tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57389404881246118212024-02-07T20:18:32.306+00:00Design-A-Go-GoA blog dedicated to the creative experiments of Icy Sedgwick.Icy Sedgwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11501193571425442406noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5738940488124611821.post-38934366788573179002013-06-04T14:37:00.002+01:002013-06-04T14:37:34.768+01:00Achieving the Toy Camera look (2 of 2)Last week I showed <a href="http://creative.icysedgwick.com/2013/05/achieving-toy-camera-look-1-of-2.html">one method</a> for achieving that 'toy camera' look, and I promised to show another method. Chris Spooner has also featured a <a href="http://blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/tutorials/how-to-create-a-lomography-photo-effect-in-photoshop">third method</a>, so you've got plenty of options!<br />
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Open your image in Photoshop. I'm using one of my own images of the Grainger Market in Newcastle.<br />
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Add a Curves adjustment layer.
Choose ‘Red’ from the dropdown channel menu and edit the curve to match the one in the picture.<br />
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Also choose ‘Green’ and ‘Blue’ and edit the lefthand half of the curve by dragging downwards to make the image look very red.<br />
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With the adjustment layer active, add a layer mask.
Click on the Gradient Tool. Draw a Black-White gradient across the image so that the red portion remains on the left.<br />
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Add another Curves adjustment layer and click on the ‘Blue’ dropdown channel. Drag the left half upwards to turn the image blue. Add a layer mask and add a gradient going in the opposite direction.<br />
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Now, a lot of these toy camera images have vignettes. So draw an ellipse with a feather of around 200px - invert the selection and, on a new layer, fill it with black. Set the blending mode to 'multiply' and lower the opacity. I like my vignettes to be extra strong at the edges so I painted along each edge of the image with a soft-edged black brush on a new layer, which I set to 'soft light'.<br />
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And there you have it!<br />
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<b>Which method do you prefer?</b>Icy Sedgwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11501193571425442406noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5738940488124611821.post-7214602193538306122013-05-28T13:00:00.002+01:002013-05-28T13:00:54.046+01:00Achieving the Toy Camera look (1 of 2)I got a Canon Powershot A810 for my birthday this year, and I've been experimenting with the image modes that it ships with. Normally I would shoot everything on P mode and make my edits in Photoshop - you might wonder why, since you can often achieve good effects with the modes, but the problem is, if you use the mode, there's no way of recovering the image without the edits applied by the camera. Applying the edits in Photoshop allows for greater flexibility. However, I'm particularly taken with the 'Toy camera' mode, which seeks to emulate the plastic toy cameras that have become all the rage in photography circles of late. This is an image of a steam engine on the Tanfield Railway that I took with the mode.<br />
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I really like it, but at the same time, I still prefer to take images in P mode and edit them later. So in this post, and the next, I'm going to show two ways of 'faking' the toy camera look in Photoshop.<br />
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First, I've opened my image. You can see that it's a fairly flat and lacklustre image, as most digital photos are when they're straight from the camera.<br />
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Next, I've cropped the image to easily centre the engine. I usually divide the width by the height of the image to get the ratio, to ensure that any cropping preserves the proportions of the image. For this camera, the ratio is 1.33.<br />
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Now, I've added a Curves image adjustment layer to boost the contrast. An easy way to do this is to create an S curve by moving curve up at the top right point, and down at the bottom left point.<br />
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Next, I added another Curves adjustment layer, but in this case, I changed the channel using the dropdown box. I added curves for the Red, Green and Blue channels to give the image that red cast.<br />
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Finally, I added a dark brown layer over the top, set the blending mode to 'Multiply', lowered the opacity, and used a layer mask to paint out the centre. This gives the vignette look so common to toy cameras.<br />
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And that's it! Next week I'll post the alternative method as well.Icy Sedgwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11501193571425442406noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5738940488124611821.post-13844712193360177362013-05-01T13:36:00.000+01:002013-05-01T13:36:08.353+01:00Lomo PhotographyI've been keen on photography since I adopted my mother's Agfa Instamatic at the age of ten, and while I usually use digital (a Canon 400D, Canon Powershot A810 or my Samsung Galaxy S2 being preferred cameras), I've had a Pentax ME Super for a few years too. There's just something about the quality of the images that you can't achieve with digital, even using Photoshop.<br />
