This week, we'll see how to take last week's image (left) and turn it into the image on the right.

Before we begin Part 3, let’s do a quick review. In Part 1, we chose a photo of a model and an environment for her to “live” in. We added a third piece (a new floor) to complete the initial photo composition. In Part 2, we used the ornate stained glass window to create its own mask, thus “removing” the panes of glass. Now we can add a new background image, to serve as the view out the window. Today, in Part 3, we will add 17 layers to adjust the coloring and lighting, to change the image from Part 2 into something exciting and colorful.

To help us stay sane, we'll put the layers into groups, since there are 17 total layers.

Clicking on the side-pointing arrow opens up the group. Here are the layers which make up the Figures group.

The very top layer is set to blending mode hard light. This is a blank layer, and the blending mode allows us to paint on her hair and brighten it up a lot. We also can shape the hair a bit, and add some queenly length.

Notice that the figure itself is on a transparent layer. We can use this transparency to clip (mask) layers above the figure. That’s what those right-angle symbols mean: a clipping mask is turned on. You can have more than one layer clipped by the bottom layer, as here (we have two layers being clipped by the queen figure). This means that we can only paint inside the area taken up by the pixel in the Original image layer (the queen). We can add a rim light (a glowing edge) by painting with an airbrush all around the upper edges of the figure, on a blank layer (see layer “rim light”). Turn on blending mode Linear Dodge (add) to punch up the glow. Don’t worry about painting “outside the lines:” the clipping mask won’t let you. Clipping masks are very helpful, and a big time saver. Once you see how they work, you’ll use them all the time.

The layer I lazily left named “Levels 3″ also uses the queen image layer as a clipping mask. Here, I’ve added a levels adjustment layer with a layer mask. The clipping mask restricts the levels adjustment to just the queen, and nothing else. The layers mask allows me to lighten, with the paint brush, the darkening created by the levels adjustment, in selected areas. This is a technique I’ve explained in detail in past tutorials, so I won’t spend any more time on it here.

The bottom-most layer in the Figure group is a simple blank layer, with dark, soft-edged shadows painted behind the queen. She overlaps the shadows, because her layer is above the layer with the shadows. Next we have the Floor group.

Here is the Floor group, opened up.

Here again, the floor object is on a transparent layer, so we can use it with clipping masks. This group is fairly straightforward: we just add three adjustment layers with clipping turned on. The adjustments modify the color, saturation, and hue. To turn it on, by the way, go Layer > Add Clipping Mask.

Next comes the much more complicated group, the Wall and Windows.

There's quite a bit going on here in the Walls and Windows group.

The layer we created last week sits on the bottom of the stack in this group. Notice the layer mask we made, making the panes disappear. In this group, we are going to modify the walls and the windows only, not the view out the window. That we’ll save for last. Just as in the Floor group, we use three adjustment layers. The key here, though, is a blank layer set to Overlay blend mode. Paint on this layer to alter colors, brighten them, etc., without covering over the original pixels. It’s like painting with…stained glass! Kind of appropriate, I guess!

Notice that here, too, we’re using the clipping masks. In this case, that means we don’t have to worry about affecting anything that’s transparent in the bottom layer. We can’t get paint on the panes, in other words, because they are made transparent by the layer mask we created in Part Two.

The bottommost group is the Background group. This is only what is visible outside the window.

The fourth and last group contains the layers for the view outside the window. As such, they come last, so that everything else lies on top of the “view.” The only areas that show through are where we’ve created the layer mask in Part Two. The bottom-most layer in this group is an image I chose for the “view out the window.” I’ve also painted on this layer with an intense blue, which shows through nicely in the top windows. I’ve added a vibrance adjustment layer and a blank layer with yellow paint for the clouds. This yellow is supposed to look reflected in the room, on the walls. So as you work, you’ll be shifting up and down through the groups. It’s not a strictly linear process as I have shown here.

Photomanipulation, in fact, is a process of play and experimentation. Here we’ve had a look at the final result. But it took hours to come up with these 17 layers. Luckily, groups came to the rescue, and made staying organized a breeze. I hope you found this walkthrough helpful. The final step, for me, is to flatten the image and paint it in Painter and/or Photoshop. Here’s a close-up of the final result of the painting.

Painting close-up. Painting by Bob Nolin, with thanks to Elandria on Deviant Art for the use of her stock photograph.

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In Part 2, we'll create the mask on the right from the image itself. This will allow us to have a new view out the window.

