| Marina Caruso developed a screen-print effect for an editorial illustration exploring how a
new disability act would affect commercial design. She created a surreal yet soothing environment by
altering image colors and incorporating Sketch filters.
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After making a new RGB file, Caruso
clicked the Foreground Color swatch in
the toolbox and chose an orange-red
from the Color Picker. She selected the
Background layer and pressed Option-
Delete (Alt-Backspace) to fill the layer
with the color. Then she clicked the
Background Color swatch and chose
a light brown. She placed a selection
from a museum photo on a layer above
the Background layer and chose Filter >
Sketch > Photocopy. The filter used the
Foreground Color to outline dark areas
of the photo and used the Background
Color to fill them. To make the outlines
thinner, she lowered the Detail slider,
then increased the Darkness slider to
amplify the color. “I like the Photocopy
filter because it produces a kind of gritty
reality,” she says. She lowered the layer
Opacity to 88% and chose Image > Adjustments
> Hue/Saturation to increase
the Saturation of the Reds in the outlines.
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Caruso placed a selection of a window
on a layer and positioned it on the
museum. Setting a brown Foreground
Color and a yellow Background Color,
she selected the window layer, and
applied the Torn Edges filter from the
Sketch menu. It filled the dark and light areas of the image in the same way as the
Photocopy filter, but without the outlining
effect. She set a high Smoothness so
the edges would not appear too ragged
and increased Image Balance slightly to
show more of the areas filled with the
Foreground Color. She used the same
method to affect photos of buildings
in the center and on the right.
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For color depth, Caruso added a new
layer above the Background layer, set the
Foreground and Background Colors to
yellow-green hues, and used the gradient
tool to apply a Foreground to Background
gradient. She set the Opacity to
87%, which blended with the orangered
below it for an otherworldly color.
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Placing an image of a tree on a layer,
Caruso used the magic wand to select
the background and some branches and
leaves, then deleted them. To create a silhouette,
she chose Brightness/Contrast
and lowered Contrast to –100. Then she
chose Hue/Saturation, checked Colorize,
and used Hue and Saturation to change
the color to bright magenta. Choosing a
complementary color to go against the
green tones of the background added to
the tree’s luminescence.
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Caruso composited an elevator scene
on the right side of the image with solid
color shapes and a garden photo. Using
the Magic Wand without Contiguous
checked in the Options bar, she selected
areas of the garden image and pressed
Delete/Backspace so only some of the
greenery and shadows were visible.
Caruso felt certain greens in the image
looked dull, so she chose Replace Color
from the Adjustments menu. She clicked
Selection below the preview, clicked on
a green area of the image, and adjusted
the Fuzziness slider to determine the
best selection of greens. Caruso altered
the selection by changing the Hue and
increasing Saturation. After adding several
layers of flower images, she selected
each layer and increased Contrast to
the maximum with Brightness/Contrast.
To give the garden a peculiar glow, she
added more Magenta to the flowers using
Color Balance.
The final image is shown below (click to enlarge).
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London-based illustrator and designer Marina Caruso can be contacted at Marinacaruso.com.
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