Look Something

Lara Fabian - Broken Vow

2009-06-28T12:04:00.000+07:00

Tell me her name
I want to know
The way she looks
And where you go
I need to see her face
I need to understand
Why you and I came to an end
Tell me again
I want to hear
Who broke my faith in all these years
Who lays with you at night
When I'm here all alone
Remembering when I was your own
[Chorus:]
I'll let you go
I'll let you fly
Why do I keep asking why
I'll let you go
Now that I found
A way to keep somehow
More than a broken vow
Tell me the words I never said
Show me the tears you never shed
Give me the touch
That one you promised to be mine
Or has it vanished for all time
[Chorus]
I close my eyes
And dream of you and I
And then I realize
There's more to life than only bitterness and lies
I close my eyes
I'd give away my soul
To hold you once again
And never let this promise end
[Chorus]

Dance With Me Cowgirl - New West

2009-06-28T12:03:00.001+07:00

Stumbled on this country bar
I don't know the language here
Well, I'm just a city boy out to have a beer
I don't own no cowboy clothes
I don't know how to docie-doe
I haven't even seen a rodeo
So, honey, can you help me
CHORUS
Dance with me, cowgirl
Well show me what I'm doing wrong
Dance with me, cowgirl
Dance with me, cowgirl
Well get me through this country song
Dance with me, cowgirl, all night long
You gotta show me just what to do
How to kick and yell "Yahoo"
Spit tobacco like cowboys do
So I can feel at home
Guess I ought to buy a cowboy hat
A pickup truck and stuff like that
Buy a horse and trade in my cat
So I can feel at home
(CHORUS, 2x)
Come on and help me dance

Copia Di Alexia - Happy

2009-06-28T12:02:00.000+07:00

You know what I'm saying?
Happy
It's so nice to be happy
Everybody should be happy
It's so nice to be happy

Happy
It's so nice to be happy
It's so nice to be happy
It's so nice to be happy

I wanna take you to my world to be happy
`Cause I can't live without your love
Yes you know

I've never needed anyone to be happy
But thats the way that things go wrong
Yes you know

I was afraid to open my eyes
Don't even know how many tears that I've cried
Now that I've found the love of my life
I don't get down down down down down

Happy
It's so nice to be happy
Everybody should be happy
It's so nice to be happy

I've never been in love before and I'm happy
`Cause you're the one I'm looking for
Yes you know

You bring the sunshine into my life
Your lips are burning and the feeling is right
I can't believe It's true that you're mine
Don't let me down down down down down

Happy
It's so nice to be happy
Everybody should be happy
It's so nice to be happy

I just pray
You'll never run away
Can't wait another day
To hold you tight
To hold you tight

Happy
It's so nice to be happy
Everybody should be happy
It's so nice to be happy

Happy
It's so nice to be happy
It's so nice to be happy
It's so nice to be happy

Everybody should be happy

Deacon Blue - I'll Never Fall In Love Again

2009-06-28T12:01:00.000+07:00

What do you get when you fall in love
A girl with a pin to burst your bubble
Thats what you get for all your trouble
I'll never fall in love again

What do you get when you kiss a girl
You get enough germs to catch pneumonia
After you do she'll never phone you
I'll never fall in love again

Don't tell me what its all about
Cause I've been there and I'm glad I'm out
Out of those chains,those chains that bind you
That is why I'm here to remind you

What do you get when you fall in love
Nothing but pain, lies and sorrow
So for at least until tomorrow
I'll never fall in love again

What do you get when you fall in love
What do you get when you fall in love
I'll never fall in love
What do you get when you fall in love
I'll never fall in love
What do you get when you fall in love
I'll never fall in love
What do you get when you fall in love
I'll never fall in love

Eric Carmen - All By Myself

2009-06-28T12:00:00.000+07:00

When I was young
I never needed anyone
And makin love was just for fun
Those days are gone

Livin alone
I think of all the friends Ive known
But when I dial the telephone
Nobodys home

All by myself
Dont wanna be
All by myself anymore
All by myself
Dont wanna live
All by myself anymore

Hard to be sure
Some times I feel so insecure
And love so distant and obscure
Remains the cure

All by myself
Dont wanna be
All by myself anymore
All by myself
Dont wanna live
All by myself anymore

Kiss Me Thru The Phone Remix - Soulja Boy f/ Sammie & Pitbull

2009-01-07T12:45:00.000+07:00

[Ad-Lib]
(Soulja Boy Tell Em)

[Talking: Pitbull]
Mr. Collipark!
Jimbo!
Mr. 305!
Soulja Boy Tell 'Em!
Ya' know how we say it in spanish right?
" Soldadito dile. "
(Ehahahaha)
(Dale!)

[Chorus: Sammie]
Baby you know that I miss you
I wanna get with you tonight but I cannot babygirl
And that's the issue
Girl you know I miss you
I just wanna kiss you
But I can't right now so baby kiss me thru the phone
(kiss me thru the phone)
I'll see you later on...
Kiss me thru the phone
(kiss me thru the phone)
See you when I get home

[Verse: Soulja Boy]
Baby, I know that you like me
You my future wifey
SouljaBoyTellEm yeah you could be my bonnie
I could be your clyde
You could be my wife
Text me, call me, I need you in my life yeah
All that, everyday I need ya
And everytime I see ya my feelings get deeper
I miss ya, I miss ya
I really wanna kiss you but I can't

[Sammie:]
Six seven eight triple nine eight two one two
(678) 999-8212

[Chorus: Sammie]
Baby you know that I miss you
I wanna get with you tonight but I cannot babygirl
And that's the issue
Girl you know I miss you
I just wanna kiss you
But I can't right now so baby kiss me thru the phone
(kiss me thru the phone)
See you later on...
Kiss me thru the phone
(kiss me thru the phone)
See you when I get home

[Verse: Pitbull]
(Ayyyyyyyoooo!)
That Lil' Chico behind closed doors a Soulja baby
Just like Master P ain't no limit I thought I told you baby
Besitos Mami adonde tu quiera,
That means I'll give you kisses wherever you want them baby and drive you crazy.
Let me do the thangs you like, now baby close your eyes
And think with an open mind (whoo) Now fantasize.
I can't wait to get home to get it on
But for now mamita rica send me kisses thru the phone like (Mwahh!)

[Chorus: Sammie]
Baby you know that I miss you
I wanna get with you tonight but I cannot babygirl
And that's the issue
Girl you know I miss you
I just wanna kiss you
But I can't right now so baby kiss me thru the phone
(kiss me thru the phone)
See you later on...
Kiss me thru the phone
(kiss me thru the phone)
See you when I get home

[Bridge: Soulja Boy]
She call my phone like
(da da dadadada da da dadadada da da...)
We on the phone like
(da da dadadada da da dadadada da da...)
We taking pics like
(da da dadadada da da dadadada da da...)
She dial my number like
(da da dadadada da da dadadada da da...)

[Sammie:]
Six seven eight triple nine eight two one two
(678) 999-8212

[Chorus: Sammie]
Baby you know that I miss you
I wanna get with you tonight but I cannot babygirl
And that's the issue
Girl you know I miss you
I just wanna kiss you
But I can't right now so baby kiss me thru the phone
(kiss me thru the phone)
See you later on...
Kiss me thru the phone
(kiss me thru the phone)
See you when I get home

My Gurl - 2 Pistols f/ Slim

2009-01-07T12:44:00.000+07:00

[Verse 1:]
Ay0 sweetie can ii talk to you for a minute
You got some pretty lips girl and I'm all in it
Wen she told me she was leavin til neaxt year
Ii sed watz ya mathamatics like x squared
N I'm a be better den da last 1
Cause he stuck in the past like last month
Baby you want me and ii want you 2
And if you don't front on me ii ain't gon front on you
You da reason why ya boy gotta smile on my face
Me n you gon keep goin like a million mile race
You turn me on like a remote do a t.v
Thru all the ups and downs just lean on me
And all ya fake friends just let them be
Cause ii don't wanna see you stressed like oo.eem.gee

[Chorus:]
It never really matted 2 much 2 me
That you was jus 2 damn old for me
All dat really matterd was you was my girlfriend
And baby datz all dat mattered to me

[Verse 2:]
We could be like simese twins
I'm stuck on you like karate n chinese men
We could make it last together and last forever and keep you shined up like glass and leather
And maybe you can learn somethings
And you can have it yur way like burger king
Baby we could fly high in a g5
N ya lips yea dey sweeter den a beehive
N if you don't get it I'm talkin bout honey
And if you don't got it I'm talkin bout money
I'm feelin you so jus listen boo
We can fly past the haters like we invisible
It's killin me while it's killen you
It's killin you like it's killen me so let's survive da world just you and me

[Chorus:]
It never really matted 2 much 2 me
That you was jus 2 damn old for me
All dat really matterd was you was my girlfriend
And baby datz all dat mattered to me

[Verse 3:]
As long as you my girlfriend
Ii don't mind if you have another girl friend
But just stay loyal like ya girls friend
And as long as I'm ya boyfriend and ya boy slim
Ii jus want you 2 chill and enjoy him
Cause everytime we chill you make me happy
And we stay tangled up like hair datz nappy
Forget da other dudes cause ya boy is better
And all ii got 4 you is 4letters
And ii think you alreadyy kno wat ii mean l-o-v-e yea datz wat it mean
Ii remember da 1st time ii approached you girl
You look kinda upset so can ii hold you girl

[Chorus:]
It never really matted 2 much 2 me
That you was jus 2 damn old for me
All dat really matterd was you was my girlfriend
And baby datz all dat mattered to me

Lily Allen - The Fear

2009-01-07T12:42:00.000+07:00

I want to be rich and I want lots of money
I don�t care about clever I don�t care about funny
I want loads of clothes and fuckloads of diamonds
I heard people die while they are trying to find them

I�ll take my clothes off and it will be shameless
�Cuz everyone knows that�s how you get famous
I�ll look at the sun and I�ll look in the mirror
I�m on the right track yeah I�m on to a winner

[Chorus]
I don�t know what�s right and what�s real anymore
I don�t know how I�m meant to feel anymore
When do you think it will all become clear?
�Cuz I�m being taken over by The Fear

Life�s about film stars and less about mothers
It�s all about fast cars cussing each other
But it doesn�t matter cause I�m packing plastic
and that�s what makes my life so fucking fantastic

And I am a weapon of massive consumption
and its not my fault it�s how I�m programmed to function
I�ll look at the sun and I�ll look in the mirror
I�m on the right track yeah we're on to a winner

Chorus
I don�t know what�s right and what�s real anymore
I don�t know how I�m meant to feel anymore
When do you think it will all become clear?
�Cuz I�m being taken over by The Fear

[Bridge]
Forget about guns and forget ammunition
Cause I�m killing them all on my own little mission
Now I�m not a saint but I�m not a sinner
Now everything's cool as long as I�m getting thinner

[Chorus]
I don�t know what�s right and what�s real anymore
I don�t know how I�m meant to feel anymore
When do you think it will all become clear?
�Cause I�m being taken over by fear

Royal Bliss - Save Me

2009-01-07T11:22:00.000+07:00

You don't know me,
No you don't know a thing about my love
Or life in between i'm screaming through your door
Leave me tonight

How could you mean that she said
Oh i turn my back, my eyes full red
I don't believe that she said
You're out of your mind

I don't know why
All i need is someone to save me
I believe
I don't know why
All i need is someone to save me
I believe
And I don't know why

You turn on me
And left me alone with my fate
Oh I know id leave myself inside
I can't stop that fight

How could you mean that she said
Oh i turn my back, my eyes full red
I don't believe that she said
You're out of your mind, YEAH!

I don't know why
All i need is someone to save me
I believe
I don't know why
All i need is someone to save me
I believe, aaahhh!

What about those times
You left me alone in the bed
Well I didn't mean it
All of those nights
You swore that you'd call when you didn't
Well I didn't mean it
All of those times
You tore me down and said
Well I didn't mean it
Well what about the times
You told you wish you were dead
I did mean it

Why
All i need is someone to save me
I believe
I don't know why
All i need is someone to save me
I believe
And I don't know why, WHY?!
I don't know why
WHY?!

Kottonmouth Kings - Where I'm Going

2009-01-07T11:20:00.000+07:00

Life is dream
It's funny thing too sometimes
On the road of life it's full of surprises
Twist and turns we look toward the sky for some guidance
The sun goes down and it rises
Withstood the sands of time
And we'll find new horizons

[Jonny Richter]
sometimes I lay awake at night and try to figure it out
is my life going north is it heading south
I'm walking on a fence between wrong and right
trying to keep a level head try to keep my goals in sight
it's hard as hell in this world today friends
I've known for many years started acting strange
things I cared about before seemed to just fade away
now I'm left with these questions of today

"When is the train ganna get back on track
when am I even ganna care bout that
why do I always get delt the bad cards
took the easy the road so long and now my lifes hard"

Still I try to make it work out for the best
and I know I've gatta clean up all this mess
if I knew when I started where this all would end
I'd prolly do it all over again

[Chorus]
I don't know where I'm going
But I know where I've been
I went from having a little to having a lot
I went from buying weed to growing pot

I don't know where I'm going
But I know where I've been
I've seen some people cry cause loved one's die
I've looked in people's eyes and told some lies (yeah)

[D-Loc]
Skies are blue and the trees are grand
Going to the place where life froze in between
The beautiful hills mountains and streams
The Mans country with my women living free
Stay on my path follow my road
Do all the right things to achieve my goals
Perusing my dream in life I lead
Become who I want when I want anytime I please
I no where I'm going
If I keep it on track
Just stay on my line only time will tell
I pray to the one over looking my trail

[Chorus]

[Daddy X]
I've been criticized
For speaking my mind
Been baptized in lies
Given bad advice
Here's a word to the wise
Never compromise
Watch your back
As you watch your ends multiply
Look a man in his eyes
And never ever say die
Keep your eye on the prize
And you'll stay on the rise
I'm a king world wide
And I'm going to stay on the ground
I've been behind the glass but I always rebound
Outlet quick live life in the fast lane
Inbound Outbound my stride don't change
Stay true to myself cause I created this game
I got the whole world jumpin like the house of pain (jump)

[Chorus x2]

Where are we going and (where it end) [x11]

No Cocaine - Slightly Stoopid

2009-01-07T11:17:00.001+07:00

cuz we dont need no cocaine
we dont need no ecstacy
to ruin our brains
only good is sensi spliff
for reas i pay
talkin bout the herb

cuz we someone just like u
everything we do the same
or is that true
girl i love u mary jane
what would i do
fall without the herb

so put the love into this
girl and dont u feel no shame
just let this be
girl i love you mary jane
and she love me
all about the herbs

cuz we dont need no cocaine
all we need is good sensi
to rule our brains
only one thing sensi spliff
for reas i pay
talkin bout the herbs

cuz we someone just like you
everything we do the same
or is that true
girl i need u mary jane
what would i do
fall without the herbs

put ur love into this
girl and dont u feel no shame
just let this be
girl i love u mary jane
and she needs me

Fairytale Of New York - Pogues f/ Kirsty Maccoll

2009-01-07T11:15:00.002+07:00

It was Christmas Eve babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, won't see another one
And then he sang a song
The Rare Old Mountain Dew
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you

Got on a lucky one
Came in at ten to one
I've got a feeling
This year's for me and you
So Happy Christmas
I love you baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true

They've got cars big as bars
They've got rivers of gold
But the wind goes right through you
It's no place for the old
When you first took my hand
On a cold Christmas Eve
You promised me
Broadway was waiting for me

You were handsome
You were pretty
Queen of New York City
When the band finished playing
They howled out for more
Sinatra was swinging,
All the drunks they were singing
We kissed on a corner
Then danced through the night

The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing "Galway Bay"
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas day

You're a bum
You're a punk
You're an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it's our last

The boys of the NYPD choir
Still singing "Galway Bay"
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas day


I could have been someone
Well so could anyone
You took my dreams from me
When I first found you
I kept them with me babe
I put them with my own
Can't make it all alone
I've built my dreams around you

The boys of the NYPD choir
Still singing "Galway Bay"
And the bells are ringing out
For Christmas Day

The Boy Does Nothing - Alesha Dixon

2009-01-07T11:15:00.001+07:00

I've Got A Man With Two Left Feet
And When He Dances Up To The Beat
I Really Think That He Should Know
That His Rhythms Go Go Go. (x2)

(Chorus)
Does He Wash Up Never Wash Up
Does He Clean Up No He Never Cleans Up
Does He Brush Up Never Brushed Up
He Does Nothing The Boy Does Nothing. (x2)

Hey Boy How You Bin
I've Got A 1000 Lines Where Do I Begin.
And I've Bin Here Bin There Traveling.
I Saw You At The Corner My Vibe Kicked In.
Two Films I Clock You Wearing Tight Jeans
And A Real Nice Suit You Were Smiling Like You Were Just 17
I Asked You For A Dance You Said Yes Please.

Take A Sip Of Dancing Juice
Everybody's On To You To The Left Then To The Right
Everybody Hit The Rhythm Its On Tonight
Im Gonna Fell The Beat Within My Soul
I Need A Man To Take Control.
Let The Melody Blow You All Away.