In Part Two, we’ll remove the window panes, so to speak, to give our lady in waiting a new view. Once the panes are removed, we can insert a new layer underneath, using any landscape or scene we choose.

In order to remove the current pixels making up the window in our scene (begun in Part 1 ), we need to select all the panes. At first, the Select Color Range tool looks like a good choice, but it leaves too much unselected. Ditto with the Magic Wand and the Quick Selection tools. In this case, the view outside the window is very pale: almost white. Using the Curves adjustment tool (see below) we can push the panes to nearly pure white, and darken the cames (the leading between the panes) at the same time. Once we’ve done that, Select Color Range works like a champ. Note the area (circled in red) where the bright sunlight “blew out” the cames in a few areas. We’ll have to correct that next.

A curve adjustment increases the light areas and darkens the dark areas, which is just what we want. Now the Select Color Range will work much better.

Here’s the process:

1. Take the original photo and rename the layer it’s on to Layer 0, or “original photo”.

2. Duplicate this layer, and name it “working layer”

3. Apply a Curves adjustment to make the window panes nearly white, and the cames (leading) solid black.

4. Use Select Color Range to select the white panes.

5. Use Quick Mask (tap the q key) to make sure only the panes are selected. Then exit Quick Mask (toggle with q).

6. Invert the Selection: go Select > Invert.

7. Make the Original photo layer active. Click once on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the layers palette. This will create a layer mask that has the window panes masked out.

8. To fill in the gaps in the cames (circled in red, above), pick a hard-edged brush, and make it the same size as the cames (about 8 pixels, in this case). Choose solid black as the foreground color. Tap once with the brush, hold down the shift key, and then tap again on the other side of the “broken” came. Photoshop draws a perfectly straight hard-edged 8 pixel-wide line, replacing the missing black areas. Next, use the eraser tool to remove little bits of windowpane which are still hanging around. This goes pretty quickly. Once you’re done making the cames perfect and the panes completely empty, you’re ready to add a new background layer for our lady to look at.

9. Lastly, delete the “working layer.” Add back in the image of Elandria from Part One. Paste a new image as your bottom layer, for a new view outside. Here’s what we have at this point.

Try different landscape images till you find one that suits your vision.

Next week, we’ll look at how modify this image to really make it glow, using layer adjustments and painting. Thanks for reading!

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One of the Nature's Lore series by Elandria. Click on photo to see more by Elandria.

Today I came upon the photo above, by Deviant Art stock artist Elandria, and decided I just had to create a photomanipulation with it. For this tutorial, I’m going to emphasize the thought process, more than the actual Photoshopping. I have no idea where I’m going with this photo. So let’s get started!

First, I’ll separate the image of the woman in the blue dress from the background. The background, in this case, is nearly one color, so I’ll start with the magic wand to select the majority of the background quickly. Make sure “contiguous” is checked on. I used a tolerance setting of 30, which works well, but one of her hand disappears, since it is flesh toned and so is the background (this is why a lime green background–a green screen– is used for this sort of work). Once the selection is made, hit the Q key for Quick Mask. You can make the Quick Mask any color you like; mine is green.

In Quick Mask mode, you can see where the Magic Wand got a little too aggressive. Paint over the missing fingers with white to recover them.

Once the edge is all cleaned up, tap the Q key again. This returns you to select mode, and you’ll see the “marching ants” defining the selection edge. At this point, we’ve selected the background. Go Select > Inverse to select the figure. Now, let’s find a setting for our figure.

For this, I turn to my ever-growing collection of stock photos. I keep these on my hard drive, and add to the collection whenever I see a stock photo (on Deviant Art, Morguefile, sxc.hu, etc.) that catches my eye. The images are organized into a large library of folders (Maps, Globes, Clocks, Rocks, Seascapes, Landscapes, etc.). Keeping organized really helps when it’s time to look for an image, as we’re doing right now. I have several promising folders for this image. Since she’s in Medieval garb, I’ll look in my Castles folder, and maybe the Cathedrals folder. She seems to be looking out a window, at least in my mind, so I look in the Windows folder, and find this image:

This will become the main setting for the final photomanipulation. The pink area shows where I'll be adding a new floor. Stock used with permission by xNickixstockx on Deviant Art.

I go back to the selected image of Elandria, and go Cmd+C (or Cntl+C on Windows) to copy. Then I paste it into the window image. I resize the figure a bit using Edit > Transform > Scale. After moving her around a bit, I decide that she needs a higher floor to stand on. I will grab a floor from another image on my hard drive. After adding the floor, I’ll crop the bottom of the window image. First, let’s find a new floor.

