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**Peace** · 25-06-07, 11:46 PM

Tutorial #2

A tutorial for a blend "A Slayer's night".

So, here comes a tutorial. It's a 2-step blend. I can't promise it'll look just like the original one, because my memory is a wild thing and I did this blend a long time ago...

step one
The manipulation. I've used these 5 images of Mercedes, Sarah, an earring and a claddah ring: image 1, image 2, image 3, image 4, image 5.

1) First of all, I took the image with Mercedes, pasted it into new 1024x768 file in Photoshop, but before that I made it a bit smaller.

2) Than I took the image of Sarah's face (#2), made it smaller, flipped horizontal and pasted it on the Mercedes' face.

3) I picked the Eraser tool and erased the parts of Sarah's face and cloth and hair I knew I didn't need. The settings of the brush were these.

4) The color of Sarah's face was a bit different... so I changed that, applying this on the layer with the face of hers.

5) Than I picked the layer with Mercedes and using the Magic wand tool deleted that parts of body which I didn't need. After that I chose the blur tool and played it around the edges to make them look softer.

6) I returned to Sarah's face layer and decided she needs some more hair. I created a new layer, returned to Sarah's, clicked on Clone stamp tool (S) with these settings.
I chose the place of Sarah's hair which looked the best, pressed Alt on the keyboard and clicked on it once. I clicked on the new layer than and started cloning.
I did this couple of times on both left and right side of her face, correcting the new layers with hair using the Erasing tool. As a result I got this.

7) Now I needed to blend Sarah's neck to the body. Here I also used the clone tool, picking the part of neck. Than I corrected it using the Smudge tool.

8) Now time for the necklace. I opened the image #3, made it smaller just a bit, flipped horizontal and pasted at our manipulation. Than I just erased carefully all the stuff I didn't need, but before that I added some contrast and decreased brightness. NOTE: I don't use masks and frankly speaking don't even understand their purpose. Don't expect for me to use them here. Done.

9) The earring. I do it the same way ? paste, erase. The ring is done that way too. I only added a Sharpen filter to the earring for it to look better. As for the ring, I went: Image >> Adjustments >> Hue/Saturation and toyed with saturation. NOTE: Sorry, gals, I couldn't find which image I used for my blend, so the ring looks different comparing to the original blend. The result.

step two
Now we move to the most interesting part... In this part I used these images: image 1, image 2, image 3.
The first one is from http://sxc.hu, the 2 others ? from Google.

1) I pasted the image #17 as a background of Sarah, blended her hair a bit, erasing it so it looked better. Than I merged the layers and did this:
- copied the layer
- layer #2: filter >>> other >>> high pass (settings ? 6,5); put the layer on Overlay with opacity 52%; Filter >>> noise >>> median (settings - 72); press Ctrl+Shift+F & fade to 50%; Filter >>> Blur >>> Smart blur (radius 3,0; threshold ? 6,5)
- merge layers, press Ctrl + F.
- choose Blur tool with strength 34% and blur those parts of the face & body which look "wrinkled".
- filter >>> sharpen >>> sharpen.
The result.

2) To make that creepy look I chose the brush from Roshiweb.de.
Than I chose the brown color and put the brush on Color burn. I make some circles under Sarah's eyes and put some drops on the lips.
That I choose the burn tool, shadows, 20% and made Sarah's eyes darker. The white past of the eyes than I light up with the Dodge tool.

3) The gradients... I use the ones from Oxoniensis. I put it on the hard light.

4) Stock images. First of all I take this one (sorry, I can't find where I took it from, it seems to be Nikki's site).
I put it on the herd light and, using Eraser tool, clear up to see Sarah's face. At the end I got this.
Than I pasted the other stock images #2 and #3. I put them on the soft light and erased the stuff that was spare. Got this.

5) I added one more gradient from the same set (the set is called "Fashion").
I got this.

6) Textures. I used some from http://sky.ti-fi.com/ & http://www.misplaced.co.uk/uglybusiness (about 2 textures I know for sure, as for the others...)
I applied this one.
I put Zugma's texture on "Lighten" and erased a bit some parts. Than applied this one.
And merged everything, getting this.
God help me, I swear I don't remember what I did next, it seems like I've applied some other textures... But I applied one more gradient.
I merged everything.

7) The text was the easiest part. I just added a brush from Anika's site and that's all.Done!

**Peace** · 25-06-07, 11:51 PM

Tutorial #3

A tutorial for my blend "The Portal".

The manipulation
The whole blend is based on a manipulation of Dawn. I found this image on my HDD, that I used for body of The Key.
I resized it and made it bigger. Than I took Michelle's photo. I found it on http://buffy.nu.

