PHOTOSHOP: Realistic Crack

1. Adding the crack (highlight)















In this Photoshop tutorial we're going to use the following image:

You can save this image in Windows on your hard drive by right clicking on it and selecting Save Picture As...
(I don't own a Mac, so I don't know what the procedure is on a Mac).
Select the Pencil tool in the tool bar and choose a master diameter of 1 px by opening the Brush Preset picker window in the option bar:




Create a new layer by clicking on the Create a new layer icon at the bottom of your layers palette and rename it to White crack by double clicking on its name in the layers palette.

Press the letter D on your keyboard to make the fore- and background color black and white.
Press the letter X on your keyboard to switch the fore- and background color; the foreground color is now white:





We're now going to draw the crack.
While holding down the left mouse key start in the top/left corner and draw a crack over a distance that's about 1/5 of the final size of the crack. Once you've reached that point, release the mouse button but don't(!) move the mouse, press the right bracket key ] on your keyboard once, to increase the master diameter of the pencil with 1 pixel and continue where you left off. Stop at 2/5 of the total length of the crack, release the mouse key again, press the right bracket key ] to increase the diameter another 1 pixel and continue drawing the crack.
At 3/5 of the distance you continue by using the bracket key [ instead to decrease the diameter to 2 pixels and you repeat this again at 4/5 so that you draw the last part of the crack with a diameter of 1 pixel.

The result could be something like this:















Make sure that you draw a random line with some sharp corners, a few bends and some straight parts.

At this point the beginning and ending of the crack stops too abrupt. We're going to fix that by using a mask.

Add a mask to this layer by clicking on the Add layer mask icon at the bottom of the layers palette.

At that moment the mask is the active area (notice the double border and the mask icon in front of the layer (A)), so any further edits will take place on this mask only:











Grab the brush tool in the tool bar and select a soft brush with a diameter of 40 in the option bar:




Set the opacity of this brush in the option bar to 25%:




Make sure that your foreground color is black:

Now paint with black over the edges of the crack to make them fade (more transparent).

Use the following before & after rollover image as a guideline:


Continue by changing the blending mode to overlay in the layers palette and select an opacity of 75% (see screenshot on next page) .

2. Adding the crack (shadow)

Click on the layer's thumbnail (the one with the checker board pattern) and while holding down the left mouse button drag and drop this layer on the Create a new layer icon at the bottom of your layers palette and rename this new layer to Black crack by double clicking on its name in the layers palette:






















Press Ctrl + i (Command + i on the Mac) to invert the crack; it will now be black.
Important: the crack won't look black when you look at it in your document window, since the layer's blending mode is still set to overlay and the opacity is still 75%, since both were copied when we duplicated the White crack layer.

Change the blending mode of the Black crack layer in the layers palette to Color Burn, set the Opacity back to 100% and select a Fill of 85%:






















With this layer selected, grab the Move tool in your tool bar and press the cursor right key on your keyboard only once, then press the cursor up key also only once.

At this point you should have something like this:















Notice that by using this method we're blending the shadow with the actual texture of the wall, which results in fine visible details inside the crack which makes it all look slightly more realistic.

We're now going to do a little trick to get rid of both identical layer masks, to end up with only one.

First click on the Create a new set icon to create a new layer set (in Photoshop CS2 called a layer group).
Now click on the mask that's attached to the Black crack layer, hold down the left mouse key, move your mouse cursor until it's on top of the Add layer mask icon and release your mouse button:






















This will copy the layer mask that was attached to the Black crack layer to the layer set, since the layer set was the active layer at that time.

In Photoshop CS2 we can duplicate a mask by holding down the Alt key (Option key on the Mac), click on the mask and drag and drop it onto the target layer:

Next we're going to remove the masks of the Black crack and White crack layer by dragging (A) each mask to the Delete layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette. When asked "Apply mask to layer before removing?" simply click on the discard button:






















After removing the masks, continue by dragging the Black crack layer (B) to the layer set.
Do the same for the White crack layer (C).
Note: don't drag the White crack layer first and after that the Black crack layer because then you end with the White crack layer as the first layer in our set, which is of course not what we want.

Continue by double clicking on the Set's name and rename it to Crack:














I'm showing you all this to understand some of the advantages of layer sets/groups. At this point we can easily drag the crack around without having to worry about linking them. We can also easily drag the crack to a different document if we prefer to do so, because it's now just a matter of dragging the set/group instead of the individual layers. We can now also easily hide the crack by simply clicking on the eye icon in front of the layer. Of course if we have multiple cracks it's going to be a lot easier to keep the layers palette less cluttered when they're all in one set/group.

The other advantage, especially for this tutorial, is that we now have a single mask, which allows us to make a single change that will affect both the black and the white crack, which is important if we want to make the beginning or ending part of the crack fade away.

So go ahead, if you want to make some final adjustments to the mask, do that right now.

In the end we should have something like this:















Final words

Remember that this is just one way to create a crack. What all cracks have in common is a shadow and highlight area and a crack that doesn't have the same diameter over its full length. This tutorial has shown you one method as how both can be achieved in Photoshop.

Feel free to use layer sets/groups when ever you feel like it. I use them quite often when needed, because they allow me to make global changes, they allow me to easily move a group of layers and allow me to have a single mask.

When I make more complicated pieces I tend to assign objects to these layer sets/group and this tutorial the object is Crack. Especially when you have a lot of layers you'll keep your layers palette very organized using this approach.

I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial.

from: http://www.lunacore.com/

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PHOTOSHOP: Cross Processing

Cross processing means that you deliberately process photographic film in a wrong chemical solution. The effect of this is that photos have unnatural colours and high contrast. I will show you how to achieve this effect in Photoshop by using curves. Below you can see an example: the left is original and the right one has been cross processed.
























You can download the files from the table below, including the curves file which we will create in this tutorial. If you are too lazy to adjust the curves manually you can also just download the avc file, then you can start applying the effect immideately.

Filename	Size	Download
Before	354 KB
After	427 KB
Crosprocessing	1 KB

Step 1
Open the original file in Photoshop. Create a new Curves Adjustment Layer.






















































































Cross Processing Step 2
Add a Brightness/Contrast Layer




























Step 3 Add a Solid Color Layer


















And use a yellow colour like #fcff00. Set the layer style to multiply and opacity to 20%.

I advise you to save the Curves Adjustments Layer, that way you can easily apply the effect to other photos with minimal effort.