This image, by stock artist MirandaRose-stock on Deviant Art, shows a nice floor under a lit window. It's a good match for our renovation project.

This is a good example of how you need to adapt images to suit your purposes sometimes. This flooring looks good, but it’s not the right polygonal shape (see the pink shape, above). What I’ll do is copy it to another layer, and then flip it horizontally. Then I’ll move the copy until left and right halves make a shape similar to the pink polygon.

Next I copy and paste this new flooring into the main image of the castle window (see below). After pasting, it appears in the middle of the image, as you see here. The arrows show where I’ll be moving it. It doesn’t match the original shape exactly. But I kind of like the way it comes forward to a point, so I’ll go with that. For fine tuning, I’ll use the Edit > Transform > Warp tool.

The new floor matches pretty closely, though it comes forward to a point, unlike the pink shape I made earlier.

Here’s the new floor, ready to lower into place.

I may need to use the Warp transform a bit, but this flooring should pop right into place. Good enough for government work, as they say.

Now I copy the image of Elandria into the setting (below). This concludes Step One. Next week, we’ll give Elandria something to look at out the window!

Step One, complete. Next we'll change the window view, and some other neat stuff.

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Five Chicks Named Moe, by Bob Nolin. Painted with Photoshop CS5 and a Wacom Intuos 4 tablet.

The painting above, “Five Chicks Named Moe,” took about three weeks to complete, working on it a few hours a day on average. I would guess that’s about 45 hours of work. I followed a fairly complex working method, and I’d like to share it with you today. This isn’t really a tutorial, but more of a “making of.” I won’t talk much about the actual painting. Instead, I’ll lay out the steps I took. You may find this method has some advantages for your own work.

In a nutshell, I take a stock photo (this one, from Fotolia, in this case), create a black and white “underpainting” (a grisaille), and then paint on top of that until the grisaille is completely covered over. This is different from my previous hand-painted Photoshop works, in that I’m using a grayscale layer that becomes part of the final image. Previously, I’d use a line drawing layer for reference, and then delete it at the end. With this new method, I’m attempting to follow the Old Masters’ way of working, with a monochrome underpainting.

Grisaille (pronounced “griz-eye”) is a French word meaning “gray tones.” The advantage of starting with a monochrome underpainting is it allows the painter to establish the forms and values first, and then develop the color on top of that. More info available here.

Step One – Topaz Adjust to add detail

Original stock photo on left. Topaz Adjust (Mild Detail preset) on right.

I use Topaz Adjust whenever I need to add some punch to a photo. After trying out several of the presets that come with Adjust, I went with the Mild Detail setting. The original photo is very high key, with very little variation in tone. It’s all bright. So the first step is to bring out detail that has been washed out by the bright, even lighting. My goal is to achieve a dark, chiaroscuro look, as though the chicks were painted by a Dutch master of the 16th century. As you can see above, Adjust brings out each individual feather, but the Mild setting doesn’t overdo it.

Before we go any further, let me show you where we’re going. Here’s what the layer palette is going to look like once we get through the next several steps. The layer with the chicks is in the middle of the stack. The background is below the birds, and the adjustment layers are above them.

Here's our goal: layers that create the look we're after.

Step Two – Create the dark background

A simple dark-to-very-dark gradient makes up the background. It will be painted over to add texture and variety.

The bottom-most layer in the stack is the Dark Gradient background. This is just a start, and we’ll paint over it later to make it look hand-painted, and not machine made.

Step Three – Give the chicks a table to stand on

There are two wood layers, with the upper one set to Overlay mode. The upper one is blurry, and this helps to eliminate the photographic detail of the wood photo.

The wood tabletop is actually a photograph of an old drawing board. I used the Perspective adjustment tool to make the board look like it’s lying down (it was shot head on). Next I copy one layer, and blur it, set the blending mode to Overlay, and turn down the Opacity until the detail is softened but not eliminated altogether. Then I add a layer mask with a soft edge between black and white. This makes the far end of the table get darker. The layer mask allows the dark gradient to show through.

Step Four – Add shadows under the chicks

Soft, blurry shadows are cast by the chicks' bodies, while small, hard-edged shadows are cast by their feet.

Add two new, blank layers. The lower of these layers will contain the blurry shadows cast by the bodies of the chicks. The upper layer will show the shadows cast by their feet. Use a large, soft airbrush at low opacity for the lower layer. For the feet, use a much smaller brush, at higher opacity. Paint right on the edges of their feet. Aren’t layers great?

