If you have a gravatar, it will appear next to any comments you post.
Member Login
If you have a gravatar, it will appear next to any comments you post.
Click on the slide!

Website Design

My website design/development portfolio

Here you will find all things web related . Primarily a website design / development portfolio, this section is where you will also find any online banner or logo designs (if / when they are created).

More...
Click on the slide!

Photography

Online Portfolio (Coming Soon)

Coming Soon...

More...
Click on the slide!

Tutorials

A series of step-by-step guides, predominantly using Photoshop.

A series of step-by-step guides, predominantly using Photoshop. Keep checking back as new tutorials are added on a regular basis. Alternatively, subscribe to the RSS feed for the latest articles.

More...
Click on the slide!

Print Design

Anything printed to paper, or any other surface - be it fabric, ceramic, etc. can be found in this section.

Anything printed to paper, or any other surface - be it fabric, ceramic, etc. can be found in this section. PDF files of some design work can be found in the downloads section of the site.

More...
Home Tutorials Photoshop Tutorials A Novel Effect - Part One
A Novel Effect - Part One
( 7 - user rating )
Tuesday, 03 June 2008 18:21
helicopter thumbnail

A graphic novel effect to be precise. If you followed the Comic Book Panel in 5 Minutes tutorial, than this is along similar (although a little grungier) lines. Part one of this tutorial uses only the helicopter photograph, part two adds in the aerial city shot.





Both images were downloaded from stock.xchng. The photographers profiles can be found by following these links; Arian Kulp - aerial city shot. Donald Champion - helicopter photograph.   

Let's start by opening the helicopter image in Photoshop and renaming the "background" layer to something more meaningful (double-click the layer title). Now create a new layer, fill it with solid white using the paint bucket tool and drag this layer below the one containing the helicopter image. You should now have something like this in your Layers palette:

Layers Palette


The next step is to create a curves adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves) and create an "s-curve" similar to the one below. This will give the image more contrast. Adjustment layers are a great way of fine-tuning an image without making any modifications to the original - as its name suggests, it is a tool for making adjustments to any layers which sit below it in the Layers palette. Try switching off the adjustment layer by clicking the eye icon on its left and you will see the helicopter return to its previous appearance.

Curves Adjustment Layer


Now we need to give the rotor blades the illusion of movement. To achieve this we will use the Lasoo tool and a little motion blur, but firstly we need to create a copy of the original helicopter image. Right-click on the helicopter layer  choose Duplicate Layer and then drag the copy above the curves adjustment layer in the palette.

Starting with the left side of the main rotor, select the top half and a small block of sky directly above it. Next choose Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. Try to imagine the rotors spinning and adjust the blur angle until you get the desired effect. Repeat this step for the remaining three blades. 


Lasoo and Blur

Four Blurred Blades


Next is the step that makes the most noticable difference to the image - the Fresco filter (Filter > Artistic > Fresco). The key to getting a nice effect from this filter seems to be a) working with high resolution images (the original helicopter image was roughly 3000 x 1700 pixels) and b) keeping Brush Size low and Brush Detail high.

Play around with the sliders until you are happy with the results. The final step is to drop the opacity of this layer down to around 80%  in the layers palette. You should now have something that looks like this:

Fresco

Finished Helicopter


Well that's all for part one. In part two we'll add in a aerial cityscape as a background and make use of layer masks. As always, the Photoshop document for this tutorial can be found in the downloads section here.

Trackback(0)
Comments (0)add
This content has been locked. You can no longer post any comment.

busy
 

Feed Me!

Subscribe to the
Tutorials RSS feed
RSS icon

Alternatively, subscribe to email updates by clicking here.

Find It Here!

Sponsored Links

Latest Photoshop Tutorials

Latest Photoshop Tutorials

article thumbnailCircular Pattern Background

Saturday, 05 July 2008

.
article thumbnailA Novel Effect - Part Two

Thursday, 12 June 2008

.
article thumbnailA Novel Effect - Part One

Thursday, 12 June 2008

.

Latest Joomla Tips

Latest Joomla Tips

article thumbnail10 Useful Joomla Extensions

Friday, 11 July 2008

.

Warning: Division by zero in /home/content/s/t/e/stevenminns/html/modules/mod_minifrontpage/helper.php on line 399

Warning: Division by zero in /home/content/s/t/e/stevenminns/html/modules/mod_minifrontpage/helper.php on line 404

Warning: Division by zero in /home/content/s/t/e/stevenminns/html/modules/mod_minifrontpage/helper.php on line 406

Warning: getimagesize(/home/content/s/t/e/stevenminns/html/images/stories/thumbnails/mic-thumb.jpg) [
function.getimagesize]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/content/s/t/e/stevenminns/html/modules/mod_minifrontpage/helper.php on line 306

Warning: imagecreatefromjpeg(/home/content/s/t/e/stevenminns/html/images/stories/thumbnails/mic-thumb.jpg) [function.imagecreatefromjpeg]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/content/s/t/e/stevenminns/html/modules/mod_minifrontpage/helper.php on line 319

Warning: imagecreatetruecolor() [function.imagecreatetruecolor]: Invalid image dimensions in /home/content/s/t/e/stevenminns/html/modules/mod_minifrontpage/helper.php on line 320

Warning: imagedestroy(): supplied argument is not a valid Image resource in /home/content/s/t/e/stevenminns/html/modules/mod_minifrontpage/helper.php on line 322

Warning: imagejpeg(): supplied argument is not a valid Image resource in /home/content/s/t/e/stevenminns/html/modules/mod_minifrontpage/helper.php on line 324

Warning: imagedestroy(): supplied argument is not a valid Image resource in /home/content/s/t/e/stevenminns/html/modules/mod_minifrontpage/helper.php on line 325
article thumbnailReduce the bandwidth usage of your Joomla site

Thursday, 10 July 2008

.
article thumbnail5 Invaluable Tools For Your Website Or Blog

Tuesday, 08 July 2008

.