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I took this image of the fountain in Trafalgar Square, and managed to use a long enough exposure to give the water the milky texture so intrinsic to photos of water. Using ISO400 film meant that there was enough grain to give the image the sort of noise that you'd normally avoid in digital photography, but which works so well with film.</div>
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I took this image inside the Natural History Museum using Ilford's black and white film. Most film labs now process black and white film in colour fluid, which gives a reddish-brown tinge to black and white. I love monochrome photography anyway but this particular effect just seems so much richer than anything I could achieve in Photoshop.</div>
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I've been fascinated for a while by Lomo photography, which is the form of film photography which uses plastic 'toy' cameras, complete with defects such as light leaks, or strange colour effects. I took this shot at Woodhorn Colliery near Ashington and the fact it's slightly over exposed gives it a strange, eerie feel, while the overcast sky has a pinkish colour cast. I love the square frames of lomo photography, and it's amazing how simply clicking a button on a tiny camera gives me a more organic feel than anything I might throw together in Instagram.</div>
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I took this shot of the daffodils in our back garden, and it's obvious that I've quite monumentally screwed it up. I was shooting square frames but I wasn't advancing the film enough between shots, meaning I got this strange, ghostly effect as the centre portion is double exposed. The fact the film was exposed twice explains why it's brighter, as more light has been let in, and the image is slightly blurred as I had the camera on the wrong shutter speed, meaning I had too much motion in the camera at the point of exposure.</div>
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I think, in all honesty, that I prefer my Pentax as the picture quality is much better, and naturally the controls are more extensive - I have more than two shutter speeds, two apertures and four focal points to choose from. But at the same time, my Lomo is smaller, it doesn't require batteries, and there's something organic about the pictures that I want to experiment with further. Watch this space!Icy Sedgwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11501193571425442406noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5738940488124611821.post-59432612979637497112013-04-22T11:43:00.002+01:002013-04-22T11:43:40.293+01:00Drawing Cartoon CharactersI recently treated myself to a Wacom Bamboo Tablet with this weird notion that I'd be able to turn my hand to digital painting. Sadly my artistic style doesn't seem to lend itself well to what I want to be able to do, so I ended up just doodling my usual type of character, and I thought I'd go through my process to show how I got from start to finish.<br />
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I flood filled the background with pale grey, and on a new layer, sketched this out loosely with a small, hard-edged round brush using black.<br />
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Now I created a new layer between the background and the black lines, and used a larger brush to colour the character in mid blue.</div>
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With that done, I created a new layer between the blue layer and the lines, and painted in shadows with a darker shade of blue and a soft-edged brush on a low opacity.</div>
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I repeated the last step, albeit this time using a lighter shade of blue to give highlights. Et voila!</div>
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<b>What about you? Have you ever used a graphics tablet, and if so, did you find it difficult to get used to?</b></div>
Icy Sedgwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11501193571425442406noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5738940488124611821.post-53292800292410897542013-04-07T15:07:00.000+01:002013-04-07T15:07:15.194+01:00Quickly Lighten a Night Time ShotIt's always a shame when you take a photo at night and find that even if you used a decent shutter speed or a flash, the image is still a little dark. So today we'll have a look at a quick and easy way to lighten your images in Photoshop. I'm using an image of the Northern Goldsmiths jewellers in Newcastle upon Tyne.<br />
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Open your photo. You won't get very far if you don't.<br />
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Now, duplicate the layer. Either drag the Background layer down to the New Layer icon, or just press Ctrl+J/Cmd+J. Set the blending mode of this layer to 'Screen'.<br />
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It already looks lighter, but we need to do a bit more to it to improve its look.<br />
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Click on the Adjustment Layers icon at the bottom of the layer palette and select 'Curves'. Give yourself an S curve a bit like this, to boost the highlights and darken the shadows.<br />
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The settings you choose will depend on your image, but an S curve of some description is a pretty safe bet. You'll get an image with more contrast. It already looks less 'flat' than the image that came out of the camera.<br />