(Chorus)
Does He Wash Up Never Wash Up
Does He Clean Up No He Never Cleans Up
Does He Brush Up Never Brushed Up
He Does Nothing The Boy Does Nothing. (x2)

Work It Now Work It Work It Now
Do The Mambo Shake It All Round Now
Everybody On The Floor Now Let Me See You Clap Your Hands

I Wanna See You Work
I Wanna See You Move Your Body
And Turn I Wanna See You Shake Your Hips
And Learn I Wanna See You Work It Work It Work It Out Now, Hey. (x2)

(Chorus)
Does He Wash Up Never Wash Up
Does He Clean Up No He Never Cleans Up
Does He Brush Up Never Brushed Up
He Does Nothing The Boy Does Nothing. (x2)


And If The Man Can't Dance
He Gets A Second Chance
Do The Mambo Shake It All Around Now (x5)

Take That - Greatest Day

2009-01-07T11:12:00.003+07:00

Today this could be the greatest day of our lives
Before it all ends, before we run out of time
Stay close to me
Stay close to me
Watch the world come alive tonight
Stay close to me

Tonight this could be the greatest night of our lives
Let�s make a new start
The future is ours to find
Can you see it
Can you see it in my eyes
Can you feel it now
Can you hold it in your arms �. tonight
Tonight

Oh stay close to me (Hold On)
Stay close to me
Watch the world come alive tonight
Stay close me

Ooh hold your head high, (Hold On)
Arms open wide
Yea the world starts to come alive when you stay close to me

Today this could be the greatest day of our lives
Today this could be the greatest day of our lives

Ooh and the world comes alive and the world comes alive and the
would comes alive oh oh oooooh
Stay close to me (and the world comes alive) hold on
Stay close to me (and the world comes alive)
Watch the world come alive tonight stay close to me (Hold on)
oh stay close to me and the would comes alive stay close
to me and the world comes alive

watch the world come alive tonight (stay close to me) oh oh ohoooo

Broken Strings - James Morrison f/ Nelly Furtado

2009-01-07T11:12:00.001+07:00

Let me hold you
For the last time
It's the last chance to feel again
But you broke me
Now I can't feel anything

When I love you
It's so untrue
I can't even convince myself
When I'm speaking
It's the voice of someone else

Oh it tears me up
I tried to hold on but it hurts too much
I tried to forgive but it's not enough
To make it all okay

You can't play our broken strings
You can't feel anything
That your heart don't want to feel
I can't tell you something that aint real

Oh the truth hurts
And lies worse
I can't like it anymore
And I love you a little less than before

Oh what are we doing
We are turning into dust
Playing house in the ruins of us

Running back through the fire
When there's nothing left to say
It's like chasing the very last train
When it's too late

Oh it tears me up
I tried to hold on but it hurts too much
I tried to forgive but it's not enough
To make it all okay

You can't play our broken strings
You can't feel anything
That your heart don't want to feel
I can't tell you something that aint real

Oh the truth hurts
And lies worse
I can't like it anymore
And I love you a little less than before

But we're running through the fire
When there's nothing left to say
It's like chasing the very last train
When we both know it's too late

You can't play our broken strings
You can't feel anything
That your heart don't want to feel
I can't tell you something that aint real

Oh the truth hurts
And lies worse
I can't like it anymore
And I love you a little less than before
Oh and I love you a little less than before

Let me hold you for the last time
It's the last change to feel again

I Believe - R. Kelly

2009-01-07T11:11:00.000+07:00

Yeah
Uh, uh
Uh
Yeah
Yeah

There could be dark clouds up over me, yeah
Still I know I can stand tall, yeah
And I can be the only man in the middle of the sea
And still somehow I wouldn't feel small, no, no

Ever since I found you, baby, it's been my attitude,
yes, it has
I wouldn't trade you for the world, uh-uh
If I bet my money on you, baby, I would never lose, no
'Cause you're my inspiration, girl
With you by my side, I believe

(Oh, I believe) I believe
(Oh, I believe) Yes, I
(I believe) I believe
(Oh, I believe) Oh, I believe
(Oh, I believe) I believe
(I believe) Yes, I

Now there could be a roadblock right in front of me,
mmm
And it wouldn't be in my way, no
Even if they locked me up and threw away the key, yeah
Somehow I know it would be okay, yeah

'Cause ever since I met you, girl, I've been positive,
oh, yes
You gave me a reason why, yes, you did
I kinda gave up on life, but now I wanna live, yeah
'Cause in the tunnel you were my light
And with you by my side, I believe

(Oh, I believe) Oh, I believe
(Oh, I believe) Oh, I believe, yeah
(I believe) I believe
(Oh, I believe) Woo...I
(Oh, I believe) I believe
(I believe) Oh, ho, I believe

And I remember when I wrote this song
It was at a time when I, I couldn't go wrong
But since I met you

(Oh, I believe) I believe
(Oh, I believe) Said I
(I believe) I believe
(Oh, I believe) Oh, I believe
(Oh, I believe) Yeah
(I believe) Yes, I, when the clouds are hanging over
us, woo

(Oh, I believe) And the going's tough
(Oh, I believe) I
(I believe) I believe
(Oh, I believe) If we stand tall, yeah
(Oh, I believe) I believe, yeah
(I believe) I believe

(Oh, I believe) I believe, yeah
(Oh, I believe) I believe
(I believe) Oh, I believe
(Oh, I believe) Oh, I believe
(Oh, I believe) Whoa, oh, I believe
(I believe) I believe, Yes, I do

(Oh, I believe) If the mountain's too high and the
valley's too low
(Oh, I believe) We can do all things
(I believe) If we believe
(Oh, I believe) Ho...whoa...I believe
(Oh, I believe) Hey...yea...ey...yea...
(I believe) Hey, I believe

(Oh, I believe) Said America
(Oh, I believe) America
(I believe) Ooh
(Oh, I believe)
(Oh, I believe)

Lovely - Case

2009-01-07T11:10:00.001+07:00

So lovely , I seen you so many time before
I just gotta tell you...

Something on my mind I need to get through to you
Understand i'm so infatuated by you
You and me would be so hot I cannot explain
Your so beautiful I only wish I could know your name

(Chorus)
Lovely
You are
That's what I call you babe
Cause I don't know your name baby
Lovely
Seen you A million times your always on my mind baby Lovely
Damn I wish we could chill but if we can't your still
To me lovely
Lovely is what your are to me

I've been watching you so long
I cannot believe your real
Only lately got the nerve up to let you know the deal
And to say it in a letter , better yet in this song
Your so beautiful baby won't you just put me on

Chorus

Bridge:
Baby I wish that you could see
That i need loving like yours baby I
Wishing you could be the
Love that I go home to every night
Hoping you and me
Could just be one in the same baby
You are so beautiful I just can't believe it


Chorus
Ad-lib out

Guru f/ Lord Tariq - Knowledge

2009-01-07T11:09:00.000+07:00

[Guru] Yeah.. YEAH.. YEAH!
[L.T.] Guru, hit 'em in the nuts son!

[Guru]
Take you to new heights, let's go up a few flights
We heard what was said, I'ma shed some true light
This is art, no corporate crap
Rock the t-shirt next off the hat
Watch me show splendor I'm no pretender
Caus I can bring summer during cold December
Golden embers, burnt MC's remains
They traded they name, for some sleazy pain
When it all turns out they forgotten about
Well I'm the one that the homies are talkin about
Relevant and heaven sent, 7 Grand my back
Hot lyrics from the sun that'll tear in you black
Understand if you pack enough ammo to scramble
I'm far from Sambo, I'm more like Rambo
Danger, explosive devices
And we the ones that you need to keep close in a crisis

[Interlude]
Listen, Lord Tariq baby
Bronx, P-Lawn baby, put it on 'em God

[Lord Tariq]
Yo who better than he ever been, O.G. veteran
Had to get back to it, Lord never settlin
Cause it's my business that niggaz steady meddle in
Any club you see me in believe I got the metal in
Saddle up, a fifty calibre is gonna level 'em
See the crowd Run like the Reverend
Dum-dums hum through your leather and it's evident no evidence
Back like Bush~! I'm the President, who better than
Uptown's finest, L.T. your highness
40 niggaz with nines, we the 49'ers
Album done response most labels wanna sign us
They know we street designers and we keep that heat behind us
I can speak my piece and leave - my speech the flyest
On each and every street O.G.'s co-sign us
Cops try to stop us, men try to contain us
If you shootin at the stars you only gettin to Uranus
BRRRRAP~!

Mya - Paradise

2009-01-07T11:08:00.000+07:00

I wanna welcome you to paradise (paradise)
Welcome to paradise

Like you on a safari on a Jeep
While making music on HD
It�s like being caught up in the rapture of love
You just wait and see
Never-ending waterfalls
That flow from deep within
You hope that it will last forever
But you don�t know where to begin

Now listen to the beat of the congo
And to animals of the jungle making love (Yeah, they�re making love)
Like we do
There are mountain peaks waiting to be climbed
At your fingertips
To travel far and for so long
Come and join it

Welcome to the garden of Eden
I call it heaven (heaven)
I like to call it even paradise (welcome to paradise)

It takes my mind and heart away
And it makes you wanna say
You just might fall in love
I�d like to welcome you to paradise (welcome to paradise, ohhh, welcome to paradise)

Valley high and valley low
A new discovery
A peaceful way of life is waiting
Deep beneath the sea
Exotic rays are so breathtaking
Don�t forget to breathe
Lost in the eruption of love
You will never wanna leave

Now listen to the beat of the congo
And to animals of the jungle making love (making love)
Like we do
Shooting stars and rainbows
Are waiting to be seen
Here you�ll find your pot of gold
If you just come and see

Welcome to the garden of Eden
I call it heaven (heaven)
I like to call it even paradise (welcome to paradise)

It takes my mind and heart away
And it makes you wanna say
You just might fall in love (you might fall in love)
I�d like to welcome you to paradise

Atlantis, you�ve arrived
To a place where people dream
They dream to touch and feel
And lose reality
Transporting your ecstasy
To a place of relaxation
I�m glad that we�re together
Here in paradise

Welcome to the garden of Eden
I call it heaven (heaven)
I like to call it even paradise (welcome to paradise)

It takes my mind and heart away
And it makes you wanna say
You just might fall in love (you might fall in love)
I�d like to welcome you to paradise (welcome to paradise, ohhh, welcome to paradise)

Welcome to paradise
I love you
Welcome to paradise
You love me
Welcome to paradise
So happy you�re here
Welcome to paradise

Rasheeda - Where Ya Been

2009-01-07T11:07:00.000+07:00

Oh where ya beeeen
'Ol lyin' lil' fucka

{Hook}
Smell like another bitch perfume on ya
Smell smell like another bitch perfume on ya
Oh oh where ya been, 'Ol lyin lil' fucka
Actin like ya didn't have your cell phone on ya

{Verse 1}
C'mon
It's about 4 in the mornin' (mornin')
Acting like you don't see me callin' (callin')
Now we done been here before
Last time I threw yo shit out the back door (back door)
Everytime I let you back in (in)
Turn around and do the same shit again
When you gon' learn you got a 10
Playin wit those hens you gon' lose your best friend (best friend)
Just cuz you got a lil money (money)
Don't mean Imma sit home like a dummy (hell naw)
I knew you wasn't about nothin'
"Ol cheat, 'ol schemin, ''OL LYIN LIL FUCKA

{Hook 2x's}

{Verse 2}
You got me tickin like a time bomb
Betta take her back where she came from (take her back)
I can smell her perfume on your mustache
Talking mess Imma to the left yo ass
I'm too fly for ya anyway (anyway)
I won't play the fool another day (naw)
You had me though for a minute
And I ain't shamed to say I've been played I'll admit it (I'll admit it)
This opprotunity comes once in a lifetime
Can't believe you wanna blow it on a half a dyme
I knew you wasn't about nothin'
"Ol cheatin, 'ol schemin, 'OL LYING LIL FUCK

{Hook 2x's}

{Verse 3}
Don't come in here tryin' to reverse psychology
You da hoe, don't try to point at me
Really though, Imma make yo ass see
It's 80/20, she ain't got shit on me (naw)
I'm da one who showed you how to be a "G"
And the one who gave you the house and key (keys)
Don't make me break ya down to your knees
Any your credit wasn't shit NIGGA PLEASE
Dats what happens when you think you go it going on (on)
When I met ya lame ass you was so alone (so alone)
I knew you wasn't about nothin'
'Ol cheatin, 'ol schemin, 'OL LYIN LIL FUCKA

{Hook 2x's}

Leona Lewis - Run

2009-01-07T11:06:00.000+07:00

I'll sing it one last time for you
Then we really have to go
You've been the only thing that's right
In all I've done

And I can barely look at you
But every single time I do
I know we'll make it anywhere
Away from here

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

Louder louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak I understand
Why you can't raise your voice to say

To think I might not see those eyes
Makes it so hard not to cry
And as we say our long goodbye
I nearly do

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

Louder louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak I understand
Why you can't raise your voice to say

Slower slower
We don't have time for that
All I want is to find an easier way
To get out of our little heads

Have heart my dear
We're bound to be afraid
Even if it's just for a few days
Making up for all this mess

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

Bedtime Stories (2008) TS/Cam

2009-01-07T11:04:00.000+07:00

Download Links

http://www.indowebster.com/Bedtime_Stories.html

INFO

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0960731/

Plot:
A family comedy about a hotel handyman whose life changes when the lavish bedtime stories he tells his niece and nephew start to magically come true.

Cast
Adam Sandler … Skeeter Bronson
Keri Russell … Jill
Guy Pearce … Kendall
Russell Brand … Mickey
Richard Griffiths … Barry Nottingham
Teresa Palmer … Violet Nottingham
Lucy Lawless … Aspen
Courteney Cox … Wendy
Jonathan Morgan Heit … Patrick
Laura Ann Kesling … Bobbi
Jonathan Pryce … Marty Bronson
Nick Swardson … Engineer
Kathryn Joosten … Mrs. Dixon
Allen Covert … Ferrari Guy
Carmen Electra … Hot Girl

Storm Rider : Clash Of Evil (2008) DVDRip

2009-01-07T11:03:00.000+07:00

Download Links

http://www.indowebster.com/Storm_Rider_Clash_Of_Evilavi.html
http://www.indowebster.com/Storm_Rider_Clash_Of_Evilsrt.html

INFO

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fung_Wan

Story Summary

The (fictional) story takes place in China when still under the ruling of Ming Dynasty. It revolves around the 2 genius martial arts practitioners, Nip Fung (nicknamed Wind) and Bou Keng Wan (nicknamed Cloud), as they learn their ways in martial arts and moved up to become legendary figures in the martial arts world. As the comic progressed, more and more characters are introduced (and died) in plenty of engrossing story arcs filled with excellent battles, especially swordplay.

If You Are The One a.k.a Fei Cheng Wu Rao (2008)

2009-01-05T12:10:00.000+07:00

Download Links

http://www.indowebster.com/If_You_Are_The_One_cd1avi.html
http://www.indowebster.com/If_You_Are_The_One_cd2avi.html

INFO

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1330607/

Cast
You Ge … Qi Fen
Qi Shu … Smiley
Alex Fong
Xiao Che
Wei Fan
Yuanzheng Feng
Vivian Hsu
Hu Ke
Haiqiong Luo
Miumiu

The Wackness (2008) DVDRip

2009-01-05T11:57:00.000+07:00

Download Links

http://www.indowebster.com/TheWackness2008__1.html

INFO

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1082886/

Plot:
It’s the summer of 1994, and the streets of New York are pulsing with hip-hop. Set against this backdrop, a lonely teenager named Luke Shapiro spends his last summer before university selling marijuana throughout New York City, trading it with his unorthodox psychotherapist for treatment, while having a crush on his stepdaughter.

Cast
Ben Kingsley … Dr. Squires
Famke Janssen … Kristin Squires
Josh Peck … Luke Shapiro
Olivia Thirlby … Stephanie
Mary-Kate Olsen … Union
Jane Adams … Elanor
Method Man … Percy
Aaron Yoo … Justin
Talia Balsam … Mrs. Shapiro
David Wohl … Mr. Shapiro
Bob Dishy … Grandpa Shapiro
Joanna Merlin … Grandma Shapiro
Shannon Briggs … Body Guard #1
Roy Milton Davis … Homeless Man
Alexander Flores … Kid in Bar

Simple & Stylish Green Search Button

2009-01-03T20:49:00.000+07:00

In this very easy Photoshop tutorial, I’m going to be teaching you how to design a simple and stylish ‘green search button.’

1. New Document / Settings

Firstly, create a new document in Photoshop. For this tutorial, designing a button for the web, I used a relatively small document size of 400 x 120 pixels. Use all of the default settings, such as 72 DPI/Resolution.

After creating your new document, create a new layer (Layer > New > Layer…) call this layer ‘base’ if you like, since it will be the base of our button.

2. Button Shape

This is rather an easy part, all you have to do is get out the Rounded Rectangle Tool and make your button shape. But to make sure I’ve included all of my settings, etc. below.

Be sure you’ve set up your tool as shown above, then draw a little button on your canvas, note that the color you use for your shape doesn’t matter.

3. Apply Effects / Layer Styles

Time to style our button. Right-click your ‘base’ layer in the layer’s palette then go into the Blending Options. Apply the following layer styles:

The colors I used for my gradients in the Gradient Overlay and Stroke layer styles were: #e1e817 and #88a707. Note: if you had any trouble following the layer styles, you’ll be able to download the PSD file from this tutorial at the end anyway, so don’t fret!

This is what our button is looking like now:

Looking good now, hey? You may want to mess around with the layer style settings a little bit, to get a more interesting effect of your own liking.

4. Adding Text

This is a very short step actually, all you have to do is add some text to your button then add a simple Drop Shadow layer style. Start by getting out your Horizontal Type Tool (just the regular type tool) and writing out ‘Home’ on your button.

In the above image I’ve used Arial as my font of choice, and a size of 12 pt.

After you’ve written out your text in white, you may want to add a simple Drop Shadow to the text to make it stand out a little bit more against the button. Your choice though!

5. Taking it further

There’s not much more we can do, but I duplicated my button and changed the colors to red, this could be used as another button or a rollover for the first button, remember to be creative!

Thank you for visiting PhotoshopStar and reading this tutorial, I hope you enjoyed it. It really was just a simple tutorial, hopefully it can teach the new Photoshop users how to make shapes using the shape tools, and how to apply layer styles.

If you found a part of this tutorial difficult, don’t worry, you can download the PSD file from this tutorial from below.

(50kb)

Simple Attractive Orb Design

2009-01-03T20:48:00.000+07:00

In this simple Photoshop tutorial, I’ll be teaching you how to design a simple, attractive orb. Just like the one shown below.

1. Document Creation

Firstly, start by making a new document in Photoshop - I used a size of 600 x 300 pixels with the default Resolution, 72. After making your document, fill the background with a dark color, or a dark gradient.

Next, for the background, you can either add in an ornament-style brush, or you can do some grunge brushing, or add a texture. Get creative. A few good places to look for brushes and textures:

I used a nice ornament brush for my background, then lowered the opacity a little bit.

Ok, we’re done for our background

2. Base Orb

Time to create the base for our orb. Start by making a new layer, now make the selection that you will turn into our orb. Use the elliptical marquee tool.

Now you’ve got your orb selection, fill it with a nice, radial gradient using the Gradient Tool.

We’re done for the base of our orb, now time to apply some effects.

3. Apply Effects

Let’s add some effects to our orb. Start by right-clicking the orb layer in the layer’s palette, then going into the Blending Options. Apply the following layer styles (click for settings):

Looking a bit more interesting now.

Next, get out the elliptical marquee tool again and make a small, football-shaped selection near the top of our orb, like the one I’ve made in the image shown below.

After you’ve got a selection like that, make a new layer then get out the Gradient Tool again. Drag a gradient inside of your selection so you get something like this:

Please note: The colors I used in my radial gradient were #ee9c1a and black (#000000), the lighter orange being the color in the center at the top.

After you’ve got your gradient all set, change the layer mode to either Screen, Color Dodge, or Linear Dodge, your choice. You may also want to lower the layer opacity.

Lastly, for effect, I added in an ornament inside of the orb.

To achieve the effect like the one shown above, follow these simple steps:

Make a new layer, then get out your brush/shape tool.
Select a nice ornament brush or shape you want to use.
Put your shape on the canvas, in an orange color.
Make a selection inside of your orb (smaller than) then feather your selection (Select > Feather…)
Invert your selection and press delete, this will remove the ornament shape on the outside of your orb.
Mess with the layer mode and opacity of your ornament layer.

Ok… I’m hoping that worked out for you. You can of course download the PSD file from this tutorial at the bottom of the page anyway, if you need it for anything.

4. Add Text

Last part of the tutorial now. I think we need to add some text to our orb, or underneath the orb. I think something like ‘enter’ or ‘forums’ would be suitable.

Click the above image to be taken to a screenshot of my text and my text settings. I also finished off by adding in a Drop Shadow to my text layer.

Complete

Well, looks like we’re done for this tutorial. I hope you enjoyed it

If you need to, you can download the PSD file from this tutorial from below.

(340kb)

Photorealistic Puddles

2009-01-03T20:44:00.000+07:00

Page 1 of 3

Learn how to make photos more dramatic with calm puddles. In this Photoshop tutorial, you will learn how to work with layers, transform tools, and layer masks to create photorealistic puddles.

Preview of Final Results

Photorealistic Puddles Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1

Open an image that you would like to add puddles to. Of course, the picture needs to have to have a floor.

Step 2

First, we'll need to create a duplicate of the layer. This layer will be used to apply the puddles and reflections.

Step 3

Create a selection of the floor. If you are using Photoshop CS3, you can use the quick selection tool to quickly create the selection. Otherwise, you can use the magic wand, magnetic lasso, or other selection tools.

Step 4

In the Layers palette, click on the add layer mask button. You should now have a layer mask with the shape of the floor as the white areas in the mask. If you got it backwards (shape of floor is black), you can choose Image > Adjustments > Invert to invert the layer mask.

Now unlink the layer with the layer mask. To do this, click on the button beside the layer thumbnail and the layer mask thumbnail.

Step 5

Now we'll create a reflection on the floor. This is a very simple trick and will make the floor look like a mirror. Currently, you should have the layer mask selected. Click on the layer thumbnail in the layer mask to select the layer (and not its layer mask).

