TGJ2O_graphic_design_photorealism1

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Creating Photo-realistic Effects
Newspaper Magnification | Zombie Effect

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How does this:

//How does this become an underwater scene like this?//

Photorealism was a reactionary movement stemmed from the ever increasing and overwhelming abundance of photographic media, which by the mid 20th century had grown into such a massive phenomenon that it was threatening to lessen the value of imagery in art. Creating photo-realistic art (commercial or not) can be a stunning expression of individual thought. To be able to manipulate a photograph in such a way as to create an artificial scene is a talent much demanded in industry (read: National Enquirer). Often times the art is created from nothing except penstrokes as we saw above and [|here].

You are to do ONE of the following tutorials as practice in photorealism.

 =Newspaper Magnification=

In this tutorial we're going to make a glass ball. The main goal of this tutorial is that you get an idea how to approach this. It's not that important to remember all settings, but it's more important that you understand what's exactly happening and to be able to think about how, using layers and blend-modes to create objects in a picture that never originally existed there.

The tutorial is divided into 5 main areas:
 * Preparing the background and drawing the basic shape (step 1 and 2)
 * Filling the shape with gradients and layer styles (step 3 to 6)
 * Adding a highlight (step 7)
 * Adding a shadow (step 8)
 * Adding distortions (step 9)

1. Preparing the document
Save the following file called on your computer ( right click on the link and select in Windows Save Target As... )

For this tutorial I've chosen to go for a rather small file (640x480 pixels), just to make it easier for you to see what you're doing. Open the file in Photoshop. Add a new layer by clicking on the Create a new layer icon. Grab the Elliptical Marquee tool from your toolbar and make a selection (hold down the shift key before you make the selection to make the selection a perfect circle) somewhere in the area and with the size that I'm showing here



2. Filling the selection with the base color of the glass ball
Click on the foreground color (black) in the tool bar marked with red in this screenshot In the Color Picker window that opens you enter the value D6D3C0 in the area marked with A

Grab the Paint Bucket Tool and fill the selection with this color. Press Ctrl +D to get rid of the selection. You can also use the menu to do this: Select/Deselect.

3. Adding a layer style
Go to the layers palette and click on the Add a Layer Style icon and select Inner Shadow and use the settings shown here (watch out: the color white is selected):



The result should look like this



4. Adding a gradient
Add a new layer by clicking on the Create a new layer icon. Clip this layer with the layer underneath by pressing Ctrl + G or or Ctrl + Alt + G if you use Photoshop CS2. A clipping layer only affects the layer underneath. You'll see soon what I mean. Change the background color in the tool bar and use the following color: 65645F. We're now going to draw a gradient using the current fore- and background colors. Select the Gradient Tool in the toolbar (if it's not visible, then look under the Paint Bucket tool ). Take a short look at the next screenshot. Make sure that a linear gradient (B) is selected in the options bar at the top and that the option Reverse (C) is selected. (mode should be normal, opacity 100%, dither and transparency should be both selected, but in most cases they're probably already having the right values) If you don't see a gradient that uses your colors at A which should look like this, then double click on the gradient in the options bar (A) and select the gradient from the list (most likely the first one) and click OK. Start in the middle where you see the **red** dot and end where you see the ** blue ** dot Just before the area where the main color is getting lighter).



The result should look like this:



Press the letter D on your keyboard, which makes the foreground color black and the background color white:

Add a Layer Mask to this layer by clicking on the Add Layer Mask icon. Don't you worry if the fore and background switch when you do this, this is normal behavior. Note: If the fore and background colors look like the picture above right after you added the mask, then everything is ok. If they are switched, then just click on the double arrow points icon to correct this (see below right). The Gradient Tool is still active, but this time we need a Radial Gradient. Select the Radial Gradient in the options bar (the one beside the linear gradient (marked B in our previous screenshot of the options bar)) With the layer mask still active (It will have a double border), create a radial gradient by starting in the middle and stopping at the outer edge of our circular shape. By this time we should you have something like this:



5. Adding more layer styles
We're now going to duplicate our Layer 1. Click on its icon in the layers palette, hold down the mouse button and drag ( A ) the layer to the Create a new layer icon and release the mouse button. Note : it turns out that Photoshop CS2 changes Layer 2 back to a normal layer, one that is not clipped, when we move Layer 1. To correct that make sure Layer 2 is active and press Ctrl + Alt + G. Again, this should only be done in Photoshop CS2. The next step is to move this duplicate (that has now become the layer with name Layer 1 ) to the top of our layers palette; click on Layer 1 and drag ( B ) it all the way up until you notice a dark black line appearing above the top layer. At that moment release the mouse button.



Make sure that Layer on (our new top layer) is active (you will notice the in front of it). Set the Fill of this layer to 0% ( A ) and then double click on the Layer Style icon ( B ) to modify the Layer Style of this layer: Use the following effects settings for the layer style. Make sure that all settings are exactly the same, including color or blending mode settings. Inner Shadow (pay special attention to the option Use Global Light, because it's not selected!)

Inner Glow



After this our image should look something like this:



6. Adding more volume
Add a new layer by clicking on the Create a new layer icon. Select the Brush Tool in the tool bar. Click on the area of the options bar that I've marked in red and select a 150px brush, with a hardness of 0%, which is the softest brush you can use.



Set the foreground color to white. Click once with this brush exactly in the middle of this new layer ( Layer 3 ). Now go to the menu and select Filter/Effects/Gaussian Blur... and select a radius of 25 and click OK. Note : because we've blurred the white dot, white pixels might appear outside the area that we have defined as our glass ball, so we have to get rid of it. It's quite simple and we're going to use a little 'trick' for that. With the top layer ( Layer 3 ) still active we Ctrl + click (Command + click on the Mac) on the **thumbnail** of the layer underneath this layer ( Layer 1 ) which will load it's shape (the ball) as a selection and all we have to do now is to click on the Add Layer Mask icon and we've got rid of all white pixels outside our glass ball. Now change the opacity of this layer to 30%. This screenshot also shows how your layer palette should look like at this moment:

7. Creating a highlight
Add a new layer by clicking on the Create a new layer icon and that's going to be Layer 4. Select the Brush Tool and use a hard brush ( hardness is 100% ) with a size of 20. Change the foreground color to white (or a very slight yellow (close to indoor light) using a value of FFFFE8 ). Place the highlight in the location shown here Go to the menu and select Effects/Blur/Gaussian Blur... and select a small radius of .5 and click OK. Go to the layers palette and click on the Add a Layer Style icon to add a layer style and select the Outer Glow effect and use the settings shown here:

8. Adding a shadow
First make the Layer 1 (the first ball above the background layer) the active layer. Now set the Fill of this layer to 25% (fill is just under the opacity selection). You'll notice that by doing that, that we're are getting closer to the final result:

If the bottom is too bright (marked with arrow), then just select the Layer Style of Layer 1 copy and lower the opacity of the Inner Shadow effect (or increase it if that's what you prefer). We now click on the background layer with the newspaper image on it, to make it active. Add a new layer by clicking on the Create a new layer icon. With this layer ( Layer 5 ) active we click on Ctrl + click on the thumbnail of the layer above (the one with glass ball, Layer 1 copy ). The result is a selection in layer 5 that is based on this glass ball. Now press the letter D on your keyboard (remember that sets the foreground/background colours to default). We're now going to draw a gradient using the current foreground color ( black ) in combination with transparency. Select the Gradient Tool in the toolbar (if in it's not visible, then look under the Paint Bucket tool ).Make sure that a Radial Gradient  ( B ) is selected in the options bar at the top and that the option Reverse ( C ) is selected.



