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Sep 17 2010

VIDEO: How to use Actions in Photoshop

Many, many years ago, I devised and wrote the Original Comic Art Effect tutorial for Photoshop. Since then, it continues to be one of the most popular items on the site—day in, day out. It also crops up in all kinds of interesting places—even video.

ComicElementsFinal8 VIDEO: How to use Actions in Photoshop

It wasn’t long before Photoshop power users wanted to apply the effect to dozens of images to create actual comic books. To do that meant many hours altering many images…following each step of the tutorial manually. They started to demand that I offer a Photoshop Action for the effect.

So I did.

This was great—the power users loved it. The problem was, those just-a-bit-newer to Photoshop were confused by it. Many thought it was supposed to be a Filter and would show up in that menu. They had no idea how to install it or use it—they just wanted to create the Comic Art Effect!!

So now, after many years, I have now created a video to show how it’s done. And the procedure is dead easy. In fact, since you will soon know exactly how to install and use Photoshop Actions, you’ll be happy to know that there are many places online that offer highly productive ones. For instance, here is Smashing Magazine’s Ultimate Collection Of Useful Photoshop Actions.

But, for now, power up Photoshop, download the Comic Art Effect Action and watch this quick video tutorial. Then get to it!!

No Flash? No problem—click here!»

By RickMacMerc • adobe, Featured, Graphics News, Graphics Tips, graphicstips, MacMerc.TV, Mini Video, poweruser, Print & Publishing, productivity, RickMacMerc, tips • 2 • Tags: action, adobe photoshop, art effect, comic books, dozens, FAQs Help and Tutorials, Graphics, image editing, images, interesting places, original comic art, Photoshop, photoshop action, photoshop actions, photoshop download, Plugins, popular items, power users, slider, video tutorial

Apr 27 2009

Turn 2-D images into 3-D masterpieces!!

(from Episode #76 of The Lab with Leo Laporte)

Have you ever seen one of those movies or a still image that appeared to be in 3-D when you wore special red and blue glasses? It’s easier than you think to make one of those images. In fact, I’ll show you 2 methods to achieve this effect. The first one requires you to take two pictures of a stationary subject and merge them in Photoshop. The other will take an existing photo and convert it to 3-D.

First, I should explain how 3-D images work. We view the world in 3 dimensions because our two eyes see things slightly differently and our brain interprets the two pictures our eyes see as being 3 dimensional. We unconsciously calculate depth, width and height based on the similarities and the differences between those two pictures. It just happens. We don’t even realize we do it.

These artificial 3-D images we’ll be creating, called anaglyphs, simulate in a 2-D image the 2 pictures our eyes see when we look at actual 3-D objects. The red and blue lenses of the 3-D classes block out certain information in the 2-D image allowing the blue lens only see the red channel of the image and the red lens to only see the blue and green channels. This allows a single 2-D image to hold the 2 slightly different images our eyes need to see in order to perceive 3-D information.

Here are a few methods you can can use to make one of these images:

The 2 picture/1 camera method (this method works on stationary objects)

With a digital camera affixed to a sturdy tripod, take a picture of the stationary subject. Carefully move the camera and tripod 2.5 and 3 inches to the right and take another picture.

What you have effectively done is taken a left eye image and a right eye image.
lefteye 20070919 184629 Turn 2 D images into 3 D masterpieces!!
righteye 20070919 184732 Turn 2 D images into 3 D masterpieces!!
Open both images in Photoshop. Using your first image (your “left eye” image) open the Channels palette and click the Red channel (Ctrl-1 on PC or Command-1 on Mac). Select all (Ctrl-A on PC or Command-A on Mac) and copy (Ctrl-C on PC or Command-C on Mac).

Now go to the second image (your “right eye” image) and click the Red channel (Ctrl-1 on PC or Command-1 on Mac) in the Channels palette. Paste the Red channel from the “left eye” image in Red channel of the “right eye” image (Ctrl-V on PC or Command-V on Mac).

Click the RGB composite channel in the Channels palette (Ctrl-~ on PC or Command-~ on Mac) and put on your 3-D glasses (make sure the left lens is red and the right lens is blue).
3dimage 20070919 184851 Turn 2 D images into 3 D masterpieces!!

The 2-D to 3-D conversion method

The problem with the 2 picture/1 camera method is that you can’t capture action. No pictures of your dog jumping to catch a frisbee. No 3-D pictures from the airshow. None of that.

The 2-D to 3-D conversion method allows you to alter an existing 2-D image and make it 3-D.