Choose Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical. Your floor should have an effect like the image below.

The floor looks a little bit awkward because it isn't aligned properly. To fix this, choose the move tool from the tool bar and move the layer so that the horizon of the current layer meets the horizon of the original image.

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Step 6

We got the mirror floor, but there seems to be a problem with the reflection of the bride and groom. To fix this, we'll create a separate reflection for them.

First, press Ctrl+J to duplicate the layer. It should only duplicate the layer without the layer mask. If you get another layer with another layer mask, click on the new layer mask then click the trash button in the layers palette to delete it. With the new layer selected, hold the Alt key on your keyboard and click between the top two layers. This will create a clipping mask. A clipping mask uses the layer below as the layer mask.

With the top layer selected, choose the move tool from the toolbar and position the layer so that the reflection matches the foreground objects. In the image below, the layer was positioned so that the bottom of the bride and groom in the two layers meet.

Step 7

Use one of the selection tools, such as the quick selection tool, to create a selection of the object's reflection.

Click on the add layer mask button and you should now get a proper reflection like the image below.

Step 8

Now we'll need to create a mask for both the layers. You can only add one raster layer mask per layer, but here's a trick to add more than one layer mask. First, select Layer 1 and choose Layer > Group Layers. This will put the layers inside a folder. Now, select the group and choose Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All. Now you have another layer mask. Your layers should look similar to the image below.

Page 3 of 3

Step 9

Your image should look like the original image without any puddles. In the Layers palette, click on the group layer mask to select it. Now we'll start painting the puddles. Select the brush tool from the tools palette. First, select any soft round brush with a hardness of 0% (you can change the brush size later). Then, change the opacity to 25%.

Paint the puddles on the floor. Basically, anywhere that you paint, the puddle will appear. If you make a mistake, you can always press Ctrl+Z to undo.

If you want to add more depth to the puddles, continue painting additional layers until you get the results that you desire.

You can also switch to the eraser tool to erase the areas that you want to remove the puddles from. For example, in the image below, I erased the middle and left areas to make the puddle not seem so large.

Final Results

Glossy & Shiny (Highlight) Effects

2009-01-03T20:43:00.000+07:00

In this simple Photoshop tutorial we’ll be looking at a simple technique that’s quite popular at the moment. The technique is using gradients/brushes to make soft highlights/glows on things, it’s particularly popular with some styles of forum skins. You can see the end result of this tutorial below.

1.

Start by making a new document in Photoshop - something around 800 x 600 pixels will be good for practicing. Use the default resolution (72) and default color settings (RGB).

Fill the background with a (radial) gradient of your choice. I had a hard time deciding between a dark grey gradient and a relatively dark orange/red gradient. I went with the grey gradient for this.

2.

Start by finding and getting out the Pen Tool (P). Set the options to what I’ve shown in the below screenshot:

Now I’m hoping you know how to use the pen tool! All you have to do here is select the pen tool, click on the canvas, click again, drag the mouse around to make a curved path, connect the dots.

You want to come up with a smooth & curvy shape like this one:

3.

Making the path was the main part, now for the easy part. Once your path is complete, right-click the path with the pen tool still active, then go to make selection. After you’ve made the selection out of your path, create a new layer then get the brush tool (B) out.

Using a large, soft brush, brush inside of your selection a little bit, very lightly.

As you can see, I basically used a moderate grey from the background gradient, it’s fine doing this. Change the layer mode of your brushing layer to something suitable - something that looks the best, so you may need to go through all of the layer modes! I ending up using Color Dodge.

See, much better!

4.

OK, so basically we should repeat step 2 and 3, but make the path smaller inside of our first one, then we use a layer mode that multiplies the brushing onto the background.

Here are the steps that I used to achieve what’s shown below:

Make a new path, inside of your first lot of brushing
Make your path into a selection and softly brush inside of it (same color as before)
Change the layer mode for your brushing layer mode to something like Multiply or Linear Burn

That’s all. Now it’s time to mess with different paths, shapes, brushes, and all that

Simple Glossy Navigation Buttons

2009-01-03T20:41:00.000+07:00

In this tutorial I’m going to be showing you an easy way to make some pretty simple, but nice and glossy navigation buttons, just like the ones below!

1. New Document/Canvas

First of all let’s create a new document in Photoshop. For this tutorial I’m using a very small size of 400 x 100 pixels, with all of the default settings.

2. Create Button Shape

Create your button shape by using the Rounded Rectangle Shape Tool, then apply a gradient inside of your shape/selection. The colors I used here were #6c7c84 and #5a676d.

3. Applying Layer Styles/Effects

Alright, let’s add some details to the button. Start by right-clicking the button layer in the layer’s palette and going into Blending Options. Click and apply the following settings:

And now you should have a button like this:

Looking alright so far?

4. Add Shine/Highlight

Create a new layer (Layer > New > Layer…) then select your main button layer’s pixels by holding ctrl and clicking the layer’s thumbnail. O your new layer draw a White to Transparent gradient from the top of the button to the bottom.

Cut your newly-made gradient in half by using the selection tool.

Change the layer mode for your shine layer to Soft Light and lower the opacity to around 25-40%.

5. Finishing Touches

Again, create a new layer, now select the main button layer’s pixels, again. Contract the selection by 1 pixel (Select > Modify > Contract) and fill the selection with white. Contract the selection by another 1 pixel then press delete.

Using a large, soft brush, erase away the bottom half of your inner stroke. Change the layer mode for this layer to either Overlay or Soft Light, and lower the opacity to around 80-100%, if necessary.

Using these same methods, make an inner stroke for the bottom half of the button, maybe even use a dark color instead of white.

6. Add Text

Now you just need to add some text to your buttons, which you should normally do when making these buttons for your website (using HTML and CSS). For my text I’ve used used Tahoma, 12pt, bold. I also finished by adding a simple Drop Shadow layer style to the text.

Thanks for reading this tutorial, I hope you enjoyed it! If you would like to learn how to make these buttons into HTML/CSS, you can check out a few of the below websites:

Vintage Clouds

2009-01-03T20:23:00.000+07:00

Page 1 of 2

Learn how to make ordinary blue skies look dramatic with a simple and easy color and contrast adjustment.

Preview of Final Results

Vintage Clouds Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1

As usual, start by opening any photo into Photoshop. Of course, the photo should have a sky with some clouds.

Step 2

Create a selection of the sky. To do this, you can use any selection tools such as the Quick Select tool or the Magic Wand tool.

Step 3

With the selection still active, in the Layers palette, click on the button and choose Levels.

This should bring up the levels tools. You should also see in Levels adjustment layer that the selection applied to the layer mask.

Step 4

In the Levels tool, select Blue from the Channel drop down menu. Then, move the black input slider towards the right until the skies start turning yellow. Don't click OK yet!

Page 2 of 2

Step 5

Then, select the Red channel from the Channel drop down menu and move the white input slider towards the left just a little. Don't click OK yet!

Step 6

Finally, select back the RGB channel from the Channels drop down menu. Move the black input slider towards the right to increase the contrast of the clouds. Now you can click OK when you're done.

Step 7

If you want, you can also add a lens flare. Select the Background layer then choose Filter > Render > Lens Flare.

Final Results

Before and After

High Clarity

2009-01-03T20:20:00.000+07:00

Page 1 of 3

Learn how to apply this abstract photo effect with Photoshop CS3. Your photos will have a high impact look and stronger focus.

Preview of Final Results

High Clarity Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1

Open an image into Photoshop. This effect works best for portraits rather than landscapes.

Step 2

First, to practice non-destructive editing, we'll convert the layer to a Smart Object. Doing this will allow us to use Smart Filters that let you change the filter settings at any time.

Step 3

Choose image > Adjustments > Shadows/Highlights. Adjust the Shadows slider to about 50% so that the shadows are more visible.

Step 4

Now we are going to add a harsh lighting photo effect. In the Layers palette, click on the button then choose Black & White.

In the Black & White settings, click on Auto then click OK.

Page 2 of 3

Step 5

Change the blending mode of the Black & White adjustment layer to Overlay. You should now get a high-contrast photo effect.

Step 6

Duplicate Layer 0. To do this, select Layer 0 then press Ctrl+J or choose Layer > Duplicate Layer.

Step 7

Select the new layer (Layer 0 copy) then choose Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen. With the Smart Sharpen tool, we'll increase the local contrast to make the edges look very sharp. Set the Amount to 100% then adjust the Radius setting until you start to see very slight halos around the edges. Read our Local Contrast Photoshop tutorial for more information about this technique.

This is what the image looks like after increasing the local contrast with the Smart Sharpen tool.

Step 8

Add a blank layer mask to the current layer. To do this, choose Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All.

Page 3 of 3

Step 9

First, press D to reset the foreground and background colors to black and white. Then, select the tool and paint in the layer mask over the subject. This can be a person, foreground object, or anything that you want to apply the Smart Sharpen filter effect to. If you want to erase any areas, use the tool. Try to be precise with the painting because any inaccuracies will be visible later when we reuse the layer mask for another adjustment layer.

Step 10

Hold the Ctrl key and click on the layer mask thumbnail in the Layers palette. This should create a selection based on the layer mask.

With the selection activated, click on the button and choose Brightness/Contrast. This will create a new Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer and apply the selection to the layer mask.

Step 11

In the Brightness/Contrast settings, set the Brightness to -50 then click OK.

Final Results

Here's the final results of this photo effect. If you didn't do a good job painting the layer mask earlier, you can use the or tools to refine the layer mask.

Before and after:

100% crop:

Water Spirit - drawing fire

2009-01-03T20:17:00.000+07:00

First, we have to chose a photo for our future work. I've picked one from sxc.hu and You can download it from this url http://www.sxc.hu/photo/891765 (You have to register first - it's FREE and realy worth of it). When You open Your photo in Photoshop make first step: Image -> Adjustments -> Desaturate (Shift + Ctrl + U). That will be our base image (I'll resize it to 450x600 px for presentation - You may work with larger image if You want or just use this bellow if You don't want to register on sxc.hu).

Now we will add a Adjustment Layer called Levels. Hold Alt Key, and click on Adjustments Layer button on Layers Palette. Select Levels. Make Sure that Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask is sellected. Then just slide dark arrow a little right.

As You can see - image is a little darker now. Now we will draw some fire. Make New Layer, select soft brush of the size You will choise, and using dark orange colour (for example #993300) make a "dot". Next use a smaller size with lighter colour (like #ff9933) make another dot. Again, smaller size, lighter colour (for example #ffcc66), and last time, smaller size, lighter colour (#ffff66) and dot.

Now it's time for a little "magic". Use Smudge Tool (R). Pick small, soft size, and make "fire tongues". Just click somewhere inside our dot, click, hold and drag it up. After first move You will know what I'm meaning. Try untill You will be satisfied. Remember that You may change the Strenght parameter. You will use Alt + Ctrl + Z combination lot of times!

Now lets make this fire more realistic by adding some light on hands. Go to Quick Mask Mode (Q), select big, soft brush, and "draw" there, where You think that the light should appear.

Leave Quick Mask Mode (Q), You will see a sellection. We have to inverse it by Select -> Inverse (Shift + Ctrl + I). Select our Hands Layer, and holding the Alt key add another Adjustment Layer called Color Balance (Use Previous Layer... should be sellected)

Now select our Color Balance Adjustment Layer Mask, and using black soft brush "erase" some lights, and using white - add some lights until You will feel that it looks good.

Next thing will be smal sparks. We have to prepare brush for this operation.

With those settings draw some sparks over our fire (on New Layer). Lower the Opacity of this layer (in my case it is 64%). Use orange colour picked from our fireball (just improvise).

Change again to regular soft brush, use #ffffcc colour (or similar light yellow), select our fireball layer, and make a bright dot inside of it (just for better effect).

My final result:

Surprisingly Easy Rainbow Light Painting Effect

2009-01-03T20:14:00.000+07:00

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Give your photos a unique look with this retro effect that's super easy and fun. You will learn how to create this effect with just one layer and three colors.

Preview of Final Results

Rainbow Light Painting Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1

Start off by opening any photo into Photoshop. This effect works best with isolated objects on black backgrounds such as the image below.

Step 2

To begin, we'll desaturate the image. This step isn't necessary to get the effect, but it will be helpful when we're painting. In the Layers palette, click on the button and choose Hue/Saturation.

In the Hue/Saturation tool, set the Saturation to -100 then click OK.

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Step 3

Now we'll create a new layer. This is the layer where we will be painting the colors on. Click on the button in the Layers palette. This will create a new layer called "Layer 1".

Change the blending mode of Layer 1 to Color.

Step 4

The primary colors that we'll be using are yellow, magenta, and cyan. Before we start painting, we'll use the Swatches palette so that we can quickly select those three colors. In the Swatches palette (Window > Swatches), click on the icon then choose one of the PANTONE CMYK swatches.

When it asks if you want to replace or append the swatch, choose replace. Your swatch palette will now have yellow, magenta, and cyan as the first three colors. Now you can select one of these three colors quickly.

Step 5

Select the tool from the toolbar. Right mouse click on the image and the brush options will appear. Set the hardness setting to 0%. Don't worry about the master diameter setting yet.

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Step 6

Begin by selecting either yellow, magenta, or cyan from the Swatches palette and painting anywhere in the image with a large brush size. You can adjust the brush size by pressing the [ or ] key on your keyboard.

Select a different color and paint the rest of the image.

Final Results

Now that you're done, you can delete the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.

Recreate the ‘Bee Movie’ Text Effect

2009-01-03T20:12:00.000+07:00

In this quick Photoshop tutorial we’ll be recreating the ‘Bee movie’ text effect, you know, the one you’ve seen all over the place over the last few months?

You can see what we’ll be designing with this tutorial in the below image.

You can see the original text over at the Apple trailers page.

1. Background Creation

Firstly we’re going to make a nice background. Start by creating a new document in Photoshop, all the default settings except dimensions: 600 pixels width, 300 pixels height.

After making your new document, fill the background layer with black then make a light gradient in a new layer.

Now you’ve got two layers, the background layer and your gradient layer, change the opacity for your gradient layer to about 5-15%, so that you end up with a very dark background again.

Now, you can finish off the background by adding in a screenshot of the Bee movie or like that. For this I went to Google Images and searched for an extra large picture of ‘bee movie.’ I found this image. If the that site is down, download here.

Copy the image you’ve chosen to your document and resize it to fit. After this, change the layer opacity to around 15-25%, duplicate your screenshot layer and change the layer mode to either Overlay or Soft Light.

Now you should have a background like this.

Lastly for your background, create a new layer and draw a black to white linear gradient on your canvas, black at the bottom and white at the top, similar to this:

Change the layer mode for your gradient layer to Multiply and you’ll end up with an effect like this:

What do you think? Well, at least we’re done for the background!

2. Create Base Text

Alright, time to make our base text. What you need here is a very,very fat font. Head over to DaFont or UrbanFonts and see if you can find a nice, large sans-serif font.

In the above image I’ve used a font called Frutiger 95, which is sadly a commercial font. Feel free to try a different font such as Arial Black, or you know, buy or ‘get’ a nice font from somewhere.

Note: Since we’re working in a fairly large document size, you will want to use a large text size, around 150 pt or whatever suites the document size.

3. Apply Layer Styles to Text

Now, to make our text look like the real thing, we’ll add some layer styles.

Colors used were:

Inner Glow: #7f7f51.
Gradient Overlay: #f86503 and #fbe432.

And now we have something like this:

Looks pretty much finished already, huh?

Please note: The layer styles depend on what size your text is, the size of the bevel may need to be adjusted for smaller or bigger text, please remember this.

4. Small ‘Movie’ Text

The last thing we really need to do is add ‘Movie’ underneath the main text, but in a smaller font size. You can simply duplicate your main text here, size it down and change the letters, but the layer styles will actually need a little tweaking.

After duplicating your main text and changing what needs to be changed, position your text accordingly, like mine:

Now, apply/edit the following layer styles/settings:

Alright, now, hopefully your text looks something like this:

If it does, then congratulations! If not, well, you can always download the PSD file for this tutorial and see what went wrong!

5. Completion

This isn’t actually a real step, it’s just letting you know we’re finished and you can also download the PSD file if you like

Thanks for reading this tutorial everyone, I hope it was alright by your standards! If you would like, you can download the PSD file from this tutorial from below, for learning purposes only, of course.

(1.8mb)

Bling Bling Simple Gold Text Effect

2009-01-03T20:05:00.000+07:00

Ok, ok, I know I’ve already written a tutorial or two on how to make a nice, golden text effect. But again, I’m going to write for you a tutorial on how to make a simple gold text effect by using some layer styles, namely the Gradient Overlay layer style!

I was inspired to do this tutorial after I saw an awesome bit of text on the David Letterman’s website, which you can view here. Props to the awesome David Letterman!

1. Setting the Stage

Ok, let’s start by making a new document in Photoshop. I created a new document sized 500 x 500 pixels with all the default settings, RGB, 72 DPI, etc.

After creating your document, fill the background with a color/gradient of your choice. In this case I used a radial gradient, colors were #393943 and #100e19.

I then added in a texture/pattern of some “Diamond Metal Plate,” I made this texture using the Free Filter Forge Metal Plugin, which you can download for free from their website.

If you don’t want to download their application and have to install it, you can simply download the pattern that I created from here: Diamond Plate Metal Texture/Pattern.

After adding your texture, mess with the layer mode and opacities settings to get an interesting look. I used the layer mode Overlay, with an opacity of 15%. Other good layer modes to use in this case are Soft Light, Vivid Light, and Color Dodge.

Looking alright so far? One or two more things to do for the background before we get onto the text though.

Create a new layer then get out the Rectangular Marquee Tool. Set the ’style’ for the selection tool to ‘Fixed Size, then put 50% into each of the boxes, width and height.

Drag your selection onto the canvas then into the bottom right corner of your canvas, do the same but in the top left corner. Next, fill your selections with one of the purple colors that you used for your background gradient.

Lower the opacity for this layer if you think it needs it, then, using a large, soft brush, erase away the inside (middle area) of your cubes, so you get something like this:

Repeat this part, but using the other corners and the other color that you used for the background. After a little bit of tweaking, this is what I ended up with for my background:

If you were unable to complete the background, then don’t worry about it, you’ll be able to download the PSD file at the end of this tutorial anyway, so you’ll be able to take a look at all of the layers later.

To finish off with the background I added in a bit of grunge at the bottom of the document, using the lighter purple as my brush color, I then changed the layer mode to Multiply and lowered the layer opacity to around 40%.

Alright, we’re finally done for the background! I hope you enjoyed this part

2. Setting Up your Text

This is the easy part, all you have to do is write out your desired text on the canvas. Get out your Horizontal Type Tool (just the usual one) and write out your text in whatever color you want.

In the above image I’ve used Impact as my font of choice, and it’s sized at a meager 60 pt.

Impact should come with your Windows installation (assuming you’re using Windows, anyway) but if you don’t have it, you can easily find a good alternative on a free font website such as Dafont or UrbanFonts. It’s preferred to use a fat font, with a large font size.

I find Impact does a great job in this case, but if you’re not pleased with it, I’ve listed a few good, free alternative below.

Bebas:

Accidental Presidency:

Boris Black Boxx:

3. Style Your Text

Pretty much the final thing we need to do is apply layer styles to our text to make it actually look good. Some of these layer style settings will depend on the size of your text, so be sure to mess with the settings a little bit if you’ve selected your own font size!

And now our text should look like this:

Looks pretty good to me!

4. Completion

Well, we’re pretty much finished for this tutorial, thanks for taking the time to read it! If you want, you can download the PSD file from this tutorial below, learning purposes only though!

As you can see in the above image, I’ve added some of those bling star things, I’ve included them in the PSD file.