If you don't see a gradient in your options bar ( A ), that looks like one going from transparency to black, then double click on the gradient in the options bar ( A ) and select the gradient from the list (the one right beside D ) and click OK. Draw the gradient by starting in the middle of your selection and end at the edge of this same selection. We're now going to transform this selection in an elliptical shape by using the transform tool. Go in the menu to Edit/Free transform or press Ctrl + T. A rectangular box with 8 handles will appear. Now pull the upper center handle downward (see A ) until you have a shape that looks like the one in B. Now press enter on your keyboard to complete the transformation and press Ctrl +D to get rid of the selection. You can also use the menu to remove the selection: Select/Deselect.

We now have to move this shadow to the right ( B ). Be aware that the arrow only marks the direction, not the distance. Select the Move Tool in your tool bar. To move the selection, click on the shape and while holding the mouse button move the shape in place. Have a look at screenshot C to see where you should place this shadow. If your shadow seems to jump while you try to move it, then go to the menu and select view and make sure that Snap is turned off (unchecked). Now change the opacity of this layer to 50%. In the menu we select Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur.. . and select a radius of 2 and click OK. On the right you can see how the layers palette should look like after you've done all steps (in this screenshot I marked the color of the shadow layer with yellow).

9. Deforming inside of glass ball and shadow
In this last step we're going to deform the image inside the glass ball. Make sure that our shadow layer ( Layer 5 ) is still active and Ctrl + click on the thumbnail of the layer above (the one with glass ball, Layer 1 copy ). The result is a selection in layer 5 that is based on this glass ball (like we did in step 8). Now got to the menu and select Filter/Distort/Spherize. Select for Amount the value 100% and make sure that Normal is selected for Mode. Click OK. The shadow is now deformed.



Make the background layer active and press Ctrl + F. Note: Ctrl + F will always apply the filter that was used previously, in our case Spherize. That was our final step and this is the result:



It's important to know that you have to select a background with colors that are not the total opposite of the colors we selected in the beginning of our tutorial when you want to use this technique. You can make the ball even more realistic by adding more highlights or reflections. For the purpose of this tutorial I've kept it simple by adding just one single highlight. Also be aware that once you deform the shadow or inside of the ball that you're not able to move the ball, since both deformations are of course in a way "connected" to the background. So make sure that the glass ball is in the right place, before you start with the deformations. Make sure that your background is not to plain. A real glass ball doesn't look cool either on white piece of paper in front of a white wall. Always try to use the environment to strengthen the effects you're using to make the result look more realistic. This whole tutorial should be seen as a step in the right direction. If you like the final result, that's fine with me, but there will always be people who want to take this a step further. My advice; buy a glass ball or collect images of glass balls. It's the best way to study highlights, shadows and reflections, which can be rather complicated at times.

 =Zombie Effect=

Step 1: [|>>>>get the full sized mud flakes file here<<<<]
Open your picture from the handout folder and also the mud-flakes file from above. Ensure you've got them tiled so you can see both pictures in photoshop (Windows>Arrange>Tile Horizontally). Check the image sizes to make sure that the texture will be large enough to cover the area you want to blend into the skin. To do this click on the zoom tool (Z), and click on Actual Pixels (on the top bar). If you need to change the size of your texture, do so by going to Image>Image Size and change the overall pixel size to adjust up so that the mud will correctly be the size of your face.

Step 2: Desaturating mud layer
You are going to duplicate your background layer. Rename the new one to mud layer. The fast way to desaturate this layer is by clicking on the Create Fill or Adjustment Layer button at the bottom of the layers panel (it looks like a Yin-Yang symbol).

When the Hue/Saturation dialogue comes up, drag saturation down to -80.

Step 3: Taking a snapshot
Snapshots can be useful when making large changes. Snapshots are duplicates of your image at a particular point in time. Press CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+E or alternatively at the bottom of the History panel is the snapshot icon (next to the trash can). This will create a new layer that you drag from the mud picture over onto your picture. You can now close the cracked-mud picture.