I made it smaller & used a clone tool to edit the hair, making it longer. Than I erased the cup that was in Dawn's hands and used smudge tool & clone tool to edit the area that was erased in such a way that it looked like there was nothing erased... You know what I mean. Than I ellipse tool & drew a circle in Dawn's hands, the color of it was pale brown. I put the circle on color dodge & added outer glow.
They key I found at http://sxc.hu, cropping it from this image.
I used clone tool to restore the parts of the key that was covered with man's hand.

The background
First of all, I picked two matching colors ? light purple & pale brown and made a 2-color gradient that I filled the background with. Than I used these images:
image 1 - here I used ONLY the background, duplicating it.
Next ones I got from Sxc.hu
image 2
image 3

Than I used some brushes with blood, added a Buffy & Glory images I got form http://buffy.nu & that's all!
How I edit my arts you can find above.

**Peace** · 26-06-07, 12:02 AM

Tutorial #4

A tutorial for my blend "Midnight Angel".

It's a rather simple. You need such images: the pictures, the background, David's picture and photos of Sarah: img1, img2, img3
All the images I got from:
http://sxc.hu, http://nika-summers.com, http://slayerverse.org, http://d-boreanaz.com

Now, onto the blend...
Step one
The background. I opened a new 1024x768 canvas and inserted this image. I lowered it a bit, so David's fit perfectly and using Clone tool I cloned the blank part:

Step two
David's image. I flipped it horizontally and made it a bit smaller. Than I rotated the image in such a way like David was sitting at the table.

I took an Eraser tool (Drop Shadow brush) and carefully erased the parts I didn't need. It took me a while because there were items on the table. Also I used clone tool on the layer with background in order to hide the alarm clock and a stone behind David's right hand (the one that's on the table). it didn't look well behind the hand and I decided that it can look better when there'd be nothing in the background.
So, here's what I got:

Than I pressed Ctrl + U and saturated the image with David -72. Also I used Burn tool to edit some parts of David to make them look darker. As for his finger, I created a new layer and cloned his finger and than rotated it in such a way that his hand was gripping the table. I toyed with curves and some more saturation with David's image; it's free for you what to do with the image here.

Step three
Buffy's pictures. I inserted this image.
I saturated it a bit, than used brightness -17, contrast +32 and put this layer on Soft light, later on erasing the parts I didn't need. On this image there was a picture (forth from the left) that appeared to be right behind David's head, so I erased it and cloned the wire. Using the Burn tool I darkened the photos a little. The result:

Than I took images of Buffy, played with the colors for them to look more bluish. The same I did with David's image. I pasted the images of Buffy and erased them so they could fit the frames. The result:

Step four
Effects. Now I merged all the layers and played around with the curves and saturation again. Than I did the usual stuff for my blends: I copy the main merged layer, go Filter>>>other>>>High pass>>>6.5px, put the copied layer on Overlay with opacity 50%, go Filter>>>Noise>>>Median>>>72px, press Ctrl + Shift + F and put the opacity on 50%, go Filter>>>Blur>>>Smart Blur>>>Threshold - 7, Radius ? 3. I merge the layers pressing Ctrl+E, go Filter>>>Sharpen>>>Sharpen.
Than I applied the gradients I got from:
http://elucidation.immortal-butterflie.net/ and somewhere else, I'm not sure, please check here.

I made the blend look more bluish, so I added more blue gradients one by one, added a blush later on and some text.
That's all!

**Peace** · 26-06-07, 12:07 AM

Tutorial #5

A tutorial for my blend "All my love".

Step 1: manipulating
The base image I got from http://sxc.hu, it was originally bigger, and I just cropped the part with the pair. Here's the image. For Sarah's and David's manipulations I too these photos (re-sizing them, of course).
David's base
Sarah's base
The manipulation itself was easy ? I cropped out their faces, flipped them horizontal, played with curves and brightness, contrast, color balance and saturation that way, so they looked the same color with the base stock. Plus, I did use some curves on the layer with the pair (stock). The male's face was a little bigger than David's, so I used clone tool on background and cloned the sky, hiding his face.
Anyway, the result was this.

Step 2: textures and backgrounds
I added some amazing ones from Romain's site - http://www.colorblinded.eu/
Actually, I've used these: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Some of them I put on soft light, etc. It's all up to you here, anyway. So, I've blended the textures, using erase tool on David's and Sarah's faces and their locked hands.
The result was this.

Step 3: filters, gradients
I merged all the layers and applied some gradients (it seems to me I got those from Nikki's site, http://misplaced.co.uk). The idea was in using green/red colors (I even reverted some gradients). The result was this.
Than I merged everything, duplicated the layer, put the duplicate on hard light, went: filters>>>other>>>high pass>>> 7.1. I put that layer on 50% opacity. Than went: filter>>>noise>>>median>>>60. Than I pressed Ctrl+Shift+F and selected the opacity 50%. Than I went: filter>>>blur>>>smart blur>>>7. I pressed Ctrl+Shift+E, merging everything and went: filter>>>smart blur>>>3.
Than I added some more filters, making the blend warmer. Look what I've got >>> here.
The final step was this: I merged all the layers, duplicated the layer, went: filter>>>brush strokes>>>accented edges>>>with settings: Edge width ? 1, edge brightness- 18, smoothness ? 3, and set that layer on 20% opacity.
I merged the layers, went: filter>>>noise>>>add noise>>>2.51 (gaussian). Then ? filter>>>sharpen>>>sharpen>>>Ctrl+Shif+F, opacity 30%.