(1.1mb)

Design your own Presidential Candidate Badge

2009-01-03T20:03:00.000+07:00

Have you ever wanted to be President? Well now it’s possible, (not really) because in this tutorial we’ll be designing our very own presidential candidacy badge. You know, those ‘vote for me’ badges

1. Document Creation

Let’s start by making a new document in Photoshop. For this tutorial I used a small size of 550 x 400 pixels, with the default Resolution of 72.

After making your document, fill the canvas with a nice background or texture. I used a free stock texture of some wood planks, which you can download from here. Drag the texture into your document and resize it to fit (ctrl+t).

2. Base Badge

Find and get out the elliptical marquee tool, then make a perfectly rounded selection in the middle of your document. Create a new layer (Layer > New > Layer) then fill your selection with a light green (#cdd6cd).

To make sure your shape is centered, select everything on your layer (ctrl+a), copy, then paste. Now delete your old layer. What we want to do now is cut your shape in half, so we can color each layer/section differently. Find and get out the rectangular marquee tool, then make a selection containing the bottom half of the shape, like so:

After you’ve made your selection like mine shown above, right-click the selected area and click Layer via Cut in the pop out menu. Now, you can name your layers ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ if you like. Lastly, fill the ‘bottom’ layer with a dark blue color (#010368).

Let’s finish off this step by adding a slight Gradient Overlay layer style to the top layer, and also the bottom layer.

3. Inner Badge

Now we need to add an ‘inner badge’ type of thing to the inside of our main badge, I hope I’m making sense here. Start by making another round selection inside of our main shape, about the size of mine shown below.

Now, (make sure you’re on a new layer) fill this selection with white. Looks pretty boring, but we’ve gotta add some layer styles to it to give it some effect.

Looking much better now! How do you think it’s looking? I think it’s starting to take shape, at least.

4. Add Highlights

Now we’ve got to add some nice, glossy highlights to our badge, make it look nicer, right?

Start by making a new layer, now select both of your half circles, so to make the whole circle, or you could just make a new selection. What we want is a smaller selection, so contract your selection by a few pixels (Select > Modify > Contract) then fill the selection with white. With your selection still active, press the right and down arrow keys a few times, then press delete.

This is the type of thing we’re trying to achieve here:

Looks pretty good like that, but I still think we should use a large, soft brush to erase away the edges a little bit. Maybe even lower the opacity if you think it needs it.

Now, do the same as we did above, but this time do it in the bottom right corner.

This is what I’ve got:

Before we go to the next step, just remember, you can download the PSD file at the end of this tutorial, in case there’s anything you need help with.

5. Adding Text

We’ve been missing something important up until now, haven’t we… time to add some text

Firstly, get out the ellipse tool, then set it up with the following settings:

Now you’ve got the tool set up, create a new layer then make a path in your document. It would be good if you could make the path as centered inside of your badge as much as possible.

If you’ve got a path like the one shown above now, then great! Get out your Horizontal Type Tool and click on your path, this will put your text on the path you’ve just made. Write out your text like mine:

How’s yours going? I finished off my red text by applying these few layer styles:

Top text is finished, now we have to add some text to the bottom section. Duplicate or make your path again that you just made, then set your foreground color to white. With the Horizontal Type Tool out, click the bottom of your path in the center, write out some text.

In the above image I’ve used pretty much everything the same as with the top text, except I used white as my text color. If you can’t seem to get the text or anything else quite right, download the PSD file at the end of this tutorial and take a look at how I did it.

5. Add an Image

Lastly, to complete this tutorial, you’ll need to add an image of some sort into the middle of the badge. Originally I had a 3D Photoshop logo in the middle there but it looked incredibly lame, so I decided I’d just use a cutout of Ron Paul. I went to Google Images, looked up a good picture of Ron Paul then cut him out of the photo, you can feel free to download the cutout that I made from here: Ron Paul Photo Cutout.

Copy your image onto the canvas then resize it if it’s too large. After this, you need to make a round selection inside of your inner badge area using the elliptical marquee tool. Crop your image to the selection like mine shown below:

Lastly, you might want to change the layer mode for this layer to Luminosity, personally I think it looks pretty awesome like that. Try lower the opacity as well, that might make a nice effect.

Well, it looks like we’re pretty much done for this tutorial.

Completion

I finished off with this tutorial by merging all of my layers together, duplicating the badge, resizing them, and adding a drop shadow. Please feel free to experiment, get creative, use your own settings

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial guys. Also, please feel free to download the PSD file from this tutorial from below if you need it.

(1.3mb)

Create Custom Photo Brushes

2009-01-03T19:54:00.000+07:00

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When you think of creating custom brushes in Adobe Photoshop, you usually think of creating basic shapes and paths with the pen tool and then creating a brush from those shapes. But we can also use photos and convert them into brushes as well for unique designs in web sites and print designs. They also can make aesthetically-pleasing backgrounds.

Preview of Final Results

Create Custom Photo Brushes Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1

Open Photoshop and open a photo to use as a brush. It should be something that would work in a pattern, where the content of the photo is obvious as various sizes. I'm using this "blue angel wing" I found on iStockPhoto. IT should be relatively large, perhaps 1000 pixels for both width and height. If you create a brush at a small size, setting the brush to a larger size than originally created will cause it to lose resolution. But making it smaller is no problem, just like resizing a photo.

Optional: You can download this file to use at http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=130023 or use a similar one.

Step 2

To first define a brush, we need to select the area. Click the Rectangular Marquee tool on the toolbar.

Step 3

Click-and-drag a selection around the photo. We don't need to remove the white pixels first because they will be transparent in a brush.

Step 4

Go to Edit>Define Brush Preset.

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Step 5

Name the brush something that matches the image, and click OK.

Step 6

Now that we have the brush defined, go to File>New and create a new file at 1024 x 768. Click OK.

Step 7

Click the Brush tool on the toolbar.

Step 8

Click the arrow on the Options palette which will bring down the brush styles and size options. Scroll down and click the brush we just created. You can change the size here, or change it by pressing the left and right brackets to make the size smaller or larger. Bring the size of the brush to something much smaller, such as 100.

Step 9

Go to Window>Brushes to bring up the Brushes palette. This palette has a lot of options for the Brush tool. Change the Shape Dynamics to these settings by clicking on Shape Dynamics then sliding the sliders. The brush can rotate to a certain degree as we brush. Try various settings as the preview shows how the brush will look.

Step 10

Change the Scattering to the settings shown here. Scattering does just that—scatter the brush as we brush. Try various settings as the preview shows how the brush will look.

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Step 11

Change the Hue Jitter to 12%, because we want to somewhat adjust the hue as the brush is clicked-and-dragged, but within a certain range. Setting it to 100% would cause it to include the entire color range.

Step 12

Now for the fun part: click-and-drag with the Brush tool in a curve.

Step 13

Whatever color is selected in the Foreground in the toolbar is the color of the brush. You can have a jitter between the foreground and background color as well as hue jitter from the foreground color.

Step 14

If you create a second curved brush path like this, click on New Layer on the Layers palette first, so that we can adjust the layer blending mode on the Layers palette. In this example, I adjusted the top layer blending mode to Multiply.

Step 15

Try various photos and converting them to brushes using the same steps here. Brushes with added Shape Dynamics and Scattering can help create a unique background, such as this one created with a photo of Polaroids.

Step 16

This one was created with a scan of tape. Besides creating unique paths, backgrounds are often created with such brushes.

©ISTOCKPHOTO/DAVE RAU.

Add Stock Textures to Images for extra ‘Oomph’

2009-01-03T19:45:00.000+07:00

In this little Photoshop tutorial we’ll be designing a quick art piece, then we’ll be adding some texture to it, this is to demonstrate the use of texture in artwork, as you may be able to see in works from people such as GoMedia. Obviously this method will work better with some things and not so well with others, so please try to use it in moderation, if you will.

Yes, my opinion may be a little bit biased in the above image, but you know, you get the point

1. Background Creation

Let’s start with a new document. For this Photoshop tutorial I’m using a rather puny size of 800 x 600 pixels, feel free to use a larger size though. I left the Resolution at it’s default as well, 72. I did however use CMYK color (default is RGB) for this tutorial, not sure why, but if you want the same result as mine you’ll want to change this setting.

After we’ve created our document, we want to make a nice basic background. Start by getting out the Gradient Tool, and setting up your settings similar to mine:

The colors I’ve got set for my gradient in the above image are #010001 and #0d6c65. To make things easier now, you might want to set up some rulers in the center of your document. Press ctrl+r to enable rulers, then drag some onto your canvas, like so:

Now drag your radial gradient into the middle of the canvas, obviously having the lighter color in the middle.

Want to add anything more to the background? Then continue on, at your own risk … or you can skip to the next step

Next we’ll add a cool starburst effect to the background. Get out the Custom Shape Tool from the Photoshop tools and find the starburst shape, drag it onto your canvas like I’ve done in the below screenshot:

Note that the color I’m using for my starburst shape is the same as the green that I used for my background. After you’ve done all this, mess around with the layer mode and opacity for your starburst layer. I used the layer mode Color Burn and lowered the opacity to 20-30%.

I’m pretty sure we’re finished for the background now, let’s move onto the next step.

2. Add your Mascot

I’m not sure if you could call it a mascot, but here I’m adding in a cool monster vector that I bought a little while ago from iStockPhoto. Since you’re meant to buy these from iStockPhoto, I can’t really give you the vector… but you can of course download the PSD file at the end of this tutorial. *wink* *wink*

(Note: If you want to make a graphic like the one shown above using Illustrator, you can check out a few good tutorials on the subject at SpoonGraphics: 1 2 3 4)

If your mascot/whatever is as bright as mine you’ll definitely want to darken it up a little bit by using Levels (ctrl+l) and maybe even Hue/Saturation (ctrl+u).

Be sure to mess around with different settings until you get a nice effect. After you’re happy with the color adjustments, apply an Outer Glow and Gradient Overlay layer style with the settings shown below.

Now you should have something like this (left side, obviously):

With or without the adjustments and layer styles? I think I’ll go with the first option. Well, I think we’re done for this part. Let’s add a few more interesting bits, then get on with the texturing.

3. Add Text

How about we add some wicked, cartoon-style text to the background of our image? Yes, no, maybe?

Start by getting out the Horizontal Type Tool and writing out some text, for this example I used the text ‘Grrr!!’ I find that it’s best if you use a very fat fat, sans-serif font. Arial Black might be a good option. Remember to check out DaFont or UrbanFonts if you need a good place to find some free fonts.

It might be easiest if you hide the layer you were previously working with, so we can concentrate on the text easier.

After you’ve written out your text onto the canvas, and you’re happy with it, distort it by clicking the little icon near the top settings, it’s called ‘create warped text’.

By clicking on the above image you’ll be taken to a screenshot of my Photoshop work place, you’ll be able to see the settings I used and what icon you’re meant to be clicking on. We want to make an interesting, somewhat 3D-style text effect here.

After you’re all done with this, change the text’s color to a green color, similar or the same as what you used in the original background gradient. After this, I finished off by applying three layer styles:

Now we’ve got this:

You could finish here, or we could continue a little further and add a kind of 3D effect to the text by adding a solid drop shadow. Do this by holding your alt key down on your keyboard, then using the arrow keys to move and duplicate your text layer.

Do this as many times as it takes, then merge all of the text layers together. After merging all of your text layer duplicates together, move them underneath the original text layer. Now fill the solid drop shadow layer with a dark color of your choice (here’s to hoping I just made sense).

Finish this off by applying a Gradient Overlay layer style to your drop shadow layer. Lastly, unhide your mascot layer and position it down a little bit from the center, merge your text layers together and transform it into a suitable position.

As you can see, my text in the above image looks a little different, after I merged all of my text layers together I used the Dodge Tool to add a few slight highlights to the text, then I resized the text down a bit and moved it into place.

You may also want to apply an Outer Glow shadow to the text layer. We’re pretty much done for the text now, sorry if I wasn’t able to completely explain the process.

Remember, at the end of the tutorial you can feel free to download the PSD file, which includes the original text layers as well.

4. Add Textures & Adjustments

Here is a short list that I’ve composed of good texture resources. The bold links are my favorites.

Pick out a few nice, different textures then open them in Photoshop. After you’ve got them open, copy them one by one and paste them to your other document. Now you can resize them down to a reasonable size. For most of them I just resized them down to the document size.

Here you can download the two exact textures that I used:

Download the two I used if you like and copy them onto your document. Start with the dirty/slimy concrete texture, put it just above your starburst layer and start messing with the layer modes and opacity. I ended up using the layer mode Multiply, with a very low opacity (10-15%).

It’s not too noticeable, but it’s important nevertheless. Next, get the other rockier texture and put it on top of all of your layers. Mess around with the colors of the texture, the layer modes, and the opacity/fill as well.

I find that (in the above image for example), Multiply as the layer mode works very well, and an opacity of around 70%. Also try: Linear Burn with an opacity of around 50%. Keep messing around with the colors, adjustment layers (if you like) and even duplicate the texture layers and try more things.

To finish off I added in the slimy concrete texture again and used the layer mode Multiply, with a fairly low opacity (50%). Now, this may look too intense now, just add some layer masks to the appropriate texture layers and brush away with a soft grunge brush.

How’s yours looking so far?

You can finish off by adding a few layers with solid colors in them, then mess with the layer modes and opacities. I did just one, I made the new layer, filled it with #4c2124 then changed the layer mode to Pin Light and lowered the opacity to 9%. Just for small details really.

Finito

Well, I think I’ve pretty much explained all I can for this tutorial, if you need any more information you can extract it from the PSD file (download below)

Thanks for reading this tutorial everyone, I hope you enjoyed it! If you enjoyed the tutorial, why not subscribe to the RSS feed for updates? Cheers!

Download PSD (7.5mb) Right-click the link and click “save target as…” or “save link as…”

Additional Wallpapers

Since I wrote this tutorial I’ve used the method a few times when making wallpapers, please feel free to download these and use them. My apologies, but all of the wallpapers below are 1280 x 1024 in resolution, I hope this is alright!

Indiana Jones Movie Logo/Text Effect

2009-01-03T19:44:00.000+07:00

I thought we would celebrate the upcoming release of Indiana Jones IV, the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull by learning how to remake the awesome Indiana Jones text! So, I’m going to attempt to remake the text effect used in the posters and promotional images

Please note that attempt is emphasized above! This is as close as I could get it, I hope it’s good enough!

1. Document Creation

We need to start by creating a new document. For the document that we’ll be making our text in we should use a relatively large document size, I used 1600 x 1200 pixels, with the default resolution. I used this size so I can resize it smaller later on when I copy it over to another document.

2. Text & Font

Go to Google and search for the Indiana Jones font (SF Fedora), you should be able to find it as the top result. Otherwise, you can just download it from either of these direct links: 1, 2.

After you’ve downloaded the font, (extract it) then copy it to the windows/fonts directory, or wherever your operating system stores the fonts!

Back to your Photoshop document. Select the Horizontal Type Tool and write your text on the canvas, using a large enough font size to take up most of the width of the document, I used a font size of 190 pt. To get a result as similar as possible to the original text, you should capitalize the first letters of each of your words, so they stand out from the rest.

Now we’ve got the text using the right font, we need to distort it a little bit so it looks more like the original, near the top of Photoshop (next to the font settings, etc.) you’ll see an icon that has a T and a curved path underneath it, it’s the Warped Text Icon. Click it and mess around with the settings until you get a distorted text that looks right!

There should be all the settings you need in the above image, if not, you can download the complete PSD(s) at the end of the tutorial. Lastly, to finish off the text shape, I rotated it slightly to the left (hold ctrl and press t to go into transform mode). Onto the styling part of our text.

3. Style your Text

I think it’s time to add some life to our text. Start by right-clicking the text layer and going into the Blending Options, then click and apply the following layer styles/settings:

You will definitely need to mess around with the layer style settings above if you’re using different font sizes and all, so feel free to do that if it looks a little off.

After applying these layer styles my text looks like this:

I think we’re pretty much done for the text now, now we just need to make a nice background for the text to go on! If you want to learn how to make a cool paper background like the one shown in the result image at the top of the page, follow the next steps.

4. Background Creation

Now we’re going to make a really nice background for the text to go on. Create a new document in Photoshop, this time something like half the size of what you used before (800 x 600 px).

Now you’ll want to find a nice paper texture or something, there’s some pretty good stuff over at BittBox, I’m not sure if it’s completely suitable though. The base paper texture that I ended up using was one I think I downloaded from sxc.hu (stock.xchng) a long time ago, you can download it from here.

Copy your paper texture into your new document and get to work doing with it what you want, I just resized it down so it fits completely inside of the document. Next, you might want to add a little more interest/detail by adding a little bit of grunge brushing on some new layers, messing with the layer modes and opacities, etc.

This is what I’ve got after a bit of brushing:

If you want to see everything I did to the background you should download the PSD file at the end of this tutorial. The last thing I did for the background was add in a cool world map shape and blended it in a little bit. You can download the world shape files that I used from lukeroberts on deviantART.

After you’ve installed the shapes in Photoshop, drag the world one onto the canvas in a new layer, using a darkish-red color (#622d23).

To this shape layer I then changed the layer mode to Linear Burn, lowered the opacity to around 80%, and also lowered the fill to around 90%. After this, you may want to take a grunge eraser to the shape image, or more efficiently take a grunge brush to a layer mask added to the shape layer!

Now… maybe we could add in a few more details before we copy over the text. How about Indy’s hat? Go to Google Images and see if you can find a good photo of his hat, copy it to Photoshop and cut it out as best you can.

Now, darken Indy’s hat a little bit if you think it’s necessary (ctrl+l), then size it down a smidge (ctrl+t).

Looking good. Now we can copy our text onto the canvas. Open up your other document, merge the text layer(s) togethe rif necessary then copy and paste it to your background document.

In the above image my text was resized to 40%, resize your text to whatever is suitable.

Assuming you merged your text layer with another layer to ‘apply’ the layer styles to the pixels, apply the following layer styles to your finished text layer, to give it a more polished finish:

The outer glow brought out the bright orange a little more, I quite like it:

Well, we’re pretty much finished for this now, but I went on to add a little bit more texture and interesting…ness!

5. Polish / Finish

To finish off, let’s make the whole image look a little bit more interesting. Create a new layer, fill the layer with white (#ffffff) then apply Filter > Noise > Add Noise with an amount that will show up on the white background.

Noise > Add Noise - Settings">

For the Noise settings you can use either Monochromatic, or not. After you’ve done all this, hit ctrl+t and size it up a little bit, so to enlarge the noise pixels. Change the layer mode to Multiply and lower the opacity if you see it necessary, this effect isn’t really too noticeable, it’s just a nice effect. If you were hide and unhide the layer you’ll be able to see a bit of difference.

To finish off…

First, create a new layer, press ctrl+shift+c and then ctrl+v. This copies everything visible in your document to a new layer. After this, apply a filter that you like. I used Filter > Artistic > Film Grain.

Artistic - Film Grain - Settings"> Artistic - Film Grain - Settings" border="0">

Grain: 4
Highlight Area: 0
Intensity: 10

This is a really cool effect, but maybe a little too intense. Lower the opacity for this layer to something around 30-50%.

Feel free to try some other filters and layer modes, etc.

Complete

Looks like we’re done! I hope you enjoyed this Photoshop tutorial, everyone. Please feel free to leave a comment below if you need anything! You can also download the PSD file from this tutorial by clicking one of the below links.

Download Indiana Jones Finished PSD (7.1mb)
Download Indiana Jones Text PSD (450kb)

Remember to always get creative and add your extra bits to the graphic (whilst following the tutorial!)