I’m going to start with this image of Dr. Tiki and Leo on the set of The Lab…
drtiki 20070919 185021 Turn 2 D images into 3 D masterpieces!!
What you need to do is select the frontmost item in the photo and save the selection as a channel. Then select the next most foreword item and save that as a channel and so on and so on until you reach the background. How detailed you want to be is up to you. I have selected Dr. Tiki’s face, then his body, then Leo’s arms and camera, then Leo, then the column behind Leo and then I left everything else as the background. Here’s what my Channels palette looks like:

channels 20070919 185209 Turn 2 D images into 3 D masterpieces!!
Now, create yet another new empty channel and fill it with white. In your Swatches palette, select 20% Gray, load the back-most item in the Channels palette as a selection (in my case, “Alpha 5″ in the screenshot above) and then fill the selection with 20% Gray in the new channel. Continue to select progressively darker shades of gray and use the color to fill the selections of each increasingly more foreground channel in our new channel. So, for my image, I’ll make a selection of Alpha 4 and fill with 40% Gray, then make a selection of Alpha 3 and fill that with 60% Gray, then Alpha 2 with 80% Gray and Alpha 1 with Black. Plan out your selections and grays so that you can make a smooth progression from the background in White to the foreground in Black. Here’s what my channel looks like:
dispmap1 20070919 185255 Turn 2 D images into 3 D masterpieces!!
I know it looks scary–bear with me.

Go Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur… and use a setting of 10. Click OK. This with blend the levels a bit. Now we need to expand the coverage of the different levels of depth a bit. To do this we will use a Filter called Minimum which shrinks the coverage of the lighter areas of the affected image.

Go Filter>Other>Minimum… and plug in a value of 10. Click OK.
dispmap2 20070919 185343 Turn 2 D images into 3 D masterpieces!!
Select All (Ctrl-A on PC or Command-A on Mac) and Copy (Ctrl-C on PC or Command-C on Mac). Create a new Photoshop document and Photoshop will automatically plug in the height and width of the image held in the clipboard’s memory, so you need only click OK.

Paste the funky channel in the new document (Ctrl-V on PC or Command-V on Mac) and save this new document as a Photoshop (.psd) file and save it somewhere where you will easily find it again. Close this new file and direct your attention back to the main document.

Click the Red channel in the Channels palette (Ctrl-1 on PC or Command-1 on Mac) and activate the “eye” icon next to the RGB composite channel in the channels palette (just activate the “eye” don’t select the RGB composite channel itself). It should look like this:
redchannel 20070919 185439 Turn 2 D images into 3 D masterpieces!!

You should see the full color image in the document window but what you’re about to do will only affect the Red channel.

Go Filter>Distort>Displace… and enter 20 in the Horizontal Scale field and 0 in the Vertical Scale field and click OK.
displace 20070919 185542 Turn 2 D images into 3 D masterpieces!!
And that’s it! It’s in THREEEEEEEEEEEEE-DEEEEEEEEEE!!!
3Dtiki 20070919 185617 Turn 2 D images into 3 D masterpieces!!

Still need more 3-D stimulation?

Check these anaglyphs on Flickr.

Do you just need to buy some 3-D glasses? I bought mine here.

By admin • adobe, Articles, Graphics Tips, graphicstips, labwithleo, techtv, The Lab with Leo Laporte Segments, tutorial • Comments Off • Tags: Black, blue glasses, click, conversion, Copy, document, eye, eye image, first image, Foreground, height, left eye, masterpieces, palette, Photoshop, stationary objects, still image, sturdy tripod, two eyes

Apr 27 2009

May the Force be with you! Release your Jedi spirit!

(from Episode #79 of The Lab with Leo Laporte)

“If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine…”

These were Ben Kenobi’s words of warning to Darth Vader in the original Star Wars film. Until the sequel, us fanboys really weren’t sure what old Ben was prattling on about. But in The Empire Strikes Back we were led to believe that to be a freely roaming, blue, glowing spirit was the utmost power any Jedi on either side of the dark/light spectrum could achieve.

Hmm….

Well, now with the aid of Adobe Photoshop, you too can add your ghostly form to any of your digital photos. Here’s how…

Step 1: The Photo(s)

Ideally, you will be using two images: one of you looking masterful and wise and hopefully on a background that you can easily separate yourself from and another of the setting in which you will be placing yourself. We will want your Jedi spirit to be translucent and that will be much more difficult if we must first remove your opaque, live and living self from the photo. I’m not going to spend time explaining how to remove yourself from the photo. If you take the 2 pictures you need, you don’t need to worry about this procedure… this is not the tutorial you are looking for… you may go about your business… move along…

So I have one image with without me in it and I also have another photo that was taken at about the same time that does have me in it. This is the photo I’m going to use as my source image for me as a dead Jedi (aka Darth Yaeger).