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It's kind of yellow, which you could fix by altering the colour balance with a new adjustment layer, but I want a bit of a 'filter' effect. I've created a layer that I flood filled with dark blue (hex code 1B1464). I set this to Hue and lowered the opacity.<br />
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You should end up with something a bit more like this!<br />
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And there you go! It's such a simple technique, and by altering the curves or using different coloured overlays, you can achieve all kinds of effects depending on what you're going for. Have fun!Icy Sedgwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11501193571425442406noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5738940488124611821.post-54341194328173814882012-11-01T09:28:00.002+00:002012-11-01T09:28:22.681+00:00Creative PostcardsI came across <a href="http://www.creativebloq.com/photo-editing/postcards-above-10121001">this post</a> over on Creative Bloq (and subsequently followed it through to Akos Papp's <a href="http://postcardsfromabove.tumblr.com/">Postcards From Above</a> blog) and I was so impressed with the range of postcards that he's created that I thought I'd have a go at my own. I've only done two, of Newcastle upon Tyne and London, but in both cases I've tried to pick specific locations and an image treatment/font combination that 'ages' them.<br />
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In Newcastle's case, I've gone for a faded pink/red colour cast so typical of the Seventies, and I've gone for a retro font treatment to go with the colours. The view is from Google Maps and depicts the train line that runs through Newcastle, with the Castle Keep, Vermont Hotel and Moot Hall to its south, with the Black Gate, Milburn House and St Nicholas' Cathedral to the north.<br />
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In the case of London, I went for a more faded, vintage colour, and a Fifties style font to match the colour. The view is of Trafalgar Square, with the National Gallery in the top centre of the image. It just goes to show that you can find source material in all sorts of places.</div>
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<b>What do you think?</b></div>
<br />Icy Sedgwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11501193571425442406noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5738940488124611821.post-1707730433076037602012-10-17T11:00:00.000+01:002012-10-17T11:00:04.298+01:00Liven Up A PhotoSometimes you can take an image on a camera phone, and it looks perfectly alright on the screen, but you look at it on your PC and suddenly you notice it's a bit flat. It's easy enough to 'pep up' a slightly faded looking image, and I've done it here in just three steps.<br />
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I took this image of the sun rising over the field I pass on my way to work. It's nice, and the one advantage of the shorter days is I'm actually up in time to see sunrise.<br />
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Still, things could be improved. A couple of colour balance layers bring out the blue in the sky, and put the green back into the frost-encrusted grass.<br />
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I like that lens flare that the camera naturally introduced, but a tad more won't go amiss.<br />
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And finally, a vignette to drive the eye inward.<br />
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Yes, Instagram can do all these fancy things to your images, but instead of automated filters, isn't it nice to just do it yourself?Icy Sedgwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11501193571425442406noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5738940488124611821.post-53922094243044650782012-10-10T13:30:00.000+01:002012-10-10T13:30:06.706+01:00Changing the WeatherFollowing on from the <a href="http://creative.icysedgwick.com/2012/10/tutorial-digital-rain.html">digital rain tutorial</a> that I posted last week, I thought I'd share a short process for how I drastically altered a stock image.<br />
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I started off with an image of a road and a rainbow from Sxc.hu.<br />
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Then I removed the rainbow, cloned out the people on the left hand side, cropped the image to remove the sign to the left, and darkened the whole image using both Levels and the Brightness/Contrast function as adjustment layers.<br />
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Next I added storm clouds from another stock image, this time on a new layer set to 'Multiply'.<br />
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Then I added my first layer of digital rain.<br />
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And another, this time set to 'Multiply.<br />
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And finally, a dark vignette around the edges!<br />
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<br />Icy Sedgwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11501193571425442406noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5738940488124611821.post-5455143609297108492012-10-03T15:45:00.001+01:002012-10-03T15:53:55.779+01:00#Tutorial - Digital RainEvery now and then, it's nice to be able to change the weather. Sometimes taking photos of rain doesn't quite work, so in this tutorial, I'll show you how to add artificial rain to an image. This will either boost any existing rain, or change the weather altogether! I'm going to use this photo I took on the North York Moors.<br />