Step Five – Add the adjustment layers

The new Exposure Adjustment Layer, along with a layer mask, gives the chicks volume and directional lighting.

Now that the stage is set and the actors are in place, we’re ready to adjust the lighting. This is done with adjustment layers. As you can see in the Layers screenshot shown earlier, there are the usual Curves, Levels, and Hue/Sat adjustment layers. These make subtle adjustments. The star performer here, though, is the new Exposure adjustment level combined with a layer mask. Set the exposure setting so that the chicks are under-exposed (i.e., darkened). You will make them look like they are completely in shadow. Then you’ll reveal the light by painting on the layer mask. It’s like magic!

Step Six – Collapse all the layers and create the grisaille

The Black&White adjustment is used to create a grayscale image, or grisaille.

Save your work to this point; flatten the image, and save with a different name. Now we have our painting base. You could just use this as your starting point. If you like to work with the cloning tools in Painter, you could clone this file and begin to paint. But my goal is to try to emulate the Old Masters, so I go Image > Adjustments > Black & White, use the Auto setting, which creates my grayscale underpainting.

Step Seven – Add “glazes” of color

Two layers here: the Color layer on top of the Grisaille layer

In traditional painting, thin glazes of color are applied on top of the underpainting. We can do something similar in Photoshop and/or Painter. Insert a new layer above the Grisaille layer, and change the blending mode from Default to Color. (In Painter, choose Colorize.) Now when you paint, you can’t cover over the greyscale; you can only “tint” it with color. This is similar to the hand-tinting of photographs which photographers used to do before the advent of color film. (See this article and this article for two tutorials.) The Color blending mode allows you to paint as though you were laying in transparent washes of watercolor or acrylic, or oil glazes. The values of the grayscale interact with and alter the colors, as you will see. This hand-colored base is now ready for us to paint with opaque colors, in the next step.

This close-up shows what the Color layer on top of the Grisaille layer looks like.

Step Eight – Opaque painting

Many hours and brushstrokes later, here's the final painted chick.

To begin the next phase, insert a new blank layer as the top layer. Leave the blending mode and opacity as is (Default and 100%). Now here’s where the work really begins! All that has come before is really just preparation for the actual painting. No, I’m not kidding! The first seven steps should take an afternoon, give or take. It’s not very time-consuming; it’s just a lot to explain, a lot of details.

While painting, refer to the first file you created (the flattened, full-color one). I use the eye-dropper to sample colors from this base file, and then adjust them as needed. To cover the grisaille lines and tones completely, the paint will need to be quite opaque. However, I use many glazes of low-opacity color, which build up and eventually cover the greyscale image.

So that’s basically it. I hope you find this method helpful. At the very least, I’ve laid out one method of painting in the classical mode of the Old Masters. It’s been a fun experiment! I invite your comments and questions below, in the comments box. Thanks for reading!

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Learn how to use Photoshop to paint photorealistic wildlife, with this new tutorial on CG Arena.

The computer graphics website CG Arena (www.cgarena.com) publishes a free online magazine every other month. The new issue, just out today, includes a 7-page tutorial I wrote about painting a highly-realistic bald eagle portrait using Photoshop. This tutorial is about twice the length of the ones I publish here on Digital Image Magazine, so there’s lots of detail and screen captures to explain the process. The tutorial is called “The Making of Sentinel.” You can download the free magazine and read the tutorial, along with lots of other great content, here. Here’s a close-up look at the finished painting.

Sentinel (detail), by Bob Nolin. Digital painting created in Photoshop. Based on photograph by Joshua Sexton. Used with permission.

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The high-contrast close-up image on the left lends itself well to this technique. With just a few layers and some filtering, the result looks pretty darn metallic.

In this tutorial, I hope to shed some light on how to use textures to modify photographs. You may have heard an artist say “I applied a texture to get this effect,” but what does that mean? Is there a texture button? It’s actually pretty simple. A texture is simply an image file. Usually, it’s a closeup of a flat surface with some interesting, complex details, such as wood grain, concrete, painted canvas, rusted metal, etc. To “apply a texture,” insert the texture file as a layer above the image you want to change (texturize). Then, change the texture image layer’s blending mode to Overlay. The two images now interact with each other in interesting ways. That’s the quick explanation. Today, we’ll see how to apply two texture images to a portrait, resulting in a very convincing bronze statue look.