ANIME BEADS Photoshop Tutorial

2009-01-03T19:42:00.000+07:00

1

Create a new document

Create some text. (I used Planet Kosmos at 50 points)

Ctrl/Cmd+Click on the texts' layer thumbnail to load the selection

Select>Modify>Expand

Enter 5 pixels and click ok

2

The selection should now look like this

3

With the selection still active create a new layer and name it beads

4

Go to the Paths Palette

Click the top right arrow and choose "Make Work Path" from the fly out menu

Enter a setting of 0.5 (The minimum allowed)

Click ok

We have now made a path out of the selection

5

Prepare the brush...

Choose White as your foreground color

Select the Brush tool from the Toolbox

Open the brushes palette

Turn off all the boxes on the left

Choose a 10 Pixel hard brush

Set the spacing to 105% (This will make a dotted line)

6

Click on the Stroke path button as shown

The path will now be stroked with white dots.

Click in the blank area of the paths palette (Below the work path) to turn off the path

7

Go back to the layers palette

You should now have something like this

8

Click the little "f" at the bottom of the layers palette to add a layer style

Choose bevel and emboss and use the settings shown

9

Choose inner shadow and use the shown settings

Click Ok to apply the style.

10

At this point we have a problem. The text is a bit small for the beads (There is a gap showing)

Increase the size of the text to compensate, the edge of the text should line up with the beads

11

Add a layer style to the text. Apply a default drop shadow and a Bevel as shown

12

In this variation, I repeated the step and expanded by 10 pixels to create a second ring of beads. I also enhanced it a bit with some sparkles.

For more cool techniques like this on an easy to follow video format check out Photoshop Secrets Special FX photoshopCD.com

Buiding a Video Player Application in Flash CS3 Flash Tutorial

2009-01-03T19:41:00.000+07:00

1

Start with a new Actionscipt 3 document. Create or import your art.

Open the components panel. Create a new layer an call it vid. Drag a copy of the FLVPlayback component to the stage. This is where the video will show.

2

Set the size and give it an instance name, so we can target it with action script. In this case the name is vidPlayer.

2

Now we need to create some buttons to control the video playback.
Use the Button components in Flash, create your own buttons or create hotspots to make parts of your page visible. Hotspots are created using the “Invisible button trick.”

Create a layer named buttons. Using the drawing tools in Flash, create the shape that you want to use for your button.
Press F8 to convert to Symbol. Choose Button.

3

Double click the button on the stage to edit the symbol.
You will see a solid square on Up. Drag this to Hit. The button will now have a clickable area only.

4

Click Scene 1 to go back to the stage.
You will see that the button displays as a cyan colored shape. This is for reference only, the color will not be visible in the published movie.
Make copies of the buton, position and size to suit your needs. Click each button and assign an instance name. For this example I’ve used btn1, btn2 and btn3.

Save the file into the same folder as your video clips (FLV or H264 video).
Now it’s time to write the code that makes all this work. We will not be selecting the movies from the Component Inspector, we will be attaching them dynamically so they are called by the buttons.

5

Create a new layer, name it “actions”. Open the Actions panel. Type this code:

btn1.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, vid1);
btn2.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, vid2);
btn3.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, vid3);

function vid1(e:Event):void{
vidPlayer.source = "boat.flv"
};
function vid2(e:Event):void{
vidPlayer.source = "dance short.flv"
};

function vid3(e:Event):void{
vidPlayer.source = "wheel.flv"
};

Test the movie and it should now work.

Let me explain the code:

The code is broken into 2 parts in Actionscript 3.

1. The Event Handler or "trigger" In this case its the buttons.

btn1.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, vid1);

The button which has the instance name, btn is waiting for something to happen. The EventListener is listening for something to happen. It's waiting fo an event. In this case the event is a mouse event. The type of mouse event the listener is expecting is a CLICK.

Only when the Button detects a mouse click will it proceed. When it proceeds its sends a message to a function. The name of the function is after the comma. In this case it's vid1.

2. The Function which contains the event (Something happens: Video plays).

function vid1(e:Event):void{
vidPlayer.source = "boat.flv"
};

In this case a function named vid1 will perform when it receives a command to run. (This command will come from the event handler: the button.)

The vidPlayer component is now targeted. Source sets the path to the video. In this case its boat.flv (Must be an flv or H.264 Quicktime movie). The video will play automatically when its connected to the component.

6

Publish the page by choosing Edit Publish settings. Choose the formats tab and check html and swf.
Click Publish and you’ll have a new HTML document with your movie ready to go.
When you upload it make sure to include the swf (Container) html, and movie files. If you used a playerskin, include that swf too.

Half Sepia 2

2009-01-03T19:39:00.000+07:00

Page 1 of 2

This is a new version of our previous half sepia tutorial. This version of the half sepia photo effect has higher contrast and works better for more photos.

Preview of Final Results

Half Sepia 2 Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1

Open a photo inside Photoshop. The half sepia photo effect works on most photos but is most useful for images with high saturation.

Step 2

In the Layers palette, click on the button and select Hue/Saturation.

The Hue/Saturation tool will appear. First, checkmark the Colorize option near the bottom right corner. Copy the settings from the image below then click OK.

Your image should now have a bright sepia tone.

Step 3

We will now work on the layer mask of the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Make sure that you have the layer mask selected by clicking on the layer mask thumbnail in the Layers palette.

Choose Image > Apply Image and use the default settings. The only setting that you may need to adjust is the Invert setting. If you leave the Invert option unchecked, the sepia tone effect will only be visible in the brighter areas of your image. If you enable the Invert option, the sepia tone will be visible only in the darker areas of the image.

Page 2 of 2

Step 4

Now we'll add a black and white adjustment layer. In the layers palette, click on the button and choose Black & White. If you are using Photoshop CS2 or older, you will not have the Black & White menu option. Instead, choose Channel Mixer.

The Black and White or Channel Mixer (If you're using Photoshop CS2 or older) settings will appear. Simply click OK with any settings. We'll go back to edit the settings later.

Change the blending mode of the new Black & White or Channel Mixer adjustment layer to Soft Light.

Double click on the Black & White or Channel Mixer adjustment layer thumbnail to bring back the settings. Adjust the settings while looking at the preview to get the results that you desire. If you are using the Channel Mixer tool, checkmark the monochrome option.

Half Sepia 2 Final Results

HDR - High Dynamic Range Photography. Merging HDR in Photoshop CS3 Tutorial

2009-01-03T19:38:00.000+07:00

0 (Intro)

In this tutorial we will take a look at HDR photography. HDRI (High Dynamic Range Imaging) was originally used in 3D and is now in full force in photography. Basically it's the process of taking multiple exposures and merging them together into a single 32 bit image. Let me explain: A camera is capable of capturing a limited amount of tones in a single photo. Typically we sacrifice elements in a photo when we press the shutter. For example there is a powerful cloudscape and some cliffs. If we expose for the clouds the cliffs become dark. If we set the camera's exposure to capture detail in the cliffs, the brighter sky is blown out and detail is lost. This is because the human eye can see a larger range of tones than the camera can capture on the chip or film in a single photograph.

The solution is to take more than one photograph and bracket the photos. Shoot normal exposure, then under-expose a shot to capture highlights and over-expose a shot to capture shadow detail. Finally, merge these photos together to produce a single image with a larger range of tones that can now show all the details in the shadows and highlights. This tutorial will show you how to complete this process with the minimum fuss.

First we need to get our source images. (You could begin with a 32 bit 3D image and then skip to step 6). Typically we will capture these with our camera. You will need to shoot a minimum of 2 photos with different exposure settings.

Its been recommended by Adobe to limit the bracketing by 1 stop and this will help reduce banding. You may also take 5 or more shots with a smaller gap in the bracketing. I personally get good results from 3 shots. I like to over expose and under expose by 2 stops. I know this is a bigger bracket than most people are comfortable with, but for the type of HDR images I like to create (cityscapes), this works great. If your shooting people, you may want to reduce this to even 3rd stops.

(Note: You can't use a single raw image and exposure it several times as some people suggest, for a true HDR photo. This is known as pseudo-HDR. Photoshop will not allow you to merge these because there isn't sufficient tone detail captured).

For more details see the new video HDR and Photoshop

1

Start with 3 images. One normal exposure, the second underexposed and the third overexposed. In this case I used 2 stop bracketing. As I shoot a lot of city scapes I can get away with 2 stops, because I'm mainly shooting flat surfaces and banding and posterization isn't such a problem. If your shooting rounded and curved surfaces you will want to lower your bracketing to get smoother gradients.

I set the bracketing on my camera to 2 stops. Then I set the shooting mode to burst. When I hold the shutter down, 3 photos will be captured. I shoot in RAW mode for the widest possible dynamic range. You can still create HDR if your camera doesn't support RAW. Make sure you shoot in Aperture Priority or in Manual. You want to bracket the exposure time, not the Aperture. If you change the aperture, the depth of field won't be consistent and you'll get blurring. Also avoid any moving subjects in the photo or you'll get ghosting.

2

Time to merge the photos together into a single 32 bit image.

Choose File>Automate >Merge to HDR. This works on Photoshop CS2 and CS3. (CS2 Doesn't have auto align). Choose either images or folder. I organize each set of photos in its own folder so I used the folder option. Select your photos to merge. Turn on Auto Align in Photoshop CS3. Click OK. (Photoshop CS3 uses new Auto-align technology that even allows you to create HDR without the use of a tripod!)

3

Your images will now be merged into a single photo. You can turn off individual photos by un checking their boxes on the left filmstrip. If you get some blurring caused by camera shake in the longest exposure, you may want to turn off that photo.

4

The merged result is a floating-point 32 bit image. You can adjust the overall tones by sliding the White Point slider. Easy with it, a little movement goes a long way!

5

Click OK to merge the photos into a 32 bit image. Now is a good time to save your file.

6

In order to use the photos, you'll need to convert them t 16 or 8 bit images. When we convert them we will create what I call interpretations of the photo. The reason I say this is because we have unlimited ways we can make the photo look. While we have this huge dynamic range available in 32 bit, we will no longer have those options after conversion. Always work from the saved 32 bit version, and then convert and save versions (personal interpretations). Avoid overwriting the 32 bit image, it's our master and we may want to go back to it many times.

Choose Image>Mode>16 bit (or 8 bit). Now we get to play with some fun options. You're now at the tone mapping part of the process. This is were all the creativity can ooze.

(If you want to make the adjustments without converting, choose view>32 Bit Preview Options. You can use several of Photoshop's tools in the Image>Adjustments menu. The most important of these is the Exposure control)

You'll see an HDR Conversion Dialog box. Exposure and Gamma is the default option. Best way to approach this? Set the gamma first, then adjust the exposure to suit. If you want an image with lots of contrast, lower the gamma. For less contrast raise the gamma. Finally, adjust the exposure to get the desired brightness. If you want more control, read on... otherwise press OK to convert.

7

Change the Method to Local Adaption. (There are 4 available methods, but these are the only 2 with user input).

With local Adaption, you can adjust the curves. Set these like you would normally work in curves, but don't be afraid to clip the histogram a little. You can clip because your working with a larger dynamic range than you're used to. Bring out the detail in the image, but don't forget to put some shadow in there or it will look washed out and fake. Once your happy with the curve, adjust the radius and Threshold sliders to make sure there are no halos in the photo. (Badly converted HDR images have a glow around the areas of contrast.) The radius controls the mask blur while the threshold decides what gets blurred and what doesn't.

Click ok to convert.

8

Here we have a merged image from HDR. The second image is a variation. In the second variation, I applied exposure, curves and sharpening settings while in 32-bit mode (Highlight Compression Method). Photoshop is great for producing very realistic HDR images.

9

If your desiring a more surreal result there are different plug-ins that you can use. My favorite is Photomatix pro from HDRsoft. You can just get the tone mapping plug in for Photoshop which works great. Use the coupon code photoshopcafe to save 15%.

Using photomatix tone mapping plugin allows you to get highly detailed textures in your photographs. You merge in Photoshop as shown in this tutorial. Then choose Filter>Photomatix to apply tone mapping. Convert and save as normal.

10

This image shows an image after tone mapping using Photomatix pro.

11

Here you can see comparisons between a single image, subtle Photoshop HDR and a radical Photomatix effect (Click for larger image). Whatever result your after, hopefully this tutorial has helped demystify the HDR process.

12

Here is another HDR shot of mine. This is a night scene converted to grayscale.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

Colin

Delicious Golden Ribbon

2009-01-03T19:37:00.000+07:00

Have you ever tried finding a golden ribbon inside of a chocolate bar wrapping to no avail? Well that’s obviously because there are none in them! Just joking, but seriously, who needs real ribbons when we can make our own?

In this quick Photoshop tutorial we’ll be designing our own sweet, golden ribbon! This is a basic tutorial, however I won’t exactly be detailing all the tools, etc. in-depth so much, so this might be suitable for new Photoshop users.

You can see what we’ll be designing in the above image. Twist it, lick it, dunk it, eat it. Use it on your site, these are multi-purpose ribbons!

1. Document Creation

Start by making a new document in Photoshop - around 800 x 500 pixels in size, or, you know, whatever you prefer! Best use the default resolution, though (72).

Now you’ve got the canvas, you might want to add a bit more of an interesting background, other than plain white. For my background I applied Filter > Render > Lighting Effects to the white, then faded it to around 15%.

Render > Lighting Effects) 15%"> Render > Lighting Effects) 15%" border="0">

Well, we’re done for our basic background now.

2. Ribbon Shape

Start by creating a new layer (Layer > New > Layer) then enable the grid in Photoshop (View > Show > Grid), now go to Edit > Preferences > Guides, Grid, Slices & Count… and change your grid settings so that their similar to mine, if possible.

Create the rectangular selection on the canvas that you want for the base of your ribbon, then fill it with black (assuming you’re on a new layer!)

Next thing to do is: using the Polygonal Lasso Tool, cut out a triangle shape on the right side of your selection (using the grid if possible) like I’ve done here:

Click the above image for a full size shot. After you’ve made your selection, press delete to remove the selected pixels, now it looks like a ribbon! (kind of, right?)

Finish off by filling your ribbon with a yellow color, do this by locking the transparent pixels, setting a foreground color then filling the ribbon using the paint bucket tool.

3. Ribbon Texture

Start by creating a new layer, then apply Filter > Render > Clouds onto your blank layer. Make sure your colors are reset first though, black and white. Next, apply Filter > Render > Fibers with a random setting

For the last filter, apply Filter > Blur > Motion Blur with an angle of 90, and a distance of 100 or more. We’ll be using the finished product as the texture for our ribbon. Crop your final texture to the ribbon then mess around with the layer mode and opacity.

In the above image I’ve used Multiply as my layer mode and 25% opacity. Duplicate your texture layer and try Overlay with 35-50% opacity.

Looking quite good now.

I finished off by doing a little bit of soft brushing inside of the ribbon. Start by making a new layer. Now select the ribbon pixels (hold ctrl and click the layer’s thumbnail), then add a little bit of brushing using yellow inside of the ribbons edges.

For the sake of actually being able to see my brushing I used black as my color, but be sure to use yellow as your foreground color here. Change the layer mode for your ‘inner glow’ brushing layer to Linear Burn.

Create another new layer then select your ribbon again, using a small-ish brush make a line of yellow near the top of the ribbon, change the layer mode for this one to Overlay.

If you haven’t been able to completely follow the tutorial thus far, please feel free to download the PSD file for the final result at the end of the tutorial, it contains all the layers you’ll need.

4. Finishing Touches

For finishing touches I applied a few layer styles to the original ribbon layer:

And that was it, I have a result like this:

5. Add Text

Last thing to do is add some text to our ribbon, give it some life, right? Get the Type Tool out and write some text onto your ribbon.

In the above image I’ve used Myriad Pro for my font with a very thick weight/setting, if you don’t have Myriad Pro just find a good alternative such as Arial Black. I also used black (#000000) for the font color. After I wrote my text out in black, I then applied these three layer styles:

I added a second bit of text (much smaller and white as the primary color):

To this bit of text I only applied a Drop Shadow. Now you could probably rotate this and stick it on your website or something like that!

Finished

Thanks for reading this tutorial everyone, I hope you enjoyed it! Please feel free to download the PSD file from below by using the link.

Manipulating a WW2 Fighter Aircraft

2009-01-03T19:33:00.000+07:00

Page 1 of 4

In this tutorial we will be learning some indispensable techniques to use for any type of photo-manipulation. We will be doing this by taking a photograph of a model plane and editing it to to look like a photograph of a WW2 spitfire which has just been shot down and is on fire. The techniques used here are the same for any type of 'destruction' photo-manipulation. Below is the image you will learn how to create. In the second part of this tutorial we will go on to use this image in a movie poster/DVD cover design.

Preview of Final Results

Manipulating a WW2 Fighter Aircraft Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1

Create a new document with dimensions; 550x400px then go here and copy this image then paste it into your document and scale and move it until you're happy with it then change the blend mode of this layer to multiply.

Step 2

We are going to add some noise to the plane because at the moment it looks a bit too clean and unrealistic. Create a new layer above the plane then go Filter>Noise>Add Noise and use a value of 50% and check uniform and monochromatic.

Step 3

Set this layer to 40% opacity and change the blend mode to soft light then Alt+click between the noise layer and the plane in the layers panel to add a clipping mask.

Page 2 of 4

Step 4

Since this is an image of a model plane then the propellers are obviously not moving so we're going to make them move in Photoshop; to do this we first have to make a copy of the plane then extract the propeller. First hold Alt and drag the plane layer above the noise layer, this will duplicate the layer but not break the clipping mask. Now hide the original plane layer then select the new plane layer and add a layer mask by pressing the layer mask button in the bottom of the layers panel. Now select the brush tool and choose a hard round brush, change the foreground color to black and start painting around the propeller; the parts that you paint on will be hidden. GO round the propeller and change the size of the brush regularly to suit the part you are working on. Keep at it until you have something like this and don't worry about being accurate here it wont really matter as long you have the basic shape.

Step 5

Duplicate this layer then right click on the layer mask and select 'Apply Layer Mask'. Select the smudge tool and choose a brush with 0% hardness andd a size of about 60px then change the strength to 50%. None blade at a time, just drag from the blade anti-clockwise slightly a few times to give the smudged effect shown below.

Step 6

Repeat step 5 but this time drag out a bit further then change the opacity of this layer to 50%.

Step 7

We're going to make make it look even more like its spinning as well as adding some smoke at the same time. Create a new layer then select the brush tool and with a 0% hardness brush with a diameter of about 10px draw two rough circles one in black and one in the same color as the tip of the blades.

Step 8

We now need to blur this so go Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and use a value of 20px and you should get something similar to this.

Step 9

We'll take a look at where we've got to so far, we've added the noise first to make it look a bit dirtier then we isolated the propeller and and smudged it to look like its moving. Isolating parts of an image is a really important technique to start using as you'll often need to edit parts of a stock image and it's often much easier to isolate the parts whether you want to blur the part, alter some colors or change the shape and size of it. Lastly we just used a quick and simple way to add some more motion by quickly drawing a circle then heavily blurring it. Now just turn the visibility of the original plane back on and you should have something looking like this.

Step 10

In the next few steps we will be adding some burn marks, flame and smoke so we need a really good stock image to use for this, The one I use all the time for this kind of thing can be found here. I've shown what it looks like below and you'll notice that it's perfect for this kind of thing; it has flames, burn marks, smoke and even bits of debris. First paste this image into your document and scale it down to roughly your document size.

Step 11

Basically now we're going to copy part of this image onto the side of the plane, the easiest way to do this is to first duplicate the layer with the van in it then hide the original van layer. Now either use the eraser tool or the lasso tool to remove all except the the front corner of the van with burn marks, just do this roughly then rotate and scale this layer and place it over the plane like so, I used a soft eraser brush just to remove the hard edges.

Step 12

Now click the layer mask button in the layers panel to add a mask to this layer. Now select the brush tool and choose a soft round brush then change the foreground color to black then in the main toolbar change the opacity to 20%. We want to get rid of most of the flames here so do this by brushing over them (make sure you are working on the mask not the layer). As well as brushing over the flames we also want to hide some parts that are a bit too harsh or generally don't look right.