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Now, duplicate the layer (Ctrl / Cmd + J). Go to Filter > Add Noise. Choose Uniform and Monochromatic, and a fairly high number.<br />
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Now go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. I've chosen an angle of 60o, but you might want to have the rain slanting in a different direction. Experiment with the amount until you get something similar to this.<br />
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You'll have an odd border where the blur has faded out, so hit Ctrl/Cmd and T to bring up the Free Transform option. Drag the blurred section so the border is beyond the edge of the image. Hit Enter to accept the change.<br />
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Now you'll need to alter the opacity, or change the blend mode, to make it look like rain. I have mine set on Vivid Light at 99%. Voila! Digital rain!<br />
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If you've had a go, post your result in the comments so I can have a look!Icy Sedgwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11501193571425442406noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5738940488124611821.post-79580239750497506862012-09-19T10:10:00.002+01:002012-09-19T10:10:48.580+01:00Creating Photoshop BrushesFinding the right brushes for use in a project can be time-consuming, and working around copyright restrictions can slow down your work flow. Creating your own brushes is a quick, fun and easy way to solve the problem! I'll show you how to turn a page of ink splats, made using drawing ink and a pipette, into a set of Photoshop brushes.<br />
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1) Produce your page of mixed media and scan your image. <br />
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2) Go to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.<br />
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3) Using the Lasso Tool, draw a selection around one of the ink splats. Press Ctrl/Cmd + C to copy the selection.<br />
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4) Now create a new document (Ctrl/Cmd + N) and press Ctrl/Cmd + V to paste the selection into the new page.<br />
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5) Press Ctrl/Cmd + L to bring up the levels window. Drag the left hand slider in to darken the splat. Now go to Edit > Define Brush Preset and give it a name.<br />
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6) If you open the Brush palette, you’ll see your new brush!<br />
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7) Repeat the process for all of your other splats. When you’re finished, click on the small arrow in the top right of the Brush palette. Choose Preset Manager from the dropdown menu.<br />
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8) Click on the first of the brushes you made. Press Ctrl/Cmd and click on all of them. When you’ve selected them all, click ‘Save Set’ and give it a name.<br />
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You can now load these brushes into Photoshop on different machines. If you want to download these readymade ink splat brushes, you can find them <a href="http://icycobweb.deviantart.com/#/d5fbaam">here</a>.Icy Sedgwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11501193571425442406noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5738940488124611821.post-78850355195102764742012-08-30T10:02:00.000+01:002012-08-30T10:02:31.900+01:00Early HalloweenYes, I know it's still only August, but I felt compelled to doodle a cartoon pumpkin holding a scythe yesterday. As you do. So I thought I'd quickly run through my process from taking a hand drawn picture through to a digital piece of art.
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First of all, I drew the pumpkin in pencil, and outlined it using a 0.4mm black fine liner. I took a photo of it using my camera phone and emailed it to myself.
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It's a bit dark and I need to be able to see the lines to trace them, so I used both the Levels and Brightness/Contrast command to tidy up the picture a little. Doesn't that look better?
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Now I place this into Illustrator (on a locked layer) and I use the Pen Tool to trace around each of the shapes. I keep each thing on a separate layer, so the scythe is below the hands layer, and the feet are below the body layer, and so on. It gives much cleaner lines than trying to work with my original pen lines!
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I use Illustrator to block fill each shape with flat colours. This gives me a solid base to work on when I get onto the next step.
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Now I take it into Photoshop and create a new 'shading' layer for each part of the pumpkin. Using a soft round brush at around 40% opacity, I add highlights and shadows by choosing lighter and darker shades of the flat colours. As a finishing touch, I applied a radial gradient to the background, and added a shadow beneath the pumpkin. I also used a canvas texture on a separate layer to add some punch to the piece. I also added a border with rounded corners, and a copyright notice.