Finish

from: http://www.koops-projects.com

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PHOTOSHOP: Using Displacement Maps

Use The Displace Filter & Displacement Maps To Make A Realistic Flag
Adapted from "Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 Maximum Performance" by Mark Galer


Liquid pixels - wrapping pixels over undulating silk
The layer blend modes are an effective way of merging or blending a pattern or graphic with a three-dimensional form. By using the blend modes the flag in this project can be modified to respect the color and tonality of the undulating silk beneath it.


The highlights and shadows that give the silk its shape can however be further utilized to wrap or bend the flag so that it obeys the material’s shape and sense of volume. This can be achieved by using the Displace filter in conjunction with a ‘displacement map’. The ‘map’ defines the contours to which the flag must conform. The final effect can be likened to ‘shrink-wrapping’ the flag to the 3-D form of the undulating silk.


How it works: The brightness level of each pixel in the map directs the filter to shift the corresponding pixel of the selected layer in a horizontal or vertical plane. The principle on which this technique works is that of ‘mountains and valleys’. Dark pixels in the map shift the graphic pixels down into the shaded valleys of the 3-D form whilst the light pixels of the map raise the graphic pixels onto the illuminated peaks of the 3-D form.


STEP 1
A silk dressing gown was photographed using the available light. For this image to act as an effective displacement map the contrast must however be expanded. An effective way of expanding contrast in Photoshop Elements is to duplicate the layer and set the top layer to ‘Overlay’ blend mode. Note the changes to the histogram by viewing the histogram in the Histogram palette.


STEP 2
Go to the Image menu and from the Mode submenu select ‘Grayscale’. Choose the option ‘Flatten’ when the Warning dialog box appears.

Note > The displacement map must be in Grayscale otherwise the color channels will upset the appropriate displacement effect.


STEP 3
To further improve the effectiveness of the displacement map we must blur the image slightly. This effect of blurring the map will smooth out the lines of the flag as it wraps around the contours of the silk. Too much blur and the undulations will be lost, too little and the lines of the flag will appear jagged as it is upset by any minor differences in tone. Go to ‘Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur’ and start by selecting a Radius of around 10 pixels. Increase or decrease this radius when working with images of a different resolution.


STEP 4
Save the image (displacement map) as a Photoshop (PSD) file. Close the blurred Grayscale file as the map is now complete. You will need to choose this file when the Displacement filter asks for the location of your map, so make a note of where it has been saved to on your computer.


STEP 5
Open or select the RGB silk file that has not been blurred. Also open the flag image. With the flag image as the active window, choose ‘All’ from the Select menu and then choose ‘Copy’ from the File menu. Now make the silk image the active window and choose ‘Paste’ from the File menu. Alternatively you can just drag the thumbnail of the flag image in the Layers palette into the image window of the silk image if you can see both image windows on your desktop.


Set the blend mode of the flag layer to ‘Multiply’. If you are intending to displace a graphic or a texture it is worth ensuring that you have some elbow room (when we displace the flag it will come away from, and reveal, the edges of the background layer if they are the same size). Use the Free Transform command to enlarge the flag layer so that it is a little larger than the background layer.




STEP 6
Go to ‘Filter > Distort > Displace’. Enter in the amount of displacement in the Horizontal and Vertical fields of the Displace dialog box. The size of the displacement is dependent on the resolution of the image you are working on. Choose amounts of 40 for both fields for the Flag.jpg used in this project. Increasing the amount greater than 60 for either the Horizontal or Vertical scale will increase the amount of distortion in this project image, but will also start to break off islands of color from the design of the flag indicating that the limit of the effect has been exceeded. Choose the displacement map you created earlier to complete this step. Your flag should now miraculously conform to the contours of the silk. If you are not entirely happy with the results go to the Edit menu and choose ’Undo’. Repeat the process choosing smaller or greater amounts in the Displace dialog box.

Note > It helps if the graphic or pattern image file you are displacing is slightly larger than the image file you created the map for. This will ensure that no gaps appear between the distorted graphic and the edge of the image window.



STEP 7
Add an adjustment layer and drag the Highlight slider to the start of the histogram to extend the dynamic range and make the highlights and midtones appear brighter. Your dramatic and colorful background is now complete.

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PHOTOSHOP: GRADIENT FIRE BLAST

By Mark Dunkley
Why follow the tutorial? To make a easy and amazing blast effect.

Step 1:

Create a new document any size you like. I am going to use 800x600. Ensure you have black as your foreground and white as your background (Press D to make sure it is). Now from your tools window you want to select the Gradient Tool. Right click on the Paint Bucket Tool to bring up the menu if the Gradient Tool is not there.

Now that you have the Gradient Tool selected, you need to edit it's options. The options are just above the tool window and below the File-Edit-Image etc tool bar. Select Reflected Gradient and set mode to Difference.


Go to your blank document and hold you left mouse button down. Now drag it over to either the left or right. A neat little gradient should have appeared.


Step 2:
Repeat step 1 about 25-40 times, until you have something like I have below. Try to keep you lines relatively vertical (try and angle some).


Step 3:
Select your layer with the blast in it and make 4 duplicates. To duplicate your layer, right click on the layer and select Duplicate Layer. Or just press Crtl-J when you have the blast layer selected.

Do the following:

To the 4th duplicated layer (highest one): Set blending mode to overlay.

To the 3rd duplicated layer: Go to Edit->Transform->Flip Vertical (The Edit menu is highlighted in the step 3 example image) and then Edit->Transform->Flip Horizontal. Set blend mode to Linear Dodge and opacity to 50% this can be edited later if needed.

To the 2nd duplicated layer: Edit->Transform->Flip Horizontal and set blend mode to Overlay.

To the 1st duplicated layer: Go Filer->Stylize->Find Edges.


Step 4:
Now we are going to change the colour of each layer. To do this select any layer and then hold down Crtl-U (or Image->Adjustments->Hue/Saturation). Make sure you checked the Colourized box. Now experiment with sliders to change the colour. Do this to every layer (including original).


Step 5:
Grab your smudge tool from your tools window (right click on the blur icon if needed). Set your brush size to about 20px. Now go through each layer and smudge the edges of the blast. To apply a smudge click and hold the left mouse button. You will notice that it will have little effect on the overlayed layers but that one layer with a linear dodge will be easier to smudge (consider raising the opacity of this layer if needed).

To finish this blast off I added a new layer. Set the blend mode to overlay and used a regular paint brush and streaked colours of orange and red down the blast.

I also added a 200px spray paint blob with the brush tool to add to the bottom of the blast.



DONE!

If your blast didn't turn out quite like mine, try duplicating different layers and playing around with blend modes. You can get really creative with this blast so keep experimenting!

