Taming The Pen Tool – Part 6

Like I said in the previous tutorial we will break an image’s outline to curved and straight paths.

Note: I will refer to the tutorial on keyboard shortcuts for Zooming and Scrolling at this point as we start going into the more complicated aspects of this series of Path Tutorials.

We’ll use the image below (pan.jpg).

Observe that the silhouette of the pan as different segments of curves with varying degrees. Some are steep paths, some are long and flat.

Let us start by creating a point at the angle where the handle meets the lid.

1. Select the Pen Tool (Press P). Create first point.

2. Create another point where the lid and the lid’s handle meet and hold/drag the mouse to create a mountain curve. As you drag the mouse, note how the arc moves and try to trace its curvature to the outline of the pan. Release the mouse when you matched the edge.

(Win: alt / Mac: option)

Before starting another point and path, hold down the ALT key and click the last point created with the pen tool. I call this ‘neutralizing’ the point. I could explain why we have to do this but as this is a tutorial for beginners I find this a necessary step without going into details why.

Once, we ‘neutralize’ the point we are going to move on to where the next point is going to be. So try and anticipate – from where we are starting – where our next point will be by imagining how we will draw the curve with the pen tool. In this case I would say the center of the lid handle. As shown below:

Then neutralize the point again, figure out where the next point is to trace the outline, and so on and so forth.

To give you an idea, I drew segments of paths around our image (differentiated by colors) to show how I would do the subsequent curves. Note there are a couple of straight lines, if necessary you can hold the SHIFT key to create a perfectly perpendicular line.

Here’s a video of how I did it.

I would suggest taking another image and figure out where the segments of curved paths will be before actually clicking on the first point. And remember to always ‘neutralize’ after each point.

Short Cuts: Quick Image Adjustments

Acquiring images off the internet doesn’t exactly give us the best pictures. Most of them are too washed out. Some are not bright enough. A few are just icky. Here are a few tips with a few clicks of the mouse or keyboard shortcuts that will make everyone think you’ve spent hours touching up the image.

(Win: CTRL / Mac: CMD)

AUTO LEVEL:

1. Original Image
2. Auto Level Adjusted

To adjust the Levels automatically: Press CTRL / SHIFT / L

AUTO COLOR:

1. Original Image
2. Auto Color Adjusted

To adjust Color automatically: Press CTRL / SHIFT / B

AUTO CURVES:

1. Original Image
2. Auto Curves Adjusted

To adjust Curves Automatically:

1. Press CTRL / M. Curves window will pop up,

2. press AUTO,

3. then OK.

Of course, these won’t work all of the time but in most cases instead of spending time adjusting the colors and/or contrast this affords us more time chopping.

Taming The Pen Tool – Part 5

So far we have only discussed what the basics of the Pen Tool and editing paths. And all we know what to do is make straight paths.

I am going to borrow a couple of terms from origami and apply it to how we create paths. The Mountain and the Valley. Below are two examples of paths and what we will call them throughout these tutorials:

Mountain Path

HOW TO CREATE A MOUNTAIN PATH:

1. Open Test.psd

2. Press P to select the pen Tool. Create a new point by clicking somewhere on the lower left of the document.

3. Create another point over by the right by click/holding on the mouse.

4. The mouse still on hold, drag it down. You will note the path will curve up.

Valley Path

HOW TO CREATE A VALLEY PATH:

1. Open Test.psd. We will do almost the same thing as a Mountain Path but the opposite direction.

2. Press P to select the pen Tool. Create a new point by clicking somewhere on the upper left of the document.

3. Create another point over by the right by click/holding on the mouse.

4. The mouse still on hold, drag it upwards. You will note the path will curve down.

All we need to learn at this point is how to make a Mountain Curve and a Valley Curve with paths. In our upcoming tutorials we will break down an image’s outline into these two types of curves.

Snap Shot: Jason Castro as Bacchus

When Jason Castro became the Vote For The Worst pick during Idol’s Top 4, owner Dave decided to temporarily rename the site Vote For The Stoned in honor of the pick.

So one night he asked me to modify the existing logo into the new name. Not only will the logo be changed but if anybody decided to go to VoteForTheStoned.com they will be redirected to the reworked site.

The response was overwhelming. People posted in the threads and in the front page story. Next thing you know everyone’s making weed jokes and chops.

As usual a classic chop is a must. Caravaggio’s masterpiece ‘Bacchus’ (c.1595) immediately came to my mind. Once I got a decent sized image online everything else just made sense. Bacchus’ leafy headress will be replaced with weed; the glass of wine being offered will be a big joint; etc.

This chop took a lot of planning and searching for images online before I started work on it. It came out amazing, I think.

Taming The Pen Tool – Part 4

THE PATH PALETTE

This tutorial explains the Path Palette and how to use it.

Open the practice document from the previous tutorials.

Open the PATH PALETTE by going to the menu WINDOWS>PATHS.

