Eye-catching imagery thatboth inspires and challenges

P ictures may tell a thousand words, but sometimes you need a thousand words just to get to the bottom of a picture. Here we look at strange and interesting images created by readers and

artists and we find out how they were executed and the problems encountered along the way.

All the images featured in Peer Pressure demonstrate a diverse range of techniques that you’ll find useful in your own work. Like what you see? Then contact the artist directly – or read the accompanying rubric, which details how the image was created.

If you’d like to see your own work on these pages, please sendus JPEGs at advancedpshop@imagine-publishing.co.uk and we’ll get back to you if we want to print them.

You’ll stand a better chance of seeing your work in print if you adhere to the following criteria: make sure that your images are high-quality TIFFs or JPEGs (RGB or CMYK), 300dpi minimum, and can be printed at 15cm x 15cm minimum. Don’t forget to include a small text file detailing how you created your work, too.

Wooden ShoeNAME: Juthathip TybonEMAIL: jeab_qld@yahoo.com.auSOURCE: Original photography by Ernest von Rosen

After preparing the ‘raw materials’ – generating the best black-and-white image by selecting the optimum Colour Channel, then duplicating the selection into a new image – Juthathip applied a Gaussian Blur to eliminate sharp edges. She then saved this as a new .psd file, to be used as a Displacement Map later on. “Now it was simply a matter of manipulating the image using two layers, created from the original shoe shot and the wooden texture,” she explains. “After selecting the layer with the wooden texture, I applied the Displacement filter, using the .psd file. After placing the texture over the shoe, I applied a Layer Mask to cut out the unwanted regions of the wooden texture layer.”

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Kitty Koozie and Times Square AftermathARTIST: MeowzaEMAIL: meowza@gmail.comSOURCES: www.sxc.hu, Times Square image by Rose Forschen (used with permission)

The faintly disturbing Kitty Koozie proved a great testbed for Meowza’s hair and fur techniques – particularly the furry edges of the cat’s head: “I did this simply by taking a one-pixel brush and ‘painting’ in some rough fur around the figure,” he says. “I then used the Smudge tool, set at 50-60 per cent pressure, to ‘pull’ the tips of the fur to create a more natural, flowing look.” After that it was a case of finding an object to insert into the hollowed-out feline… “I played around with a number of objects, including a cat wearing a cat-suit and a mouse in cat’s clothing, but ultimately went with the beer-can.”

The scene of devastation seen in Times Square Aftermath goes to show

just how powerful Photoshop can be in the right hands – and enabled Meowza to practise his flame and smoke effects. “Starting with a strong, clean image is the most important step,” he says. “There are a million ways to create fire and

smoke, as any Photoshopper can tell you. My approach was to find strong source images of fire, explosions and smoke to reduce the amount of drawing-in work I’d have to do.”

He set about pasting these source images into his original image, using the Smudge tool set at various widths

and pressure-settings, to draw in and blend the edges of the smoke. “I used the same technique with the fire.”

And the collapsing signs? “A simple cut-and-paste job,” says Meowza. “I added Motion Blur to some of the debris to suggest movement and violent force.” He also used imagesof damaged buildings and rubbleto replace those in the background, adding a slight hint of ‘scalding’ with the help of the Burn tool.

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XBot andNGCBotNAME: Wai MannCONTACT: wman@fullcontrast.com

These two mecha designs, created entirely in Photoshop (bar the right hand of the NGCBot, below-right, created using 3ds max), prove just how adept Adobe’s 2D app is at generating 3D effects. Each bot was assembled from a basic image of its respective console (NGC GameCube and Xbox), before being edited into shape.

With the NGCBot, the flame effects proved particularly troublesome. “I spent a long time manipulating them, and they still didn’t look like they emanated from the robot in the correct way,” he says. “But after some proper research, I found a few images that worked really well.”

It was all a matter of resizing and carefully masking out the areas that weren’t required; the dark backdrop helped immensely. “Using the Screen filter enabled me to place the flamesin the correct parts without having to mask unwanted black areas,” he says. The electricity was added as a final flourish – and to fill out the left arm a little. “I lifted this from another piece of my work. I altered the colours and screen-filtered the background out.”

Attaching real human fists helped the Xbot (above) look more ‘realistic’, reckons Wai: “It makes it feel slightly more organic.” He created the head entirely from shapes cut out using the

Pen tool, and used real shots of fire for the foreground flames. But integrating the bot’s hands with the Windows Media Player skins on the figure’s armature proved difficult: “I had to manipulate several skins to get the angle of the arm,” he says. “I spent ages trying to create a smoke/fire effect on the samurai sword, too. Using the same flame images for most part of the sword, I had to Blur and Smudge green flames to get the effect I wanted.” A red layer helps to suggest that the blade is smouldering… For the background, Wai used simple green light layers, Blurred and Motion Blurred several times. “I manually added the highlights under the bot’s legs using a green highlight layer, masked to blend with the bot.”