Here is what I came up with:

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Creating "Hollow" Envelopes

Using custom Envelopes to mimic a brush stroke

Ever since FreeHand's competition featured custom Brushes, FreeHand users were feeling a bit left out. Well with this tip, not only will you be able to create brush type effects like shown above at right, you'll also be learning how to create a very unique Envelope that you can use for other effects.

I'm not even sure what to call this kind of envelope (Hollow?), but what it will be doing is warping the art to look like it's going "around" the shape instead of being warped inside. The process can be time consuming and sometimes confusing, but the results are amazing. Special thanks to Ranko Tomic for helping me out with this. Based on original envelopes sent to me by Jose Israel Rivas.

Note: You can now create Brushes in FreeHand 10. You may download the file at the end of this tip to use the objects as Graphic Symbols, then apply them as a Brush in FreeHand 10











1) We're going to start off with a fairly simple shape to just show you the concept. Basically a starting point for you to take and make your very own envelopes later.

Draw a Pentagon shape like shown above using the Polygon tool. Give the stroke about a 20 pt. width and apply a lightly tinted color to it.

This represents the thickness of the final envelope. If you want to try something thicker or thinner, adjust the stroke width.















2) While the shape is selected, go under the Modify menu -> Alter Path -> Expand Stroke, or hit the toolbar button.

Enter in the width of the stroke if it's not already there, here we use 20.












3) Now either Lock this shape or put it on a separate layer under the Foreground layer and lock that layer. This will be used as a guide for the Hollow Envelope we are about to create.












4) Next, draw a rectangle about as tall as the shape and Ungroup it.

Now we'll be adding some extra points to this rectangle to use later, but first we need to find out how many points to add.












5) If we go back to the pentagon shape and select the paths, we can see that it contains 10 points total. So we take take that value and add 2 more points for a total of 12 points. This is the amount of points we want to have in the rectangle to work with.

















6) Use either the Bezigon or Pen tools to add the points to the longest sides of the rectangle until you see in the Object Inspector, that it has 12 points.

It is very important to add the same number of points to either side of the rectangle like shown above.












7) Next draw any shape about as tall as the rectangle. Above I just drew a thin Ellipse. This is what we'll be applying the envelope to temporarily.

To get you through the next steps, it may be helpful to give this ellipse a Lens fill so that it's semitransparent.

Now select the rectangle we created, and Cut or Copy it into the clipboard.

















8) Select the Ellipse and in the Envelope Toolbar, hit the Paste as Envelope button to apply the new envelope.

Now we're ready to get started, but first I'm going to try to explain the next steps, and I hope it's not too confusing for you.













What you'll be doing is moving the points of the Envelope to correspond with the points of the pentagon shape.

The points highlighted in Green will be snapped to the outside points of the pentagon, while the ones highlighted in Orange will be snapped to the inside.

Got it? I certainly hope so... heh heh.



9) First turn on Snap to Points under the View menu if it isn't already.

Start with the top two points of the Envelope and snap them to their corresponding points on the polygon. You can pick any points to start from on the polygon. Look at the animation above to see it in action.





10) Now continue the process with the remaining points. Making sure that the inside points of the envelope snap to the inside points of the polygon shape and the outside points of the envelope snap to the outside of the polygon.

Watch the animation above to see me finish off my envelope. Yes it can get pretty confusing at first, but it definitely helps if you've used a Lens filled shape so you can see the underlying polygon points.

When you get to the bottom points of the envelope, just snap them to the original top points where you started.

When you are finished, it's safe to hide or remove the original polygon.

Special Note

For shapes with curves in them, first place all the envelope points where they should go.
Click on the point first, then press and hold the Option (Alt) key. Then just click-drag curve handles from the envelope points to match the curve underneath like shown in the animation at left.

















To test and see if the Envelope was created correctly, hit the Show Map button on the Envelope Toolbar. You should see that the Envelope is warping around the inside of the polygon shape like shown above.












11) Now it's time to finish and add this to FreeHand as an Envelope preset.

While the envelope is still selected, go under the Xtras menu -> Distort -> Add Points or use the toolbar button shown above.

This adds more points to the Envelope and you'll immediately notice that it warps the shape much more accurately. You can add as many points as you feel necessary for your envelopes.
















12) Once you've added points to the Envelope and are happy with it's appearance, keep it selected and hit the Save as Preset button. Then name it.

Congratulations! You have now created a Hollow Envelope and it's been saved in FreeHand ready to be reused.



















Now apply it to something more interesting. Above I created a neat looking brush stroke that is actually a blend of two shapes.

Once the Envelope is applied, you'll notice that it may be squashed, so just use the Transform Handles to adjust this. Once finished, it definitely has the appearance of a natural brush stroke!

SPECIAL NOTE
Sometimes it may be necessary to add points to the shapes before applying the Envelope to them to get more accurate results. Just select the shape and go under the Xtras menu -> Distort -> Add Points or use the toolbar button.

Now that you have the concept down, go ahead and make other unique "Hollow" Envelopes like shown above. Again, depending on the complexity of the shape you want to make, it could be very time consuming and confusing.

But, once you're finished, just save it as a preset and it will be available to you in any FreeHand document.

Or just download the sample file below, and snatch up these envelopes already made for you.

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Creating the Colors, Layers and Styles

First we are going to setup a document with all the necessary elements for the effect. Make sure your document measurement is set to Points.

















In a new document, create some new layers named Reflections and Bevel. Put them in the order that you see above.















Then you will need to make some new colors in the Color list (or Swatches).

Above are the CMYK mixtures to use for the base colors (Blue, Light Blue, Ground). Then create a 50% Tint of the Blue. Also create 75% and 25%Tints of the Ground color.

Now we will be creating a bunch of new Styles to use for the various objects we'll be creating. Below are the names of the Styles and the colors to use in the Gradient fills, as well as the angle of the fill.

To quickly create new Styles, draw a rectangle (with no stroke) for each fill as described below. Then select the rectangle and in the Style palette pull-down menu, choose New. This will create a new Style based on your selection. Name it and continue with the remaining fill Styles.




Sky to Ground

Gradient fill
Blue -> 25% Ground 270°




Ground to Sky

Gradient fill
25% Ground -> Blue 270°




Ground Grad

Gradient fill
75% Ground -> 25% Ground 270°




Horizon

Gradient fill
Black -> 75% Ground 270°




Sky Grad

Gradient fill
50% Blue -> Light Blue 270°




Sky to White

Gradient fill
Light Blue -> White 270°

There, now we have all the assets for the rest of the tutorial. This may seem like a lot of things to worry about, but believe me, it all comes together later.