The final result.
Please note that I did this blend quite a while ago and I was in haste, so the result of this blend looks different comparing to the original blend. You might get another result as well. Also the quality of original stock was better, I had to scale it down because of the size (on my HDD it was about 700kb size).

Done.

**Peace** · 12-08-07, 09:42 PM

Tutorial #6

I promised a while ago a tutorial on my blend My song for me, so here it goes.
What do we need:
- SMG promo picture (season 2) the image is UHQ
- a texture from Romain's site
- a brush set from Zugma's site (the Abstract patterns brushes set, #1)
- a stock with raindrops
- a stock with creepy crypt
- gradients from Nikki's site (set 8 and 5, I suppose)
Last 2 stocks I got from Deviantart a quite long time ago, so I'm sorry, but I can't provide you with proper credits for them.
- fonts: LainieDaySH, Garamond.

Step one: blending
First thing I do is preparing a background. I took Romain's texture and placed it as a background. After that I added the stocks I chose on the blend and put both on Soft light. The stock with raindrops I desaturated first. Here's what we've got.
Next I took Eraser tool (press E on keyboard), chose Drop Shadow brush, this brush goes along with PS, so everyone must have it. I always use it for blending. I picked the diameter I wanted and erased some parts of the stocks. The result.
Now it's time to add Buffy in. The original image was way too big, so I resized it to 1000px height. To do it go: Image >>> Image size and input the numbers in the box. I selected the image (Ctrl + A on your keyboard), copied it (Ctrl + Insert) and pasted it as a new layer on the original blend.
I didn't like how everything was placed though, all the items on the image kinda drifted apart. So, I picked the layer with Buffy and went: Edit >>> Transform >>> Flip Horizontal. Now it looked much better. I picked the Eraser tool again and blended Buffy in.
Here's what I got. I didn't actually edit Buffy's image, just tried to brighten it up with Curves, but it's all up to you, really.
RGB
Input: 63
Output: 80
Blending is done!

Step two: coloring and effects
Next I applied some gradient masks. I must warn you that I do NOT remember which ones, so it's all up to you here. But I would note that I put the first one on reverse to brighten the blend up and bring out the parts that might be faded in future with using other gradients. In some parts I used Erase tool on the layer with gradient, so clear up Buffy's face. Also you might want to decrease the opacity of reversed gradient layer if the colors are too intense.
I used 3 gradient layers and got this.
I merged all the layers and did my usual steps:
1. Duplicate the layer.
2. Chose the duplicated layer. Go Filter >>> Other >>> High Pass >>> Radius 7px. Set this layer on Hard light.
3. Go Filter >>> Noise >>> Median >>> Radius 70px. Press Ctrl + Shift + F and chose 50% opacity.
4. Go Filter >>> Blur >>> Smart Blur >>> Radius 3.0px, Threshold 7px. Merge layers.
5. Go Filter >>> Blur >>> Smart Blur >>> Radius 3.0px, Threshold 3px.
6. Go Filter >>> Artistic >>> Paint Daubs >>> Brush size 2, Sharpness 2, Brush style ? simple. Press Ctrl + Shift + F and choose 30% opacity.
7. Go Filter >>> Noise >>> Add noise >>> Amount 1, Gaussian
Here is the result.

After all this I added a new layer, but it on Screen. I picked Zugma's brush from the set I've mentioned at the beginning and added it around the blend. Brush color was blue (#3465AE). After it I merged the layers.
The result.

Step three: adding text and last effects
I chose LainieDaySH font with size 122 px and added such effects:
1. Drop Shadow, default blend mode, distance 2, size 2.
2. Inner Shadow, default settings, size 6, distance 6, choke 0.
3. Bevel and emboss, default settings, depth 61.
Put the text layer on Linear Dodge.
The small text I added using Garamond font. I put it also on Linear Dodge. You are free to change the size here. I used from 8 pt to 10, all letters capital.
After I was done with text, I took Burn Tool (press O on keyboard) with range Shadows and exposure 6%. I used it around Buffy's face, making it look more dark, and after that ? a Dodge tool ? range highlights, exposure 40% - to make Buffy's eyes glow.

The last step: Filter >>> Sharpen >>> Sharpen.
Press Ctrl + Shift + F and fade to 50%.
That's all! The blend is done!
View the result.

I hope that was useful.

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