The image used here for this demo comes from Katlove on DeviantArt, and is used with her permission. The two texture files come from the ever-growing collection on my hard drive. I don’t remember where I found them. The idea, though, isn’t to duplicate what I’ve done, but just to get an understanding of texture layers and blending modes.

First, I use Topaz Adjust to begin the texturizing. This adds a lot of detail.

As in past tutorials, I decided to start with the powerful Topaz Adjust filter, shown above. The Spicify preset adds some nice detail without going overboard. Topaz adjust is an affordable replacement for the extremely expensive Lucis Art filter. I use it all the time.

Insert a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to alter the coloring.

After running the Topaz Adjust filter, I insert a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Click on “Colorize.” This turns the image into a monochrome image, which is what we want. We’ll add some metallic colors with the texture files in a bit. But for now, we need to get rid of any hint of flesh tone or makeup. Slide the Hue slider back and forth until you achieve a bronze or dull brown-green. You may need to play with the saturation slider, too.

The first texture image is added as a layer. The blend mode is Darken. Notice the opacity is turned down about half-way.

Now we’re ready to apply our first texture. For me, this is a lot of trial and error, and experimentation, with different files, until one does what I’m looking for. In this case, I wanted an aged, pitted surface, as if this were an old statue that had seen a lot of wear. That led me to try the file you see above on the right. Another thing to experiment with is blending modes. Overlay was okay, but when I chose Darken, the result was perfect. Darken leaves the image alone unless the texture image has areas that are lighter than the image you’re texturing. So, it added texture mostly in the highlighted areas (the cheek, nose, chin). Somehow, this seemed really convincing. So here’s the process, step by step.

First, find a texture file. Select an area of it, or select all, and then copy it. Back on the image you’re texturizing, highlight/activate the image layer (Background, in this case). Do Edit > Paste (or CMD/Ctl +V), and the texture copy is added as a new layer above the Background layer.

Second, resize the texture. It’s probably too small. So use the Edit > Transform options to Rotate and Scale the texture until it covers the whole Background image.

Third, change the texture layer’s blend mode. Start with Overlay, since most of the time that’s the right choice. You can vary the opacity setting if the effect is too strong. For this first layer, use the Darken blend mode, and turn the opacity down to about 50%.

Now, at this point you could add a layer mask to the texture layer, and mask out areas that you don’t want the texture to cover. Just something to keep in mind.

A second layer, in Overlay blend mode, is added above the Darken layer.

Overlay causes colors to mix and change in interesting ways. So I insert a second texture layer, using the method described above. I use the Overlay blend mode and leave the opacity at 100%. This adds lots of detail and variety to the surface. But I’ve lost the bronze color. To fix it, I’ll add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer (next).

Tweaking the overall color with Hue/Saturation.

Insert a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, and slide the Hue slider until the color is bronze, or whatever color you’re after. To finish, I did a little dodging and burning here and there. And that’s how to make a bronze sculpture in Photoshop! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and look forward to your comments.

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At the project's completion, the painting looks just like the photo, especially at this small size.

In this two-part tutorial, we explore how to reproduce photographic detail using Photoshop paintbrushes. There are two very different areas of this painting. The foliage was covered first, in last week’s tutorial. We painted each leaf or “blade” of the foliage on it’s own layer, making sure to save the transparency (blank) area of each layer as a channel. Today, we’ll call up those selections to add a layer of texture to many of the blades. This will make them look really photographic.

A close-up of the photograph, showing the fur details.

For the cat’s fur, there’s no easy way to reproduce all those little hairs. If you want the result to look photographic, you need to recreate something with the same level of detail as the photograph. It helps to zoom in (as shown here) when painting the fur. Notice that the white hairs seem to be on top of the ones below. Under the white hairs there are some brown hairs of various shades. At the bottom there are black hairs. So we’ll work with three layers named Black (bottom), Brown (middle), and White (top). This makes the job a bit easier, and it also gets great results. Let’s get started!

Block in areas of color, at full opacity, to serve as the base for the cat.

As you can see above, I’ve already finished the eye. I won’t be covering that today, to keep this tutorial reasonable in length. So, after painting the eye, I created a new layer, located at the bottom of the layer stack, with all the foliage above. This makes sense, when you think about it. Now, as you paint, you don’t have to worry about painting over the lines into the foliage. Since they lie above the cat layers, they block any “overpainting” we might do. So, insert a new layer, call it Cat Painting Base. Using a brush at medium hardness and 100% opacity, quickly block in the major shapes (see above). Don’t belabor this part: when you’re done, nearly all of this will be covered over. Why paint it at all, then? I find it helps to have the general colors in place, rather than, say, white. It’s a traditional painting method that works well here, too.

