Ask the Maker 3 - Tutorial #4 Downton Abbey
to
requested by nottiem
Prepping the base image
These steps are nothing ground breaking, but allow me to get bring out the natural colours and up the contrast of the original cap.
1. Resize Cap (I made mine 500px large)
2. Create curves layer, set to AUTO (this evens out the contrast and colouring)
3. Duplicate background layer, set to screen
4. Duplicate screen layer, set to soft light
5. Create Vibrance layer, set vibrance to 50 (this will pump up the colours a little)
6. The castle & faces are still a little dark, so create a curves layer and
7. Create another Vibrance layer, set vibrance to 30
8. Set foreground colour to black, create gradient layer (starting at the bottom) and set to soft light, 50% opacity. (I like adding a simple black gradient, I find it adds some depth to the cap)
9. Set foreground colour to white, create gradient layer (starting at the top) and set to soft light, 15% opacity. (I like adding a simple black gradient, I find it adds some depth to the cap). Merge all your layers.
Creating more space
10. I like this image, but I find it lacks some space above their heads. 'Rebuilding' the top part of the castle would be really complicated, so we'll cropped part of it out. The image is about 360pixels wide. Go to canvas size and add more canvas at the top, making your image a square (mine is now 360x360 - I made the background black simply to make things clearer, I would normally use the colour picker to match the background to the sky)
11. Now, select the top part of the sky (where it's blank), and copy/paste into a new layer. Go to File > Free Transform. When the transform handles appear drag upwards and downwards to cover up part of the image. (I suck at explaining, I hope the images help...)
12. Gaussian Blur your new sky layer to even it out (Here, I blurred at 45pixels, this depends on your image, you need it to be blurry enough to make it uniform, but not to much for it to show the line between your original cap and added canvas)
13. Lower the opacity of your blurred layer and with a round brush, erase the parts that cover what you want to see (here Mary, Matthew & the castle). The type of rush you need to use depends on how much detail you need to reveal by erasing parts of this layer. Here, it's pretty easy. The characters are on a light background and there is plenty of sky, so I used a size 40 brush with 0% hardness and then upped the hardness around the heads. (If you need to cut out more detail, up the hardness and lower the brush size.) this is the final effect and a view of my blurred layer.
Once you are done, merge your layers.
Colours!!
14. Time for colouring. First of all that sky is way too white. Create a Selective colouring layer. Whites: Cyan 100 Black 100.
15. We're going to be making this quite blue, I felt that it suited the scene. Create a #3f689b colour fill, set to soft light.
16. Set forground colour to black, create gradient layer (starting at the bottom) and set to soft light, 50% opacity.
17. To add some depth and light, select your bakcground layer and create a new layer. With a small round brush, add some colour blobs. Set layer to screen, 45% opacity.
18. Create a second layer and paint more blobs on it. Set to Soft Light.
19. Let's make the colours pop even more by creating a Vibrance layer and setting vibrance to 77. (This made Matthew's face and hands go a little red, so I erased the vibrance layer in those parts with a very small round brush.)
20. To up the contrast, create a Levels layer with RGB 11 1,00 255
Merge all, sharpen and resize :)
* As always, this is meant to be a guide, please do not copy exactly! :)
My Ask The Maker's thread is here if you would like to ask me anything :D