Page 3 of 4

Step 13

You'll have noticed that some parts of this layer run over the wing or outside the plane, to fix this you have to change the brush to about 85% hardness and an opacity of 100% then brush over the wings and around the plane. Use the image below for reference.

Step 14

We're going to add in some smoke now so create a new layer then select the brush tool and choose a 50px round brush with 0% hardness and an opacity of 10%. With the foreground color set to black, brush some smoke onto this layer; the best way to do this is to click continually rather than dragging. Try and get something that resembles the image below.

Step 15

Now we're going to make it look like the tail is burning and we are going to do this in the same way as we did to put the burn marks on the plane. First duplicate the van layer again and drag the duplicated layer to the top of the layer stack then get rid of the parts you don't want. Then place this layer over the wing, it doesn't matter what part of the image you use as long is it looks like burning metal.

Step 16

Now add a layer mask then with a hard black brush at full opacity, hide the parts that go outside the wing so this layer should now be the same shape as the wing. Next change the blend mode to hard light, you can experiment with some other blend modes if you want here.

Page 4 of 4

Step 17

Now to actually add the flame, again we do this in the same way so duplicate the van layer, drag it to the top of the layer stack then find a good flame (I liked the one just above the tire) then hide some of the other parts and soften the edges. Now rotate and scale it to get the flame in the right position like so.

Step 18

Add a layer mask to this layer then with a soft brush at varying opacities hide all the parts except the flame and also brush away parts of the flame to shape it slightly. Lastly, with a hard round brush at full opacity, brush over the wing so the flame doesn't look like it comes in front of the wing. Make sure the edges of the flames aren't too hard or it will look unrealistic.

Step 19

I wanted add a flame coming from the propeller, this had to be less visible as I figured the propeller would probably dissipate the flame. You should be able to work out how to do this but I'll go over how I did it. First duplicate the flame layer then drag it above the propeller then go Edit>Transform>Warp and shape the flame a bit like so. Note that I've hidden the back flame in the images below just so you can see this flame more clearly.

Step 20

Add a layer mask and soften this flame a lot by brushing over it with a soft black brush at a medium opacity until you get something similar to the image below.

Step 21

That's as far as I'm going to take you but there's a lot further you can go, a few ideas to try would be to make it look like one of the blades are on fire or to add some falling debris or even break one of the wings.

Step 22

The last thing I did was to add a simple background this can be any image of a sky, however the image has to be fairly light because we have the plane layer set at overlay, this was so we didn't need to remove the white background from it but it does limit us to placing the plane over a light background. If you want to use this on a darker background then you would have to extract the plane which isn't all that hard as it is on a white background anyway. Hopefully you learned some skills that you can transfer to other projects and have fun setting things on fire and generally destroying stuff.

Artistic Grunge Photo Effect

2009-01-03T19:27:00.000+07:00

Page 1 of 7

Learn how to apply an urban color effect and use brushes to give your photos a unique look. This Photoshop tutorial will introduce you to the Hue/Saturation tool and downloading and using brushes to add texture to your photos.

Artistic Grunge Photo Effect Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1

Open a photo that you want to edit. A nice photo to start off with is a portrait.

Step 2

In the Layers palette, click on the button. This will open a menu that shows all the adjustment layers available. Select Hue/Saturation and a new Hue/Saturation adjustment layer will be created.

The Hue/Saturation tool will appear. Click OK for now to exit because we will need to change the blending mode before we edit it.

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Step 3

You should see a new layer called Hue/Saturation in your Layers palette. Click on the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and change the blending mode to Overlay.

Step 4

Double click on the adjustment layer thumbnail. This will bring up the Hue/Saturation tool again where you can edit the settings.

In the Hue/Saturation tool, first, checkmark the colorize option near the bottom right. Then, set the saturation to 50 and lightness to 0. Finally, adjust the hue slider until you get the color effect like the image below where skin tones are bleached with a slight blue color cast in the eyes.

Here's what the image looks like so far.

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Step 5

Create a new layer by clicking on the button in the Layers palette. You should have a new layer called Layer 1 as the top layer. This layer will hold the grunge texture that will be used to add more attitude in the photo.

Step 6

Now, you will need to download some grunge brushes. You can browse for grunge brushes at Brusheezy.

Download several brushes and load them into Photoshop. You can also pick and download the brush as you are painting. To load the brushes, select the tool from the tools palette on the left. Then, on the top of the option bar, click on the button and a panel will appear. In the panel, click on the button and select Load Brushes.

A window will appear asking you to browse and load the brush. Browse for the brush that you downloaded, select it, then click Load.

Now you should see in your brush palette the new brushes you added at the bottom of the list.

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Step 7

Painting is where you can express your creativity. It is totally up to you to decide what you want to do at this step, but I'll explain what I did.

First, I changed the opacity of the brush to 50% and the brush color to white. I painted using a variety of brushes and size to get results shown in the image below.

Next, I switched the brush color to black and, with the opacity still at 50%, painted with a brick texture to get an image like below. Don't worry if it covers the face. Focus on creating the texture.

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Step 8

The texture is covering the entire image and now we'll make it more subtle. First, add a layer mask to the texture layer by clicking on the button in the Layers palette.

Step 9

Choose Image > Apply Image. Use the settings from the image below. You should select Background as the layer, checkmark the invert option, and make sure that the blending is multiply.

This is what the image looks like so far. The texture is covering the face so in the next step, we're going to mask out the texture from the face.

Step 10

Select the tool and choose a large brush with a softness of 0. Start painting over the face or any area where you don't want the texture to appear.

Here's what the image looks like now.

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Step 11

Now we'll tint the texture layer. First, click on the texture layer thumbnail in the Layers palette.

Choose Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation. With the Hue/Saturation tool, we can tint the layer to any color that we want. First, checkmark the colorize option near the bottom right. Then, adjust the settings to get the color results that you like.

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Final Results

High-Tech Swirling Aurora

2009-01-03T19:23:00.000+07:00

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Learn how to add a stunning beam of light that twirls around the object. This tutorial is more than a beam of light, it contains steps to create three versions of the aurora effect.

Creating the path

Start with a photo of a person or object that you would like to add the effect to.

Go to Layer > New > Layer to create a new layer. Name this layer Light Swirl.

Select the Pen tool and chose the Paths button.

With the pen tool, start from the bottom or the top and draw a path similar to the image below. Or you may experiment with your own path for your own unique effect, but for the first time, we recommend using the path pattern shown below.

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Stroking the path

Select the brush tool and use the setting below. Depending on your image size, you may want to select a larger or smaller brush size. A good rule of thumb is for ever 100 pixels wide or tall, there should be 1 pixel. For example, on a 800x600pixel image, you would start off with a 8 px brush size.

Select white as the foreground color. To do this quickly, simply press D then X. Pressing D will reset the colors to black and whiter and pressing X will switch the two colors.

Select back the Pen tool and right mouse click on the image to display the path option menu. Select Stroke Path.

A window will appear where you can select the settings. Use the settings below:

This is what your image should look like now. The path you created earlier should be stroked with a brush and it should start thin on the ends and thick in the middle. If it's all just one straight line, make sure that you have the "Simulate Pressure" option checked in the previous step. If you forgot to do that or if the brush size is too small or large, go to Edit > Undo to undo the previous step and correct the setting. If you want to change the stroke size, select back the brush tool and change the brush size. You may also undo and experiment with other brush shapes and settings, but we recommend, if you're doing this for the first time, sticking with one that will produce the similar results as the image below.

Now we'll add some lighting effects to the stroke. To do this, we'll use the Outer Glow layer style. Right mouse click on the Light Swirl layer and go to Blending Options. Enable Outer Glow and select blue as the color. Adjust the spread and size to get the results that you desire.

Your swirl should now have a blue glow around it and look like light instead of paint.

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Masking the light

Add a layer mask to the current layer with the swirl. To do this, go to Layer > New Layer Mask > Reveal All.

With the layer mask selected, use the Eraser tool to erase every other line intersecting the person or object so that the light looks like it is going around.

Once you are done, you should get a 3D effect similar to the image below.

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Adding the aurora special effect

If you like the effect and want to keep it that way, you may skip to step 20. However, if you want to add an aurora effect to the light, continue with the tutorial. Press Ctrl+J or go to Layer > Duplicate Layer to create a duplicate layer.

Rotate the image 90 degrees CW by going to Image > Rotate > 90 degrees CW. We need to rotate it for the Wind filter that we will be using later. The Wind filter only adds a wind effect moving left or right and not up or down; therefore, we need to rotate the image and rotate it back after applying the Wind filter if we want it to blow up or down.

Go to Filter > Stylize > Wind. Go to the next step and do not click OK yet.

Choose one of the three effects from below that you would like to use. Then, follow the corresponding instruction for each.

Effect A

In the Wind filter settings, choose From the left and then click OK.
Press Ctrl+F to repeat the previous filter until you get the effect that you want.
Go Image > Rotate > Arbitrary and enter in 270 degrees CWto rotate the image back to the proper orientation.

Effect B

In the Wind filter, choose either From the Left or From the Right; either one is fine.
Go to Image > Rotate > 90' CW.
Press Ctrl+F to repeat the Wind filter.
Repeat steps 2 and 3 twice. Your image should now be back to its proper orientation.

Effect C

Choose From the Right in the Wind filter settings.
Press Ctrl+F several times until you get the effect that you like.
Go to Image > Rotate > Arbitrary and enter in 270 degrees CW to rotate the image back to the proper orientation.

Select the new layer (2nd layer) and go to Filter > Render > Lighting Effects. From the Style menu, choose Blue Omni and click OK. Reduce the opacity of the current layer to about 50%.

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Finished Results

Here's what the image looks like after adding this Photoshop effect. This effect is great for making dull photos that sometimes doesn't make much sense into a high-tech digital art.

Modern Art

2009-01-03T19:18:00.000+07:00

Page 1 of 4

Apply this new modern art effect to your photos. This is a good way to create a unique effect similar to vector and pop art.

Modern Art Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1

Load any photo into Photoshop.

Step 2

Choose Layer > Duplicate to duplicate the layer. We'll keep the original Background layer untouched. It's important to keep a copy of the original image in its own layer so that whenever you need to access that image, you'll have a copy of it.

Step 3

To create the outlines, choose Filter > Stylize > Find Edges. Your image should have an effect like the image shown below.

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Step 4

Now choose Filter > Other > Minimum. This filter is used to thicken the dark lines.

Step 5

Currently, the image looks like a bunch of squares due to the minimum filter we used in the previous step. To add an artistic effect, we'll use the cutout filter which applies a vector-like effect to the image. In this case, we'll use the cutout filter to add some randomness to the edges so that they don't look like a bunch of squares.

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Step 6

Now we'll add a subtle lighting effect to the image to make it look more dynamic. Select the Background layer then press Ctrl+J to duplicate it. Move the new layer that you just duplicate to the top.

Then, select the new layer and change the blending mode to Overlay.

This is what the image looks like so far with this new layer added.

Step 7

Choose Filter > Artistic > Palette Knife. This will add a nice paint brush texture to the image.

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Final Results

Before and After

Retouching a Studio Portrait 2

2009-01-03T19:14:00.000+07:00

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Eye Brightening

Brightening the eyes will have a dramatic effect. It can be easily done by using a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer. Choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Brightness/Contrast to add a new Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer. Rename this layer to Brighten Eyes.

For now, set the brightness to 50 and contrast to 33.

Select the layer mask and choose Image > Adjustments > Invert. This will invert the layer mask from white to black.

Using the brush tool, paint the layer mask where the eyes are. You should see the eyes brighten as you paint. Then, go back into the Brightness/Contrast settings and readjust the settings.

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Hair Shine

Finally, we’ll add a shine to the hair. Start by using the quick selection or magic wand tool to create a selection of the hair around the area where you want the shine to appear.

With the selection, choose Layer > New Fill Layer > Gradient. Position the layer above the Brighten Eye layer. Change the blending mode of the Hair Shine layer to overlay. You should have a layer like the image below.

Go back into the Gradient Fill settings. Set the gradient to white to black and style to reflected. Checkmark the reverse option then click and drag on the document window and position the gradient where you want the hair shine to appear. Adjust the scale.

In the Gradient Fill window, click on the gradient to edit it. You should have a window like the image below. Create a gradient like the image below. To do this, click and drag the top left input slider to the middle of the gradient bar. Do the same with the bottom left input slider. Then, click on the individual input sliders and adjust the settings as shown in the image below.

We now have a hair shine but it does not match the color of the hair. We’ll add back a little of the hair color to the shine.

Click on the bottom left input slider.
Click on the color setting and a color picker window will appear.
Click on the hair to capture the color of the hair.
Move the color picker towards the top left until the hair color looks natural.
Click OK three times to exit out of the gradient settings.

We have added the hair shine but if you look closely, you can see some artifacts.

We can easily fix this by blurring the layer mask. Select the Hair Shine layer mask then choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Adjust the settings until the unclean edge fades.

If the hair shine is overlapping the skin, use the Minimum filter to hide it. Choose Filter > Other > Minimum and adjust the slider.

Here is the before and after effect of adding hair shine. You can add emphasis to the eyes by aligning the hair shine with the eyes.

Final Results

Retouching a Studio Portrait

2009-01-03T19:11:00.000+07:00

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This Photoshop tutorial is written for experienced Photoshop users and will show you unique techniques for retouching photos. You’ll learn how to enhance backgrounds, dodge and burn, brighten eyes, and add hair shine while keeping a low count of layers. The techniques you learn from this tutorial can be used for other portrait photos.

Before and After

Retouching a Studio Portrait Photoshop Tutorial

Retouching the background

Here is the original image. As a photo it looks fine but it looks flat and boring. This Photoshop tutorial will show you techniques used to make the photo have a stronger impact. You can follow this tutorial with one of your own image or you can use the image below:

Creating the mask

The first step is to isolate the model from the background. I used the extract and color range tool to create this. First I used the extract tool (Filter > Extract) but it didn’t work very well for the hair.

I then use the color range tool (Select > Color Range) to select the areas that were hard to extract using the extract tool.

Now we have a mask in it’s own layer.

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Adding a gradient to the background

With the mask created, I can add a gradient to the background. Adding a gradient to the background is a simple and effective way to enhance a boring background. Here is a preview of what the layers will look like in the end.

To create a gradient background, we’ll be adding a gradient fill layer using the mask that we just created. To do that, hold down the Ctrl key and click on the layer thumbnail of the layer “Mask”. It will load the selection of the layer. Choose Select > Inverse to inverse the selection. Then, choose Layer > New Fill Layer > Gradient.

In the Gradient Fill tool, move the center of the gradient behind the head. You can do this by clicking and dragging on the document window.

To increase contrast, you can change the gradient so that it is like the image below.

Finally, adjust the opacity of the Gradient Fill layer. I set mine to 50% opacity.

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Tone

Begin by creating a new layer for dodging and burning. Position the layer above the gradient fill adjustment layer. Then, change the blending mode to soft light.

Choose Edit > Fill and use the settings below.

The layer should now be filled with a 50% gray.

Add a layer mask using the shape from the Mask layer. Hold down the Ctrl key and click on the layer thumbnail of the Mask layer . Then, click on the in the layers palette to add a layer mask.

Click back on the 50% gray layer thumbnail and use the dodge and burn tools. For the image below, I used the burn tool to darken the models right side of the face, hair, top, and her arms. Then, I use the dodge tool to brighten the other side of the models face.

Here is a before and after effect of the dodging and burning.

Photo Zoom effect in Photoshop Photoshop Tutorial

2009-01-03T19:05:00.000+07:00

1

The first thing you do is start with a photo.

Choose the eliptical marquee tool from the toolbox.

Make a selection on the photo, as shown.

Tip: Hold the space bar to reposition the selection as you are drawing it.

2

Now, it's important to feather the selection. If you don't the effect will be too harsh and obvious. The feather creates a soft edge and a smooth transition to the blurred areas.

Select>Modify>Feather
(Photoshop CS3 and CS4 / before that it was Select>Feather)

Depending on the resolution you will change the size of the feather. This was low res so I used 15.

3

Right now you have a selection around the center of the image. We want to select everything BUT the center.

Choose Select>Inverse or Ctrl-Shift-I (Cmd-Shift-I on Mac)

You should see the selection go around the edge of your page now

4

This is where the effect happens.

Choose Filter>Blur>Radial Blur

Choose Zoom as the method

Select Good for quality (Best takes forever with little improvement in quality)

Choose your amount to suit. For a heavier blur use 100. You might have to test it and undo a few times to get exactly what looks best on your image. In this case I used 55.

5

And here we have the final result. Changing the feather and the blur amount will change the effect. Experiment with different shaped selections and different amounts of blur. In some cases you may want to apply the blur more than once.

Note to Advanced users: best wayto do this is to create a smart object, run a smart filter /and then mask the filter, that way the file size doesn't increase and you can use a raw file.
However I wanted to keep it simple for the tut. :)

6

Here's an example of the effect in-camera.

I used a slower shutter speed and pulled the lens in as I took the shot. Start moving th lens before clicking the shutter, this way you will get a smoother movement.

Eye Candy: Neat Scotch Tape

2009-01-03T19:02:00.000+07:00

In this short Photoshop tutorial we’ll be creating our own cool scotch tape, so you can stick things to stuff… and the like These kinds of graphics are also particularly useful for grunge-themed website designs.

1. Document

Start by making a new document in Photoshop, something like 800 x 600 pixels or a size that fits your screen resolution well.

Next, we want to create a basic background. Start by making a relatively dark gradient in the Background layer, then you might want to copy something onto the canvas that you can use the tape on.

2. Basic Shape

Now to make the shape of our tape. Start by making a rectangular selection with the Rectangular Marquee Tool. Now make a new layer (layer > new > layer) then fill your selection with a light yellow-ish color.

The above shape is filled with #f4dc8c.

Next, find and get out the Polygonal Lasso Tool then make a triangular shape on the right side of your tape shape, like mine shown here:

OK, after making your selection similar to mine, press delete on your keyboard to remove the selected area. Hold shift and press the up key once, press delete again and repeat until you’ve gone all the way up your tape.

Looking good. Now duplicate this layer, flip it horizontally (edit > transform > flip horizontal) then move it to the left until the edges are properly visible.

You may also want to flip your duplicate layer vertically, so it looks a bit different from the other side. Rather than doing this you could just use the selection process again, but that will give too much of a different result; it’s best make it seem as uniform as possible.

Merge your layers together.

3. Shape Detail (Texture)

Now we want to add a slight texture effect to our tape.

Lock the tape layer’s transparent pixels by clicking the icon in the layer’s palette, then add a little grunge brushing inside of the tape pixels.

You can accomplish all of this by following these few simple steps:

Start by locking the layer’s transparent pixels.
Get out the brush tool and set either black or white as your foreground.
Using a simple grunge brush, brush inside of the layer’s pixels with one brush at a time.
After clicking once, go to edit > fade brush and fade the brushing to 10-15%.
Repeat this once or twice more with a few different colors, continue fading the brushing so it’s hardly noticeable.

This was just to give the tape a little bit of texture, I’m not sure if it’s exactly realistic, but at least it looks cool!

If you’re at a loss for grunge brushes, be sure to check out these few hot spots:

The brushing wasn’t necessary, so if you weren’t able to accomplish this step completely don’t worry about it!

4. Finalizing

Got something to use the tape on?

Stick it on the canvas and position it accordingly. After this, rotate the tape and size it down if necessary, like I’ve done here:

You might want to make two or more variations of the tape when originally designing it, so you can use each one a couple of times so it doesn’t look so repetitive, got it?

I finished off with my tape by lowering the fill very slightly (around 90-95%) and also by adding a slight drop shadow.