Building the object bevels

The next series of steps are pretty lengthy so it may be easier for you to print this tutorial out while you are working on it. Just click in this frame and use the Print command.











1) Click on the Bevel layer to activate it. Then type a large letter to start with. For this tutorial it's best to use a fat sans serif font. I used Futura Bold at 200 points. Throughout this tutorial, you may see me use different letters to show different circumstances you may come across for other letters you use in the future.

Convert this letter to paths, and set the Fill to None and give it a Black Stroke.











2) Now you'll want to delete some extra points that may be in the letter. Some corner areas may have two points like shown above in the zoomed area. Just remove one of the points since it will be easier to create the bevels later.

If the letter is joined as a composite path, you can select points by holding the Option(Alt) key as you click.












3) Next, Clone the whole letter and put the clone on the Reflections layer. Hide the Reflections layer for now.

Select the letter on the Bevel layer and Clone it one more time.

WOW, a lot of clones huh? Well I hope that wasn't too confusing for you. Here's a recap. You should have one clone on the Reflections layer, and two clones on the Bevel layer. Ready to continue? Here we go...













4) Select the top clone elements and bring up the Inset Path dialog by either using the Toolbar icon or going under the Modify menu -> Alter Path.

In this dialog, enter 1 for the Steps and use -7 for the Inset amount. Make sure that the Join option is set at squared. You can modify the Inset amount to make the bevel either thinner or thicker.

When you hit OK, you should see the clone expand like shown above.

If your letter has knockouts like shown above, then Split both clones under the Modify menu.












5) Now Shift-select only the Corner points of the paths like shown above. Ignore any points that appear on the curves.

While the points are selected, Split them under the Modify menu.












6) Next it's time to join all of the bevel parts together. Select the corresponding paths from the inner and outer shapes. Then Join them together. Go into the Object Inspector palette and click the Closed option.

Repeat this for all of the paths in your letter. To check to see if you've joined them all, select all of the paths and give them a temporary fill. This makes it easier to see what you've missed.

Special Note

What you wanted What you got instead Sometimes when joining certain paths, FreeHand will join the closest points together instead of the points that should be joined. To fix this, select one of the points. Then with either the Bezigon or Pen tool, click to the other point you want to join to. If the points don't automatically join, drag-select around the points and Join them together.

When you are finished joining the paths, you should now have a bunch of bevel shapes like shown above.

Now we are ready to starting adding some color to this letter.

Filling the object bevels












The bevels sometimes pose some interesting combinations of the reflections. Bevels that face down, will reflect more of the ground, while bevels facing up, reflect more of the sky. Curvy bevels will sometimes reflect both.

The next part of this tutorial will show what kinds of fills to use when faced with different types of bevels.












Vertical bevels will reflect both the sky and the ground.
Use the Sky to Ground style.












Curves bevels that face outward will also reflect the sky and ground.
Use the Sky to Ground style.












Inner facing curved bevels will reflect the sky and ground in reverse.
Use the Ground to Sky style.












Bevels that face upwards will reflect a lighter sky.
Fill with 50% Blue and no Stroke.












Downward facing bevels reflect a diffused ground.
Use the Ground Grad style.












Downward facing horizontal bevels, reflect only the ground.
Fill with 75% Ground and no Stroke.













Bevels that face upwards, reflect just the sky.
Fill with Blue and no Stroke.

Other curved shapes and serifs
It gets more complicated with really curvy bevels and serifs that may be in your letters. Below are how to handle those.













Draw two Rectangles over the top of the upper curved bevel. The seam of the rectangles should be about where the curve starts to go back upwards like shown above.













Fill the top rectangle with the Sky to Ground style and use Ground to Sky for the bottom rectangle. Lines for clarity only.
Select both rectangles and Cut them. Then select the bevel and Paste Inside.













Repeat those steps very similarly for the lower bevel. Fill the top rectangle with Ground to Sky and the lower with Sky to Ground. Lines for clarity only.

Select both rectangles and Cut them. Then select the bevel and Paste Inside.















Next, set the Strokes of the bevels to None.
You should have two bevels that look like above. That is starting to look great!











Serifs can be pretty confusing, but if you think about what is reflected, it makes sense.

Use a similar technique as before creating rectangles that cover the bevel. Make sure that the seams touch where the curves change direction. Use the fill styles as shown above.













Another daunting bevel type could be like the one shown above where the curves go all over the place.

Using similar techniques as described before, create a new fill wherever the curve starts the change.

At this point, you may be asking yourself, "Why aren't we using the multicolored Gradient fills instead of all these paste insides?"

I thought about that too. This tutorial was originally written before the multicolored gradients were introduced, and I started playing with creating all these gradients instead of using paste insides.

The problem I started to see appear was when there were different letter shape bevels. Since each bevel shape has different needs, I found myself adjusting the placement of the colors in the Gradient palette in order to fit that particular shape. Using the rectangle paste insides gave me more accurate results as far as the placement in those extreme curve areas where the colors may shift. It was much easier to control the rectangle placement rather than adjusting the gradient colors. Not to mention that I would have needed to create a new style for every different gradient I was going to come across... not fun.

But of course, that's my preference. If you would like to experiment with creating multicolor gradients instead of using the rectangle paste insides, go for it. Now let's finish off the chrome effect.

Creating the reflection











1) First hide the Bevel layer and make the Reflection layer visible.

Draw a Rectangle across the top of the letter. If you have more than one letter, make it's width cover all of them.

The placement of the rectangle is completely up to you. This is where the horizon of the reflection will be.













2) Bring up the Knife Tool dialog by double-clicking on the Knife Tool.

Pick the FreeHand setting, with a width of 0. Also make sure that Close cut paths is turned on.











3) Keeping the rectangle selected, make a wavy cut across the entire width of the rectangle like shown above.

You should now have two pieces to create the horizon area.











4) Fill the top piece with the Sky to White style. Use the Horizon style for the bottom piece.












5) Cover the rest of the letter (or letters) with three more rectangles so they touch, but not overlap like shown above.












6) Fill in the rectangles using the Styles and color shown. Lines for clarity only.
Select all the parts and Cut them.
If the letter has knockouts like this one, then select those parts and Join them together.


















Select the letter shape and Paste Inside. Give the letter a 1 point White stroke.
Finally, reveal the Bevel layer and there you have a beautiful Chrome letter.

Well I hope you survived this tutorial. There were many things here that I hope you learned from it. These include using Styles to easily create similar fills as well as how to use Paste Insides to solve certain problems with Gradient fills covering really curvy shapes. Not to mention how to look at objects and understand how they work in real life such as how the chrome reflects things around it.

