Image Composing: Keep Your City

This is an easy and quick lesson about how to create an interesting composition for social topic using few clip art pictures.

First of all, we need to find some appropriate pictures of hand, sky and city. For this purposes we may use Google Images or search in stock photo sites. So let’s start!

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Create a new document with size of 300×500 px and bring there our first picture of the sky in similar way as you can see at the picture bellow. You may use your own picture or just use mine.

Then we add the right clip art of the hand. Also you may use your own clip art or feel free to use mine. Locate it as on my picture below:

Now it is necessary to make color correction for the hand to get harmonious view with the background color. Use Image > Adjustments >Levels (Crrl+L) with the following options:

You may see the difference after correction:

Now we need to add proper picture which we will put in the hand. Open chosen clipart and bring it to your canvas. You may use my clip art as well. Then use the Elliptical Marquee Tool and make round selection with the pushed Shift to get the proper round selection.

Then press Ctrl+Shift+J to cut the selected part of image to new layer and delete the previous layer, it’s useless now. Get back to layer with the cutted part of image and make it smaller about 35%.

Ok, then select contents using Select > Load Selection and apply Filter > Distort > Spherize with similar settings to these:

Your result should look as mine:

Deselect this part image with Ctrl+D. Then use the Sharpen Tool and focus the sharpness:

After that use the following Blending Options for this layer:
• Drop Shadow
• Inner Shadow
• Inner Glow

We should get the following picture as the result:

Then use the Burn Tool (Brush: 80 px, Range: Midtones, Exposure: 30%) and add some darkness the bottom part of a circle. You may see this effect on the picture bellow:

After that use the Elliptical Marquee Tool, make selection as you can see on my picture bellow, create a new layer and fill it with the white to transparent gradient.

Now, create a new selection and press Delete to clean selected part or image.

Deselect chosen area with Ctrl+D and your result should look as mine:

At this point our lesson is over! We have a very nice composing, don’t we? Also you may create another composing for different topics. Have fun!

source:photoshopstar.com

Make a 3D Vector Film Roll, Drawn In Perspective

In this tutorial, I'm going to share with you how to draw a realistic film roll, drawn in perspective. You should already be familiar with using the Pen Tool, Ellipses and Gradients. Let's begin!

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Final Image Preview

Below is the final image we will be working towards. Want access to the full Vector Source files and downloadable copies of every tutorial, including this one? Join Vector Plus for just 9$ a month.

Step 1

Create an ellipse, fill it with black and give it a stroke of 4 points with a gray color (K=50). Select the bottom anchor point of the ellipse with the Direct Selection Tool, copy and paste in front and delete the fill.

Use the half-ellipse shape to draw the rest of the cylinder, shown in the second image below. Give it a 4 pt stroke and color of dark gray (K=90). Now apply a linear gradient fill, as shown below. Move the bottom shape up until you form a cylinder. The colors of the gradient are various shades of gray (from left to right: K=70, K=50, K=90, K=90, K=50, and K=80).

Step 2

Next, create two more ellipses. For the first one use dark gray stroke color (K=90), and apply the same radial gradient, but this time set the angle at -10 degrees.

Make the second ellipse bigger, no stroke, the same radial gradient again, and set at -20 degrees. Move both ellipses up and align them in the proper order. Now we have the first part of the top of the film roll. The colors of the gradient are various shades of gray (from left to right: K=80, K=50, K=90, K=90, K=50, and K=90).

Step 3

Use the Pen and Ellipse Tools to create two identical crescent shapes. Rotate the bottom one to 180 degrees. Apply a radial gradient again to both of them, and give a stroke to the bottom one, again dark gray (K=90), this time 3 points. The colors of the gradient are various shades of gray (from left to right: K=80, K=90, K=50, and K=80).

Step 4

Send both shapes To Back and move them up, until they fit under the cylinder and the two ellipses, as shown below. One final detail to complete the top of the film roll - another ellipse with no fill, stroke of 4 pts, and a gray color (K=90). Adjust the ellipse with the Selection Tool by dragging each anchor point and match it with its counterpart of both crescent shapes below. Your final piece should look like the image below.

Step 5

Let's move on to the bottom part of the film roll. Ready your Pen Tool and draw a shape similar to the one shown in the image below. No stroke, radial gradient fill with gray colors (left to right: K=0, K=80, and K=10). Set the gradient to -2 degrees to give it some perspective. Send to back and move below the other shapes.

Step 6

Draw another crescent shape (or copy and tweak one of those previously created) and place it underneath the roll body. Apply a fill of dark gray (K=90) and no stroke.

Step 7

Now, we need to draw the elements where the film comes out. Select the Pen Tool and start drawing until you have something similar to the shape below. Apply q radial gradient with gray colors (left to right: K=40 and K=80) and no stroke.

Step 8

Continue with the second element. It has to be on top of the previous one. Again, no stroke and fill of dark gray (K=90).

Step 9

We are almost ready. The last thing we have to do is add some text. I used the standard Arial font. For the "35mm film" line I rotate the text at 90 degrees and applied a Shear transformation (Object > Transform > Shear). Set the angle at 25 degrees and for axis choose Vertical.

For the "Max 24" line, I repeated the shear, but entered 10. I applied it right after I used it on "35 mm" and since the tool is smart, it already sheared it to 25 degrees, so I applied 10 more to the total of 35 degrees. Repeat the same to "GT... 24 exp." with total shear of 45 degrees. For "800" I used the shear transform again, but this time I gave it negative vertical shear of about -5 to -10.

Conclusion

This wraps up this tutorial on creating a vector film roll drawn in perspective. Remember that all the shapes remain editable until the end and you can tweak and change strokes, colors and gradients until you're satisfied with the look of the illustration. You can always try different colors of the film roll body.

source:tutorialized.com

Amazing Realistic 3D Computer Graphics

3D renders really impress me. It's incredible how some designers recreate things from real life on a computer, creating what we may call simulated pictures. Sometimes, we can't even tell whether an image is real or a computer graphic, and that's freaking amazing.

During a long visit to the CGSociety yesterday, I selected 30 amazing realistic 3D Computer Graphics that impressed me a lot for its rendering and textures, which turned this computer generated images into real pictures of another world. I really hope you enjoy these, and don't forget to visit each author's page by clicking the images. Cheers! ;)

(abduzeedo.com)