Photoshop Creative No. 157

It’s been a fun time in the Photoshop Creative office, as we’ve been trying out some new stuff to share with you. Our big feature is – yes, you guessed it – all about photo retouching and manipulation. We’ve got no less (maybe more) than 25 expert tips on how to get the most out of Photoshop when editing photographs, from fine adjustments to dramatic alterations. Then we have a great selection of tutorials for you, and the one I’m perhaps most excited about is a first for Photoshop Creative – where we combine ArtRage with Photoshop to craft a fantastic portrait that looks hand-painted. Go to p64 to see what it’s all about. Among other cool tutorials are how to use masks and layers to transform a city into…

Frame mockups Choose from premium frame mockups to enhance your artwork Marble textures Give your art the golden touch with any of 25 different textures. Lighting effects Make your images stand out with a range of lighting effects. On the FileSilo this issue… • 4 Frame mockups worth $37 • 50 Lighting effects • 30 Flare & Haze overlays worth $6 • 27 Red & pink watercolour textures worth $12 • 25 Gold marble textures worth $10 • 100 Marble backgrounds • A total of 236 resources worth $65 Log in to www.filesilo.co.uk/photoshopcreative Register to get instant access to this pack of must-have creative resources, how-to videos and tutorial assets Free for digital readers too! Read on your tablet, download on your computer FileSilo  The home of great downloads –…

There’s nothing more inspiring than surfing the internet and seeing what other artists are creating, and we encourage you to do so. Here are some of our favourite pictures that caught our attention recently, from some of the world’s most exciting artists and designers. Ori Toor http://oritoor.com/ Every illustration or animation I do is improvised on the spot. This one is no exception. I like using Photoshop with the Lazy Nezumi Pro plug-in, which helps me to get smooth lines and the feeling of friction that comes with drawing on real paper. Denis Pakhaliuk https://dribbble.com/RAMOTION This piece of work was completed as a team. The illustration was made in Adobe Photoshop with only a round brush. We drew it in black and white first to find the right proportions and…

Jimnah Njue https://www.photoshopcreative.co.uk/user/jimnah Image of the issue I used a layer mask on the city between the city and the sky by painting with a soft black brush. I brought in the model, applied blue and orange solid colours and set the blend mode to Soft Light to create the overall emotional tone of the manipulation. Bill Bonaros https://www.photoshopcreative.co.uk/user/Billybon I took a photo of my hand holding a phone and then I put a photo of a lake on top of the phone. I added mountains with different lighting, then I added some clouds and birds. I painted with a soft orange-coloured brush to add some illumination. Lucy Liew https://www.photoshopcreative.co.uk/user/lucyliew The image was made from a few other images, which I then manipulated into a scene of a gigantic person…

We challenged you In issue 155, we challenged you to get creative with these four images. You were allowed to use any or all of the pictures, and whatever other resources you chose. Here's what you created. Challenge entries The best entries and overall challenge winner 1 Corine Spring Oracle All of the challenge images supplied were added into this composition for the final result. The colour palette was extremely important when it came to creating the dark mood of this entry. 2 Pamela Woerst Ray Of Light This entry was created with some of the supplied images of the challenge, plus a few others from free stock photo site Unsplash, to create a lighthouse composition. 3 Randolph Asaki Bubbly Girl All the supplied files were incorporated using layers and…

If learning Photoshop is like learning a language, the retouching tools are a bit like the vowels: there’s very little that you can create without them. Retouching is an under-appreciated art, and mastering it can help anyone – from photographers to photomanipulators – wanting to improve their compositions. While it’s easy to get stuck in with it, becoming adept at retouching is something that takes practice, patience and plenty of subtlety. Anyone can edit an image and make it look beautiful. The key is in editing an image, making it look beautiful, and disguising that you even edited the photo in the first place. Over the next few pages, we’re going to be sharing some of the most useful tips and tricks, from photographers, retouchers and photomanipulators, on how to…