campfire anthems

this week i will be discussing the benefits of using the shadow/highlights adjustment that can be accessed under the image tab on the tool bar.  this image adjustment can be very helpful when dealing with an image that is either too dark or too bright.  i come across a lot of people who use the burn and dodge tools to add lighting details to photos, and although this can be a method to add shadows or highlights to an image, it is rather ineffective and can be more trouble than it is worth.  the image i have chosen is one that is too dark and needs a little more light in it.

with the image open, select the image tab on the menu and then adjustments.  from this drop-down menu, select the shadow/highlights option.  this will bring up a new dialog box in which you will be able to add and take away light.  make sure that the “preview” box is checked so that you will be able to see the outcome of your editing.  i like to show more options so that i can really tweak the settings to get the best effect.  the sliders are pretty self explainatory, so just play around with them until you get the effect you are hunting.  you can also tweak the color correction, to help bring back some of the natural colors that are lost from the original image.  when you are finished just click “ok” and you are done.  this is what i came up with.  hope you’ll be able to use this trick some time.

hey guy!  i’ve been waiting a couple of weeks for this day.  my new september wallpapers are up for all to use.  just go up to the wallpapers tab at the top of the page to use them.  this month we have a darker wallpaper about death, but it helps to remind that in death there is victory and a new beginning.  the other wallpaper is my tribute to apple computers.  i took some liberty in creating the new apple logo, kind of an evolution of sorts.  i hope you guys enjoy this month’s art.

this commercial is awesome!  i love what the guys at sprite have done here.  i’d love to play basketball on that court.

over the next few days i’m going to be posting videos of some really creative uses of effects in commercials, music videos, etc. i would love to learn more about video editing/flash/special effects and apply some of my creative mind to a moving world, instead of just on lifeless screen. the first video i have chosen to highlight is a music video for the song “through glass” by stone sour. pay attention or you just might miss what is going on, until the blatantly obvious ending.

adding rain to an image

1) select your picture (i’ve used this great photo of tiger woods celebrating after a putt) and dupliate it to a new layer.  you can do this by pressing “command j” (mac) / “control j” (win)

2) make sure that black is the default foreground color.  you can reset your colors by pressing “d” on the keyboard.  pick the crop tool and draw a box about an inch around your image.  you may have to make the window bigger to do this.  once you have drawn your cropping box press enter/return.  you will now have a white border around your image.

3) create a new blank layer at the top and fill it with black.  you can either do this from the menu or by the keyboard shortcut “option delete” (mac) / “alt backspace” (win)

4) now you will add noise to the black layer.  go up to filter, noise, and then add noise.  i made the amount slider to be around 150.  make sure that the distribution is uniform and select for the noise to be monochromatic.

5) add a gaussian blur to the noise layer.  go to filter, blur, and then gaussian blur.  put the radius on about .5 and click “ok”.

6) add an adjustment layer to the black layer.  make sure when you click on the adjustment layer icon at the bottom of the layers window you hold down the  “option” (mac) / “atl” (win) button.  drag the mouse up to the levels selection.  when the dialog box opens click “use previous layer to create clipping mask” and then click ok.

7) with the levels dialog box open, play around with the sliders on the histograph to remove a bit of the noise on that layer.  my input levels were 134, 1.00, and 189.  click ok.

8 ) select layer 2 again and add a motion blur.  you want the angle to be around 60 and the distance to be set to about 50 pixels.

9) now double click back on the adjustment layer to reopen the histogram.  adjust your sliders again to work with the motion blur.  my input levels are now at 73, 1.00, and 158.  press ok.

10) hide all the layers except the background layer.  using the rectangular marquee tool highlight around the original border of the image, cropping out the extra space we adding in the beginning.  go up to image and click crop.  now you can turn the other layers back on.

11) with the top, noise level, highlighted you can now change the blend mode from normal to screen.  this will overlay the rain effect onto the original image. the effect is now finished.  if you want, you can use the burn tool on the bottom layer to add shadows to the picture.  i used it on the fans in the background to make the image appear more realistic.

today we are going to discuss how to turn a photo into what looks like a hand drawn sketch, without using artistic filters. this photo of my wife is what i’ll be using.

1) the first thing you want to do is duplicate the image onto a new layer. a quick way of doing this is pushing “command j” (mac) / “control j”(win)

2) now you want to desaturate the photo. this option is found by going to image and then adjustments. a quicker way of doing this is the keyboard shortcut of “shift command u” (mac) / “shift control u” (win)

3) duplicate the desaturated layer by pressing “command j” (mac) / “control j”(win)

4) invert the new layer so that the black colors become white and the white black. this is as simple as pressing “command i” (mac) / “control i” (win) on the keyboard.

5) with the top layer selected, its now time to change the blend mode. this determines how the selected layer will blend with the layer directly beneath it. to do this access the drop down window from the tab that is currently listed as normal form the layers window. change the top layer’s blend mode from normal to color dodge. this temporarily changes the top layer to just a white box, but we are getting ready to fix that.

6) with the top layer still selected, go up to your filter menu and select blur and then gaussian blur. this one step makes your sketch come to life. at the bottom of the gaussian blur dialog box you will see a slider that changes the radius of the blur. play around with the slider, make sure the preview box is checked, until you find a number that works for your photo. generally a smaller number works better, but there really isn’t a standard setting, due to different resolution settings pictures are taken in. for this particular photo i kept if around 7.

that’s it. you have now turned that photo into what appears to be a hand drawn sketch. you could be finished here or you can use the burn tool to really give that sketch some lighting depth, but that is up to you my friends. here is the sketch with and without the burn tool applied.

make yourself “pop” out of a picture

1) start with the original photo

2) duplicate the layer so that you have an identical copy, this will be labeled as “layer 1″

3) highlight with either the magnetic lasso tool or the pen tool to select the part of the photo you want to pop out

4) either copy and paste your selection to a new layer and delete layer 1, or delete everything in the background of your selection

5) using the rectangular marquee tool, highlight on the background layer a portion smaller than the original photo in which the upper most layer will pop out of

6) click on the layer tab, then create clipping mask, the edges of the photo will disappear, leaving you with an almost finished product

7) double click on the layer to open up your effects options, add a stroke around the background of the photo, make sure you change the stroke to be on the inside and give it a weight of about 13 pts

8 ) select layer 1 again and double click it, apply a drop shadow and you are finished

hey guys. its calendar time again. this month i have 2 calendars for you to choose from. one is based on a bible verse i like and the other was a request by a dave matthews band fan. i actually took a little liberty with the bible verse, took some words out and added my own. it talks about putting your finger in the wounds of jesus after he resurrected to know that he is real. the dmb on is just a fun wallpaper that the fans will like. i hope you guys enjoy, and as always, i’ll be taking requests for next month. make sure you go up the “wallpaper” tab at the top of the page and check them out.

hey gang. i’m about to get into creating my august wallpaper calendars. if you have any good ideas or requests just let me know. have a good weekend. the next time you’ll hear from me i’ll be in new mexico. and don’t get any ideas about stopping by my house while i’m away. emily has a gun and she will shoot you.

there is a new wallpaper up in the “wallpaper” tab that i have been working on. it is inspired by a song called moving mountains by thrice. its an acoustic song. the i absolutely love the lyrics that the song is based around. they come from a biblical principal in 1 corinthians 13. the new international version says:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

that’s pretty powerful stuff. here is the audio to thrice’s moving mountains, and make sure you go up the the “wallpaper” tab and check out my new art. let me know if you use it, i’ll be curious to know.