PS CS: Starting with a Blank Canvas

Photoshop 7&8:Starting with a Blank Canvas

Week 3 Creating Natural Textures

In an Unnatural Way

	Photoshop 7 & 8: Starting with a Blank Canvas
		Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6

I have begun a course at LVS on Line with Janee Aronoff of myjanee.com.

May 30, 2004, Week 3 Completed

This was again fun and I learned to make wood, stone and marble...I also learned to make and save Layer Styles...I learned how easy it is to make lightning.

Please click on the thumbnails to view a larger image.

Making Stone:

This was easy and at the same time complicated because it was difficult to stop trying the different combinations and results.

Making Wood

The premise was easy, the distortions fun, but I did have a small problem trying to get it to look as if were not too much a pattern with the knotholes so symmetrically placed. Worked it over and over and over! I finally felt pleased with this. I liked the way it filled the new image. Oh, and yes, to get the sheen I added a small amount of the Plastic Warp Filter.

Making a Patterned Layer Style

This was a great deal of fun! And it is a very useful skill. I made 2 Layer Styles from my Wood Pattern. One was smooth and shiny (I was thinking wood laminate)and the other a bit chunkier, more like wood planking. I like the way it made such good looking wooden frames. I also experimented with changing/editing the Layer Styles I had made. I had to stop myself from just keeping on making more!

The delicate wooden shapes in the first are shapes I downloaded at the Adobe Exchange.

Painting with a Layer Style

I am really happy to know how to do this! I left the underlayer ( the wooden butterfly reminds me of Cedar shapes I had to hang in the closet!)on which I had used my wood Layer Style and was basing my paint on because I liked it peeking through! I was most pleased with the little round paint dabs...they look to me like the finishing pegs used to cover nails in furniture. I did experiment with some different brush parameters.

Making Marble

I don't like my marble much at all. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to make something that is random and simple look right. I just could not get something I really liked and so took this one as as good as any of them.

I tried some etching in the marble I made.

Primordial Soup

The randomness of this reminds me of casting around for fractals, or, even....gambling! It was fun and towards the end I threw in a few new colors. I kept repeating the process, again and again! I chose this one because I liked the brightness of it.

Extra Credit: Planting Photoshop Grass

I had used the grass planting idea before, but did not know the little painting behind trick! I also like the ease with which one can resize the paint brush using a shortcut key!

Search for Lightning Tutorial

I found several and they were all similar in substance:

New image, 500X500px, new layer
Fill with a black to white vertical gradient, Filter Render Difference Clouds
Levels lighten as far as possible by bringing all sliders to the left.
Image, Invert, there is the lightning.
Make a new layer, repeat steps
Use Screen blending mode, black disappears and the two lightning layers are visible.

A. 5. What's so special about a Merged Visible Layer?
The Merged Visible Layer is good because it gives you a picture of all your layers and at the same time preserves the layers.

I have been in the custom of using the Select all, Copy merged and then paste and get the same thing but it is perhaps a few more steps! It preserves the layers too, but takes more time.

C. 1. f. What sort of wood did you make? What method(s) did
: you use? Describe any variations you made.

I think I made pine or it could be cedar! When I placed it on a shape from the Custom Shapes, it brought to mind the cedar closet things to put on hangers. I also, while having lunch, noticed that the pine table grain looked a lot like my wood. 'Tis true, I am noticing all the grains of wood around here more than I did before!

I made many tries before I was satisfied with the wood. One variation I tried was to give it a very light touch of Plastic Wrap, and then even faded it some...the reason was I wanted a little bit of a sheen to it.

D. 2. How could you use Difference Clouds to make a Lightning
: effect? (Hint: Type Photoshop lightning into Google.) Share
: your tricks in the Board.
I did look for the tutorials and was sop surprised to find such a simple thing to make lightning! Most of what I found started with a black to white gradient, then render difference clouds (all on a new layer of course) and then Levels so that the lightning becomes a black streak on white. Then Image, invert and there you are! If you want to have more than one streak, make a new strike, then use Screen for a Blending mode which gets rid of the black and the lightning on the lower layer shows through!!

So easy! There were, however, a couple where the idea was to paint your lightning and then do some things to it, lens flare, etc. But I like this way because it is quick and good and the lightning, as in nature, is random every time!

Did you find any errors?

I don't recall any errors. Good job !

Week 3 assignments are completed and I loved learning it all. My favorite parts were making the wood, and then making and saving a Layer Style and then painting with a Layer Style. Useful information!