It will show us our existing unnamed path. Double click on it.

1. Type the name ‘Practice Path’.

2. Click OK.

We are not working with images yet but most of the chopping involves turning our paths into selections.

TO TURN PATHS INTO A SELECTION:

1. Press/hold CTRL(win)/CMD(mac) key
2. Click on our path in the Path Palette.

WHAT WE’VE LEARNED:

1. Renaming/Saving a Path.

2. Turning a Path into a selection.

Taming The Pen Tool – Part 3

NOTE: Open our previous document.

Select the Pen Tool (Press P).

ANATOMY OF A PATH

1. Path
2. Point

Make the white arrow appear and drag it over a path. Hit DELETE.

Drag the white arrow over a point then hit DELETE.

Drag the white arrow over all the remaining path then hit DELETE.

YOU’VE LEARNED TWO MORE THINGS:

1. How to select a path or a point.

2. How to delete parts of or the whole path.

Taming The Pen Tool – Part 2

NOTE: Open our previous document.

Select the Pen Tool (Press P).

Press/Hold CTRL (mac:CMD) key. The Pen becomes a White Arrow.

Go way up the upper left corner of the document and drag the white arrow down to enclose and select our path. We just selected not only the path but its points.

CTRL still on hold, click anywhere in the document. That deselects a path.

Press/Hold CTRL and drag the white arrow to select a point (any point).

Selected points appear dark, by the way. We can drag the selected point using the white arrow.

TWO MORE THINGS LEARNED:

1. Select and Deselect a path.

2. Select entire points or particular points on a path.

Taming The Pen Tool – Part 1

I have seen tutorials on the Photoshop Pen Tool online and a lot of people gets discouraged by it because it comes off more as a cumbersome tool. What is lacking is a good foundation to mastering the Pen Tool that isn’t 20 lessons long. So I present a short introduction to the Pen Tool and creating Paths that speeds up the learning curve.

To Start: Create a new document in Photoshop (preferably 600px by 600px) that is a nice enough area to practice on.

WHAT THE SHIFT KEY DOES TO PATHS

Select the Pen Tool (Press P).

1. Click somewhere by the left side to create a point.

2. With the SHIFT key on hold the whole time, click somewhere a little bit higher over on the right side then click another point below but slightly left of the 2nd point you created.

3. The shift key still on hold, try making a 45 degree path by clicking a bit higher than point #3.

4. Let’s close the path. Release holding the shift key. Move the pen over to the first point we created.

Notice a little O appears. Click on the point. Closed.

WE’VE LEARNED TWO THINGS:

1. What the SHIFT key does to a path.

2. How to close a path.

NOTE: Save the document for the next tutorial.

Snap Shot: Amanda Overmyer at the Whisky-A-Go-Go

Any latest news regarding Idol contestants gets all of our creative juices flowing at Vote For The Worst. So when news of Amanda’s show at the Whisky-A-Go-Go in Los Angeles became official before the American idol Finale, people either made plans to go or added shit to the Chop thread.

I checked out Amanda’s myspace and there is a banner announcing the show but I felt she really needed something to capture what she was about and the music for that night.

FILLMORE posters came to mind. The use of unexpected color combinations and wobbly texts is its signature. Pinks and Greens. Blue and Reds. These artwork though distinctly Sixties were inspired by Art Nouveau paintings like Alphonse Mucha’s.

I created one in Adobe illustrator by getting inspiration from samples online.

I posted it on both VFTW and on Amanda’s MySpace. Little did I know that she would actually use it for the commemorative shirts at the Whisky show! With permissions, of course!

Truly, a VFTW Victory!

Basic Face Transplant

Here’s a fairly quick and basic way to put somebody’s face on somebody else’s body without using many of the advance tools. We will mainly use the Lasso (L) and the Eraser (E) tools.

Pictures we will use:

Phuong.jpg

TayTay.jpg

Open both images.

1. Select the Lasso Tool (press L). Use the lasso to roughly select Phuong’s face.

2. Drag the selection to the other document. Press/hold CTRL then drag selection to taytay.jpg. (Macs: Press/hold CMD then drag selection). You will now have a new layer on our taytay.jpg.

3. Resizing and repositioning the layer. With our new layer selected, press CTRL+T. This will now allow us to free transform our layer (rotate, resize and distort).

TIP: To better position and resize the face, I would lower the opacity of the layer (about 66%) first so I can better match the new features with the original.

4. Once I’ve positioned and resized the face I select the Eraser (press E).

For the edge to blend well I use a larger brush size and set the hardness to 0%. In this example a 45px and above works well. Choosing a brush size larger than necessary gives us a smoother fade on the edges. You may choose a smaller eraser to fine tune edges.

5. Start erasing the edges away. I usually position the edge of the eraser to the edge of the image and slowly work my way in making sure the edges blends well with the original.

You’ll wind up with this… Both layers on (left) and new layer shown only (right)