Monday 1 July 2013

So many tools, too little skills?

I have a wide array of interests, jewellery, photography, and digital art, just to name a few.  Without a tutor or a plan to follow I dive into these areas and learn as I go along.  I wander aimlessly from one topic to the next.  Last night it could be creating a tiara, today it's creating cool effects on Photoshop.

I still find Photoshop mystifying.  I've used it for a number of years for my bridal accessories website and general playing around with images.  I probably understand or even know about 1/100th of it's capabilities and sometimes I find the power contained within this programme a little intimidating.

So about an hour ago I came across a great beginner tutorial (I say beginner but you'll need to know how to access filters, change brushes, understand layer opacity and blending modes or at least know how to change them.  It may sound complicated but it's not - check out this video that should you the very basics of photoshop, I mean basic as in the first time you've ever clicked on the icon and opened it.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS5uh5TCXcU

Anyway back to the tutorial, you can view it here, it's by Troy Packer and he's even kind enough to supply you with the original image so you can follow along.

Here's the original

The tutorial (which can be found here) shows you in clear steps how to get to this image:


I mostly found the tutorial easy to understand but I didn't complete the last few steps, I'd like to say it was because I liked how my image turned out, but in reality it's because I'm lazy.

Also I chose different colours and blending modes too. So while I used the same original drawing as Troy mine turned out different.

I've personally found this a great tutorial simply because it shows what type of effects you can get but using a number of different filters, including Chrome, Gaussian Blur and Wave, as well as various hardness of brushes, the eraser and dodge tool. 

This isn't the type of art that I'm passionate about, I did this tutorial purely to get to know Photoshop better. If you're at the same level as me using photoshop then I would ask you to seriously consider spending time on tutorials such as these just for practise.  It helps you understand what can be achieved with this programme and when you know what it is that you want to create, you'll have a good idea how to get there.

Have fun x




1 comment:

  1. Wow sounds very interesting it's amazing what you can do with a picture n how you can turn it into something amazing like this sweet as

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