|
Photoshop Tips
Use Airbrushed Highlights and Shadow Detail in Photoshop
Dateline: September 9, 2005
Version: Photoshop CS
More Photoshop tips
Discuss this in the Photoshop forum
|
London-based illustrator Myles Talbot gave his vitamin label an extra dose of realism
with airbrushed highlight and shadow detail.
|
|
With a photograph of an orange shot in his
studio, Talbot used the image as a reference point,
tracing around the outside edges of the fruit with
the Pen tool. While creating a path he added a
few irregular points for realistic bumps in the
outline. He then Command/Ctrl-clicked the path
in the Paths palette, inversed the selection (Shift-
Command/Ctrl-I), and deleted the outer details.
He inversed the selection again and jumped the
orange to a new layer.
|
|
After adding a mask to the layer, Talbot
activated the orange path selection again, and
copied it. He then opened the Channels palette
and turned on the mask’s visibility. In the Layers
palette, he pasted the selection into the mask,
Command/Ctrl-clicked the layer thumbnail, and
filled the selection with 50% Magenta and 100%
Yellow for an orange base color. Talbot activated
the selection again, jumped it to a new layer below,
then filled it with 25% Magenta and 100% Yellow.
|
|
Guided by the original orange image, Talbot
created a new top layer and used a light orange,
hard-edged airbrush to add and emphasize mid-range
highlights to the orange’s skin. He then repeated this
procedure for reflected light on the topside of the
orange. To create extra highlight detail, he added a
mask to the top highlight layer, and painted a radial
gradient effect with a soft airbrush. “The highlights
fade gently and evenly away from the white center
this way, blending perfectly into the sides of the
orange,” Talbot says. On top of this layer, he painted
white with a soft edged airbrush to act as a glare on
top of the orange.
|
|
On two additional top layers, Talbot added small
amounts of Cyan and Black to the Magenta and
Yellow mix used earlier to create darker colors for
the indents in the orange’s skin, and set the layers to
Saturate. With a soft-edged airbrush, he then added
a dark orange over the shadow areas to intensify and
unite the whole image. The final image is shown at left. Click to enlarge.
|
|
Don't miss the next Photoshop tip on Graphics.com. Get the free Graphics.com newsletter in your mailbox each week. Click here to subscribe.
|
|