Done!

Well, we’re done for this tutorial, I told you it was short! I hope you all enjoyed it.

Simple & Cool Urban-Style Logo

2009-01-03T18:55:00.000+07:00

In this Photoshop tutorial we’ll be learning how to design a simple, urban-style logo, good for your local band website or something like that You can see exactly what we’ll be designing below.

1. Document

I’ll be using a document size of 500 x 500 pixels for this tutorial, but something like 800 x 600 pixels or similar will be great. Fill the background with white by using the Paint Bucket Tool.

2. Font Selection

Here I went with a font called Juice, an urban-style, kind of like a graffiti font. Use the Horizontal Type Tool and add your text in the center of the image.

For a good font selection, you should check out a recent article published at You the Designer: Twelve Fantastically Free Graffiti Fonts.

3. Type Settings

Set the baseline shift, so the two words are stacked. Change the font color to white, and add a 3-4 pixel black outline. You can do this by double clicking the font layer, and selecting “Stroke” near the bottom in the Layer Style menu.

4. Type Settings (again)

Even out the width of the two words, by enlarging the smaller word until it fits.

5. Text Background

Next, fill in any holes between the letters by using a black vector shape. Use the Pen Tool, or you can fill it in with a brush. (Though using vector makes fixing mistakes a breeze)

Now simply drag the layer down, behind the type in the Layer window.

6. Text Inner Shadow

To give some dimension, we’ll add an inner shadow to the type layer. Double click the font layer and select Inner Shadow in the Layer Style menu. Here, I went with 33% opacity at a -34 angle. For distance choose 4px and size 3px. This blurs the shadow a bit, making any holes in the shadow less noticeable.

7. Additional Shapes

Now we’ll begin to add some other shapes to the image. Using the Pen Tool, I created a crown on the P. Use the same Layer Style as the type. Right click the font layer and select Copy Layer Style. Now that the layer style is on your clipboard, paste it on your crown by selecting Paste Layer Style.

8. More Shapes

Next, I’ve added stars on the bottom left corner of the type using the same process in Step 8. If there are holes in between the type and images, repeat Step 5 for remaining holes.

Here, I’ve added a small stripe under the name to bring everything together. Follow step 8 and 5 once again.

9. Add Lines (Cracks) to Text

Using the Pen Tool, you can make stylized lines throughout the type. It’s important not to go overboard here! Make sure you’re consistent on the widths, and how far from the edge they are. Things can go wrong here quickly, so leaving it plain or simple is always better than a messy piece!

Vollständige

For presentation, you can finish off by adding a nice, dark gradient to the background, then maybe a little grunge, a texture. Get creative and you’ll come up with something nice!

If you couldn’t completely follow a part of this tutorial, please feel free to download and inspect the PSD file for the end result of this tutorial.

Design a Stylish Fashion Advert

2009-01-03T18:53:00.000+07:00

In this Photoshop tutorial we’ll be designing a simple but stylish fashion-themed advert. You know, so you can sell sunglasses and stuff

1. Document Creation

Get started by finding a nice, suitable stock photo to work with. For this you’ll want to use one of the following websites:

iStockPhoto (paid)
DeviantART (free)
Dreamstime (paid)
stock.xchng (free)

I used a stock photo that I bought/downloaded for free (can’t remember exactly) from iStockPhoto a while ago.

As you can see, I’ve chosen a photo of a pretty girl wearing big sunglasses (now the theme of the design). Open your photo in Photoshop and get to work by resizing it, copying it to a new document, or whatever you want to do with it.

2. Colourise

Create a new layer (layer > new > layer) then get out the Gradient Tool. Using the gradient tool, add a very bright radial gradient onto your new layer (like this):

Try a few different layer modes and see which one looks best to you (I chose Screen):

You might also want to try a few different Solid Color fill layers, then mess with the settings for those, but this will be fine for now.

Please note that the colors that I used in the radial gradient were roughly #f743fb and #6909d1.

3. Shapes / Details

For this part of the tutorial you might want to hide the layer we previously made (the gradient layer). Start by getting out the Custom Shape Tool and finding the heart shape (or any other shape you think would look cool). Create a new layer and make a few white hearts on your canvas.

As you can see in the above image, I also rotated a few of my heart shapes to make it look a little more interesting! Finish off with the hearts by adding a larger, pink-filled one in the background (behind your white shapes).

I finished up by lowering the opacity for the larger heart shape layer, and erasing a few of the edges from the smaller heart shapes (see in the below image):

Take note that this isn’t an exact science! Get creative here.

4. Halftone Effect

Now we want to add something really interesting on top of our hearts/shapes. Start by opening the Channels tab (window > channels) and creating a new channel (create a new channel by clicking the icon at the bottom of the palette). You might need/want to make a new layer before doing this channel business.

After you’ve made yourself a new channel, get out the brush tool, and using a large, soft brush, dob a few times onto your black canvas (making sure your new channel is selected).

Now to make an interesting effect out of these boring dobs — go to Filter > Pixelate > Color Halftone and use an appropriate setting (you’ll have to press OK and check if it’s good enough). Using 32 as your Max. Radius should be good enough.

Now, holding ctrl down on your keyboard, click on the thumbnail for your new channel, this will select the pixels. Go back to your layers palette and select a new/blank layer. Fill your newly-made selection in the fresh layer with the very bright & colorful gradient that comes with Photoshop.

To finish off with the halftone effect, you might want to erase the shape away a little bit, in case it’s hiding a bit of the face. Or you could go back to the channel and redo it so it’s a little more to your liking. Unhide your previously-hidden gradient layer and see how it’s looking now!

5. Image Adjustments

It would probably have made more sense to do the image adjustments at the start of the tutorial, but now we know what our outcome is mostly going to look like, we can make some photo adjustments to our stock. The main thing I did was add a levels adjustment layer below our screen gradient layer (note: layer > new adjustment layer > levels).

You may also want to adjust the photo in a few other ways, for example, you could make her lips sparkle a little more? I don’t know!

5. Add Text

This design wouldn’t be complete without some sort of text now, would it? Start by getting out the Horizontal Type Tool (just the regular text tool!) and write out some text, in this case I used two sets of text, one reading YOUR 2ND PAIR and the second set of text reading 50% OFF.

The beautiful font which I’ve used above is called Decker, and you can download it completely for free at Urban Fonts. For all of the text I used Decker Regular, except for the word OFF, which I used Decker Bold on. After you’re all done with the text settings, position it accordingly.

I’m not actually sure where would be the best place for this text. If you find your text doesn’t fit, you could always make it smaller and add a Drop Shadow to make it stand out a little more.

Additional Effects

Basically now you should get creative and throw whatever you’ve got onto the canvas, such as patterns, maybe textures, other stock photos, something to go with the theme you’re working with. One thing that I thought was a good idea was to add a scan line pattern into the corner and make it blend in nicely using the layer modes.

Just remember though, you can download the complete PSD file from this tutorial, so if there was something you need help with or want to check out, please feel free to download the PSD file. Another thing to do after you’re all done is change the colors used in your Screen gradient layer, you might come up with a surprisingly nice result!

Mission Accomplished

Well, we’re done for the tutorial! I hope you enjoyed it, even just a little bit. Now you’re equipped with the knowledge of designing a nice, fashion-themed advert, and the possibility of selling sunglasses will haunt you for the rest of your days

Eery-Eye Photo Manipulation

2009-01-03T18:46:00.000+07:00

In this Photoshop tutorial I will be walking you through the making of an interesting art piece, “The Eye, the Key of the Soul.”

In this tutorial we will use the burn tool, dodge tool, brushes, layer modes and more to add an interesting effect to an otherwise regular stock photo.

Preface

Before we get started I would like you to know that this tutorial was written by Krinos, and the stock photo used is by xerolime, you can download it from here.

1.

Open up the stock photo you’ve chosen to be working with for this tutorial. Duplicate it once (just in case!) Find and get out the Burn Tool, change the range/mode for it to ‘midtones’ and set the opacity to something light-medium.

Using the burn tool now, pass in turn of the pupil of the eye and in turn of the eye. Now get out the Dodge Tool and set the mode to midtones again. Use the dodge tool to lighten up the pupil and also among where you used the burn tool to darken.

2.

Again using the dodge tool, make some ‘rays’ just outside of the iris, and lighten up any other areas you think may need it.

3.

Now use Lighting Effects (filter > render > lighting effects) to add an interesting lighting effect to the overall photo, you may want to mess around with the colors for the lighting effects filter. Try not to over-saturate the photo though on this step, if your lighting effects affect it too much, go to edit > fade lighting effects and put it at around 50%.

4.

Now it’s time to recolor the center of the eye. Do this by making a new layer (layer > new > layer) and brush a little bit inside of the eye with a soft brush, using the color of your choice (orange). After you’ve made your little bit of brushing inside of the eye, change the layer mode to Color and lower the opacity to around 50-60%.

5.

Using the dodge and burn tools again, add more light/darkness to the pupil to give it a stronger effect.

6.

To add more feeling to the photo, go to layer > new adjustment layer > gradient map and made a black & white gradient map. Change the layer mode for this layer to Luminosity and leave the opacity in tact. Repeat step 4 with the eye color part, you may want to use a lower opacity though, and a different color for the brush.

7.

A little more dodge & burn tool here, remember to mess with the ‘range’ and opacities for the brushes as well, get creative.

I also create another pupil-color layer, brushed inside of it it with a yellow-orange, changed the layer mode to Linear Dodge and lowered the fill to 10%.

8.

To finish off, apply a Selective Color adjustment layer (layer > new adjustment layer > selection color) and use the settings that you find look best. Again, in finishing, apply lighting effects again, but this time lower the opacity afterwards to around 35%.

Thanks

Thank you for reading this tutorial, I hope you enjoyed it! I’m sorry, but the PSD file was too large to be downloaded, so you won’t be able to download the PSD file from this tutorial.

Making of an Abstract Art Piece: “Lonium”

2009-01-03T18:43:00.000+07:00

In this Photoshop tutorial we’ll be walking through the process of making an abstract artwork, using abstract 3D renders, textures, and more.

Preface

First of all, I would like to thank roxymanlol from deviantART for writing this tutorial and giving me permission to use it. Also, the resources used in this tutorial can be found below.

Before we start, you should know that if you want to make an abstract art piece like the one being made in this tutorial, normally you would have to make some 3D renders. But for this you won’t have to make your own, because on some websites such as deviantART and design websites/forums they have 3D renders that you can download for free. We’ve also included the render used in this tutorial as a free download.

1. Render(s) + Background

Start by making a new document in Photoshop - something around 768 x 1024 pixels will be fine for this tutorial (learning purposes). But if you were working for print or something, you would want to make it much larger, using 300-600 resolution.

Now we need to get some 3D renders together. For this you can just download the ones we’ve used from above.

(find renders on deviantART)

2. Texture Work

Now comes the important part, called ‘postwork’ of our abstract image. First you have to find some cool textures to add into the image, I downloaded some from Resurgere (resurgere.deviantart.com).

By the way, I chose a wood texture and set the layer mode to Screen, then erased away the ‘ugly’ parts, actually the parts that were on top of the render.

So, now you’ve got something interesting like that going on, add another interesting texture. This time I’ve used a machinery stock photo from resurgere again.

After you’ve got your stock photo in there, change the layer mode to Soft Light and erase away the ‘ugly’ parts again.

Now, I placed my render in another position and placed it on top of all the other layers. Change the layer mode for this layer to Lighten and mess with the opacities, etc. You may also want to try different layer modes with this.

You may want to download the PSD file at the end of the tutorial and take a look through all of the layers.

3. Additional Shapes

Use your imagination here and add some details to your work, in this case I used some ‘lightning effect’ brushes and I added a 3D letter “S” in Photoshop, to add to the image:

4. Highlights & More

With a bright brush I made an illumination effect in the center of the image, to make a focal point of our abstract. After adding the brushing, change the layer mode to Overlay (100%):

You don’t have to be exact with this, just make a little bit of nice brushing and make it look nice

5. Colourise

Now you can manipulate the colors as you wish. In this case I used a Blue Photo Filter, Blue/Green Gradient in Overlay and 50% opacity and Selective Color. Now I get a result like this, which I’m quite happy with:

6. Lighting Effects

Using the Pen Tool and the Gradient Tool (radial gradients), with a white color you should make some really nice lighting effects like shown below:

After you made your lighting effects, change the layer mode to Overlay, and if necessary, duplicate the layer a few times.

7. Additional Render(s)

I then added in a small abstract render that I downloaded from deviantART. For this I used Screen layer mode with 100%.

You can find free abstract renders here on deviantART.

8. Finalizing

In finishing, add some nice brushes or interesting patterns, such as diagonal lines or squares with some space between the pattern. To get a nice effect you should try to place them quite randomly. After placing your brushes or patterns, change the layer mode to Overlay and it will add a very cool finishing effect. If your effects don’t show up very well, duplicate the layer a few times.

PSD

Now if you like you can download the PSD for the complete art piece. I also urge you all to try different things and use whatever resources you can get yours hands on.

The Dark Knight Grunge Wallpaper

2009-01-03T18:42:00.000+07:00

A quick Photoshop tutorial on the making of a grunge-style TDK (The Dark Knight) wallpaper! Is anyone else here looking forward to this wicked film?

(1680 x 1050 download)

Introduction

I’d like to point out that I was inspired to design this after seeing (and using) Louie Mantia’s The Dark Knight wallpaper, which you can find here. He also has tons of other amazing wallpapers that you can download in fullscreen or widescreen resolutions.

Obviously you know what we’ll be making in this tutorial, but you should know that you should at least have basic knowledge of Photoshop to follow completely through. We’ll be using a lot of the basics in Photoshop, including tools and layer-related stuff.

1. Making your Canvas

We need to start by making a new document in Photoshop. For this tutorial you should use the resolution that fits your screen - in my case 1680 x 1050! Bring some rulers onto your canvas in the center.

Select some appropriate colors then drag a radial gradient in the middle of your document.

Colors used were #3d3b3c and #0e0d11.

2. Background Texture

Time to add a little detail to the background. Find and copy onto your canvas a nice, grungy texture. For this you can use paper, stone, abstract or whatever! A good place to start is CG Textures.

Start with a texture of some metal scratches. Copy it into your canvas, resize it then mess with the layer mode & opacity/fill. I tried Color Dodge with a fill of 30%.

Get another texture, this time you can use something random. Again mess with the layer mode and opacity, use whatever comes out nice & to your liking.

(rusty metal texture added)

3. Bat Logo

Time to get a nice bat logo for our wallpaper. For this you might want to go to Google Images and search for a good-quality batman logo. Just remember, go for the new and much cooler batman logo, not the old corny one from the ’60s

Since I’m no professional with the Pen Tool or Illustrator, I enlisted the help of my brother Simon in tracing the batman logo, and it came out perfectly:

If you want to download the batman logo used above, please feel free: Download Batman Logo PSD

Copy your bat logo onto the canvas and rasterize it (conver it to pixels). Now you may want to make a few duplicates of your original layer, just in case something goes wrong.

4. Metal Effect (Bat Logo)

Now we want to make our bat logo a bit more interesting. Do you have any ideas on how to do that? I personally had a great struggle with this part… but anyway, follow this and I’m sure we’ll come out with a decent metal effect

Start by darkening up your logo a little bit (start with a base color of #878787). Now, head into the blending options for your bat layer and apply the following layer styles:

Remember: depending on what size document and logo you’re working with, you may need to tweak those settings. I now have a basic beveled effect:

OK, not looking so great, yet!

Create a new layer (layer > new > layer) then merge this layer together with your logo layer, this will apply the layer styles to the pixels so we can start afresh. Find and get out the Burn Tool, set the settings to low (Midtones, 30%) and do a little bit of burning on the inside of the logo.

Now, using the Dodge Tool with moderate settings (Highlights, 35%) do a little bit of dodge-work on the edges/corners of your logo.

Get out the Burn Tool again, using the same settings as before, darken the middle area of your logo a little more.

Now it’s time for some more layer styles:

Again, depending on what sizes you’re working with here, you may need to alter the inner shadow/inner glow settings.

Not bad now! As done before, create a new layer then merge it with the layer applied with the layer styles. After this, darken up your logo a little more using the levels feature (ctrl+l).

OK, we’re done for that part, but we want to add a little more metal to the logo (next step).

5. Metal Textures (Bat Logo)

Again, check out your texture resources and find some nice, rusty metal textures. To start with I used a ‘galvanized’ metal texture.

Copy your texture to the canvas, resize it then crop it to the bat logo pixels (using a layer mask).

Now, time to mess with some layer modes. For the first galvanized metal texture layer I used Color Dodge with 40% fill, then I duplicated this layer and changed the layer mode to Overlay and left the fill opacity intact.

Not really noticeable, hey? Anyway, to finish off I added one more texture on top, with a large rusty bit at the top:

For this layer I used Linear Burn and 27% fill (please remember, all the textures used in this tutorial can be downloaded from CG Textures).

(click for larger version)

6. Finshing Effects for Bat Logo

OK, to finish off with the bat logo I think we should add a shadow and also one of those cool light rays in the background. For the shadow, simply apply an Outer Glow layer style to the main layer.

For the ‘cool light ray’ effect I was talking about, get one of your original bat logo layers (with one solid color) and apply Filter > Blur > Radial Blur with similar settings to these:

Now we have a cool blur like this:

I think a good idea for a better effect would be to make the shape slightly bigger before apply radial blur, so it stands out on the sides a little bit more. Anyway, after you’re done with the radial blur, change the layer mode to Color Dodge and lower the fill if you think it necessary.

So, as you can see, on the left we have the final bat logo on top of the light ray in the background, and on the right is the final light ray with the layer mode changed.

Further Effects

As I write this I continue getting ideas to improve on the final product, but I can’t list them all! You should keep adding your own stuff to the outcome though, as you’ll always come across a better effect.

One idea is to create another light ray effect and place it on top of all the other layers, use a layer mode such as Overlay and erase away some of the inner area.

(additional light ray effect on the right, as explained above)

7. Additional Textures

If you want a much darker outcome, you should continue adding textures on top of the whole document (not just the shape or the background, but the whole thing) and continue playing with layer modes, fills, layer masks, etc.

Don’t forget the ole trusty but crusty brushes either!

(more textures, more adjustment layers, etc.)

Thanks + PSD

Well, we’re done for this tutorial! I hope it was sufficient Just remember though, if there’s anything specific you needed help with, please leave a comment or download and dissect the PSD file!

Get Some More Fonts

2009-01-03T18:41:00.001+07:00

If you ever find yourself with a lack of design inspiration, you could always look at some beautiful typography, or get some new & beautiful fonts to experiment with. I should probably take my own advice in this case and get some more fonts, so I swear I will right after this!

Places to look

Whenever you ask about free fonts, you’ll always be directed to dafont of course, but you should also check out urbanfonts and fontspace.

Awesome Free Fonts

Here are a few free fonts that I enjoy using.

Delicious, a definite must-have in my opinion.

Bobsmade, a cool grunge-style font with a thin outline.

Heineken, another delicious font!

Vintage, ooh swanky.

Veracity, futuristic-y.

Chow Fun, a very fun font, only to be used in moderation.

Gasmask, a pretty brutal font with a lot of detail.

Qlassik, it’s a beautiful font, what more do you need?!

Alright lads, that’s all I could get together for this one. Leave a comment if you have any other awesome fonts to add.

Additional Reading

Here are a few roundups of some popular, free fonts.

Enjoy.

“Perfectum” Beautiful Photo Effect

2009-01-03T18:40:00.000+07:00

The goal of this Photoshop tutorial is, in a very simple way teach even the Photoshop beginners how to add a very immense, beautiful photo effect to your cherished photos. In my experience this is great for the wives that want to add a special effect to their wedding photos!