Just above the Cat Painting Base layer, add a new layer called Black. Paint the darkest details here.

Before you go any further, I would recommend that you lock the Cat Painting Base layer, just to make sure you don’t paint on it by mistake. Click on the black lock icon to lock it. Then, insert a new layer, and name it “Black” or “Dark”. This will be the darkest colors, and they will be overlaid next by lighter and lighter colors. Most of the detail comes in the next two layers, so don’t spend too much time here. Notice that I added some dark browns and purples to the ear and the top of the head.

All the middle values are added here on the Brown layer.

Lock the “Black/Dark” layer before moving on. Insert a new layer above the “Black/Dark” layer, and name it “Brown” or “Middle”. As you can see above, there’s a LOT of brushwork going on here! Keep in mind that you don’t need to do the whole cat in order, as shown here. Actually, I painted the three layers for forehead first, then the ear, then the nose and chin. Use the same three layers for the whole cat. I zoomed in to each separate area in order to see and copy the details.

The white details come last. The fur is now done.

You know the drill by now: lock the Brown layer, and insert a new one, calling it White. Another thing to keep in mind is that you can go back down the stack to the Brown or Black layers at any point. In traditional acrylic painting, you can’t do that; you must paint the darks, middles, and lights in order, and there’s no going back, without a lot of headaches. I’m just pointing out, once again, one of the many advantages of working digitally.

Zoomed in at 100 percent, you can see how the paint (right) is far from exactly the same as the photo. At smaller sizes, however, it looks pretty darn close.

The above comparison shows that you don’t need to get every last hair exactly right. I didn’t work this closely zoomed in, and I don’t recommend you do that, either. What you’re trying to achieve is similarity of pattern, of texture. Keep zooming out to “fit on screen” and check your progress. This is a slow process. The next part, adding texture and detail to the foliage, is fast.

The foliage, which was painted in part one, lacks the details needed to look truly photographic. You can see what I mean in the following.

The untextured leaves on the left are smooth. In order to quickly (and very effectively) add some realistic detail and texture, we’ll add a layer above each leaf (remember there’s a separate layer for every leaf), with a texture image on it. We’ll set that layer’s blending mode to Overlay, and boom, we’re done! In the example on the right, you see two different texture images at work. The top area uses a “spotty” kind of image, and the other uses one that has lines in it. Here are the texture images used:

These are texture images downloaded for free from some generous soul on the Internet.

To add the texture: highlight the layer of the leaf you want to add texture to. Go to your texture image, select an area, and copy. Click on the cat painting file, and paste. It creates a new layer with the texture. You will need to resize (Edit > Transform > Scale) and rotate it (Edit > Transform > Rotate) and move it until it covers the leaf area completely. Now, remember those selections you created last week for each and every leaf area? Here’s where they prove their worth. Go to Select > Load Selection, and pick the selection for your leaf from the drop down, click the Invert checkbox, and click OK. Make sure you’re on the texture layer (it’s highlighted and active). Now, do Edit > Clear. This removes all of the texture that is NOT on the leaf. Change the texture layer’s blending mode to Overlay, and you’re done! For this painting, I added texture to the in-focus, close-up leaves only. You may find that lowering the opacity of the texture layer helps in some cases.

Thanks to Lassekorsgaard on Deviant Art for the free textures. The two used above come from his very generous download containing 90 great textures. This link will take you there. Enjoy!

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The photo on the left is used a reference for our photorealistic painting, on the right. In Part One, we'll complete the foliage.

If you’ve ever painted with traditional water-based media, such as watercolor or acrylics, you may have painted with a liquid rubber mask, such as Maskoid, to protect areas from paint. An example of this is a watercolor of a cat peeking out from some dense foliage. You might cover the cat with liquid masking to protect it. When the mask is dry, you can paint the foliage without worrying about getting any paint on the cat. Once the foliage is dry, simply peel the mask off the cat. It remains untouched, and ready to paint.

In digital art, of course, there are different methods of masking out areas of a painting. We’ve seen layer masks in use quite a bit here on Digital Image Magazine. But today I’m going to show another method that you may find useful. It’s not necessarily better than using a layer mask, but it may suit your workflow better, depending on the painting you’re working on. Here’s how it works. Let’s use the example from above: a cat peeking out from dense foliage. With this method, we’ll use the painted foliage to create its own mask, allowing us to reselect areas with ease during the later stages of the painting.