I know that when I first learned this technique, it helped me keep things organized on layers and naming colors to easily track down colors.

I highly recommend you experimenting with other shapes besides words. There are all kinds of things out there that may pose challenging circumstances. For instance, try to make a chrome object out of an odd symbol in any Dingbat font. Be warned however, that the more letters or objects you will be making into chrome, the longer it will take.

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Creating Perspective Shadows

This tip will be focusing on the Perspective Grid and how you can create Perspective Drop Shadows. It can be a bit awkward at first because you are going to have to get used to how FreeHand scales objects on the perspective Grid, but hopefully this will help you on that road.

It's a good lesson on all things Perspective, including some of which I'll be showing you below.




















In this exercise, I'll be adding a perspective shadow to the two objects above. You can use just about anything for this tutorial, as it is very versatile.

As you can see they sit on a 1 point perspective plane. The shadow will be falling on the floor plane and be cast from a single light source.




















1) It's pretty important to figure out where your light source is going to be as it helps determine how "long" or "short" the shadows will be cast from the objects.

For a 1 point perspective grid such as this, it must be exactly on the vertical plane above the vanishing point like shown above. The higher up it is, the shorter the shadows are and it's the opposite for a lower light source.

If you want a different shadow angle, just move the single convergent point to a new location. Make sure to move that light source with it.















2) Next, if your objects are oddly shaped, draw a square that exactly surrounds the objects. After you've done that, select them then click on the Guides layer to turn them into Guides.

Grid hidden for clarity.

























3) Turn on Snap to Point. Next draw a line from the center of the light source down to and beyond the innermost top corner of each of the Guide boxes.

When I say innermost, I mean use the top corner that is closest to the light source like shown above. Select these lines, and click on the Guide layer. Again these lines will be turned into Guides to be used later.... you'll see.

For now, hide those Guides.
















4) Next create a new layer and name it Shadow. Put this layer below any others like shown above at left.

Second, select and Clone the objects casting the shadow and put it on this new layer. Give this clone a Basic fill containing your shadow color and set your strokes to None or use that shadow color again.



















5) While this clone is still selected, choose the Perspective tool. Click-Hold on the clone and tap the Down Arrow key to project it to the floor plane of the grid like shown above.

Don't worry about the size yet... you'll be enlarging it in a moment.
















6) Now we are going to flip this clone. Click-Hold on the clone again, and tap the Space Bar to flip it vertically like shown above.















7) Now to enlarge the shadow you must use some Perspective Grid modifier keys while holding the mouse down on the object.

First Click-Hold on the shadow and press the 2 key to enlarge it both x and y. To speed up the enlarging process, you can hold the key down and watch it enlarge. This could take a while to happen depending on how large you need the shadow to be.

You can move the shape around while you are doing this to get a better idea of how much more you need to go. Also, letting up on the mouse once in a while will help with placing the shadow like shown above.


















8) Now turn those Guides back on. You'll be using the vertical line guides for determining how far out that shadow will fall on the floor plane.

Since you used the top innermost corner of the square as a guide point, you'll be using the bottom innermost point of the projected shadow bounding area.



















9) Using a similar method as in step 7, instead we'll be using the 7 key to enlarge the shadow in the y direction only.

With the Perspective tool, Click-Hold the shadow and press the 7 key to start enlarging the shadow. When you extend the bottom innermost point of the object to hit the vertical guide (highlighted above), you're finished.


















10) Now repeat steps 4-9 on any other objects you want shadows for. Like I did for the second person shown above.

















When you are all finished, you can select the shadows and go in the View menu and choose Perspective Grid -> Release with Perspective.

After that, you can give the shadows special touches like gradient fills or even use Lens fills if they cast over other things.

Other modifications to this include raising the objects casting the shadows to appear as if they're floating.

You can use this method for creating shadows on 2 or 3 point Perspective Grids as well. I may expand this tutorial at a later time to demonstrate other methods of creating Perspective Shadows when objects are on different perspective planes. It gets a bit confusing, but works very much the same way.

Make sure to visit that link mentioned at the top for more information on the subject of Perspective.

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Creating a 3D Soccer Ball

Using the Mirror and Fisheye lens Xtras
I normally don't write tutorials on how to create very specific objects. This one is an exception to the rule. Why I chose this particular object is what's important here. You'll be using two Xtras in this tutorial, the Mirror and Fisheye Lens Xtras.

Soccer balls are not easy to draw, as the shapes that make them up (Black Pentagons and White Hexagons) have to wrap around the ball in a certain pattern. This kind of pattern would normally be impossible to draw flat. While I won't disagree, I will say that you can get it to work if you only create a little bit of the pattern. You'll see...















1) First, place two intersecting guides at the center of the page then turn on Snap to Guides and Snap to Point.

Double-click on the Polygon tool to bring up the dialog seen above. Enter 5 for the amount then press OK.











2) Holding Option (Alt)+Shift, click and drag out a constrained Pentagon shape from the intersecting Guides like shown above. Make sure the top point is sitting on the vertical guide.












3) Next, create a vertical line starting from the intersecting Guides that expends out of the top of the Pentagon.

The length that comes out of the top of the Pentagon isn't extremely important, but it should look about as long as the very bottom segment of the Pentagon.
















4) Clone this Pentagon and Rotate it 180°. Drag it up so that it's bottom point is just touching the vertical line. Fill in both Pentagons with Black.

Select both the top pentagon and the vertical line, then Group them together.














5) Now we need to setup the Mirror tool. When you double-click on the tool in the Xtras toolbar, you get the above dialog box.

Set the type of reflection to Multiple. Enter 5 for the number of objects and for the final option choose Rotate. Then click OK.



















6) Now with the Mirror tool, move the cursor near the center of the first pentagon. With Snap to Point turned on, you'll see your cursor change when over that vertical line within the Pentagon.

When you see that, click once and you'll get 4 clones at the other 4 points of the Pentagon all in one easy step.



















7) Next fill in the extra lines like shown above highlighted in red. These are just bridges to the other Pentagons.

Select all the objects and Group them together.



















8) On a new Layer, draw a constrained circle by holding the Option (Alt)+Shift keys down while drawing from the intersecting Guides. This circle should NOT be any larger than the pattern you just drew.

Now Lock this new layer just for a moment to protect the circle from the next transformation.













9) Now we want to setup the Fisheye Lens tool. Double-click on the tool to see the above dialog box. You'll want to set the Convex setting all the way to 100. Hit OK.



















10) Before you warp the pattern, move it slightly off center from the circle. Depending on your needs, you can skip this step if you prefer the pattern to be dead on in the center.



