Step 4: Transform skew
Rename Layer 1 - which contains the mud to the name "Dry Mud". Ensuring you're in the main selector tool (V), you are now going to press CTRL+T or click on the Show Transform Controls icon. Resize the mud layer so that it just covers all of the skin of your face (including the neck). Now click on the Warp button which can be found on the top toolbar. It's the one just left of the checkmark and cancel icons. This will give warp options to your mud image. Wrap the mud largely to the face's contours. Click the checkmark (or press enter).

Step 5: Masking the mud layer
Duplicate your background layer and call this new one Zombie. Hide the original photo layer now that you're not working on it. On your mud layer, click the mask button on the bottom of the layers panel.

Fill the mask with black by changing the foreground colour to black then hitting ALT+Backspace (or Edit>Fill>foreground colour or Shift+F5).

Step 6: Unmasking the mud layer around the face
Change the blend mode of the mud layer to Overlay (which keeps the lights and darks, but blends mid-tones). Now switch the foreground colour to white and the brush size to about 50 and the softness of the brush to about 35%. Click on your mask layer and start painting the face area. You will see the mud cracks starting to peek through the mask as you paint areas you want to reveal with white. In areas of particular detail, you'll have to increase the hardness of the brush.

Step 7: Decrease Saturation, but re-introduce it
Create a quick adjustment layer and drop global Hue/Saturation by -70. Click on the mask thumbnail and re-introduce colour back into your clothing and your hair by painting them with black.

Step 8: Fixing the eyes
Create a snapshot to work from by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+E. Rename this Eye Snapshot. Now create a new Hue/Saturation adjustment layer called Eye adjust. To tint the eyes blue, click on the colorize checkbox in the Hue/Saturation adjuster. It should be about Hue 220, Saturation 59 and keep lightness at 0. Fill the whole mask black as in earlier steps. Using a white brush to paint in the iris of the eyes. Change the blend mode to Colour.



Step 9: Vampirize
Create a snapshot to work from by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+E. Call it Vampirize. Now, go to Filters>Liquify. Pull down the incisors until they create fangs. Press OK when you're done.

Step 10: Tonal adjust using Curves
Finally - we create a Curves adjustment layer. This adjustment layer will serve to boost certain colours and lower others visibility. Click on the skin and drop the contrast.



Click on the skin and lower it's output (by clicking and dragging up/down). Click on the teeth and raise it's output (by click and dragging up/down). Play with the picture until you're happy with it.

You're done. Muahahahaha.



Assignment#5 - Photorealism - Newspaper Magnification OR Zombie effect!!!
Complete EITHER the newspaper magnifying glass OR the zombie tutorial (not the newspaper) and submit the psd and jpg of 100kB in size. by teacher and documentation of progress in journal), but required reminders on one or more occasions to do so. || Used time poorly (as shown by observation by teacher and/or documentation of progress in journal) in spite of several reminders to do so. ||
 * **CATEGORY** || **4** || **3** || **2** || **1** ||
 * **Diligently follows tutorial** || Judicious use of tools lead to an exemplary product || Small errors in the use of the tools results in a product that is completely acceptable, but does contain noticeable flaws || The piece has many distracting elements but the tool use is obvious. || Either in following the steps, or mistakes in the use of the tools, the work is largely flawed. ||
 * **Practical product** || Stylistic choice in tones, arrangement and colour choices in presenting the render show no errors in following steps || Overall the piece is well constructed, but the some steps have been missed. || Generally the piece is satisfactorily constructed, but the end result is lacking in many areas. || The render is incomplete, or shows signs of obvious neglect in process. ||
 * **Use of Time** || Used time well during each class period (as shown by observation by teacher, and documentation of progress in journal) with no reminders. || Used time well during most class periods (as shown by observation by teacher, and documentation of progress in journal) with no reminders. || Used time well (as shown by observation