Some readers have asked me to show how I create a painting, so this tutorial is in response to that request. So far, I have finished the foliage, and the cat remains to be painted (see above). So that’s where we’ll end this first part, and begin the cat next week. By the way, this tutorial applies just as well to Painter as Photoshop. Ready? Let’s get started!

The photo (by Sande Hamilton) used for this painting can be downloaded for free from Stock.Xchg (link). Once you’ve downloaded the photo, you can head over to this recent post which shows how to create nice line drawing in about 30 seconds, using Photoshop’s Minimum filter. In a nutshell, here’s how you do it:

1. In the Layers palette, drag the Background image onto the New Layer icon. Desaturate this copy (preferably with the Black and White image adjustment tool).

2. Copy this desaturated copy. Then, go Image>Adjust>Invert. Change the layer blending mode to Color Dodge. The image appears to go white, or nearly so.

3. Use the Minimum filter (Filter>Other>Minimum), with a small numeric setting. If the line drawing is too thin, increase the setting a bit.

4. Flatten the image and save as “Cat Drawing.psd.”

Here's what your line drawing should look like, more or less. Note that I've done some cropping of the original photo.

So, at this point you’ve got two files: the original photo, and the line drawing file. This drawing file is really the painting file, because that’s where you’ll be adding the layers for the different elements of the painting. Right now, it’s got one layer, called Background. Double-click on the name, and change it to Drawing. Change the blend mode of this layer to Multiply. This layer will remain on top of all the layers we’ll be adding. Because it’s in Multiply mode, the drawing will remain visible on top of the other layers.

Insert a new layer, by clicking on the New Layer icon, or go Layer>New Layer. Click, hold, and drag this layer beneath the Drawing layer. Turn off the eyeball on the Drawing layer. Now you can see that this new layer has a tiny checkerboard pattern. Photoshop displays this pattern wherever there is no image data–in other words, the layer is completely empty, and transparent. It’s like a pane of clean glass without a smudge on it. We’re going to paint on this layer, and then use these pixels to create a mask. Go ahead and make the Drawing layer visible again by clicking on its eyeball. Choose a soft paintbrush, pick a good green (we’ll modify it shortly), and make sure that flow and opacity are at 100%. Also, make sure Layer 1 is active. Now choose a blade (I think these are long iris leaves) to paint, and use the line drawing to guide you. Paint right up to the lines. Use the eraser if you go over.

By using the paintbrush at 100% opacity, we have created an area on Layer 1 that is completely non-transparent. If you click on the transparency lock, you will only be able to paint on the existing pixels on Layer 1. This is what I meant before: the paint has created its own mask. Is that cool or what?

To see how this works, try painting on Layer 1, both on the blade of green and on the transparent area. See? You can only paint on the existing pixels. Which is just fine by us, because we want to develop this blade now, and we won’t have to worry about staying inside the lines! Lower the brush’s opacity and flow both to about 40. With the original photo open next to your painting, begin trying to match the photo as closely as possible. Use the eyedropper to sample colors if you like (that’s what I do). Vary the opacity and the softness/hardness of the brush to paint the dark “veins” in the blade. Here’s what mine looks like when done.

Once you’re done painting this blade, we’ll want to save the selection. Go Select>Load Selection, and a dialog box comes up, already pre-filled with “Layer 1 Transparency” in the Channel field. Perfect. Click OK.

Our new channel is added to the list.

From here on it’s simply a matter of add a new layer, paint a blade (or area of a blade) at 100% opacity, lock the transparency, refine the blade, then save the selection and lock the layer. I ended up with 19 layers. You could have more or less, depending on how much you want to rely on separate layers for elements. Elements which are closer to the viewer will go towards the top of the layer stack, so that they overlap the elements “in back of them.” You’ll notice that two of the blades are out of focus. You can paint them that way too: just paint the blade with a hardish edge, and then apply a Gaussian blur, setting around 30. This creates areas of semi-transparency, which work just fine with the transparency lock.

I hope you’ll give it a try, and let me know how it goes for you. If you run into trouble, just leave a comment, or drop me an email (bobnolin at digitalimagemagazine.com). It took me about 4 hours to paint all the foliage and the dark background areas. So give it some time and be patient. I hope you enjoy this exercise!

Part Two is available here.

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An example of what Corel Painter's Kaleidoscope can produce.

