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Learn How to Mask Hair, Down to the Final Fragile Follicle, in Photoshop

Submitted by deke on 22 December 2011 - 9:15am.

My final video course of 2011 for the lynda.com Online Training Library is now live. Titled Photoshop Masking & Compositing: Hair, it lives up to its name, showing you how to mask and composite the most fragile of all photographic details, hair, in that most powerful of masking applications, Photoshop.

Photoshop Masking & Compositing: Hair

(Yes, I'm aware that the term "follicle" specifically refers to the root of the hair, not the part we see and therefore need to mask. It's all about the alliteration, dammit!)

My goal is to boost both your skills and your confidence. As well as pass along lots of useful, in-the-trenches techniques. All in just 3 hours and 6 minutes! Here's an illustrated outline of the four feature-rich chapters and the fun, challenging projects that accompany them: Read more » 

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Today I Finish Recording "Photoshop Masking & Compositing: Fundamentals"

Submitted by deke on 5 October 2011 - 12:15am.

When I released my first "Photoshop Channels & Masks" course for lynda.com, it shot to the top of the Online Training Library and remained there for months. Naturally, I've been eager to update the videos, but as seems forever to be the case, there have been plenty of other things to occupy my attention.

Fortunately, that unfortunate situation officially changes today. Nearly four years after the release of my last "Channels & Masks" course, I am just today putting the finishing touches on its update. Only this time around, we'll be calling the video "Photoshop Masking & Compositing: Fundamentals." And it contains all new content. (Okay, so there are a couple of archival projects, but I thoroughly rehashed them, so they're new too.)

Here's a sample project, in which I take a couple of foreground subjects, one with lots of hair and the other with lots of feathers:

A woman with hair and a bird with feathers, ready to mask in Photoshop

And I arrange them against a new background, complete with some adventurous compositing techniques and a few synthetic effects:

The two images masked into a new background, with effects, courtesy of Photoshop Read more » 

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Bonfire of the Letterforms

Submitted by LouBrz on 3 October 2011 - 9:15pm.

Type designers understand that text is fundamentally a collection of graphic shapes. And any graphic designer who builds on that idea by exploiting those shapes effectively---either in 2D or 3D---can create more powerful designs. 

In this article, we'll create a believable illusion of type on fire, first by transforming ordinary text into glowing, molten embers, and then by adding real flames.

type on fire

Here's a summary of how to build this amazing effect:

  • Start by applying four layer effects to a smart object
  • This includes applying the Ripple filter two different ways
  • Add the rarely used Bas Relief filter to make the letters look crispy
  • Add a few photos of real flames
  • Use a combination of masking and blend modes to create the final result

By encasing the text in a Smart Object, you ensure that the type remains editable. In other words, you'll actually be able to change the text at will without getting your fingers burned.

Today's tip comes from Deke's Techniques 008 and 009 from the lynda.com Online Training Library. For a free video demo of the first few steps, see Deke's Techniques 005: "Creating a Molten Letter Effect." (Note that the numbering of these videos is different on this site from those at lynda.com, because some videos are free and others are not. But this article is free to all members of dekeOnline.) Read more » 

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Deke's Techniques 038: Healing One Eye onto Another

Submitted by deke on 20 September 2011 - 12:15am.
Deke's Techniques 038: Healing One Eye onto Another

If you use Photoshop, I imagine you probably know all about the amazing healing brush, which lets you clone one area of an image (called the source) onto another area and seamlessly merge the results. (Or, at least, that's the idea. Some results are more seamless than others.) But do you know about the healing brush's partner in crime, the Clone Source panel? It lets you set the position of the source as well as scale it. Better yet, you can flip and rotate the source.

In this week's free video, I show you how to flip and rotate the source to heal a good eye onto a bad one. If you've never seen this trick, you're in for an eye-opening surprise.

Here's the official description from my video publisher, lynda.com: Read more » 

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I've Begun Work on My Next Photoshop Masking Course

Submitted by deke on 12 September 2011 - 7:17am.

Just a note to let you know that I've begun work on my next video course for lynda.com, which will be called Photoshop Masking & Compositing: Fundamentals. The course is slated to be 9 chapters long, and it will set in motion the stuff that you need to know to mask a photographic image with absolute authority against any and all backgrounds. Many courses will follow, including (but not limited to): Advanced Blending, The Pen Tool, and the ever-thrilling Hair. The last of which will include "tough stuff"!

At Photoshop World, I had many folks come up to me and tell me that my two back-to-back Channels & Masks sessions were their favorite at the conference. Which was awesome, because those sessions were based on my old content. This next course is a new take on things. Here's how it all starts, with an artificially colored foreground set against a similarly adjusted background. (Based on a Fotolia image from TessarTheTegu, BTW.) It's a wacky multichannel effect. And, really, isn't he just the duckiest toucan you ever laid eyes on? I love how he has pretend teeth to scare off the predators. (That's not Photoshop, that's natural!) Don't you just want to take him home and make bird-love to him? I know, me too.

Photoshop Masking & Compositing preview Read more » 

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