Security BeetleARTIST: Brant VondruskaEMAIL: bvondruska@charter.net

After collating his source imagery – a beetle, a key, a rusty metal plate and a chain and lock – Brant set about isolating each item from its background, using the Pen tool for extra precision. “It’s a time-consuming process,” he admits, “but you can’t beat the results – and here it helped me to achieve the rusty look I was aiming for.”

For each layer (lock and chain, main beetle body and hindquarters), Brant created a mask, then blended thepieces together using a 200-pixel feathered brush. “I used Levels to bring down the contrast of all three elements by30 per cent,” he adds. “This helped to retain detail, yet introduce the rusty look I wanted.”

And the rusty look itself? Turns out he used the same process for all the elements in the composition, from the beetle’s body right down to the lock and key. “I created a new layer underneath the subject, into which I placed the rusty metal plate. Afterwards, I created a selection – Alt-clicking the Edit icon on the Layers menu – of the main subject.” Then it was a case of selecting the metal plate layer, inverting it and hitting Delete. “This erases all of the metal plate except the selection in question,” he explains. “Now, underneath, I have the exact shape of the insect/lock and key in the form of the rusty metal plate.” Back on the subject layer, Brant selects Blending Mode>Luminosity and reduces Opacity to 15 per cent. This brings the rust effect to the fore without sacrificing any detail in the newly formed creature.

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Discover the thinking behind the art

GargoyleARTIST: Den CopsEMAIL: den@kyzer.co.uk, www.kyzer.co.uk

The idea here was to create a living gargoyle; the source image simply showed a face with a cracking mud mask. “Bits of skin were still visible – the area around the eyes, the lips and ears – which I had to cover, using mostly the Clone Stamp and Patch tools.” Den then placed a Hue/Saturation layer mask over the top to homogenise the colour scheme. “Out of this Hue/Saturation layer, I masked the mouth and the eyes to retain original flesh tones, and brightened the eyes a little.” The Liquify>Forward Warp tool helped with the fangs, but he had to be careful. “First, I had to copy-merge the mouth on a different layer, mainly because, when using Forward Warp on the teeth, the surrounding area – the other teeth and the back of the mouth – were dragged along with it and unpleasant banding appeared.” After applying the filter, Den could more easily mask out the unwanted liquified areas.

Blue CarARTIST: Den CopsEMAIL: den@kyzer.co.uk, www.kyzer.co.uk

“You don’t need a multitude of layers and effects to create a good image,” argues Den. “All I did here was cut out the carand boost colour by increasing contrast and colour saturation.” The background is a photo of the sunrise taken from the window of an airplane. Den altered the colours via a Hue/Saturation layer so it would better match the tones of the car. “The two images had different levels of noise, too, so I had to blur the background slightly and then add noise, so that the transition between car and sky appeared seamless.”

DownunderARTIST: Den CopsEmail: den@kyzer.co.uk, www.kyzer.co.uk

“Here, I had to deal with the areas around the eyes andanywhere not covered in black makeup,” explains Den. In Hue/Saturation, he desaturated the flesh tones and then retouched the face with a little airbrushing to matte the skin. “The filaments effect is a photograph of ink drops in water,” he adds. “Once placed, the two elements had to be colour-adjusted to blend in with each other. I painted the tear on afterwards.”

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Egg Boat and Elastic iMacARTIST: Marcel Wiegers (Fris Design)EMAIL: mrzl74@gmail.com, www.fris-design.nl

For artist Marcel, simply compositing broken egg-shells into this water scene would’ve failed to evoke the right impression. “I had to bring several broken shells together to get the right shape,” he explains, “using the Blur tool to make the inside of the shell look slightly out of focus, and airbrushing the front of the egg back together again from the broken original.” Shadows deftly applied to the egg-boat’s underside add to the illusion. “I did some colour correction, adding shadows with the airbrush and Burn tool. I also duplicated the egg layer, darkened it with Levels, then masked it withthe airbrush to provide deeper areas of shade( A - C ) .” Once he’d located a suitable pilot (a work colleague), he slipped him in, tweaking colours and adding shadows en route. Advanced Photoshop came to his aid with the reflections: “I used the techniques printed in issue two,” says Marcel. “They worked a treat.”

“I made sure the two pictures were shot under the same conditions,” says the Amsterdam-based designer, referring to the two elements in his other startling montage: Elastic iMac. “I crudely masked out my arm (iMac. “I crudely masked out my arm ( D ), then copied the screen to a separate layer and used the Liquify and Smudge tools to ‘flex’ the display, as if my fist was going through it. I darkened parts of it much as I did with the Egg Boat ( E and F ) .” Creating the effect at the rear of the display was quite challenging, he says. “I took the fist onto a separate layer, and, with a little colour correction, turned it white. For the screen, I created a shape using the Pen tool, which I then airbrushed in ( G ) .” To finish off the effect, Marcel duplicated the arm/fist and used Filter>Artistic>Plastic Wrap. He then set the Layer Blending mode to Multiply, reduced Opacity and implemented a few colour corrections.

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