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Happy Halloween!Icy Sedgwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11501193571425442406noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5738940488124611821.post-89954303353543678162012-08-12T18:25:00.000+01:002012-08-12T18:25:27.785+01:00Paintings 01I decided a couple of weeks ago that I wanted to take up some form of painting again. It's been years since I did any proper painting, not since my art A Level, in fact, aside from some low level digital painting. I knew I wanted to try to master digital painting, but I also wanted to try a more traditional form. I was torn between oils and watercolours - I'd done oils at school but knew they were both messy and expensive, while watercolours were far more readily available. So far, I've just really been practicing with washes, colour mixing, and different techniques, but I did want to try and paint something recognisable, instead of just page after page of meaningless colour. This was one of my first attempts.<br />
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It was really rather simple. I began with a graded blue wash, simply adding more water to dilute the colour, to make the sky lighter as it approached the horizon, and then dried my brush in order to apply the blue paint for the water using the dry brush technique. The resulting white patches among the lines resemble light on water.<br />
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Once the sky and water were dry, I then used a much finer brush to sketch in the boat using dark brown. When it was dry, I added another layer to give a shadow and sense of depth to the hull and mast. Again I used the dry brush technique to add a reflection in the water.<br />
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All in all, I'm pretty pleased with it - it's not exactly going to blow the minds of the art world but it's simple and recognisable!<br />
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As for my attempts at digital painting, I loaded up Photoshop CS5, plugged in a Wacom Bamboo, and had a go.<br />
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I started off by actually tracing the tree outline from a photograph, and just added shadow by going over the areas several times. Then I created several background layers, altered different brush settings in the Wet Media brush set, and created a graded sky by sampling colours from a photograph of a sunset. I was quite pleased with the stipling on the grass, and the blending of the sky, although the white cloud effect doesn't work. All in all, I think I may give digital painting another go!Icy Sedgwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11501193571425442406noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5738940488124611821.post-75792437365046036572012-07-29T12:15:00.002+01:002012-07-29T12:15:57.571+01:00How It's Done - 01I've been considering getting back into painting, both digital and traditional, and I've been talking to artists online about what tools, software and techniques they use. During the discussion, someone sent me this link, and I thought I'd share it as a good example of how you can combine the digital with the traditional. The work in question is by John Picacio, and illustrates Bran Stark of the <i>Game of Thrones</i> series atop his home of Winterfell. The full piece is <a href="http://io9.com/5913439/my-vision-of-game-of-thrones-bran-stark-atop-winterfell?tag=gameofthronescalendar">here</a>, but it's interesting to see how Picacio got from this;<br />
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to this;<br />
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It's always fascinating finding out how other artists work, and it's nice to see an artist admitting the use of photographic references!<br />
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<b>Do you use references, and do you prefer to work digitally or traditionally?</b>Icy Sedgwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11501193571425442406noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5738940488124611821.post-68271324844224972902012-07-17T09:30:00.000+01:002012-07-17T09:30:01.987+01:00#Tutorial - Smudge PaintingI love a spot of digital painting, but if truth be told, I'm not very good at it. However, I'm not keen on using Photoshop's Filters menu to 'fake' a painting as they never look particularly convincing. I first found this method in Photoshop Creative magazine years ago, and I've adapted it slightly to suit my own needs. This tutorial will demonstrate how I use nothing more than the Smudge Tool and a canvas texture to turn a photograph into a painting.<br />
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So choose your photo and let's go! I chose this photo of a rose, taken some time ago in the Alnwick Garden.<br />
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I used the split toning technique from last week to add blue tones. I've also cropped it to choose a particular point of interest.<br />