To kick off the New Year, we’ll start with a exploration of one of the little-known and little-used tools in Corel Painter: the Kaleidoscope tool. No doubt everyone has played with a kaleidoscope at some point in their childhood. Looking through a hole in one end of a tube, and pointing it towards the light, you would see some amazingly complex–yet symmetrical–designs. A kaleidoscope creates symmetry with the use of mirrors cleverly aligned. Painter does something similar, in that it “mirrors” a portion of an image in a repeating pattern within a square. The tool works with an existing image, so to begin, open up an image that’s at least 500 pixels wide and tall. Choose an image with lots of details and colors.

Next, go into the list of Dynamic Plugins. You’ll find these at the bottom of the Layers menu. You can also access them by clicking on the little plug icon at the bottom of the layers palette. From the list of plugins, choose Kaleidoscope. A dialog opens up, asking what size you’d like to make your kaleidoscope. You’ll always be working with an exact square, so you are only asked to supply one number. Let’s say you type in 400. It creates a 400×400 pixel wide area to work with. Notice that a new dynamic layer has been created, over in the layers palette. This is the layer you’re working on. Click and drag the cursor around, and notice how the box moves with it. Isn’t that cool? When you find an area that makes a design you want to keep, choose Drop and Select from the Layers menu. Then, you can select it and save it as a separate image, or turn into a pattern, if you like.

As noted, this tool only works on existing pixels. However, Painter brush wizard David Gell, over at Jitterbrush.com, has developed a simple template that allows you to paint AND create a kaleidoscope at the same time! It’s free, and easy to use. You can download it here: Kaleidoscope Mirror Templates for Corel Painter. There are some nice, clear instructions there, too.

Here are some other designs I created with the Kaleidoscope tool. At the bottom, you’ll find a montage of the original photos I started with. Try to match them up – it’s not always easy to do! I hope you have fun playing and exploring this fun tool.

Here are the images I used to create these designs.

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Three steps along the way: the original (upper left), lighting adjusted in Part 1 and 2 (upper right), and after applying Topaz Adjust filter (bottom).

In parts 1 and 2, we took a look at how to correct or change the lighting in a stock portrait photo, using non-destructive layer techniques. Now that we have balanced the lighting, we are ready to move forward. The goal, by the way, is to have a good image to work with in Painter. I’ve found that the Topaz Adjust filter can do amazing things with portrait photos, so I often use it to enhance the image prior to painting it in Painter. There are a number of presets in Topaz Adjust. For this portrait, I used one called “Spicify,” which brings out incredible detail, enhances contrast, and adds some dramatic color to an image. You can see the results above.

The clean, user-friendly interface of Topaz Adjust. Topaz's other filters look and work similarly.

I find that the Adjust filter works very well for portraits of men and elderly people. It really brings out the details. Sometimes the results are astounding, other times, not so hot. It really depends on the image. That’s why I hesitate to give you exact settings and step-by-step instructions from here out. I hope you’ll see my method and approach, and apply it to your own work. Every image calls for something new, it seems. It’s always a new adventure! In this case, the man’s eyes were squinting from the bright sunlight (which we removed in Steps 1 and 2). To open them up, I used the lasso selection tool to draw around the eyes, and then used the Liquify filter to nudge them open a tad.

After applying the Adjust filter, I opened the image in Painter, and cloned it. “Smearing pixels” in Painter works really well with an image with lots of detail like this. You can use other methods to add detail prior to going into Painter. Photoshop’s Grain filter can help (go Filter > Texture > Grain), though it applies the texture evenly. Sometimes over-sharpening a tad can help. And believe it or not, sometimes enlarging a file from really small to really big can give you lots of texture to smooth and manipulate with Painter. I found this out by accident, when a client gave me a photo that was only a few hundred pixels wide. Of course, they asked for a large painting! I enlarged it in Photoshop to 9000 pixels wide, and it looked awful! But it resulted in a very painterly look once I began painting it in Painter.

To finish up this series, I’ll leave you with this: a close-up of the image after Topaz Adjust (top), and then many hours later, after working on it in Painter. Painting begins by smearing the pixels, but lots of areas need to have fresh color brought in. Look at the eye, for instance. It’s mostly hand-painted by the time I’m done. There’s no easy way to show you how I got from A to B here, unfortunately. But I hope you find this helpful nonetheless. Next week, something new! Have a great New Year 2011!

Zoomed in to actual pixels size, you can see some of my painting technique.

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