Software: Illustrator CC, Photoshop CC
Tutorial: Design a Gritty Vintage Airshow Poster/ – Design Cuts
This image shows off the power of a vector (Illustrator) / bit map (Photoshop) software tag team in the creation of an image. The actual images (the map, the aircraft shape and text were all created in Illustrator and the weathering of the images was done in Photoshop.
Software: Photoshop CC
Tutorial: How to Create an Alien Planet with Rings – Blue Lighting
Once again we have gone to where many Photoshop tutorials have gone before (to pretty awesome results)… space.
There is one thing I like about most of the Blue Lighting tutorials (and in most space tutorials from other websites) is that they start with a blank canvas. There is no looking on the web for a picture of space images, everything you see in the image was created in Photoshop. In this tutorial there was five distinct steps: 1) create stars, 2) create a nebula, 3) create a planet, 4) create rings, 5) put all the elements together and make sure it doesn’t look like a dogs breakfast. In this case it was pretty easy and it look great.
Software: Photoshop CC
Tutorial: Spoon Graphics
Everything old is new again… not an original thought, but it seems to be a true one. Just look at the title graphics in the upcoming Thor Ragnarok movie. The thing I find interesting is that a lot of the 80’s graphic style came from the development of computers in the graphics field. 80’s computers were limited in the number of colour they could produce (early paint programs were limited to 256 colours, 64 colours, 16 colours or even 32 shades of grey!). 80’s computers were also limited by their speed (or more accurate their lack of speed). They could only manipulate only a few graphic items before the computer slowed down (or crashed). This lack colours and design elements lead to graphics that were bold and bright and lacked subtle shades.
I find this semi-funny. We now have very powerful computers, by we seem to be creating graphics that pay homage to less powerful computers. I guess nostalga is more powerful than even the most powerful computer, or that the we just want to celebrate the fact despite the lack of power of 80’s computers the 80’s graphic style was pretty awesome!
Software: Photoshop CC
Tutorial: Image Inside Text with a Twist from How to Create BADA$$ Effects in Photoshop
This image shows how a reasonable, but not great image can be turned into something rather effective. In this case the final image could be easily a basis for a motocross event poster. Using layer styles, brushes and layer masks the blue splatter behind the main image is quickly created.
Software: Photoshop CC
Tutorial: 3D Mobile Effect – Tutorials Junction
When I saw this tutorial the first thing that popped in my mind is “Alice in Wonderland” meets the mobile digital world. I liked how I was able to merge the images together despite a major differences in tone of the images.
Software: Photoshop CC
Tutorial: See Through Clothes Effect – Tutorials Junction
This image is a bit misleading – to get this image done the main transparent cloth effect is rather easy to do, but the little touches that makes it really works took about half of the production time. As it can be guessed making and blending modes does most of the heavy lifting. It is colour curves and displacement layers that make the final image work.
Software: Photoshop CC
Tutorial: Torn Paper Portrait with Photoshop – Blue Lighting
A quick an easy Photoshop effect, in this case using the power of layer styles and smart objects. The use of the layer styles gives the face image it’s colour / black & white locations (helped along with a mask). The power of the smart objects is in that it allows the face image to be changes quickly. In the case shown below it took less than 2 minutes (sort of cool).
Software: Photoshop CC
Tutorial: Vintage Baseball Card in Photoshop – WebpageFX
This image had a lot of cool things: colourize the image of Joe DiMaggio, use of layer styles and blending modes to make the image of Joe and Yankee Stadium seem more like an illustration, use of layer styles to “age” the final card design.
The coolest part was the colourization of the image of Joe DiMaggio. It was a bit of a surprise to me when I realized that I had rarely done a colourization of black and white images. I had done lots of changing the colour of an item in a colour photo.
Finally this image was fun to create.
Software: Photoshop CC
Tutorial: Image Inside Text with a Twist from How to Create BADA$$ Effects in Photoshop
I guess after three sports related images a well deserved drink is in order. Ok maybe not well deserved, but semi-deserved.
The cool thing about this image is it’s great use of splatter images (for lack of a word) as masks, backgrounds and textures. The other cool thing is that the impact of final image is definitely greater than the individual images that make up the image.
Software: Photoshop CC
Tutorial: Image Inside Text with a Twist from How to Create BADA$$ Effects in Photoshop
A third sports image in a row – I guess we now have a trend. What made this image creation interesting to me was the creation and using of the grid in the background. It was quick and easy, but effective – it helps make the image visually more interesting.
Digital Reality 
You must be logged in to post a comment.