Step 2: The Chosen One

Working on the photo “with you in it” and using Adobe Photoshop CS3′s Quick Selection tool (or the Extract Filter or whatever means you feel most comfortable), select yourself and Copy (Ctrl-C on PC, Command-C on Mac) yourself. You can now close this image (the one WITH you in it).

Go to the photo “without you in it” and Paste (Ctrl-V on PC, Command-V on Mac). Position yourself in the picture, scale, rotate, skew, etc. until your image is in the exact part of the image where you want your Jedi spirit to materialize.

Step 3: A Disturbance in the Force

Ctrl-Click on PC or Command-Click on Mac the thumbnail of the layer in the Layers palette that represents the image of you. This will create a selection.

Create a new layer (Shift-Ctrl-N on PC or Shift-Command-N on Mac) and fill the selection on the new layer with black. (You can first reset your foreground and background colors by hitting the D key the hit Alt-Delete on PC or Option-Delete on a Mac and the selection on your layer should fill with black) You can deselect now (Ctrl-D on PC or Command-D on Mac)

You will need to add the Jedi Styles.asl file that I have provided for you. To do this, click the flyout menu on the right side of the Styles palette and choose “Load Styles…” and navigate to where the Jedi Styles.asl file is located on your hard drive and click “Load”. With your new black silhouette layer active in the Layers palette, click the “Force Distort” style in the Styles palette (hover your cursor over the styles to have Photoshop show you the names).

Your Jedi should look like the picture above. If the “ripples” inside the silhouette don’t cover enough of the body’s shape or if they cover too much, go Layer>Layer Style>Scale Effects… and adjust the effect until it more closely matches what I show here. Don’t stress too much about this.

Create a new layer and drag it below the silhouette layer. Fill this new layer with white. Then, Select All (Ctrl-A on PC or Command-A on Mac) and Copy Merged (Ctrl-Shift-C on PC or Command-Shift-C on Mac) –this will copy the current state of the selection as if it had all of its layers flattened without requiring you to flatten the image.

With the merged copy still in the clipboard, create a new Photoshop document. Photoshop will automatically plug in the height and width of the image held in the clipboard’s memory, so you need only click OK.

Paste the merged silhouette in the new document (Ctrl-V on PC or Command-V on Mac). Now save this new document as a Photoshop (.psd) file and save it somewhere where you will easily find it again. Close this new file and direct your attention back to the main document again.

Back in the main document, click off the “eye” icons next to the silhouette and white layers–we’re done looking at them.

In the Layers palette, duplicate the layer containing your original “without you in it” image and drag the duplicate to the top. Go Filter>Distort>Displace… and enter in these settings:

Click OK and Photoshop will ask you for a file to use as a displacement map. Point Photoshop to the file you just created using the silhouette layer and click Open.

See what happened? Photoshop displaced the image using the silhouette shape and those ripples we made.

Go Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Levels… and match these settings:

Then, when the Levels dialog comes up, match these settings and click OK:

Now Ctrl-Click on PC or Command-Click on Mac the thumbnail of the silhouette layer in the Layers palette. This will create a selection. Keeping that selection, click the thumbnail of the displaced layer to activate it. Go Layer>Layer Mask>Reveal Selection.

If you dig Predator movies more than Star Wars movies, you may be tempted to quit now. This is an example of how one tutorial can teach many effects: you just created the cloaked effect from the Predator movies.

Let’s proceed, Photoshop Padawan….

Step 4: More powerful than you could possibly imagine…

Near the bottom of the layers in the Layers palette, you still have your Jedi. Drag the Jedi’s layer to the top of the palette. And make sure this layer is selected in the Layers palette.
Now click the “Dead Jedi” style in the Syles palette and you’re done!

Step 5: Your training is complete…

Well, it can be if you want. But here a little “extra” if you want to create the Hologram effect from the Star Wars movies:

With the layered file we’ve been working with up until now, click off the “eye” icon next to our displaced layer in the Layers palette. Now, create a new layer and drag it to the top of the Layers palette. Go Edit>Fill and copy these settings:

Next, go Filter>Sketch>Halftone Pattern…Â and match these settings and click OK:Â

Now, go Filter>Noise>Add Noise… and give it the settings shown below before clicking OK.

Now, in the Layer palette change this layer’s blending mode from Normal to Screen. Go Layer>Create Clipping Mask and you’re Jedi is now a hologram! Help me Leo-Wan Laporti, you’re my only hope!

May the Force be with you.

By admin • adobe, Articles, Graphics Tips, graphicstips, labwithleo, techtv, The Lab with Leo Laporte Segments, tutorial • Comments Off • Tags: adobe photoshop cs3, ben kenobi, command c, Copy, darth vader, Distort, document, jedi spirit, leo laporte, light spectrum, Load, palette, Paste, Photoshop, scale, silhouette, source image, star wars film, time, utmost power

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