HOW TO TURN A BORING PHOTO INTO A DIGITAL MASTERPIECE

This new tutorial by Jorge Machado shows you how to create a digital masterpiece from just one quite boring photograph of a rabbits skeleton taken in a museum. To take a look at the tutorial CLICK HERE and to see more of Jorge's work CLICK HERE.

FREE BRUSH

This is a new brush I've just uploaded to the website that is a free download for anybody who wants to us it. It's from a very old book with the words 'Journal' written on the front. I thought it would make a great brush for anybody but especially scapbookers who would find this very useful for any scapbooking projects. If you do use it please show me anything you did with it.
To download it just go to this link by CLICKING HERE

CREATE THE LOMO LOOK

This is our new photoshop tutorial teaching people how to create the lomo (lomography) look. Have a watch. And  don't forget to visit the website www.photoshopforartists.com to view our other photoshop video tutorials

INTERVIEW WITH JOSE GABRIEL

The interview with Jose Gabriel has just been posted on the website www.photoshopforartists.com He's a vert talented digital artist with some great things to say so make sure you read what he has to say.

PINK BLOSSOM

Blossom
Originally uploaded by photoshopforartists
It's the spring so there is a glut of images with blossom in them on flickr. So as not to disappoint anyone I'd thought I'd give my take on spring with a blossom picture with some textured layers applied to give it a bit of an arty edge.

I used textures from my BEST TEXTURES 1 SET and started with the very versatile:
DRAIN GREY - vivid light - 56% then
MUD DUST - color dodge - 23%
FUZZY LINEN - color burn - 100%
WASHME VAIL - color burn - 100%
And that was it for the textures.

On top of these I added an curves adjustment layer and painted with black over the middle flower as that retained some detail after the added contrast from the curves.

Finally, I duplicated the background and put it on the top of the stack and applied a soft light blending mode at 100% just to bring out some more detail.

That's it. Hope you like it.

You can buy the textures used in this picture by CLICKING HERE

PINK FLOWER

Pink flower
Originally uploaded by photoshopforartists
If you take a look at the before picture of this finished image you will see a really bright, over-the-top pink and red picture. I wanted to try and get a really faded, old look and below is how I did it.

Do take a look at the screen shot of the photoshop layers and it does look like a complicated job but in fact there are only two textures used and they are from my BEST TEXTURES 1 set.

The first texture is SAHARA MIST - vivid light - 82%
Then SMOKEY BOOK - exclusion - 88%
I then coped the smokey book layer again with an adjustment layer to burn in the edges.
After that I copied the background layer moved it up the stack and with an adjustment layer brought out some of the pink flower.
I finished it off with a few curves adjustment layers and a hue/saturation layer to remove a lot of the colour.

You can buy the textures used in this picture by CLICKING HERE

TREE AMONGST GRAVES

Tree amongst graves
Originally uploaded by photoshopforartists
You are probably looking at this and thinking this is a tree in winter silhouetted against the sky - so what. There are thousands of pictures like this in flickr already. And you'd be right and I'd be thinking the same if I saw this as well. But...this was taken one very early morning with a mist rolling down the hills spilling into this graveyard where this one lone tree stood out watching over this hundreds of graves. It was a bit spooky and rather chilling so by using textures I tried to get across the eeriness and this is how I did it.

All these textures were taken from my BEST TEXTURES 2 set .
First one was:
EMERALD SHINES - overlay - 14%
SILVER SHADOW - color dodge - 97%
FADED GOLD - hard light - 79% with an adjustment layer to bring out bit of warmth in the heart of the tree.
RUSTED SLATE - overlay - 35%
WHITE OUT - linear burn - 100%

I finally duplicated the original tree layer moved it to the top of the stack, desaturated it with a hue blend mode at 51%.

I then added an adjustment curves layer and played around with the blue channel to bring out a bit of green.

Hope you like it.

You can buy the textures used in this picture by CLICKING HERE

POWER LINES IN FRANCE

Power lines in France
Originally uploaded by www.photoshopforartists.com

These are some power lines I photographed while in France. I just loved the graphic nature of the poles and line against the blue sky and wheat field. A very simple picture but it really caught my eye.
This type of shot really lends itself to a texture so couldn't wait to have a go at this one.
I started with EMERALD SHINES from my BEST TEXTURES SET 2 using overlay blend mode at 100%. Then picked FADED GOLD with color burn at 43%. I then copied that layer and used soft light at 57% and added an adjustment layer to it and just let the bottom show through.
I then added the SILVER SHADOW with screen at 11%. Then I went for BUSY JADE at overlay at 74%.
To finish it off I then went for a curves layer to boost the contrast.
And that it is.

FLOWERS IN VASE

FLOWERS IN VASE
Originally uploaded by www.photoshopforartists.com
Compared to some of the other textured pictures over the last week or so this one was by far the least complex. I only used three textures and two adjustment layers. I debated having only two texture layers as well as I wasn't sure if one of them was too heavy but in the end decided to leave it in.

My first texture was SMOKEY BOOK using vivid light blend mode at 15%. I followed this with WASHME VAIL with overlay at 57% opacity. And my final texture was SAHARA MIST and blend mode soft light at 100%.

On top of all of these was two adjustment layers. One curves to give it a bit of contrast and finally a hue/saturation layer to take away a lot of the orange colour in the image.

Hope that helps and try it for yourself. My low res textures are here in my flickr stream and the high res ones are on the website www.photoshopforartists.com
Best
You can buy the textures used in this picture by CLICKING HERE

NIKILYNN INTERVIEW.

The interview with young digital photoshop artist Nikilynn is now up. CLICK HERE to see the interview.