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Next, create a new layer above the background - rename it 'canvas'. Fill this with any bright colour - you'll switch it off and on so you can see which parts of the photo still need to be painted. For now, turn the layer off. Create a blank layer above this called 'painting'.<br />
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Now you need to grab the Smudge Tool. Load the Wet Media brushes that come with Photoshop, and choose one - I've gone for a brush with a wide tip. Set the strength to between 30-40%, and select the Sample All Layers box.<br />
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Click the 'painting' layer to make it active. Start 'painting' by smudging across areas of the photograph. I find it helps to follow lines, and fill in the spaces afterwards. If you smudge from dark to light areas, you'll get a nice painterly effect.<br />
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Keep going, turning the 'canvas' layer on and off to see which bits you've missed. Make sure you turn it off before smudging or the Smudge Tool will sample colour from that layer as well.<br />
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Et voila, the finished image!<br />
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There's just two more steps that I've taken. First of all, I've pasted a canvas texture over the top and set the blending mode to Multiply. I've also altered the Brightness/Contrast of this layer so the canvas shows up a bit. Then, I created a signature in Illustrator, pasted this into the image, and set the blending mode to Multiply.<br />
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If you've had a go, why not post a link to the finished piece in the comments?Icy Sedgwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11501193571425442406noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5738940488124611821.post-3360555303103126022012-07-10T09:30:00.000+01:002012-07-10T09:30:00.504+01:00#Tutorial - Split ToningA couple of weeks ago, I had a look at split toning as part of a general overview of techniques, but today I thought I'd post a quick tutorial as to how I actually achieved the effect. It's very, very simple and takes just minutes, and can really add 'punch' to an image! <br />
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First off, grab your chosen image. I'm using a photo I took several years ago of a rose - I'm also using Photoshop CS5 but I'm pretty sure this works even in CS3.<br />
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Now, go to Image > Adjustments > Black and White. Normally I'd use a black and white gradient map to achieve a monochrome effect but this option gives more flexibility, and you can drag the sliders until you achieve your desired 'black and white'. <br />
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The image is black-and-white, so you can start introducing the colour. Go to Image > Adjustments > Colour Balance, and alter the sliders until you achieve the colour you're after.<br />
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There, done! Didn't I say it was easy?<br />
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If you've had a go, post a link to the results in the comments so I can have a look!</div>Icy Sedgwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11501193571425442406noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5738940488124611821.post-81854524024477148652012-07-03T12:39:00.001+01:002012-07-03T12:39:56.887+01:00Photoshop FlowersI'm always on the lookout for good tutorials that demonstrate how to create artwork from scratch in Photoshop. Given I teach a range of abilities, it's nice to find tutorials that look difficult, but are actually fairly simple, as long as you have a grasp of the basics. The below flowers piece was created with the wind stylization filter, the warp, distort and perspective functions within the Transform menu, and the Pen Tool. You can find the whole tutorial <a href="http://pureromance88.ucoz.com/news/create_beautiful_glowing_flowers/2011-01-31-110">here</a>, and if you've got a spare 10-20 minutes, it's well worth a go.<div>
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<br /></div>Icy Sedgwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11501193571425442406noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5738940488124611821.post-22241402402681445402012-06-28T12:29:00.002+01:002012-06-28T12:38:07.999+01:00Vinyl DesignsIt's staff development today at work, so I took advantage of a workshop being offered in using the vinyl cutter. The machine can cut into vinyl to be used for both window decals, and clothing applications. I've decided to show off both usages!<br />