What we want to achieve with this tutorial/effect is focusing more on the couple or focal point, and blurring away the background and unimportant details. We’ll be using a few different tools and basic Photoshop settings in this tutorial, so it’s best if you’re at least a little acquainted with the Photoshop tools and interface.

Preface

Firstly I’d like to thank Daniel Stoenciu from Romania who sent me an email requesting a tutorial on how to make the shown effect in Photoshop. And the picture was also provided by Daniel.

Step 1

You should start by opening up a photo you want to work with for this tutorial. I used the picture that Daniel emailed me (thanks again!)

Now, this is optional, but maybe there are some spots or something you want to touch up on either of the faces, if there is you can get out the brush tool and use a similar color as the skin to brush away the spots, or you can use the Healing Tool or Clone Stamp Tool. For a ’super fast and easy tutoria’ on facial retouching, check out PSDTUTS’ tutorial.

Step 2

Now we need to remove some of the background action. It really depends what your background photo is composed of, but with this one it will be easy to remove the background strength.

In this case, get out the Dodge Tool and set the range to highlights. Have the exposure set to around 50%.

Start clicking on your background area and moving your mouse around, not over your focal point too much though.

After you’ve dodged up the background a little bit, you may want to try something else and blur it up a little bit (just the edges, that is).

You may have to adjust the strength of the blur tool (around 40% should do).

You could even completely cut out the characters if you want, and if the corners weren’t too complex. If you think you’re finished with the general adjustments, move onto the next step.

Step 3

In your Photoshop menus (right at the top), go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map, and set it to a black to white gradient map. By default it should be on a white to black gradient, but if your image looks inverted, click the ‘reverse’ button.

Now we have a nice grayscale image. In your layers palette you should now see the gradient map layer. Right click the gradient map layer and duplicate it. Again with the adjustment layers, go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels and mess with the settings until our focal point shows up a bit better and the background is blurred out a bit more.

Now it may be looking a little too intense but I guess it depends on your tastes though. We want to finish off by adding a bit of a blur effect, or maybe some other sort of cool effect.

Step 4

Now we want to add a cool finishing effect. Start by creating a new layer (layer > new > layer) then go to Image > Apply Image, using the default settings. This just makes it so all of our previous layers will be merged into your new blank layer.

Now it depends on what size your image is. If the image you’re working with is small, then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and use a setting of around 10-20 pixels (or whatever is suitable in your case).

Yep, we wanted the new layer blurred. Now it’s time to mess with the various layer modes and opacities to get an effect you like. Even leaving the layer mode as Normal but lowering the opacity to around 50% looks good.

I find using a combination of one layer using Normal layer mode and one layer using Color Dodge layer mode is quite effective.

Now, we can substitute the Gaussian Blur filter for something else for a different effect. I always love using the Film Grain filter, so if you want to give that a try, create a new layer and apply the image again, then go to Filter > Artistic > Film Grain and use a random setting.

Looks lovely to me!

Just remember though, you need to get creative, mess with different layer modes and filters. If you need anything at all though, please leave a comment and I’ll get back to you.

Completion

We’re done for this tutorial! I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions at all, please fill out the form below and submit a comment, I’ll try to get back to you as soon as possible.

Kung Fu Panda Wallpaper

2009-01-03T18:39:00.000+07:00

Kung Fu Panda Wallpaper

3D cartoons one of the most popular fields in computer graphic nowadays, it has a lot of funs. In this tutorial I will try to create my own wallpaper on one of 3D cartoons ‘Kung Fu Panda’ using collage of graphic elements.
So, let’s start!

Make a new document with the resolution 1900×1200 fro this tutorial. Select some appropriate colors, for example colors of #6d0000, #540000 and drag a linear gradient.

For the relief effect apply Filter > Texture > Texturizer with similar settings to these:

Now we have a relief like this:

Then we bring picture of Panda to our wallpaper. Actually you can use different pictures heroes of this cartoon. I prefer to use this one:

If you want to download the picture of Panda used above, please feel free: Panda.jpg
The next step what we need to add a lines to the background. Make selection with Polygonal Lasso Tool and fill our selection with a black color like on a picture below:

Press Ctrl+D to deselect chosen area and set up fill of 20% for this layer, then duplicate it with Layer > Duplicate layer. Now, head into the Blending Options for new layer, so right-click your layer and go into the Blending Options and apply the following layer styles:
• Outer Glow
• Stroke

Then set up fill of 0% for this layer. Create new layer with Layer > New > Layer and press Ctrl+J to merge with layer under.

Alright, now we need to cut away inner part of these lines. To do this, first get out the Elliptical Marquee Tool, then select an area, feather selection using Select > Modify > Feather (Feather Rarius of 100 pixels) and press Delete. We receive a picture like so:

Now we would like to make more contrast between Panda and background. What we want to do is apply Ellipse Tool to make a sphere as on a picture below:

For the image jitter apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur with 95 pixels of Radius. Then mess with the layer mode & opacity/fill. I tried Overlay with an opacity of 55%.

The next step what do we need to add some shadow on the floor under the Panda. Make selection with Polygonal Lasso Tool and fill our selection with a black color like on a picture below:

For the blur effect apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur with 14 pixels of Radius and set up opacity of 70%.

Now let’s add some text. Get out the horizontal type tool (just the regular one) and write out something like ‘Kung Fu Panda’ on two lines. For ‘Kung Fu’ use color of # eb3d1f and for ‘Panda’ use this one # ffcb20.

It will be more interesting to warp text like this:

Go to type layer with ‘Kung Fu’ and apply the following warp text properties:

For type layer ‘Panda’ warp text properties will be the next:

Now we need to rasterize text lines for the next transform, so right-click your layer and chose Rasterize Type. After press Ctrl+T to make free transformation, as on a picture below:

To add color shadow for lines press Ctrl+J to duplicate it and swap colors of lines, then press Ctrl+T again to transform lower duplicated layers like this:

For the relief effect apply Filter > Texture > Texturizer with similar settings to these:

Now we have a relief like this:

We can add shadow to upper text line to make text more realistic. Duplicate it with Layer > Duplicate Layer and apply Edit > Transform > Distort.

After get out the Rectangular Marquee Tool, then select an area, feather selection using Select > Modify > Feather (Feather Rarius of 12 pixels).

Then delete shadow inside the selection and press Ctrl+D to deselect chosen area. Set up opacity of 60% for this layer. We receive a picture like so:

To bring our text lines more brightness apply Ellipse Tool to make a sphere as on a picture below:

To blur this ellipse apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur with 25 pixels of Radius. Then Set up opacity of 50%.

OK, to finish off with wallpaper I think we should add some graphic elements in the background.
For example we can use Japanese brushes:

The brushes used above it’s a free brushes that you can download from here.

We’re done for this tutorial, thanks!

You can download our Free Kung Fu Panda Wallpaper from here:

1024×768 | 1280×1024 | 1600×1200 | 1680×1050 | 1900×1200

Mysticism in The X Files (I Want to Believe)

2009-01-03T18:38:00.000+07:00

Mysticism in The X Files (I Want to Believe)

In this Photoshop tutorial I’m going to show you how to design a mystic grunge-style ‘The X Files’ wallpaper. I was impressed by ‘The X Files’ and decided to make a background related to this movie.

Let’s start by creating a new document – in my case 1600×1200. After creating document, apply Filter > Render > Clouds:

Render -> Clouds" src="http://www.photoshopstar.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/012.jpg" alt="Filter > Render > Clouds" width="500" height="313">

Then add some noise with Filter > Noise > Add Noise with similar settings to these:

Noise > Add Noise" src="http://www.photoshopstar.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/021.jpg" alt="Filter > Noise > Add Noise" width="322" height="418">

After applying this filter we have background view like this one:

For the next stylization apply Filter > Stylize > Emboss with similar settings to these:

Stylize > Emboss" src="http://www.photoshopstar.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/041.jpg" alt="Filter > Stylize > Emboss" width="322" height="416">

To get the picture as below:

Then use Filter > Distort > Diffuse Glow with the next presets like this:

Distort > Diffuse Glow" src="http://www.photoshopstar.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/061.jpg" alt="Filter > Distort > Diffuse Glow" width="266" height="246">

For the next picture:

Time to add a little metal detailed elaboration to the background. Try Filter > Artistic > Palette Knife, using similar settings:

Artistic > Palette Knife" src="http://www.photoshopstar.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/081.jpg" alt="Filter > Artistic > Palette Knife" width="271" height="249">

You can see my result image below:

After apply Filter > Texture > Texturizer. Use the next parameters:

Texture > Texturizer" src="http://www.photoshopstar.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/101.jpg" alt="Filter > Texture > Texturizer" width="265" height="307">

To get the next effect:

To finish off grunge texture, try Filter > Noise > Add Noise with similar settings to these:

Noise > Add Noise" src="http://www.photoshopstar.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/121.jpg" alt="Filter > Noise > Add Noise" width="322" height="418">

To get the picture as below:

To make our background more contrast use Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast with the next presets:

Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast" src="http://www.photoshopstar.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/141.jpg" alt="Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast" width="332" height="149">

Now it’s time to add some cold blue color. Start by creating a new layer and apply color of #1285d6.
Change the layer mode for this layer to Multiply like this one:

Now another color - create another layer and fill it with a black color.

To finish off with this dark mystic grunge background apply Eraser Tool like on a picture below:

Actually, if you like you can use these brushes.

Now we need to finish this tutorial off by adding text to the background. Start by getting out the Horizontal Type Tool then write out your text like ‘THE X FILES’ and ‘I WANT TO BELIEVE’:

For text ‘THE X FILES’ we used the following advanced type settings:

And for text ‘I WANT TO BELIEVE’ the other one:

The result we can see on a picture below:

Well, we would like to add some darkness effects to our text. Do this by first right-clicking the layer in the layer’s palette then going into the Blending Options. When you’re in the Blending Options, click and apply the following layer styles/settings:

Looking great now:

To make an accent on a type ‘X’ get out the Elliptical Marquee Tool, then select an area and fill it with color of #ef193a as below:

Then apply Select > Modify > Contract (Contract by 3 pixels) and press Delete. We receive a picture like so:

Press Ctrl+D to deselect chosen area. To finish off red accent apply the following Blending Options:

Outer Glow

To get the next effect:

Well, our tutorial is done!

Thanks for reading this tutorial everyone, I hope you enjoyed it!

Also you can download our free The X Files background from here:
1024×768 | 1600×1200

Preparing to the Olympic Games

2009-01-03T18:37:00.000+07:00

Preparing to the Olympic Games

In this easy, step-by-step tutorial I’m going to show you how to design an Olympic Games logo.

Firstly we’re going to make a nice background. Start by creating a new document in Photoshop. I used size of 1600×1200 for this tutorial. Then draw a white to blue (#d2efff) linear gradient similar to this:

Time to get a circle for Olympic Games logo. Start by making a selection with Elliptical Marquee Tool and fill in with the color of #0184c9 like on a picture below:

After that, contract your selection by about 15 pixels (Select > Modify > Contract) now you should be left with a selection like this:

And press Delete to clear area into the selection. Then press Ctrl+J four of times to duplicate layers and move these rings as on picture below:

Apply the next different colors (dark grey #515151, red #d04b09, yellow #dab900 and green #019627) for different rings:

Now to make relief effect use the Blending Options. Do this by first right-clicking the layer in the layer’s palette then going into the Blending Options. When you’re in the Blending Options, click and apply the following layer styles/settings:

Apply these options for all of rings to get a picture like this:

Alright, time to intertwine rings between each other. For this effect go to layer with blue ring, make a selection around it (Select > Load Selection) then expand your selection by about 5 pixels (Select > Modify > Expand) now you should be left with a selection as on a picture below and apply Eraser Tool into the selected area like this:

Then press Ctrl+D to deselect object. Make the same things with other rings from logo.

After making intertwine I would like to add some smooth glare to all objects of logo for bringing reflective surface effect. Again go to layer with blue ring, make a selection around it (Select > Load Selection) then contract your selection by about 4 pixels (Select > Modify > Contract), then create a new layer and draw a white to transparent linear gradient, white at the top and transparent at the bottom into your selection, similar to this:

Then press Ctrl+D to deselect object. Make the same things with other rings from logo to get the next picture:

Now we need to cut away white glare out of rings on the logo. For this make selection around one of rings again (Select > Load Selection) then contract your selection by about 4 pixels (Select > Modify > Contract), press Ctrl+Shift+I to invert the selection and press Del to delete glare out the selection like on a picture below.

Ok, our logo is ready. Now we can add some multicolored lines to our background.
Do this by first finding and selecting the Pen Tool, and make a shape like on the screenshot below:

Then add two more of these lines and lower the layer opacity to 35% for each line. After that going into the Blending Options to change color of lines. When you’re in the Blending Options, click and apply the following settings:

Gradient Overlay for the first, second and third lines.

That is it, our background with an Olympic Games logo are ready!

You can download our free background from here:

1024×768 | 1600×1200

Wall-E Cartoon Style Wallpaper

2009-01-03T18:36:00.000+07:00

Wall-E Cartoon Style Wallpaper

Do you want to make cartoon style wallpaper by yourself? Ok, then this tutorial special for you.

Now we’re going to make a really nice starlit night background. Create a new document in Photoshop, something like 1920×1200 px and drag a linear gradient with colors of #000000 and #141b4c.

Create one more new layer with Layer > New > Layer and fill it with black color. Ok, now we will try to create cartoon starlit night effect. For this apply Filters > Noise > Add Noise with similar settings to these:

To get the picture like this:

Then to make stars on the sky more realistic use Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast with the next presets:

To get the next effect:

And apply one more time Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast with the next presets:

We received the next picture:

After press Ctrl+T and enlarge the size of image on layer about two times. Invert picture with Ctrl+I and use Image > Adjustments > Levels with similar settings to these:

In this way we increase the contrast of image that gives us well expressed, clear stars.

Press Ctrl+I again to invert image back and change the layer mode for this layer to Screen.
Now comes the important part, we need to take off superfluous groups of stars. For this apply Eraser Tool with brush size 50 px and erase away content layer selectively. So, now you’ve got something interesting like that:

Then apply Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen and set up opacity of 35% for this layer.

To make the stars at the bottom of the picture more transparent apply Quick Mask Mode with gradient as below:

Then go back to Standard Mode. Now we have some selected area.

Press Del to clear image into the area and press Ctrl+D to deselect area.

Ok, now time to add a couple of bright stars on the night sky. Create a new layer (Layer > New > Layer) then get out the Brush Tool and using a star brush like as below, dot a few times onto your dark canvas.

Now we have picture as below:

Looks good! The next step what we need to bring pictures of heroes to our wallpaper. Actually, you can use different pictures of heroes of this cartoon. I prefer to use two of those, for example Wall-E & Eva.
If you want to download images of heroes used above, please feel free: Wall-E.png and Eva.png
Well, I would like to bring some luminescence to picture of Wall-E to create a feeling of moonlight. For his effect right-clicking the layer in the layer’s palette then going into the Blending Options. When you’re in the Blending Options, click and apply the following layer styles/settings:

Outer Glow

Ok, now time to add the second picture. Bring it to the canvas, then turn and reduce it twice as shown on the picture below. Use Blending Options to add some white glowing. When you’re in the Blending Options, click and apply the following layer styles/settings:

Outer Glow

The next step what we need to add some flying trace to our second hero of Eva. Do this by using Pen Tool with color of #4698f9. Look at picture below:

Then set up fill of 20% for this layer. Now, head into the Blending Options for this layer, so right-click your layer and go into the Blending Options and apply the following layer styles:

Inner Glow

After apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur with similar settings to these:

The flying trace is fantastic:

Well, to make flying trace more interactive we can add some details on it. For this make selection with Elliptical Marquee Tool and fill our selection with color of #4698f9 like on a picture below:

Then apply Select > Modify > Contract and contract selection about 3 px, press Del to clear selected area:

Apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur with the next presets:

To get a picture below:

Now, duplicate this circle a couple of times to get the next electric flying trace:

Ok, now we need to put our robot into the circles. For this effect select the robot (Select > Load Selection) and cut away fore-part of circles with Eraser Tool like on picture below:

Press Ctrl+D to deselect area and apply Quick Mask Mode with gradient as below for all two layers of flying trace:

Then go back to Standard Mode. Now we have some selected area.

Press Del to clear images into the area on the layers and press Ctrl+D to deselect area. Then go to the layer with electric circles and head into the Blending Options for this layer, so right-click your layer and go into the Blending Options and apply the following layer styles:

Outer Glow

Ok, to finish our wallpaper let’s add some text. Get out the horizontal Type Tool (just the regular one) and write out something like ‘Wall E’ in the upper left corner:

To add little white and big red (#dc0028) circles use Ellipse Tool as below:

Great! Our work is done! Enjoy your own cartoon style wallpaper!

Download wallpaper:

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Creating Star Wars Logo

2009-01-03T18:35:00.000+07:00

Creating Star Wars Logo

In this tutorial I want to share with you how to create Star Wars logo by yourself.

Ok, let’s start! Create a new layer sized 1920×1200 pixels with all the default settings and add in a red gradient to the background, the colors I used for the gradient were #7f0c00 and #450400.

Alright, time to make our base text. What you need here is this font. Place your text middle of the canvas by using Horizontal Type Tool, like on a picture below:

Then select the Rounded Rectangle Tool, make white your foreground color, and make two shapes with radius of 10 pixels.

Ok, now select smaller shape with Select > Load Selection, then go to the layer with the second one shape and press Del to clear selection into the layer. Press Ctrl+D to deselect object and delete layer with the smaller shape.

Now select the Eraser Tool and carefully get rid of the inset lines like this:

Time to add lines to our logo. Do this by using Rectangular Marquee Tool.

Now merge all layers of logo to the one layer. Then apply the Gradient Overlay layer style to get the next picture:

Press Ctrl+Shift+N to create new layer and merge it with logo layer. Then select ‘Clone Wars’ text with Rectangular Marquee Tool and press Ctrl+Shift+J to cut this text into the separate layer.

The same things we make with lines in logo:

Ok, go back to the layer with ‘Clone Wars’ text and apply Bevel and Emboss layer style to get the picture below:

Then duplicate layer with Layer > Duplicate layer and apply Inner Shadow, Bevel and Emboss, Stroke layer styles. After that, set up fill of 0% for this layer. Now we have picture like mike:

Now, go to the layer with lines and apply Bevel and Emboss and Stroke layer styles:

Ok, go to the last layer of logo and apply Bevel and Emboss and Stroke layer styles for this layer.

Our logo is almost done. Merge all layers of logo into the one layer again. Now, time to add our logo metallic effect. Go to Image >Adjustments > Hue/Saturation and set up the following settings:

After that, select our logo with Select > Load Selection, create new layer with Layer > New Layer and fill it with color of #9c5100. Then mess with the layer mode. I tried Soft Light. Now, create new one layer and fill it with a black color. Apply Filter > Noise > Add Noise with similar settings to these:

Then press Ctrl+D to deselect chosen area and set up layer mode to Color Dodge.

Press Ctrl+J to duplicate layer and apply Filter > Blur > Motion Blur for this layer:

Now we have something like this:

To make our metallic effect more realistic we can add some glares to our logo. Now select Elliptical Marquee Tool and make round selection. Then select the Gradient Tool, make black and white your foreground and background colors, and set the gradient similar to these:

Deselect object with Ctrl+D and transform it by using Edit > Free Transform like on picture below:

Change layer mode to Color Dodge. Then bring more glares to picture like mine:

Our logo is done. Looking great! Actually, to bring our logotype more brightness apply Ellipse Tool to make a sphere and fill it with a black color as on picture below:

Ok, press Ctrl+D and apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur with 100 pixels of radius.

Ok - we’re done! You can use it as wallpaper for your desktop.

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