Sixthings recently posted a great little tutorial for Macromedia Fireworks on how to make compositions involving photos look a little more realistic. This is my attempt to adapt the tutorial for Photoshop.
1. Creating the background of the photographCreate a new layer. And then Use the rectangle selection tool to create a rectangle. Set the foreground colour to R: 222 G: 223 B: 206 (or another shade of off-white).
And then use the gradient tool to fill the rectangle (stroking from bottom right to top left).
Creating the photograph's backgroundGo to Select > Modify > Contract... I set it to 4 pixels but your mileage may vary. This is the width of your photograph's border.
2. Adding the photograph and lighting effects
Now open the photograph you want to place. In this case a nice view of the TARDIS on location.
The TARDIS on locationSelect all and copy. Go to your artwork and go to Edit > Paste into. Use Control-T (or Command-T if you are using a Macintosh) to resize/angle to fit.
Create a new layer. Control-click (or Command-click) the layer with background on it. Press D to reset you photoshop colours. Select the gradient tool. Turn on Transparency. And select the Black to transparency option.
Set the transparency of this layer to 50%. Repeat for gradient from white to transparent from the bottom right corner. Don't deselect yet!
3. Creating the shadow
We're now going to use the selection to make a path (which we can alter with the pen tool). Go to the Paths panel.
Select Make Work Path. Set a tolerance of 2.0. This creates a nice path out of your selection which can be edited. Use the pen add points tool to add bézier points to the middle of each edge.
Adjust the bézier points like so. The idea is to create the impression of the picture curling slightly.
Then Make selection. Set the feather radius to 4 px. Create a new layer and fill the selection with black. Set the opacity of the layer to 50%.
The drop shadow4. And finally...
Move the shadow layer behind the photo background layer. Then select all of the layers you want to move.
Selecting the layers (make sure the photo mask is linked to the photograph!)Control - T (or Command-T) and rotate to achieve a more natural effect.
The final image
Post a Comment 6 comments:
Some things are not clear.. when you say select.. you don't mention what to select.
10:45 PM
Can you say which step you are having difficulty with?
11:45 PM
I'm having difficulty with step 2. the part where u said "Create a new layer. Control-click (or Command-click) the layer with background on it. Press D to reset you photoshop colours. Select the gradient tool. Turn on Transparency. And select the Black to transparency option.Set the transparency of this layer to 50%. Repeat for gradient from white to transparent from the bottom right corner. Don't deselect yet!"
9:17 PM
Anyone know of a better adobe tutorial than this. This ones pretty worthless.
12:00 AM
Anyone know of a better adobe tutorial than this. This ones pretty worthless.
12:01 AM
I don't know if you'll even get this comment, since you posted this over a year ago, but I just wanted to say that I think your tutorial is perfectly clear. Maybe anonymous is trying to do something above his/her ability level. AND if the person didn't think your tutorial was good enough, they should have just kept looking. The internet is FULL of Photoshop tutorials. There was no need for that individual to be so nasty.
Also, remember watching Dr. Who all the time growing up at home. I don't remember the actor's name, but my favorite was the man with the curly hair and the really long scarf!
7:08 PM