11) With the Fisheye Lens tool, hold Option (Alt)+Shift and click-drag from the center of the circle to the outer edge.

When you get to the outer edge, let go and you'll have a nicely rounded pattern for your soccer ball.


















12) Select the pattern and Cut it to the clipboard. Select the Circle and Paste Inside the pattern. There, almost finished.


















13) Select the circle and apply None to the stroke, then give it a nice Radial fill to add depth to the ball.



















For this last sample, I took the liberty of adding other special touches such as a slight embossed look to the lines for added depth.

Also you may notice a slight radial fill for the pentagon shapes. See if you can try to figure it out on your own. If you're really having problems, you know where to find me... heh heh.


This is not the most precise way to create a soccer ball, as you may notice that the hexagon's sides are not all equal lengths in the final piece like they would be on a real soccer ball..... but we won't tell the mathematicians.


















The reason is only because the pattern on a real soccer ball is created to fit on a 3D shape. If the real soccer ball pattern was laid out flat, it would look very similar to above.

Those gaps between the shapes are to help compensate for the roundness of the object being covered, in this case a ball. A pattern like that would not work well for the above tutorial, as you can't make those gaps go away, so we faked it.

I hope that this tutorial helped you get some better understanding of other uses for the Mirror and Fisheye Lens Xtras. They aren't just for creating soccer balls, you can warp text to look like it's laying on a ball surface too. Just have fun with it.

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Exporting GIFs

Creating background and anti-aliased transparent GIFs

Ever wonder how to get the best out of FreeHand's GIF export? How to create tileable background GIFs or even transparent, anti-aliased GIFs? Well these series of tips will certainly help with the mysteries.

I first have to express my gratitude to Ken Kehl and David Gangwisch (FreeHand's SQA Engineer) for helping me understand how FreeHand exports GIF files with transparencies. I can tell you this, the manual sure didn't help much and if you were as confused as me, you'll want to thank those guys too.










Above is some art I'm going to be exporting in this series of tips. The logo is all vector art in FreeHand as well as that background shape. The background pattern is actually a Tile filled rectangle consisting of a bunch of lines.

This is basically a comping piece to show what the logo would look like on the background. Once the client is happy, we can now make this art ready for the web.

The main purpose of this exercise is to export both pieces as separate GIFs. The logo will be made transparent and will be anti-aliased to the yellow color that falls behind it.

Tileable Background GIFs








This is the part that I used to create that Tile fill. It's a simple rectangle containing a blend of two yellow lines. If you've created such a fill, then all you need is the starting piece like shown above.

While this piece is selected, go to the File menu and Export.
















Select the GIF format and turn on the option Selected objects only (only if you have other objects in your document).

Next click the Options button to see more options available. Choose 72 dpi, anti-aliasing at 2-3 and turn off the Include alpha channel options.

In the More options area I chose these (they may be different for your art):

• Interlaced turned on
• Dither: None
• Palette: WebSnap Adaptive 16
• Optimized Palette turned on

The results are what you see above. The table cell is set to have this background pattern in it so it repeats seamlessly.

The tag will look something like this:


So that's how you create background tileable GIFs. Easy enough eh? Now on to the really fun stuff.

Transparent Anti-Aliased GIFs








background. The reason we need to make it transparent, is so you don't have to be exact when placing it on your HTML document.

First I'll show you what happens with just a regular GIF export with no anti-aliasing. Then I'll show how to fix that so it looks great!

With the logo selected, go to the Export dialog again.












We'll use nearly the same export options as before, only this time we'll turn on the Include alpha channel option.

In the More options area I chose these:

• Interlaced turned on
• Dither: Moderate
• Palette: WebSnap Adaptive 128
• Optimized Palette turned on
• Transparent Background turned on

The results are what you see above. As you can see, while the background of the GIF is transparent, the edges of the text and the logo shape are all jagged. This is not what I had in mind, and I'm sure the client wouldn't be happy.

FreeHand automatically uses the non-object areas of the page as an alpha mask. With the GIF, however, you need to provide a color for the transparency edges to anti-alias to.

So how do you get around this? Well remember seeing that option Alpha includes background? Now we are going to put it to use.











Select all the art you want to anti-alias. Clone this and it might be a good idea to put this on a new layer to keep from changing the original art.

Now give everything a thick Stroke. If any of the art doesn't have any stroke, then give it one. This includes Text (for more on giving text a stroke, see the tip Giving Text an Outline in the Tips Archive).

Then place this cloned art behind the original art and check if the strokes are thick enough to see. In my example above, I recolored the strokes green so I could see what was going on.

Generally you want to make sure the strokes are a couple of points thicker than the original art. Once you are happy with the thickness, recolor the strokes to White.









Now you want to create a rectangle filled with Black behind this white clone. This can be any size.

The reason we are doing this is how FreeHand uses the Background as an Alpha channel. Anything Black will be masked out or transparent, while anything white will be solid.









If you placed this cloned art on a new layer, just move that layer to the background area of the Layers palette (below the separator). If not, then just move the art to the default Background layer.

It should now appear screened back like shown above.










Now since we want to anti-alias to that background pattern, we will create a solid block of color behind the logo. This is based on the most dominant color of the pattern... yellow. This rectangle also acts as the bounding area for the size of the final GIF.

Now off to the Export dialog again.












Use the same export options as before, only this time we'll turn on the Include alpha channel and the Alpha includes background options.

In the More options area I chose these:

• Interlaced turned on
• Dither: Moderate
• Palette: WebSnap Adaptive 128
• Optimized Palette turned on
• Transparent Background turned on

Above is the final results. As you can see, the edges are perfectly anti-aliased to the yellow color, seen as a slight yellow halo around the edges. This "halo" was defined by that white, thick stroked clone you created and put on the background.










Once placed on the final background pattern, it looks fantastic!

Of course you can adjust the halo size by decreasing or increasing the point size of the White colored clone you created.

WARNING
If you noticed that your background objects are now opaque, you are experiencing a bug. This is explained in more detail in the Troubleshooting section under the Background Layers Become Opaque topic.

While this isn't the most time effective way of creating GIFs of this sort, at least you know how to accomplish it without the use of any other outside applications. This is especially nice if you don't have a lot of memory to open multiple applications such as PhotoShop or Fireworks.

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Making a 3D Pie Chart

Sure you can make Pie Charts with FreeHand 7 and above with the Xtra, but it doesn't make the prettiest chart. This tip describes how to make a 3D Pie Chart that takes a little practice at first but yields great results that will leave the Xtra in the dust. This tip can also be used in creating cutouts of other artwork as well.

