images are) it will have no effect. This isn’t an option I ever use and figure most other designers are the same.

Darken Modes

Each of these blend modes gives the effect of darkening the image. You’ll notice that the darken modes tend to work better for the simple photo / complex texture combination.

Darken

Darken looks at the color information in each channel and selects the base or blend color – whichever is darker – as the result color. Pixels lighter than the blend color are replaced, and pixels darker than the blend color do not change.

Multiply

Multiply looks at the color information in each channel and multiplies the base color by the blend color. The result color is always a darker color. Multiplying any color with black produces black. Multiplying any color with white leaves the color unchanged.

Color Burn

Color Burn looks at the color information in each channel and darkens the base color to reflect the blend color by increasing the contrast. Blending with white produces no change.

Linear Burn

Linear Burn looks at the color information in each channel and darkens the base color to reflect the blend color by decreasing the brightness. Blending with white produces no change.

Lighten Modes

Each of these blend modes gives the effect of lightening the image. You’ll notice that the lighten modes tend to work better for the complex photo / simple texture combination.

Lighten

Lighten looks at the color information in each channel and selects the base or blend color – whichever is lighter – as the result color. Pixels darker than the blend color are replaced, and pixels lighter than the blend color do not change.

Screen

Screen looks at each channel’s color information and multiplies the inverse of the blend and base colors. The result color is always a lighter color. Screening with black leaves the color unchanged. Screening with white produces white. The effect is similar to projecting multiple photographic slides on top of each other.

Color Dodge

Color Dodge looks at the color information in each channel and brightens the base color to reflect the blend color by decreasing the contrast. Blending with black produces no change.

Linear Dodge (Add)

Linear Dodge (Add) looks at the color information in each channel and brightens the base color to reflect the blend color by increasing the brightness. Blending with black produces no change.

Contrast Modes

Each of these blend modes both darken and lighten aspects of the image, boosting the contrast.

Overlay

Overlay multiplies or screens the colors, depending on the base color. Patterns or colors overlay the existing pixels while preserving the highlights and shadows of the base color. The base color is not replaced, but mixed with the blend color to reflect the lightness or darkness of the original color.

Soft Light

Soft Light darkens or lightens the colors, depending on the blend color. The effect is similar to shining a diffused spotlight on the image. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened as if it were dodged. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened as if it were burned in. Pure black or white produces a distinctly darker or lighter area, but does not result in pure black or white.

Hard Light

Hard Light multiplies or screens the colors, depending on the blend color. The effect is similar to shining a harsh spotlight on the image. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened, as if it were screened. This is useful for adding highlights to an image. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened, as if it were multiplied. This is useful for adding shadows to an image. Pure black or white results in pure black or white.

Vivid Light

Vivid Light burns or dodges the colors by increasing or decreasing the contrast, depending on the blend color. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened by decreasing the contrast. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened by increasing the contrast.

Linear Light

Linear Light burns or dodges the colors by decreasing or increasing the brightness, depending on the blend color. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened by increasing the brightness. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened by decreasing the brightness.

Pin Light

Pin Light replaces the colors, depending on the blend color. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, pixels darker than the blend color are replaced, and pixels lighter than the blend color do not change. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, pixels lighter than the blend color are replaced, and pixels darker than the blend color do not change. This is useful for adding special effects to an image.

Hard Mix

Hard Mix adds the red, green and blue channel values of the blend color to the RGB values of the base color. If the resulting sum for a channel is 255 or greater, it receives a value of 255; if less than 255, a value of 0. Therefore, all blended pixels have red, green, and blue channel values of either 0 or 255. This changes all pixels to primary colors: red, green, blue, cyan, yellow, magenta, white, or black.

Comparative Modes

Each of these blend modes compare the two layers looking for areas that are identical in both.

Difference

Difference looks at the color information in each channel and subtracts either the blend color from the base color or the base color from the blend color, depending on which has the greater brightness value. Blending with white inverts the base color values; blending with black produces no change.

Exclusion

Exclusion creates an effect similar to but lower in contrast than the Difference mode. Blending with white inverts the base color values. Blending with black produces no change.

Composite Modes

Each of these blend modes will effect either the color or luminosity of the image

Hue

Hue creates a result color with the luminance and saturation of the base color and the hue of the blend color.

Saturation

Saturation creates a result color with the luminance and hue of the base color and the saturation of the blend color.

Color

Color creates a result color with the luminance of the base color and the hue and saturation of the blend color. This preserves the gray levels in the image and is useful for coloring monochrome images and for tinting color images.

Luminosity

Luminosity creates a result color with the hue and saturation of the base color and the luminance of the blend color. This mode creates the inverse effect of Color mode.

