Post by Ultimafanatic on Dec 16, 2005 22:35:19 GMT -1
Ok... this is my first tut, and it isn't even a proper one so bear with me.
Ok techniques....
1) Find a decent stock photo
The best stock photos for this kind of work are ones of empty corridors, or warehouses. Anything that looks pretty desolate and lonely should do the job, don't be afraid of black and white photos, as some of them can be colour balanced to look as good as coloured ones.
2) Blur
Blur the photo any way you want to bring out the colours, most people know what i'm on about. (Duplicate, blur (any kind), overlay/softlight). This should make it look more grungey aswell.
3) Bring out the light and dark
Find a grunge brush, create a new layer above the blurred one and start brushing in white along all the light spots (dosn't matter how light they are). Lighten any features in the room (take the firehose in my corridor pic for example). Then create a new layer and brush all the dark parts in black. Now overlay both layers. If you can still see the pattern from the brushes, either switch to soft light, or lower the opacity to around 50%. This should emphasise all the dark and light points.
4) Filters
I don't use these too much, but if you want to use them, duplicate the original pic, put it before the faded layer and I would reccomend chalk and charcoal, or simply charcoal. Then go to edit, and fade, use whichever setting you choose. Then when you've done that, you can overlay/soft light the layer if you wish. Try to sharpen the original image once or twice aswell.
5) Colour Balancing
Colour balance is pretty hard to get used to on these kinda things, I try to go for a yellowy brown. Basically just set the one slider all the way to red, and the bottom one all the way to yellow, vary the middle slider, as this provides interesting results, but always try to keep a kind of yellowy colour. When your done, add clouds to the colour balance, as with a lot of things here, somtimes this works, somtimes it dosn't. If you choose, add curves aswell, it dosn't matter whether you lighten or darken the pic, of course due to the subject matter darkening is better, but lightening can be good too.
6) Merge Layers
This is crucial to my decay manips. Go to Merge visible to merge your layers into one (You may wish to save before this if you ever want to change the manip in the future). Now duplicate the merged layer, now go filters, noise, add noise, now bring the ammount down so it isn't too noticeable (The last one I used was 12.16). This is still reletivly clear, so bring the opacity down a bit aswell. This should give you a grainy picture. I like this effect, you may not.
7) Text
Now with your finished manip add "Decay" somwhere on it. Then add it to the top post of the Decay gallery. (Deadshot and Velocity have the power to do that)
Well lads, that was my first shot at a tut, took 1/2 hour, what you think, show me your results.
Ok techniques....
1) Find a decent stock photo
The best stock photos for this kind of work are ones of empty corridors, or warehouses. Anything that looks pretty desolate and lonely should do the job, don't be afraid of black and white photos, as some of them can be colour balanced to look as good as coloured ones.
2) Blur
Blur the photo any way you want to bring out the colours, most people know what i'm on about. (Duplicate, blur (any kind), overlay/softlight). This should make it look more grungey aswell.
3) Bring out the light and dark
Find a grunge brush, create a new layer above the blurred one and start brushing in white along all the light spots (dosn't matter how light they are). Lighten any features in the room (take the firehose in my corridor pic for example). Then create a new layer and brush all the dark parts in black. Now overlay both layers. If you can still see the pattern from the brushes, either switch to soft light, or lower the opacity to around 50%. This should emphasise all the dark and light points.
4) Filters
I don't use these too much, but if you want to use them, duplicate the original pic, put it before the faded layer and I would reccomend chalk and charcoal, or simply charcoal. Then go to edit, and fade, use whichever setting you choose. Then when you've done that, you can overlay/soft light the layer if you wish. Try to sharpen the original image once or twice aswell.
5) Colour Balancing
Colour balance is pretty hard to get used to on these kinda things, I try to go for a yellowy brown. Basically just set the one slider all the way to red, and the bottom one all the way to yellow, vary the middle slider, as this provides interesting results, but always try to keep a kind of yellowy colour. When your done, add clouds to the colour balance, as with a lot of things here, somtimes this works, somtimes it dosn't. If you choose, add curves aswell, it dosn't matter whether you lighten or darken the pic, of course due to the subject matter darkening is better, but lightening can be good too.
6) Merge Layers
This is crucial to my decay manips. Go to Merge visible to merge your layers into one (You may wish to save before this if you ever want to change the manip in the future). Now duplicate the merged layer, now go filters, noise, add noise, now bring the ammount down so it isn't too noticeable (The last one I used was 12.16). This is still reletivly clear, so bring the opacity down a bit aswell. This should give you a grainy picture. I like this effect, you may not.
7) Text
Now with your finished manip add "Decay" somwhere on it. Then add it to the top post of the Decay gallery. (Deadshot and Velocity have the power to do that)
Well lads, that was my first shot at a tut, took 1/2 hour, what you think, show me your results.