Version: 5 and above











If you ever make Pie Charts using the Xtra with FreeHand then the above example may look familiar to you. Notice the drop shadow in a weird place (standard shadows usually go from top-left to bottom-right), large font sizes and strange placement of the Legend on the right.











Of course you can change things like the font size or face as well as scale or move things around like I did above by sub-selecting within the grouped chart.











But, as soon as you edit the chart data again (in the above legend I changed Taxes to Taxes/Bills) with the Xtra, it reverts to the original placement and sizes. This can be very frustrating. Below I describe how to make a Pie Chart without the Xtra that will be more 3D in appearance, though it isn't quite as dynamically editable as the charts created with the Xtra.








1) Start by drawing an ellipse of any size in your document. Then go into Keyline mode so you can see the center point of the ellipse.














2) Next you want to set up the Knife tool. Double click on the Knife tool so you see the above dialog box. Select the Straight option, and set the Width to 0. Lastly make sure the option Close cut paths is turned on.










3) Now before you do any cutting, make sure you know what percentages you want to divide the ellipse into. It's good to kind of draw it out on paper first to get an idea what would look the best. Above I drew a few lines to show where I'm going to cut, and placed them on the Background layer.













4) Now select the ellipse, and choose the Knife tool. The first cut will be on the top of the ellipse. Using the lines in the background as your guide, cut across the ellipse starting on the outside to the inside ending at the center point of the ellipse (example zoomed in slightly).

This creates a closed path where you cut into the ellipse shown above at right. What the path actually is, is a curve point that doubles-back onto itself giving the illusion of a straight line. You can't select the end of the line because of this. Go ahead and play with the cut point a little by stretching out the curve handles to see what I mean. Just make sure you Undo any playing before you continue.











5) This next step is very crucial to making this work correctly. It can sometimes be frustrating but once you get the hang of it, you'll be making Pie Charts in no time.

While the ellipse is still selected, make another cut similar to how you did above on the bottom. Only this time, make sure you end the cut in the exact same spot as the first cut. It may help to zoom in on the intersection area to get the cut exact.

Special Note

You may get an error message that says something like "Could not complete your request because the selection is too complex." Just hit OK and try again until you don't get this message

You'll know if it worked when you see a point appear in the intersection area like the highlighted point above.

5b) Try testing to see if the cutting worked for you by deselecting the ellipse and choosing the new cut shape and pulling it away from the Pie. If you get the whole ellipse shape, then Undo and try Step 5 again until you see something like above.










6) Repeat Step 5 for the remaining cut areas like the above highlighted areas. Again, if you get the error message I noted above, keep trying, you'll eventually get it to cut.









6b) Again, test the shapes to make sure they cut correctly by pulling them apart. You should now have a bunch of Pie slice like above.










7) Clean up the center area by zooming in on the intersection spot. You may notice irregular points like above at left. Just reshape or remove unneeded points to make them pointy again like above at right. This may also include retracting any curve handles via the Inspector palette.












8) Now we're going to add a touch of 3D realism to this Pie Chart. First select all the shapes and Clone them. While the clones are still selected, move them down about an inch or so.

To make this easier to deal with I'll show you how to make one piece of the 3D Pie Chart first. I made a new layer and hid all but one piece of the Pie on that layer. You can do the same if you like.











9) Select the 2 outermost points on the bottom clone. Split them by choosing Split from the Modify menu.











10) Select the top half of the Split element. Shift+Drag it up so it completely overlaps the top part of the original shape.











11) While this piece is still selected, Shift+Click on the remaing part of the Split element, then Join them together from the Modify menu. The shape should look like the above example.











12) While it's still selected, choose Closed in the Inspector palette and it should look like above.











13) Now fill the piece in with some color. Here I used a Multi-Gradient fill. Select this piece and send it to the back to reveal the top part of the shape. Then fill in the top part with the same color.











14) Repeat Steps 9-12 for the remaining slices of the Pie Chart. If all went smoothly, you should now have a Pie Chart ready to go like the above example














15) Now you can add the final touches to the chart. Because you made each object a separate 3D element, you can pull them away from each other to make it more jazzy. Add a drop shadow (a simple blend) and make the text wrap around an ellipse to give more depth to the chart.

Like I said before, you can use this tip for other techniques involving "cutting" pieces away from other shapes and giving depth to otherwise flat art. After some practice, you can make art like this in less than an hour and impress the boss too.

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Quick shapes in FreeHand:

For this tutorial we are going to explore the handy "Bend" tool. Using it you can quickly make shapes that will have people asking "How did you do that?"

I usually use "inches" as my measurement in this program, however at times I will change to "pixels" for more precise measurment.

Lets get started.


Create a 2" by 2" square with the rectangle box tool. [Command+U] (control+U -windows) to "ungroup" the square, and make it a path with 4 editable "nodes" or "anchor points".


Now to create a clover shape really quickly, Select the square then, simply go to:
> Window >Xtras >Xtra Tools or [Command+option+X] (control+alt+X -windows) to bring up the "Xtra tools pallet" the very bottom button is the "Bend" tool. Click on the "Bend" tool and then click in the center of your square and drag down and to the right while holding the mouse button down. (down and to the left will also work) The further you can drag "down and to the right", the more the the corners of the original square will travel inward toward where you started your drag.


There is my clover, in just seconds. Now if I were going to actually use it as a clover I would rotate it about 20 degrees and fill it with a gradient or two. Then off to photoshop to airbrush a little detail into it.


If you go "up and to the left" while dragging you will create a star type shape. Try the "Bend" tool on differnet path shapes and see what you come up with. Add a bunch of random nodes to the square path and and try this method.

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Leopard Starburst

Leopard Starburst effect in Photoshop
Here we are, in June, another WWDC with Steve Jobs and lots of cool stuff. This time what impressed me the most was the new Mac OS X, called Leopard. The finder has changed, finally, besides that, some cool features like the cover flow for files, quick view and time machine are great and make me really want to use it.

Well, one thing that I loved was those new Mac OS banners, like the space, stars and those dust and flares. Awesome. So I tried to do that in Photoshop, and I have to say, it’s not that difficult, and this is what I want to show here.

1- Create a new document: Fill the background with black;

2 - Create the small stars:Duplicate the layer and add a noise>15%>gaussian>monochromatic.












3 - Adjust the Brightness/Contrast so there won’t be too many stars.











4 - Big Stars: Duplicate the small stars layer and apply a Brightness / Contrast again.










5 - Scale it like three times its size, we want to create bigger stars.
