A lot of people don’t realize how easy it is to create your own photoshop brushes. If you find yourself drawing the same elements over and over you can save a lot of time by creating a brush of that particular element. A good example of this is creating grunge elements to dirty up a design.

So for the sake of this tutorial, I’ll be walking you through creating a grunge Photoshop brush.

The Basics

When creating Photoshop brushes there are a couple of limitations you should be aware of.

First, you’re basically working in levels of transparency using greyscale colors. Black is solid, white is 100% transparent and shades of gray represent different levels of transparency. The closer to black the more opaque it is.

Second, brushes have a max size of 2500×2500 so make sure you work within those size limitations. I usually try to create my brushes as close to 2500×2500 as possible since brushes tend to size down better than they size up.

Now that you know the basics, let’s start making our brush!

Step 1. Choose and Prepare the Image

We want to start with a really good grunge image. For this tutorial we’ll be using this Wood Texture from Texture Lovers.

Open the image in Photoshop & crop it down to a square. Since the image is 1300×1942, select the crop tool and set both the width and height to 1300px. While you don’t have to work in a square, I find that it creates more consistent brushes.

Select a nice and grungy portion of the image then click the checkmark to commit the current crop operation.

Step 2. Make the Image Greyscale

Since we’re essentially working in greyscale anyway, even though the image is colored, let’s go ahead and make it greyscale so we can better see exactly what is happening.

Click on ‘Create New Fill’ or ‘Adjustment Layer’ and select Black and White.

This will bring up an option box where you can play with different settings if you like. However it’s not necessary since we’ll be adjusting the levels in the next step.

Step 3. Adjust the Levels for Better Darks and Lights

Now we have our black and white image but it’s not quite as rich in shades as we need it to be. We want to try to get a full range of shades to give the brush as much depth as possible.

Click on ‘Create New Fill’ or ‘Adjustment Layer’ again and this time select Levels

Now we get another option box where we will adjust the settings. Use the left slider to adjust the darks and the right slider to adjust the lights. Use the middle slider to make subtle adjustments either way.

You can see in the image below which settings I decided on. Feel free to adjust it to your own preferences. You’ll most likely want to leave the output levels as they are.

In the image below you can see how much of a difference adjusting the levels made.

Step 4. Shape the Brush

While what we have now would make a good brush, there isn’t much use for a perfectly square grunge brush. Those hard edges have to go.

First let’s give the brush it’s general shape. Select the Lasso Tool and use it to cut out any abstract shape from the image.

I’ve made the texture transparent in the image below so that you can see the shape I cut out.

The middle is what we now have selected, but we want to delete the edges instead. So go to Select and choose Inverse. This will reverse our selection so that the edges are now selected instead of the middle. press delete to get rid of the edges then press Ctrl+d to get rid of the selection.

In the image below you can see what we’re left with.

Now we need to grungy up those edges. So select the Eraser Tool and choose any non-solid brush you like. I chose Texture 3 from Assorted Brushes.

Now just start dabbing around the edge getting rid of those hard edges. You’ll probably want to vary the brush size a bit as you go around and may even want to change brushes. Note that you don’t have to be perfect here, we’re still going to do more shaping in a minute.

You can see my outcome in the image below. I also did a bit of deleting in the center area of the brush just for some variation.

To finish shaping the brush and make it exactly the way you want it, select the clone tool and either keep the same brush you’ve been using or choose a different non-solid brush.

Use the clone tool to make the edges a bit grungier and fill in the overall shape a bit more. Make sure you leave plenty of white space around the edges as well as having some white space within the brush. Below you can see my final image.

Step 5. Create a Brush from the Image

Now that we have our brush exactly the way we want it, it’s time to actually save it as a Photoshop brush. Go to Edit and select Define Brush Preset.

A box will pop up asking you to name the brush. Give it a name and click OK.

Congratulations, you’ve just made your first photoshop brush. It’s immediately available to use in your brush inventory. But do not stop here, you still need to save a copy of your brush so you don’t lose it later.

Step 6. Saving the Brush

As I said above, all new brushes automatically appear in your brush inventory. However, you still need to save a copy of it in an .abr file since loading new brush sets can get rid of your current inventory.

To do this select the brush tool and open the Brush Preset picker.

Click on the little arrow in the top right corner of the box and select Preset Manager.

The Preset Manager will show you all of the brushes you currently have loaded, including any new brushes you’ve just created. You can save individual or multiple brushes in a single .abr file.

Select the brushes you want to save (use Ctrl to select multiple brushes – selected brushes will be outlined in bold) and click Save Set.

Name your brush set and you’re finished!

Conclusion

You can use this process on any image to create a brush of that image. Just make sure you’re using royalty free images to start with to avoid copyright issues.