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First off is my Billy Idol T-shirt. I've been after one for while but I never found one I liked. So I bought a blank white T-shirt from M&S and created this artwork using an album cover image in Photoshop. I brought it into Illustrator, used Live Trace, and then sent it to the vinyl cutter. I peeled away the parts now showing in white, and hot-pressed it onto the T-shirt. Cool, huh?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc9FI1x50A3hHvrBz-fodreAzoRFNfFYPtmJH1AcWi7Yn6fFMXqTpsnDHNl03rPnGqodzWSXZfPnzDzhfT3uOCos2MQ-QjoN7VY1IPoZWvwKYqtIsMMxFogEPIaiw0KfwMR0BeYnNdH5A/s1600/rsz_window_decal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc9FI1x50A3hHvrBz-fodreAzoRFNfFYPtmJH1AcWi7Yn6fFMXqTpsnDHNl03rPnGqodzWSXZfPnzDzhfT3uOCos2MQ-QjoN7VY1IPoZWvwKYqtIsMMxFogEPIaiw0KfwMR0BeYnNdH5A/s320/rsz_window_decal.jpg" vca="true" width="320" /></a></div>
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Next up is my vinyl window decal. I created this one using nothing but the Pen Tool and the Rotate Tool in Illustrator, and sent it to the vinyl cutter. I did actually get it slightly wrong as I wanted to have the outlines online, but I like how it turned out. I peeled away the inverse parts, added adhesive paper, and stuck it to the window of the print room. So simple!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCz3KpP7FLEoDB-mJQCDwheS3PTtjVOGVY2KoFDL78HAjDdawDuwDetIHUlq44ojza_hBfjyAf9uqpRQuE7lGG_bsKi5z2FbPpH_bwM72117hjYqcqeVhv4Tz5mr81iiZPtSkOI7vTECQ/s1600/rsz_cupcakebadge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCz3KpP7FLEoDB-mJQCDwheS3PTtjVOGVY2KoFDL78HAjDdawDuwDetIHUlq44ojza_hBfjyAf9uqpRQuE7lGG_bsKi5z2FbPpH_bwM72117hjYqcqeVhv4Tz5mr81iiZPtSkOI7vTECQ/s320/rsz_cupcakebadge.jpg" vca="true" width="320" /></a></div>
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Last but not least, I also had a go with the badge maker. I took an Illustrator design I'd done previously, of stylised cupcakes, and stripped the colour to leave behind only the outline. I printed this out and put it through the badge maker. If you like the pattern, you can find it at <a href="http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric_items/new?design_id=1096470">Spoonflower</a>. I'm awaiting a test swatch and if it's good enough, I'll make it available for sale!Icy Sedgwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11501193571425442406noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5738940488124611821.post-22602006392563688392012-06-26T12:57:00.000+01:002012-06-26T12:57:42.297+01:00Brand new blogI've been toying for some time with the idea of setting up a blog dedicated to my creative endeavours, particularly since I don't want to clog up my <a href="http://blog.icysedgwick.com/">main writing blog</a> with photos of knitting, or examples of photography. So here we go with a brand new blog, about all things design and craft-related.<br />
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Might as well kick things off with some examples of my creative photography, all of which were taken last weekend on a trip to Robin Hood's Bay in North Yorkshire.<br />
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<img alt="Giant's Table" height="304" src="http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2012/177/0/a/the_giant__s_table_by_icycobweb-d54x3rh.jpg" width="400" /></div>
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This is a photo of a rock that had fallen over. I thought it looked a little like a giant's table, and I've edited it using the 'dark processed' lomo effect that <a href="http://blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/tutorials/how-to-give-your-photos-a-dark-processed-lomo-effect">Chris Spooner</a> featured over on his blog. Naturally my end product has come out slightly differently as I used a different source image, but it just goes to show how you can adapt tutorials to suit your own needs.<br />
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<img alt="The Cave" height="301" src="http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/177/c/3/the_cave_by_icycobweb-d54x3hp.jpg" width="400" /></div>
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This is a cave going into the rock face - I was trying to capture how the water level starts higher than where I was standing but you can only do so much with a phone camera! I was trying out the <a href="http://www.photoble.com/photoshop-tutorials/retro-color-effect-photoshop-tutorial">Match Color</a> option within Photoshop which allows you to add a 'vintage' feel to your image's colours, although I think it would have worked better on a different source image.<br />
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<img alt="The Cave" height="511" src="http://th01.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2012/177/a/6/the_beach_by_icycobweb-d54x31c.jpg" width="400" /></div>
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This is a standard shot of the beach and the sky beyond, although I enhanced it using the <a href="http://www.graphicdesignblog.org/split-toning-photography/">split processing</a> method. It's incredibly easy and really helps to add a sense of atmosphere to a shot.<br />
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So there we go! My first post, and some of my photography. Hopefully you'll find the tutorials I've linked to as useful as I have!Icy Sedgwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11501193571425442406noreply@blogger.com0