6 - Apply Images>adjustments>Threshold: This will show only a few stars. Apply SCREEN as blending options














7 - Refining the stars: Apply a mask on the layer and with the eraser with like 200px start deleting some parts of the layer. after that the stars won’t be too uniform anymore.
















8 - Create some light: Add a new layer and create Clouds. Filters>Render>Clouds. Your background color has to be white and the foreground black or vice-versa.































9 - Apply a Hue/Saturation in the cloud layer and COLOR DODGE as a blending option.













10 - Now apply a Hue/Saturation in the big stars layer.
















11 - Create some flares: I did that using some free ps brushes which you can find for free at http://www.psbrushes.net/ or http://www.brusheezy.com/brushes. Change some presets like Diameter, Spacing and play with that, testing the Shape Dynamics, Scattering, Other Dynamics and etc... Don’t forget to add some glow in the stars through the Layer Styles.















12 - Creating the Starburst Light: Create a Custom Shape, like the one I chose in white, apply a Gaussian Blur and after that a Twirl. Scale it down until it gets a perfect circle.




























































13 - Create a new Layer: Fill it in black and merge it with the Starburst layer.
















14 - Add a Radial Blur to the Starburst and after that change the Hue/Saturation. Colorize it until you get a green color.













15 - Duplicate the first Starburst Light, reduce its size and apply again a Hue/Saturation, this time set a red/orange color to it.














16 - Addin the Text: For the X or Z just apply a simple Bevel and Emboss plus the Contour option.















17 - Create the reflections on the type: Create a mask and fill it with a gradient from white to black. Set SCREEN as blending options.
















Final Result:

















The PSD file can be downloaded. Plus, there are good sites with tutorials showing how to create a galaxy, stars and stuff like that. Bellow some that I used as reference.

http://gallery.artofgregmartin.com/tuts_arts/making_a_star_field.html
http://www.andreibilan.blogspot.com/2006/08/photoshop-tutorial-sparkling-stars.html
from: http://www.abduzeedo.com/

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Semi-Realistic Firi

Semi-Realistic Fire
Your going to be making some thing along the lines of this:








First you need to open up a new document:

File > New or Hit Ctrl+N

Make this doc 400x400 (px), Hit OK



Now your click on the custom shape tool:



Go up to where you choose which one it is and choose the fire one (how ironic) :



Once you have that chosen, your going to make a big flame. Click in the top left corner and drag it to the bottom right corner. (Hold shift to keep it proportional):



It doesnt matter what color your big flame is because we are going to change the blending options on it and give it a Gradient Overlay, so Right-click on your shape layer and go to blending options:



Now click on gradient overlay, your going to see a drop down menu with a bunch of choices, your going to want to pick the orange-yellow-orange gradient




Now make sure your options are like this:




Now your big flame should appear like this:



Now grab your Custom Shape Tool again



and make a bunch of small, medium and large flames all over your bigger one, you can do this fast just cover up the black background behind the original big flame:



Stop once you have made about 40-50. (I did around 60 I think, must have gotten a little carried away.)

Now go to Layers > Merge Visible :



Now make a new layer (Layer > New > Layer), get the paintbucket tool out, choose black and fill the new layer and click and drag it under your fire layer:





This will make it easy to see and it looks a lot better.

Now your going to want to select your fire layer once again so you can do the smudging.

Now this is when we get out the smudge tool:




Now change its options to this (found at the top):



Now your going to want to Click and Drag from the bottom or around the middle of the bottom out through the top. You will end up making a ton of smudges, this is when your artist ability kicks in... Everytime you smudge your making a new flame basically.

NOTE: You should change the size of your smudge brush a few times so you have different size flames:



Now give it a try, click and hold somewhere in the middle or bottom of the flame and drag it to where you want the flame to end:



Now that you have your flameball you can touch up the bottom of it. Change the size of your smudge brush to about 45:



Now you wanna smudge from the black up around the bottom to give it the nice round effect:



To add the red that you see in this picture:



You need to duplicate your fire layer (right-click on the layer):



Now go to Filter > Noise > Dust and Scratches

Make your options like this:



Now go to the blend mode and change it to color burn:



It should now look like this:



If you want to change the colors of the flame, like the blue one at the top, you need to go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation:




Now change your options to this for blue, hit ok:






This for purple, and then hit ok:





Now your done! Congrats on making it through all that! Its a very simple process it just takes time to learn it the first time. You can apply this to many things.

source: http://jedezigns.com

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Make your own PDA background

Step 1
Open our photo of PDA device (you can download it from here). It is called pda.jpg.
Step 2
Open photo that we'll be putting over the PDA screen (download it from here). This image is called kitty.jpg

Step 3
Pick Move tool (V) and drag kitty.jpg onto pda.jpg. Our photo of kitty is now on a layer called "layer1". Rename it to "kitty".

Step 4
Press and hold CTRL on keyboard and left click on layer "kitty". This will select layer "kitty". Press CTRL + C to copy this layer and the CTRL + D to deselect layer. Now make new empty layer and call it "perspective". Click on eye in front of "kitty" layer so it will become hidden.

Step 5
Go to FILTER - VANISHING POINT and click on it. Zoom in on the PDA's screen and pick Create Plane Tool (C). Create a plane that will be over PDA screen.

Try to be as precise as you can. When done you'll get a grid over the screenlike this.

Now press CTRL + V to paste "kitty" layer that we copied earlier. Position this layer in the grid where you want it to be. You'll see that when you drag image in grid it will transform a little bit. If it is to big then you can use Transform tool (T) and size it down. Press OK.

Step 6
Now we have to color screen in white (or any other color you want). Make new layer, call it "white", put it below "perspective" layer, use Polygonal Lasso Tool



and with this tool make selection of the screen. When done fill selection whit white color and with brush make correction on parts where you missed area of screen.

Here is the final image.

See you!
from: http://www.dphotonews.com

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Magnifying Objects

In this tutorial you will learn how to produce magnifying effect in really simple steps

1. First of all find an image. I am not saying a particular image.It can be image of anything. Then open the saved picture in photoshop. I have used a picture ofSLR camera.

2. Then select the Rectangular Marquee Tool as shown below.


3. Select a part of a Picture.

4. Copy the selected part (Ctrl+C) and then paste in a new layer (Ctrl+v).


5. Now Go to Edit >Stroke and make the following settings.


And Set the Blending Option as shown below.


6. By now the image will look something like this.


Repeat the same steps in different portions of the picture.
The Final Image will look like..

This way you can get the magnifying effect in any kind of picture.
Hope you guys enjoy the tutorial.

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