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    Worksheet Digital Illustration Technique

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    Jago
    This document provides instructions for creating an illustration in Adobe Photoshop using textures. It outlines 12 steps: 1) creating a new file, 2) importing a scanned drawing and sizing it to fill the page, 3) creating a new layer to start painting the basic image areas, 4) selecting painted areas to refine shapes, 5) continuing to paint details, 6) adding shadows using adjustment layers, 7) adding textures by dragging files onto the image and adjusting their settings, 8) refining shadows and highlights using dodge and burn tools, 9) masking textures that are too overpowering, 10) masking everything except the illustration for a plain background, 11) cleaning up mask edges using an eraser.

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    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Worksheet Digital Illustration Technique

    Uploaded by

    Jago
    512 views5 pages
    This document provides instructions for creating an illustration in Adobe Photoshop using textures. It outlines 12 steps: 1) creating a new file, 2) importing a scanned drawing and sizing it to fill the page, 3) creating a new layer to start painting the basic image areas, 4) selecting painted areas to refine shapes, 5) continuing to paint details, 6) adding shadows using adjustment layers, 7) adding textures by dragging files onto the image and adjusting their settings, 8) refining shadows and highlights using dodge and burn tools, 9) masking textures that are too overpowering, 10) masking everything except the illustration for a plain background, 11) cleaning up mask edges using an eraser.

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    This document provides instructions for creating an illustration in Adobe Photoshop using textures. It outlines 12 steps: 1) creating a new file, 2) importing a scanned drawing and sizing it to fill the page, 3) creating a new layer to start painting the basic image areas, 4) selecting painted areas to refine shapes, 5) continuing to paint details, 6) adding shadows using adjustment layers, 7) adding textures by dragging files onto the image and adjusting their settings, 8) refining shadows and highlights using dodge and burn tools, 9) masking textures that are too overpowering, 10) masking everything except the illustration for a plain background, 11) cleaning up mask edges using an eraser.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    512 views5 pages

    Worksheet Digital Illustration Technique

    Uploaded by

    Jago
    This document provides instructions for creating an illustration in Adobe Photoshop using textures. It outlines 12 steps: 1) creating a new file, 2) importing a scanned drawing and sizing it to fill the page, 3) creating a new layer to start painting the basic image areas, 4) selecting painted areas to refine shapes, 5) continuing to paint details, 6) adding shadows using adjustment layers, 7) adding textures by dragging files onto the image and adjusting their settings, 8) refining shadows and highlights using dodge and burn tools, 9) masking textures that are too overpowering, 10) masking everything except the illustration for a plain background, 11) cleaning up mask edges using an eraser.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 5

    Digital Visualisation FdA

    Jago Silver

    Adobe Photoshop CS - Illustration technique

    This is just one technique using one set of textures but hopefully you can apply the same methods with
    different textures of your own.

    1. To start, create a new file ensuring that you make the file large enough for your needs. Most
    illustrations for print will need to be at 300dpi and at least 100% of their final printed size. It is usually
    best to work in RGB mode in Photoshop as some features will not function in CMYK. However the
    file will need to be converted to CMYK if it is to be sent to a professional printers. A good
    compromise is to use the CMYK preview function (Ctrl+Y).

    2. Open your scanned drawing and drag it onto the new file. Change the Layer Blend Mode to
    Multiply. Now use the Free Transform tool (Ctrl+T) to expand the drawing to fill the page. Hold
    down Shift while doing this to keep the image in proportion. Name this layer Drawing.
    3. Create a new layer above the Background layer and name it Painting. With this layer active start
    drawing a selection using the lasso tool and begin filling in the basic areas of your image with
    colour. You can either use the Shift and Alt keys to add and subtract from your selection or simply
    use a paintbrush and eraser to refine the shapes.

    4. Once you have your whole image painted in some form you can hold the Ctrl key down when you
    click on the painting layer to select just the area you have painted. This is useful for painting part of
    your image a different colour without going over the edges (for example the beak of the bird
    above).
    5. Continue to paint the image adding as much detail as necessary.
    6. One method for making your images seem more three dimensional is to add shadowing and
    highlights to them. You can use selections to do this. First, using the Lasso tool, draw out the areas
    of your image you think would be in shadow, try to keep them consistent with a single light source
    (for example if the light was coming from above and to the right, the shadows would mostly fall on
    the left-hand underside of the object).
    7. With this selection active and your painting layer selected, go to Layers - Adjustment Layers - Hue/
    Saturation. This will create a new Adjustment Layer above your Painting layer that only affects the
    areas you selected. Play with the Lightness slider graph until your shadows look right. The Curves
    and Levels Adjustment Layers can also be used for similar effects (PTO).
    8. Adding textures - Open each of the texture files and drag them onto the image, arrange them in
    order of their names, starting at the bottom. The file names also tell you which Blend Modes and
    what opacity to set them at. Obviously you can experiment with changing these afterwards.
    9. You can now start to refine the shadows and highlights using the Dodge and Burn tools. Start by
    selecting the shape of your painting layer (hold down Ctrl and click on it). Then select Texture
    Layer 03. You can now start to use the Burn tool to emphasise the shadows, using a fairly large
    brush with a low opacity will produce a subtle effect. You can use the Dodge tool in the same way
    to bring out the highlights. Remember to consider the position of these in relation to your light

    10. You can now also start to mask off or erase areas of the texture layers that you do not want. In
    the image above I have masked off the 1st texture layer for the whole of the bird as it was a little
    too overpowering. I have left it visible in the background where it makes a good backdrop to the
    image.
    11. If you want your image to have a plain background an easy way to achieve this is to mask of
    everything except the illustration. Simply select your painting layer (hold down Ctrl when you click
    on it), then invert the selection (Ctrl+Shift+I) and create a layer mask above all your other layers.
    12. Depending on how accurately you painted the original shape your mask might have some slightly
    dodgy edges. You can clean these up easily with the eraser, making sure you have clicked on the
    mask icon on the layer first. As this is only changing the mask it wonʼt be erasing any of your
    actual image. If you accidentally erase more than you meant, simply switch the colour of the
    eraser from black to white (or the other way around), by clicking the X key.

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